Free Frenzy by John Lutz Page B

froze and said he couldn’t stop thinking about what he thought he’d heard coming outta that other room. And something else—he looked scared.”
    â€œWhat did Duke say he heard?” Quinn asked.
    â€œ Thought he heard,” Wanda corrected. “He tried to explain it to me, said it sounded like an injured animal wailing, only it was soft like. That’s when he told me he’d seen somebody entering the room across the hall. He said maybe the guy had forced his way in. The reason he hadn’t said what he’d seen earlier was . . . he had other things on his mind.”
    â€œDid you hear the sound?” Quinn asked.
    â€œNo.”
    â€œCould it have been a woman who was gagged and screaming?” Harold asked.
    â€œI suppose. Looking back on it, that’s what he mighta heard. Anyway, it gave Duke the creeps, and he didn’t want to play anymore.” She raised a shoulder in an elegant shrug that made Quinn think of art deco nudes. “Can’t say I blame him. Unless you go in for that kinda thing.”
    â€œAnd you didn’t see the man who might have forced his way into the room across the hall?”
    â€œThat’s right. I was on the bed, still tending to my ankle.” She wagged a shoe, making her calf muscle flex. Half smiling. Knowing they were looking. “I’d damn near turned an ankle in these heels when Duke answered my knock and hustled me into his room. I was like, what’s this all about?”
    â€œHe say he was sorry?” Harold asked. One of his seemingly inane questions that sometimes later proved of value. But only sometimes.
    â€œNo.” Wanda smiled. “They get eager.”
    Harold just bet they did.
    Bonnie the Barista wandered over to see if Quinn wanted a drink. Quinn moved her back out of earshot with a glance whose meaning was unmistakable. Back off. Bonnie retreated all the way to the other end of the bar. She managed to look offended and defiant. She, not this cop, ran the place during work hours.
    â€œWhat did you and Duke do after he heard the first noise?” Quinn asked Wanda.
    â€œThe mood had changed.”
    Quinn could understand that.
    â€œHe got dressed and I got out of uniform,” Wanda said.
    â€œUniform?” Harold asked.
    Quinn gave him the same look he’d given Bonnie, and Harold scooted back a few inches and was silent.
    â€œThen Duke stuffed his clothes and Dopp kit in a suitcase,” Wanda said, “and we went down to the lobby. He went over to the desk and he asked to be moved to another room. More like demanded. Didn’t say why, and nobody asked him. The desk clerk just gave him a different key card and room number, and had a bellhop take his suitcase up.”
    â€œThen what?” Quinn asked, almost casually. He needed to prime the pump now and then, keep Wanda talking.
    â€œThen I came in here and had some drinks.”
    â€œWhat time was that?”
    â€œI’m not sure. Sometime around seven thirty. I was already here, and had been for a little while, before Duke came back down from moving things into his new room. He was with some convention friends.”
    So around seven o’clock Duke had heard the torture and multiple murder in progress.
    There was a pause in the conversation while everyone sipped his or her drink, maybe thinking about three hotel rooms, one unoccupied, one where murder had happened, and one that had contained a prostitute and her customer, worrying about what people would think and say and do if they were found out.
    Something about that infuriated Quinn.
    Harold gazed at Wanda and said, “Do you have a business card?”
    Wanda looked at him as if he’d grown another head. Then she got a wrinkled scrap of paper from her purse and jotted down her address and phone number. She handed it to Quinn rather than to Harold or Sal. Alpha woman to alpha male. Quinn shot a glance at it and slipped it into his shirt