A Dead Sister (Jessica Huntington Desert Cities Mystery) Read online

  Art and Dick chatted with each other as they all walked to the Salted Pig. A crowd was already gathering, even though they arrived before noon. A self-proclaimed “gastropub,” the place served a range of items. That included the proverbial pub fare, burgers and fries, but with a twist. Most everything was made in house, including the brioche buns and ketchup served with the burgers. Even the coffee ice cream and the time-honored favorite of police officers everywhere—donuts—were handmade.

  Not surprising, for a place that had “pig” in its name, bacon and other “pig parts” figured prominently on the menu. The two guys insisted she try the bacon fat popcorn seasoned with maple sugar and sea salt they had ordered as an appetizer. Dick’s burger was made of ground pork, with apple wood smoked bacon, and served with “filthy fries”: a huge pile of fries covered with beer cheese, herbs and roasted garlic. Slab bacon adorned Art’s burger, along with enoki mushrooms and Gouda, topped off with a fried egg and, on the side, a bucket of traditional fries.

  Jessica couldn’t handle a burger and fries, even though she felt much better after a few sips of diet Coke. There were plenty of alternatives on the menu, and she settled for a small plate of Brussels sprouts roasted with a kimchee spice, and a salad featuring labneh, tomato, basil seed and a verbena vinaigrette. The salad was a new take on her perennial favorite, the caprese salad.

  “What is it with women and salads?” Art asked as they set her plate down in front of her. “Do you really like that, or is it some dieting thing, or what?”

  Dick Tatum butted in before Jessica could respond. She wasn’t sure what to say anyway. She could not get a read on this guy. “Hey, Art, it’s got to be a lot more healthy than burgers and fries, probably why they outlive us men.”

  “Yeah, maybe so, but what’s the point if you have to pass up all the good stuff in life anyway?” He dipped a couple of fries in ketchup and stuffed them into his mouth. “They serve beer here, too. Their microbrews are great. Too bad we’re all on the clock. What about beer, Jessica, is that also on your list of unhealthy foods?”

  “I drink beer, but if I have a choice I usually prefer wine. I’m not sure why, maybe the same reason I like salads. It just seems lighter, somehow.” Jessica pushed the food around on her plate. She was preoccupied by that interview with Chester Davis, and this conversation was beginning to get under her skin. Staring intently at her fork, she willed herself not to poke the detective with it. Staying on his good side was probably the right thing to do. Putting her fork down, Jessica thought, “I wonder what his good side looks like.”

  “So, are you two going to fill me in on what this guy said, or what?” Art asked, breaking an uneasy silence that had settled on them.

  “Sure, Art. Jessica, why don’t you start, and I’ll jump in if I have anything to add? I’ve told him some of this already. It’ll probably be better if you do it, since you won’t be tempted to skip over anything.”

  “Okay, it’ll help me to recap, too. Then, maybe, we can talk about where we go from here. What we learned from Chester Davis is that he saw someone fitting Kelly Fontana’s description run down in the parking lot outside the Agua Caliente hotel and spa. He says he was 20 at the time. That works out, given his date of birth. Kelly was killed in January, 1999, the same year he turned twenty-one.”

  “Hang on a minute. Are you telling me that guy is only thirty-something?” Art Greenwald looked dumbfounded.

  “Hey, Art, he’s lucky to be alive,” Dick interjected. “He’s been a meth addict for well over a decade, and it shows.”

  “That’s for sure. I didn’t mean to interrupt, Jessica. Go on.” At first, she thought he was close to an apology for butting in. Then, with that order to “go on,” he slipped back into il comandante mode. Jessica moved ahead, hoping to get this over quickly.

  “Chet says he had made a delivery to someone in the hotel. He claims it was a little weed and a few tabs of ecstasy, but who knows. At the time he was a runner for a group of small-time dealers operating out of a house not too far away in North Palm Springs. Nothing big, a group of users like him, trying to make enough to support their own habit by selling to locals and tourists.” Jessica paused a moment, took a sip of her diet Coke and stole a glance at Dick Tatum. He gave her a little nod to go on.

