by Nic Saint
“He was in 24B all right,” said Ravi as they finally reached the wheelbarrow and carefully balanced Mr. Hot Gangster’s frozen corpse on top of it. The model-slash-gangster was slightly stooped over, which made for a perfect fit, his butt landing in the barrow’s tray.
“How do you know?” asked Beau, catching his breath.
“Because he asked me to look at the boiler. Said the water wasn’t hot enough.”
Vernon nodded, recollection stirring. “Right, right. And did you? Fix it?”
“Nothing wrong with that boiler. He was in there with some woman and she used up all the hot water. So I told him to wait and then try again. Where do you wanna put him?”
“Kitchen freezer.”
“Kitchen freezer!” Beau cried, aghast. “You can’t put a dead body in with the food!”
“I can’t put a dead body in with the guests,” Vernon growled. “And as long as he’s frozen he’s not gonna contaminate anything now is he?”
“I like your thinking, boss,” said Ravi, who was a rough-hewn man with coal shovels for hands and a face like a halibut. “Just don’t tell the guests is my advice. They might not like it.”
“Of course they won’t like it!” Beau cried. Like his name implied, he was a handsome young fellow with butter-colored hair. “Can’t we call the cops? They can put him in their freezer.”
“Cops won’t come,” said Vernon. “This blizzard is about to hit and they can’t risk coming out here. I just talked to Chief Boelk. He’s the one who told me to put him in the freezer for the time being.” He sighed and stared out at the mother and son and dog watching the scene from a safe distance. “I just hope the Kellys will keep their trap shut.”
“They the ones found Hot Gangster?” asked Ravi.
“Actually their dog found him.”
Ravi smiled. “Clever pooch. If not for him we might not have found Mr. Gangster for another couple of weeks, as I normally wait to clear this part of the motel until springtime.”
“Yeah, clever pooch,” said Vernon, eyeing the pooch in question nastily.
Chapter 8
Tom was just wondering where his wife and son had gone off to when Maya came hurrying into the room. “Dad! Ralph found a dead body!”
He shot up in such a hurry he almost dropped the baby. “What?!”
“You better go out there and see for yourself. I’ll take care of Jacob.”
She took the baby from him and he hurried out before remembering he had no idea where he was going so he hurried back into the room. “Where are they?”
“Out back,” said Maya, taking a seat on the bed and switching on the TV. Die Hard 2 was on, with Bruce Willis having his own snowstorm to contend with.
Tom hurried out again before remembering he was in his slippers and boxers so he hurried back inside, quickly dressing while Maya gave him a critical look, then finally was on his way.
Arriving downstairs, he saw that the same receptionist was still manning the desk. The girl looked pretty much dead on her feet by now. He waved at her and she waved back, plastering a smile onto her face. But when she saw he was heading outside, the smile quickly evaporated. “You can’t go out there, Mr. Kelly!” she yelled.
He popped his head back in. “My daughter told me my dog found… something.”
She brought a hand to her face, a look of distress sliding over her features. “Oh.”
“Out back, right?”
She nodded quickly. “Right underneath 24B,” she said for good measure.
There was an odd expression on her face and he filed it away for later use.
The moment he walked out the front door the storm hit him in the face like an icy smack, and for a moment he staggered, almost blown back inside. Christ this blizzard was getting worse by the minute. Darkness had by now descended on the world and he stayed close to the motel as he moved along in the direction indicated.
And that’s when he saw the procession: first he saw the hotel manager loom up out of the darkness, snow swirling around his form as he approached. He was pushing something. And when Tom saw what it was he was pushing his stomach suddenly lurched and the granola bar and banana he’d just snacked on decided to play a return date.
He quickly moved out of the way of the trio of men balancing the dead man and the wheelbarrow and then he was upchucking his lunch into the side of a snowed-in car.
“Are you all right, honey?” Dee asked, sidling up to him.
“I’m… fine… now,” he said, wiping his lips. She took his arm and steered him back in the direction of the motel.
