Hangman

by Faye Kellerman

  A few more kids started to filter in.

  Gabe got up. “I’ll help you set up the chairs.”

  Hannah put her hand on his shoulder. “Don’t be mad.”

  “I’m not mad, I’m just…” His jaw was clenched so hard, his teeth ached. “Sometimes…the enormity of what happened just hits me, drags me under like this giant wave…and it’s just real hard to stay afloat ’cause the water keeps coming and coming and coming. And every time you surface and you catch your breath, there’s still another giant wave to deal with.” He faced her. “I have so much rage inside of me.” He realized he was scaring her and he forced out a smile. “But then it passes and I’m fine.”

  She let her hand slide from his shoulder. “You don’t have to be happy, Gabe. What you’re going through sucks.”

  “I’ll be fine.”

  She studied his face. “You know, that’s why you don’t judge people on first impressions. You’re real good-looking and you’re really gifted and all the girls in the school keep pestering me about you. And the boys all ask about you because you come across as this real cool guy with this swagger.”

  “I don’t swagger.”

  “Yes, you do.”

  Gabe laughed. “My father swaggers. I don’t swagger.”

  “Yes, you do.”

  Mrs. Kent’s voice broke through the debate. “Decker, you have plenty of time to flirt after choir. Now kindly set up the chairs.”

  “Right away.” She took a pack of folding chairs and began to set them up. To Gabe, she said, “I’m not a cougar. I don’t flirt with young boys.”

  “I know. That’s what I like about you. You’re very…like…sisterly with me.”

  “That’s me.” Hannah sighed. “I’m everyone’s perennial big sister.”

  “I didn’t mean it like that.”

  “I’m just teasing you, Gabe.”

  “I mean I think you’re very pretty.”

  Hannah was grinning. “You can stop now.”

  “I’m sure all the boys have crushes on you. I mean I have a crush on you.”

  “Is that your own grave you’re digging?”

  “It’s just that I need a friend way more than a girlfriend.”

  “I get it.” She placed her hands on his shoulders. “For your information, I’m already spoken for. His name is Rafi. We went to camp together last summer. He’s in Yeshivat HaKotel, but he’s doing Shana Bet so we can be together in Israel next year.”

  “I understood everything you said except for the last sentence.”

  “No matter. It means as far as my availability goes, Whitman, you’re out of luck.”

  “Well…all right, then.”

  “And don’t you dare get all mopey. You just said you considered me a big sister.”

  “I do consider you that way. And I’m not mopey. And even if I were mopey, it wouldn’t be because of you. I’m just mopey because I’m in a bad situation. So stop trying to claim ownership of my mopeyiness.”

  “Well, excuse me!”

  They both broke into laughter.

  Mrs. Kent was glaring at them. “Perhaps you’d like to share with the rest of us what you find so hilarious, Ms. Decker?”

  Hannah stifled another round of the giggles. “Why are you picking on me, Mrs. Kent? He was laughing just as much as I was.”

  “You are the president of choir. You have to set an example.”

  She began putting up the last row of chairs. “So I get reprimanded and he gets off scot-free?”

  “Indeed, Ms. Decker, the world isn’t a fair place.”

  “You just like him better because a mediocre alto is way more replaceable than a spectacular accompanist.”

  “You’re treading on thin ice, young lady.”

  “I know, I know,” Hannah said. “The truth hurts, but that isn’t your fault. Between the two of us, I’d choose him as well.”

  Mrs. Kent’s eyes softened. “Hannah, you’re a one-of-a-kind and totally irreplaceable.” She clapped her hands. “Everybody take your seats. Ms. Decker, since you were duly elected president, would you like to lead us in a rousing rendition of the national anthem and ‘Hatikvah’?”

  Hannah beamed. “Mrs. Kent, it would be my pleasure.”

  ALEX—THE SELF-PARKING LOT attendant—was in his sixties, a tall man with white hair who looked spiffy in his aqua shirt, white pants, and white slip-on shoes. He sat behind a podium shaded by a beach umbrella. At five in the afternoon, the sun was low and hot. Decker recognized him as the man who gave him a ticket on Sunday. That meant Alex was on duty when Chris arrived and left.

