Under His Protection Read online

  “Nice place,” Nash said, caring little about Baylor’s lineage and the inn’s history. His own family had a plantation, Indigo Run, on the edge of town that had been in operation since 1711. “You met the deceased?”

  “Briefly when he checked in two days ago. Very nice man. He kept to himself.”

  “Did he meet anyone here?”

  “We don’t question our guests so personally. We pride ourselves on privacy, relaxation and discretion.”

  Nash’s gaze narrowed dangerously, and the owner folded.

  “Not that I know of. But I’m not here twenty-four seven. With the exception of lunch yesterday, I believe he dined in his suite.”

  For a man here on business, Winfield didn’t do much, Nash thought. Except meet with Lisa. Winfield’s PalmPilot indicated he had three meetings but gave no names or times, only dates, and though the victim’s laptop was found in the room, they needed a password to access the data.

  “How did they get in? Was it someone he knew?” Baylor moved to a set of French doors, but Nash stopped him from opening them, wiggling his own gloved fingers.

  “Prints.”

  Baylor glanced at the officer still kneeling by the chest of drawers. “Oh, yes, of course. This balcony leads to a separate entrance for this room and the one next door. There’s a staircase, very narrow and steep, leading to the lower floors outside the kitchen and a path to the patio. It was once the servants’ staircase.”

  The door had an old-fashioned brass latch, one that you had to wrap your hand around to open. With a pen, Nash tried pushing it. It was locked from the inside. But that didn’t mean someone couldn’t have come up here and left this way. Checking that it had been already dusted, Nash opened it, careful not to step on the porch. Earlier, officers had canvassed the area, and it was going to take some manpower to see if anyone had noticed someone entering the suite through this door. He looked down, then squatted. They hadn’t had rain in a while, and the dust level was high. There were several shoe prints in the dust outside the door, and although they’d been lifted and logged already, there were two smaller sets. A woman’s?

  Nash rubbed his face and straightened. “Who sent the basket?”

  The owner frowned and Nash produced the sweet-grass basket with Lisa’s logo on the rim.

  “I don’t know. It’s not something we ordered. We provide toiletries for our guests and we have better taste than to offer homemade items.” Baylor made a face at the basket. “We do seasonal fruit and flavored coffees, too.” He pointed to the silver tray on a stand near the windows. An officer was collecting it.

  Nash stared at the basket. Most of it wasn’t homemade, and he wondered again about the teabag-shaped thing dangling from the bathtub faucet.

  Another officer stripped the fitted sheet and quilt from the bed.

  “No, no, no, that quilt is mine,” Baylor said.

  Nash touched his arm. “It’s evidence. It’ll be returned to you.”

  “It’s a hundred years old and in perfect condition, and it had better come back to me that way.” The odors hit Baylor and he blanched a bit. Death hung in the air like a vapor.

  “If it’s so precious, why is it displayed on a bed?”

  Baylor sniffed. “Ambiance.”

  Nash suppressed the urge to roll his eyes. “Take that up with forensics.” He handed him a card.

  Baylor snatched it as if snatching the quilt, then looked around at his eighteenth-century-decorated suite. Nash saw him droop with disappointment.

  “I’m not going to be able to rent this room for a while,” he said disparagingly.

  “We’ll let you know when we’re done with it.”

  “That’s not what I mean. Who’d want to stay here?”

  “People die every day.”

  Boarding-school posture gripped Baylor’s spine. “Not in my inn.”

  Death was tough for most people. For Nash, it was his career. He spoke for the dead, investigated for them. And he had compassion for the people left behind. But Baylor was more concerned with hotel profits than the fact of a guest’s death. Takes all kinds, Nash thought.

  “I need a list of who had access to this room. Everyone who has a master key to both doors and who was on duty for the past week.”

  Baylor nodded.

  Nash stared. “Today.”

  Baylor’s expression held more than one man’s share of exasperation.

  Nash added to it. “I’d like to speak to the staff, too.”

  “Now? They’re busy with guests.”

