Smash Cut Read Free Page A

right. There was a photo of him in a Bulldogs jersey and scratched helmet, crossing the goal line with the football tucked under his arm. Other photos were of a pretty lady and three smiling children. He wore a wedding ring. Roberta Kimball didn’t.
Sanford held a chair for Julie. “Ms. Rutledge.” She sat. He brought in an extra chair for Doug. Kimball said she preferred to stand. Sanford sat down at his desk and reached for a ring-binder notebook labeled with the date, Paul’s name, and a case number. He had died barely five hours ago but already he was a statistic.
Sanford turned to Julie. “The other witnesses have given their statements. The one you recorded earlier has been transcribed. Before you sign the transcription, I’d like to talk you through it, see if you’ve remembered something else, see if you want to add or change anything.”
Julie nodded. She crossed her arms and hugged her elbows.
Noticing the gesture, Kimball said, “We understand how difficult this must be for you.”
“It is, yes. But I want to help. I want the culprit captured.”
“So do we.” Sanford picked up a ballpoint pen and clicked it several times while he scanned one of the typed sheets in the binder. “Prior to the incident, you and Mr. Wheeler were occupying room 901? That’s a corner suite, correct?”
“That’s right.”
The detectives were looking at her in silent query. Doug was staring down at his shoes.
“Paul and I met there around one-thirty,” Julie said.
“You went straight to the suite. You didn’t check in.”
“Paul had checked in for us. I was a few minutes late. He was already in the suite when I got there.”
The detective and his partner communicated silently with a quick glance at each other, then Sanford looked back down at the notebook. Julie didn’t think he was reading from the typed page. She didn’t think he needed to. By now he would know that she and Paul had a confirmed reservation for that suite each Tuesday, rain or shine, fifty-two weeks out of the year. She wasn’t going to elaborate on their arrangement. It wasn’t relevant.
“You ordered lunch from room service,” Sanford said.
Followed by Kimball, who added, “We have that from the hotel staff.”
No doubt they also knew what she and Paul had eaten. They would know that Paul had ordered champagne today. What, if anything, would they make of that? Since they didn’t address it, she wasn’t going to make anything of it, either.
Sanford asked, “Other than the room service waiter, no one else saw you in the suite?”
“No.”
“You were alone the whole time?”
“Yes.”
After a significant and awkward gap, Sanford said, “You told us earlier that you left the suite at approximately three o’clock.”
“I had an appointment scheduled for four.”
“At your gallery?”
“Yes.”
“The 911 call came in at three-sixteen,” Sanford said.
As though completing his sentence, Kimball said, “So the robbery would have occurred a few minutes before that.”
“Then I guess it was several minutes after three when we left the suite,” Julie said. “Because we walked straight from the suite to the elevator and we didn’t have to wait long for it.”
Doug, seemingly impatient with the timing details, spoke for the first time. “The killer got away?”
“That’s what we’re trying to determine, Mr. Wheeler,” Sanford said. “Every guest of the hotel is being questioned. Every employee.”
“He couldn’t have walked around the hotel wearing that ghastly mask,” Julie said.
“We figure he got rid of it immediately,” Kimball said. “But a thorough search of the hotel hasn’t turned up anything. Not the tracksuit, the mask—”
“Nothing,” Sanford said, finishing for her.
“There are a lot of hiding places in a hotel the size of the Moultrie,” Doug said.
“The search is ongoing,” Sanford said. “We’re also searching trash receptacles, manholes, culverts, any place in the area where he could have stashed the stuff if he carried it out with him.”
“He simply walked out?” Doug asked