An Unwanted Guest(65)

She’s already come to that conclusion herself.

‘Thank you, James.’ She looks at him sympathetically as she stands up. ‘We’ll find out who did this.’

She dismisses James and calls in David Paley next.

‘Sergeant,’ David Paley says courteously to her, as he takes the seat across from her and Officer Lachlan.

‘Can I get you anything? Water?’ she asks.

David shakes his head. ‘I’m fine.’

She’s pretty certain he is the same David Paley who was charged and released a few years back for the murder of his wife. She remembers the case; it remains unsolved. She’s not going to ask him – yet.

She has already had his brief account of what happened. Now, after cautioning him, she leads him through all of it again, each painful step, each awful detail.

‘Had you ever met Dana Hart or Candice White before this weekend?’

‘No, never.’

‘Ever heard of them?’

He shakes his head. ‘No.’

‘Ever met anyone else who was here this weekend?’

‘No.’

Finally she tilts her head at him and asks, ‘What do you do for a living?’

‘I’m an attorney.’

So, it is him. ‘Who do you think committed the murders in this hotel?’

He hesitates, and then says, ‘I don’t know.’

She remains silent, waiting for him to continue.

‘The others – Beverly and Henry and Matthew, especially Henry – seemed convinced last night that it was Ian. They were looking at him as if they thought he was going to murder us all.’ He rubs his eyes tiredly before going on. ‘Perhaps it was relief at finally having someone to blame. They desperately needed to know who it was and they thought they did.’ He looks up at her. ‘In my experience, the human mind doesn’t like to deal with uncertainty.’

He tells her, then, what he hadn’t told her before, the way they turned on Ian.

‘Jesus,’ she says, imagining it.

‘They calmed down. I’ll never forget how relieved Ian looked.’

‘You may have saved his life.’

‘I don’t think it would have actually come to that.’ He shrugs and looks up at her cynically. ‘But that’s me, protector and defender of the accused, no matter how heinous the crime.’

Next, Sergeant Sorensen invites Beverly Sullivan into the dining room. Officer Lachlan, who has an excellent bedside manner, sympathetically offers the bereaved woman a glass of water. She accepts it, takes a sip.

‘Mrs Sullivan,’ she begins, having advised her of her rights. ‘May I call you Beverly?’ Beverly nods. ‘I’m so sorry about your husband.’

‘Thank you,’ she says quietly, tears pooling in her eyes. Lachlan delicately pushes a box of tissues towards her. He’d found them in the kitchen.

‘We don’t know the cause of death yet. It looks like he died of natural causes, but there will have to be a postmortem.’ Beverly nods, wiping fiercely at her eyes with a tissue. ‘I know this must be very difficult,’ Sorensen says, ‘but I’m sure you understand that I must speak to everyone who was here this weekend, to try to determine exactly what happened – and why.’

Beverly nods again, blows her nose. ‘Of course.’

She asks Beverly to give her account of what happened over the course of the weekend. When she gets to the part about bringing Bradley’s body into the lobby, Beverly leans forward slightly and says, ‘Something odd happened then.’

‘What do you mean?’ Sorensen asks. She knows what’s coming – she has already heard about this from David.

Beverly looks at her for a moment, and then explains. ‘It was Ian. He was looking at Bradley …’ She hesitates, as if unsure how to describe it.

‘How was he looking at him?’

‘He had this look on his face, but only for a moment. It was there, and then it was gone. But it gave me the creeps. I didn’t trust him after that. I whispered to my husband that I thought Ian was the killer. Right after I’d seen that look on his face.’ She sits back again in her chair. ‘Henry hadn’t seen it. Then, when Lauren told the truth – that she’d been shielding him, that he hadn’t been with her all afternoon …’

‘Go on,’ she says, when Beverly stops.

‘When Lauren said she’d been covering up for him, it all began to make sense. He denied it, of course. He was desperate that we believe him. The situation was – indescribable.’

‘And what did you think?’

‘I know what I saw. I think Ian is the killer, although he was doing a convincing job of denying it. But he’s probably a good actor.’ She leans forward intently and says, ‘All those years he lied to his parents about his little brother. Who could do that? He must be a psychopath.’ She stops, takes a deep breath. ‘I’ve never met a psychopath before. I was terrified of him then. We all were.’

Sorensen interviews Gwen next. She is obviously deeply traumatized by what’s happened, and very distraught over the death of her friend.

When Gwen has given her account of what happened, she asks, ‘So Riley wasn’t murdered? She died of exposure?’

Sorensen says, ‘We won’t know for sure till the team gets here, but that’s what it looks like.’