A Grizzly Discovery

14

Jason and I gave Chief Gary and the other man a minute or two to continue moving past us, then we left the room we were hiding in—it turned out to be an extra pantry filled with huge containers of flour, sugar and other baking staples—and slipped back out.

“Do we actually have a plan here?” I asked Jason. “We know it was one of the robbers, and I want to know which one it was, but are we just going to walk in there, look at the body and leave without anyone batting an eyelid?”

“You think too much,” Jason teased. “Let’s just figure it out as we go.”

“You sound like Sophie.”

“I’m not sure if that’s a good or a bad thing.”

Before I had a chance to reply, however, we reached the end of the hallway and a door with an eyehole. I looked through and found myself looking into the inn’s lobby. Everything was slightly distorted, as it always is when looking through a door’s eyehole.

“What do you see?” Jason asked. I immediately knew this was the scene of the crime.

“The body’s in there.”

“Wow! In the lobby itself? That’s brazen.”

“Yeah,” I replied. “I can see it there, but I can’t quite make out who it is. It’s definitely male, though. So that means it’s either Jack, Andrew or Kevin. There’s a handful of cops, and some other people. I guess the crime scene investigators, a medical examiner, that sort of thing.

“Ok, here, move over, let me look,” Jason asked. He peered into the eyehole then shook his head.

“Yeah, we’re not going to be able to tell who it is from here. Hold on,” he continued, pulling out his phone. I watched in a combination of awe and horror as he pressed his phone against the edge of the door and slowly opened it about an inch. Sliding his phone outside of the door, Jason took a few quick photos, then slipped his phone back inside and closed the door quietly.

“Come with me,” he said, motioning back toward where we’d come from. I dutifully followed him back into the pantry closet, where Jason handed me his phone and I looked at the photos he’d taken. They were much clearer; there was absolutely no doubt as to whose body was lying there now.

“It’s Jack,” I said. I couldn’t help but remember how he and Claire had argued just a few hours earlier. She had threatened him. Had she really made good on her threats?

“Jack… he was one of the ones in the hotel room when you and Sophie were in there, right?”

“Yeah,” I replied. “He also named himself the leader of their new attempt to find the diamond.”

“Really?” Jason asked.

“Yeah,” I replied, giving him the Cliff notes version of the conversation I’d overheard the day before. I had to pretend I was already in the library, sitting behind one of the large drawers of old maps when the group came in, and the lie made my heart ping with guilt.

“Wow,” Jason breathed when I was finally finished. “You certainly have a ton of luck when it comes to being in the right place at the right time.”

“I don’t know, right now I’m stuck in a hotel pantry with cops surrounding the building and no idea how we’re going to get out of here. This doesn’t feel like the right place.”

“True, but at least we came in here on purpose.”

“So you admit we have no idea how to get out of here.”

Jason shrugged. “I figured getting in was enough of a challenge without also having to figure out how to get out.”

I groaned. “We’re going to have to stay in this cupboard for like, a full day.”

“That’s not too bad,” Jason grinned. “I can definitely think of one way to pass the time.”

I laughed. “I think getting caught doing that in here might be the only way we could possibly get into even more trouble than we would just getting caught normally.”

“Fine,” Jason replied. “But it would be fun, I promise you that!”

I rolled my eyes. Men. “How about we find a way out of here so you can actually get into my pants somewhere where there’s no risk of anyone walking in on us.”

“Now that’s what I call motivation,” Jason said, wrapping his arms around my waist. I couldn’t help but giggle with pleasure as he kissed my neck. “Ok. What parts of the hotel are free from cops?”

“The sides,” I replied immediately. “Front and back are being guarded, and the front is especially bad since half of Willow Bay is probably out there by now trying to get as much gossip as possible.”

“Ok. What kind of exits are out the sides?”

“I guess windows?”

“There we go. Problem solved.”

“Yeah. Now we just have to find them.”

Luckily for both of us, Jason and I managed to find one of the windows in a nearby room and sneak back out into the street without being seen. Our exit was a lot less dramatic than our entrance. We mingled with the crowd for a few minutes to listen to the idle gossip; it seemed most of the town had settled on the rumor that Elizabeth Armstrong died of a heart attack as being the correct one, and they were all now eulogizing the poor woman who I was sure was still inside the hotel, probably having an afternoon nap or something.

We made our way to the Thai food place and ordered some take-out, then sat at one of the empty tables while it was being made and began to discuss the new case.

“So I guess you’re thinking that whoever killed Jeremy Wallace also killed Jack?” Jason asked, and I nodded.

“Yeah. I mean, it’s a pretty safe assumption, I think. Jack was the leader of the new group that was going to try and find the diamonds together, and it seemed pretty obvious to me when I was listening in to their conversation that if it wasn’t for him, they were all going to go about it alone.”

“So Jack was the glue holding them together?”

“Exactly. I think whoever killed Jeremy Wallace was a lone wolf to begin with. Otherwise, why not tell the rest of the group what they’d done? Just the fact that they went out and killed him to begin with shows that they weren’t exactly a team player.”

“Yeah, something about that doesn’t make sense. After all, Jeremy was literally the only person on the planet who knew where that diamond was, if everyone else is to be believed. And seeing as all the thieves are still here, I think it’s safe to assume that the secret did die with him. Why kill him? Now they have to find the diamond on their own.”

“That bothers me,” I admitted. “I honestly don’t have an explanation for that. Maybe killing Jeremy Wallace was an accident, and then they made it look like a bear attack to draw suspicion away from themselves. That’s the best I can come up with.”

Jason nodded. “It’s not a bad theory. It’s certainly plausible. So which of the remaining robbers do you think did it? You’ve seen them interact with each other more than anyone else.”

I rested my hand on my palm and thought about it for a while.

“I think,” I started slowly, “Claire would be the most likely suspect. Yes, if I had to put money on it, I would bet you that she was the one who would be most likely.”

“And why do you think that?” Jason prodded, interested.

“Well, it’s just kind of, her general attitude. A feeling I have. Maybe not an instinct, but just kind of… the way she acts, it’s different to the others. For one thing, Claire was the first of the robbers that I’d met. She was out in town, she even managed to get me to show her on a map where Jeremy Wallace was killed and how to get there. She was asking questions. She had a cover story. She was open in making herself a part of the community, whereas all the others seemed pretty content to more or less hide away in the inn and be more subtle about things. And when they had that meeting, she seemed to be the least enthusiastic about joining forces. She also had an argument with Jack about it.”

Jason raised an eyebrow. “I can see why you suspect her.”

I shrugged. “But at the same time, I’m not sure.”

I hated to admit it, but Jack being killed was actually going to help my case. Before he’d been killed, I was out of leads and out of ideas when it came to Jeremy Wallace’s killer. But now, I was going to have to find out when Jack died, and then I could possibly find out if any of the robbers had alibis. That way, I could narrow down the list of suspects, and if I found out who killed Jack, I might be able to find out who killed Jeremy Wallace as well.

I felt a bit bad knowing that someone’s death was going to benefit me, but there was nothing I could do about it. I just hoped I was going to be able to find out who killed both men for sure.