The last two former guests on the list had lived in the hotel on a permanent basis. Neither of them was in the area anymore.
At eighty-three, Irene Jessop resided in a retirement home in San Francisco, which was north of Aurora, while the eighty-nine-year-old Barry McNamara lived with his son and grandson in Napa Valley, where the younger McNamaras operated a vineyard.
“Why don’t you take one and we’ll take the other?” Del Campo suggested as they gathered around a conference table in the squad room, discussing their next move.
Brianna had been thinking the exact same thing. “Fine with me,” she agreed. She turned toward Jackson and asked, “Do you have any preferences as to which of the former permanent guests we interview?”
Jackson appeared to be entirely indifferent. Shrugging, he said, “Up to you.”
Del Campo, however, wasn’t indifferent. Raising his hand in a mock effort to get Brianna’s attention, he told her, “I’ve always wanted to tour a vineyard.”
She had no trouble believing that. Del Campo prided himself on being an expert on different wines.
“You won’t be taking a vacation day going up there,” she reminded the other man. “This’ll be in the line of duty.”
“Absolutely,” Francisco agreed, then grinned as he added, “but it can feel like a vacation day.”
She saw no reason to say no to Del Campo’s choice. But in the interests of fairness, she turned toward Jackson again. “Muldare?”
“You’re the boss,” he told her.
She wasn’t buying that. She was the boss until she did or said something that Muldare disagreed with. The man was not as easygoing as he was trying to portray. But she’d take what she could get. And saying yes would make Del Campo happy. Happy detectives worked far better and more productively than unhappy ones.
“Fine,” she said decisively. “You and Bill go up to Napa and see McNamara,” she told Del Campo, who immediately got to his feet. “Muldare and I’ll talk to the Jessop woman. Maybe one of them has something we can finally work with,” she said. So far, the only so-called “lead” they’d got, the name of the possibly missing wedding guest, Tina Rutherford, hadn’t led to anything.
Del Campo and Johansson left the squad room immediately. It was obvious that Del Campo didn’t want to take a chance on her changing her mind. Brianna and Jackson were about to leave as well when her cell phone rang.
Heading toward the elevator, Brianna held up one hand and answered her cell with the other. “O’Bannon.”
“Detective, I’d like to see you and Detective Muldare in my office.”
She didn’t have to ask who was calling. Like most of the detectives at the precinct, she could recognize the chief of detectives’ voice anywhere. And, just like any other detective at the precinct, she wondered if she’d done anything wrong to prompt this summons.
“Yes, sir. We’ll be right there.”
Terminating the call after a beat just in case the chief had something more to add, she put her phone back into her pocket.
“Command performance?” Jackson guessed.
She nodded, assuming that Jackson had overheard. “Chief of Ds wants to see us.”
The elevator car arrived, and Jackson gestured for her to enter in front of him.
“Age before beauty,” he quipped.
“Wrong on both counts,” she said, getting into the elevator. She pressed for the floor where the chief of detectives had his office.
“You know,” Brianna said, breaking what felt like an endless silence in the elevator as they rode up to the chief of Ds’ floor, “most detectives would be speculating as to why the chief of Ds wanted to see them. You, on the other hand, haven’t said a word.”
“No point in speculating,” Jackson answered. He didn’t believe in torturing himself with various scenarios. “We’ll know why soon enough.”
“You are a really strange man,” she told Jackson as they reached the seventh floor. “Don’t you have any curiosity?”
“I do,” he admitted mildly. “But I keep it to myself.”
Brianna shook her head as she got off. “Really strange,” she repeated under her breath.
“He’s waiting for you,” Lieutenant Laura Rayns told them as they walked into the chief’s outer office. “Go right in.”
Brianna entered the chief of detectives’ very masculine office just ahead of Jackson.
Brian Cavanaugh rose to his feet to greet them.
“Sit, please.” When they did and he was behind his desk again, Brian asked, “How’s the case coming along?”
Offering excuses had never been the way she operated. She didn’t start now. “I’d love to say that we’re closing in on the killer, sir, but the truth is, we’re not making all that much headway.”
Kind, thoughtful green eyes met hers. “No leads?” Brian asked.
“We’re following up on a few more things,” Brianna answered, hating how very vague that had to sound.
Because the chief of detectives turned to look at him, Jackson joined in. “The medical examiner is still trying to identify the bodies.”
“I hear the count is up to eighteen as of this morning,” Brian said.
Brianna knew that the man believed in being hands-on when it came to investigations, and he made it a point to be aware of everything that was going on in a case, no matter how many the precinct was juggling.
“Yes, sir, it is,” she answered.
Jackson broke it down for the chief. “Fourteen of those victims have been dead around three decades, and four met their deaths far more recently.”
“I know,” Brian replied. Folding his hands on his desk, he leaned forward slightly. “I also know that there are certain people who are suggesting that we stop wasting precious police resources and drop the case.”
This was the first she’d heard of that. “Certain people?” Brianna questioned. “Who?”
Brian smiled. There were detectives under his command who wouldn’t think of voicing that question. They merely took orders, obeying to the letter
