Big Sick Heart: A Detectives Seagate and Miner Mystery

by Mike Markel

  I could feel the excitement rising in my blood. I was going to figure out what happened and why—and who did it. There was nothing else like it in life. Well, not in my life, anyway.

  I grabbed my coat, pulled the front door closed behind me, feeling the morning chill on my wet hair. I trotted to the Honda parked in my carport and drove out to the Courtyard. Last night, it was another franchise hotel, just like all the others. It had the same college kids working the reception desk, trying to stay awake as they did their homework and hoped nobody would disturb them. The same sad-sack bartender trying to look happy about having to talk about the crappy airlines with the two exhausted businessmen at the same pathetic little bar, the same empty chairs and couches in the lobby, the same rack of dusty brochures for the river rafting and the ski resorts and the outfitters.

  Now, it was magically changed. Now it was a crime scene. Walking into the lobby, I scanned the ceiling, looking for the closed-circuit TV. I checked out the location of the front desk, then looked back over my shoulder at the main entrance, calculating whether you could get inside and over to the elevator without being seen. There was a hallway off to the left. That probably led to the pool area and the exercise room, maybe the meeting rooms, too. There’d be another outside exit, so a guest or anyone with a plastic key could slip right in and take the stairs up to the second floor. I stood in the middle of the lobby, turning around slowly, my mind focused and my eyes intense, as I tried to make out the shapes of the jigsaw pieces that this building had become.

  Room 213 was standard-issue, with a king-size bed. The wallpaper was a vertical stripe of beige and bone. The furniture was oak, good quality. The reading lights, one on each side of the huge bed, had pink shades that complemented the beige motif. Right inside the doorway was the thermostat, the kind that lets you choose the temperature without fiddling with the heat or the air. The prints on the wall were abstract, tasteful. All in all, a nice room.

  Three feet inside the door, I recognized the broad back of Ryan Miner, who was standing there, hands on hips, looking at the body of Arlen Hagerty. Ryan turned when he heard me.

  “Hey,” I said. He looked a little green around the gills. “You okay?”

  Ryan just shook his head. “I can’t believe this.” I didn’t know what he was trying to say: that he’s looking at a murdered guy, that someone would kill Arlen Hagerty, that this was his first homicide? “We were talking to him just last night.”

  “Yeah, it’s a strange feeling,” I said. Ryan just shook his head. “Well, let’s start investigating your first murder.”

  Standing next to the bed was Harold Breen, the Medical Examiner, who had been on the job for over fifteen years. “Hey, Karen, I’ve just been talking with your new partner about this skinny stiff on the bed here.” Arlen Hagerty was fat, but Breen couldn’t remember when he himself passed three hundred. The simple act of bending down over the corpse made Breen breathe hard. He was wearing cheap brown polyester pants, shiny, and black Hush Puppies with Velcro straps. His shirt was poly, short sleeve, a plaid from the K-Mart Clan.

  As Breen stood up, his pants slipped farther down under his paunch, exposing the undershirt where one of the shirt buttons had come undone. It was real lucky for Harold he was about the nicest guy in the world. Otherwise, no way his wife, a decent-looking woman who shopped in the petite section and loved him completely, would have married him twenty years ago.

  “Hi, Harold, tell me what you see,” I said. Even if Arlen Hagerty hadn’t been dead, it would have been a gross image. His liver-spotted scalp was exposed; the few dozen chestnut-dyed strands of hair that were grown long for the combover had surrendered to gravity, forming a delicate canopy over his ear. His grey eyes were half open, as if he was struggling to stay awake. His mouth was open, the jaw pulled down by his heavy chin.

  He was flat on his back on the bed, his arms splayed out to the sides, each weighty breast, almost touching the sheets, capped with a large, soft pink nipple encircled by long, wiry grey hairs. The belly was a mass of pink wounds, the coagulated crimson blood coating the patchy hair. He was wearing boxers, which exposed, on the left side, an inch of fleshy scrotum. The legs were stumpy, hairless, the calves covered by heavy, squiggly blue broken blood vessels. He was wearing black nylon socks.

