“Oh good, you’re back.” Jenna plucked the key from his mouth. “Everyone’s upstairs. I came down to wait for you. I called you before but got a busy signal.” She bent to rub Duke’s ears and then pressed the button on the elevator.
Kane rested the box on the handrail. “Yeah, it was Colt, he found a contusion on the back of Dakota Storm’s head. We need to loo
k for a murder weapon. He thinks a log maybe. The wound has wood chips in it.”
“Oh, out in the snow during a blizzard—wonderful.” Jenna sighed. “We’d have found it if it were close to the chalet. We searched every inch of that place.” She paused a beat. “We’ll need to talk to the person who cleared the footpath this morning. If he found a log on the footpath, he might have tossed it somewhere.” She led the way out of the elevator and then stopped and turned to him. “Did you remember to pack me a bag?”
Kane smiled at her. “Yeah, our bags are in the truck. I figured the food was more important right now. I’ll go back and get them as soon as I’ve dropped this off in the interview room.” He looked her over. “You look dry.”
“I used the hair dryer in my room to dry my jeans. It was Emily’s idea. Leave the bags for now, we can grab them later.” Jenna smiled back. “We’ve made some headway since you left. The manager gave us a spare printer to use, which will make life easier as we’ve gathered information on everyone here. I’m using hard-copy sheets to keep track of everyone as they move throughout the conference. Rio is looking over the guest lists and sorting them into groups. Having a close to a photographic memory is quite an advantage.”
Kane walked into the suite, and warm air from a log fire warmed his cheeks. At once Duke walked over and dropped down in front of it with a long doggy sigh. He whistled softly and Duke looked up at him with a “what now?” expression. “In here, I’ll dry you off and remove your coat and then you can sleep in front of the fire.”
Duke rose slowly and with great reluctance and sad eyes dragged himself into the other room behind him.
“Come here, boy.” Jenna called Duke to the fire in the next room. “I’m all ready for you. See, food and water and a log fire. Doggy heaven, right?” She bent, removed his coat, and rubbed him all over with a towel. “There you go.” She stood and grinned at Kane. “I’m his best friend now.”
Kane chuckled. “Thanks. He started getting worried when I put Pumpkin into a cage and took her to Maggie, he kept looking at me with those sideways glances he gives me if he figures he’s going to the V-E-T or due to take a B-A-T-H.”
“You have to spell in front of your dog?” Rio looked up from his notes. “This is a story you have to tell me one of these days. I’m intrigued.”
“He’s smarter than you think.” Jenna hung the dog’s coat near the fire to dry. “Those two things send him hiding under the bed is all. It’s a real long story.”
The manager had reorganized one of the rooms to hold interviews, the other as a headquarters for the team. Tables had been pushed together to make a central workspace, and two fridges had been set against one wall beside a counter with a microwave. Kane placed the heavy box on the counter and smiled at Jenna. I picked up one of the coffee makers from your office and coffee. I figured we could get the fixings here.”
“Yeah, there’s cream and milk in the fridge and a coffee machine with those pod things in the other room as well.” Jenna looked over at Wolfe, Emily, and Rio scanning the lists of guests they’d gathered earlier. “Everyone is famished. I’ve ordered a ton of sandwiches for now, and they should be here soon. We’ll eat in one of the restaurants later. Rio is staying over for a few days to work on the case. His brother and sister will be fine with the housekeeper.”
“Yeah, his brother called me. He packed a bag for him and I collected it on my way back here.” Kane unpacked the box. “The snowplow will be doing a run so the bus can get back to town, and Webber is planning on following it up the mountain, so Wolfe will be able to leave with him around six. All the roadblocks are up. Rowley is supervising.”
“You’ve been busy.” Jenna went to the house phone. “If you’ll bring Wolfe up to date, I’ll call the manager and have him arrange for the person who cleared the path to come up so we can talk to him. I’ll have Agnes come by as well.”
After bringing the others up to date, Kane peered at the list of people staying at the resort. Rio had organized it in record time, and they all gathered around as he explained his theory.
