The Case of the Linen Pressed Guest (The M.O.D. Files Book 2)

by K. W. Callahan

  After this, I listened to my voicemail messages that included several that had been forwarded from desk staff regarding guests upset about noise from the holiday bash after-parties. I made notes of callback names and numbers for tomorrow and forwarded one regarding a room that hadn’t received cleaning service on to Marian in housekeeping. Then I typed a brief message to Jay regarding my thoughts for next year’s holiday employee room bookings and the need to keep all our staff on one or two floors of the hotel in which no regular guests were staying, also noting that if occupancy allowed, we should block the floors immediately above and below this to keep paying guests safely out of noise-complaint range.

  Just as I sent the email, I heard an excited shout in the hallway outside my office, accompanied by an “Are these what I think they are?”

  It was Jay.

  “Didn’t expect you in today,” I said, rising from my desk and looking at my watch – it was 10:05 a.m. “I didn’t even have a chance to get them set up.”

  “Parents are out of town on a Christmas cruise, and my brother is in California, so I don’t have anything going on. Just wanted to stop in and wish you a merry Christmas. If those boxes are what I think they are, it looks like I’ll be the one having a merry Christmas.”

  “They are indeed what you think they are,” I grinned at him. “Merry Christmas.”

  Last year, in an effort to placate the upset head of one of our largest annual conferences, the Midwest Gamers Convention, I had given away Jay’s two 80s-style “staff stress reliever” (as Jay referred to them) arcade video games. For Christmas, I’d decided to replace his lost babies – a car racing game inside which you could sit while piloting your race car using steering wheel, accelerator, break peddles, and gear shifter; and a multi-game featuring several 80s arcade classics. I could see the excitement in Jay’s eyes as they lit up like a kid at Christmas. And that’s just what Jay was, a big grownup kid.

  Jay had started at the Lanigan shortly before me, and officially he was my boss – at least according to the hotel’s chain of command. But Jay was savvy enough to realize that when it came to expertise on most things hotel and hospitality-related, it was a good idea to defer to my extensive experience, especially when it came to matters of critical importance. While Jason had the book learning of a degree that specialized in hospitality management, I had the hands-on experience that he quickly realized was far more valuable.

  Jay preferred to win people over with his irresistibly boyish charm and a smile that would blind the paparazzi. And when it came to dealing with the litany of issues often encountered at the front office, he had an uncanny knack for not being around when said issues cropped up. But I loved him nonetheless, and I was pleased to see just how excited he was with his Christmas gifts.

  “Wow! These are awesome!” he cried, tearing into the boxes. “And brand new! You’re the BEST!”

  “Compliments of the Lanigan Hotel,” I nodded. “I just did the ordering. I know your staff needs their stress relievers, and you guys had one heck of a year. Hard to break the ninety percent mark in guest satisfaction scores, and you guys held close to a ninety-five percent average all year. That deserves some sort of recognition in my humble opinion.”

  Jay wasn’t paying any attention. He was too busy ripping away at the protective cardboard boxes inside which his new toys were concealed.

  I watched for a few moments, a satisfied look on my face, before I noticed something was crammed inside my cubby-hole mailbox nestled among a row of similar mailboxes for front office department staff.

  I walked over to inspect, curious as to whether Santa had brought me a little something too.

  Inside sat a small ribbon-topped gift box. I pulled the box out, untied the ribbon, and opened the box’s top. There I found a small sheet of paper folded in half. I pulled it out, and beneath it, I saw a gold chain with attached locket. The locket was in the shape of a heart broken jaggedly down its center. I opened the note that read: “Merry Christmas, Robert. From your secret admirer!”

  It was signed with a lone heart.

  I frowned and placed the locket and note back inside the box and put the top back on. I walked to my desk and slipped the box inside the top drawer, all the while racking my brain for just who might have left the gift.

  I walked out to the front desk. “Hiatt, did you put something in my mailbox recently or see someone put anything in there?”

  “No,” she shook her head.

