Hammond spun around. “I didn’t know anyone else was here.”
“Obviously,” Smilow said. “You jumped like you’d been shot.” Throwing a glance over his shoulder at the bloodstains on the carpet in the parlor, he added, “Forgive the poor choice of words.”
“Come now, Rory,” Hammond said, using sarcasm to conceal the chagrin he felt at having been caught snooping. “You’ve never been one to mince words.”
“Right. I haven’t. So what the fuck are you doing here?”
“What the fuck do you care?” Hammond fired back, matching the detective’s angry tone.
“There’s tape across the door to keep people out.”
“I’m entitled to visit the scene of the crime I’m going to prosecute.”
“But protocol demands that you notify my office and have someone accompany you.”
“I know the protocol.”
“So?”
“I was out,” Hammond said curtly. Smilow was right, but he didn’t want to lose face. “It’s late. I didn’t see the need to drag a cop over here. I didn’t touch anything.” He waved the handkerchief still in his hand. “I didn’t take anything. Besides, I thought you were finished with it.”
“We are.”
“So what are you doing here? Looking for evidence? Or planting some?”
The two men glared at one another. Smilow was the first to get a grip on his temper. “I came here to think through some of the elements the autopsy turned up.”
In spite of himself, Hammond was interested. “Like what?”
Smilow turned back into the parlor and Hammond followed. The detective stood over the bloodstain on the floor. “The wounds. The trajectory of the bullets is hard to determine because of all the tissue damage they caused, but Madison’s best guess is that the muzzle of the pistol was aimed at him from above, at a distance probably no more than a foot or two.”
“The killer couldn’t miss.”
“He saw to it that he couldn’t.”
“But he showed up not knowing that Lute had stroked out.”
“He came to kill him, regardless.”
“At close range.”
“Indicating that Pettijohn knew his killer.”
They contemplated the ugly dark stain on the carpet for a moment. “Something’s been bothering me,” Hammond said after a time. “I just now figured out what it is. Noise. How do you pop someone with a .38 without anyone hearing it?”
“Only a few guests were in their rooms. Turn-down service wasn’t scheduled to begin until after six. The housekeepers weren’t in the corridor yet. The shooter could have used a sound suppressor of some sort, even a jerry-rigged one. Although Madison didn’t find any debris around the area or in the wounds to indicate that. My guess is that Pettijohn’s boast of virtually soundproof rooms wasn’t bogus like his state-of-the-art video security system.”
“Another thought just occurred to me.” Smilow looked across at him and motioned for him to continue. “Whoever popped him not only knew Lute well, he also knew a lot about his hotel. It’s like the killer had made himself a scholar on everything Pettijohn did. Like he was obsessed with him.” He probed Smilow’s cold eyes. “Do you see what I’m getting at here?”
Smilow held his stare for a ten count, but, refusing to be provoked, nodded toward the door to the suite. “After you, Solicitor.”
Tuesday
Chapter 19
Lute Pettijohn’s will stipulated that he be cremated. As soon as Dr. John Madison released the body on Monday afternoon, it had been transported to the funeral home. The widow already had made the arrangements and taken care of the necessary paperwork. She declined to view the body before relinquishing it to the crematorium.
A memorial service had been scheduled for Tuesday morning, which some regarded as inappropriately soon, especially in light of the circumstances of Pettijohn’s demise. However, considering the widow’s habitually improper conduct, no one was surprised by her nose-thumbing of time-honored ritual.