Part 4 (1/2)
”I checked the bar, too. He's not there.”
Kaz deposited me in a chair between Helen and the empty spot where Thad was supposed to be sitting and went around to the other side of the table.
”You said Mr. Wyant would be here.” Until Daryl spoke to me, I didn't realize my chair was back-to-back with his.
”Of course he will be.” That was the perky me. And just to prove it, I glanced around both my table and his, a confident smile on my face. ”Thad's just been delayed for a few minutes. You know how these things are.”
”How?” Daryl's question was so sincere that I didn't have the heart to answer. Good thing I didn't have the opportunity. From the pocket of his orange-and-brown-plaid sport coat, his cell phone rang, and Daryl checked the caller ID, excused himself, and left the ballroom.
I turned back toward my table just as a waitress deposited my salad in front of me, and honestly, it looked as delicious as the picture I saw when I went through the hotel catering menu and ordered tonight's dinner. Fresh field greens, diced pears, a sprinkling of blue cheese. Too bad my stomach was too jumpy for me to enjoy it. I did another quick scan of the ballroom. No Thad. I pushed my chair back from the table.
”Sit down.” Kaz mouthed the words. ”Calm.” Like a baseball umpire signaling safe, he made a gesture over his salad and smiled.
I knew what that meant, too. Upbeat. I was supposed to remain upbeat. Even though the program was scheduled to start in exactly forty minutes and my speaker was nowhere to be seen.
Chase Cadell was walking back from the bar, a bottle of beer in one hand, and he leaned over and purred in my ear. ”Told you you should have picked me. I'm actually here, Josie. And that son-of-a-gun Wyant-”
”Will be joining us in just a jiffy.” I wasn't sure how my popping out of my chair and heading out to the lobby was supposed to help accomplish that, but I did it anyway, and it was a good thing I did. I was just in time to see a tiny woman in a black suit disappear around the corner toward the vendor room.
Beth Howell.
Yeah, the timing was bad, but this was the first time I'd caught up with Beth since the incident on the boat, and I wasn't going to let the moment pa.s.s me by. I took off down the hallway, and I would have caught up to her if the door to the vendor room hadn't swung open and stopped me in my tracks.
”Langston!” He stepped out of the room so quickly that he surprised me, and I pressed a hand to my heart at the same time I dodged to my left. ”You just-”
”Need to get into the banquet.” Langston stepped to his right.
”And I need...” I looked around him, but by then, the hallway was empty. Wherever Beth Howell was headed, she was nowhere in sight now. ”I'll go back to the ballroom with you,” I told Langston, and I hoped I didn't sound disappointed because of that, so I added, ”You're late for the banquet. The salad's are already being served.”
”Is it really that late?” He looked at his watch. ”The time just got away from me. I was taking care of some last-minute details at the booth.”
”And I...” I suppose I could have told him I was hotfooting it after Beth Howell, but I never had a chance. But then, that's because Ralph the security guard came racing across the lobby, caught sight of me, and headed my way.
”You've got to see this. I mean, you really don't have to, but you do. You know what I mean?”
I would have gladly told him I didn't if I could have gotten a word in edgewise. But then, with the way Ralph latched on to my arm and dragged me back across the lobby, I didn't exactly have a chance.
”You were asking about him and all,” Ralph said, his voice high-pitched and panicky, the way I would hope a security guard's never would be. ”And then Linda called. You know, from the laundry room, and I went down there and all, and I'm going to have to call somebody, only Zack, my boss, he's gone for the day and all, and-”
By this time, Ralph had already punched the b.u.t.ton to call the service elevator at the end of a corridor off the lobby. The doors whooshed open, and he dragged me inside. ”You're not going to believe it,” he said. ”I don't believe it. And I've seen it. And I've got to call somebody. Fast. Only I can't think straight; you know what I mean? Because these kinds of things aren't supposed to happen. Not at a nice hotel like this.”
The elevator b.u.mped to a stop, the doors opened, and Ralph, who was still hanging on to me like a limpet on a rock, pulled me down a hallway with green-tiled floors and bare walls. Down here at bas.e.m.e.nt level, there were no windows, and the overhead fluorescents buzzed and flickered. The air was heavy with steam and the scent of bleach.
Ralph veered to the left and into a room lined with metal shelves that were stacked with freshly laundered towels.
”Over there.” One hand to the small of my back, he pushed me forward. ”You're not going to believe it.”
He was right. I didn't believe it. But then, I was having a little trouble believing my own eyes and the fact that Thad Wyant was slumped against the far wall of the linen room in a pool of blood. There was a gorgeous hand-carved cherry-handled awl plunged into his neck.
Chapter Five.
RALPH THE SECURITY GUARD DID NOTHING TO MAKE ME feel secure. Or guarded, for that matter. In fact, Ralph was so upset at finding Thad's body, he crumpled up in a corner and whimpered, and I was the one who called 911. I was also the first person Nevin Riley saw when he walked into the bas.e.m.e.nt hallway, where Ralph (still trembling and crying) and I were waiting.