  “He had just come out of the hotel and was about to get on a bike stashed near a back exit of the hotel. There was some kind of construction or remodeling going on. The place has gone through a lot of redoes over the years, but there might be some way to corroborate his story if there was some sort of makeover going on then. Anyway, a line of dumpsters was sitting out there. His bike was leaning against one of them, hidden away so nobody would steal it while he was inside. Before getting back on the bike, he ducks behind the dumpster. He said it was to count his money, but with a little prodding, he admitted he was planning to get high before riding back to the place where he was living at the time. Apparently, when he had made his delivery to the hotel room, there were half a dozen young guys partying and already trashed. According to Chet, booze, joints and pills were all over the place. While they were pulling money out of their pockets and putting it in a big pile to pay for his delivery, Chet helped himself to some of what was lying around.” Jessica paused again, the story getting harder to tell. She took a deep breath and went on.

  “So now he’s in the parking lot with the drugs he skimmed and a wad of cash, and decides he’s going to get high. He’s about to light up when he hears the back door open and somebody running. That makes him nervous. Maybe someone from the party is coming to get the stuff he took, so he stoops down, hoping he’s well-hidden. He peeks through a crack between two of the dumpsters. What he sees is a woman running, a young woman about his age. She looks as wasted as those guys he had just seen, so at first he thinks she’s freaking out because she’s so stoned. Or maybe she’s had a fight with her boyfriend or something like that. The kind of situations he runs into when he makes deliveries. He’s about to light a joint when he hears the door open again. The girl takes off faster as two men come into view, chasing her. They have jackets so he figures maybe it’s hotel staff chasing a guest or employee who’s done something wrong. She’s running flat out across part of the parking lot that wasn’t taken up back then by the old casino building adjacent to the hotel. Then all of a sudden, he sees car lights come on, like somebody was waiting for her in a getaway car. The car accelerated and instead of coming to her rescue went straight for her. She tried to get out of the way, but never had a chance. The car hit her almost head on.” Jessica’s eyes met those of the detectives, filled with misery and sadness as she continued.

  “When the car hit her, she flew up in the air, hit the windshield and landed on the curb near the bushes. Chester said there was a terrible sound when she landed on the ground, like something cracking.” Tears were welling up in her eyes, and her throat was choking off her voice.

  “Jessica, that’s enough. I can handle it from here. Let me tell Art the rest.” He produced a tissue, as he had done for Chester Davis earlier, and handed it to Jessica.

  “At that point, Chet says he’s too scared to move so he keeps watching. The two guys who were chasing her stopped and just stood there until the driver rolls down the window. He’s pissed, speaking loud enough for Chet to hear some of it. Something like ‘What the fuck happened?’ and ‘Where the fuck is the doc?’ He couldn’t hear their answers because they had their backs to him. They had moved closer to the car window and were speaking more quietly. It’s pretty dark in the parking lot, but there was some light from lamp posts. The two men talking to the driver step back, and Chet sees the driver pounding on the steering wheel and pointing. One of them walks over to the young woman lying on the ground, takes a look, and then goes back to the driver. There’s a couple more seconds of back and forth, then those two take off again. They head back into the hotel through the same door they had exited. That time of night, they probably would have needed a key card or something to get ba
ck in, but Chet’s not sure about that.” Jessica could tell this was getting to him, too. He paused for a sip of water. Now that the restaurant was jammed with people having lunch, it was getting stuffy. Dick rubbed the side of his head, as if he had a headache.

