Chapter 7 - The Bartender Remembered The Argument
The hotel’s former lounge bartender was named Gary Nash.
Five years is a long time to ask anyone to remember strangers.
Dad was not a stranger to him.
The Hale donor weekend had been large, and Dad had tipped well.
Gary remembered seeing him enter the hotel that night looking angry.
Not drunk.
Angry.
A blonde woman met him near the elevator.
Madeline.
Gary did not hear the whole conversation, but he remembered one phrase because Dad said it louder than he intended.
“You used Ryan’s name to hide it.”
Madeline told him to lower his voice.
They went upstairs.
Roughly forty minutes later, Dad came back down alone.
He sat at the bar.
Asked for water.
Then removed his watch.
Gary remembered that because Dad kept rubbing his left wrist.
“Was he injured?” Grandpa asked when Gary gave his statement.
“No.”
“Why remove the watch?”
Gary shrugged.
“He said the clasp got bent.”
That explained how the watch might have left Dad’s wrist.
Not how it remained in Madeline’s room.
Then Gary remembered Dad saying something else.
“If she doesn’t tell Ryan by tomorrow, I will.”
Ryan went completely silent when he heard that.
Whatever happened in Room 612, Dad had discovered something Madeline was hiding from her own husband.
And he intended to expose it the next day.
May you like
He never got that chance.
---
