Authors: Lynda La Plante
“Yep. Now, this is just supposition, but Anna Louise could have also used the service stairway, just like Ruby Corbello, to leave the hotel. That would mean she never passed the front desk, never took the elevator. It exits right around the back of the hotel near the garbage collection, and a car could have been waiting for her.”
“Mmm,”
Lorraine said, frowning as she crossed to her desk and searched around the top.
“Need to know how long it takes from the hotel to Ruby Corbello’s house.”
Rooney and Rosie glanced at each other.
Lorraine was flicking through the maps and guides, chucking them aside, hunting for the street map she’d seen of the tourist attractions.
“If Ruby Corbello left that hotel at six-fifteen, then returned at seventhirty, that gives her just over an hour to make that doll, wrap it up, and take it back to Anna Louise.”
“Unless she made it at Fryer Jones’s place,”
Rooney said.
Lorraine found the map and squinted over the small print. Then, tracing the route with her finger, she tapped impatiently on the table.
“Maybe she did make it at Fryer Jones’s. If she didn’t, it was quite a schlepp to her house unless …”
“Somebody drove her there,”
Rosie suggested.
“Yes, somebody drove her.”
All three of them stood by the trash cans outside the staff entrance of the Hotel Cavagnal. Rosie was to take the route to Fryer Jones’s bar and return, Rooney was to do the run to the Corbellos’. They both asked Lorraine the same question.
“What are you going to do?”
“Talk to security. Okay, check watches and move!”
She was smiling as she watched them both charge off like kids at a sports-day event. She noted how many people came and went via the staff entrance. Then she slipped inside and walked down a narrow corridor. A small staircase led off to the right at the far end, and she moved up the stairs until she came to a door marked FOR AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY. Lorraine opened the door; standing with his back toŤt was a security guard. He didn’t even hear the door close behind him as Lorraine continued up another flight of stairs till she reached Robert Caley’s floor. She had seen no one, had not been stopped at anJDbint, and she did a U-turn back the way she came. Again she saw no on’but when she opened the door to leave, a security guard turned, frowning.
“You staff here?”
“No, I’m a guest,”
Lorraine said briskly, and gave the number of the suite she had used. He held up his hand, asked her name and dialed reception. When it was confirmed that the suite had been booked for Lorraine Page by Mr. Robert Caley, he apologized but warned her that she should not have used the private staircase, it was for staff only.
“I’m very impressed with the hotel security,”
she said, smiling.
He gave a small nod of his head.
“Is this exit covered at all times?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Day and night?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“How many officers are on security?”
“Three, ma’am, we work in shifts.”
“How long have you worked here?” “Five years.”
She nodded and kept smiling.
“You were here, then, when Anna Louise Caley disappeared?”
u\7 T
“
Yes, 1 was.
“I am employed by Mr. Caley to trace his daughter. You were obviously questioned, as I believe most of the staff were.”
“Yes, I was.”
Lorraine turned to face the staff door.
“Maybe she left the hotel this way, that is why no one saw her leaving. Do you think it possible?”
He shrugged, not committing himself.
“You have to take the odd break, so it could have happened?”
“Guess so. Like you said, we take breaks, but usually we try and cover for each other.”
She smiled, and turned to face the small yard.
“Do cars ever park down here?”
“No, no parking allowed. If anyone parks here they get towed.”
“But you could get picked up from here easily.”
“Yeah, picking someone up is not parking, and some of the women working at night like to be met. There’s a lot of drunk guys in the French Quarter.”
“I’m sorry, what did you say?”
“The women like to feel safe.”
“Is there a particular cab company they use?”
“Yeah, Gordon’s Cabsstaff uses Gordon’s Cabs.”
Lorraine nodded.
“But not the guests?”
He smiled.
“No, ma’am, they not very luxurious. Just two brothers, one of ‘em used to work here. You want their number?”
“Thank you,”
Lorraine said pleasantly, and passed him ten bucks. He pocketed it fast, then took out a ballpoint pen and jotted down a number on the back of a hotel card.
