“That’s Ronnie’s area,” Hugo said, pointing to the right side of the small room, which barely seemed like enough space for one person, much less two.
Ryan stepped into the room, snapping on his evidence gloves. Jessie did the same and pulled out a plastic evidence bag. They moved over to Ronnie’s bed, where Ryan lifted up the mattress. There was nothing under it.
“I told you!” Ronnie shouted triumphantly.
Ryan didn’t even look back at him as he moved over to the small dresser, opened every drawer, and carefully searched each one. Still nothing.
“I’m gonna sue you so bad,” Ronnie chirped.
“Good luck with that,” Kat mumbled under her breath.
Jessie and Ryan stepped over a pile of dirty clothes to the locker against the far wall. It had a combination lock. Ryan turned back to Ronnie.
“Care to share, Hurricane Carter?” he asked, unable to keep the sarcasm out of his voice.
“I got a right to privacy, man!” Ronnie proclaimed.
“Not really,” Jessie pointed out. “You’re on resort property. They own the locker.”
“Get a warrant, lady,” Ronnie shot back. “Or a blow torch.”
“Actually,” Hugo volunteered, “I have a key that overrides any combination and opens all the lockers, so we can probably skip the blow torch.”
“Please do the honors,” Ryan said, stepping aside.
Hugo unlocked and opened the locker, before stepping back. Ryan carefully searched its contents, but again came up empty.
“See,” Ronnie announced victoriously. “This is a civil rights violation.”
Ryan, though he was clearly frustrated, turned back to the kid and offered a sad smile.
“You’re a white, twice-convicted criminal who ran away when you were about to be questioned. I’m a Hispanic police officer who at no point touched or threatened you. How do you figure I violated your civil rights, Ronnie?”
“Don’t try to get out of this with cop talk,” Ronnie said belligerently. “You are going down.”
He laughed in glee, raising his eyes to the ceiling like he was in cahoots with the gods. Jessie saw his eyes gleam as they landed on one particular spot above him. She looked up too, following his gaze. He saw her do it and quickly lowered his eyes to floor, getting suddenly quiet.
“Are we done here?” Peter Lane asked, sounding relieved.
“Not quite,” Jessie said, staring up at the place Ronnie was aggressively looking away from now. It was the air vent. “Can someone open that vent up there?”
“Sure,” the extremely tall Hugo offered, standing on the edge of Ronnie’s bed. He peered closely at it. “It’s loose.”
“Take these,” Ryan said, handing him some gloves.
After he put them on, Hugo grabbed the metal slats of the vent and tugged. The whole thing came free without needing to be unscrewed. He dropped the vent on the bed and felt around. Jessie didn’t need to wait for any word from him to know what would happen next.
Ronnie had gone completely silent and was slouching forward, staring a hole in the floor.
“I’ve got something,” Hugo said, pulling out a canvas shopping bag.
He handed it down to Ryan, who untied and opened it, letting everyone see what was inside. There weren’t any photos of Scott Newhouse or ribbons that could be used to strangle someone. But there were over a dozen pieces of jewelry, including several rings, watches, and bracelets. Jessie looked over at Kat.
“Looks like your case just got solved,” she noted.
“Yeah,” Kat replied excitedly before quickly turning sympathetic, “but apparently not yours.”
It was true. They’d have the crime scene team come back and thoroughly go over the room. But nothing they’d found so far linked Ronnie to Scott Newhouse’s death.
As Hugo got off the bed, his cell phone rang. He answered it and Jessie watched him closely, hoping for news from his tech folks. His face betrayed nothing as he listened.
“Okay, thanks,” he said. After hanging up, he looked over at her and Ryan. “Can I have a private word with you two?”
The three of them stepped out into the hall. When Hugo spoke, his voice was low so no one else could hear.
“My people just got back to me on the geo-tagging. They say that Ronnie Nance was in the main building during the entire window of death for Scott Newhouse. He never went anywhere near the spa.”
“Could he have just removed his nametag and left it somewhere while he went to the spa,” Ryan asked hopefully.
“I don’t think so, Detective,” Hugo told him. “The tag moved constantly and my people say all those movements are consistent with where he was supposed to be and what he was supposed to be doing. He may be a thief, but from 8 a.m. to 11 a.m., it looks like he was doing his job.”
Jessie sighed and turned to Ryan. She could tell that he was thinking the same thing as her: they were back to square one.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Jessie suspected Hugo felt bad for them.
Otherwise why would he have secured a casita for them to use as their working home base, rather than a bland conference room? That’s where they were now—herself, Ryan, and Kat—as they pondered next moves.
It was mid-afternoon now and they hadn’t made any major progress since the Ronnie Nance disappointment. Jessie could feel the pressure from Chief Laird, somewhere out there, on the verge of calling them again and reaming them out.
Kat, who had been given a complimentary casita for the night as a “thank you” from Peninsula management, was flipping through the list of remaining employees with criminal juvenile pasts.
“Well, it’s official,” she said closing the file. “Of the seven ‘Second Chance’ hires made by the resort, Ronnie was the only one that slipped through that had an adult conviction. Of the remaining six, four were working on campus today. None of them was near the spa area during the time in question.”
“Wonderful,” Ryan muttered.
“I think it’s time we check in with the medical examiner again,” Jessie suggested. “It’s been a few hours.”
“Don’t you think Gallagher would have reached out if she had news?” he objected.
“Actually, I think she knows how important this case is to Laird and is worried that offering even preliminary analysis could come back to bite her. We need to push a little harder.”
“Okay,” Ryan said with a resigned shrug as he called. Once she answered, he put her on speaker. “Hey Cheryl, Jessie and I were hoping you might have an update.”
“I still don’t have anything official for you,” she said, slightly annoyed.
“We get that,” Jessie piped in, “but it might be days before you do. We’ve got Laird breathing down our necks.”
“I know,” Gallagher said. “That’s why I don’t want to jump the gun.”
“Listen,” Jessie said cajolingly, “we don’t expect what you tell us now to go in any final report. Right now, we just need your best guess so we can determine where to put our energy. We’ve got some extremely wealthy, very powerful people—all potential suspects— that we may have to start getting aggressive with. If you think this thing was likely a suicide, we can avoid that unpleasantness. If not, we need to rip the Band-Aid off and get that process started.”