“No, but I might rest my eyes.”
Two minutes after we left the restaurant, Jenny said, “Is he actually snoring back there?”
I grinned at her. “He can’t be. You heard him. He’s just resting his eyes.”
“And every other part of him,” she said. In a softer voice, she added, “You really got lucky finding him; you know that, don’t you?”
“I like to think he got lucky finding me, too,” I said.
“Of course he did. I just wish I could do it, too.”
“Maybe if you stop working eighty-hour weeks, you’ll be able to.”
She shrugged. “There is that, isn’t there?”
“It must limit your dating pool.”
“You’ve seen the whole sum of my love life in the past three years. There have been exactly two men, either one of which is most likely stalking me at the moment.”
I could tell Jenny was feeling morose about her dating life, but there was nothing I could do to help her. Maybe a change of topics would distract her from her thoughts.
“I wonder who pushed Kelsey,” I said.
“I’ve been thinking about that myself. It’s a clumsy way to try to kill someone, wouldn’t you say?”
“What do you mean? Using a steak knife on Derrick wasn’t exactly poetry.”
“No, but at least it was pretty reasonable to believe that it would be effective. How hard must that shove have been?”
“I don’t know,” I said, “but there’s something the two events have in common.”
“What’s that?”
“Most likely they were both done on impulse,” I said. “That means our killer isn’t a planner. He or she takes advantage of a situation and acts boldly when the opportunity affords itself.”
“So they haven’t been caught because they’ve been more lucky than methodical. How long can they keep taking risks like that?”
“I don’t know,” I admitted. “But we need to start thinking like the killer if we’re going to have a prayer figuring out who it is.”
“How do you do that?” Jenny asked.
“We need to ask Zach. He’s known across the South for being able to put himself into a murderer’s shoes.”
Jenny shivered noticeably. “I can’t imagine how creepy that must be for him.”
“I wonder about that myself sometimes, but Zach finds a way to deal with it.”
He stirred in back, and then sat up, rubbing his eyes. “Did someone mention my name?”
“Go back to sleep, Zach. We’ve got at least another ninety seconds before we get there.”
“I told you, I was just resting my eyes. Now will someone tell me why my name was mentioned in conversation?”
Jenny said, “Savannah was just telling me how you can project yourself into a killer’s shoes, and we were wondering if that’s what we should be doing right now.”
“It’s not a bad idea, but we don’t have a lot of information, do we?”
“That’s not necessarily true,” I said. “We know they act spontaneously, and that there’s no hesitation to their movements. Don’t most amateurs have to work up the nerve before they commit murder?”
“It depends on the crime. If they are in the heat of the moment, there’s no planning at all. Those are the easiest killers to catch. The ones that plan carefully and act coldly are a little tougher to find.”
“Do you agree that Derrick’s murder and the attempt on Kelsey’s life were unplanned?”
I glanced at him in the rearview mirror and saw him frowning as he stroked his chin. “They appear to be spur-of-the-moment,” he finally conceded.
“So then, who do we know who isn’t afraid to make bold moves? We’ve already established that everyone on our list had a reason to kill Derrick, but who had the nerve to do it?”
“I’m not sure that’s the best way to look at it. Savannah, some of the most outrageous killers I ever saw acted in the heat of the moment, almost transforming as they committed murders, and then they reverted back to their normal personalities.”
“How does anyone ever get caught?” I asked in frustration.
He shrugged. “I can’t speak for every circumstance, but in mine, it was mostly due to brilliant detective work.”
I laughed out loud, and Jenny joined me.
From the backseat, Zach said, “Hey, it wasn’t that funny.”
“Yes it was,” I said as we pulled into the Crest Hotel’s parking lot again.
It was time to tackle our suspect list with our new “we’re on your side” angle and see what we could uncover.
Chapter 17
“WHERE DO YOU THINK YOU’RE GOING?” I ASKED ZACH as Jenny and I got out of the car.
“I thought I’d hang out in the lobby, in case something interesting happened,” he said.
“You’re not going to talk to anyone though, remember?”
“Come on, Savannah. Surely you don’t expect me to wait by the car and guard it, do you?”
“After what happened today, is that really such a bad idea?”
He gestured around. “Look, you’re in a spot right by the door. Nobody’s going to be crazy enough to try anything here. There are too many witnesses.”
“That’s been the MO of the killer so far, though, hasn’t it?”
“I’m not staying here,” he declared. “I’m either going to wait in the lobby, or I’m coming with you two. Take your pick.”
“The lobby,” I said.
For one split second, he looked like a frustrated little boy. “Seriously? You’re not going to let me come with you? Even if I promise to behave myself?”
“There’s not really much chance of that, is there?” Still, I had a hard time saying no to him. “Tell you what. We’ll tackle Brady and Sylvia, and when we talk to Cary, you can come along with us.”
“That I can live with. How about Mindi and Lassiter?”
“We’ll take Mindi alone, and you can come with us when we speak with Lassiter. After all, you’ve got a relationship with him already.”
Jenny laughed. “Do you two haggle over every decision you make? It’s like watching two good old boys from Georgia arguing over the price of a bale of hay and a peck of apples.”
“Hey, it’s what we do.”
We walked into the lobby, and I pointed to a set of chairs out of the way. “You can wait for us over there.”
He gave me a mock salute, and then picked up a
As Jenny and I rode the elevator up to Sylvia’s room, Jenny said, “I can’t believe he’s really going to just sit there.”
“Don’t kid yourself. If he sees an opportunity to do something, he’ll grab it with both hands. When Zach’s working on something, he’d rather ask for forgiveness than permission.”
We walked out of the elevator when it arrived at the right floor and headed to Sylvia’s room.
I started to knock when I noticed that it was slightly ajar. Someone had put a telephone book in the opening to block the door, and I wondered what we were going to find on the other side.
“SYLVIA? ARE YOU IN THERE?” I ASKED AS I PUSHED THE door open.
Jenny grabbed my arm. “We should call Hotel Security, or at the very least, Zach.”