“Thank you, I’m expecting two friends shortly. A plump woman and a big, red-faced man. Could you tell them to come up to my suite?”
Lorraine walked out onto the street and then around to the front lobby of the hotel. She had been lucky that Robert Caley had booked the suite for her. She got her key from reception, asking if Mr. Caley was in his suite, and was very relieved to be told he was not. She then took the elevator to her floor. The room was wonderfully cool, and she sat on the bed and ordered some tea and cakes, then called Gordon’s Cabs. There was an answering machine on, but she left no message, deciding she’d call again. Her eyes kept drifting to the closed door to the adjoining suite, her body remembering the night she had spent there. She walked slowly to-363
ward it, knowing she would have to face Caley sooner or later. It was locked, and she pressed her face against the white glossy wood door with relief. But she couldn’t just forget their closeness, dismiss it, because it had been real. She had felt so loved that night. Then she felt scared because she remembered Juda’s words about her being without love, and having been without it for a long time, and the sadness welled up inside her. That night had not had anything to do with love, it was lust, and she was sure that Robert Caley had used her because he had been protecting himself, covering his tracks so she could not unearth the truth of how he had killed his daughter. She stepped briskly away from the door. She had said it to herself earlier, now she said it out loud, pointing to the adjoining bedroom door.
“I am going to nail you, Robert Caley.”
CHAPTER
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Rosie had returned and was surveying the suite as the tea LorV raine had ordered arrived.
“My, this is very nice, I could move in here,”
Rosie said admiringly, looking from the hangings over the bed to the luxurious bathroom.
Lorraine poured tea for them both.
“How long did it take you?”
“I walked there in forty-five minutes. If I’d been running I could have done it in less. Bar was jumping by the way, great music and a group outside drinking beer, kids mostly. This town’s heating up, an’ I don’t mean the weather.”
Rooney did not appear for another twenty minutes, and he was hot and sweating. He sank onto the bed with a moan, paying no attention to the decor of the suite.
“Fucking hot out there. Knock off ten minutes trying to flag down a cab, streets are crowded, and Mardi Gras’s not even started yet. They got clowns walking around passing out leaflets, and there was a couple of jams, but I’d say if Ruby had a clear night she could get there and back in just less than an hour.”
“Which does not give her long to make the doll,”
Lorraine said moodily.
J
“So she did it at Fryer’s,”
Rosie said, passing Rooney a cup of tea.
“It wasn’t exactly well made,”
Rooney said.
Lorraine sighed.
“You know, we’re just kind of grasping at straws, trying to make the jigsaw pieces fit together.”
“You’re trying to get her to Tilda Brown’s house, right?”
Rooney said, and she nodded.
“But nobody saw her there either, just like nobody saw her leave here, no cab company picked her up and she didn’t have a purse on her.”
“We’ve got a possible.”
“Possible what?”
Rosie asked.
“Cab company. The staff uses these two brothers for late-night pickups, but they’re not listed in Information, I’ve checked. I think they’re just two guys with a couple of cars, so they’re probably working without a license. You want to check them out, Rosie? Maybe see them face-to-face. And when you’ve finished your tea, Bill, call that cop and get over to Fryer’s. Check out the necklace and put a feeler out about whether or not Ruby was there on the night of the fifteenth.”
Lorraine yawned. She felt tired and depressed, as if they were going around and around in circles. Time was moving, they had only a week left, and they all knew it. Bill and Rosie took off without complaint.
Lorraine hadn’t meant to fall asleep, she’d meant to let it all run by in her mind, sift through everything they had come up with^o far. She didn’t hear the key turning in the connecting door, which opened so silently she was unaware that Robert Caley had walked into the room.
He stroked her cheek with one finger, andpie woke with a start.
“Hi! I was beginning to think I’d never see you again.”
She eased herself up, blushing.
“You never return my callsdo you know how many times I have tried to see you, talk to you? In fact, the receptionist at your hotel knows me so well I don’t even have to say my name.”
“I’m sorry, but I’ve been caught up.”
He sat on a chair opposite the bed. He was wearing a white collarless shirt and jeans, with the loafers she liked.
