Dead Suite

by Wendy Roberts

  Sadie was changing into casual clothes when the phone chirped that a text message had come in. The note was from Dawn.

  Saw the vid. Wow! That’s great promo!

  “Who the hell sent the video to Dawn?” Sadie muttered, then smacked her forehead with the palm of her hand. “Maeva!” She shook her head. “I knew nothing good could come of those two being friends.”

  Sadie was tempted to blast Maeva and send a scathing retort to her sister, but she had other fish to fry . . . or ghosts to send over. She slipped her hazmat suit over her clothes before heading into the next room.

  The painfully slow and agonizing process of mopping up this particular scene definitely put her blood-borne pathogen training to work. Four hours went by without spiritual interruption. Although Sadie would’ve loved the opportunity to at least help Opal and Olivia move on, she’d rather not have to deal with that freaky Marlene. There was just something so . . . off about her.

  Eventually, Sadie needed a break. She straightened from her crouched position, with her knees popping and her back screaming from the strain. Back in the other room, she doffed her hazmat gear, delighted to see that Bev Hummel had come through again. A fresh carafe of coffee, water bottles, and a small tray of mixed fruits and crackers were centered on the table.

  Sadie nibbled while she checked her phone. She had nine missed calls; two were from Maeva, another two were from her sister, and the balance came from Detective Petrovich’s number. She dialed the detective.

  “I take it you want an update?” Sadie asked him as she poured strong, dark coffee from the carafe into a bone china mug.

  “Yes,” he whispered. “I’m checking in. You were going to get names.”

  “Before we get into that, when will your guys be done with my car?”

  “You can probably get it tomorrow. There weren’t any usable prints, except for yours.”

  “I had a feeling that someone who’d take the time to put an amputated finger in a baggie on my windshield wouldn’t pause to get all touchy-feely with my Corolla.”

  “So did you find out anything at the Pacifica?”

  “I’m still up to my armpits in alligators or, more accurately, maggots,” Sadie said. “I can tell you about the two you already know, Olivia and Opal. Both missing pointer fingers. They were sisters but the strip club portrayed them as twins, and they were doing side jobs, trying to earn extra money to go to esthetician school.”

  “Nothing I don’t already know.”

  “Here’s something you may not know. They said they got a text message to meet someone at the hotel to party. Check their cell phones and see who sent that message.”

  “Hold on.”

  She heard him walking, probably to somewhere more private than the bull pen. The shutting of a door sounded before he was back on the line. “There were no phones. Their purses were left, but no phones. We got their cell records and we’re looking into messages. There were a couple messages from a number that traced back to an old lady who only recently noticed she’d lost her phone.”

  “Any chance she could be the killer?”

  “She’s at least ninety and in a wheelchair. It’s highly unlikely. Probably the killer lifted her phone and used it.”

  Sadie frowned. “Okay, what about the third girl?”

  “There was no third girl.”

  “Her name is Marlene and she’s got all her fingers. She’s wearing a brown skirt and shirt with her name embroidered on it.” Sadie sipped her coffee. “The uniform is very close to the same one the housekeepers wear here at the Pacifica.”

  “You sure?” Petrovich’s voice had ramped up a notch.

  “Of what? Yes, I’m sure I saw her. No, I’m not sure she’s connected to the other girls.”

  “If a housekeeper was murdered in the room, we would’ve noticed.”

  “Well, what if she was killed here but her body put elsewhere?”

  He sighed heavily and Sadie knew why; he didn’t want to run around chasing ghosts. He needed hard, physical proof.

  “I’ll ask around about a Marlene who worked as a housekeeper,” he said. “Is there anything else you can tell me about this Marlene person?”

  Sadie chewed her lower lip. She didn’t want to send Petrovich on a wild-ghost chase, but she didn’t want to leave out anything that could help catch this killer.

  “Well, she looked young, maybe late teens. She had dark hair and eyes, just over five feet tall.”

  “Shit,” Petrovich exclaimed. “Shit on a stick.”

  “I know. It’s a mess.”

  “Guess I’ll go back and interview that bitch that runs the hotel,” he grumbled.

  “Bev Hummel?” Sadie asked. “I found her really nice and actually helpful.”

  “That’s probably because you’re helping solve the problem. She looks at me as if I was the guy that ruined her pristine hotel’s rep by killing girls there.”

  “About that—are these murders connected to what happened in Albuquerque?”

  He was quiet a long time.

  “Dean?”

  “Did a ghost tell you about those girls in Albuquerque?”

  “No. Google told me. You told me I might find out more if I did some digging, so I did.”

  “Right now, we’ve got no evidence linking these girls to those in New Mexico, but yeah, they were all working girls.”

  “And the fingers?”

  “That information’s never been released to the public, so you didn’t hear it from me. The Feds are looking into it.”

  “Okay, there’s one more thing.” Sadie paused. “The spirit of Marlene . . . she said the killings were for me. She said this guy is going to keep killing until I’m dead.” She swallowed thickly. “Why would she say that?”

