Thankless in Death (In Death #37)(47)

“Luck’s a potent thing. Skill’s better.”

He pulled up in front of the Grandline.

The doorman hustled forward. “Lieutenant Dallas? They’re waiting for you inside. Mr. Wurtz at the desk.”

The place struck her as very clean and entirely too bright. Busy even at this hour, the lobby throbbed with movement. Business people, she judged, coming in from late transpo, going out to same. Others sat slack-jawed with fatigue mumbling into hand or ear ’links.

A striking man with a face too young for the silver mane of hair—and maybe that was the point—stepped around the long black counter at her approach.

“Lieutenant, Michael Wurtz. I’m the night manager. I have the security feed you requested. The clerk informed me you’d inquired about Jerald Reinhold. No one registered under that name. We have the alert in place.”

“He got a cab out front at just before sixteen hundred today. So I need to see that feed.”

“I have it set up in my office. Just this way. I admit to being unnerved when Rissa told me. I’ve followed the reports on this man all day.”

He opened a door behind the big counter into a small warren of rooms and cubes, then turned into an office.

“People often take advantage of the cab line here,” he continued. “In any case, security made copies of the times you requested.”

“Take the lobby cams first,” Eve told him.

Wurtz used a remote, started the feed on his wall screen.

Eve spotted Reinhold at 8:23.

“That’s him. Ball cap, sunshades, the two suitcases.”

“Oh dear. One moment.” He turned to a comp, operated it manually, and with a very swift touch. “We checked in a guest named Malachi Golde at eight-twenty-eight. He requested a day room. He showed ID, paid cash up front as it says in these notes his credit card had been compromised at the transpo center. Oh dear,” he repeated.

“What?”

“I see here the ID card is invalid—it’s over a year out of date. The clerk didn’t check that or notice.”

“What time did he check out?”

“Officially, he hasn’t. But we did a room check at six P.M., as he’d only paid for a day room. He wasn’t in residence, nor were his things.”

“Let me see the feed for thirty minutes before he caught the cab.”

Wurtz ordered the time to run.

“Speed it up.” She watched, scanned. “Stop it there. In the suit now, no suitcases, just the duffel. He’d been in and out at least once between check-in and this. I’ll need a copy of the full day. Is the room he used occupied?”

“No. We have it open.”

“I want to see it.”

“Right away. It’s very disturbing.” With nervous fingers, Wurtz tugged at his tie. “I wouldn’t like our guests to be made aware he was on premises.”

“I’m not going to make an announcement. Let’s see the room.”

“It’s on twelve.”

He showed them out, gestured toward the elevators. “I’ll take you in, then unless you need me, I’ll go arrange for the disc copies.”

“That works. I’ll also need a list of names. Who checked him in, if anyone helped with his bags, the doorman who got him the cab, anyone else on staff who had direct contact with him.”

“I’ll see you have it.”

He let them into the room on twelve, hurried away.

“Has to cover his ass—or other asses as he wasn’t on,” Eve commented. “The expired ID should’ve been questioned, and he doesn’t look like Mal Golde. Same age, sure, basically the same height maybe, but that’s it. The clerk wasn’t paying attention so he got lucky again. He doesn’t check out so nobody pays attention. Just a day room for cash, his version of a flop.”

She glanced around the streamlined, efficient space. Lots of tile and shiny silver—high-energy colors, its own business center and minikitchen.

She’d have the sweepers go over it, but didn’t expect much.

“Just a place to stay for a few hours while he ran errands, made plans, showered, changed into his new suit. We’ll see him going out with the suitcases again—who notices that in a hotel lobby, but he’s worked out where he’ll try to sell what he didn’t liquidate on Sunday. Takes it out, or pieces of it. Does some selling, does some buying. The suit, maybe, more clothes, the duffel, the bat. Need the duffel for the bat.”

She wandered as she thought it through. “In and out, using this as a temporary home base. Jewelry stores, secondhand stores, pawnshops, selling, trading. Even the suitcases at one point, and probably at least some of his old clothes. Shedding it all now, for profit.

“Then, all done, he just walks out of here, catches a cab, and goes down to kill Lori Nuccio.”

She paced circles in the top-flight business-style suite. “Shopping bags. He’s bound to have come back with shopping bags, so we’ll see where he went at least.”

She rubbed fatigue from her eyes. “Look, I’m going to go ahead and review the discs back at Central, catch a couple hours in the crib.”

“I have a better idea. I had them hold us a room at The Manor, it’s close enough. You can review the discs there and we can both catch a couple of hours in a room that doesn’t include Peabody, McNab, and potentially other cops.”