  “Okay…thanks,” I said, going back to assist Jay with maneuvering the now unboxed arcade games into the empty office we used as a breakroom. It took us a good 15 minutes to get the bulky games slid inside and positioned the way Jay wanted them. After we got them plugged in, and as we stood waiting for them to upload their software, Hiatt peeked her head in.

  “Someone here to see you, Robert,” she said.

  “Be right out,” I nodded. My mind automatically went to the locket, and I wondered if I was going to get to meet my secret admirer.

  Instead, I found Detective Marino waiting for me.

  “Merry Christmas, detective,” I greeted him, shaking hands with him over the front desk.

  “Merry Christmas,” he returned my salutation.

  “Meet me over at the back office door, and I’ll let you in,” I told him.

  Moments later, I was guiding him to my office. We passed Jay, who was already battling hard against a slew of alien space invaders, pounding away on the stand-behind game panel’s controls. As we took seats in my office – me at my desk and the detective in a nearby sofa chair – the detective asked quietly, “Who is that?”

  “My boss,” I said.

  “He’s your boss?” the detective, gave me a half-questioning, half-disbelieving stare.

  “He’s brighter than he looks,” I shrugged and smiled.

  “DANG IT!” we heard Jay cry in disgust as he was obviously defeated in his alien encounter.

  “Sure hope so,” the detective shook his head, looking rather unconvinced.

  “Don’t you ever take a day off?” I asked.

  “I could ask you the same thing,” he said, an eyebrow half cocked.

  “I like to stay busy,” I shrugged.

  “Me too,” the detective agreed.

  Like me, the detective was a man without close family; and therefore, work became his life.

  “Something to drink?” I asked. “Coffee? Water? A little egg nog?”

  “No thank you,” the detective replied.

  “So to what do I owe the pleasure of your company today, detective?”

  “Take a wild guest,” he said, straight faced.

  “Well, of course I know it’s regarding the…incident that occurred the other day. But how can I be of assistance?”

  “Glad you asked,” the detective finally gave a slight smile. “First off, let me give you a little background on what we’ve learned so far about the guest in question. As you already know from when I asked you to put his room out of order, our victim’s name is Derrick Statler and he way staying in room 15-202. He was age twenty-nine, lived in Merrillville, Indiana, and he worked for an area consulting firm. He did a lot of traveling around Chicagoland and northern Indiana. According to his boss, he often spent nights at the Lanigan to avoid the lengthy commute when the weather was less than favorable. He was unmarried, no kids, his parents passed away several years ago, and apparently his closest family were a couple cousins who live in Missouri and who he hadn’t seen in years. And as you probably noted when you found the body, our victim, Mr. Statler, was stabbed with a knife that we found among the sheets near his body. Before that, it appears he had been struck on the top of the head with a blunt instrument, quite possibly the end of the murder weapon’s handle. It appears that he was killed sometime late afternoon or early evening on Thursday the 22nd. You didn’t find him until he slid out the linen chute at around 11:30 a.m. the following day when he was due to check out.” The detective considered. “Guess he checked out, just not
the way he’d planned,” he shrugged and exhaled heavily. “That’s the general rundown and everything I can tell you on the record.”

  “Not much to go on,” I frowned. “And off the record?” I eyed him inquiringly.

  The detective took a deep breath. “Just remember, this is all confidential, and you’re not to repeat it to anyone.”

  “I know,” I nodded.

  “As I mentioned, we found the knife that Mr. Statler was stabbed with in the linens near his body. It was an eight-inch long knife with a four-inch blade. The initials ‘D.E.P.’ were engraved on its handle.”

  “D…E…P…,” I repeated, trying to run through a list of hotel employees in my head to see if anything matched up. A couple Dave’s and some Daniel’s came up, and I knew there were more, but we had far too many employees for a complete mental processing.

