With Steffi driving, she and Smilow reached Roper Hospital in record time.
“How many did they say?” she asked as they jogged across the emergency room parking lot toward the building. She had missed the details when she left the hotel conference room to retrieve her car. She had picked up Smilow at the main entrance to Charles Towne Plaza.
“Sixteen. Seven adults, nine children. They belong to a touring church choir from Macon, Georgia. They ate lunch early in the hotel restaurant before setting out on an afternoon walking tour of downtown. They returned a couple hours later, after the kids began getting sick.”
“Stomach cramps? Vomiting? Diarrhea?”
“All of the above.”
“You don’t forget food poisoning if you’ve ever had it. I did once. Cream of mushroom soup from a reputable deli.”
“They traced this back to a marinara meat sauce that was used on the pizza the kids ate. It was also on the pasta special.”
Almost at a run, they entered the hospital emergency room. For a Saturday night, the waiting room was relatively calm, but there were a few patients. A uniformed cop was guarding a man in handcuffs. The man had a bloody bath towel wrapped around his head like a turban. His eyes were closed and he was moaning, while his wife provided laconic answers to a nurse’s standard questions regarding medical history. A young mother and father were trying in vain to pacify their crying infant. An elderly man was sitting alone, sobbing into a handkerchief for no apparent reason. A woman sat bent almost double in her chair, her head nearly in her lap. She appeared to be asleep.
It was a little early yet for the real emergencies to start streaming in.
Neither Smilow nor Steffi paid any attention to the people in the waiting room, but walked directly to the admissions desk, where Smilow introduced himself to the nurse, showed her his badge, and asked if the people transported from Charles Towne Plaza were still in the emergency room or if they’d been admitted to rooms.
“They’re still here,” the nurse told him.
“I need to see them right away.”
“Well, I… Let me page the doctor. Have a seat.”
Neither sat. Steffi paced. “What I don’t get is how your guys missed the discrepancy. Weren’t they supposed to check the number of guests registered against the number they interrogated?”
“Cut them some slack, Steffi. People straggled in over the course of hours, after being away from the hotel for hours. We’re talking hundreds of registered guests in addition to employees changing shifts. It would have been nearly impossible to get an accurate head count.”
“I know, I know,” she said impatiently. “But after midnight? When everyone is more or less tucked in? I would have expected one of them to think of doing another head count. Or were they too engrossed in their movie?”
“They had their hands full,” he said stiffly.
“Yeah, getting jack.”
Smilow was the first to criticize if a criminal investigation officer screwed up. It was something else if the criticism came from an outsider. His lips turned hard and thin with anger.
“Look, I’m sorry,” Steffi said in a much mollified tone. “I didn’t mean to say that.”
“Yeah, you did. But let me worry about evidence gathering, okay?”
Steffi knew when to back off. It wouldn’t be wise to alienate Smilow. Despite the new widow’s directive, she had every intention of going to County Solicitor Monroe Mason and asking to be named the chief prosecutor of this case. When she did, she needed the police department’s support. Specifically Smilow’s.
She gave him a few moments to cool down before saying, “I’m afraid that these people with food poisoning won’t know jack, either. They were brought to the hospital earlier than the estimated time of Pettijohn’s murder.”
“The symptoms didn’t strike some of them until later,” he argued. “The hotel manager confessed to sneaking them out as late as eight o’clock this evening.”
“Why didn’t he tell you about it?”
“Bad P.R. He seemed to be more worried about the food-poisoning outbreak and what it says about his shiny new kitchen than he was about the discovery of Pettijohn’s body in the penthouse suite.”
“You wanted to see me?”
Both turned. The doctor was young enough to have acne, but the eyes behind his wire-framed glasses looked old, tired, and sleep-deprived. His green scrubs and white lab coat were wrinkled and sweat-stained. His photo ID read RODNEY C. ARNOLD.
Smilow flashed his badge again. “I need to question the people brought in with food poisoning from Charles Towne Plaza.”
“Question them about what?”
“They could be material witnesses to a murder that took place in the hotel this afternoon.”