  Breen spoke. “Well, there’s about twenty puncture wounds across his chest and abdomen. I don’t see a weapon, but I’m guessing something blunt, like a screwdriver, not a knife. And the splatter evidence—blood on the carpet, the side of the mattress, even on the other side of the bed—suggests the victim was a few feet away from the bed when the attack started, but he retreated toward the bed and fell onto it, or was pushed onto it.”

  Ryan said, “So we’re looking at an amateur job, most likely a crime of rage.”

  “Yeah,” I said, “something made the murderer flip out. You don’t need twenty jabs to kill a guy. What else do you see, Ryan?”

  “The bed is unmade, like he’s been in it. Looks pretty rumpled up, like maybe he wasn’t alone. The pillows are set up two and two, each with an indent in it, which also suggests more than one person. And he’s lying on top of the top sheet and the blanket, like if he was in bed, he got up to do something. Maybe to open the door to the killer.”

  “Tell me about what his clothing says,” I said to Ryan.

  “Well, he might have been getting undressed, getting ready for bed, when he was attacked. Or maybe he just sleeps in his underwear and his socks.” He paused a second. “What’s that thing under his body there?” he said, pointing to a black plastic device sticking out from under Hagerty’s kidney area.

  Harold Breen was wearing gloves. He rolled the heavy midsection a few inches up, exposing the TV remote control.

  Ryan said, “So maybe he’s in bed, alone or with someone else, watching TV. He gets up to open the door, tosses the remote on the bed. Lets the murderer in. The guy attacks him, punches these holes in him, he falls back onto the bed, landing on top of the remote.”

  “All right,” I said to him. “Good. Harold, you see anything else, or anything different from what Ryan said?”

  “Not yet. When I put him on the table I might see something. He could have some tissue under his fingernails that can help us understand who he shared his last night with. And when I open him up, there might be all kinds of surprises. But for now, Karen, you and Ryan are probably right. Somebody just went apeshit on this guy.”

  I said, “One more thing, Harold. Can you give me a time of death?”

  “Judging by the blood coagulation and the amount of rigor, I’d say between midnight and 2:00 am. Have fun, kids,” Harold said, peeling off his latex gloves. “I hope to open him up later today.”

  “Thanks, Dr. Breen,” Ryan said.

  “It’s Harold, okay?” Breen said, turning.

  “Harold,” Ryan said.

  I turned toward the bathroom. “Okay, Ryan, let’s see what else we can see.” The Evidence Tech was in the bathroom, her head in the bathtub. “Hey, Robin,” I said. “Got any good stuff in there?”

  Robin was wearing white coveralls, her natural blond hair streaked with green highlights and pulled back in two pigtails. With an eyebrow ring and purple lipstick against her freckled face, still puffy with baby fat, she looked like she’d just escaped from a residential high-school for at-risk teenage girls. “Are you kidding?” Robin said cheerfully. “This is a hotel bathroom. Dirty towels, biologicals in the drain. I’m in fuckin’ heaven.”

  “You’re a special person,” I said.

  “I’ve always known that, but I appreciate you noticing.” Robin smiled. “I’ll be done in a few minutes.”

  “Good. Ryan and I will look around out here.”

  Ryan called from the main room. “Looks like we can rule out robbery,” he said, standing at the desk, looking in Hagerty’s wallet. “There’s over a hundred bucks in here.”

  On the desk were the flyer from last night’s debate, the plastic room key, some change, and
his wallet. His bag, a one-suiter on wheels, straddled the arms of the desk chair. The main compartment was unzipped. I lifted the flap. Inside was a big plastic bag with his dirty laundry. Today’s clean clothes—underwear, shirt, and socks—were folded. I looked in the closet, where his suit from yesterday hung neatly.

  Robin came out of the bathroom, wiping her brow on her forearm.

  “Okay, Robin, what do you see?”

  “First I vacuumed the room. I’ll look at it when I get it back to the lab, but I didn’t see anything—except some shitty housekeeping. I took photos of the carpet first. No sign of anyone waiting for Tubby inside the room. Not sure if I’ll be able to see any impressions on this carpet to tell anything about the murderer.”

