Prologue
The scream rent the air-conditioned silence of the hotel corridor.
Having entered the suite only seconds earlier, the chambermaid stumbled from the room crying for help, sobbing, and randomly banging on the doors of other guest rooms. Later, her supervisor would chastise her for this hysterical reaction, but at that point in time she was in the throes of hysteria.
Unfortunately for her, few guests were in their rooms that afternoon. Most were out enjoying the unique charms of Charleston’s historic district. But finally she managed to rouse one guest, a man from Michigan, who, wilted from the unaccustomed heat, had returned to his room to take a nap.
Though groggy from being abruptly awakened, he immediately determined that only a major catastrophe could cause the level of panic the chambermaid was experiencing. Before he could even make sense of her blubbering, he called the front desk and alerted hotel personnel to an emergency on the top floor.
Two Charleston policemen, whose beat included the newly opened Charles Towne Plaza, promptly responded to the summons. A flustered hotel security guard led them to the penthouse suite, where the maid had gone in for early turndown service, only to find that it wouldn’t be needed. The occupant was sprawled on the suite’s parlor floor, dead.
The police officer knelt down near the body. “Holy… that looks like—”
“It’s him all right,” said his partner in an equally awestruck voice. “Is this gonna stir up a shitstorm or what?”
Chapter 1
He noticed her the moment she stepped into the pavilion.
Even in a crowd of other women dressed, for the most part, in skimpy summer clothing, she was definitely a standout. Surprisingly, she was alone.
As she paused to get her bearings, her gaze stopped briefly on the dais, where the band was performing, before moving to the dance floor, then to the haphazard arrangement of chairs and tables surrounding it. Spotting a vacant table, she moved to it and sat down.
The pavilion was round in shape, about thirty yards in diameter. Although it was an open-air structure with a conical roof, the underside of which was strung with clear Christmas lights, the pitched ceiling trapped the noise inside, making the din incredible.
What the band lacked in musical talent they made up for with volume, obviously of the opinion that decibels would make their missed notes less discernible. They did, however, play with raucous enthusiasm and showmanship. On the keyboard and guitar, the musicians seemed to be pounding the notes out of their instruments. The harmonica player’s braided beard bounced with every jerking motion of his head. As the fiddler sawed his bow across the strings, he danced an energetic jig that showed off his yellow cowboy boots. The drummer seemed to know only one cadence, but he applied himself to it with verve.
The crowd didn’t seem to mind the discordant sound. For that matter, neither did Hammond Cross. Ironically, the racket of the county fair was somehow soothing. He absorbed the noise—the squeals coming from the midway, catcalls from rowdy teenage boys at the top of the Ferris wheel, the crying of babies grown tired, the bells and whistles and horns, the shouts and laughter inherent to a carnival.
Going to a county fair hadn’t been on his agenda today. Although there had probably been some advance publicity about it in the local newspaper and on TV, it had escaped his notice.
He’d happened on the fair by accident about a half hour outside of Charleston. What had compelled him to stop, he would never know. It wasn’t like he was an avid carnival-goer. His parents certainly had never taken him to one. They had avoided general-public attractions like this at all costs. Not exactly their crowd. Not their kind of people.
Ordinarily Hammond probably would have avoided it, too. Not because he was a snob, but because he worked such long, hard hours, he was selfish with his leisure time and selective about how he spent it. A round of golf, a couple hours of fishing, a movie, a quiet dinner at a good restaurant. But a county fair? That wouldn’t have topped his list of pleasurable pursuits.
But this afternoon in particular the crowd and the noise appealed to him. Left alone, he only would have brooded over his troubles. He would have reflected himself into despondency, and who needed that on one of the few remaining weekends of the summer?
So when his highway speed was reduced to a crawl and he got trapped in the traffic inching into the temporary parking lot—actually a cow pasture turned parking lot by an enterprising farmer—he had remained in line with the other cars and vans and SUVs.