  “Chet says he wanted to leave. He says he was frozen in place, like he was stuck to the dumpster he’s leaning against. He’s sure if he moves they’ll spot him. Anyway, a few more minutes go by with the car sitting there, the engine running. Then the two men come back out the door again. This time, they’re lugging a third guy between them...and they’re moving quick, saying something like ‘the doc’s hurt,’ and ‘that bitch got him.’ The driver’s screaming, telling them to ‘put him in the goddam car,’ so they shove him into the back seat. They’re starting to get in, too, when the driver says, ‘what the fuck are you doing? Get back in there and clean that place up. I want everything out of there, everything, got it?’ So the two guys slam the car door and the driver takes off. They go back into the hotel and Chet just sits there, waiting. He’s not sure how long, a half hour—maybe longer. Finally, he gets up the nerve to move, and he goes to take a look at the girl, just in case she’s not dead.” He paused and looked at Jessica, rubbing his temple again.

  “It was clear she was dead. Her eyes were open, but she wasn’t moving, and he says nobody could live with their head the way it was on her body.” Jessica stared straight ahead, wanting to weep, but not here. Not in front of these men she barely knew. It was bad enough to have to share such a personal tragedy with strangers. She was not going to let them see her cry.

  Art had been quiet the whole time, taking a few notes. He looked at them both before speaking in a low, steady voice. “Well, that last part seems consistent with the coroner’s report. If it’s any consolation, the report says her death was quick. She died the moment she hit that curb. Can I ask you a couple questions before we call it a day?”

  “I’m okay with that. How about you Jessica?” Dick Tatum sat up, pushing the remnants of his dessert away. Jessica wished their waiter would come back and clear the table. In the mob scene still underway, that wasn’t likely. She would probably have to stand up and shout over the noise of the crowd to get their check.

  “No problem, Art. What do you want to know?”

  “Well, first off, did he give you any details about the car?”

  “Just that it was a big, dark colored sedan,” Dick said. “Four-door, obviously. To Chet it was ‘new and pricey’ but he didn’t know or can’t remember more about a make or model. No license plate numbers or anything like that.”

  “Okay, so how about the men involved. Did he get a look at any of them? Any sort of description, anything distinctive about the way they looked or sounded like height, weight, an accent—anything?”

  Jessica replied first, “He says it was pretty dark. Like I said, he did notice the men that came out of the hotel were in jackets or sport coats, like hotel staff might wear. Not a uniform like a waiter or croupier, nothing like that. Sounded more like what hotel security or a manager might wear. He thought the two men chasing Kelly were...” Jessica paused ever so briefly, realizing that they were all now in tacit agreement that it was Kelly Fontana they were talking about...“he said they were big guys. Of course, you’ve seen Mr. Davis; a lot of men could seem big compared to him. But he said they were practically running when they came out of the hotel with the doc. That tells me they probably were pretty big to be able to run with a couple hundred pounds hoisted between them. It sounds like the doc wasn’t doing much to help, so they were hauling dead weight. Tell me if I’m wrong, Dick, but during one rendition of the story, Chet said the doc was a lot taller than the other two men. When they put him in the back seat, they had to duck him down so he wouldn’t bump his head.”

  “Yeah, that’s right.” Dick said confirming what she said.

  Jessica picked up where she left off. “So let’s say the two guys who chased Kelly are average or a little above average in height, then that would make the doc a standout in the height department. It sounds like he was injured pretty badly, so maybe we can check ER and hospital admission records to see if anyone remembers an unusually tall man being admitted that night. That was a long time ago, so it’s not likely...” Jessica’s voice trailed off as an image of Kelly, the last time she saw her alive, flashed in front of her. What kind of a mess was she in that could have ended in murder?

