“Okay.” Lisa nodded. “I was the chair of the local arrangements committee for the meeting this year, and Maxine was going to be chair for next year’s meeting. She was on the program committee for this meeting, and I think she was on it for last year’s meeting, too.” Lisa paused for a moment, then nodded. “Yes, she was. Anyway, she volunteered to be in charge of local arrangements for next year, and I told her I would meet with her during this meeting to go over some of the things I’d learned.”
“That seems clear enough,” Kanesha said. “Ms. Muller was a friend of Gavin Fong’s. She spoke to me about him yesterday. Did she happen to tell you anything about him? Or anything she might have known or suspected about his death?”
“No, I don’t think so,” Lisa said. “Really, we hadn’t time to talk much. At the luncheon yesterday she spent most of her time talking to Gavin Fong.” She paused for a moment. “Maybe I shouldn’t say this, because it probably doesn’t mean anything, but I did hear her say one thing that was pretty odd. I don’t think she realized I could hear her.”
“What did she say?” Kanesha asked when Lisa didn’t continue right away.
“I’m trying to remember her exact words,” Lisa replied. “I think I’ve got it now, though. She said, What are you going to do if he doesn’t pay you like he promised? Will you send that letter?”
I wondered what Maxine Muller had meant. Was Gavin Fong trying to collect on a debt, and if he couldn’t, was he going to write to someone about it? Perhaps a demand letter?
Kanesha frowned. “Did you hear Mr. Fong’s response?”
“He just said, Shut up, Maxine. Not now. He gave her kind of an ugly look when he said it. She drew back in her chair, and that was the end of it, I think. At least while we were at the table,” Lisa concluded.
After I thought about it a moment, I realized there was a more sinister interpretation. Was Gavin Fong blackmailing someone? And what did Maxine Muller know about it?
TWENTY
I knew already that Gavin Fong was willing to resort to blackmail—or extortion—to get what he wanted. I wasn’t really surprised that he might have been blackmailing other people. I supposed there could have been a less criminal interpretation put on Maxine Muller’s questions to him, but Gavin had been murdered.
Blackmail was a powerful motive for murder.
Kanesha said, “Neither Mr. Fong nor Ms. Muller mentioned a name in connection with these questions?”
“Not that I heard,” Lisa said. “I’d been talking to my neighbor to the left just before that. Maxine was on my right. I had turned to say something to Maxine when I heard her ask Gavin those questions.”
“Let’s go back to your discovery of the victim for a moment,” Kanesha said. “When you arrived on the sixth floor, did you see anyone else?”
Lisa frowned. “I don’t think so.” She paused. “No, wait a minute. Yes, I did, toward the other end of the hallway. I didn’t see a person, though. I saw one of those housekeeping carts a few doors down from the elevator.”
“About what time would you say you reached the sixth floor?” Kanesha asked.
“It was a minute or two before I called Charlie,” Lisa said. “I’m not really sure of the exact time.”
“Can you check your phone to see what time you made the call to Mr. Harris?”
“Of course, how stupid of me.” Lisa fumbled in her purse and, after a moment, pulled out her phone. She tapped the screen several times. “I made the call at ten fifty-seven. So I guess I arrived on the sixth floor about ten fifty-five.”
Kanesha made a note of it on her pad. “All right then, Ms. Krause. You can go. I might have more questions later.”
Lisa dropped her phone back in her bag and rose quickly from the table. “Thank you, Deputy Berry. I’m happy to help in any way.” She looked toward me, and I nodded and smiled. Then she hurried out of the room.
I wished I could follow her. I knew Kanesha was annoyed that I was involved in this.
“Mr. Harris, I’d like to talk with you next. Please join me.” Kanesha indicated the chair Lisa had vacated.
I did as she asked and kept my expression as bland as possible when I faced her.
Kanesha’s gaze flicked to the other end of the room where Hampton and his assistant still sat, then back to me.
Was she trying to tell me something? I decided maybe she was warning me to be careful what I said. Maybe she didn’t want Hampton and his associate to know that she and I knew each other well.
Kanesha’s chilly tone when she asked me the first question told me I could be right.
“What were you doing on the sixth floor with Ms. Krause?”
“She called me in a panic. I couldn’t ignore her plea for help, because I don’t think she was calm enough to think clearly. I told her to call 911 and then the front desk, and that I would be with her in a couple of minutes.”
“Where were you at the time you received the call?”
“I’d left the hotel a few minutes before Lisa called me,” I said. “I was on the way to the bistro, Helen Louise Brady’s place, and I was nearly there.”
“You turned back immediately?”
I nodded. “As I said, she sounded pretty shaky.”
“Can you verify the time of that phone call?” Kanesha asked.
I pulled out my phone and checked the list of calls. “Yes, ten fifty-seven. The call lasted almost a minute.”
“How long after that was it before you reached Ms. Krause on the sixth floor?”
“No more than five minutes,” I said. “Probably no more than three, three and a half.”
“Did you see anyone on the sixth floor when you arrived there?”
“No, only Lisa.” I frowned as I recalled what Lisa said about the housekeeping cart. I hadn’t noticed one, and I told Kanesha that.
“Could it have been there and you simply overlooked it?” Kanesha asked, her pen poised to write down my answer.
“I suppose so,” I said, “but I don’t think I did. I had to check the sign to see which way to go to get to the room, and I probably looked both ways down the hall.”
“But you can’t be absolutely certain?”
I wondered why Kanesha was pressing this particular point.
“No, I can’t be absolutely certain,” I said.
“When you arrived at the room and found Ms. Krause, what happened then?”
I gave Kanesha the details she wanted, and then she took me through it all again.
When I finished, Kanesha fixed me with her laser stare. “Did you at any time look into the room? Or go into the room?”
“No, I neither looked nor went into the room,” I said. “I didn’t want to risk contaminating the scene any further.”
“Wise of you,” Kanesha said in a low tone. “For once.”
I inclined my head slightly. “I thought so.”
Kanesha dropped her pen on the pad. “I think that’s all for now, Mr. Harris. If I have further questions, I’ll be in touch.”
“I’m always happy to answer your questions, Deputy Berry.” I rose from the table, nodded in the direction of Hampton and his associate, and exited the room.
Once the door closed behind me, I leaned against the wall near it for a moment. I ought to be used to this situation by now, given the events of the past two years, but I definitely wasn’t. Adrenaline had brought me this far. Now, however, I felt the inevitable letdown, and my head throbbed.
The first thing I needed was water, and I headed for the closest restroom. There was a water fountain outside it. I drank enough to keep a camel going for a week in the desert, and then I used the restroom.
By the time I came out into the hall again, my headache had begun to recede. I checked the time and was not surprised to see that it was nearly twelve thirty. That diet soda and bag of peanuts had been almost two hours ago, and I was hungry for both food and caffeine.
I considered the bistro but decided I would have lunch here in the hotel restaurant. A hamburger and a salad—though I would have preferred french fries—should suffice, along with a couple of glasses of iced tea. I found the stairs, walked down to the ground floor, and made my way to the restaurant. I found it not as crowded as I thought it might be—certainly not as crowded as Helen Louise’s place always was on Saturdays around lunchtime.