”Hey.” OK, it doesn't sound like much, but for Nev, this is the equivalent of h.e.l.lo, how are you? and Boy, you're looking fine all rolled into one. To say he's not much of a talker is something of an understatement. ”You find the body?”
I hadn't, and I told Nev as much and pointed him toward Ralph, then got out of the way so he could calm Ralph down and so the crime-scene techs who streamed in behind Nev could get into the linen storage room.
That gave me a chance to pull out my cell, dial Helen's number, and whisper a silent prayer that the banquet wasn't so loud that she couldn't hear her phone ring.
”Josie?” I could tell she'd seen my name pop up on caller ID, and I imagined her giving the phone a quizzical look. ”Where are you, honey? And what's going on? You were here, and now you're not, and they're already serving the entree. And I hate to tell you this, honey, but Thad Wyant isn't here, either.”
”I'll explain later about why I'm not there.” Yes, that was my voice, rushed and breathless. But then, I wasn't exactly at my best. Sure, I'd once found the body of a famous actress at the b.u.t.ton Box, but truth be told, not even previous experience can prepare a person for this sort of thing. Nothing would ever make me immune to the blood, or the horrible thought that a life had been so violently cut short. I gulped, and rather than watch the techs examining Thad's body, I stepped down the hallway and into the cavernous room opposite, where row after row of industrial-size washers and dryers stood silent, waiting for the next morning's delivery of sheets and towels, and a couple of uniformed officers were checking above, below, and inside everything in sight to make sure no one was hiding there. ”I need you to do me a favor, Helen.”
”Of course, dear. Anything. What's that?” This question obviously wasn't meant for me because Helen's voice was suddenly m.u.f.fled, as if she'd turned in a different direction. ”It's Josie,” I heard her say, and I wondered who she was talking to. ”She's got some kind of problem and-”
”Helen!” Sure, I felt dopey standing there in the laundry room and yelling into my phone, but it was the only thing I could think to do to get her attention. ”Helen, this is kind of important.”
”Of course it is. You wouldn't have called during dinner otherwise.”
She was back, and before she could get distracted again, I said all I had to say and said it fast. ”Thad Wyant isn't going to be able to make the dinner tonight.” Talk about understatements! Rather than dwell on it, I kept my focus. ”I need you to rustle up a banquet speaker,” I told Helen. ”I was thinking... I almost said Chase Cadell, then reconsidered. Things were bad enough; there was no use making Chase the center of attention and giving him the opportunity to say ”I told you so.”
I scrambled, furiously thinking about our conference attendees. ”How about Brenda Perry? You know, the woman who makes those really cool polymer-clay b.u.t.tons and-”
The ladylike tsk on the other end of the phone was enough to stop me cold. ”Lovely woman,” Helen said. ”Gifted artist.”
”But...”
”Terrible public speaker. Oh my, yes. You haven't heard her, have you? Mumbles. Stumbles over her words. Simply terrible. When Brenda's speaking in front of a crowd, she's uncomfortable, and so is everyone who's in the room with her.”
I scratched Brenda off what had been a very short list and tried for another idea. No easy thing, considering my gut was twisted in painful knots, my knees felt like they were made out of some of Brenda's uncured polymer clay, and my heart was pounding so hard, I was sure Nev and the other cops across the hall heard it and figured the thumping was coming from the was.h.i.+ng machines. Fighting to steady myself, I waited until the cops were done with their sweep of that side of the bas.e.m.e.nt and leaned against the cool, tiled wall. ”Then how about Bob Johnson? He knows everything there is to know about cloisonne b.u.t.tons.”
”Just saw him at the bar.” Helen's tone of voice told me she was shaking her head sadly when she said this. ”One too many gla.s.ses of Jack Daniel's, I'm afraid. My goodness, and it's so early in the conference for him to misbehave like that. Bob usually waits until the last night to let it all hang out.”
”Then what about-”
”Thad isn't just late. Is that what you're telling me? He's not going to make it at all?” I think the enormity of what I'd been trying to tell her finally sunk in. Poor Helen didn't know the half of it. That's why she didn't sound as worried as she did uncertain. ”Are you sure, Josie? He's your guest of honor, after all. The conference paid for him to fly all the way here from New Mexico. And the conference is covering every single one of his expenses. Hotel and such, I mean. Are you telling me you've lost him?”
I drew in a long breath and let it out slowly even as I switched my phone from one sweaty hand to the other. ”It's complicated.”
”It must be, dear, for a conference not to have its guest of honor at the opening banquet.”
Don't ask me how, but I somehow managed to sound as levelheaded and focused as I wasn't feeling. ”You're right. It's unforgivable, but I'm afraid it's unavoidable. Still, we can't have people sitting there after dinner waiting for a speaker who's never going to show.”
”Does that mean we're not going to see the Geronimo b.u.t.ton tonight?”
Leave it to Helen to get to the heart of the matter. And for the heart of the matter to be all about b.u.t.tons. I can't say I blamed her. Had I come all the way to Chicago from who-knows-where just to get a gander of the famous Geronimo b.u.t.ton, I, too, would wonder what Thad's absence meant.