by Todd Ohl
Using the Q-Tip, she dug some wax out of her ears and, in turn, tossed the gooey implement into the trash. She then reached back and tugged on the underwear that had become wedged into the crack of her rear. With that, she was finally done with her nightly ritual.
Kim turned to leave the bathroom, and she saw him. There, in the doorway, stood Marco.
Kim’s eyes popped open and her jaw dropped. She stood there looking at the man, frozen, trying to decide what to do. She kept a baseball bat next to her bed for just such an occasion, but here, in the bathroom, she had nothing. She was boxed-in—trapped and helpless.
Marco smiled, and said, “You did say you’d like to see me again.”
Kim remained motionless, like a deer in the headlights.
“You do look tantalizing,” he sighed, as he leaned against the doorframe and crossed his arms.
Kim backed up against the far wall and felt her right leg touch something cold. Looking down, she saw the porcelain rim of the toilet. To the right of the toilet sat her plastic orange plunger. She knew that the plunger had too little mass to serve as a weapon. The feeling of terror started to grow in her.
Marco stood up straight and tucked his hand in his pocket. “I read your little report today, about the ‘really nasty one’ you were working on. It seems it didn’t take you that long to work on the autopsy. You must have rushed, though, because you had to go back and fix your work. I like the new report you filed much better.”
Thoughts shot rapidly into her mind. She had not changed it. She wondered if Marco broke into the system, or he knew someone with legitimate system access. She thought back to John’s suggestion to alter the report, and wondered whether John might be the dirty cop. Out of her mouth, came one word—“McDonough.”
“That little idiot?” Marco laughed. “He’s not going to help you; soon, he won’t be able to help himself. I just don’t need you changing the report back now, do I? The one you have filed will do just fine.”
As Marco took his hands out of his pockets, Kim saw they held a bottle and a handkerchief. She watched him unscrew the lid, pour some liquid onto the handkerchief, and reseal the bottle. All the while, she stood still, but her mind was screaming, “You know what’s coming! You have to do something!” Her eyes darted around the room. A faint scent of ether was already seeping into the air.
“Please, I’m here to make your dreams come true,” he said as he tucked the bottle back into his pocket. He took a step toward her, then stopped and gave a sickening smile. “You’re going home to Wisconsin. At least, that’s what the resignation letter on your desk says. What’s the town, Madison, right? It’s a pity that you will never make it there. I can see the stories in the press now. They’ll talk about the sad story of a girl finally turning away from the grisly and depraved life of the big city—deciding to go home to… a simpler life. The sad part is that the poor girl never makes it there, and is tragically raped and murdered on her way back to that little Utopia. It’s so tragic. Don’t you think?” He shook his head. “People don’t like to think about such things.”
He came for her.
Kim screamed, recoiled, and let out a guttural howl of terror. She looked for any weapon she could get her hands on, but found nothing. In desperation, she grabbed the plunger and unleashed a swing that landed firmly on the side of Marco’s head. The hollow plastic body of the over-sized orange plunger let out a hollow ‘pop’ and then simply bent.
Marco looked terrified for a second, but then he growled, “You fucking bitch!”
He slapped her hard on the side of her face. It felt like the left side of Kim’s head had exploded. Her left ear seemed to go instantly deaf, and she was losing her balance. She dropped to her knees on the hard tile and grabbed the rim of the toilet to steady herself.
Marco kicked her hand away with his left foot. “Get your hand off of the filthy, stinking toilet.”
Kim began to sob. She looked up and saw his blurry form through the tears in her eyes. The feeling of being powerless in the face of impending harm weakened her to her core.
Marco stared at the wall behind Kim. He took a deep breath to calm himself and, in an exasperated tone, muttered. “Now I’ll have to wash my fucking face for half a fucking hour.”
With that, he bent down and grabbed Kim by the arm. He hoisted her up, spun her around, wrapped his right arm around her neck, and put the rag over her mouth with his left hand. Tilting his left wrist, he looked at his watch.
Kim thrashed against him, but it did no good. She felt like waves crashing on rock, and knew it would take far too long for her to wear him down; she could already feel herself starting to go numb. As she continued to fight, her thrashing seemed to take more effort and make less impact. It became hard to think. Things became fuzzy. She heard ringing and wondered if it was the phone or just the ether. After a few more seconds, it all went black.
Chapter 18:
Putting on the Ritz
Within a large marble-lined hotel lobby, John listened to Kim’s phone ring as he clenched his jaw and muttered, “Come on, Kim, pick up.”
When her voicemail answered, he knew the call was pointless; either she was still out with the girls or she was already asleep. He shook his head and waited for the beep.
“Kim, it’s John. Call me as soon as you can. It’s important.”
He hung up the phone and dialed Harry.
“Hello,” Harry answered, in a sleepy voice.
“Harry, it’s John.”
“Why the hell are you calling me at this hour?” Harry groaned.
“Because I just got canned, well, suspended… indefinitely.”
There was a pause. Harry’s next question suddenly sounded more awake. “Are you kidding me? Actually, I expected to hear from you, but I thought you were calling about Murphy.”
