Hot Button (8 page)

Beth Howell.

Yeah, the timing was bad, but this was the first time I’d caught up with Beth since the incident on the boat, and I wasn’t going to let the moment pass me by. I took off down the hallway, and I would have caught up to her if the door to the vendor room hadn’t swung open and stopped me in my tracks.

“Langston!” He stepped out of the room so quickly that he surprised me, and I pressed a hand to my heart at the same time I dodged to my left. “You just—”

“Need to get into the banquet.” Langston stepped to his right.

“And I need…” I looked around him, but by then, the hallway was empty. Wherever Beth Howell was headed, she was nowhere in sight now. “I’ll go back to the ballroom with you,” I told Langston, and I hoped I didn’t sound disappointed
because of that, so I added, “You’re late for the banquet. The salad’s are already being served.”

“Is it really that late?” He looked at his watch. “The time just got away from me. I was taking care of some last-minute details at the booth.”

“And I…” I suppose I could have told him I was hotfooting it after Beth Howell, but I never had a chance. But then, that’s because Ralph the security guard came racing across the lobby, caught sight of me, and headed my way.

“You’ve got to see this. I mean, you really don’t have to, but you do. You know what I mean?”

I would have gladly told him I didn’t if I could have gotten a word in edgewise. But then, with the way Ralph latched on to my arm and dragged me back across the lobby, I didn’t exactly have a chance.

“You were asking about him and all,” Ralph said, his voice high-pitched and panicky, the way I would hope a security guard’s never would be. “And then Linda called. You know, from the laundry room, and I went down there and all, and I’m going to have to call somebody, only Zack, my boss, he’s gone for the day and all, and—”

By this time, Ralph had already punched the button to call the service elevator at the end of a corridor off the lobby. The doors whooshed open, and he dragged me inside. “You’re not going to believe it,” he said. “I don’t believe it. And I’ve seen it. And I’ve got to call somebody. Fast. Only I can’t think straight; you know what I mean? Because these kinds of things aren’t supposed to happen. Not at a nice hotel like this.”

The elevator bumped to a stop, the doors opened, and Ralph, who was still hanging on to me like a limpet on a rock, pulled me down a hallway with green-tiled floors and bare walls. Down here at basement level, there were no
windows, and the overhead fluorescents buzzed and flickered. The air was heavy with steam and the scent of bleach.

Ralph veered to the left and into a room lined with metal shelves that were stacked with freshly laundered towels.

“Over there.” One hand to the small of my back, he pushed me forward. “You’re not going to believe it.”

He was right. I didn’t believe it. But then, I was having a little trouble believing my own eyes and the fact that Thad Wyant was slumped against the far wall of the linen room in a pool of blood. There was a gorgeous hand-carved cherry-handled awl plunged into his neck.

Chapter Five

R
ALPH THE SECURITY GUARD DID NOTHING TO MAKE ME
feel secure. Or guarded, for that matter. In fact, Ralph was so upset at finding Thad’s body, he crumpled up in a corner and whimpered, and I was the one who called 911. I was also the first person Nevin Riley saw when he walked into the basement hallway, where Ralph (still trembling and crying) and I were waiting.

“Hey.” OK, it doesn’t sound like much, but for Nev, this is the equivalent of
Hello
,
how are you?
and
Boy, you’re looking fine
all rolled into one. To say he’s not much of a talker is something of an understatement. “You find the body?”

I hadn’t, and I told Nev as much and pointed him toward Ralph, then got out of the way so he could calm Ralph down and so the crime-scene techs who streamed in behind Nev could get into the linen storage room.

That gave me a chance to pull out my cell, dial Helen’s
number, and whisper a silent prayer that the banquet wasn’t so loud that she couldn’t hear her phone ring.

“Josie?” I could tell she’d seen my name pop up on caller ID, and I imagined her giving the phone a quizzical look. “Where are you, honey? And what’s going on? You were here, and now you’re not, and they’re already serving the entrée. And I hate to tell you this, honey, but Thad Wyant isn’t here, either.”

