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

by K. W. Callahan

  “Yes…what can I do for you this morning, Mike?”

  “Well, I was hoping you’d be in your office, but I don’t see you down here.”

  I didn’t like it when people questioned my hours. They assumed that if you weren’t at your desk from 9 to 5, then you were slacking. But I ignored the implication.

  “Worked third shift last night, Mike. What can I help you with?”

  “We’ve got a situation with a missing cash drop from one of the front desk agents in today’s bank deposit. I’ve spoken with Jason, and he’s talked with the front desk agent who made the drop, but we’re coming up with nothing. We were hoping that you could assist with our investigation.”

  I took a deep breath, still trying to wake up. I really didn’t want to help since I was running on fumes after last night, but it was my job. “No problem. Just give me ten minutes and I’ll be down,” I replied evenly.

  I quickly washed my face, brushed my teeth, gave my hair a good brushing, threw on a fresh suit, hit myself with a couple squirts of cologne, and I was on my way down to the front office.

  I found Jason, Mike, and Melissa, the front desk agent who had made the bank drop at the end of her shift yesterday. Melissa was a 25-year-old part-timer who was studying art history at an area college. All were chatting in my office, apparently just killing time until my arrival.

  “What’s the good word?” Jason beamed merrily upon my entrance as though nothing in the world could spoil his day.

  “You tell me,” I answered as good-naturedly as I could, all things considered.

  “Missing a bank drop,” he said.

  “The entire drop or was there just a variance?” I clarified.

  “The entire drop is missing,” said Mike. “There was an amount posted to the system, and Melissa’s drop on the safe deposit sheet matches that amount, but there was no corresponding drop envelope this morning when the safe was opened to make the count verification.”

  There was a stack of paperwork on my desk that I guessed was the documentation related to the incident. I picked it up and quickly leafed through it. There was the “Safe Deposit” sheet from yesterday with Melissa’s drop in the amount of $300, signed as dropped by her at 2:47 p.m., and verified by a co-worker, Jared Erikson, as per internal control standards. The same line on the deposit sheet that was dropped inside the safe at the end of the second shift each day was unmarked with initials by the finance department supervisor and accompanying front desk supervisor who opened the safe together in the morning, showing that the deposit was not received.

  “There was no envelope inside the safe at all or the envelope was empty?” I asked anyone who wanted to answer.

  “No envelope at all,” Mike answered.

  “And you’re sure you made the drop yesterday?” I asked Melissa.

  Melissa was an employee of nearly two years, and we’d never had an issue with her honesty or integrity. In fact, I couldn’t even recall a time when her front desk drawer had been off by more than a dollar or two.

  “Yes,” she emphasized. “And Jared saw me make the drop and signed off for it. I remember it all because the cash was from a single guest who paid for his room with three, crisp, one-hundred dollar bills, so it stuck out in my mind.”

  “That was it? Just the hundred dollar bills? No checks or anything?”

  “That was all,” Melissa said.

  “Well that’s a plus. I really wouldn’t want to have to contact any guests or groups over missing checks or potential check fraud. That could make this situation a whole lot worse, not that it’s not bad enough already. From what I see, we’ve got a thief in our midst.”

  “But what could have happened to it?” Mike frowned. “If Melissa made the drop, and it was verified, how could the envelope disappear?”

  “You checked the safe and made sure it didn’t get stuck somewhere inside?”

  “With a fine tooth comb,” Mike said. “Nothing.”

  “Hmm,” I pondered. “You reviewed the video footage?”

  A security camera was positioned facing the drop safe for just such incidents.

  The group staring back at me all nodded in unison.

  “It shows Melissa and Jared there at the safe. We can see her put the envelope in the drop safe, rotate the drop cylinder handle, and Jared sign off on the drop sheet that the deposit was made,” Mike explained.

  I stood thinking for a few more seconds.

  The safe itself stood around three and a half feet high and was about 18-inches wide on all sides. The top of the safe had a sunken steel cylinder about 6-inches in diameter with a curved bottom into which deposit envelopes could be drop. A handle on the safe’s side was turned to rotate the cylinder and the drop deposit envelopes into the safe.

  “Well, let’s go watch the video again,” I said, wanting to see first hand what had transpired.

  Therefore, we all took a little field trip over to the security office. Our director of security, Steve Sukol was already aware of what had happened and I’m sure he was hoping we’d recover the missing money so he wouldn’t be bothered with having to make a report. He looked relieved to see that I was involved.