  “Please don’t ask me to analyze a message given to you by a ghost. You’re making my head hurt. The only connection to you so far is that finger left on your windshield,” he replied, and then his cop voice gave way to a softer tone. “That said, there’s a definite sicko out there, so yeah, you need to play it safe and keep your alarm on and your doors locked. Wouldn’t hurt to have Zack chauffeur you around so you’re not on your own.”

  “Sure.” She didn’t want to explain why that wasn’t going to happen.

  “Don’t go believing everything ghost witnesses tell you, okay?” He chuckled. “They’re probably as unreliable dead as they were alive.”

  Sadie wished she could laugh along. The only problem was that she knew from experience ghosts don’t lie.

  Chapter 10

  Sadie refueled her body with a few strawberries and some melon, together with a double dose of coffee. She was just getting back on her feet to resume work when her cell phone rang. The number was Owen Sorkin’s. She didn’t want to get blasted again for the video, but part of her was thinking about the hot kisses he left on her body. She snatched up the phone.

  “Hello?”

  “Hi, sexy,” he drawled. “I understand you met with Gayla. Sorry I wasn’t along to keep her from giving you hell, and also sorry for not being there because I just wanted to see you.”

  “Oh.” Sadie smiled in spite of herself. “Gayla had every reason to be upset but I swear I knew nothing about the video.”

  “I think we both got bamboozled by a couple of charlatans trying to make a good commercial for Madam Maeva’s.”

  Sadie winced.

  “They’re not frauds. Really, they’re not.” A line of worry formed between her eyebrows and she rubbed it away with her finger. “I don’t know why they would—”

  “I know they’re you’re friends,” Owen said. “And I didn’t call you up to give you hell. I’ve already talked to Rosemary Thingvold and she assured me she had no intention of link
ing the video to my house, and I believe her because there’s nothing in that video that I saw that connects it to Halladay Street. Just a couple of weirdos in comments somehow made the connection because they think they saw something.” He chuckled. “Whatever.”

  “Fine.” She was willing to just let it go. “So, Mr. Sorkin, why did you call?” Sadie asked in joking formality.

  “Well, to ask you out of course, Miss Novak,” he said with a throaty whisper. “And, hopefully, resume our, um, discussion of the other night.”

  Sadie remembered his fiery kisses on her breasts and she blushed crimson.

  “That sounds . . . interesting.” Sadie felt nervous. Things were moving too fast. “But I’m working and, speaking of that, I’ve got to get back to it,” she said hurriedly.

  “Okay. When will you be done working?”

  “It looks like I’ll be done tomorrow morning some time, and by then, sleep will be the only thing on my mind.”

  “You’re working all night?” he asked incredulously.

  “A girl’s gotta do what she’s gotta do,” Sadie said profoundly.

  “Are you sure you’re not just trying to avoid me?”

  “No, I’m really working.”

  But avoiding him was a benefit. At this point her emotions were all over the map about Zack. As much as she was attracted to Owen, she knew she was weak and hurt. It was probably not the best time to start dating.

  “After you’re done working, and you’ve caught up on your sleep, I want to take you out on a proper date. A movie with us smooching in the back row or at least dinner, without my business partner.”

  Sadie laughed as she struggled to find a way to say no. Then an aching need filled her chest.

  “That’s sounds nice,” she said.

  And it did sound wonderful. It’s exactly what she’d wanted to do with Zack. When they said good-bye she felt awful. She resumed dressing in gear to go back to work, but before she pulled on her gloves she picked up her phone again. She texted a simple message to Zack: I miss you.

  Once inside the room she caught glimpses of Olivia and Opal fading in and out. Clearly as ghosts they were bumbling fools incapable of mastering the ability to appear at will. This wasn’t necessarily a bad thing. It meant they’d most likely be able to move on—if she could ever get them to stick around long enough to chat with them.

  In the meantime, Sadie focused on the task of cleaning. She’d already cut away sections of drywall that could not be cleaned and had torn out over a third of the carpeting in the room. The furniture, except for the mattress, was all salvageable and probably a million times cleaner now than it had ever been getting a daily once-over from a hotel maid.

  The arc of blood spatter was far-reaching in cases where multiple victims were stabbed to death. Sadie found drops of blood clinging to the inside of the antique-looking lamp shades, behind the mahogany headboard, and in the farthest reaches and corners of the decorative moldings and baseboards. She alternated being on tiptoe and crouched low, just to get at some of the out-of-the-way areas, using small brushes to scrub away the most minute blood droplets.

  It was easy for Sadie to pour her energy into her work when she so desperately wanted a distraction. Her mind instinctively wanted to drift toward dismembered fingers, ghostly warnings, her breakup with Zack, and sexual tension with Owen. Keeping busy helped. However, there were not enough bodily fluids in the world for her to scrub to rid her mind entirely of all her worries.

  She reached the second stage of cleaning somewhere around two in the morning. It was a relief to know she could work without her hazmat gear and with simple gloves and cleaning supplies. She had the ozone generator humming away to cleanse the air. After a break of too much coffee, countered by some bottled water, Sadie renewed her focus on sending Opal and Olivia into the next dimension, wherever that might be. Sure it was possibly heaven, but Sadie didn’t like to say for certain, since who knew if hookers and saints rubbed shoulders in the great beyond?

