Chapter Three

DI Robbie Lewis had just finished his glass of orange juice when his mobile rang. He answered it and held it up to his ear.

" Sir, it's Hathaway. The chief super wants us over at The Hampton hotel immediately; there's been a murder."

" On my way then, sergeant."

Lewis hung up, placed his empty glass and bowl in the kitchen sink, grabbed his jacket from the back of his chair, and exited his house. When he arrived at his location, he put on a SOCO suit and went over to join Hathaway and Hobson. When the inspector saw the body lying on the bed, he grimaced. The corpse was completely naked, and from the neck down, was covered in thick black goo and soft feathers. Lewis glanced around the room and was quickly able to determine where the feathers had come from. Beside the bed were the shredded remains of two down pillows. Further examination of the bed itself revealed more of the black substance spread all over the cream-coloured sheets.

" Tarred-and-feathered," Lewis remarked once he'd returned his attention to the body.

" Not exactly," Hathaway said, kneeling down to take a closer look at the body. "That's not tar." Lewis looked at him querulously, and the sergeant explained. " When I was in the Fifth Form, I had a part-time job in a boat rental shop. The pay was decent, and they sometimes let me take boats out for free. Anyway, we used tar on the canoes to help repel water. I worked with my share of the substance; I recognize it when I see it, and I don't see it here."

" If it's not tar, then what is it?"

" My guess would be glue," Hobson chimed in. " It's about the right texture and thickness. Glue mixed with some sort of dye or paint to give it the black colour. We'll run some tests and will tell you when we know for sure. Although, I very much doubt the material matters much. I think they just wanted to make a statement."

" Well, they certainly did that. What do you reckon they were trying to make a statement about?"

Hathaway spoke next." Well, tar-and-feathering has been a common punishment since the medieval days for those seen as lower than dirt: common criminals, religious, ethnic, and social minorities, or even those with unpopular political views."

Lewis nodded somberly as he looked back at the body.

' Poor sod. Whatever you've done, you didn't deserve this."

" Anyway, the tarring-and-feathering isn't what killed him. He was hit on the temple with a blunt instrument. If you look closer, you'll see the bruising."

Lewis decided to take Hobson at her word; he had no desire to look any closer. He swallowed and returned his attention to Hathaway. " What do we know so far?"

" According to the hotel manager, the room was unoccupied last night. However, there had been a guest staying there the night before and there was going to be another checking in this afternoon. A girl from the housekeeping staff went into the room to clean it and found… found this. I've only talked with a few members of the staff so far, but they all claim not to recognize the man."

" My team hasn't found anything to identify him either. No wallet, no mobile. Nothing," Hobson chimed in.

Lewis sighed. " James, I want you to question the people in the rooms next door. They may have heard or seen something useful last night, or at this point—may even be potential suspects. I'll go talk to the concierge; he might have seen something as well. I'll come join you in a little while."

" Will do; I'll catch up with you later."

Two Doors Over…

Dr. Cal Lightman woke the next morning to the sound of loud voices coming from the hallway outside his room. He glanced over at the alarm clock next to his bed and groaned when he saw that it was only eight-thirty.

Lightman had booked this room, because he'd been informed that The Hampton was a quiet, relaxing environment. It should have been too—with the exorbitant rates he was being charged to stay there!

In frustration, Lightman lightly tapped his head on his head on the nearest bedpost. He pulled his head back and then noticed a small indentation in the wood just beside the place he'd been banging his head.

An honest-to-God notch on his bedpost—though he, of course, hadn't been the one to carve it. Some lucky " narcissistic bastard" had already beaten him to it.

Cal Lightman wasn't sure just why, but he hadn't been able to get the woman from last night out of his mind. He was no stranger to rejection—particularly in amorous matters. Jean from The Grapevine certainly wasn't the prettiest woman who had ever turned him down—though she was far from the plainest.