  When Decker showed him Terry’s photograph, he identified her immediately.

  “She’s a real nice woman. Always smiling and slipping me a few bucks every time she took her car in and out even though she didn’t have to.”

  “When was the last time you saw her?” Eliza Slaughter asked.

  “Last time I saw her?” Alex frowned. “Something happen to Ms. McLaughlin?”

  “She appears to be missing,” Decker said.

  “Missing?” Alex grimaced. “Oh my, that’s not good.”

  “She may have left on her own,” Decker said. “That’s why we’re trying to retrace her steps. When was the last time you remember seeing her?”

  “Golly, must have been a couple of days ago. Maybe Sunday.” He studied Decker’s face. “I’ve seen you before.”

  “I was here on Sunday, too. I left around two-thirty.”

  “Aha.”

  “When I left, Ms. McLaughlin was still at the hotel. Do you remember if you saw her after three in the afternoon?”

  “No, sir, I was pretty busy.”

  “But you remember the lieutenant?” Eliza said.

  “He’s a hard man to miss.”

  Decker showed Alex a picture of Donatti. “What about this man?”

  Alex looked at it for a while. “This guy…” The attendant tapped the picture with his fingers. “He was here on Sunday. He was carrying a bunch of flowers. Who is he?”

  “Ms. McLaughlin’s husband.”

  “She’s married?”

  “Yes,” Eliza said. “Does that surprise you?”

  “Yeah, a little. She just seemed so carefree to be married.” When both Decker and Eliza erupted into laughter, Alex said, “I didn’t mean it like that. Been married for forty-two years—”

  “I’m happily married, too,” Decker said, “but I know what you mean.”

  Eliza said, “So you remember this guy carrying flowers. Did you give him a ticket?”

  “I give everyone who’s not a long-term guest a ticket. They got to get it validated at the hotel or restaurant. Otherwise they can’t park here.”

  Decker said, “Do you remember what time he arrived?”

  “Sunday’s brunch is between eleven and four. It gets real busy.” He snapped his fingers. “But I’ll tell you something that might help. Every time someone comes in here, I write down the license number on the ticket. That way, at the end of the day when I turn in the tickets, the folks in accounting can reconcile the validations with the cars.”

  “A license plate would be handy since I didn’t bother taking it down myself,” Decker said.

  “Do you know how long accounting keeps the tickets?” Eliza asked.

  “Nah, you’d have to check with them.”

  “What time did you get off work on Sunday?” Decker asked.

  “Me? Around five.”

  Eliza said, “And you don’t remember Ms. McLaughlin coming into the lot to pick up her car?”

  Alex thought very hard. “Can’t say yes or no. I don’t want to say something that might mess you up later on.”

  “That’s fine,” Decker said. “We’ll see if we can get her husband’s ticket. Thanks, Alex, you’ve been a big help.”

  “Wish I could be a bigger help,” the attendant said. “But you know how it is, you can’t pay attention to everything.”

  “Nor are you expected to pay attention
to everything,” Decker said.

  Him, on the other hand. He was a friggin’ lieutenant. Why hadn’t he taken down Chris’s license plate?

  A rather big omission.

  He thought about it for a moment, tried to put himself back in time.

  He saw the car driving away. Then he remembered. The front and back plate were paper. “Hey, Eliza.”

  “What?”

  “The Lexus that Chris was driving. It had paper plates. So either he switched them out or the car was new and it was rented.”

  WHILE ELIZA JOTTED down the local car rental services, Decker checked his cell. There was an urgent message from Marge. He called her back, and when she answered, he said, “Tell me you found Garth Hammerling.”

  “Not yet,” Marge told him. “But I just heard from Aaron Otis. The two boys will be in town in about an hour.”

  “Marge, I can barely hear you. There’s a lot of static on the line.”

  “That’s because I’m in a parking lot…hold on, Pete.” She quickly ran up the stairs until she was on ground level. Then she walked outside. “Better?”

