Free Random Killer by Hugh Pentecost

picture-wire killer had crossed Joanna Fraser’s path in the past.
    “I think maybe we better go down the hall and talk to Chambrun,” I said to Nora.
    Ruysdale was at her desk in the outer office when Nora and I got there. I wondered where the press and media people were who’d jammed up the place earlier, and learned that Chambrun, in spite of a storm of protest, had barred them from the second floor. Our security people were sealing off thirty-four, sixteen, and here. They couldn’t have been doing much about looking for a crazy man with a roll of picture wire in his pocket.
    “Nora has come up with something interesting I think the boss should hear,” I said.
    Ruysdale gave Nora a sympathetic look. “There just isn’t anything very comforting to say, Miss Coyle,” she said. I guess she saw that any kind of sweet talk would loosen the floodgates again. She picked up the phone on her desk. “Mark and Miss Nora Coyle to see you, Mr. Chambrun.” Then she waved toward the far door.
    “How is the general climate?” I asked her.
    “Warnings are out,” Ruysdale said. “They seem to have turned the tide. People not so anxious to leave. They’re like motorists rubbernecking at an accident.”
    Chambrun was at his desk. His exterior never showed any signs of his being ruffled. He knew I wouldn’t be here with Nora unless she had something that might interest him.
    “Please sit down, Miss Coyle,” he said, gesturing to the armchair beside his desk.
    “It’s a coincidence that may not mean anything,” I said.
    “Most coincidences don’t,” he said. “However, let’s hear it.”
    Nora, in pretty good control now, told her story of the Sharon Dain case and Joanna Fraser’s connection with it. Chambrun listened, his eyes narrowed in those deep pouches. He didn’t interrupt or ask her anything. When she’d finished he picked up his phone and spoke to Ruysdale.
    “Get Roy Conklin or Bobby Bryan in here,” he said, “whichever can move fastest.” He put down the phone and lit one of his flat cigarettes. “You mentioned an anonymous threat, Miss Coyle.”
    “It was a letter, written on High Crest stationery,” she said, “available to hundreds of people, Mr. Chambrun, the way Hotel Beaumont stationery is available to any guests here.”
    “Do you remember what it said?”
    “Just a sentence,” Nora said. “ ‘You will pay for your indifference to Sharon Dain.’ ”
    “No signature?”
    “No.”
    “And that was two years ago? Nothing since?”
    “Not that I know of.” Nora twisted in her chair. “Anonymous threats and slanderous attacks weren’t unusual. I guess most public people get them. Joanna ignored them.”
    “She wasn’t afraid?”
    “Joanna wasn’t afraid of God himself,” Nora said with a little smile.
    “She should have been, it seems,” Chambrun said. “I think Hardy should be in on this.” He had Ruysdale connect him with 1614. While he waited for Hardy to come on he spoke to Nora. “You didn’t mention all this in the statement you gave Hardy?”
    “I hadn’t even thought of it until Mark and I got to talking,” Nora said. “I mean, it was two years ago, and what happened today was so immediate. I wasn’t thinking of anything else when Lieutenant Hardy questioned me.”
    Hardy came on and Chambrun said, “I may have something, Walter.”
    While he waited, Chambrun proceeded to make a series of phone calls from a list on the desk in front of him. I recognized the people he was calling as permanent residents of the hotel, mostly co-op apartment owners and old friends and customers. He had a set speech for them, telling what had happened, what the risks were. They were not to let anyone into their rooms, not even maids, or waiters, or bellboys, until the coast was clear.
    “You suspect someone on the staff?” I asked him between calls.
    “I suspect someone posing as someone on the staff,” he said. “Both Hammond and Joanna Fraser were unprepared for any sort