  “Back to watch more front office home movies?” he asked, guessing our intentions.

  “You know it,” I nodded.

  He assisted us in pulling up the footage from the particular front office camera, found the portion with the time of Melissa’s drop, and hit the play button. We all stood silently, watching the events transpire just as Melissa had said.

  “See!” she insisted as we watched her place the envelope securely in the safe’s drop cylinder. “I even pushed it down inside so it wouldn’t get jammed when I made the drop.”

  In the video, we could tell that Jared was talking to her as she reached over and cranked the handle to rotate the cylinder.

  “What was Jared talking to you about?” I asked.

  “Oh, I don’t know,” Melissa frowned and shook her head. “Some nonsense about a party this weekend that he wants me to go to.”

  The body language between the two informed me of Melissa’s likely answer to Jared’s offer, but I asked anyway, “So what’d you tell him?”

  Melissa shrugged as if it were unimportant, “I said okay.”

  We kept watching as Jason signed off on the drop sheet while Melissa finished cranking the safe handle. Then they both left and the video reverted back to uneventful footage of the solitary safe.

  “You’re sure that the envelope dropped?” I asked, since from the camera’s angle, we couldn’t see down inside the actual drop cylinder.

  Melissa shrugged, looking somewhat uncomfortable, “I mean, how could it not? I cranked the handle all the way around so that the open part of the cylinder came back around to the top.”

  I nodded. “What time was the next drop?” I asked.

  Mike referred to the drop sheet. “3:56 p.m.”

  “By whom?” I asked.

  Mike again looked to his paperwork, “Mmm, looks like it was Sheldon Epperson.”

  “Let’s watch that drop,” I told Steve.

  He fast forwarded the proper amount of time.

  “I don’t know this guy,” I said to Jason. “Is he new?”

  “Been here about a month. He’ll be lucky if he makes it another month. Constantly late, poor guest service skills, and I catch him back on the video games all the time now.”

  We watched as Sheldon made his drop.

  “Look at the way his body is positioned?” I noted.

  “Yeah,” said Jason. “So?”

  This time, Steve stepped in. “When we mounted that safe camera, we positioned it at an angle so that you could still see the cylinder while the drop was being made. We didn’t want someone blocking the view of the drop. But look at the way he’s standing.”

  We all observed that Sheldon had positioned himself toward one side of the drop safe so that his body completely obscured the drop cylinder. Then he leaned over awkwardly to turn the han
dle and make his drop.

  “I think that’s you’re culprit,” I said.

  “But how?” Mike questioned. “If Melissa made her drop like she said she did, how could he have managed to get a hold of it?”

  “I think I know,” I said. “Come on.”

  I led our little group back to the front desk’s drop safe. Once there, I pulled a deposit envelope from a nearby stack beside the safe, took out three, reasonably crisp bills from my wallet, and inserted them into the envelope. Then I sealed the envelope, dropped it into the safe cylinder, and cranked the handle until the cylinder had completed one full revolution. Everyone watched as I did this.

  The cylinder came up empty, the envelope having dropped into the safe as it should.

  “I just don’t understand,” Melissa said in exasperation. “It’s just like I said. So how could Sheldon…or anyone else for that matter, have taken it?”

  “But it’s not just like you said, Melissa,” I eyed her.

  She looked at me nervously.

  “Mike, Jason, you want to open the safe?”

  The safe had a two lock entry system. The front desk and finance department each kept a secured key to the safe in separate locations which made it a dual employee, dual department process to open it.

  I waited as they opened the safe and fished my dropped envelope from within, handing it back to me. “Now watch,” I placed the envelope back inside the drop cylinder. “You said you didn’t just place the envelope inside, Melissa, you pressed it down to make sure that it wouldn’t get jammed when you rotated it.”

  She nodded that this was correct. I put my envelope back into the drop cylinder and then used my fingertips to press it downward. The envelope flexed under the pressure and then curved downward so that it formed itself to the shape of the cylinder. I then rotated the handle. Moments later, the cylinder – having made its full revolution – revealed the envelope still in place, it having adhered itself to the rounded bottom of the safe’s drop cylinder.

  “Watching that video, Melissa, I could see that you never really checked to see if the envelope had dropped, and I can’t really say I blame you. 99.9 percent of the time, there’d be no reason to check. The envelope’s weight would have pulled it down into the safe. However, the combination of the light weight of just the three bills inside, and the fact that you pressed the envelope down so that if form-fitted itself to the cylinder, kept it from dropping.”

