A Dallas Suite

Chapter Fifteen

I walked into the front door of the hotel behind Sergeant Moore and saw that Reggie was waiting for us in the lobby.

"I figured someone would probably be coming back to speak with me. I saw on the news there's a possible murder at the garage next door."

"Yeah let's go talk somewhere that isn't the public lobby, bud," Moore was a straight to the point guy. He was also right, talking about murders out in the open wasn't good for business in such a lavish hotel.

We walked into a small office that was on the second floor of the hotel, backed into a corner next to the cleaning staff laundry room. Apart from a small wooden desk and a fern sitting in an oversized pot on the floor, the office was mostly empty. You'd think in such a luxurious hotel, the head of security would have a more accommodating office. "Yeah the owners here didn't put quite as much money into the private areas for employees as they did in the rest of the buildings. Or for their offices," Reggie announced as we walked into the room. He had been asked about the office before, it seemed. "Anyways, what can I do for you?"

"Well Reggie, I didn't meet you before, but I'm Detective Seeks. I'm working with Hope, the detective you met earlier this morning, and this our supervisor, Sergeant Moore. You were right, we are investigating another murder in the parking garage. We found the body on the ninth floor. Would you have any idea why it may have been there?" I knew he had the answer, but I wanted to see how willing he was to offer information. It did me no good to let him know how much information we had yet. If he tried to play dumb about the information, then I knew we'd need to play a little more bad cop in our investigation. Good thing I had Moore with me.

"A lot of our guests here park at the parking garage, it's included in their rooms if they choose to use it. We have the same deal with multiple other garages and parking lots in the area. But the ninth floor was closed at night for our premium members."

"What do you mean by premium? Like they paid more money to park higher up in the air?" I asked. I saw Moore smirk in the corner of my eye. I learned the play dumb trick from him.

"No, Detective. By premium I mean the ones who were using Jason Diggs private suite." It seemed that Moore wouldn't have to show his scary face with Reggie.

"Do you have a list of guests who used the suite?"

"I honestly don't, Detective. I'd love to say I knew everything that went on there, especially since I'm head of security. But, sadly most of the details were kept from me. I know people would park in the hotel and Mr.Diggs would somehow have them shuttled here. After that they usually used our shipping elevator in the back of the building. The elevator doesn't have cameras and as you know the ones around the suite were shut off years ago. So anyone who entered back there wouldn't ever be on any system with the hotel. Money buys you the best security.

"Yeah, we've learned that today. There was a similar deal with the parking garage and its cameras. So let me ask you this; if you didn't know any details, how did Diggs organize everything here? He obviously wasn't doing all the behind the scenes work himself."

"When he first purchased the room he interviewed me. During that interview he asked me who my most trusted employee was. I told him about one. Very punctual, very respectful. Old Army guy, Green Beret I think. That's special forces, isn't it?" He looked at both myself and Moore.

"Yeah Bud, that's special forces. Keep going," Moore firmly replied.

"Well he's definitely overqualified for this job, but he's still a damn hard worker. Also keeps to himself more than anyone else I've ever met. Besides what I saw on his resume, I still don't know that much about him. As far as I know, he's the one who Diggs went through for everything. I wouldn't be surprised if he was getting paid extra for all the extra work he does. I won't lie to you, detectives, I've been given a little extra to keep my nose down as well."

"Well I appreciate you being so open with us, Reggie. Is this guy working right now?"

"Yes he is, he should have just gotten in for his shift. Right now he's probably down on the first floor in the actual security office. His name is Jeff Marshall."

"What's he look like?"

"He's the big, tall guy with the crazy beard. We all give him a hard time for looking like a wanna-be bodybuilder. You won't miss him."

I handed Jeff a card. "I don't know if any other detectives told you to contact them, but don't worry about them. If you remember anything or hear anything you think we should know, you call me directly, please," I said to him before I followed Moore out of the office.

"Yes, Detective," I heard him say before the door closed behind me.