Free Lemons 03 Stroke of Genius by Grant Fieldgrove Page A

said.
    The main television sitting directly in front of us flickered, turned to a snowstorm, then returned with a freeze frame of Balls stepping on to an elevator.
    “Here is your boy, I believe.”
    “That looks like him,” I said, “but I can’t be sure.”
    “It is,” Mulroney assured me. “We have his entire evening on record here. This, unfortunately, is where we lose him. Once he steps on to the elevator it’s the last we see of him.”
    “Are you kidding me? There are no cameras on the elevator or on the floors?”
    “I’m afraid to say there were no cameras in the elevator aside from the emergency camera that is only on when the emergency button is hit. Even then, the camera is only located above the buttons and doesn’t give an entire view of the area. And no, we have no cameras on the floors, except near the emergency stairwells and those are on a motion sensor.”
    “Okay, so no camera on the elevator. No camera on the floors. But the keycards keep a record every time the doors are unlocked, yes?”
    “Yes, except for maids and maintenance. They have passkeys which don’t work the same as the guests’ keys. Guests keys are registered and logged, staff keys are not.”
    “So what is the deal with your case, detective?” Elise asked. “Explain to me the problems you’re having?”
    “Well Ms.-‘
    “Reynolds.”
    “Ms. Reynolds, yes. This woman claims she was taken from our hotel Tuesday morning, beaten and raped, left for dead. She is now suing us. What we need to do is either solve who did it, or prove that she was not taken from here, as opposed to somewhere else? Do you understand? If she was taken somewhere besides on our property, we obviously wouldn’t be liable for it.”
    “I understand that you have to doubt everyone, but why do you doubt her? Make sense?”
    “I suppose so, Ms. Reynolds. The biggest obstacle we have in front of us is that no one knows where she went. No one ever saw her leave the hotel. We have gone over hours and hours of video footage, we locate her several times throughout the night, and even follow her to the elevator, where she assumedly goes to her room. That is the last we see of her. The next time anyone sees her she is in a field, raped.”
    “So what are you thinking?” I ask.
    “I don’t know what I am thinking.”
    “Was she smuggled out in a maids cart or laundry hamper?” Elise asks.
    “I certainly hope not. That is another reason for our investigation. If it were members of this staff who did it, it would be extremely damaging to us.”
    “I understand,” Elise said, “but you can’t rule it out. We’ll get to the bottom of this.”
    “Maybe this is a scam, maybe she left the hotel in a disguise,” I suggested. “It could happen.”
    “We thought of that as well. We looked at everyone on the video.”
    “Okay, do you mind if we have a look at this for a while. We tend to work best when it’s just the two of us.”
    “Very well.”
    He gave us a brief run-through of how all the cameras worked and how to operate them correctly. He also loaded one screen with our boy and another screen with our rape victim. I informed him I knew how to work this system and if I had any questions I would call him. He agreed then left. We got to work.
    13.
    “Okay,” I start, “this woman, Leslie, our rape victim, said in her statement that she was attacked by two men. Did anyone tell us where she said she was attacked?”
    “No, it just says in the hotel.”
    “Well crap. Okay, and then what? That’s all she can remember? She blacked out?”
    “Yeah, she was attacked in the hotel, blacked out, woke up to being raped, blacked out again, then was eventually found. No descriptions on either of the men. She said she simply couldn’t remember. Everything was fine and then she got attacked. Two guys, that’s all we know.”
    “Okay, then I guess we start looking for two guys.”
    “How the hell are we going to do that?” Elise asked, in a rather