when he had wanted to be at his suavest, he muttered,
"In the nick of time."
Surprising him, she rested her hands on his chest
and stroked it lightly. Hardly above a whisper, she
said, "For me, too."
Desire was manifested in a low moan as he cupped
her chin in his hand and tilted her head back for his
kiss. Passions sparked again. Ignited. Burned. Hotter
than before.
The whispers intensified the intimacy.
"You like this."
"Yes."
"Too hard?"
"No."
"I didn't realize."
"Neither did I."
"I'm sorry."
"It didn't matter."
"But if I hurt you--"
"You didn't. You won't."
"Do you mind if..."
"No."
"Jesus. Look at you. Beautiful. You're already--'
"Yes."
"So--"
"Oh..."
"Wet."
"I'm sorry, sorry."
"Sorry?"
"Well, I mean ... you ..."
"Don't be sorry."
"Let me touch you."
"No, let me touch you."
CHAPTER
7
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 arrogated?"
"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 no
body'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.