“Hey, Dad,” said Scott, who was holding an excitedly yapping Ralph on the leash. “Ralph found a dead guy. Buried under a pile of snow. Pretty weird, huh?”
He nodded. “Pretty weird,” he agreed, his voice a wobble. He watched the three men move out of sight. They weren’t heading for the entrance, though. “Where are they going?” he asked.
“Kitchen entrance,” said Scott. “They want to avoid being seen by the guests. I guess dead bodies are bad for business.”
“Absolutely,” he agreed, and allowed his wife and son to support him as they returned indoors.
Right behind them, as Tom staggered into the lobby, the receptionist quickly locked the door, making sure that from now on no one left the motel.
“Did you see him?” she asked, her eyes wide now.
“Ralph found him,” Scott repeated, clearly prepared to tell his tale to anyone who would listen.
“Is he… dead?” the girl asked.
“Dead as a doornail,” said Scott with inappropriate glee.
The girl held her hands to her face. “He’s a guest.”
“Yeah. Hot Gangster,” said Scott. “I overheard the manager and the others,” he explained to Tom.
“Hot Gangster? Who’s Hot Gangster?” asked Tom.
“Don’t you remember, Tom?” asked his wife. “He’s the gangster whose mug shot was everywhere for a while. On TMZ and Page Six and Star Magazine. And then when he got involved with Tracy Hall he became even more famous. Those shots of the two of them aboard her daddy’s yacht were on the front page of every magazine in the country.”
Tom was frowning. “I don’t remember reading about him.”
“Yeah, I don’t think they write about guys like him in the Wall Street Journal, Dad,” said Scott with a chuckle. “Or even Forbes Magazine.”
“They write about Wilbur Hall,” said the receptionist whose name, according to her name tag, was Vikki Mammal. “Tracy Hall is his daughter. And the weirdest thing? Mr. Hall was looking for his future son-in-law just before. Said they’d arranged to meet and he never showed. And then when I looked I saw he’d registered under a false name along with a woman claiming to be his wife!”
“Oh, cool!” Scott cried, laughing.
“What was the name he registered under?” asked Dee.
“Adam Plauder.”
“And the wife?”
Vikki’s eyes had gone as wide as saucers. “Oh, God! It’s her! It’s his real wife! He was cheating on his future wife with his ex-wife!”
Chapter 9
“What do you mean, his ex-wife?” asked Scott, who wasn’t as up to date on all these celebrity rumors as his mom obviously was.
“I thought I’d seen her before somewhere,” said Vikki. “And him, of course. But I didn’t make the connection until now. That woman who signed up with him was his ex-wife. The one he divorced when he met Tracy Hall!”
“So the dude was here with his ex-wife and meeting his new wife? Cool!” said Scott.
“Not cool,” his father admonished him. “He was cheating on his new wife with his old wife. That’s not a cool thing to do, even for a hot gangster.”
“Actually Tracy is not his wife,” said Mom, who seemed to be on top of this stuff. “They were engaged to be married.”
“Well, I guess the wedding is off,” said Scott, earning himself another stern look from his father. “I’ll take Ralphie upstairs, shal
l I?” he suggested. “Dog’s been through enough.”
And as he walked away, he instead swerved in the direction of the kitchen. He’d totally forgotten to take a few shots of Hot Gangster as he was laid up in his wintry grave, what with being all discombobulated and all, but he wasn’t going to let this opportunity pass him by to take a couple of quick pics of the dude laid up between tubs of Ben & Jerry’s and bags of frozen peas.
He had a pretty good hunch where the kitchen was—just had to follow the signs that pointed to the dining room and keep on going until he saw those typical flapping doors. Ralphie seemed excited about this new adventure, too, for he was panting like the happy poochie-poo he was.
“Good boy,” said Scott, patting the dog on the head. “I didn’t know you were a cadaver dog, though. Pretty soon now you’re going to be finding corpses all over the place.”
