the office, where he says his presence would be noted. He wants to do it somewhere where no one would notice them having a conversation; no one would draw any conclusions, because of the sheer number of people there. So he says he’ll be at the Otis party this Saturday and asks her to come there to discuss it.”
“You think he lured her there to kill her?” Karen asked.
“Maybe he genuinely wanted to change her mind and got angry when she wouldn’t,” Jessie said. “Maybe he planned it all along. Either way, it’s murder.”
Both Karen and Jamil sat quietly for a moment, pondering the hypothesis. Jessie took it as a good sign that neither had dismissed it out of hand. Finally Karen raised a question.
“But why would Jasper Otis cover for him?” she asked. “There’s no way Gilliard could have covered this up and stayed at the estate this long without Otis’s knowledge and consent. Why would he put himself on the line for the guy?”
“That’s a good question,” Jessie conceded. “Maybe Otis didn’t want the bad press and acted rashly. Maybe he was just trying to be a good friend. Maybe Gilliard had something on him.”
She had an idea what that might be but decided to hold off on voicing that suspicion for now. Before she could expound any further, Jamil waved his hand to get their attention.
“Got something?” Jessie asked.
“Yep,” he said. “I did the search you mentioned about mold remediation. Anything like what you said they claimed was going on in the residential wing requires a clearance inspection before work can be done. The approved clearance has to be filed with the city. No such approval was filed for Otis Estate at any point in the last month.”
“Well, that’s suspicious,” Karen said.
“Also, Nancy Salter told you the remediation process was underway, correct?” Jamil asked.
Jessie nodded.
“Well, I reviewed the camera footage for the last week. At no point did I see any van or truck on the property with any name having anything to do with mold cleanup.”
“So they’re faking it,” Karen concluded. “There is no mold problem.”
Jessie shrugged.
“Never say never,” she said, “but claiming that an entire section of the residential wing is too dangerous to enter because of hazardous mold spores is a good way to keep folks from going anywhere near there and inadvertently discovering a potential murderer.”
Jamil frowned.
“What’s wrong?” Jessie asked him.
He kept his eyes down as he spoke, as if he felt bad even voicing his thought.
“I don’t want to be the wet blanket here. But aren’t we kind of out on a limb with this? We’ve made a lot of suppositions, based on not that many facts. If we’re wrong, it could go really badly for all of us.”
Jessie thought about the twenty-two-complaint lawsuit she’d been served yesterday. Jamil had no idea how right he was. If they were wrong, Otis, and possibly Gilliard, would sue them until they were ground to dust.
She decided to keep that to herself. If they were wrong, and maybe even if they weren’t, she was facing years in court. But Karen and Jamil wouldn’t have to. She’d take the heat for all of it. There was no reason for them to pay the price for her wild speculation.
“You’re right Jamil,” she said. “So I guess we should find out if we’re wrong. What time is it?”
“Eleven forty-seven,” he said, looking at his watch. “Why?”
“Because Karen and I need to head out. We’ve got a search warrant to execute.”
CHAPTER THIRTY ONE
Jasper waited until no one was around.
When he was sure the hallway was clear, he pulled down the zipper on the plastic tarp that sealed off the first floor residential wing from the rest of West House. It would look awfully suspicious if anyone saw him entering an area marked “off limits zone: hazardous material warning.”
He opened the large doors that closed off the wing from the rest of the house and then walked down the hall to the bedroom at the far end of West House. Jasper had put Paul there because, other than his own personal wing, it was the most isolated part of the residence. It also had its own bathroom, dining room, and small entertainment room, making it perfectly self-contained.
He was carrying a bag with a lunch made up of a turkey, compote, and brie sandwich, hummus and carrots, a ripe peach, and sparking water. Ever since Sunday morning, he’d asked the kitchen staff to make him two of every meal, one of