  “Who knows what sort of records might still be around about ER visits that night, or who might still be around who could remember what happened that long ago. Oh, there is one other thing, Art. Chet says the driver of the car had long, dark hair. In one version of his story, Chet says one of the guys referred to the driver by name, sort of, calling him mister “P” or mister “B”, most likely an initial of some kind. If you remember, Dick, Chet also said there was something familiar about the driver, maybe someone he’d seen before. Chet was a pretty regular delivery man at the casino back then, so maybe the driver was a regular at the casino or the hotel too. We don’t have much to go on but somebody might remember a regular with long hair who went by the name of Mister P or Mister B or a similar moniker. Casinos make a point of cultivating regulars. They do what they can to make their stay memorable, so maybe that will make this guy more memorable. We need to talk to some employees who worked the desk back then, a manager or a concierge, perhaps. I suppose it’s possible the driver and the men chasing Kelly were affiliated in some way with the hotel. Chet says when he went to see if Kelly was still alive, he recognized her. He had seen her at the hotel before. He didn’t know her by name, but he knew that hair and those eyes. He identified Kelly from a photo I brought with me.”

  Jessica looked up and was surprised at both men’s expressions. Without realizing it, she had made an impression on them.

  “She’s not just a pretty face, is she Arty?”

  “No, she is not, Dicky. That was a concise and perceptive summary of what we have to go on at this point. And using the photo to get a positive I.D. was a great idea, Jessica. I’ve done a quick review of the old file. Ms. Fontana wasn’t found until early the next morning. The police talked to whoever was on duty at the hotel that morning and went back later to speak to staff on duty the night before. One of the grounds keepers found her as he was starting his shift. The coroner said she hadn’t been dead long, a few hours at the most. She was dressed in the hotel uniform that waitress and room service staff wear, but that wasn’t her regular job, she was officially on the books as a spa attendant.”

  “Did anybody say anything about why she was dressed like that?”

  “The investigators spoke to a couple coworkers who said she wasn’t scheduled to work anywhere that night. They claimed not to know why she was there. Her supervisor at the spa said she didn’t know what she was doing there, either. Your friend had missed her two previous scheduled shifts at the spa, and hadn’t been to work for several days, since she was off for a couple days before that. She said that was a bit unusual for Kelly Fontana, who was a pretty good worker, but a lot of kids her age go AWOL for a few days, so she didn’t make too much of it. It’s possible she was wearing that other uniform because she was picking up extra shifts or filling in for someone, according to her supervisor. If she was covering for a coworker, it should have been put on the schedule, but it didn’t always happen that way.” Detective Greenwald flipped through his copy of the file that he had brought with him, scanning the pages before continuing.

  “Interviews with the hotel staff didn’t turn up anything about the accident, nobody heard or saw anything. That’s entirely possible, because that set of stairs leads directly outside, so they could have come and gone without being seen. Staff didn’t use that exit much. It was routinely locked by 10:00, so if Chester Davis entered the building that way without a key card, it must have been before ten.” Jessica was adding to the notes she had taken during the interview with Chester Davis.

  “Chet said he used that entrance and exit
for the very reason you indicated, that he didn’t want to be seen. He wouldn’t have had a key card, so it must have been before ten, when he arrived, anyway. I can’t believe it was that easy to come and go like that. Wouldn’t those areas have been monitored by surveillance cameras? Casinos are super vigilant about cameras on the casino floor...but I guess that doesn’t extend to the places where guests eat and sleep, like the hotel. The casino is across the street now, but back then, it was so close you’d think that whole area would have been monitored.”

  “I didn’t see anything in the case file, but I haven’t pored over it. I presume that if something like video was available the original investigators would have taken a look. I don’t know how long they keep film on file. It’s been almost 15 years, so I doubt we’d be able to get much now anyway. It would be nice if they had a film clip or big, glossy photos of those culprits chasing your friend into the parking lot, but that doesn’t seem likely.”

  “Art, it seems to me you have done a pretty good job looking through the file. It’s too bad so much time has elapsed. If Chester Davis had only come forward, maybe the investigation would have gone in a different direction. Certainly, having sort of a name and sort of a description of a couple characters like the long-haired Mr. P or Mr. B and his inordinately tall companion might have triggered recognition from employees at the hotel or casino back then. Incorporating that information into an appeal to the public might have made a difference, too. What on earth is wrong with someone like Chester Davis?”