Kee Patterbee - Hannah Starvling 02 - The Gourmet Who Kept Diamonds in the Kitchen (12 page)

The possibility of any association disturbed Hannah. She was thankful that there could be another possibility. Dahlia was also the name of a
plant that originated in Mexico, Central America, and in the northern reaches of South America. From this plant came a flower. Its tuberous base yielded a mocha flavored extract used in drinks. She remembered reading about it in culinary school. Was it possible that Elias became involved in some kind of food exchange? Dahlias for diamonds? It seemed almost as improbable as the former association with an unsolved murder from the 1940s.

Between the
questions storming in her mind and the intrigue, Hannah was in an agitated state. She was glad to reach the room. Gran attempted to look casual as they approached the room. The single band of yellow crime scene tape gave her reason to smile. She and Gran glanced around and paused for a second. Hearing nothing, Hannah opened the bag that the man gave her earlier and plugged it into the security lock card reader. Within a second, the door light clicked from red to green.
No issues
, she thought to herself, relieved. Gran pulled out a tissue from her bag and opened the door. She winked as each slid under the tape. Once inside, she closed the door with care.

Turning toward the room, Gran and Hannah paused
to take in the area. The room was disheveled. The luggage was open and lying on the bed. The lampshade sat askew. The television remote lay on the floor. Gran shook her head.

“
The police think this was an accident?”

Hannah shrugged.
“Rumor has it.”

“
That young man who told you…”

Hannah focused on the
task at hand while responding, “Ducky.”

“
Yeah, him. Could he have misheard or misread the situation?”

Hannah glanced over at Gran.
“Does he strike you as someone who would mishear… or misread… anything?”

Thinking it over, Gran shook
her head. “I suppose not. Of course, they could just be incompetent and lazy. Easier to come up with an excuse than actually do investigative work. I’ve seen it before.”

Hannah admitted to herself that she too had witness
ed incompetency in the local police force. Her previous encounters with the local law enforcement had not gone well. This time, she hoped to bypass them as much as possible.

Scanning the room again, Gran put her hands on her hips and furrowed her brow.

“By their theory, this would have to be Elias and Janine’s doing.”

Hannah took the area in.
“I can’t speak for Janine, but this is not Elias’ doing. He’s fastidious. I doubt he could stay with Janine were she this messy.”

Her
nose moving side to side, Hannah’s mind pieced through every part of the room. Her eye caught sight of something in the carpet, then another, followed by another. She leaned down to study the spots. Seeing her, Gran came up beside her to study them as well.

“
Blood?” Gran asked.

Hannah nodded.
“I think so, but very little.”

“
The police had to find this.”

“
One would think, but if it were the intruder’s, then the case could be over with before it got started. Assuming that at some point the individual acquired a criminal record of some nature and DNA played into that case.” Hannah rose and contemplated the tiny, almost unperceivable specks. She concluded that if this was blood and it belonged to Elias, then his struggle with said intruder was one sided. While not a large man, the truffle-loving chef was still big enough to cause some reciprocal damage were he to fight back. From what Hannah knew of the man from back in their college days, Elias was more than capable of handling his own in a fight. So in her mind, there were three probable possibilities. First, the attacker had experience in taking down someone. Second, the attacker was much larger than Elias was. Last, there was more than one attacker.

Making her way over to the balcony, Hannah stood away from the edge. She did not want anyone to see her inside the room. Squatting down, she could make out black
scuffmarks along the vertical balcony braces. She called Gran over to study them. Hannah closed her eyes to go back to the moment when she saw Elias lying on the car. “Shoes. Shoes. What kind of shoes?” she asked herself aloud. “Polished, black casual shoes. He was in his jeans. Black jacket. Aqua blue pull on t-shirt. Black belt.”

Opening her eyes, she worked the scene through.

Pointing, Hannah explained, “The blood droplets spacing is odd, perpendicular to the door. Drops one and two are close together. The third is at a distance from the other two, as if it were flung.”

Gran tugged at her ear as her eyes darted from the first two drops to the third. The corner of her mouth went up and she said,
“I think I know.” She took a stance behind the darkened spots. Looking to Hannah, she motioned with her fist toward her own nose, as if someone were hitting her. She pointed down to the two drops. “When whoever hit him did so, they busted his lip. When they pulled back, two small drops…” She slung her hand out to gesture. “When he turned his head from the punch, a trickle went flying.” She pointed to the third, more distant spot. “And it’s not the nose, because there would have been more blood.”

Hannah grinned.
“Still got it, Gumshoe Gal.”

Gran gave a
big smile. “You know what that means, don’t you?”

“
The attack was sudden and unexpected. Either he didn’t see them and was caught off guard, or he didn’t know it was coming.”

“
Ooh,” Gran exclaimed, “you did listen to me.”

“
Every word.” Hannah returned to the investigation. “Considering it all, if it were two attackers, they heaved Elias over.”

Gran disagreed.
“Facedown? How often does that happen? Too much droopage, with arms and legs dangling. It’d be easier to turn him over, don’t you think?”

“
True, but the scuffmarks suggested otherwise. Someone pushed him headlong. If he fell backwards, there would have been no marks.”

Gran examined the marks on the railing once again.
“True enough. One person then, or that’s what the evidence suggests.”

Turning back to the room, Hannah rummaged through an open suitcase. She found the typical items for a trip. Toothbrush and paste. A small vial of
pills recently filled.
Trazodone
, she measured, mouthing the words on the label.
Antidepressant
. Janine had mentioned them, but it was not until this moment that it hit her.