  When she walked into the next room Sadie was pleasantly surprised to see the two sisters waiting for her.

  “We’ve decided we need your help,” Opal said seriously.

  “Yeah,” Olivia agreed. “Being a ghost isn’t all we thought it would be. Most people can’t even see us.”

  “What do you mean, most people?” Sadie asked. “How do you know that?”

  “We went and did a walk about the hotel,” Opal stated evenly. “We found that if we both focused on a wall or a door together, we could get through it. So we went down the hall, and into the lobby. Nobody saw us except some lady. Although sometimes they pulled their sweaters tighter like we were giving them a chill.”

  “Which lady saw you?” Sadie asked curiously.

  Olivia shrugged. “Just some woman walking through the lobby.”

  Sadie had found that spirits tended to get better at moving about with practice. It was definitely time for these girls to find that magical stripper pole in the sky.

  “I think you’ve made the best decision. Whatever is over on the other side is better than living in this kind of limbo.”

  “But how do we do it?”

  “Well, for most, the process to move on isn’t difficult,” Sadie said. “First we need to think about what’s keeping you here. Is there something you’ve neglected to take care of? Someone you want me to contact? Family or friends you want a message sent to for closure?”

  “Muffin!” Olivia exclaimed. “Our cat.” She covered her face with her hands. “He’ll be starved.”

  “I’m sure the officers already went to your apartment and would’ve made sure Muffin wasn’t left alone,” Sadie assured them.

  “Will you make sure?” Opal begged.

  “Of course. Anything else? Any family I can contact? Location of a will, or anything?”

  “No will,” Opal said. “We kept all our cash in a coffee can in the freezer. Our mom lives in Renton and she works at the Target store there. Could you get in contact with her and make sure all our stuff goes to her?”

  Sadie took down the mom’s contact information but she was sure Petrovich had already made that call.

  “We should give something to WATS, though,” Olivia suggested. “They did so much for us.”

  “True.” Opal nodded and a flap of skin at her throat wriggled with the movement.

  Sadie was having déjà vu all over again.

  “You mean, Women Against the Streets?” Sadie asked.

  “That’s it!” Olivia exclaimed. “The volunteers there are great. They helped by providing a list of johns that were violent and gave advice on how to get out of the business. They also got us interested in expanding our horizons by getting us into community classes and stuff. That’s how we found out about esthetician school. How do you know about WATS?”

  Sadie thought about May Lathrop from the Eminence Hotel. “Let’s just say you aren’t the first of my clients to make such a request. Did you know May Lathrop?”

  “Sounds familiar, but I’m not sure,” Opal said. “What did she look like?”

  Sadie described what she remembered about the redhead who died at the Eminence Hotel but left out the amount of puncture wounds in her body.

  “She was killed in the same way at the Eminence Hotel and she also wanted me to give her stuff to WATS.”

  “I think I do remember her,” Olivia said. “She worked a corner up the road from our apartment, right?” She looked to her sister for confirmation.

  “Maybe . . .” She was less certain. “But I do remember a redhead in the acting class WATS sent us to. . . . Then again, there were a lot of girls there. Those acting classes got more popular every year.”

  That made Sadie think. “Is there any chance the person who did this to you is connected
somehow to WATS?”

  “I don’t see how,” Olivia replied. “They were good people. Kind and thoughtful and treated all sex-trade workers like real people. Everyone trusts them.”

  Sadie would let Petrovich know about the girls’ connection to WATS, but there was a chance every street worker in Seattle had come in contact with the help center at one time or another, so she doubted it was the big clue he was hoping for.

  “So tell us how to do this thing,” Opal prompted.

  Sadie walked them through the process as she knew it. She told them to close their eyes and let go of their worldly problems and focus only on a white space filled with love and acceptance.

  “Will we be together over there?” Olivia asked, her lower lip quivering with emotion as she looked at her sister.

  “Absolutely.” Sadie had no proof, of course, but it felt like the right thing to say.

  She watched as they simultaneously reached for each other’s hand. The young women gazed out at each other dreamily.

  “I’m thinking about that time we went to the beach when I was ten,” Opal said quietly.

  “That was such a great day. We built sand castles and played in the surf until the sun went down,” Olivia added. “When I close my eyes I can smell the salt in the air.”

  They both closed their eyes and their bodies became more and more transparent and a shimmer of light appeared around the edges of their shapes before they completely disappeared from view.

  Sadie smiled happily. They’d made it over. She felt a momentary buzz of exhilaration zip through her body and she clapped her hands with pleasure. It had taken a while for Sadie to come to the realization that her calling wasn’t mopping up after the dead; it was helping them over. The joy she felt when helping spirits go over was more rewarding, fulfilling, and elating than anything else she could imagine. It made the grisly and gruesome side of her job worth it.

  While she’d been cleaning, Sadie had moved a lot of the furniture and now she found herself humming as she returned some of the objects back where they belonged. She happened to catch a glimpse of her reflection in the mirrored armoire, and she let out a squeak of surprise when she saw the flutter of the curtains behind her.