They’d arrived in the dining room, which was nicely deserted at this time, and Scott quickly drew a bead on the swinging doors with those porthole windows he was looking for. He quickly tiptoed up to them, dragging a proudly prancing Ralph along, and took a quick peek through the round window to see who was on the other side.
To his great joy he saw the hotel manager and his able-bodied assistants as they stood conversing in front of what looked like a giant freezer.
“Bingo,” he murmured, and Ralph gave a soft woofle. Dammit!
He ducked down his head, but too late. The door swung open and the hotel manager stood before him, hands planted on his sides and staring at him with all the hostility of one who’d just spotted a fly in the soup. “Young Mr. Kelly,” said the manager. “Are you lost?”
“Not really. I just figured I’d, you know, see if there was something I could do.”
The manager arched his brows curiously. “Don’t tell me your dog has found another dead guest.”
“Nah. I figure it’s just the one. Though now that you mention it, you might want to look into the dead dude’s ex-wife. Apparently they were both staying in 24B, so if he’s dead, something might have happened to her, too.”
“Unless she killed him,” said the second man, who’d joined them. He was big and beefy, with the biggest hands Scott had ever seen on a guy. Probably a baseball pitcher.
“That’s for the police to decide,” said the manager.
“Yeah, but it’ll be three days before they get here. By that time the bird might have flown.”
“You want me and Ralph to help you out with the investigation?” Scott suggested. It had just occurred to him that a nice murder investigation might help pass the time.
“No, thank you, young man,” said the manager, the corners of his lips curling down in disapproval. “I think you’ve done enough for one day. You and that dog of yours.”
It just might have been Scott’s imagination, but it sounded to him as if the manager wasn’t happy about Ralph finding that body. And as he walked away, he wondered if the manager might somehow be involved in the murder.
“Young Kelly?” the manager’s voice came.
He turned. “It’s Scott,” he told him.
The manager walked up to him. “Your father. He’s a professor, right?”
“Yup. Smartest guy I know.”
“He’s a professor in Seattle?”
“University of Washington.”
The manager seemed to ponder this. “What field is he in?”
Scott was going to say economics when a thought occurred to him. It was one of those bright thoughts that hit you out of nowhere—like a flash! “Criminology,” he said. “Dad is the greatest expert on the criminal mind in the world. Cops ask for his advice all the time, and so does the FBI and Homeland Security. Have you seen that show Mindhunter?”
“About the FBI—the development of serial-killer profiling?”
“Bingo. They picked my dad’s brain when they developed that show. He’s only the original profiler.”
“Is he indeed?” said the manager, his eyes twinkling as he thoughtfully rubbed his chin.
Chapter 10
Maya gently put down the baby. He’d been gurgling happily for the past half hour or so, and looked ready for his nap. “Sleep, little baby,” Maya sang softly as she watched her little brother with affection. She wondered how it would feel to have a baby of her own one day. First she would need to find a boy she would want to spend the rest of her life with. She thought about her boyfriend Mark Dean and wondered not for the first time if he fit the bill.
She knew all about high school sweethearts. How a relationship like that rarely stood the test of time. Only one more year and she was off to college. Would they still see each other? She was going to Washington University, where her dad taught, but Mark was still wavering. He didn’t even know if he wanted to go to college. His dad ran a sawmill and was hoping his son would follow in his footsteps and take over the business. He didn’t need a college degree to do that. In fact it would probably hamper him and his dad’s business as he could step into the company right now, instead of having to wait four years before he did.
Tough decisions.
She looked up when Scott entered the room, a strange grin on his face.
“What’s up, little brother?” she asked, glad for the respite. “Do they know who the dead guy is yet?”
“His name is Hot Gangster,” said Scott, plunking himself down on the other bed.
She shot up. “Hot Gangster? No way!”