  Nash kept writing in his notepad, not looking up. “You know, Mr. Baylor, I’m getting the sense that you don’t want us to find out what happened.”

  “Of course I do. It could have been an accident— maybe he banged his head in the tub or something.”

  Nash’s brows drew together. How did this man know the victim was found wearing only a towel and the bathtub was full of water? Or was he just worried that if that was the case, the family would sue? “Where were you between 5:00 p.m. yesterday and this morning, Mr. Baylor?”

  If the victim had been dead nine hours, then Nash had to narrow the suspect list.

  Baylor gave Nash a look that said he thought himself beyond reproach. “I’ll give you my schedule. Follow me, and I’ll introduce you to the concierge.”

  THE CONCIERGE, John Chartres, was a tall, narrow man with equally confined features, and for someone living in a southern seaboard town, he was as pale as the white shirt beneath his tailored suit. His black hair was swept back with a severity that sharpened his face and made his eyes and lips look vibrant against his skin. He wore disdain like a tie, and he rose from behind the delicate desk like a king from his throne. Oh, yeah, that says welcome to the Baylor real well, Nash thought cynically.

  Then the man spoke and the New York accent, however he tried to hide it, hurt Nash’s ears.

  “I didn’t see anyone go to his suite specifically. Perhaps you should question the housekeeping staff. I’m usually in my office.”

  “Isn’t it your job to know all the guests? To see that their stay is perfect?”

  “I delegate well.”

  I’ll bet. And actually working your job was for the little people, Nash thought. “Did you know Mr. Winfield?”

  “Other than his face and name, no. He was only a guest.”

  Nash kept his features relaxed, but that the man kept shuffling through papers and not looking him in the eye said he was hiding something. Nash would have to dig a little with this one.

  “You have a key to the door to the back staircase?”

  “I have a key to every door in this hotel.”

  “I’ll need a list of which keys each employee carries and where they are kept.”

  Chartres gestured and Nash followed the man into the reception area and behind the counter.

  Nash’s gaze swept the rows of keys. “You’re kidding, right? Anyone could take these.” The keys weren’t the computer-card type but old-fashioned brass, which he was sure added the same sort of ambiance as the antique quilt.

  “Each room has inside locks, as well, and though they look old, they aren’t.” Chartres handed a key over.

  It was chiseled like a house key, but the tab was brass with Victorian scroll.

  “The balcony doors have no outside handles,” Chartres said, then explained, “The staff doesn’t use it. Though it’s sturdy, in keeping with the historical accuracy, the staircase remains steep and narrow. We discourage guests from opening the doors unless they are in residence. There is a push latch in case the door closes, but the inside lock must be disengaged.”

  So, Nash thought, if anyone came into the room from that direction, the guest had to be expecting them and the locks had to be disengaged. The balcony doors had been locked from the inside when the police had arrived. Had Winfield opened them for his killer? Or his ex-wife? Even as the thought careened through his head, Nash hated himself for it. Lisa was not capable of murder. Not the Lisa he once knew.
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  “You said you were on duty?” Nash asked.

  “Yes. And if you don’t mind, can we take this back into my office?”

  As they headed in that direction, Chartres lagged behind, smiling at an elderly couple approaching the reception area. He slipped behind the gleaming counter to retrieve a few slips of paper, handing them to the couple. “Your phone messages,” Chartres said to them. “And your 7:00 p.m. reservations at Emily’s are set.”

  Nash had to admit that when Chartres was talking with the hotel patrons, he was all smiles and warmth. The couple inquired about the police cars and ambulance, and Chartres explained that a guest had passed away during the night and for them not to worry. But then Nash shouldered his way past, introduced himself and questioned the elderly couple. It gained him nothing. Though their rooms were on the floor below, they insisted they were sound sleepers.

  Chartres gestured to the office. “That was rude, Detective.”

  “A policeman’s job is often rude. Everyone is a potential witness.” Nash’s look said the concierge was on that list, and Chartres stiffened, affronted. “At what time did you leave your post?” Nash asked once they were in the small office.