  “Much. What parking lot?”

  “St. Tim’s. We’re in the process of pulling the videocassettes from the security cameras in the parking lot. The head guard told us that the cassettes are erased and replaced once a month.”

  “Tell me good news.”

  “We just squeaked by, Rabbi. They were due to be changed in a few days. How clear the recording is, or if Adrianna or her car is even on the film, is another thing altogether.”

  “How many cameras would pick up the area around Adrianna’s car?”

  “One camera definitely works that area. We might get a peripheral view from another one. We’re also pulling the tapes from the entrances and exits to the parking lot to see what time Adrianna left the hospital. We’ll probably view them all in a little bit.”

  “At the station house?”

  “No, at the security station here at the hospital. The guards are watching over the cassettes like hawks.”

  “Good for them. It’s just too bad they weren’t as diligent with Adrianna.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  THE WOMAN BEHIND the reception desk was named Grace. She was in her early forties with a pale face and soft, honeyed curls. She wore a black suit and a button-down aqua shirt with the name of the hotel emblazoned over the pocket. Her brown eyes turned sad when she spoke about the closure.

  “I started working here when I was twenty-three, fresh out of hotel management. I was so green that on my first day my voice shook. I sounded like I was gargling.”

  Eliza smiled. “I’m sure you did okay.”

  “I was awful,” Grace said. “But management had patience back then.” She rolled her eyes. “They knew how to nurture a career.”

  “How long have you been here?” Decker asked.

  “Twenty-two years.”

  “Do you have any future plans?”

  “Take a long vacation. Then who knows? The hotel business isn’t so hot right now, but like everything, it cycles. Maybe by the time I start looking, opportunities will present themselves.” Grace gave a practiced smile. “You’re not here to listen to my issues. How can I help you?”

  “We’re looking for one of your guests.”

  “Ms. McLaughlin. Someone called here yesterday to ask about her.”

  “That would be me,” Eliza said.

  “I’ve thought about it. I haven’t seen her since maybe the middle of last week.”

  Eliza said, “That would be around Wednesday?”

  The phone rang. Grace held up a finger, answered the call, and transferred it to the dining room. “Wednesday…maybe Thursday.”

  “And you didn’t see her over the weekend?”

  “I didn’t work the weekend.”

  Eliza went through her notes. “That was Harvey Dulapp and Sara Littlejohn. They didn’t see Terry that Sunday, but we know she was here.”

  Decker said, “I was told that Ms. McLaughlin was a very friendly person. Did she ever drop in just to say hello?”

  “Not just to shoot the breeze,” Grace said. “If she dropped in, it was to collect her mail or pick up her messages. Um…I remember a few weeks ago, there was a maintenance issue with her toilet. She came in personally to tell us about it. And she was very friendly.”

  “Do you know who serviced her toilet?”

  Grace smiled. “Is that important?”

  “Anyone who went in and out of her suite is important to us,” Decker told her.

  “I’ll call maintenance and see if they have a record of who answered the service call. I must tell you that they’re down to a skeleton crew. If something breaks, we’ve been given the orders to transfer the guest into another room and just black out that problematic room.”

  “Did they move Ms. McLaughlin to an upgraded suite?” Eliza asked.

  “No, she was in a premium unit. They had to fix her toilet. All I’m saying—” The phone rang. “Excuse me.”

  Grace was several minutes on the phone. When she came back, she gave the detectives a weary look. “Vis-à-vis our conversation, one of the TVs isn’t working. I have to find another room for this guest. Excuse me, what did you want again?”

  “The names of anyone who went in and out Ms. McLaughlin’s suite.”

  “You mean the maintenance people.”

  Decker said, “Maintenance, housekeeping, room service. It might be easier if you gave me a list of employees. That way Detective Slaughter and I can go through them and check them off one by one.”

  “I’m sorry, Lieutenant, I can’t give you that. You’d have to talk to someone in senior management. Besides, so many of our employees have already left.”

