Page 82 of All You Want
“Which means she was inside the control room and that she changed costumes, maybe so she wouldn’t be identified easily?” I take a picture of the costume hanging there. “Have you seen her today?”
“She said she was spending the night with Evan, but Evan told me he was leaving right after the fireworks show to go back to San Francisco where he’s hosting a ghost hunt at the Tower of Reeds Haunted Halloween Party.”
“Both can’t be true, and I can easily check Evan’s whereabouts.” I reach for my phone. “If you think of anything else, let me know.”
I call the Tower of Reeds to inquire about the Halloween Party events, and sure enough, Evan Graves is scheduled to do a ghost hunt. I leave a message on his room phone asking him to call, then I meet up with Shane and Tami to search his room.
“I don’t know why you think Evan has anything to do with this,” Tami says. “He wouldn’t be so stupid to keep incriminating evidence.”
“Did he check out?”
“No. He wants to come by tomorrow to see how the haunt effects held up.” Tami unlocks the room. “There’s a ‘Do Not Disturb’ sign on the door handle designed to keep maids out, so whatever was in here should still be here.”
She steps aside to let us in, and I can see by the set of her jaw and the lines around her mouth that she’s nervous.
The room is a mess. Drawers are open, and the bed is not made. Papers are scattered on the table as if someone rifled through them. A cup of coffee is spilled on the table, and a brown stain soaks into the rug.
I put on gloves and bag the coffee cup in case we need DNA evidence. There’s no sign of the costume Evan was wearing last night, but when I pick up the bedspread, a slip of paper flutters to the carpet.
I pick it up and show it to Shane. “Looks like Viola’s phone number. Let’s bag it.”
“Wonder why he asked her to write it down when she could have texted it to him?” Shane asks. “Or are people here old-fashioned?”
“Viola doesn’t have a cell phone,” Tami says. “She doesn’t want the phones to spy on her.”
I call the phone number, and it goes to the library’s answering machine. “Looks like she gave him her library phone number and not her home.”
“Makes sense if she was looking up information for him or holding a book,” Tami says. “Are we done here?”
“You don’t have to stay. We can lock up.” I feel between the sheets for anything I might have missed. “It’s obvious someone else was searching. Did Evan take out two keys or one?”
“I’ll ask Neil,” Tami says and goes outside to call.
I pick up the mattress and find a large brown envelope. I blink, unbelieving, at what I see. It’s photos of Tami—naked.
Quickly, I stuff it into my jacket before Tami comes back into the room.
“Will you look at this?” Shane whistles from the direction of the bathroom.
I almost run into Tami as she makes a mad dash to the bathroom where Shane is picking up a bloody and matted mask.
He swings it by the hair and drops it into an evidence bag. “Looks like we found Bigfoot’s face. Did you find out anything about him from that agency Tami hired him from?”
“He actually left before the fireworks started,” I explain while Tami has a caught-red-handed look on her face. “Threw his mask away and left.”
“Oh, I didn’t see it in your notes.” Shane gives me a hard look. “What’s his name? We can easily check it out.”
“I, uh, forgot to write it down. I heard from one of the ladies that he’d gone already.” I make sure I don’t glance at Tami.
“Probably a red herring,” Shane agrees. “If Bigfoot left with Larissa and they’re spending the day shacked up somewhere, then he wasn’t around at the time of Viola’s death. But then it begs the question. Why is his mask here in Evan’s room? Is someone framing Evan? Or deliberately confusing us?”
“I don’t know, but let’s talk to Diana Van Dirk. I’m not buying she stayed with my uncle all night.”
We finish up in Evan’s room, and after depositing the evidence in the Tahoe, we descend the basement stairs to the Baja Angel Studio.
“This is a freaky place to put a guest,” Shane observes. “I wonder if there are rats here.”
I stop midstride when I hear a scuffling sound coming from behind a cinder block wall. “What’s over there? I thought I heard something moving.”
