My thoughts exactly, he told her in silence.
She smiled slightly.
“Ah, yes, they’re interesting. They’ve worked for Marc Kimball since he bought the property. Alaskan natives, both of them. They had one child who died in infancy. Neither had much of an education, but they are, apparently, the only people who don’t kowtow to Marc Kimball. They watch his place, they cook and clean, but—I searched a lot of Facebook pages for this, by the way!—they move about Kimball in something like silence, they don’t suck up to him or his guests. In fact, Ginger Vixen—of Ginger Vixen Cosmetics—wrote on a page, ‘I feel like I’ve entered a Victorian manse when I’m there. The servants don’t talk or even crack a smile.’ Apparently, she said something to Kimball about them. ‘They’re the best at leaving me to my privacy and keeping a true eye on this place,’ Kimball told her. As for a criminal background—no. Not even parking tickets!”
“Okay, thanks. We’ll get on it here,” Thor said.
“I’m still working. I’ll be in touch with anything, no matter how small,” she promised. She said goodbye to all of them. The screen went to gray.
“We’d better get going,” Jackson said.
Thor nodded and looked at him. “I think we should speak with the hotel clerk who was on duty—Arnold Haskell, if I remember correctly. And the production or production assistant who worked for Natalie Fontaine. Misty Blaine. Let’s see how she’s doing. We spoke when we arrived at the crime scene, but she was really hysterical. Maybe she’s calmed down some. I figure she’s still at the hotel?”
“Yes. None of the Wickedly Weird crew is leaving yet—they’ve been asked to stay. I’ll check it out, find out where they both are,” Jackson said.
He turned aside to use the phone. Thor found himself looking at Clara. “You do know that this investigation could go on a very long time, right?”
She looked up at him with her incredibly blue eyes and smiled. “No, it won’t,” she said. “You and Jackson won’t let it take a long time.”
He hesitated. “He might have come to Alaska because of me. For revenge. That puts anyone near me in danger.”
“No,” she said. “I know Jackson, I know some of the Krewe—and now I know you. I’d be in danger if I weren’t with the two of you. And you won’t convince me otherwise,” she told him.
He nodded. “Well, for now... For now,” he told her. “It’s true that we just might need you. I’d really like to avoid a vicious fight with Marc Kimball and twiddling my thumbs while we wait for a warrant if we need something that requires one.”
Her expression faded slightly. “He really does give me the creeps.”
“And I really do want you to keep your distance,” Thor said.
She laughed suddenly. “Suck up to him from a distance.”
“Yep, that’s it,” he told her.
Jackson finished with his phone call. “Our hotel clerk, Arnold Haskell, is at the front desk at the Nordic Lights. Let’s head over.”
At the Nordic Lights Hotel, the day manager was quick to come and take over for Arnold so that he could speak with them. The four of them headed over to a little group of lobby chairs; Thor noted that Clara was silent but that she was an attentive listener. He had the feeling that she’d be able to remember everything they heard—almost as if she were studying personalities or learning a script.
Arnold Haskell was a young, eager man in his early twenties. He started off by telling them that he’d already spoken to the police; he wished that he could give them more, but he could only tell them what he had seen, and what his dealings with people had been.
Thor showed him the image printed from the security footage.
Arnold Haskell frowned, studying the picture.
“Did you see this man?” Thor asked him.
“Yes, I did,” Haskell told them. “But he wasn’t a guest here at the hotel.”
“You’re certain?” Jackson asked him.
“Well, to the best of my knowledge. We’re a fairly small, local hotel. There are only six of us desk clerks altogether, covering all shifts. You can check with the others, but if he were a guest here, I believe I would have seen him coming and going. I only saw him the one time.”
“And it was the same evening Miss Fontaine was killed?” Jackson asked.
Haskell nodded, his eyes growing larger as he stared at Thor. “Yes,” he said quietly. “I remember that Miss Fontaine was giving instructions to her people.” He hesitated. “I don’t think I would have liked to work for her. The evening Miss Fontaine was killed here, he was sitting in that chair while she and her staff were talking. I remember seeing him because I thought he was a bit strange looking—kind of like I’d imagine Marc Twain to look, except that would have been a long, long time ago!”