“Tell me something, Harry. How many nights a year does your lieutenant’s death suddenly get followed by a change in your personnel file.” John swallowed hard, and wondered a little if the whole thing was real. “Look, watch your back. OK?”
“Yeah… John, do you need anything?”
“Yeah, Harry, I do. I need to find something, anything, in that heap of dust and fiber you hauled in today. I need a lead.”
John waited for a reply. It seemed that Harry was deciding what he should do. It was one thing to lose a colleague, but another to lose one because you put him in harm’s way. John did not want that hanging over his head. In the silence, he listened to the tick of his wristwatch and waited for Harry to make his own decision.
Harry finally uttered the magic words, “I’ll head down to the CSA, John.”
“Harry, be careful,” John warned. “I told the new lieutenant you had a bunch of junk, but hadn’t had any time to look at it. Don’t wind up dead, like Murphy.”
“Yeah, I’ll do my best.”
“By the way, I’m not staying at home tonight. I’ll call you tomorrow.”
“OK.”
John’s tone turned suddenly less directive. “Harry… just be careful until then, OK?”
After a few seconds, Harry concluded the call with the words, “John, shut the hell up.”
John heard a click, and the call ended.
He put his cell phone away and allowed himself a few seconds to appreciate the lobby of the Ritz-Stefan Hotel. The place was immaculate. Far overhead, a domed ceiling sat above the circular lobby lounge. In the lounge, several well-dressed men and women sat on plush furniture and conversed over opulent tables. Large marble pillars fringed the lobby, and behind them, wide staircases wound into space. He absorbed the elegant surroundings and felt calmer. While he knew appearances were deceiving, he at least felt safer in a world-class hotel like this, than he would in the local roach motel.
As John walked to the front desk, his footfall on the marble floor sent a light echo into the vastness of the lobby. A skinny young man at the front desk greeted him with a smile. He wore a black suit with a solid gray tie and moved with a s
omewhat effeminate body language. There was no demeaning nametag slapped to the young man’s chest, so John would need to wait for him to introduce himself.
“Welcome to the Ritz-Stefan,” the man lilted. “Please, have a seat.” He motioned to a chair in front of the desk, smiled broadly, and tilted his head.
John looked down at the cushy chairs. They were a convenience offered so the guests would not have to stand while they completed the check-in process. He slipped into one of the seats, dropped his bag on the floor, and nodded to the young man.
The man sat down across from John, and said, “I’m assuming you need a room, but correct me if I’m wrong.”
“You nailed it.” John smiled. “I need a room. Something mid-range will do fine. By the way, I’m in town on business, and I had to leave home in a hurry. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to bring a portable computer with me. Is it possible to rent a computer for the night to check email and type up a few things?”
“I can help you with that,” the man replied as he typed at the terminal. “We call our ‘mid-range’ rooms ‘deluxe,’ just so you know.” The man leaned toward John as if he were disclosing a secret. “Everything is in the presentation, you know.” He straightened himself and checked the terminal. “We have several rooms open, priced at two-nineteen a night; the computer will be fifty-nine dollars.”
“That seems more than acceptable. Thank you,” John replied. Imperceptibly, he sighed in relief. He had expected a much higher price tag based on the lobby décor.
“Certainly, I’ll just need your ID and credit card, mister…”
“McDonough,” John said, as he dug out his wallet and handed over the necessary pieces of plastic. “John McDonough.” After uttering his name that way in these lavish surroundings, John thought that this must be what it was like to be a spy. Without a license to kill, however, the fantasy fell flat.
“Just give me one second, Mr. McDonough, and we’ll get you up to your room right away.”
While the young man typed, a bellhop silently appeared at John’s side, as if he came at the beckon of an unseen handler. The bellhop bowed slightly and asked, “May I help you with your bags sir?”
“Thank you,” said John, impressed, “but that’s not necessary.”
The bellhop responded with another quick bow, and then moved away.
The young man behind the desk slid a room key toward John and said, “You will be staying in room three-fourteen. My name is Sam. If you need anything, just call the front desk and let me know. You’ll want to take the elevator over there.”
John stood and took the items off the counter, then held out his hand. “Thank you, Sam.”
“Don’t mention it, sir,” said Sam, seeming to blush. “Enjoy your stay.”
John made his way to room 314 and gently pushed the door open to reveal a posh setting. The hotel room was more than half the size of his entire apartment. Moreover, it boasted much more tasteful decoration. A warm tan coated the walls and coordinated perfectly with the dark wood of the furniture.
He entered and tossed his bag on the bed, then looked a little more closely at the room. Opposite the king-sized bed was an armoire, which he opened to reveal a television. He lifted the remote from the top shelf, clicked the power button, and expected to hear the nauseating music of the menu system that most hotels used to bait their visitors into purchasing pay-per-view movies. Instead, he was pleasantly surprised to find a late-night talk show fade onto the screen.
As the laugh track of the supposedly live show filled the room, he continued his examination. A desk sat next to the TV armoire. A full-sized couch and a cushioned chair sat on the end of the room opposite the door. Above the couch, a large window afforded a view of the city hall clock tower glowing in the night air.
There was a knock on the door.