“I wanted to take you to one of the riverboats, I’ve wanted to take you to a whole lot of places.”
“Well, I am here to work, you know, Robert.”
“Oh, I know that, but if you don’t want to see me, why don’t you come out and say so?”
“Things keep on getting in the way.”
He cocked his head to one side.
“How about dinner tonight?”
“I don’t think so.”
She wouldn’t look at him.
366 “You don’t think so? Do I take it that you have other engagements? What do you mean, you don’t think so?”
She chewed her lip. He stared at her, trying to fathom her, and then leaned forward.
“It would be nice to celebrate with someone.”
She looked up.
“Celebrate?”
He nodded.
“Casino development’s going ahead. An out-of-town group got the license, but because I had the land I’m in as a partner. Dulay switched sides, but I’ve got him and his group eating right out of my hand. So the big bucks are going to start rolling in.”
“How is Elizabeth?”
she interrupted.
“I don’t know. I told you the last time I saw youI’ve left her. I’ve been here since then, waiting for you behind that connecting door!”
“Have you?”
Lorraine eased her legs from the bed and pressed her feet into the carpet, staring down at her toes. She took a deep breath and slowly raised her head to meet his eyes.
“You are a very good liar, Mr. Caley, one of the best I have ever come across.”
“What?”
“You heard me, you are a liar.”
He leaned back, turning his palms up.
“What have I lied about?”
She eased herself from the bed and walked to the dressing table. He reached to touch her, but she sidestepped his outstretched hand. She began to brush her hair, keeping eye contact via the mirror.
“What have you lied about? Well, let’s try Ruby Corbello for one.”
He leaned back again slightly but he didn’t take his eyes off her face.
“She got a message to you, through the bellboy Errol, for you to meet at the swimming pool. That would be on the night of February fifteenth last year, and in case it has slipped your memory, that was also the night your daughter, or adopted daughter, disappeared.”
He looked away, showing no emotion at all.
“Ruby had a diary, didn’t she? Tilda Brown’s diary, and in this teenager’s diary it gave explicit details of her sex life with you. You, Mr. Caley! So that kiss on the tennis courts wasn’t quite as innocent as you made out, was it?”
He shrugged his shoulders and then leaned on his elbow, his hand partly covering his face, but his eyes were steady and didn’t flinch from her angry gaze.
“What have you got to say to that?”
“Not a lot, Lorraine, but if you want me to go into details, then I will. Tilda Brown was not underage, she was eighteen years old. In fact, she made all the moves, and as you are more than aware of my wife’s physical problems, not to mention her mental state, having a young, pretty and nu-bile girl creeping into your bedroom at night is hard to ignore, let alone the hard-on she gave me. So I fucked her. She liked it, I liked it, and there is no more to be said.”
“She also committed suicide,”
snapped Lorraine.
“I know, and I am deeply sorry about it, but I don’t see that my sexual relationship with her can have anything to do with it.”
“Don’t you?”
“No, I don’t, but you obviously do. So if you have something to say, say it.”
Lorraine threw down her hairbrush.
“Your daughter was fighting Tilda Brown for your affections, and you knew it. What happened, you get a kick out of that as well? As you pointed out to me, Anna Louise was not your daughter anyway, so were you also fucking her?”
“No, I wasn’t. Just Tilda and a few other lady friendsyou want their names?”
He sprang to his feet, and now she could see how angry he was. A small muscle at the side of his neck was twitching.
“I lied to shield Tilda. She was already deeply distressed by Anna Louise’s disappearance, and I wanted to protect her from further unnecessary questions by the police and investigators.”
“To shield Tilda or yourself?”
“Does it matter?”
Lorraine snapped open her briefcase and took out me towel with the doll in it.
“Unwrap it, have a look. I think your littleJ^lackmailing friend, Ruby Corbello, made that for your daughter to givŤ> your girlfriend Tilda. Go on, open it, Robert. As you said, she was eighteen, she knew what she was doing. What you didn’t say was just how long you had been having a sexual relationship with her. She was your daughter’s childhood friend, wasn’t she?”