The picturesque part of the Napa Valley that most tourists associated with the famous wine-producing area actually began just beyond the city of Napa and continued north to Calistoga. On sunny weekends, the roads there were packed with convertibles cruising between winery tasting rooms, restaurants, and overpriced shops. It took Sinclair and Braddock almost two hours to reach the Chardonnay Spa and Hotel.
Before deciding to make the trek to Napa, Sinclair had called Bianca Fadell, the attorney who represented Helena Decker, the madam of Special Ladies Escorts. After they had arrested Decker last December, the organization shut down and their website disappeared. He wouldn’t be surprised if she had started up again under a new name, but if he were to start inquiring within those in the law enforcement community who would know, the word would get back to those who had told him to leave it alone last year. Even though Bianca had her own agenda, which didn’t coincide with the police’s, she had felt partially responsible for what could’ve been the worst school massacre in the nation had Sinclair and Braddock not intervened in time. Besides, Bianca had made it clear she had the hots for him, and he wasn’t above using that to get what he needed. But both her cell phone and her private office phone had messages saying she was out of the country for several weeks and was only checking voice mail infrequently. Nevertheless, he left a message.
With no other way to identify Sheila and figure out what Phil’s relationship was with her, Sinclair suggested they go to the hotel. Braddock was rightfully reluctant, knowing that if she were discovered pursuing this lead, especially with an officer under suspension, without informing the chain of command, she’d suffer the same fate as Sinclair.
They parked on the quiet street and walked up a flagstone walkway and through a small garden to the steps leading to a wide front porch lined with rocking chairs. A thirtysomething woman wearing a white shirt and black skirt greeted them from behind a reception desk. “Checking in?” she asked.
Braddock smiled and swept her blazer aside to show her badge. “Afraid not. We’re looking into a guest who’s been staying here every Friday night for several months.” Braddock pulled the most recent credit card statement from her folio and showed it to the receptionist. “His name’s James Farron.”
“The name sounds familiar.” She began typing on her computer. “Has he done something wrong?”
Sometimes the best way to convince average people to cooperate was by letting them know they weren’t looking into something as minor as a stolen car or forged check. Dropping the “H-bomb” normally did the trick. “We work homicide in Oakland. Mr. Farron is dead,” Sinclair said, using Phil’s undercover name.
She stopped typing. “Jesus! What happened?”
“That’s what we’re trying to figure out,” Braddock said.
She looked at the monitor. “Yes, he checked in a week ago Friday at nine twenty and checked out at eight fifty the following morning.”
“Was he alone?” Braddock asked.
“No, he had a guest.” She continued to type and said, “You’re right, he’s been staying here just about every Friday night—a room for two—all the way back to March.”
“Does it show the guest’s name?” Braddock asked.
“No, only the person whose name the reservation was made in.”
Braddock showed her a photo of Phil on her iPad. “Is this James Farron?”
“Sorry, but I never registered him. I get off at five, and it appears he checks in after that.”
“Do you work on Saturday when he checks out?”
“I come in at eight. I see that he’s checked out after that time most days, but that photo doesn’t look familiar. Maybe his guest turns in the key.”
Braddock pulled up another photo from her iPad, a headshot of Sheila, cropped to eliminate the sexy swimsuit.
“Oh, yeah. I remember her. I just didn’t associate her with Mr. Farron. She’s a sweet girl and always thanks us for a nice stay.”
“Who would’ve been on duty when he checked in?” Braddock asked.
“Friday nights, that would be Karen. She’s off today, but she’ll be here tomorrow. Our statements show they ate at the restaurant when they were here. Maybe someone there would recognize him.”
Sinclair and Braddock made their way through the small lobby into the restaurant. A dozen empty tables stood in the back of the large room, while the tables in the sun-splashed front of the room overlooking the porch were all filled by couples dressed in shorts and sneakers. A slender man with shoulder-length hair wearing a black apron greeted them with two menus. “Inside or out?”
That was the trouble with a female partner; everyone assumed he and Braddock were a couple. Braddock flashed her badge. The waiter said he only worked lunch, but Tess, who was busy serving customers on the patio, worked dinner hours. He seated them on the patio under a big umbrella and brought Braddock water with lemon and Sinclair a cup of coffee so he could maintain his caffeine level. A woman with short brown hair and a sun-weathered face smiled at them as she hurried back and forth with plates of food and pitchers of water and ice tea. Finally, she stopped at their table.
“I understand you want to know about a customer?”
Braddock showed her the photo of Phil.
“Oh, yes, Mr. Farron. A weekend regular. Veal picatta or the rib eye. And his”—she paused, searching for the right word—“ah, companion, normally has fish.”
“What can you tell us about them?” Braddock asked.
“Not much, other than what they order.”
“Do they have a favorite table?”
“Mr. Farron prefers a table in the back. Always inside.”
“How do they interact with each other?” Braddock asked.
Tess scrunched up her nose in a puzzled look.
Although Sinclair was letting Braddock take the lead since she was the only one with a badge, he needed to get to the point. “Were they lovey-dovey, or did it look like they were having a business dinner?” Sinclair asked.
She was silent for a moment. “I shouldn’t really be saying.”
“Tess, Mr. Farron is dead,” Braddock said. “He was murdered in Oakland a few days ago.”
She gasped, covering her mouth with her hand. They waited for her to compose herself.
“I guess it was somewhere in between. They didn’t arrive together but usually met in the bar. Their conversations seemed to start off serious, but by the end of dinner, they were laughing and having a good time together. With their age difference, I first thought she could be his daughter, but as I overheard their conversations, it was clear they weren’t related. So I assumed . . . well, you know.”
“What did you overhear?” Braddock asked.
“I try to be friendly with my customers, especially those I see regularly. It’s not like I eavesdrop or pry, but one night I asked her, just trying to be friendly, what brought them to Napa. She said that her grandfather was in a nursing home up here and she visited him Saturday mornings.”
“From that you concluded they weren’t related?” Braddock asked.
“Yeah, well, she didn’t include Mr. Farron in the statement. He sort of ignored what she was saying as if it didn’t concern him.”
“Anything else you can think of?” Braddock asked.
“Not really. Mr. Farron always took the chair facing the door. His eyes were always moving, but not like he was looking for anyone in particular. More like he didn’t want anyone to recognize them.”
She handed the waitress her card. “If you see the woman again, please call. We really need to talk to her.”
They returned to their car, where Sinclair asked, “What do you think now?”
“Tess said they didn’t seem to be intimate.”
“Open your eyes, Braddock. Phil wasn’t the kind of man to act all kissy-poo or grab boobs in public. We’ve got him getting a room for two in romantic Napa Valley, having dinner with a woman we know was an escort, and then checking out the next morning. Other than a video of their bedroom activities, what more do you want?”
“What’s an escort charge for an overnight?” Braddock asked. “The one we caught in the sting operation said two thousand dollars for eight hours, right?”
Braddock was referring to the woman from Special Ladies Escorts who came to Sinclair’s hotel room when they were trying to make an inroad into the escort service to find out who killed Dawn. “A girl might charge portal to portal, which would be more like sixteen hours. Or she might charge less for a regular, especially if a nice meal and hotel room is included.”
“So a thousand could be reasonable,” Braddock said, referring to the thousand-dollar notations in Phil’s pocket notebook. “With the room and meal, Phil would need to come up with close to fifteen hundred dollars a week—six grand a month—to see her. He didn’t pull it from his savings. Where would he come up with that kind of money?”
“Maybe the question we should be asking is what would he have to do to get it?” Sinclair replied.