John opened it cautiously to find the bellhop with a cart that held a laptop computer and small printer. When John fully opened the door, the bellhop proceeded to wheel the cart over to the desk and then connected it to several outlets on the wall for power and Internet access. Once the bellhop finished setting up the computer, he stood up and turned to John.
“Will there be anything else, sir?”
“No, that’s perfect. Thanks.” John smiled and slipped the bellhop a ten-dollar bill. He figured it did not pay to be cheap when you were on the lamb.
“Very well, sir. Have a good night.” The bellhop bowed slightly and exited, closing the door behind him.
John fired up the laptop computer and opened the doors on the bottom of the armoire to reveal the mini-bar. There, he found exactly what the doctor ordered—bourbon. After retrieving a glass from the bathroom, he cracked open a bottle of the sweet Kentucky elixir. The drink would probably cost him ten bucks, but it was worth it.
John pulled out Hallman’s papers and leafed through the stack. On top were the letters from Penn and Trumbull, followed by the quotation from the Book of Revelation. If the Ritz-Stefan held to the old tradition of keeping a Bible in every room, this was his chance to verify whether the passage in question was actually in a printed version of the Bible. Turning to nightstand next to the bed, he slid the drawer open, and found a copy of the King James Version waiting for him.
John fanned through the pages until he reached the end of the tome, where “REVELATION” appeared. Paging ahead to chapter three, he found the passage on the Church of Philadelphia. The passage was real, and Hallman quoted it perfectly; it all lined up.
John had not heard of this biblical connection to his hometown before, and despite his earlier check on the Internet, he was still holding out hope that it was fictitious. He moved to the computer, opened up the Internet browser, and then entered, “Philadelphia AND Revelation.” The search engine returned a page labeled “1-10 of 152,000.” He saw the number on his earlier search, but was still amazed that there were so many pages on the topic. With all the Catholics he knew, he figured he would have heard about Philadelphia being in the Bible at least once.
He clicked the top link; the webpage described seven churches of Asia Minor, or Turkey, including the Church of Philadelphia in the south-central region. Christ supposedly revealed things about the true character of each of these churches to St. John. The page went on to explain how Philadelphia was the one church that remained loyal to Christ’s word.
He returned to the search list to get another source and see if it agreed with that assessment, but found a different take on the topic. This page claimed that Christ was not really talking about physical churches in the Book of Revelation, but eras of the church. This “phase theory” page detailed how different passages in Revelation lined up with corruptions in the church and how, in the age of Philadelphia, the church would be weak in power but loyal to God’s word. The page claimed that the era of Philadelphia lasted from the early 18th century to the early or middle 20th century.
John furrowed his brow and flipped back to Trumbull’s letter. Trumbull wrote it while living in a city named Philadelphia, but the date of 1706 also lined up with the beginning of what the “phase theory” website called the age of Philadelphia.
He glanced again at the sticky note Hallman had left on the printout, which said, “Did they come to Philadelphia to use the words of ‘the Rock’ against him?” John thought about it, trying to discern what Hallman could have meant by the note. People did many idiotic things, and John supposed that someone could have moved their entire community to a city called Philadelphia just because it had a certain name. It was possible, but it seemed like a lot of bluster for nothing.
“A lot of work for very little real meaning,” he muttered.
He looked at the seven churches described on the webpages, and thought about it again. Here were seven groups of Christians, that all professed to remain loyal to the word of God. Supposedly, only one did. What was it worth to be known as the one sect that remained loyal?
For anyone to care that much about the words of the Bible, John figured, the Philadelphi
a sect would need to be a group of Christians, splintered off from the church. That would mean both the church and the splinter sect spoke the same words, and both seemed to hold true to the word of God—just as the seven churches of Asia Minor.
With that scenario, the church and the group in Philadelphia perhaps only argued over the little things, like what those words actually meant. The sect lucky enough to be in the city named Philadelphia would argue that Christ meant their location; the poor buggers left out of Philadelphia would be stuck claiming that Christ actually meant those seven churches were something else, like phases in time. Coming to a city named Philadelphia at the start of the 18th century, however, would allow the splinter sect to claim they were the righteous group according to both explanations.
John realized this was nothing but conjecture. Whatever the truth was, the details of why a certain group came to Philadelphia were irrelevant to him right now.
“What a bunch of crap,” he sighed.
He turned to the next paper in Hallman’s stack; it was an exhumation request from Hallman to dig up the body of Evan Fields for “historical purposes of confirming documentation.” A large red stamp marked the page, “denied.”
“No shit, moron. They weren’t going to let you dig up a corpse just because you had his name in an old letter,” John mumbled to himself.
When he lifted the glass of bourbon to take another sip, however, a furrow spread across his brow; he tried to figure out why it was so important to dig up an old corpse. Hallman left no note on this page or on any of the remaining four pages in the bundle. He figured that the kid must have run out of time while prepping the stack of papers, and could not leave specific helpful hints as to why the remaining pages were there.
The next page after the exhumation request was a letter from a Professor Ulrich vanNest at the University of Enschede. It was written on university letterhead and carried the date of October 10, of the previous year. The letter read:
Dear Richard and Ted,