Her insult really hadn't been all that remarkable either. He'd been called much worse names than " narcissistic bastard" before, and Jean wasn't even the first woman to have poured a drink over his head. (That honor belonged to a pint-sized redhead who he'd met on a Mediterranean cruise.)

Yet despite the fact that she should have been little more than a momentary distraction and potential one-night-stand, the woman from The Grapevine had proven to be more than that. There was something about her that Lightman just couldn't forget—even though he knew he'd probably never see her again.

He hadn't taken another woman back to the hotel last night, though he'd met several who would have gone with him if he had asked. Instead he'd waited up in his room until three a.m., hoping that Jean's obvious curiosity might persuade her to change her mind. He'd finally given up and had forced himself to sleep, only to find her again in his dreams.

Lightman buried his head in his pillow in an attempt to drown out the loud voices still coming from outside his bedroom. Didn't those damned early risers realize that other people were still trying to sleep? Why the sun was barely up!

He decided that the only thing to do was to go down to the lobby and complain. As he had fallen asleep last night wearing his clothes from yesterday, he decided not to change right away and merely slipped outside his room.

The first thing that he noticed upon exiting was the stretcher, sinking under the weight of a motionless fully-grown man who appeared to be covered in a sticky black substance.

" Are you sure you're done with this, Dr. Hobson?" a man in a white jumpsuit asked a similarly attired petite blonde woman.

" For now. Thank you, John," the woman replied, and with the aid of another man, " John" carried the stretcher down the hallway.

" Hobson." The name stirred something in Lightman's memory, though he wasn't actually sure of what. The psychologist approached the woman anyway. His curiosity had been whetted, though more from the body than from the familiar name.

" Excuse me," Lightman said as he finally reached the woman. " What's going on here?"

" A body was found here at the hotel, and from the look of things, the poor soul was the victim of foul play. I'm afraid I can't tell you anymore than that at the moment."

" Why not? I can help you out. I've got loads of experience dealing with this sort of stuff."

" I appreciate your concern, but I think this is best left to the professionals for the present."

" Of which I am one." She looked at him confusedly, and he held out his hand. "Cal Lightman, founder of the Lightman group. I specialize in emotion detection."

Hobson didn't take his hand, and her lips twitched in a momentary, almost imperceptible grimace as her nostrils flared slightly.

Disgust.

But why? As far as he was aware, he hadn't done anything too distasteful. Maybe she simply disliked people trying to do her job for her. But still, she had seemed far more pleasant before he'd mentioned his name.

" Oh, yes, I've heard all about you," the woman replied, and she didn't seem at all impressed by his stellar credentials. Her eyes narrowed angrily. " Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to get back to work," she said coolly as she brushed passed him into a bedroom.

" Who was that, Laura?" Lightman heard a voice ask from inside the room.

Hobson's voice responded. " That was no one of consequence. Just a nosy tourist with nothing better to do than interfering in other people's lives."

Lightman was about to charge into the room and make a stinging retort when something stopped him.

" Interfering in other people's lives"? He supposed it was true, but " interfering" was still a strong word. And it wasn't exactly her life for which he'd expressed curiosity—just her work. And then there was her sudden decision to dislike him, a decision that seemed rooted more in his name than his desire to help.

Laura Hobson. Why did the name seem so bloody familiar?

Suddenly, it all came back to him. Jean, the pretty brunette from The Grapevine, had given her name at first as " Laura Hobson" and had then confessed that Hobson was actually a friend that was supposed to meet her there. After she'd spurned his advances, Jean must have contacted her friend and tipped her off about what had happened. This would certainly explain Hobson's coldness toward him, and her comment about his interfering in other people's lives.

Lightman felt a light tap on his shoulder, and turned to see an older man with a heavily lined face and kindly blue eyes.

" Excuse me," the man said gently. " I need to ask you some questions about last night…"

Sorry it took so long to update. I had a bit of writer's block combined with severe interest in some of my other stories combined with vacation. Hopefully the next chapter will be up sooner. Thank you to ShadowSwan for the kind review and to everyone else who has favorited/alerted. I really appreciate it.