Sudden Vacancies

by James Kipling

  Chapter 21

  Detective Michael had regret, which seemed to follow him wherever he went. While he did not fear that the person who was responsible for the murders would come to try to kill him, he was worried about what could go on during the investigation—would someone try to kill other people while he was at it?

  Until then, he always made sure to keep mental notes of the people who he interviewed. While he was happy with his work on this case, he knew that something could still be afoot.

  The mental stresses that came with his demons only made it harder for him to function and concentrate at times. He would constantly be on a diet of Red Bulls throughout each week; he’d usually have one at the start of the day and possibly one at the end of the day mixed with alcohol for good measure.

  As he was looking at Tommy’s file, he wrote down a message in his notebook:

  “Mr. Williams appears to be very oblivious to what is going on here. I’m not sure if he even knows how to run a floral shop or if he’s just providing a place for the vendor to outsource their goods. Goods that are grown in a country that’s one-step away from being at war with its neighbor.

  “I will continue to take a look at this guy; there’s something about him that I don’t trust. Then again, I don’t trust a single person here either. They pay these people so poorly that any one of them could have wanted to steal all the money from the people who show up here.”

  Suddenly, his mind started to race. “If there were huge marks on the necks of these people,” he began to talk out loud and pace around the room, “then what could he have done to them? The coroner’s report stated that there was a good amount of trauma, which caused people to stop breathing. Could it be that he caused them to start bleeding and then was able to seal up the wounds?

  “Maybe he changed the clothes of everyone he killed! How could there be so little blood around these crime scenes?”

  That’s when he started to think—maybe there was a sharp weapon used at the time.

  But what?

  Chapter 22

  The question was how did the murderer manage to kill his victims without leaving any evidence, mess, or signs of the weapon used behind? It was clear that the weapon that was used was something that probably left a very small imprint and could have done enough to keep the victim from breathing. That point was the most critical one to get answered.

  In addition, Michael wanted to know why there were no fingerprints at any of the crime scenes around the hotel. “The lack of fingerprints on any other items around here suggests that someone might have gone out to buy some kind of protective material to keep fingerprints from being visible,” Michael wrote.

  That evening, a businessman from the western part of the country came into the hotel. He followed all the security standards for getting into the hotel and knew about the problems that plagued the area.

  While inside his hotel room, he took out a bag, a bong, and a lighter. He carefully lit the marijuana and wrapped a bag around the bong to contain the vapors he was unable to inhale. He used as tight of a bag as he could possibly get, in order to keep the odors of the skank from seeping out and being noticed. After all, the high that comes with marijuana is not readily recognizable, but the smell was likely to give him away.

  He had acquired this marijuana from an outside vendor near the hotel; it was a person who was trading the drug around the area and had a few regular clients. He ended up buying it and smoked it prior to entering the hotel and then again, when he checked in. The backup receptionist was working that day, as Sally had taken a day off. Randall and Bruce had looked at him as he entered the hotel and talked with each other about how unusual the man looked.

  “Dude, that guy looks like he could be related to that Guinness lady,” Randall said. “You know, that lady who has the ability to bulge her eyeballs out really far? She’s in all those Guinness records promos and ads.”

  “Yeah, I know what you’re talking about,” Bruce said. “I guess if you can do that then you might as well make money off of it even if it’s a freak show like those Guinness people.”

  “Yeah, they’ll give out world records for anything.”

  *****

  The next morning, he was found dead in his hotel room. It was yet another case where the deadlock was engaged and the door bolt had to be cut apart.

  It seemed like déjà vu. As Randall drilled out the door, he wondered just what would be found on the other side of the door. Would it be like the first person that had been killed, a little bit of blood in the bathroom, clear trauma to the neck, the door locked up?

  Hopefully, there would be some clues left this time. The video footage might help as well. With the hotel running significantly below normal occupancy rates due to recent cancellations, and a moratorium in place for new reservations, the list of possible suspects was dwindling daily.

  *****

  “Sandra, I know this sounds kind of unusual, but you have to hear me out,” Sally said to Sandra the next day. “I think you should probably tell all the people here to get out and cancel all the remaining reservations. This place is obviously dangerous and I have a bad feeling that the body count is just going to rise.

  “It’s obvious that no matter what we do from a security perspective, this person is going to keep on killing people who come in. Am I the only one that seems to have noticed that all of the people who’ve been killed had less than stellar morals? We got men calling up prostitutes, using drugs, watching porn, dressing up in latex and doing only God knows what… not one single normal person has been killed so far.”

