“I don’t think we’re quite at that stage yet,” I said. “And besides, Chase is on top of it.”
“Still,” said the big black cat. “Drive-by shootings are bad for tourism, Max.”
“Bad for your health as well,” said Harriet.
But then I guess that was a given, as being shot at is not conducive to living a long and healthy life. If the bullets don’t kill you, the stress just might. We had passed into the room where the murder had taken place, and this time I vowed to go over every possible clue that I could find. The crime scene people had come and gone, and apart from the lone police officer posted at the door, we were the only ones in there. I checked the balcony, and saw that the window was firmly shut from the inside. So if the killer had left that way, he would have had to be Houdini and make a miraculous escape. There was no other exit except the door, where Carlos and Mindy had been, hearing strange gurgles and noises coming from inside the room.
As I thought about this, Norm came buzzing up to me.
“Oh, there you are,” he said. “I’ve been looking for you guys.”
“So?” I asked. “Any clues yet?”
“Well, I talked to Bill, who’s a good friend of mine. He’s a cockroach,” he added for good measure. “He says that the prince dropped a piece of buttered toast on the carpet, and also a piece of pork sausage.”
“Interesting,” I said, though I didn’t immediately see the significance. “Did he drop this after he was shot or before?”
“Unfortunately, Bill didn’t pay a lot of attention to the prince. He’s been having trouble with his wife, you see.”
I got a feeling he was eager to get into the trouble in great detail, as it was a topic that obviously interested him, and so I held up my paw. “Just tell me what he did see,” I suggested.
Norm seemed disappointed that he wouldn’t be allowed to pour the details of his friend’s marital life into my ear, but I wasn’t in the mood to listen to any more stories about marriage trouble. “No, he didn’t see a thing.”
“No killer? No intruders?”
“Nothing,” said Norm. “But like I said, he wasn’t paying attention to what was going on around him. He’s in his own cocoon, you see.” He sighed. “A little bit like me, in fact.”
I glanced around the room, and saw the chalk outline near the door. So was it possible that the prince had let his killer in and had then immediately been shot? What surprised me was that the prince had been alone in his room. No entourage. No bodyguards. No security at all. Not even a servant anywhere in sight. Almost as if he had been traveling incognito.
Heading into the bathroom, I saw that Prince Abdullah had made the effort to hang up his wet towels, something not all hotel guests bother with. It told us something about the kind of man he had been. Neat and tidy and organized. And as I glanced around, I suddenly saw that a message seemed to have been written on the mirror. It was hard to make out, and the only reason I saw it was because I was on the floor and looking up at the mirror from an oblique angle. It wouldn’t surprise me if Abe’s people had completely missed it.
“What does it say, Max?” asked Dooley.
“I’m not sure,” I said, trying to make out what it said. “Looks like… ‘You’ll pay for this?’ Something like that?”
“Pay for what? For his room?”
I smiled. “Hotel management isn’t in the habit of writing threatening notes on their guests’ mirrors in case they don’t pay. No, this must have been left by someone threatening the prince.” Though of course it could have been left before the prince had arrived. But since hotel rooms are usually cleaned when a guest leaves, that wasn’t very plausible. In which case the prince had been given this warning. A warning he had tried to remove. Unless his killer had done the removing?
It was certainly food for thought, and so I made a mental note to relay this information to Odelia the moment she returned from her visit to this drive-by shooting.
It was shaping up to be a busy day.
CHAPTER 7
When Odelia and Chase arrived at Grover Street, the part of the street where the incident had occurred had been cordoned off and crime scene investigators were checking the bullet holes that had been made in the store facade of Mitzy’s Tea Shoppe where the unfortunate victim had been standing at the time of the incident. Though unfortunate perhaps wasn’t the right word to describe Mr. Hartshorn, who was one lucky man to have escaped with his life.
“How many?” asked Chase as he walked up to the crime investigator pulling a slug out of the wall.
“I count thirty so far, detective,” said the investigator. “Looks like AR-15 ammo.”
“Christ. And you’re telling me the guy who was shot at wasn’t hit? At all?”
“Amazing, isn’t it? He sure had Lady Luck on his side. To be shot at with a weapon of this kind and walk away unscathed. It’s almost unbelievable when you consider the odds.”
“It sure is,” Chase grunted as he checked the wall, which had been thoroughly chewed up. “Where did they take him?” Chase asked a police officer who had been first to arrive at the scene and had managed to preserve the crime scene and prevent it from being contaminated by the onlookers who had arrived in droves.
“Hampton Cove Memorial,” said the officer. “He said he was fine, but we thought it was probably a good idea to have him checked out anyway. Sometimes the adrenaline will prevent them from feeling that they’ve been hit.”
“It’s almost impossible that he wasn’t hit,” said Chase. “Especially if they fired straight at him. Where was the van?”
“Right here, detective,” said the officer, and showed them how close to the sidewalk the car had been driving. “According to what Mr. Hartshorn told us, the van slowed down as it approached him, the window rolled down and the weapon appeared, then started spitting bullets—that’s how he described it: it was spitting at him. Of course, we now know that it was spitting ammo. It was all over very quickly, then the van sped up again and took off.”
“License plate?”
“Nothing, detective. Though we are actively looking for witnesses. Mr. Hartshorn himself doesn’t remember much. Witnesses we’ve spoken with say it was an ordinary white van. No decal. One witness filmed the whole thing on his phone but there’s no license plate that we can make out, and he didn’t get a good look at whoever was inside the vehicle.”
Chase rubbed his formidable chin. “Sounds like a professional hit. But why? What does he do for a living, this Rogelio Hartshorn?”
“He’s an estate lawyer. Says he was meeting a client, but the client was late, and that’s when this van showed up out of nowhere and the gunman started spraying him with bullets.”
“Did the client arrive?” asked Odelia.
“Not as far as we know,” said the officer.
“We better check to see who this client is,” said Chase. He nodded his thanks to the officer. “We’ll be out of your hair, Randal. Keep up the good work.”
