Back at the precinct
Ella frantically dialed Dan's number, reciting in Spanish any prayers she could remember so that he would answer his phone before things got more complicated. "Answer your phone Dan!" she muttered. "Answer!"
Click "Ella – what's the problem?" Dan's voice sounded tired and frustrated as he pulled into a parking lot to talk to his friend.
"My friend Janice from the cybercrimes unit having being looking at IP address for some of the respondents on the web sleuths site" Ella replied in a rushed tone. "One especially was interesting - it seemed to riff off every message James Milton sent in, like it was trying get him to post more and more information about the new case. Janice finally thinks she knows where the messages were being posted and you're never going to believe where they were coming from!"
"Is it important?" he asked. "James Milton was the author of most of the more salacious posts about Annalise and the Cecil Hotel. Why would some random blogger on the site be coming up on radar now?"
"Because at least one of the message came from the rec hall of a Catholic church linked to one of our witnesses from Milton's death – the one Father Tovar, the priest that found Milton's body, is at."
Dan sighed. "Okay – so he's more interested in the Cecil than he let on. Still don't see how his posting on this site is important to the case."
"Maybe it isn't" Ella responded. "But what if it is? Shouldn't you go talk to him about it?'
"Look – I'm more concerned about Mad Dog Gibson trying to run down the people he thinks might have corrupted his daughter." He glanced at the clock on his dashboard and shrugged. "Okay – I've got to wait for the APB I put out on his Jeep to give me a lead where to start looking. I'm not too far from the church so I'll run over and talk to Father Tovar and see what he has to say for himself. But after that – I'm going to track down Chloe and see if we can't get this cluster fuck of a case solved." He tossed his cell onto the seat beside him and gunned his engine back into the street, headed for the church.
At the church
Father Tovar stared nervously at the computer in front of him. "I knew I shouldn't have gotten involved" he muttered, trying vainly to figure out how to erase the tower's memory.
"Yes – well you did" a raspy voice replied. Don Bradley stepped out of the shadows, a large bandage wrapped around his head. "And now you don't get to plead innocence."
"Mr. Bradley" the priest gasped, rising awkwardly from his seat. "What happened?"
"None of our concern" the older man snarled. "Have the police talked to you yet?"
"Yes – but to them I'm just the person who found James Milton after he had been attacked."
Bradley nodded, wincing at the pain behind his eyes. "Good – let's keep it that way."
Father Tovar sank back into his chair. "What do you need now?"
"I need to know what my former employee, the late un-lamented James Milton, might have told you about that witch of a wife of mine and her plans for our future – or lack therein."
"I told the police" the priest sighed. "I hadn't seen James in years – not since I went to college and he and his family went looking for their next big score."
Bradley shook his head. "Really? So why the back and forth on the web about the Cecil and all its unfortunate history? I know it was the two of you on that Nosy Parker website that was always trying to "solve" mysteries at were related to the hotel."
Tovar grimaced. "James said something about it being a tactic he's seen used before. He said you needed to drive the price of hotel down so your company could pick it up on the cheap. I told him that resurrecting the hotel's bad history wouldn't do that – it would only make it more of a prime target for some rich man with more money than sense."
Bradley's laugh was cold and grim. "I think he and my wife were hoping to stage my "disappearance" at the Cecil and blame it on the hotel's seedy reputation."
"I didn't know you ever visited the hotel" the priest said quietly.
"I may have driven by there a time or two to see someone else" Bradley replied. "But then John started snooping around after he and that little sorority girl did their podcast on the Cecil and I suspect the plans changed." He looked down at the computer the young priest had been examining. "This the unit that those responses to Milton were sent from?"
"I think so" Tovar said, waving a hand at the screen. "I saw someone sitting at it a number of times, someone that didn't look like ANYONE I knew from the parish."
"Young and homeless?" Bradley guessed. "Probably my nephew Gabe"
"No" the priest replied. "It was an older woman, handsome in a way but she didn't seem the type to turn heads. Only reason I noticed her is because we didn't usually have well-dressed strangers drop in and use our facilities."
Bradley scowled. "Handsome woman?" He fished his phone out of his pocket and flipped through a few images before selecting one. "This who you saw?"
The priest eyed the image on the screen carefully and nodded. "Yes – that's her. Do you know her?"
Bradley grimaced. "Yes – much to my regret. Looks like Bertha wasn't the only one plotting behind my back." He stared down at the image on his phone – the image of Regina Simonton behind the check-in desk at the Cecil.