“Way,” said Scott as he took out his phone. “Real name Donny Towns,” he read, frowning, then looked up. “Though he registered at the motel under the name Adam Plauder. And get this. He booked a room with his ex-wife.” He stared down at his phone again. “Wow. Hot Mama. Real name Christy Cadanet, though she registered as Christy Plauder when she booked the room.”
“He was here with his ex? But why?”
She was fired up now. This was not what she’d expected from this sleepy little town or this sleepy little motel. “And what will Tracy Hall think? Or her father?”
“They’re here,” said Scott casually, and when she cried ‘Omigod’ he grinned. “Yeah. The receptionist—her name is Vikki Mammal if you can believe it—said Wilbur Hall was asking about Hot Gangster just before Ralph found him buried under a foot of snow. He said they were supposed to meet.”
“They?”
“Wilbur, Tracy and Hot Gangster.”
“Meet? Here? In the middle of nowhere? That doesn’t make any sense.”
“No, it doesn’t, does it?” said Scott thoughtfully. “People like the Halls don’t stay at places like the Gateway Lodge. So why would they meet all the way out here?”
“What do the police think?”
“No cops involved.”
“No cops?”
He pointed to the window. “The blizzard, remember? They shoved Hot Gangster into the kitchen freezer and they’ll probably only take him out again in three days, when the storm has blown over.”
“They do have a strange way of doing things out here in the sticks,” said Maya.
“I wanted to snap a shot of Hot Gangster but the manager caught me. Oh, and I told him Dad is a famous criminologist. So remember when he asks you, all right?”
Maya was shaking her head. “What have you gone and done now?”
Dee had just put her foot on the first step of the stairs when the manager came running up to her and Tom. “Mr. and Mrs. Kelly! Can I have a moment of your time, please?”
If this was about the turd, Dee wasn’t in the mood. She’d flushed that thing down the toilet ages ago and as far as she was concerned they had bigger fish to fry right now. Like how to deal with her son coming upon a dead body. She was thinking about what friend of a friend might know a good child psychologist to help Scott deal with the trauma.
“What is it?” asked Tom.
“I need your help, Professor Kelly,” said the manager, glancing around nervously. “Can we…” He gestured in the direction of the reception desk. “Can we please step into my office for
a moment?”
Reluctantly, Dee followed her husband and the manager. They stepped behind the reception desk and into a little office located there. The name on the door indicated this was the home of Vernon Haggis, Executive Manager, and the moment they were inside Vernon quickly closed the door and bade them to take a seat while he did the same.
He steepled his fingers on his blotter and stared at them for the space of ten seconds, then blurted out, “Your son told me about your achievements, Professor. Your reputation proceeds you. And it’s at times like these that I sometimes think that the Lord does work in mysterious ways his wonders to perform.” He cleared his throat. “I have a dead body in my freezer, Professor Kelly, and the police are unable to join us at this time to conduct an investigation into the poor man’s death. I implore you—I beseech you… Can you take on the investigation until the police show up?”
Tom blinked a few times, and Dee pressed her lips together. “What did Scott tell you?” she asked.
“Well, that your husband is a brilliant criminologist, of course, and that his work led to the establishment of the Behavioral Science Unit at the FBI and even led to that wonderful television show that I’m afraid I haven’t had the time to watch yet but which I’m sure is just wonderful and very complimentary of your work for our federal crime-fighting agency.”
There was a pause in which Vernon smiled beatifically at Tom, Tom stared back dazedly at Vernon, and Dee silently cursed Scott for putting so much nonsense into this man’s head. “Look, Mr. Haggis. I think we need to explain to you how—”
“I would be very happy to help you,” Tom interjected.
She stared at her husband. Had he gone completely mad? Had the snow and the cold affected his mental faculties?
But before she could put these thoughts into words, Tom placed a hand over hers and squeezed it gently. “I’m only too happy to look into this case, Mr. Haggis,” he said.
“Vernon, please,” said Vernon, his face a thing of beauty as he suddenly radiated both relief and gratitude. “Oh, I can’t thank you enough, Professor Kelly.”