“He either locates the evidence or she’s hidden it so well no one can find it, and then Beckworth realizes that Sophie’s waking up. He panics and throws her over the balcony!”
There was silence around the seating area for several long seconds as everyone sorted through my theory. Finally Gilley played devil’s advocate. “But how does an old guy with a cane heave a woman over a balcony railing like that? And why would he leave her room so ransacked? And for that matter, why leave the mirrors in plain sight until you came along and said something? Why wouldn’t he have taken them down immediately?”
“And why would he mount them in the hotel at all?” added Gopher. “I mean, if they’re really worth as much as you say they are, wouldn’t he have hung them in areas less public? Anyone could grab one and run out the door with it. A busy place like this? They’d be gone in a flash.”
I sat back down on the couch and frowned. “Fine,” I said. “So my theory has a few holes. But we’re not going to know for sure unless we talk with Beckworth.”
“Do you have his number?” said MacDonald.
“No, but the assistant manager probably does,” I said, pointing over my shoulder to the depressed guy at the front desk.
“Okay,” said MacDonald. “Sit tight and I’ll see what I can find out.”
Chapter 13
Beckworth turned up about ten minutes later, and he and MacDonald moved off to talk privately in his office. The rest of us went to our rooms to watch television and hang out. None of us had yet decided what to do about the other ghosts on our list, but my thinking was that this bust was a bust.
I wanted nothing more to do with the hotel, the murders, or the ghosts. I really just wanted to go home. Gil and Heath knocked on my door, ready to discuss that very topic, and noticed my suitcase on the bed. “Packing?” said Heath.
“Yeah,” I replied. “I’m antsy to get this job over with, and I want to be ready to leave the moment we wrap it up.”
“Me too,” said Gilley.
“Me three,” said Heath with a sigh. “That last encounter with Oruç nearly did me in.”
“Imagine it from my side,” I said, then instantly regretted it, especially when I caught Heath wince. “Hey,” I said, setting my packed suitcase on the floor. “I’m sorry. That was rude.”
There was an uncomfortable silence until Gilley said, “At least you’ve got luggage to pack.”
“Did you hear from the airline?” I asked, thinking it had been a while since Gilley had complained about his lost sweatshirt.
“Not since they told me it had been rerouted back to Boston,” he moaned. “I’m waiting for them to call and let me know when it should arrive here.”
Just then my room phone rang. I looked at Gilley with raised eyebrows. “Maybe that’s them now.”
“It’s me,” said MacDonald when I picked it up.
“Are you through with Beckworth?”
“Not quite,” he said. “Can you come down here and talk with us for a little while?”
Heath and Gilley were both looking at me expectantly. “Sure,” I said. “But I’m bringing the gang with me.”
“That’s fine,” said MacDonald. “Bring them along. We’re in Beckworth’s office.”
I hung up and told Gil and Heath that we were expected in Beckworth’s office.
“What’s that about?” said Gil.
“I don’t have a clue,” I admitted. “But MacDonald sounded serious, so I don’t think we should keep him.”
We took the stairs, crossed the mezzanine, and passed the front desk. The manager on duty wasn’t at his usual post, which made me happy that I didn’t have to explain our business to him as we entered the back hallway leading to Beckworth’s office.
I gave a knock, heard a “Come in,” and we went in.
Beckworth was sitting in his large wing chair looking stately but concerned, and MacDonald was on the sofa with his notebook open, talking on his cell phone. Beckworth nodded for us to be seated, and we sat down and waited to be addressed.
MacDonald clicked off a moment later and looked at Beckworth. “Your alibi checks out, sir. Thank you.”
One of Beckworth’s eyebrows lifted. “Of course it does, Detective. I told you I had nothing to do with the tragedies that have befallen my hotel guests of late.”
MacDonald turned to us. “Mr. Beckworth has provided me with a confirmed alibi during the time of both Sophie’s and Tracy’s murders.”
“Good to know,” said Gilley, flashing Beckworth a smile as though he’d known it all along.