Hannah re-evaluated the room with
all new information in hand. She ran through the possibilities. Was this a suicide attempt? Could the state of the room come from a man so depressed that he trashed his room before throwing himself over the railing? If so, what could have set him off? Or could he have been trying to mask the attempt so his wife could get the insurance? To make it look as if he interrupted a robbery in progress, and then ran headlong over the railing? She shuddered at the thought.

Staring at the bottle, Hannah weighed the implication. She then again shook her head to clear it. Questions raced through her mind. She did not consider it possible of
Elias. Still, many years had passed since they last encountered each other. On the outside, he was successful. Rich. Talented. Sought after. Praised. He maintained a solid life, a good wife, and soon, a child. Inside, she had no idea.

After a moment, Hannah realized that
everything was clouding her mind. She needed to take it all in and sort it out later. Still, she went on about the business of mentally cataloging the room, watching as Gran did the same. If she were lucky, between her grandmother and her, a clue might be yet found. Scuffling around, she located the charger to a laptop underneath the bedding that lay piled on the floor.
Who took it? Police or attacker
, she wondered when she could not locate the device itself.

Opening the closet door,
Gran found Elias’ bag of specialty tools. A leather knife roll of his favorite cooking utensils. Examining it, Hannah smiled as she recognized the container. His name imprinted on the upper left corner of the outside, she gave it to him when they dated. The knives were a different matter. All handcrafted, they were well maintained. Such a set of knives would have cost thousands upon thousands of dollars. Holding them up for Gran to replace, she said, “If this was a robbery, then the thieves were idiots.”

The assessment did not feel right to the sleuth. Scanning the room over, she knew one thing to be missing. The special refrigeration compartment that
Elias used to transport the truffles was not present. The police would have taken pictures of it, but not likely taken it. In all probability, they would have no idea what it was for to begin with.
You serve truffles, fresh
, she told herself.
You harvest and eat them as soon as possible
. She once again scanned the room. “But if you are bringing them along, you have to take different measures,” she added half aloud.

Overhearing Hannah, Gran inquired what she was going on
about. Her granddaughter did not answer, as she remained lost in her own thoughts. Hannah recalled her last conversation with her friend.

“
Remember where I keep my goods,” Elias told her.

Glancing down at the papers scattered on the floor, Hannah began sifting through them. At first, she found nothing of value. The
wastebasket revealed some general receipts for coffee and various snacks from the coffee shop across the way. Hotel check-in papers. A religious flyer. A discarded itinerary. At first, she wondered why the police did not take these items.
For that matter, why didn’t they take his medications,
she thought? Considering everything, she again weighed the possibilities. This could be a matter of small town police work. It was not that they did not do their job. It was that they never encounter such happenings, or at the least, rarely. The other possibility was that the local police were less than on the up and up.
There could be something big going on and they got paid to look the other way
, she considered. Shaking the idea out of her head, Hannah filed it away for later consideration. At present, she did not have time to deal with such matters. Her focus was on the present line of thinking, which brought her back to the missing laptop. If the attacker took it, this whole event would point to a robbery gone wrong. But the local authorities, if Ducky were to be trusted, suspected an accident. This again led her back to questioning the local authorities. Hannah paused to rub her temples. She was beginning to think in circles and it was getting her nowhere. Gran interrupted her thoughts as she sat on the bed beside her.

“
So what do we know so far?” Before Hannah answered, Gran began a list of her own. “One, if this were a suicide attempt, he had a breakdown somewhere between when Janine and he exited the room and when he went back up. I’d rule that as improbable, wouldn’t you agree?”

Hannah agreed, happy to let the elder snoop dole things
out. It gave her a new perspective, which at the moment she needed.

“
Two, even if that’s what happened, which again, just didn’t happen, he would have had to take a running start from…” Gran pointed to the middle of the room, “right there, which means there was no pause, no hesitation.”

Again, Hannah agreed. She tried to envision everything Gran laid out, to play it through in her mind. She saw Elias enter in a rage. He tossed things about, open
ed the glass door to the balcony, and backed up. Then he ran full force, slinging himself over the rail.

“
The blood spatter is minimal. I doubt it came from the nose. Probably a cut, like on the lip. Unless he cut himself somehow, someone punched him. The face is the logical choice. Go for broke.”

Hannah interceded on Gran
’s layout.

“
No hesitation would mean he was adamant. When I talked to him earlier in the week, everything was fine. From what Janine and her father described, he was nervous and cautious, but not agitated. I’m pretty sure we can agree that there was someone here or came in, they scuffled, and Elias went sailing.” Hannah rolled her tongue before she glanced at Gran. “Wexler’s big enough, but did you notice his hands.”

“
Big and curled.”

“
I’m thinking arthritis from football injuries.”

“
Meaning?”

“
Meaning he didn’t seem to be nursing an injured hand. The punch could have been light, but it was strong enough to draw blood.” Hannah shook her head. “I don’t know, too much to consider right now. Let’s finish this and mull it over later.” She leaned down and again searched through the trash. Looking in the can itself, she saw a business card stuck to one side. Retrieving it, she found it was for a local storage facility.  She held it so that both Gran and she could see. ‘Hannibal and Oventon Storage,’ the card read. It listed three things that caught Hannah’s eye. Security. Refrigerated storage available. And the address.
2433 Cook’s Place Rd
. She grinned. “Clever, Elias.” She pulled out her cell phone and did a quick address search. Waiting, she flipped the card over and over, pondering. When the information came up, she said, “It’s about twelve miles outside of Gresham.”