  “I didn’t.”

  “Not to eat, not to use the bathroom?”

  “No. Meals are brought here, if I want. And I didn’t.”

  “You didn’t make the rounds during the cocktail and dinner hour?”

  “No.”

  Then who’s to say he was even in the office? Nash thought. “You have a popular restaurant in this hotel, Mr. Chartres. You didn’t leave your office and stroll through, introducing yourself?”

  “It was a quiet night.”

  “Quiet enough not to notice someone heading up to Mr. Winfield’s room?”

  “Apparently. This hotel is more like a home, the atmosphere unobstructed. It’s why we do so well. Not all the suites are occupied, anyway. We don’t check on the comings and goings of guests, only that while they’re here, they’re happy.”

  “You had a delivery to a room, yet no one seems to recall receiving it.”

  “What delivery?

  “A basket from Enchanted Garden.”

  “It may have been a gift from someone. All deliveries are signed for and recorded.” Chartres swiveled his chair toward a computer screen and tapped the keys. He peered. “The only deliveries were the daily flowers for the rooms, a guest’s dry cleaning and a package from High Cotton for the elderly couple you saw, which was placed in their room.”

  That high-school class in shorthand came in handy sometimes, Nash thought as Chartres tried to sneak peeks at his notes. After a few more questions, Chartres printed out a list of the staff and phone numbers and a schedule roster. Nash folded it into his leather notebook, then stood, offering his hand. Chartres’s palm was smooth and dry, his grip firm.

  Nash left, heading back upstairs again to check the outer doors. Officers were almost finished with the room and had double-checked outside for footprints. Nash opened the door and studied the deck, the path down to the first and second floors. He wondered if Baylor had the floor plans to this place and walked across the balcony and down the stairs. A private home was tucked only yards away, beside the hotel, and a privacy fence carved a smart line between the properties. The inn dining room was to the rear, a sizable portion of seating outdoors on a stone patio surrounded by exotic flowering shrubs and shaded with umbrellas. It was empty now.

  Nash climbed back up the stairs to look around the suite once more. Was the scarf the murder weapon? If not, Winfield could have died from anything, food poisoning or heart trouble. Until he had an autopsy, Nash was finished here. He’d collect reports from the other officers, run a check on Winfield, and then he’d know where to go from there. At the moment there was too little evidence to point him in any direction.

  Except at Lisa.

  He was done for now, anyway, he reasoned and returned to his office, dropping into his chair and tossing his notebook on the desk. He dug the heels of his palms into his eyes, then sagged back into the chair. A bag of clothing marked “Lisa Bracket Winfield” was sealed and on his desk. A note from the sheriff said she’d offered prints before they’d asked. Her angry expression flashed like lightning in his mind. He could have handled that confrontation better, he thought. He knew he hadn’t accused her of the crime, but the questions always made people defensive. But what the hell was she hiding?

  Winfield had been pushed to his death, but his instincts told Nash there was more than a silk scarf connecting this to Lisa. And he never ignored his instincts.

  The phone shrilled and before it reached a second ring he snatched it up. “Couviyon.”

  “Detective, this is Kathy Boon. I’m a housekeeper at the Baylor Inn. They, I mean my boss, wanted me to call you to tell you that I saw a woman go into Mr. Winfield’s room.”

  “Describe her please.”

  “Red hair, long, in a ponytail tied with a scarf. Killer outfit. Lime-green skirt, same color top but it had polka dots on it. She was about five-eight, I’d guess. Pretty. I noticed her because her handbag and shoes matched her skirt and not too many people can get away with wearing that color.”

  Nash allowed himself a smile, then glanced at the shopping bag of clothes Lisa had turned in. “What time was it when you saw this woman?”

  “About eight-thirtyish, maybe quarter to nine. I work till midnight, then come in at five, so that’s why I wasn’t around this morning.”

  “Did you see her leave?”

  “No, I didn’t, but that doesn’t mean anything. I go from the laundry to the rooms about a dozen times a night.”