  Ryan knelt down and ran his hand across the carpet. “Yeah, the nap is too short, and the weave too tight.” Robin and I looked at him. “One summer I laid carpets.”

  I turned to Robin. “You didn’t find a big old screwdriver, did you, with the shaft all covered in red, sticky stuff?”

  “I’ll check in the vacuum-cleaner bag.” Robin smiled. “I’m going to go over the sheets carefully once your boys bring in a crane and remove Shamu. See if he’s been playing hide the salami.”

  “What did you see in the bathroom?”

  “I got some good prints off the toilet handle, and a couple of dirty towels on the floor. I won’t know about the towels till I bring ’em in,” she said, her face brightening, “but I think I see semen on one of them.”

  “Jesus, Robin. Semen on a towel?” I said.

  Ryan said, “Like he jacked off?”

  I looked at Ryan. “Guys jack off into towels?”

  Ryan laughed. “Well, I’ve cut way back, Karen, but you can’t rule it out. I’m just trying to figure out if it’s a big clump or only a little.”

  Robin said, “I don’t think he was pumping. More like he hit the shower afterwards and didn’t do such a great job cleaning himself up.”

  Ryan said, “Karen, what’s the matter?”

  “Oh, nothing” I said, sighing. “Just that, this morning I woke up with four or five illusions left. Now it’s down to three, max. Maybe two.”

  Robin said, “Come see me in the lab in a couple of hours. I’ll show you the ten places in this room where you wouldn’t have expected to find fecal matter. Then you could cross another illusion off your list.”

  “You trying to make me hurl right here?” I said.

  Robin said, “If you did, I could bag it and tell you all kinds of cool shit about yourself.”

  “You know, Robin,” I said, “you’re disgusting.” I turned to Ryan, who was laughing at me. “What are you laughing at, Semen Boy? You’re as bad as she is. In fact, you two’d make a truly disgusting couple.”

  “How about the three of us getting some breakfast?” Ryan said, wearing a big grin.

  “Sounds good,” Robin said. “I could show you how to check the water glasses for e. coli. What do you say, Karen?”

  “Good Lord,” I said, shaking my head, my hands up in front of me. “I gotta get away from you two. Ryan, you canvass that direction,” I said, pointing to the rooms to the east. “And the room under this one. I’ll do this direction. I’ll meet up with you downstairs when you’re done.”

  He looked at the clock on the night table: 6:45. “They’re not going to be happy.” I gave him a look. “I’ll start the canvass,” he said.

  It didn’t take long to canvass my half of the second floor of the hotel. Fourteen of the rooms were occupied the previous night, and the guests responded concisely to my questions about if they’d seen anyone or heard anything out of the ordinary. I got a couple of spirited explanations of the meaning of the Do Not Disturb sign. I declined an invitation from one gentleman to come in and make myself comfortable.

  * * *

  When I finished the canvass, I took the stairs down to the lobby. The killer probably used the elevator, or more likely walked back to his or her room, but no harm looking at the stairs to see if anything caught my eye. Nothing. I walked over to the reception desk and pulled my shield out of my bag and hung it around my neck. The clerk on duty, a pasty-faced boy with gelled hair sticking straight up, looked petrified when he saw it.

  “Peter,” I said, reading his name off the badge on his sport jacket, “I’m Detective Seagate, Rawlings Police Department.” He tried to talk, but he couldn’t even manage a stammer. “Peter, take it easy. Nothing to get upset about, okay?”

  “Yes, ma’am. I mean, Detective.”

  “Okay, Peter, here’s what I need you to do.” He picked up a pen and started to take notes. “First, figure out who was on the desk last night between 7:00 pm and 6:00 am today. Phone them and get them in here. Second, what’s the manager’s name?”

  “Mr. Carlucci.”

  “Call Mr. Carlucci, have him come in. If you need someone else to work the desk while you do this, go back there right now and get someone. I need you to do this immediately. I’m gonna be right here in the lobby if you have questions. Okay?”

  “Yes, Detective. Immediately.” He ducked back into the manager’s office and came out with a young woman to work the desk. His face was all earnest determination as he hurried over to the computer and started to type.