“Mr. Beckworth has also told me that he had absolutely no idea that the mirrors he bought at auction were so valuable.” MacDonald lifted a paper receipt off the coffee table in front of him and handed it to me. “This is the bill of sale for the mirrors,” he said.
I took the receipt and studied it. It appeared Beckworth had purchased all four mirrors for about ten thousand euros. I knew that if I was right and those frames were solid gold, their real value was about a hundred times that, if not more.
When I looked up at MacDonald again, he said, “Mr. Beckworth has also stated that he was never told that the mirrors might be haunted by a woman named Odolina, and that he never gave the order to have them dismantled and/or disposed of.”
My jaw dropped. “But you told Anton earlier that you were going to get rid of them!”
Mr. Beckworth sighed as if he were very tired. “I have had no such discussion with anyone regarding those mirrors,” he said. “Nor would I have ever suggested the idea of getting rid of four beautiful mirrors that I had paid almost fifteen thousand dollars for.”
“Then why would Anton . . . ?” I stopped myself as a dead silence fell upon the room.
“M.J.?” Gil said. “Why would Anton what?”
I stood up and looked at MacDonald. “Ohmigod! It was him all along!” I exclaimed. “I can’t believe I missed it! It was Anton, Detective! Of course it was him!” I then swiveled over to Heath and said, “And you even came up with the initial A when you were tuning in on Sophie’s murder! It all makes sense!”
I looked back to MacDonald, who was staring at me as if I’d grown three heads. “I’m not following,” he said.
“Anton comes from Europe! He even speaks with a French accent! He must have been Faline’s partner! That’s why Sophie was here in San Francisco! She wasn’t following the mirrors; she was following Anton!”
As I looked around at all the wide eyes, I realized I was going to have to explain my theory a little more slowly. “There was no sign of forced entry into Sophie’s room when she was murdered. As a manager, Anton had access to any room in the hotel. He could have easily entered her room when her back was turned. He was also on duty the night Heath and I were first attacked by that serpent and when Tracy was killed, and he would have had access to the security cameras! He could have corrupted the tapes before the police had a chance to review them! And I’ll bet you that whole incident with him getting hit on the head and being taken to the hospital was his way of throwing suspicion off himself! I mean, how else could he explain his absence from the front desk for so long?
“If Anton set up the auction for the mirrors to be sold and taken out of Europe, he could easily have followed them here and waited for a time when he could steal them again. I’m sure he thought he was really lucky when he learned you all were looking for a new night manager!
“And when I talked to him yesterday about wanting to inspect the mirrors, he knew he had to fake going in to talk to Mr. Beckworth in order to get me to back off, and while we were out at dinner, he was the one who dismantled them and removed them from their mountings! The only one he didn’t have easy access to was the one in the ladies’ room because it’d been sealed and padlocked!”
MacDonald’s face went ashen. “Oh, shit,” he said quietly.
“What?” Heath said.
“The padlock,” said MacDonald. “I forgot to relock the door!”
There was a collec
tive gasp, and then everyone was in motion as we all scrambled out the door and ran back down the corridor and over to the ladies’ room. MacDonald got there first, and he pushed the door open and flipped on the light. I knew what’d happened before I ever saw inside based solely on the look on his face.
“Damn it!” he yelled. “Son of a bitch! That son of a bitch!”
The mirror was gone. Behind us I heard Beckworth’s cane tapping the marble floor. He didn’t look happy.
MacDonald had his hands on the sides of his head. “I’m in so much shit!” he was mumbling. “The lieutenant is going to demote me down to traffic cop.”
“Hold on, now; let’s not panic yet,” I said, feeling really bad about asking him to break the seal so that I could get inside to look at the mirror. “Maybe they’re still on the property.”
“What do you mean?” Beckworth demanded.
“Well,” I said reasonably, “they’re heavy, right? And they’re big and bulky, right? It’d be pretty obvious if Anton were to just walk out the door with them. Maybe he’s hidden them until it’s safe to move all of them out.”
