Chase Read Free Page B

in a low tone. “I need to get a handle on this investigation. Give me your card, and as soon as I have something, I’ll get back to you. I promise.”
    “Yeah, right. Don’t give me the runaround, Detective. I know who you are. You’re Mike Bennett, the NYPD’s go-to Major Case problem solver. Or is it fixer? I also know that the owner of this hotel is very good friends with the governor. Coincidence? I think not.”
    I smiled as I put an arm over Luke’s shoulder.
    “Luke, you’re quick. I like that. But listen. Your boss told you to drop everything and rush the hell down here, am I right?” I asked.
    “Of course. What does that have to do with anything?”
    “Luke, we’re in the same boat, buddy. My boss did the same exact thing to me.”
    “Which means?”
    “Which means we’re in this together. But if you start stepping on my toes, then how can I be nice to you and help you keep your new job? See, I know you’re young and impatient, Luke. I was the same way myself once upon a time. But if you continue to push, I will ‘no comment’ you straight back to the real estate or Queens section you just came from. You don’t want that, do you? Of course not. You’re in the bigs now, Luke. The last thing you want is to get sent back down, right?”
    “I guess,” he said. I slapped my card into his hand and nudged him into the exit.
    “Let’s cooperate, buddy, and truly, we’ll all get through this just fine,” I said with a smile, as I helped the doorman push the reporter out the door.

Chapter 4
    “From what time do you need the footage?” said the hotel’s stocky Asian security head, Albert Yoon, a couple of minutes later as I stood in his tiny basement office.
    “We’ll start at around four o’clock last evening,” I said, as I stood watching his computer screen. “You have two bars, right? Any trouble last night?”
    “Not really,” Yoon said in a Long Island accent. He had been a Suffolk County cop. “Someone upchucked in the men’s restroom in the lobby. No precedent set there.”
    “Wait. Stop it there,” I said. I saw a tall black-haired guy in a dark suit on the screen checking in. “That might be him. Can you match the check-in time to the name?”
    “We sure can,” Yoon said, clicking open a new screen. “Let’s see. Your guy is one Pete Mitchell. He’s still checked in. He’s in 717.”
    “Any charges on his credit card?” I said as I wrote it down.
    “No. It says there’s no credit card. He pre-paid for the room in cash.”
    “Did he show ID?”
    “Yeah. The desk clerk should have a photocopy of it upstairs. Anyone who pays in cash has to show valid ID in case a room gets trashed or what have you.”
    Yoon was standing but suddenly sat back down.
    “Wait a second,” he said. He clicked the security video again and hit Fast-forward. “I think this guy, Mitchell, might be the guy who yakked in the men’s room. Look at this.”
    Yoon brought up the shot of the lobby hall, and I watched as Mitchell headed into what I assumed to be the men’s room. A moment later, two other men appeared in the hall, one of them entering while the other waited. Some time passed, and the other guy in the hall went into the restroom and then Mitchell reappeared.
    “See the kind of nervous look on his face and how he hurries away?”
    I nodded. “Where does he go? Can you see?” I asked.
    Yoon clicked on another screen, and we watched as Mitchell pulled open another door at the end of the hall.
    “That leads to the B stairwell. There are no cameras in there. Maybe he went back to his room? I’ll look at the camera on seven.”
    Yoon changed screens and clicked the mouse several times.
    “That’s funny,” he said. “The camera on seven is broken or something. It’s not showing anything.”
    I looked at Yoon.
    “Does the stairwell go all the way up to the roof?” I said.
    Yoon looked back at me.
    “It does go all the way,” he said.
    “That’s when he did it,” I said.