The 5th Horseman

Chapter 60

BUT MAYBE WE WERE getting closer to the evidence.

The Hotel Triton was busy that night, but it always had a brisk turnover. Fronting Union Square, steps away from the trolley line, across the street from Chinatown, it had a frisky Cirque du Soleil decor and a midrange room rate.

Jacobi pushed to the front of the line at the reception desk; he badged the clerk and brusquely told him to find the night manager. “Chop, chop. Move it before you lose it.”

A chunky man of forty stepped out of the back room. The name tag on his jacket read “Jon Anderson, Mgr.” He nodded at us, asked if there was a problem.

“There’s a big problem. We’re investigating a homicide,” I told him. “We need the sign-in records for September fifteenth and whatever you have on a guest named Alex Logan.”

Jacobi added, “And we need the tapes from that camera,” he said, stabbing his forefinger toward the camera behind the desk. “Also need the tape from the hall camera outside the room Logan used on that date, the fifteenth.”

The manager got huffy on us. “I suppose you have a warrant?”

“Do we need one? ’Cause we can get one and close this place down while we do a complete search.”

He appeared to quickly think over the implications of a search, then said, “The videotapes are on a forty-eight-hour loop. There won’t be anything on them from September fifteenth.

“But everyone here,” he said, pointing to the line of five college kids manning the reception desk. “All of them were on duty that night. I’ll pull the records for you. See how cooperative I am?”

A thin, distracted desk clerk by the name of Gary Metz had checked Alex Logan into room 2021.

“I think I remember this Mr. Logan,” Metz told us. He drummed his fingers on the desk, looked past my shoulder into the lobby, then focused on my eyes again. “He was with another man.”

I think I may have stopped breathing for a moment; I was that hopeful that we’d run this lead to ground.

“If I’ve got him right, he was about my height, kind of regular size. Maybe he was Chinese,” said the clerk.

“Alex Logan? He looked Chinese?”

“I think so. Maybe part Chinese. The other guy was a bruiser. Six two, two thirty, and blond. He’s the one that said he wanted a smoking room. Both of them looked straight, if you want my opinion.”

“And how do you figure that?” I asked.

“They wanted a room with a king-size bed, but they didn’t dress well enough to be gay. The bigger guy’s haircut looked like he did it himself.”

“Do you remember if they had any luggage?”

“The big guy had a large rolling bag. I noticed because it was leather. Maybe Tumi? Looked expensive.”

“Thanks, Mr. Metz,” I said, doing my level best to keep the excitement out of my voice. “We need to see the room.”