Chapter 10
Michael texted the head of the ERT in Jacksonville with the request to shadow Jim Esteban as Brian escorted him down the hall.
“You can use my office for the interviews,” Brian said. “Do you want to talk to anyone specifically first?”
“Room service, housekeeping, head of Maintenance, then whoever worked at the gym when Matt and Kara were there.”
Brian jotted down a list. “Feel free to use my desk.” He motioned to his chair, then stepped out.
Michael’s first interview was with Jill Quiroz, a no-nonsense round woman in her late fifties with graying black hair and
deep wrinkles around her eyes. She’d worked at the resort for twelve years. Michael had spoken to her on Friday when they
arrested Garrett since she had also been on duty then. “I personally watched the chef prepare Mr. Costa and Ms. Quinn’s breakfast,”
she said. “No one was poisoned on my watch.”
“No, ma’am. We don’t believe the food was poisoned,” Michael said. The dart they had collected had indicated they’d been tranquilized, but he wasn’t going to share that information with staff, not until they had a full analysis of the room.
“It wasn’t,” she said firmly. “I know the chef, he’s a good man. And the food did not leave my sight from the minute I domed
the plates until I personally delivered the cart.”
She was angry, and Michael wasn’t certain whether she was angry with him for asking questions or at the situation.
“You are now aware that Costa and Quinn are law enforcement?” Michael confirmed.
“Yes. That was made clear to me on Friday. I spoke to you and Agent Costa, remember?”
“Of course,” Michael said with a small smile, even though his stomach was tight and in pain. The interviews were necessary,
but he wanted to be out doing something . . . more . . . to find Matt and Kara.
He asked, “Yesterday, when did the call come in for room service?”
“It’s in the log,” she said.
“I want to confirm that it’s accurate.”
“11:10 a.m. Orange juice, champagne, blueberry pancakes, a protein omelet, and two sides of bacon. I delivered the cart at
11:35, maybe a minute or two after. I made certain the cart was never out of my view.”
“Who answered the door?”
“Mr. Costa. They were sitting outside on the patio and I offered to set it up, he said he would take the cart, and then he
tipped me.”
“And his mood? Did he seem nervous, agitated, happy?”
“Relaxed,” she said, “Friendly, polite. He’s been polite his entire stay.”
“Did you see Detective Quinn when you delivered the tray?”
“Yes. She was sitting in the sun on the patio drinking coffee, which appeared to have been made in the suite. It was in one
of the blue mugs that we have in the room for guests.”
“And their demeanor? Did either of them seem concerned or worried or preoccupied?”
“No, as I said, they were relaxed. They were—well, Mr. Costa seemed very happy. He did mention to me that he had won at racquetball
and Ms. Quinn said something like he cheated. He winked at me and said, ‘I never cheat.’ He’s very charming,” she added with
a smile.
Michael didn’t know if he would call Matt charming, but he could see why an older woman might.
“Are they okay? You will find them?” she asked with concern.
“We’ll find them,” Michael said. He wasn’t going to think about not finding them, or what his friends might be going through at this moment. He had people to interview, answers to find. Failure
wasn’t an option.
He would not fail his friends.
Don’t think of Matt and Kara as friends. They are trained and competent. Colleagues.
If he made this personal, he wasn’t going to get through the next hour, let alone through the day.
He asked Mrs. Quiroz, “Did you see anyone loitering outside their cottage?”
“Like I told Mr. Valdez, no. No one.”
“Not necessarily a stranger—maybe a staff member?”
“No one,” she repeated. “I delivered the cart, went back to the kitchen. I didn’t see anyone except George and his new hire,
I don’t remember his name, working in the flower beds on the path.”
Michael looked at his notes. He didn’t have George on his list, so he made a note that he wanted to talk to him as well.
He then showed her the printout of the individual in the maintenance uniform that Ryder had given him. There was no clear
shot of a face, barely a profile, but right now, it was the best they had.
“Do you recognize this person?”
She took a long look, frowned, shook her head. “No. Why?”
“We need to talk to everyone who worked Sunday morning, and we don’t know who this is.”
“Carlos, the head of Maintenance, would. Or Mr. Valdez. Maybe he’s a new hire? I know I haven’t seen him before.”
Him, Michael thought. She assumed male. Maybe Ryder’s instincts were wrong on this. The idea that a woman partnered with a killer . . .
not unheard of, but not common.
“Thank you,” he said. “You may send in the next person.”
