“So if our mystery woman had a copy of this lost movie in her possession somehow…” said Chase slowly.
“She would take it to Dan in his capacity as leading expert on all things Maria Power,” said Odelia, nodding.
Chase’s phone rang out the A-Team tune and he picked up, walking into the corridor.
“Do you think Dan is a killer?” I asked.
“Absolutely not,” said Odelia. “Dan is one of the kindest people I know. He’s not a killer.”
“Did you find this Gnomeo movie on Heather Gallop’s person?”
“Nope. And neither did we find her phone, which I think is very suspicious.”
I nodded. Odelia was right. What person doesn’t take their phone nowadays? For most people the tiny gadget is practically glued to their hands. “Is it possible that the killer phoned Dan to lure him away and then entered the building and struck?”
Odelia smiled. “Exactly what I was thinking.” Her smile disappeared. “Though my uncle doesn’t seem to agree with me. He seems to think Dan is Heather’s killer.”
“Your uncle has been known to be wrong before,” I pointed out.
Chase had returned and said, “They found the victim’s hotel room. She was staying at the Star.”
It was our cue to hurry out of Odelia’s office and head over to the Hampton Cove Star, the town’s premium hotel. Odelia and Chase hurried over, with Dooley and I following at a slower pace.
“A priest, a rabbi and a woolly mammoth walk into a bar,” said Dooley, and I eyed him strangely.
“Dooley, what’s with you and these lame jokes?” I asked.
“Do you really think my jokes are lame?” he asked, looking a little hurt.
“Well, they’re definitely not funny.”
“Oh, but Max, you have to laugh. It’s very important. Maybe we shouldn’t even be involved in this murder case. Murder is not a laughing matter, and you should be laughing, laughing, laughing!”
Now I like to laugh as much as the next cat, don’t get me wrong, but this obsession with jokes that Dooley was displaying frankly struck me as unhealthy.
“Look, if you want to laugh, Dooley, maybe we can watch a funny movie tonight. I’m sure Odelia and Chase would love nothing more than to sit down after a long day and watch something funny.” Because in that respect Dooley was right, of course: murder is not a funny business.
“Oh, that would be so great,” said Dooley, cheering up considerably. “We could watch funny movies every day from now on. It’s very important.”
We’d arrived at the hotel, and walked in. A police car was parked right in front, and all we had to do was follow Abe Cornwall into the elevator to be taken to the right place.
Abe, whose hair was pointing in every direction as usual, eyed us with amusement. “Why is it that wherever Odelia is, you guys are hanging out there, too?” he asked. It was a rhetorical question, I presumed, for Abe doesn’t exactly speak our language.
The elevator jerked to a stop and we got out. Abe heaved a weary sigh. “You know, this murder business is getting old,” he said, even though I assumed he didn’t think we’d understand. “Why do people insist on killing each other? Why can’t they just get along?”
“You’re absolutely right,” I responded. “It is getting old.”
My words made the coroner look down at me in wonder. Then he laughed. “For a moment there I thought you knew what I was talking about!”
And shaking his grizzled head he walked into a room whose door was open, and where plenty of people were milling about. And the moment I entered there was that pervasive scent again: the one that was also in Dan’s office. And it only took me a moment to know why: on the little desk, a nice collection of garden gnomes had been placed, and behind them a large, signed and framed picture of Maria Power.
Chapter 10
Odelia glanced around the room. Whoever this Heather Gallop had been, she wasn’t one of those people who make a mess of their hotel rooms. The woman’s clothes were meticulously hung in the closet, and as she checked the small collection she saw that Heather had impeccable taste, too. Three very nice dresses that must have cost a pretty penny, and even an evening dress. Judging from the pile of underwear she hadn’t come to stay for a long time, at the most a week or so.
“I found her driver’s license, sir,” said the cop who’d phoned Chase. “Illinois,” he said as he handed the card to the detective.
“Why does a woman from Illinois travel all the way to Long Island to meet with Dan Goory?” Chase muttered. “To sell him a copy of a movie that doesn’t exist?”
The room was otherwise sparse: apart from the clothes in the closet, the suitcase under the bed and the gnomes and portrait on the table, there was nothing that gave a sense of the woman’s personality, or offered a glimpse into her life.
“I’ll see if I can’t get in touch with her folks back home,” said Chase. “See if we can’t lift the veil of who this woman was and what she was doing here.”
Odelia nodded. The receptionist had told them Heather had checked in three days ago, but he couldn’t recall her having received any visitors. He also knew she drove a rented car, which she’d parked in the hotel lot, and that she’d paid with a credit card, not cash, but apart from that, there wasn’t a lot he could tell them about the mystery woman.
“I doubt she flew in simply to engage in an affair with Dan,” said Odelia. As her uncle seemed to think, and presumably the entire population of Hampton Cove. At least no one would be holding Odelia’s pen when she wrote her article detailing that morning’s shocking events. She wasn’t going to allow the Gazette to become a forum to slander its founder and editor, so she’d already put the newspaper social media pages on lockdown. No one was going to slander her boss on his own platform. She’d see to that at least.
Of course she couldn’t control what people would say in the Hampton Cove Facebook group, or on the streets and in the shops.
All she could do was find the real killer, because she was absolutely certain Dan was innocent.
Chase got another phone call, and when he returned moments later he looked a little baffled.
“What is it?” she asked.
“Well, I called UPS after what you told me. That was them returning my call.”
“And?” she asked. “What did they say?”
“That there never was a delivery at the Gazette this morning. Whoever this UPS man was, he most certainly wasn’t sent by them.”
She shared a look of concern with her partner. “Which means he was probably the killer,” she said as she voiced the thought that was going through both their heads.
“Come on, Dan,” Chief Alec said, leaning back in his chair. “How long have we known each other? And here you sit insulting my intelligence by lying to me!”
“I’m not lying, Alec!” said Dan. “I’m telling you the truth!”
They were seated across the table from one another in interview room number one, and frankly Alec was quickly losing his patience with the newspaperman.
“Look, we both know how this is going to go,” said Alec. “No judge will believe you when you tell your cockamamie story about your windshield wipers.”
“But it happened! Just check my phone!”
“I did. You got a call at the time you said you did. Unknown caller. Could have been an insurance company trying to sell you life insurance. Could have been a mobile phone salesman. Could have been anyone.” He leaned forward. “Just get it off your chest, Dan. Trust me, you’ll feel much better when you do. So who was she, huh? Old girlfriend? Was she pregnant, is that it? You lost it when she said she wanted to keep the baby?”