Donna Andrews - Chesapeake Crimes - This Job Is Murder!

Katie Hawkins stared in horror at the dead body on the meeting room floor. “This is definitely not on the agenda.”

She had come in mega early to check the room setup before The Client From Hell arrived. Everything had to be perfect, or Katie would never hear the end of it.

A dead body wasn’t perfect. And she knew the client would blame her for this. She shook her head in shame at that thought; she should be more concerned about this poor man.

Katie headed for the phone on the wall, then paused. The room was a potential crime scene, and she might contaminate it. She was a devotee of crime shows on television, so she knew the cops always complained when a civilian tromped all over their evidence.

Backing out quickly, she screamed as she bumped into something solid. She pivoted, risking breaking the heels on her fashionable but uncomfortable shoes. Relief flowed through her. The obstacle was Chad Bentley, her boss and general manager of the Two Palms Hotel.

She dropped her clipboard and gripped both of his shoulders. “Chad! There’s a body in there! I think he’s dead.”

Chad never panicked. Katie prided herself in her ability to remain calm when things were falling apart around her, but she could never reach the same level of unflappability as her boss.

Chad flicked placid hazel eyes toward the door of the Grand Ballroom. “A dead body? I know Baltimore has a high murder rate, but we’ve managed to avoid it here.”

“Why do you assume it’s murder?”

He glanced at his wristwatch. “It’s not even six o’clock, Katie. No one should be in that room this early other than Bobby. And you would have said if the body was Bobby’s.”

“No, it’s not Bobby.” Even with just a quick view, Katie knew the body wasn’t her banquet captain.

“Therefore anyone inside must be there for nefarious purposes. So if he or she is dead, I doubt it’s from natural causes.”

“He, I think. And yeah, he’s dead.” She shuddered remembering the sight…and smell.

Chad went to open the door, but Katie grabbed his arm. He stopped and glanced back, one dark eyebrow raised.

“Don’t you watch CSI ? You shouldn’t touch the door. You could get fingerprints on it, or mess up the ones that are already there.”

Chad removed a turquoise handkerchief from his suit pocket and used it to push open the door. Perhaps the slightest bit of emotion passed over his face as he stared at the body. “Yes, Katie, I think you’re right. Definitely dead.” He wrinkled his nose. “Died badly too, by the smell of it. Got your cell phone on you?”

Katie smacked herself in the forehead. Why hadn’t she thought about using her cell phone? She pulled it out of her pocket and dialed 911.

She had just finished giving the details to the operator when the Client From Hell strode off the elevator and headed toward the registration table located just outside the ballroom door.

Katie ran over to intercept Mrs. Rudy halfway. “Mrs. Rudy, how good to see you! We still need to finalize the menu for tonight’s reception, I believe. Why don’t we go into my office and do that?” Katie gently gripped Mrs. Rudy’s arm and tried to steer her away.

“My word, Ms. Hawkins.” The bird-thin woman complained as she easily shrugged off Katie’s hand and headed for the table. “Let me put down my registration packets, at least. And what do you mean ‘finalize the menu’? We took care of that months ago.”

Katie looked desperately at Chad, but he just shrugged and left it up to her. She took a deep breath. “Well, that’s true. But the…the shrimp didn’t come in on time, so we need to substitute another appetizer.”

That got Mrs. Rudy’s attention. “What? You promised me that we’d have plenty of shrimp cocktail. We definitely need to discuss this. But first, there are handouts that need to be distributed to each seat. Plus I need to straighten out these name tags. Who moved them?”

“Let me take care of those for you, Mrs. Rudy,” Chad said smoothly, taking the box from the woman. “I assume the handouts are inside. I’ll get our banquet staff to see to that right away.” He quirked a brow at Katie.

It took Katie a moment to interpret his expression. Where was the banquet staff? Although the servers wouldn’t show up until seven, Bobby should already be there making certain all the audio-visual equipment was up and running. She knew he had worked the night before, flipping the room set-up from the previous meeting, but Bobby could be relied upon to be there bright and early. Hopefully Chad would find him.

Chad set the handouts down outside the door before walking to the main hallway. Katie could hear him paging Bobby on the radio.

Katie kept one ear open to hear if Bobby answered as she listened to Mrs. Rudy drone on about the day’s agenda. The same agenda they had gone over on the phone, on email, during the pre-con meeting, and again the night before when Mrs. Rudy came over to make certain the room was set up correctly.

She made understanding noises at Mrs. Rudy while noting that Bobby had not answered the radio call. Chad walked by her, heading toward the AV closet where Bobby had his office.

Katie was stuck. She wanted to get Mrs. Rudy out of the foyer, but she had to wait for the police. She crossed her fingers and hoped that Chad would come back to relieve her before the police arrived.

First, she needed to convince Mrs. Rudy to stop re-aligning the nametags. The woman shouldn’t be touching anything, Katie thought. Without getting closer-a thought Katie didn’t want to contemplate-there was no way to tell how the man on the ballroom floor had died, so anything could be evidence.

Katie considered the plastic name tags on the table. The plastic badge holder was made of flimsy plastic, definitely not strong or sharp enough to stab through skin, much less flesh, plus she hadn’t seen any blood around the body, just…bodily fluids. She supposed the lanyard could be used to strangle someone.

Glancing back toward the ballroom, she wondered who the victim was. She knew it wasn’t Bobby from the body’s light skin tone.

Chad came hurrying back. Katie felt relief that she’d be able to leave the ballroom and the police in his hands while she got Mrs. Rudy out of the way. When Chad crooked a finger at her, it was her turn to raise an eyebrow at him as she stepped away from the registration table.

“I found Bobby,” he whispered.

“And?”

“He was in the AV room. Tied up and gagged. After I untied him, I told him to stay put.”

“Oh, my God.”

“He said someone knocked him out last night,” Chad continued. “I assume it has something to do with our friend in the ballroom.”

Katie barely had time to digest that before Mrs. Rudy spoke up.

“There’s someone in the ballroom?” The woman straightened, smoothing the crease out of her stark black suit. “Your hotel promised that the ballroom would be locked up at all times. We have proprietary information in there that shouldn’t be seen by anyone not approved.”

“That’s not going to be a problem, Mrs. Rudy,” Katie said and breathed a sigh of both relief and resignation when two uniformed police officers stepped off the elevator. “The gentleman in the ballroom is in no position to divulge any classified material. Right this way, officers.”

She opened the door, attempting to let the police officers in without giving Mrs. Rudy a chance to see inside. No such luck.

“Who’s that? My God, is someone dead? How? What’s that smell?”

“We haven’t determined who the victim is yet, but yes, it appears that there has been a death in that room. We don’t know how the person got in or how he died,” Katie said in one breath. She didn’t bother answering the question about the smell.