  Decker appeared to think a moment, but he knew what he was going to ask for. “Well, could you at least call maintenance and housekeeping and find out who was working on Sunday afternoon when she disappeared.”

  A big sigh. “I can probably get you that, but it may take a little bit of time.”

  “Is there someone we could talk to in maintenance and housekeeping to ease the burden?”

  “That’s sweet. I’ll call up housekeeping and maintenance for you.”

  “Thanks so much,” Decker said. “One more thing. The lot attendant in self-service parking told me he turns the day’s parking tickets into accounting when he’s finished. Where would we find that department?”

  “It’s not a department anymore, it’s a person. Debra’s in the back. Would you like me to send her out?”

  “It might be easier if you send us in,” Eliza said.

  “I’ll ask her if she’s busy,” Grace said.

  “Thanks. It’s important that we find this woman. She has a son.”

  “Yes, the boy…Gabe. What a shame.” Grace shook her head. “This is terrible. Nothing like this has happened here before. It really gives the hotel a black eye.” She paused. “Then again, the whole place is being shut down for at least two years. Lucky for the new owners that people in this town have very short memories.”

  THE HOSPITAL’S SECURITY office was in the basement of St. Tim’s—a futuristic, windowless area filled with black-and-white monitors, alarms, sensors, cassette and DVD players, and a wall-size panel of buttons. The cameras shone on the institution’s entrances and exits, the elevators, the stairwells, the interior hallways, and all the class-three drug cabinets. The space was cavelike: compact and dimmed to see the monitors. Marge hated dark and small, her abhorrence courtesy of a horrendous raid years ago when she was forced to crawl through a tunnel in order to evacuate children from a cult and a homicidal maniac. One of the superb things to come out of that mess was her adopted daughter, Vega. Oliver knew of this foible and gave her a reassuring pat on the shoulder.

  The head of security was a Russian fellow named Ivan Povich. Currently, he was sharing the warren with a uniformed guard named Peter, who continually stared at the monitors and had yet to utter a sound. Povich spoke with a slight
accent. “We also have a smaller security room on each floor.”

  Marge was studying the images on the screens—people going in and out. It calmed her down. “But here’s where you monitor all of the hospital’s entrances and exits.”

  “Yes,” Povich said. “And we always have someone watching them at all times. We take the job seriously. Usually it’s Peter.”

  Peter gave a wave.

  Oliver said, “What about lunch and bathroom breaks?”

  “Whoever is on duty calls for a relief person before he or she leaves. That way, we always have a pair of eyes. If there was a problem, someone would have seen it.”

  “Who was on duty yesterday morning?” Marge asked.

  Peter waved again.

  “How long have you worked here?” Marge asked him.

  “Forever,” Povich answered. “He is my best man. I have no trouble with any of my men and women. If I have trouble, they’re out.” He handed Marge a box. “Here are the cassette tapes from yesterday. Usually we just reuse them, but I already put new ones in the cameras, so you can take your time looking at them. If you need something, ask Peter and he’ll call for you. Before you get started, do you want coffee or water?”

  “Water would be great,” Marge said.

  Povich said. “And you, sir?”

  “Coffee—as strong as you can make it.”

  “No problem. You know how to work this cassette machine?”

  Oliver said, “I’m sure we can figure it out.”

  “You need help, you can ask Peter.”

  “Does the man talk?” Marge asked.

  “Only when he has something to say.”

  Ten minutes later, the two detectives were staring at a black-and-white tape. They had rewound the first cassette to around ten-thirty the previous Sunday night, then they fast-forwarded the tape. But not too fast not to notice the people on it. At 10:50, a Honda pulled into a parking spot.

  Marge said. “That’s the car.”

  Oliver slowed the tape to normal speed as they both watched Adrianna get out of the driver’s seat, her eyes focused straight ahead until her image disappeared from view. They rewound the tape several times to make sure they didn’t miss anything. When they were satisfied that they had noted all that could be noted, they allowed the tape to move forward, the image of Adrianna’s parked Honda in the middle of the monitor.