“The new hotel? You’re kidding.”
“I’m afraid not.”
“This afternoon? Like yesterday?”
“Until the M.E. can give us a more definite time, we’re estimating the victim died anywhere between four and six P.M.”
The resident smiled grimly. “Detective, at that time last evening these folks were either having acute diarrhea or puking their guts up, or both. The only thing they were eyewitness to was the bottom of the commode bowl. If they were lucky enough to get to a commode in time, which I heard some of them weren’t.”
“I understand they were very sick—”
“Not were. Are.”
Steffi stepped forward and identified herself. “Dr. Arnold, I don’t think you understand the importance of our questioning these people. Some were occupying rooms on the fifth floor where the murder took place. One could have vital information and not even be aware of it. The only way to find out is to question them.”
“Okay,” he said with a shrug. “Check in with the main admissions desk tomorrow. I’m sure some of them will still be here, but by then they’ll have been assigned to rooms.” He turned to go.
“Wait a minute,” Steffi said. “We need to see them now.”
“Now?” Dr. Arnold divided an incredulous glance between them. “Sorry. No can do. Some of these folks are still in extreme gastrointestinal distress. Extreme. Distress,” he repeated, separating the words for emphasis.
“We’re giving them fluids through IVs. The ones lucky enough to have passed the crisis are resting, and after the ordeal their intestines have put them through, they need it. Come back tomorrow. Possibly early afternoon. Preferably evening. By then—”
“That’s not soon enough.”
“It’ll have to be,” the doctor stated. “Because nobody’s talking to any of them tonight. Now please excuse me. I’ve got patients waiting.” With that he turned and pushed through the doors separating the lobby from the examination rooms.
“Dammit,” Steffi swore. “Are you going to let him get by with that?”
“You want me to storm the emergency room and start hassling patients in extreme… et cetera? Talk about bad P.R.” Returning to the desk nurse, Smilow asked her to give Dr. Arnold his business card. “If any of the patients begin feeling better, tell him to call me. Any hour.”
“I don’t have any confidence in the doctor’s willingness to help,” Steffi remarked when Smilow rejoined her.
“Me either. He seems to enjoy being ruler of his small domain.”
Steffi looked at him with an arch smile. “To which you can relate.”
“And you can’t?” he returned. “Don’t you think I know why you want this case so badly?”
Smilow was an excellent detective because of his insight. But sometimes that perception made him uncomfortable to be around. “Can we take five? I need some caffeine.” She moved to a vending machine and fed coins into it. “Buy you a Coke?”
“No, thanks.”
She peeled the tab off the top of the soft drink can. “Well, look at it this way. If these Macon people are that sick, you probably wouldn’t have got anything useful or reliable from them anyway. Afflicted with food poisoning, how observant could they have been yesterday afternoon? It won’t hurt to come back tomorrow and talk to them, but I think it’ll wind up being a dead end for you.”
“Maybe.” He sat down in a vacant chair, propped his elbows on his knees, and tapped his lips with steepled index fingers. Steffi sat down in the chair next to him. He waved off an offer to take a sip of her drink. “One of the rules of crime detection—somebody saw something.”
“You think people are withholding information?”
“No. They just don’t know that what they saw is important.”
Both were quiet for a moment, each lost in his own thoughts. Finally Steffi asked, “What do you think happened in that penthouse suite?”
“I try not to develop a theory. Not this early on, anyway. If I did, it could color the investigation. I’d be looking for clues to support my guess, and overlooking the clues that led to the actual solution.”
“I thought all cops relied on hunches.”
“Hunches, yeah. But hunches are based on clues. They get stronger or weaker as you go along, depending on the clues you gather, which either support your hunch or dispel it.” He leaned back and sighed deeply, uncharacteristically letting his fatigue show. “All I really have at this point is a man who many would enjoy seeing dead.”
“Including you.”
His eyes turned hard. “I’d be lying if I said no. I hated the bastard and made no secret of it. You, on the other hand—”
“Me?”