When she left, Michael texted Brian that he would like to talk to George in Maintenance who worked on Sunday morning. Brian
responded that George didn’t work Mondays, so he’d call him in.
Michael next talked to housekeeping. Two women, both young, were responsible for turning the room. Beth was the senior staff
member and Anna didn’t speak English, so Beth spoke for them and translated for Michael. “There was a Do Not Disturb sign
on the door, so we didn’t enter. We went back twice, but it was still there.”
Michael confirmed the times they went to the room and asked if they saw anyone loitering. They hadn’t.
“During your second pass you collected the room service trays.”
“Yes. When we walked down the path to the next cottage, we noted that there was a room service cart outside the patio door.
We collected the items.”
“Was the door open?”
“No, it was closed.”
“Did you look inside?”
“No, not specifically.”
“But you would have noticed if people were in the room.”
“If they were in the living area,” Beth said. “We wouldn’t be able to see the bedroom from the slider.”
Michael made note of that. “Was there anything odd or unusual when you collected the plates?”
“No, except that one of the champagne flutes was broken, it probably fell over in the wind.”
Michael didn’t think the wind had done anything. If Matt and Kara had been sitting at the table eating breakfast and drinking
champagne when they were shot with the darts, one of them could have dropped the glass. Or when the kidnapper put them in
the cart, he or she could have knocked it over.
“Did you see anyone—either a stranger or someone you knew—while you were in or around the cottage?”
Beth shook her head. “I already told you we didn’t. We were busy, we had many rooms to turn over.”
Neither woman recognized the individual in the photo.
After Beth and Anna, Michael spoke with the head of Maintenance, Carlos Rodriguez, a straight-talking man in his sixties.
Michael and Matt had both spoken to him on Friday after Reid’s arrest. He had been crushed; he’d personally hired Reid last
fall and said he was the smartest employee he had, that he could fix anything and did it with a good attitude, no matter what
the job. Now his mood changed from shock and sorrow to anger.
“A partner. He has a fucking partner,” Carlos said shaking his head. “Dammit, I still can’t wrap my head around all this.
Killing people. Women! I told my wife—she met him!—and she didn’t believe it, either.”
“Killers are rarely what we expect,” Michael said. He showed Carlos the photo. “We need to talk to this person. Do you know
who it is?”
Carlos frowned. “Brian already asked me—I said no. That’s our uniform, but this person doesn’t work for me.”
“Are you certain?”
He narrowed his eyes at Michael. “Damn straight I’m certain. I know every man and woman on my staff, and this girl doesn’t work for me.”
Girl. “Do you recognize the individual? Maybe another staff member, or someone you’ve seen around?”
“No,” he said, then looked at the photo again, shook his head. “No. It’s not a good picture, I mean I can’t even see her hair
color or anything. If you get something better, show me. If I know, I’ll tell you.”
“How easy is it to steal a maintenance uniform?”
He shrugged. “I couldn’t say. Everyone is issued two uniform shirts, one set of overalls, and they’re responsible for them.
They can wear their own khaki pants or shorts in neutral colors, or buy additional shirts or overalls at a discount.”
“Order through the resort?”
He shook his head. “A company we contract with—a lot of the companies use them.”
Michael slid over a notepad and pen. “Can you write down their name and contact information if you have it?”
Carlos looked it up on his phone, wrote everything down for Michael. Michael thanked him, then when he left, sent the information
to Ryder with a message:
Anyone can order uniforms from this site.
If anyone could order, they wouldn’t find much—they could potentially have thousands of orders to go through in northern Florida
alone. But if Garrett Reid ordered an extra uniform, especially one that was too small for him? That would give them a thread
to pull.
Michael needed all the threads he could find.
Alena Porter, the manager of the resort, came in a few minutes after Carlos left. Michael had already asked Brian to bring in the woman who’d worked at the gym while Matt and Kara were there, but now he texted that Alena was here and said to ask Ms. Davidson to wait a few minutes.
Alena was a trim, attractive bleached blonde who looked younger than her forty years. Michael had met her several times over
the last two weeks, and she was one of the few staff members who had been privy to the undercover operation. She’d worked
at the resort for seven years, starting at the front desk, and had been promoted to manager last fall—two months before the
first murders.
“I’m so sorry I’m late,” Alena said as she sat down, straightening her knee-length skirt over her long legs. Though impeccably
dressed in a summer-weight business suit, strands of hair had escaped her slick braid, and her makeup was less than artfully
applied.