  “Mr. Statler was stabbed a total of twelve times,” the detective went on, “mostly strikes to his upper torso; but there were several deep penetrations to his abdomen as well. It looks as though the first few stab wounds were delivered to the stomach. It’s an easy entry point, but not a quick kill, and then the perpetrator of the crime moved his – or her – thrusts up to the chest to finish the job. We aren’t sure exactly where the murder took place though. We haven’t found traces of blood in Mr. Statler’s room or in the fifteenth floor linen closet.”

  “Hmm…” I frowned, “…interesting.”

  “Even more interesting is that our victim didn’t die from the stab wounds.”

  “He didn’t?” I said, surprised by the revelation.

  “No,” the detective shook his head. “He died from asphyxiation.”

  “He was strangled?”

  “Smothered,” the detective said, “by the weight of the dirty linen that was dumped down upon him after he’d been dumped in the linen chute.”

  “Uh,” I gave a shiver and grimaced at the thought.

  “My sentiments exactly,” the detective agreed. “As you well know, the weight of linen, especially when comprised of items like wet towels, can add up quickly. The way Mr. Statler’s body came to rest, head first in the linen chute, meant that any additional linen dropped on him put pressure on his head and face, making it increasingly difficult to breath. Combined with his injuries and blood loss, and being unable to extract himself from the chute tube as he came to rest between floors, he eventually succumbed to the building pressure of the linens stacking up in the chute above him.” The detective took a deep breath. “Pretty horrible way to die if you ask me.”

  “Sure is,” I said, trying to imagine myself in poor Mr. Statler’s predicament but quickly realizing the mental torture of doing so was too much.

  “So here’s what I need from you,” the detective continued.

  I pulled a pen and notepad from where they sat on my desk over close to me. “Shoot,” I said, ready for his requests.

  “It might take you some effort to get these things together, but they’re necessary considering what we know…or don’t know…so far. First off, I’ll need to know when the employees working the fifteenth floor on the day of the murder are scheduled next so that I can interview them. I’ll need a list of their names, contact information, and schedules for the upcoming week.

  I scribbled the information on my notepad.

  “I’ll also need a list of all the guests who were staying at the hotel on that day and a list of all current employees as well as employees dating back over the previous two years so that I can cross-reference names against the initials we found on the knife,” the detective went on.

  I jotted these items down and placed an “HR” beside them to remind me to send them to our human resources department.

  “And finally, I’ll need to continue to keep both the victim’s room as well as your linen sorting room closed until further notice.”

  Mr. Statler’s hotel room remaining on our out-of-order list wasn’t a big deal, but I knew that Marian in housekeeping would not be pleased about the sorting room. I made another note to let her know of the continued inconvenience.

  “What else?” I asked, looking up from my note taking.

  “Is there any way to lock that sorting room?”

  “It’s never had a lock on it. We’ve never really needed one since it’s typically staffed twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week.”

  The detective frowned and nodded. “I think we’ve gotten everything we need out of there, and we’ve taken pictures of the entire space, but I want the doors to remain closed and sealed with crime scene tape until I give you the go-ahead to re-open them.”

  “Will do,” I nodded. “Anything else?”

  “I’m sure there will be,” the detective said. “But that’s all for right now.”

  “Okay, I should be able to get most of this to you by this evening, although the employee list will take a bit longer coming from HR.”

  “I’ll need it by tomorrow evening at latest,” the detective said.

  “I’ll let them know.”

  “Thanks,” the detective said, standing and extending a hand.

  I rose and shook it.

  “You still have all my contact information?”

  “Sure do,” I nodded.

  “Then I’ll be hearing from you tomorrow,” he phrased it more as a statement than a question.

  The detective wasn’t a jovial man, but he wasn’t typically this serious either. I could tell that the murder was dampening his holiday spirits, and part of me felt guilty for dumping the burden upon him. I don’t know why. It was extra work for me too, but it was my hotel that had added this weight to the already hefty case load that I knew the detective regularly carried.