“Pettijohn wielded a lot of influence in local politics. The County Solicitor’s Office is no exception. With Mason about to retire—”
“That’s not public knowledge yet.”
“But it soon will be. With him declining to run for reelection and his second in command battling prostate cancer—”
“Wallis has been given about six weeks.”
“So, come November, the office is up for grabs. Pettijohn has been known to dangle carrots like that in front of the ambitious and corruptible. Think what a boon it would be for a swindler like him to have a sweet young thing like you serving as D.A.”
“I’m not sweet. As for young, forty is looming terribly close.”
“Strange that you should address that and not the ambitious and corruptible part.”
“I admit to the former and deny the latter. Besides, if Pettijohn were the red carpet ushering me into the solicitor’s office, why would I kill him?”
“Good question,” he said, studying her with one eye closed.
“You’re so full of shit, Smilow.” Shaking her head, she laughed. “I see what you’re getting at, though. Considering all of Pettijohn’s machinations, the list of suspects grows endless.”
“Which doesn’t make my job easy.”
“Maybe you’re trying too hard.” She sipped her drink thoughtfully. “What are the two most common motivations for murder?”
He knew the answer, and it pointed to one person. “Mrs. Pettijohn?”
“The shoe fits, doesn’t it?” Steffi held up her index finger. “She got fed up with her husband’s flagrant cheating. Even if she didn’t love him, his womanizing humiliated her.”
“Her daddy did the same thing to her mother.”
“Which could explain the second shot when the first probably killed him.” She raised her second finger. “Tubs of money come her way if Lute Pettijohn is dead. One of those motives would be sufficient. Combined…” She raised her shoulders as though the conclusion spoke for itself.
After considering it for a moment, he frowned. “It’s almost too obvious, isn’t it? Besides, she’s got an alibi.”
Steffi scoffed. “The loyal family servant? Yes, Miss Scarlett. No, Miss Scarlett. Why don’t you slap me again, Miss Scarlett?”
“Sarcasm doesn’t flatter you, Steffi.”
“I’m not being sarcastic. Their relationship reflects an archaic attitude.”
“Not to Mrs. Pettijohn. I’m sure not to Sarah Birch, either. They’re devoted to one another.”
“As long as Miss Davee is boss.”
He shook his head. “You’d have had to grow up here to understand.”
“Thank God I didn’t. In the Midwest—”
“Where people are more enlightened and all men are created equal?”
“You said it, Smilow, not me.”
“Not just sarcastic, but condescending and self-righteous, too. If you have so much bloody scorn for us and what you perceive to be our archaic attitudes, why’d you move down here?”
“For the opportunity it afforded.”
“To right all our wrongs? To enlighten us poor, backward-thinking southern folk?”
She scowled at him.
“Or do you find our way of life enviable?” Further baiting her, he added, “Are you sure you’re not jealous of Davee Pettijohn?”
She mouthed, Fuck you, Smilow.
Then she finished her soft drink and stood up to toss the empty can into a metal trash receptacle. The clatter it made roused everyone in the waiting room except the sleeping woman.
Steffi said, “I can hardly stomach women like Davee Pettijohn. That all too obvious southern belle affectation of hers makes me want to throw up.”
He motioned her toward the door. They stepped out into the warm, humid air. The eastern sky was turning a grayish pink, harbinger of dawn. Upon reflection he said, “I’ll grant you that Mrs. Pettijohn has it down to an art.”
“What I’m thinking is that she’s artful enough to use it to get away with murder.”
“You’ve got a cold heart, Steffi.”
“You’re a fine one to talk. If you were an Indian your name would be Ice Flows in Veins.”
“True enough,” he said, taking no offense. “But I’m not so sure about you.”
She had reached the driver’s door, but didn’t get in. Instead she paused and looked at him across the roof of her car. “What about me?”
“No one questions your ambition, Steffi. But I’ve heard that work isn’t all that’s keeping your blood hot these days.”
“What have you heard?”
“Rumors,” he said.
“What kind of rumors?”
Smiling his chilly smile, he said again, “Just rumors.”