  “Sally, I understand where you’re coming from, but we have to be careful,” Sandra said. “We have to make sure we’re making money even in a time of crisis. I mean, if this place doesn’t earn enough money then we’ll go out of business and people like you won’t be paid. We have to keep on operating this place even if it means going to a bare-bones staff or having to make temporary pay reductions.

  “And look, if we shooed off all the people who had their reservations out here then we’ll end up getting a huge black eye. We’ll end up forcing all the other places to put up with more stress than necessary to get these people into their hotels, possibly free.

  “And who knows, the person who’s doing all this could head out to those places too. Don’t you think that would be transferring our problem to someone else? I would hate for another hotel to try and come back on us for shutting our doors and then this murderer taking up residence in their establishment. I don’t know if they could sue us, or what! I’m sure we wouldn’t win.

  And so, with yet another dead body and the media sticking around to cover every single detail of what was happening at the hotel, the Paradise would stay open. The services at the hotel would continue to operate as usual. Maybe the murderer would mess up and leave a clue.

  Then again, it could end up creating one of the loneliest atmospheres that anyone in the city has ever seen. It’s never great to see a fancy restaurant with just one or two people in it watching a man play guitar for just about no one. What is the point if no one is there to experience anything?

  Chapter 23

  When the hotel bill of Randolph Hughes, the most recent person to die, was reviewed, it was discovered that he had ordered room service prior to his death. This sounded like something that would be insignificant, but wasn’t. Mr. Hughes had ordered one of the restaurant’s specialties – Ceviche. The meal was barely touched, and there was no evidence of poisoning upon initial examination of the body, so it was not considered a factor in his death. However, after hearing several people comment about the similarity to another guest getting very ill from the same meal several weeks back, Detective Young asked for the meal to be tested.

  The fish tested positive for the very same toxin as had been found earlier. Another search of the kitchen revealed additional portions of the same fish, all without the poison. According to the sous chef who prepared the meal, and Carla, the fish was all packaged togeth
er so there was no way that only a single piece of fish could have been contaminated.

  It appeared that Mr. Hughes had only ingested a few bits of his meal, and there was no evidence to suggest that he had become ill prior to his death. Depending upon the time lapse between his death, and having eaten, it was possible that the toxin hadn’t had enough time to make him violently ill, just weak. Could it have made him weak enough to be less likely to put up a fight when he was strangled to death?

  However, another factor at the scene posed a different explanation. A recently used bong lay on the floor near his body, still containing some partially unburned marijuana. His toxicology report also showed that he had inhaled marijuana prior to his death. That alone could have rendered him more compliant and could have dulled his senses, rendering him less able to fight off his assailant. In fact, it was surprisingly that after the marijuana and the toxins in the fish that he lasted long enough to be strangled.

  Detective Young was having difficulty tying the deaths together. Two of the murdered suspects had ordered room service. Three of them had ordered flowers from the florist shop. Two of them had used marijuana. What was the common factor? Or was there one? Was the murderer using a variety of methods rather than sticking to one basic line of attack?

  Whatever was going on, Michael Young was on the case, and he was going to dedicate himself to finding the common factor. Might as well start with the toxin in the food.

  *****

  Michael made his way down to the Blue Plate’s kitchens to find a very upset Carla with several other kitchen staff.

  After introducing himself, he suggested that she join him in the dining area for a small chat. “Miss D’Angelo, I understand that you have been working very hard trying to establish the Blue Plate as the premier restaurant in Columbus. Along with that you have been experimenting with different dishes, including the one with the raw fish…,” he flipped through his notes trying to locate the exact name of the dish.

  “Ceviche? Yes, I have,” Carla responded.

  Michael thanked her and then started to press her on the contamination issue. “What can you tell me about the toxin that seems to have found its way into this dish, not once, but twice now? How long have you been aware of this?”

  “I remember a while ago that someone else had gotten really sick and had to be taken to the hospital. The test results showed that the fish was contaminated, but none of the fish or items in the kitchen showed evidence of the contamination being present down here. I assumed it was just a one-time occasion.”

  “Well, this is the second person who ordered the same dish, and this time the man has died.”

  “Well, I honestly do not know anything about how that might have happened. We keep everything really clean down here and we’ve passed all of our health department audits with flying colors.” Carla was very defensive about her kitchen and staff; she had no knowledge of what was going on except that it wasn’t occurring under her watch.

  Detective Young made some more notes in his book. Looking up he asked, “Are you aware of anyone else getting ill after eating at the restaurant in the last several weeks?”

  Carla shook her head, “No. And the way people like to complain, I really think we would have heard if people were getting ill from eating here.”

  “They are the customers you know,” Michael felt he had to take a stand.

  Michael felt that he would do some checking on his own.

