Chapter 60
Sean enlisted Stephen’s help to carry Frank Maynard into the basement where they laid him next to the dead bride.
“Ugh, god,” Stephen said, quickly covering his nose.
“Death is a unique smell,” Sean answered.
Stephen stared at the bride’s body, eyes watering before he turned away, barely able to keep down the vomit.
Sean looked past Stephen and saw the oxygen tanks he had found earlier, and he remembered Roger never getting back to him about the missing tank.
“Hey, do you remember that guest from a couple of months ago who had requested those tanks?” Sean asked.
Stephen kept his hand to the back of his mouth, nodding. “Um, yeah, what about them?”
“Roger told me that the backups you stored down here were never used by the guest, but there’s some missing,” Sean answered.
“Uh, no, he used them,” Stephen said, wiping his nose. “I just probably forgot to update the inventory list.”
“Right, thanks,” Sean said, and then he noticed how white the young man’s face was. Most folks weren’t accustomed to being around the dead, and then Sean remembered how the young man’s father had passed recently. “You can head back up. I’ve got it from here.”
Stephen nodded, and then sprinted up the stairs, leaving Sean alone with the dead.
The moment felt heavy. He had become a law enforcement officer because he wanted to protect people.
He wanted to make people feel safe. Give them the sensation that he never felt himself when he was growing up.
That drive to do better, to give people a sense of community, made him want to become sheriff.
And while this wasn’t Sean’s county, and the people here at the hotel were practically strangers to him, he still felt responsible.
It was just how he was built. And while Frank Maynard might have been a monster, the bride certainly was not.
And neither was the little girl, wherever she might be now.
Sean stared at the two bodies for a long time, but he couldn’t sit and wallow in his own failure for much longer because what mattered most right now was putting the pieces together.
And while this was still a jigsaw that he hadn’t quite assembled, Sean would keep working the case until every piece was found.
Sean examined Frank Maynard’s body. The first thing he noticed was the bloody spot on the top of his head. He had noticed it when he carried the body down into the basement. It wasn’t a lot of blood, but whatever had hit him had probably knocked him out, and that was how he had drowned in the pool.
There were no other mortally fatal wounds along the body that Sean could find, but he did notice some bruising around the man’s neck where he had been choked or strangled. From the shape of the bruising, it looked like it might have been a belt.
Sean realized he should try calling Bart, but when he did, it went straight to voicemail. He left a brief message asking Bart to call him back, but he wasn’t sure whether the ME would receive it in time.
Sean returned his focus to the body and took a closer look at the bruising around Frank’s neck.
If he was held down and asphyxiated, that could have been the cause of death.
There were some light scratches on the forearms, but no other signs of defensive wounds, which made it seem like the attacker had possibly snuck up from behind.
Sean took some measurements of the bruising around the neck. If he was right that it was a belt, he might be able to find a matching size.
If it was a belt, it stood to reason that the person who had killed him might be a man, especially given Frank’s size. None of the women in the hotel were big. Even if they did have the element of surprise, they wouldn’t have been able to sneak up on him and choke him out.
Sean scribbled all of these thoughts into his notebook, then took a moment to search for any patterns he might recognize.
But every time he tried to find the pieces that fit, there would be something to contradict it, or another suspect that seemed more likely.
Sean’s head was spinning from every possible outcome that might happen with this investigation. It was as if everything and nothing was connected.
The grandfather clock chimed three times, signaling that it was three o’clock. It was less than two hours until sundown, and the time expired on the kidnapper’s deal.
After the clock fell quiet, Sean looked up at the staircase, and he saw Frank Maynard’s son at the bottom of the steps.
Sean was startled at first, especially considering that the boy had been so quiet. “What are you doing down here?”
“I wanted to see,” Stuart answered calmly. “If he was really dead.”
Sean glanced down at the boy’s father on the steel table and then nodded. “Yes, he’s dead.” He looked back up at the boy, who seemed neither afraid nor excited by the information.
“He would hurt my mom,” Stuart said. “I could hear them at night. I could hear her crying. I never went to help her. I was afraid.”
“It wasn’t your fault,” Sean said. “Your mother was protecting you.”
“I should have protected her,” Stuart said.
Sean understood that the boy would have a lot to process over the coming years, but talking about it was a good start. “You don’t have to be afraid anymore,” Sean said. “He won’t hurt your mother. And he can’t hurt you anymore, either.”
Stuart was quiet, and then his voice was eerily clear when he said, “I’m not so sure about that, either.”
Stuart then stepped off the staircase and walked over to his father. He examined him with unsettling indifference. Stuart circled his father’s body, then stopped at his left hand. He gently poked the skin and then waited to see if there was a reaction.
When there wasn’t, the boy calmly walked back over to the staircase, and then he cleared his throat. “He wasn’t a good dad,” Stuart said. “I’m glad he’s dead.” And then with that, he walked up the staircase and was gone.
Sean lingered in the basement for a bit longer, but he wouldn’t be able to hide down here forever. There was more work to be done and not enough time to do it. He just needed to figure out a new starting point to examine this case in a way that he hadn’t seen before.
If he could do that, perhaps he could find the missing pieces that continued to elude him.