* * *
Loretta Boothe raised her head from her sagging position and watched Rory Smilow and Stefanie Mundell make their way across the parking lot to a car where they paused to chat before getting in and driving away.
They had entered the emergency room with a burst of energy and purpose, which Loretta knew both possessed in abundance. They seemed to suck all the oxygen out of the atmosphere. She disliked them equally. But for different reasons.
She carried a personal grudge against Rory Smilow that went back several years. As for Steffi Mundell, she knew her by reputation only. The assistant D.A. was universally regarded as an unmitigated bitch who thought her shit didn’t stink.
Loretta couldn’t say why she hadn’t spoken to them or made her presence known. Something had compelled her to keep her head lowered, her face down, pretending to be asleep. Not that either would have given a flip about her one way or the other. Smilow would have looked at her with disdain. Steffi Mundell probably wouldn’t have recognized her, or if she had, she wouldn’t remember her name. More than likely they would have said something passably civil, then ignored her.
So why hadn’t she said something? Maybe it had given her a sense of superiority to be unseen and unobserved while she eavesdropped on their conversation, first with the doctor, then with each other.
Earlier in the evening, before she had started feeling sick and had to drive herself to the emergency room, she had heard about the Lute Pettijohn murder on TV. She’d watched Smilow’s press conference. He had conducted it in his typically efficient and unflappable manner. Steffi Mundell was already horning in where she wasn’t wanted or needed, overstepping her bounds, which it was said she was good at.
Loretta chuckled. It did her old heart good to see them grappling for clues and following dead-end leads. The investigation couldn’t be going very well if their only possible witnesses were people sick with food poisoning. One thing was certain: Smilow didn’t have a viable suspect or he wouldn’t be chasing down emergency room patients.
Loretta glanced at the wall clock. She had been waiting for over two hours and was feeling worse by the minute. She hoped help would be coming soon.
To pass the time and keep her mind off her personal miseries, she stared through the plate-glass window at the spot, now empty, where their car had been parked. Rory Smilow and Steffi Mundell. Jesus, what a dangerous combination. God help the luckless murderer when they did catch him.
“What are you doing here?”
At the sound of her daughter’s voice, Loretta turned. Bev was standing over her, fists on hips, eyes judgmental, not at all happy to see her. She tried smiling, but felt her dry lips crack when she stretched them across her teeth. “Hi, Bev. Did they just now tell you I was down here?”
“No, but I was busy and couldn’t get away until now.”
Bev was an ICU nurse, but Loretta figured she could have asked someone to cover for her for five minutes if she had wanted to. Of course, she hadn’t wanted to.
Nervously she wet her scaly lips with her tongue. “I thought I would come by and see… Maybe we could have breakfast together.”
“When my shift ends at seven, I will have put in twelve hours. I’m going home to bed.”
“Oh.” This wasn’t going even as well as Loretta had hoped, and she hadn’t held out much hope that it would go well. She picked at the buttons on the front of her dirty blouse.
“You didn’t come here so we could have breakfast together, did you?” Bev’s voice had an imperious tone that grabbed the attention of the admitting nurse. Loretta noticed her glance at them curiously. “You ran out of money, so you couldn’t buy your booze, so you came begging to me.”
Loretta lowered her head to avoid her daughter’s angry, unmerciful glare. “I haven’t had a drink in days, Bev. I swear I haven’t.”
“I smell it on you.”
“I’m sick. Truly. I—”
“Oh, save it.” Bev opened her pocketbook and took out a ten-dollar bill. But she didn’t hand it to Loretta; she forced her to reach for it, adding to her humiliation. “Don’t bother me at work again. If you do, I’ll have hospital security escort you off the premises. Understand?”
Loretta nodded, swallowing her pride and her shame. The rubber soles of Bev’s shoes squeaked on the tiles as she turned to go. When Loretta heard the elevator doors open, she raised her head and called plaintively, “Bev, don’t—”
The doors closed before she could finish, but not before she could see that Bev’s eyes were averted, as though she couldn’t bear the sight of her own mother.