  Seeing that the boy was on the case, I went over to the reception area and sat on a couch where I could see the desk and the front door. The young woman from behind the desk came over and asked if I wanted some coffee and something to eat.

  “You know, that’d be terrific. Coffee, black, and some kind of roll or muffin or something. Anything with some calories in it.” She returned in a minute, carrying a small tray with orange juice, coffee, a muffin, and a Danish. “Thanks so much,” I said to her. “Really appreciate it.” I ripped into the Danish, realizing the only calories I’d had in the last sixteen hours came out of a bottle.

  I was finishing the food when I saw a forty-year old guy wearing the hotel blazer, hair still damp, rush in and head for the desk. The young woman pointed to me, and he scooted toward me, like he had a silk scarf tied around his knees. He stood before me, bent slightly at the waist, hands clasped together, head cocked.

  “Detective Seagate? My name is Steven Carlucci. I’m the manager of the Courtyard.”

  I stood and shook his hand. “Thanks for coming in. I need to talk with you.” By this time, the news of Arlen Hagerty’s death had made the radio and TV news, but I wasn’t sure if Carlucci had heard it. “Do you know what happened here?”

  “All I know is what my clerk told me on the phone: there was a death here last night.”

  “It was a murder.”

  “Oh, my goodness,” he said, his fingers coming up to his mouth. He was wearing a fresh flower in his lapel. Apparently, he was the kind of hotel manager who gets a call there’s been a death in his hotel and thinks, this outfit could really use a boutonniere.

  “The victim was Arlen Hagerty, the guy who was in that debate last night at the university.”

  “This is terrible.” He looked like he was going to start crying. “There will be reporters, and cameras—”

  “Yes, there will,” I interrupted. “And there’s nothing you can do about that. The best thing to do from that standpoint is just forget about them and work with us. The more help you can give us, the quicker we’ll be out of here, and the quicker you can get back to normal.”

  “I understand completely,” he said, his eyes drawn to the squad cars parked out in front of the main entrance. “Is there any way I can get your people to move their cars to the lot on the west side of the building so they are not so visible from the road?”

  “No, there isn’t, Mr. Carlucci.” He was starting to panic, his eyes scanning the lobby, as he noticed the uniform near the elevator. “Mr. Carlucci, I need you to look at me now.” He turned to me, looking like a little boy who had to go to the bathroom right away. “And pay attention. All right?”

  “Yes, it’s just that—”

  “It’s j
ust that this is a murder investigation, and you have one more chance to focus on what I’m saying or I’ll shut down the entire hotel because it’s a crime scene. Do you understand what I’m saying, Mr. Carlucci?”

  He took a deep breath, closing his eyes and exhaling slowly. “Yes, Detective, I’m sorry. I’ve been in the hospitality industry for more than twenty years, and I’ve never had something like this happen to me.”

  “I understand, sir, but looking at it from another point of view, it didn’t so much happen to you as it did to Mr. Hagerty, which is why I’m here. Come with me, please,” I said, taking his elbow and steering him over to the reception desk. “Heather,” I said, reading her badge, “could you get me a floor plan of the hotel and point me to an empty meeting room. And when my partner, Detective Miner, comes down from the second floor and asks where I am, direct him to the room, okay?”

  “Yes, Detective,” she said, handing me the photocopy of the floor plan. “The Willoughby Room, right around the corner on the right.”

  “Thanks,” I said, leading the manager to the room. I closed the door behind us and told him to sit down. “Okay, Mr. Carlucci.” I slid the floor plan in front of him. “How many entrances are there on the main floor?”

  “Four.” He pulled a designer pen from his inside jacket pocket and started drawing X’s on the map.

  “Okay, good. And they’re locked or unlocked.”

  “Locked 9:00 pm until 6:00 am.”

  “I appreciate this information. Now, tell me about closed-circuit security cameras.”

  “We’ve got two in the lobby area, one in the exercise room, and one in the pool. Shall I mark them on the map?”

  I looked up at him. “Yes, that would be helpful.”

  “Shall I use a ‘C’ for camera?”

  “C would be fine, Mr. Carlucci. I’ll remember that. C for camera.”

  “Would you like the tapes from those cameras?”