“Where would they be?” asked Gil. “I mean, M.J., they could be anywhere, and this is a big hotel.”
I looked at him with conviction and said, “I know exactly where they are, Gil.”
“Where?”
“Room three-twenty-one.”
“What?” MacDonald gasped. “Sophie’s room?”
“Yes,” I said, feeling I was on right on target. Turning to Heath I said, “Do you remember what Carol said to us when she wanted time to think?”
Heath cocked his head to the side. “That she wanted to be alone?”
“No,” I said. “She said to you, ‘keep the staff out of my room.’ ”
“Okay . . . ?”
“The staff! She meant Anton! He’s probably been going in and out of there with the mirrors all day! And where else besides a crime scene would you be certain things weren’t going to be disturbed?”
“That means he’d have to break the seal up there and remove the padlock,” MacDonald told us.
“Come on,” I said, already moving toward the Twilight Room to retrieve my tool belt. “I’m not going back up there unarmed.”
“I’ve got a gun,” said MacDonald.
I looked over my shoulder at him. “Which won’t do us any good against a demon. Nope, Detective, for this we’ll need grenades.”
Ten minutes later we were riding the elevator, and gripped tightly in Heath’s, Gilley’s, and my hands were magnetic spikes. MacDonald was looking at us as if he was a little unsure about our weapons of choice, but Beckworth seemed to take it all in stride.
MacDonald asked him, “Can you believe all this?”
Beckworth replied calmly, “I come from England. You can’t swing a dead cat without hitting a ghost there.”
Gilley stifled a giggle, and I had a new appreciation for the billionaire. The bell at the top of the elevator dinged, and the doors opened slowly. The hallway was now well lit, and I spotted my cell phone at the end of the corridor. Everyone held back to see who would be the first brave soul through the doors, and I finally stepped out and held the spikes up defensively. “I think we’re all right,” I coaxed. “Come on out.”
The boys all stepped out and waited as I trotted down the hall to retrieve my cell. The battery appeared to have died, but otherwise it looked okay. After going back to the group I walked next to MacDonald, Gilley was with Beckworth, and Heath brought up the rear.
He and I had already discussed keeping our sixth sense wide open, just in case. We got to room 321, and MacDonald inspected the seal on the door. “It’s intact. My initials cover the seam.” I squinted and saw that between the door and the seam on the piece of paper sealing the crime scene were the initials A.M.
MacDonald then moved his attention to the padlock. “The lock hasn’t been tampered with either, and I’m the only one with the keys.”
“Okay,” I said. “Can you get us in there?”
“No,” he said.
I looked at him in shock. “Why not? You got us into the restroom downstairs.”
“Yes, and that was obviously a mistake.” He gave me a pointed look that said it would be useless to argue. “There’s no way I’m breaking a sealed crime scene again without a much better reason than a hunch.”
“But—” I began to argue.
“No buts,” MacDonald insisted. “I mean it, M.J.: You’re not going to get me to break this seal, especially when it’s clear to me that it hasn’t been breached. The mirrors aren’t in there. They’re probably not even in this hotel. Anton or whoever could have taken them to the loading dock out back and driven off hours ago.”
I opened my mouth to say something but decided against it. MacDonald had a solid point, and I figured I’d already landed him in enough trouble. “Okay,” I said, giving in.
“This is most distressing,” said Beckworth. “I’m off to call my insurance agency, but without at least one mirror here there’s no way to prove their value. Detective, I’m afraid I’ve little choice but to have a word with your lieutenant.”
MacDonald blanched. “I understand, sir, but the mirrors in question were likely stolen property, which meant you were out the cash either way.”
Beckworth scowled. It was obvious he didn’t like being reminded of that, and he turned his frustration on us. “And I would appreciate it if the three of you packed your things and departed first thing in the morning. I will pay you for the time you’ve spent here so far—I’m assuming you were able to get rid of at least a few of the poltergeists haunting this hotel?”
