The girl hurried off, and Brittany scoped out the seating area. Tonight, there were only five man/woman couples, one couple that were both female, and one family with four kids, partaking of the restaurant’s fine dining. She raised her gaze to the ceiling, looking for any security cameras. “I don’t see any more cameras,” she whispered.
“Me, either.” Kurt moved to the cash register, his attention went everywhere, even on the floor. Then he pointed to a spot on the wall behind the register. “I think that’s the security camera.”
She stood close to him until their elbows touched. “Yeah, I think it is.”
“Can I help you?”
A man, who was in his late twenties, approached them with the blue-haired girl tagging behind. Kurt moved in front of Brittany to greet the man.
“We are SPD Detectives, and I need to ask you a few questions about Sunday morning between eight and ten. Were you, or any of your employees, working that morning?”
“I was.” The blond man nodded.
Kurt reached into his vest pocket and pulled out a picture. “This woman was having breakfast that morning. Do you remember her?”
The overweight man’s gaze narrowed as he studied the picture. Slowly, he nodded. “I think I do. If I remember right, she was waiting for her friend.”
“Do you know if her friend ever showed up?” Brittany asked, coming closer.
The man scratched his double chin. “Yes.”
“By chance,” Brittany continued, “did you recognize him as someone of importance here in Seattle?”
The man frowned. “I don’t remember thinking that at all.”
“Do you think,” Kurt added, “that you could describe him?”
The man breathed in slowly, and then exhaled. “All I can remember was that he was a good looking man. He and the woman looked good together because they were both very well-dressed people. I do remember that they argued about something, and then the man left before the woman.”
“Thanks for your help.” Kurt pointed to the wall behind the cash register. “One last thing. Is that a security camera?”
“Yes.”
Kurt continued. “Are there others?”
“No.”
“Could we get Sunday’s recording?”
“I, um…” The man scratched his double chin again. “I’ll have to get the manager’s approval.”
“Would you call him right now?” Brittany asked. “We could get a search warrant if the manager doesn’t comply.”
“Yes, Ma’am.” The overweight man hurried back into the other room.
During the wait, she scanned the occupants, again. One man facing her, kept raising his gaze to her and Kurt. When he caught her looking his way, he quickly lowered his gaze and leaned across the table as if he was talking to the woman sitting across from him.
“So what’s your theory?” Kurt asked her.
She snapped her attention away from the couple and walked to the bench near the cash register, and sat. “I think Hillary met one of the men on her list, to try and bribe them into going with her new call girl business. And, just like what happened with Austin, I think this guy rudely refused her and then stormed out of the restaurant.”
“What about the poison?” Kurt lifted a leg, resting his foot against the bench, as he met her gaze.
“Well, that gets a little tricky. I suppose that she had tried to bribe this man—or even blackmail him—before, and he was tired of it. He could have met her here with the poison, ready to pour it in her coffee. Maybe he could have tried to stop her from doing something that she’d threatened to do, and when things didn’t go his way, he could have poured the powder in her coffee when she wasn’t looking.”
“That’s plausible.” Kurt stroked his trimmed goatee, the familiar way he’d always done when he was deep in thought. “I do agree with you that Hillary was trying to blackmail him, or threaten him in some way.”
“You do?” Strange how he agrees with her now, but he couldn’t agree with her about Austin?
