9
By seven o'clock that evening, Steve had managed to send all one hundred and five pictures of the male employees of the Royal Hawaiian. Chrissy saved each of them on her phone so that Molly and her family could look them over and hopefully identify the guy. She knew they had only seen the killer in and out of shadows, but that didn't mean they wouldn't be able to positively identify him. She hoped they could and that this guy could be apprehended as soon as possible so that Molly and her family could continue as planned with their vacation and Joyce and Vince's wedding.
Chrissy convened all of the family around the kitchen table and sat her phone in the middle. Slowly, she flipped through the photos, hoping to see a flicker of recognition in the witnesses' eyes. For a while, all hope seemed loss, as they went through scores without so much as a second glance. However, Chrissy saw it in Molly's eyes the second number seventy-four appeared on the screen of her phone. This had to be the guy.
Molly choked, "T-that's him. That's the guy I saw."
Chrissy nodded. She touched the screen, trying to check the name of the employee. It said Richard Moore. She asked, "Okay. Joyce, is this the man you saw?"
Joyce responded, "Yeah. I would say that if we saw him in light that would be the guy."
Chrissy clapped her hands. "Great. Is everyone in consensus that this is the man you saw in the hotel?"
The group of five nodded. Chrissy didn't hesitate in dialing Steve's phone number.
Steve's phone was on silent, and he didn't even know that Chrissy was calling him. He was in the middle of an interview with Cynthia Gaines, the woman at the center of the deadly love triangle. He was learning a lot of interesting things, such as the fact that Richard, her original boyfriend, had grown a little obsessive recently and constantly wanted to be by her side. A little overwhelmed by it all, she'd begun to notice the other men she was working with at the hotel, such as Mac, the guy she was usually on the night shift with. Their casual flirting grew into a much more intimate relationship, and because of that, she'd decided to break it off with Richard. He hadn't taken it so well. Obviously.
Steve wasn't very interested in people's romantic trials and tribulations, but unfortunately, Ms. Gaines's could possibly be the reason for the murder of Mac James. It sounded like a possible lover in an obsessive rage over being dumped. He'd heard this story played out many times in many different ways. The story of a man or woman scorned went back as far as the beginning of time. However, he couldn't say he actually blamed one person in particular. All of the parties were guilty of different things. Richard was guilty of being an obsessive boyfriend and ultimately killing the man who'd stolen his girlfriend. Cynthia was guilty of screwing around on her boyfriend. Mac was guilty of being with another man's girl. It was just a circle of blame.
Following the interview, Steve pulled his phone out of his pocket. He saw a missed call and text from Chrissy. It read: #74, Richard Moore, was positively identified by the five here as the killer. Steve didn't even hesitate. He knew what he had to do.