“If you give us until the morning, sir,” I said, “we’ll clean out all the grounded spirits for you.” Gilley gave me a look as if he didn’t approve, but I figured it was the minimum we could do for things turning out so badly for the old man.
“I’m in,” Heath whispered to me, and I nudged his shoulder and smiled.
“Very well,” said Beckworth. “You’ll have until eight a.m.”
I glanced at my watch. It was currently eight p.m.—we had twelve hours.
“In the meantime, sir,” MacDonald said before Beckworth could shuffle away, “would you mind giving me the address and contact information you have on this Anton character?”
“Of course,” said Beckworth. “Come with me, Detective, and I’ll have the assistant manager look that up for you.”
As MacDonald and Beckworth left to go track down Anton, Gilley rounded on me. “Have you lost all your marbles?”
“It was the right thing to do, Gil.”
Gilley crossed his arms and worked himself into a nice little huff. “The man gave us the perfect exit, M.J., and you practically beg him to hang out here in Hotel Hell for another night of fun and laughs while we run for our lives!”
I leveled a look at my partner—the drama queen. “Gil,” I said, adding a rather exasperated sigh. “We can do this, and it doesn’t mean putting ourselves at further risk. The only thing we’ll have to remember is to stick together in groups, and at all times one of us should have our hands on the grenade caps. If anything even remotely demonish shows up, either Heath or Gopher or I will pull the plug and it’s bombs away.”
Gilley continued to glare at me. “You’re up to something,” he said to me.
I forced myself to laugh heartily, but the truth was that Gil was absolutely right. I knew the mirrors were still here, but I also felt just as strongly that if they weren’t discovered soon, they’d disappear. I couldn’t help but worry what would happen then.
I had little doubt they’d be destroyed and their frames melted down, and what would that mean for Odolina? She was so attached to the mirrors, wanting to get them to her beloved fiancé and all. I felt that she would suffer even more if the mirrors came to a bad end, and there would be little I could do for her once they disappeared.
Odolina had affected me more than I was willing to admit. It was just such a tragic thing that
happened to her, and more than anything I wanted to stall for time and hope that we got lucky and, in ridding the hotel of its otherworldly residents, maybe, just maybe, we’d find the mirrors.
“Come on,” I said, glancing at my watch and wanting to put an end to the argument. “We’ve got eleven hours and fifty minutes to cross as many of these guys over as we can.”
Without another word I walked purposefully toward the elevators and smiled when I heard both Heath and Gil following close behind.
“You’re sure this thing is going to prevent me from being possessed again?” asked Gopher as he stared rather doubtfully at the crystal I’d placed in his palm. We were standing in the lobby, putting on our gear, and Gilley had moved his monitor and much of the other equipment into that area, deciding that he wanted to be in full view of the manager on duty and the security cameras lest anything creepy be haunting the conference rooms.
“Close your eyes,” I said to Gopher.
“Why?”
I sighed. “Because I asked you to. Come on, Gopher, play along for a minute, will ya?”
The producer closed his eyes, but the frown he’d been wearing for the past twenty minutes held firm. “Okay, they’re closed,” he said.
“Great, now tell me how you feel.”
“Nauseous,” he said. “I can’t believe I’m agreeing to go on another one of these busts.”
“You’re the one who wanted to turn us into movie stars,” I reminded him.
It was Gopher’s turn to sigh. “We all know I don’t make great decisions,” he said.
I smiled. “Besides the nausea,” I said, “tell me how the rest of you feels.”
Gopher took a moment to answer, but eventually he said, “I don’t know, kind of heavy. Like I’m weighed down.”
My smile broadened and I plucked the crystal from his palm. Immediately Gopher said, “Whoa!”
“Lemme guess,” I said. “You’re feeling lighter?”
Gopher nodded. “That is freaky!”
I placed the crystal back in his hand and closed his fingers over it. “Now, keep that in your pocket at all times, okay? As long as you’re carrying it your energy will be too dense for Oruç to enter you. He won’t be able to take you over at all.”