  *****

  The police department looked at all of the hospital cases involving food poisoning that had occurred over the past few weeks. Sixteen cases had taken place within the last few weeks. All but two of them involved people who had stayed at the hotel. Was this the common factor he was looking for?

  The kitchen was relatively clean and safe. So what could have happened? The hospitals hadn’t bothered to run toxicology screens on the patients because they had improved with standard food poisoning treatments. There was no way of knowing if the toxin that had made the people sick was the same one that had been found in the fish.

  Sandra was becoming relatively impatient with what was happening. She feared that the revenues in the hotel were starting to decline. She knew that she had to do something if she wanted to get the hotel back up and running again.

  Several ideas came to mind and then inspiration struck. It wasn’t the most pleasant of the options. In addition, in order for her staff to pull it off, it would require support and assistance from the outside. After spending several hours weighing all of the options, she opted to go with what might have been a nuclear option.

  She contacted the police department and asked a simple request.

  Chapter 24

  “What?” asked Charles Henderson, the city’s chief of police. He was hoping that he hadn’t heard her correctly. What Sandra had asked for was completely unorthodox and he wasn’t sure it was the smartest decision right now.

  “I don’t think you understand, this isn’t something we can do right now. We don’t have enough evidence to substantiate this type of request.” He watched her expression harden as she prepared to argue her case.

  Sandra was convinced that Carla had something to do with the murders at the hotel. Something had triggered a revenge obsession and she was trying to get back at people for the suffering in her past. Based upon the most recent death and findings of food poisoning, she felt this was the easiest reason to use.

  However, she was hiding the real reason why she was willing to ask the police to consider issuing a warrant for Carla’s arrest—she was very worried about what was going to happen with the hotel if the place kept on struggling with business. Maybe if the news media could report an arrest had been made, people would feel more comfortable keeping their reservations and making new ones.

  *****

  In the two weeks following the declaration that the hotel was going to shut down its reservations and that people could cancel without any penalties, there were several worries. The death that had occurred just after this declaration only made things worse.

  At this particular moment, the economic effects of the murders had started to take their toll. Advertising for the hotel had ceased while the media was starting to flock to the area. On any given day, there were more media personnel hanging out in front of the hotel than there were guests staying inside.

  The cancellations were pouring in. They picked up in intensity after the latest murder made the front page. Eventually, it got to where many of the people who were to stay at the hotel ended up switching their reservations to other hotels in the city. A big concern at this point was if those people were going to switch their allegiances to those other competitors, would they return in the future, once the murderer was caught?

  In addition, the vacancies were rising quickly. It was estimated that only fifteen percent of the hotel’s rooms were being used at the time Sandra went to the police chief. Meanwhile, the last reservation at the hotel was coming up in less than three weeks’ time. After that, money was going to dry up very quickly, unless something changed.

  Sandra kept trying to make sure that all the amenities were still open and available, even with all of the cancellations. The restaurant was still open, the pool was still available, people could still get many comforts in their rooms, music was still played a few times a week, and the florist was still operational. However, she became overly worried about what was going on with the hotel and how it was run. How long is this going to last? It got to the point where the hotel was working with a minimal crew and she was afraid that she would either have to cut salaries or even lay off some of the workers. She didn’t have the heart to do any of that.

  Most importantly, there was the ongoing fear of what would happen if the hotel struggled for too long. Would it fail just like so many of the other businesses that she had run?

  So it was her versus Carla. Who is the public going to believe—the manager of a hotel or an ex-junkie?

  Chapter 25

  A serie
s of investigators descended upon the Blue Plate later that afternoon. They spent plenty of time looking at the many different things that were found around the restaurant. While they did not find traces of toxin on any of the surfaces, they did find a few critical concerns.

  First, there was a lack of protection in the freezer section of the kitchen. This allowed warm air to flow into the area, thus keeping the meats that should have been hard frozen just barely above freezing. This made it easier for the meats to be thawed quickly, but also provided an ideal environment for bacteria to develop over time. Could the toxins also increase in the same conditions?

  Carla had told Detective Young that the restaurant had passed its safety inspections with flying colors. Upon further investigation, it was discovered that the last inspection had been ten months prior. Carla had only been in charge of the kitchen as the head chef for about six months. Evidently, things had gone downhill in her time as manager. The kitchen was found to be in violation of many issues relating to keeping foods intact and safe. While the police were not willing to put Carla responsible for any of the murders, they had enough evidence to officially name her as a person of interest.

  Detective Young felt that the serious violations of health and safety, combined with the number of food poisoning instances, were justification for making an initial arrest. They didn’t have enough evidence to arrest her for the murders, so the charges were based upon her endangering the restaurant patrons and lying to the police when questioned.