  After the detective left, I ran some reports, pulled some schedules, and spent about an hour compiling much of what he needed when it came to the information on recent hotel guests. After I sent a couple emails to human resources and housekeeping, I stood from my desk, stretched, and decided it was time for a walk to get the old blood pumping.

  * * *

  I walked down the carpeted, L-shaped stairway leading from the lobby to the hotel’s main entrance. I passed William, the solitary doorman manning the front entrance. He was wrapped in a long green wool coat, gold scarf, and white gloves. He stood just inside the entry foyer by the bellman’s station looking forlornly out through the multiple sets of revolving doors.

  “Mornin’ Mr. Haze,” he nodded as I passed.

  “Morning, William,” I nodded back, pushing my way through one of the revolving doors.

  As soon as I stepped outside, I was hit by a blast of icy wind whipping down the street as it headed for the shores of Lake Michigan. Channeled by the canyons created by downtown skyscrapers, a light breeze could quickly become a torrent of tropical-storm-force wind.

  Without winter coat, gloves, scarf or hat, I was exposed to the bitingly-frigid Chicago elements; but I liked it this way. I pulled my suit jacket collar up high around my neck, nestling myself deeper into the thin layer of protection it provided. I liked torturing myself just a little. It made me appreciate getting back into the cozy confines of the hotel all the more when I returned. Plus, I wouldn’t be outside long. One circuit around the city block that the Lanigan consumed, just to check things out – that would be enough.

  The street was a snowy, slushy mix, yet to be plowed by the city or melted by the tons upon tons of snow-melting salt and chemicals dumped annually. The sidewalks of the buildings across the street were no better, still covered with a foot-traffic-trampled layer of packed snow.

  I looked up and down our side of the street. The sidewalks were a chalky white color from dried ice-melt, but they were otherwise clear. Our third-shift team ensured that the Lanigan’s sidewalks and entrances remained clear at all times. They prided themselves on their efforts and kept the snow at bay almost as quickly as it fell – which in downtown Chicago wasn’t always the easiest of tasks. And the hotel did its best to make their lives easy, providing them with a fle
et of snow blowers, an array of ice-melt spreaders, dozens of ergonomically designed snow shovels, and enough Lanigan-logoed hats, gloves, and snowsuits to outfit this small army several times over as they waged an on-going war against Mother Nature’s constant winter encroachments.

  I headed off at a brisk pace, doing my best to stay warm along the way. The east and west facing sides of the building weren’t too bad as the wind was buffered by other buildings or the hotel itself, but on the north and south facing sides, where the streets headed straight toward ice-laden Lake Michigan, the wind cut through my thin layers like a knife. By the time I’d rounded the last corner of my circuit, I was literally power-walking the last few yards to the main entrance, hands shoved deep inside my pants pockets, chin shoved down against my chest.

  William was still standing there watching as I pushed my way back inside the comforting warmth of the hotel. I stood just inside for a moment, rubbing my hands together and doing my best to huff some warm breath onto them. “Remind me not to do that again,” I looked over at him and grinned as he looked on, a knowing smile on his bored mug.

  With my duties done regarding getting the detective the information he needed, and the hotel relatively quiet, which was to be expected at this time of year, I headed upstairs to my room.

  I had a mid-sized, three-room suite on the 23rd floor – one of our Honors VIP floors. The living room included a foldout sofa, several end tables, mini-kitchenette complete with microwave and mini-fridge, flat-screen television, sofa chair, and desk/dining room table and four chairs. A connecting door divided the space from my sizeable bedroom with king bed. Between the two rooms was a nice-sized bathroom that was outfitted with a bubble-jet tub. To the left of my bedroom was a small sitting room that I didn’t use for much other than extra storage of my off-season suits, collection of robes that I’d accumulated – one from each hotel that I’d worked at over the years – a small bar that was on a rolling cart and that held a set of tumblers and a bottle of whiskey, gin, and vodka. Beyond a few other odds and ends that I’d accumulated over the years, my possessions were minimal to say the least. I didn’t need much, and I didn’t have room for much.