“I’ll explain later about why I’m not there.” Yes, that was my voice, rushed and breathless. But then, I wasn’t exactly at my best. Sure, I’d once found the body of a famous actress at the Button Box, but truth be told, not even previous experience can prepare a person for this sort of thing. Nothing would ever make me immune to the blood, or the horrible thought that a life had been so violently cut short. I gulped, and rather than watch the techs examining Thad’s body, I stepped down the hallway and into the cavernous room opposite, where row after row of industrial-size washers and dryers stood silent, waiting for the next morning’s delivery of sheets and towels, and a couple of uniformed officers were checking above, below, and inside everything in sight to make sure no one was hiding there. “I need you to do me a favor, Helen.”

“Of course, dear. Anything. What’s that?” This question obviously wasn’t meant for me because Helen’s voice was suddenly muffled, as if she’d turned in a different direction. “It’s Josie,” I heard her say, and I wondered who she was talking to. “She’s got some kind of problem and—”

“Helen!” Sure, I felt dopey standing there in the laundry room and yelling into my phone, but it was the only thing I could think to do to get her attention. “Helen, this is kind of important.”

“Of course it is. You wouldn’t have called during dinner otherwise.”

She was back, and before she could get distracted again, I said all I had to say and said it fast. “Thad Wyant isn’t going to be able to make the dinner tonight.” Talk about understatements! Rather than dwell on it, I kept my focus. “I need you to rustle up a banquet speaker,” I told Helen. “I was thinking… I almost said Chase Cadell, then reconsidered. Things were bad enough; there was no use making Chase the center of attention and giving him the opportunity to say “I told you so.”

I scrambled, furiously thinking about our conference attendees. “How about Brenda Perry? You know, the woman who makes those really cool polymer-clay buttons and—”

The ladylike
tsk
on the other end of the phone was enough to stop me cold. “Lovely woman,” Helen said. “Gifted artist.”

“But…”

“Terrible public speaker. Oh my, yes. You haven’t heard her, have you? Mumbles. Stumbles over her words. Simply terrible. When Brenda’s speaking in front of a crowd, she’s uncomfortable, and so is everyone who’s in the room with her.”

I scratched Brenda off what had been a very short list and tried for another idea. No easy thing, considering my gut was twisted in painful knots, my knees felt like they were made out of some of Brenda’s uncured polymer clay, and my heart was pounding so hard, I was sure Nev and the other cops across the hall heard it and figured the thumping was coming from the washing machines. Fighting to steady myself, I waited until the cops were done with their sweep of that side of the basement and leaned against the cool,
tiled wall. “Then how about Bob Johnson? He knows everything there is to know about cloisonné buttons.”

“Just saw him at the bar.” Helen’s tone of voice told me she was shaking her head sadly when she said this. “One too many glasses of Jack Daniel’s, I’m afraid. My goodness, and it’s so early in the conference for him to misbehave like that. Bob usually waits until the last night to let it all hang out.”

“Then what about—”

“Thad isn’t just late. Is that what you’re telling me? He’s not going to make it at all?” I think the enormity of what I’d been trying to tell her finally sunk in. Poor Helen didn’t know the half of it. That’s why she didn’t sound as worried as she did uncertain. “Are you sure, Josie? He’s your guest of honor, after all. The conference paid for him to fly all the way here from New Mexico. And the conference is covering every single one of his expenses. Hotel and such, I mean. Are you telling me you’ve lost him?”

I drew in a long breath and let it out slowly even as I switched my phone from one sweaty hand to the other. “It’s complicated.”

“It must be, dear, for a conference not to have its guest of honor at the opening banquet.”

Don’t ask me how, but I somehow managed to sound as levelheaded and focused as I wasn’t feeling. “You’re right. It’s unforgivable, but I’m afraid it’s unavoidable. Still, we can’t have people sitting there after dinner waiting for a speaker who’s never going to show.”

“Does that mean we’re not going to see the Geronimo button tonight?”