  “Did you see anyone else enter Mr. Winfield’s room?”

  “Room service at about six.”

  Winfield had been alive at six. The attendant had already confirmed delivering the meal around then. “Did you hear anything coming from Mr. Winfield’s room?”

  She was quiet.

  “Ma’am?”

  “I’m thinking. No…well, I’m not sure. I heard arguing at a little past nine, but not enough to call the cops or anything. Oh, God, maybe I should have.”

  “You couldn’t have known, ma’am.”

  As she spoke, Nash checked the employee roster and found her name, marking beside it. His head was swimming, mostly with images of Lisa and the absolute fury she’d thrown at him.

  “If I have any more questions, I’ll call you.”

  “Yeah, sure, and if I think of anything more, I’ll let you know.”

  He hung up and leaned back in his chair. Lisa had definitely been there. He hoped the coroner came back with something soon. Lisa wasn’t capable of hurting anyone. At least not physically. And as he remembered their conversation, he recognized his own bitterness, as well as hers.

  What would have happened, he wondered, if he’d fought for her all those years ago? If he’d gone to her and said…what? That he loved her? Unfortunately he hadn’t realized he loved her until she was walking down the aisle with someone else and he was miles away regretting it.

  The phone shrilled, jerking him from unhappy musing. He grabbed the receiver and punched line one. “Detective Couviyon.”

  “Hey, Nash, this is your favorite lab rat.”

  Nash smiled. The coroner, Quinn Kilpatrick. “Tell me you have something for me, good buddy.”

  “The deceased died between ten and midnight. I’ll have more specific analysis in a few hours, a day max.”

  “Cause of death?”

  “Toxic poisoning.”

  “What about the scarf?”

  “That was after the fact. Poisoning looks like an overdose of digitalis, near as I can tell, but if you quote me right now, I’ll deny it.”

  “How did he get it?”

  “An injection, in a drink, food—a number of ways.”

  “Could he have overdosed accidentally?”

  “I don’t know. It’s hard to nail this element, and I’m waiting on his med records to see if he w
as being treated for anything. Be patient.”

  Nash didn’t have any patience today and struggled for a scrap. “I thought you couldn’t detect digitalis.”

  “That’s why you can’t quote me.”

  Nash hung up and studied his notes. Winfield had lived in New York and the NYPD had been notified. The victim’s apartment would be sealed off and swept for evidence. It was time, he thought, to find more suspects. Yet in the back of his mind lingered one troubling question. Had Lisa Bracket Winfield changed enough over the past four years to be capable of murder?

  LISA SLID INTO the booth in the diner and smiled at her lawyer, Trisha Flynn. Trish had her notebook out, ready to talk.

  “We could have met at the office, Lisa.”

  Lisa shook her head, grateful for the cup of coffee waiting for her. “That would make me feel like a real suspect.”

  “From what you told me, you’re the best possible one.”

  “Gosh, you’re a fun date, huh?” Lisa’s heart sank and at the same time, anger unfolded. Was Peter going to keep ruining her life? “Dammit, Trish, I didn’t do this,” she said, trying to keep her voice down. “When I left Peter last night, he was very much alive.”

  “And mad as hell, I’ll bet.”

  Lisa scoffed. “He wasn’t getting his way, so yes, he was mad.” Lisa glanced at the menu, and they ordered, silent till the waitress left them.

  “Was it the same argument?” Trish asked.

  “Oh, yes. When was it not?”

  “You don’t look upset that he’s dead.”

  “I grieved. I loved him once upon a time.” And I loved Nash, too, she thought, and knew if it had been him who died, she wouldn’t be functioning nearly as well. “But you know better than anyone what it was like with him, Trish. And now to have Nash nosing around in my personal business, my marriage…”

  “You should have told him.”

  Trisha had been with her when she’d miscarried her baby. “Is that my lawyer or friend talking?” Lisa asked.

  Trisha smiled, her dark hair sweeping over her shoulder as she reached for the creamer. “Your friend. Who’s on lawyer time.”