“I correlated all the data we gathered from the guests and sent it to Bobby Kalo, mainly so I had a clear overall picture of who was where and when.” Rio glanced up. “I’ve sent a copy of the final groups to your iPads. It makes it easier to remove potential suspects in one block at a time, leaving us with a few potential suspects rather than hundreds. We’ll need more personal data from the, let’s say, main players to make sure we include any potential suspects from one of the other groups. I’m going to assign each person a group letter as they arrive into the next session after lunch. It will be written on their toe tag as well.” He sighed. “At this point, the majority of guests believe they are involved in a mystery game and are more than willing to go along with anything we suggest. I’ve no idea where the rumor came from but it’s spreading like wildfire. The fact we locked the place down and they believe Miss Storm is missing is apparently part of the mystery they’re all trying to solve.”
Understanding but finding everything surreal, Kane nodded. “So, like, Mr. Smith was in the lobby with the candlestick, you mean?”
“Yeah.” Jenna turned at a knock at the door. “That will be room service. After we’ve eaten, I’ll be leaving you to interview Agnes and the path-cleaning guy, Mr. Sparks. The rest of us will be dividing the guests into their groups at the next session.”
Kane stared after her. “I’d like to know more about these groups.”
“Sure, Rio will bring you up to speed while we eat.” Jenna opened the door to a man pushing a cart.
Inhaling the smell of freshly brewed coffee and food, Kane smiled. His stomach rumbled in appreciation. He looked at Rio. “Okay, feed me the information.”
Ten
Zac Rio waited for everyone to collect sandwiches and coffee. It had been a long exhausting morning without a break and everyone was running on adrenalin. He handed out the sheets he’d compiled with the assistance of Bobby Kalo and laid his copies on the table. He stood and indicated to the lists of people. “Okay, I’ve worked with Kalo to break the guests into groups and graded their possibility of being involved in the murder of Miss Storm. Group A or people with alibies, are guests who arrived together and share rooms. This luckily comprises over ninety-five percent of the guests. It seems that author organizations around the country arranged for members to come to the convention. When I compiled the list, using the data gathered as the guests entered each hall, we were able to eliminate everyone who had a person to confirm their whereabouts at the time of Miss Storm’s death.”
“So, everyone with a rock-solid alibi is in Group A?” Kane looked at him over the rim of his cup. “How many slipped through the gap?”
Lifting his attention to Kane, Rio cleared his throat. “Would you believe only six I’d consider probable. These people aren’t affiliated with organizations and have their own rooms at the lodge or are out in one of the chalets. They are Group D, for potentially dangerous. As the elevators have CCTV coverage on each floor, like the main entrance, we’ll need to view the footage and see if anyone left the lodge during the time Miss Storm died, which we’re assuming is between the time she left the lodge and when Agnes noticed her shoe on the pond, so from midnight until six.”
“From preliminary findings”—Wolfe leaned forward—“I figure she was killed close to the time she returned to her chalet. She didn’t enter her room, so for now assume she died between twelve and two. She must have been in the water for some hours to be frozen.”
Rio nodded. “Once we’ve viewed the footage, we’ll be able to add or subtract people from Group D.”
“There’s a loophole in Group D.” Jenna peered at a map of the complex. “Anyone who can’t account for their movements and has a room out of the direct line of the CCTV cameras could have used the fire stairs. There’s a set of steps at each end of the building. They’d be easily accessed from either end of the hallways. One exits in the lobby, the other to the delivery bay outside. So anyone inside the building would more likely use the lobby exit and entrance if they didn’t want to take the elevator.” She pointed to her map. “See, the CCTV cameras are clearly marked, and my copy came from the information folder given to everyone attending the conference. Perfect for anyone trying to elude detection. Also, those out in cabins could have easily murdered her without anyone seeing them. You’ll need to mark them on the list as staying in the lodge or in a chalet.” She looked at Rio. “Send all the names on the D list to Bobby Kalo to do a background check for us. The blizzard will slow down everything we try to do online.” She nodded approvingly. “What about the staff?”