Leave it to Helen to get to the heart of the matter. And for the heart of the matter to be all about buttons. I can’t say I blamed her. Had I come all the way to Chicago from
who-knows-where just to get a gander of the famous Geronimo button, I, too, would wonder what Thad’s absence meant.

The Geronimo button.

The thought galvanized me, and I straightened up like a shot. A chill crawled through my bloodstream, and this time, it had nothing to do with Thad’s death. What if Thad’s death was somehow tied to the Geronimo button? What if something had happened to it? That button was a priceless historical object, a one-of-a-kind link with the past and a valiant warrior.

What if. . ?

Panic is so not a pretty thing, and make no mistake, I was toeing the edge of it.

I gulped down a breath to calm myself, and when that didn’t work, I tried another. I paced and told myself it was too soon to worry. We would look for the Geronimo button as soon as possible.

Er… that is, Nev and the other cops would look for the button.

After all, it was their job, not mine. I would mention the button to Nev as soon as I was able, but other than that—

“Did you say something, dear?” Helen’s voice on the other end of the phone snapped me back to reality. “About the Geronimo button and how there are lots of folks here who are eager to see it, and now, they might not get the chance? Because it’s a little hard to hear. There are people nearby talking and chatting and having a good time. Of course, they don’t realize the entire conference is about to crumble around them. They’re counting on hearing Thad Wyant speak tonight. And on getting their first look at that button of his.”

“I’m afraid that’s going to have to wait. But don’t tell them that. Don’t tell them anything. Just that…” I imagined
standing at the podium in the front of the ballroom and trying to explain away the inexplicable. “Just that Thad can’t be there and that I can’t be, either, and that I’m very sorry. Just find me someone who can stand up after dinner and talk about buttons for forty-five minutes. Any buttons. That shouldn’t be hard in a conference full of button collectors.”

“Well…” I had known Helen for a long time, and I could tell by the way she drew out the word that she was pink from chin to forehead. “My laptop is up in my room, and I might still have a PowerPoint presentation on it that I gave at a local button society meeting a couple years ago. It’s about fop buttons. You know, buttons that depict French aristocratic fashions of the eighteenth century. That just might be enough to take people’s minds off the fact that Thad Wyant is missing.”

“He isn’t. Not exactly.”

The subtle distinction was lost on Helen. “I don’t want to seem pushy,” she said. “I mean, by suggesting I do the talk. There are plenty of other people here who might be willing to jump up and volunteer. You know, if we want to interrupt them and make them scramble to put together some kind of talk when they should be enjoying dinner. I don’t want to come off looking like a publicity hound.”

For the first time since Ralph dragged me into the basement, I felt some of the stress inside me uncurl. “You’re not, Helen. You’re a lifesaver, that’s what you are.”

“Then you’d like me to take over your duties? And Thad’s?”

“Yes. Please. Thank you.” From across the hall I saw Nev glance around, and I knew he was looking for me. “Sorry,” I added, right before I clicked off the call.

I was just in time to watch Nev hand Ralph off to one of
the uniformed cops standing near the service elevator, then head straight for me.

“Hey.” He’d said that once already, but I didn’t bother to point it out. I also didn’t bother to mention that he was wearing almost exactly what he’d been wearing on our last date: rumpled khaki suit, wrinkled blue Oxford cloth shirt. That date was two weeks earlier, and we’d gone to a movie. Since buttons are just about the only thing I am capable of discussing for any length of time and police work is pretty much the only thing Nev can talk about, movies provide us a nice conversation-free environment. In the couple of months we’d known each other, we’d seen a lot of movies.

Not that we’re complete morons when it comes to interpersonal skills. After all, we’d already worked together to solve one murder, and truth be told, I had figured it would be our last. Fortunately, there was no murder on the menu the night of our last date. Just that movie, and we’d gone for coffee afterward, and it was… nice. Just sitting there at Starbuck’s enjoying each other’s company, filling the long silences by talking about nothing more than the details of our daily lives. Yeah, it was nice. But then, Nev has that whole cute vibe going for him, so that helps. It’s his shaggy, sandy hair, and the fact that he’s tall and lanky.