  I held up my sample envelope. The front was outlined with printed spaces in which to write the various denominations of bills and checks inside. “My guess is that when Sheldon arrived to make his drop, he saw your envelope still sitting inside the drop cylinder. It would only have taken him seconds to read your drop amount and seen that it consisted solely of cash. Realizing that no one was watching, and that there was a quick and untraceable three hundred dollars in cash just within reach, he moved so that the camera view was blocked, grabbed it, and shoved it in his suit jacket pocket. Had it been checks inside, he might not have chanced it, but cash…well, that’s unfortunately a different story.”

  “But how do we prove it?” asked Mike. “We can’t see him take it, so we can’t actually prove that it was him.

  “Oh, it was him alright,” Jason grimaced. “I can totally see him doing something like that…shady little character.”

  “Yeah, but we can’t fire him based solely upon that,” Mike frowned.

  “Like Jason said, he’ll probably be gone soon anyway,” I offered. “What I would do is sit him down and confront him about this. I’d tell him that if he resigns and we get the money back, we won’t involve the police; otherwise, the cops are getting called and he’s our prime suspect. See what he does. If he didn’t do it, he’ll say go ahead and call the police; but if he did do it, he might think twice. It’s a bluff we may not win, but even if he doesn’t own up to it, he’ll know that we’re watching him, and it’s only a matter of time before he’s out of here on attendance or some other infraction. Where’s this kid on performance documentation so far,” I asked Jason.

  “He’s already up to a written record of a verbal warning for being late and not following proper guest check-in procedure.”

  “And he’s only been here a month,” I added. “That means he’s still on his introductory probation period. Technically, we could cut him loose for those infractions alone. But I’d go ahead and confront him first and see if we can get the cash back. He’ll probably deny it and say ‘I’ll pay the $300 just to quit this stinking job’ or something like that. And that’s just fine. It’ll kill two birds with one stone. We’ll get the money and be rid of a bad apple.”

  “Good thinking,” Mike nodded.

  “He’s scheduled for this afternoon,” Jason added. “We can take him over to Steve and let him sweat it out with the big man.”

  “Anything else?” I asked, ready to get back to bed.

  “No,” Mike smiled. “Thanks a lot for your help, I really appreciate it.”

  I could tell that he was relieved to have the issue figured out. “No problem,” I said, yawning. “Oh, and by the way. I’d get with property operations and see if they can rig up a base-filler for that drop safe cylinder to eliminate the chance for any such future events. And now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m heading back upstairs to try my hand at a bit more sleep.”

  As I left, Melissa hurried after me, catching me by the hand. She was a fetching young lady with curly dark hair and full pouting lips. “Thank you so much, Robert. I really appreciate your help back there. It’s so amazing how you figured that out,” she gushed.

  Suddenly I had the feeling that Melissa had momentarily put thoughts of Jared and his party on the back burner. I couldn’t help but note the ‘appreciation’ she was feeling for my assistance in clearing her name through her body language as she moved closer to me.

  “My pleasure, Melissa,” I nodded and smiled innocently.

  She glanced at her watch. “It’s almost noon. Would you care to grab a bite to eat with me down in the cafeteria?”

  “Uh, no thank you. I had a really late night and I’d like to get a few more hours of sleep before I have to work again.”

  “Maybe next time,” she gave me a sweet smile and a lingering look as she turned to leave.

  I don’t know what it was about hotel romances. I wondered if it was all the beds being in such close proximity to employees that seemed to have their minds constantly turning to thoughts of romance and relationships. It seemed like all the hotels where I had worked had been boiling pots of love and lust.

  The thought brought me back to a lingering question, and I figured I’d give it another shot.

  “Melissa?” I called after her.

  “Yes?” she paused and turned expectantly.

  “You didn’t happen to leave something in my mailbox on Christmas morning, did you? A little gift box?”

  “Huh uh,” she frowned, shaking her head.

  “Okay…thanks anyway,” I nodded as she continued on her way.

  I walked back to my office and sat down at my desk. I opened my top drawer and pulled out the tiny box with the jaggedly broken half-heart locket inside. I fingered the jewelry a moment, then closed the box and put it away.

  I was still beat from last night, but there was one thing I wanted to check before I tried to get back to sleep. Turning on my computer, I pulled up the front desk screen and opened the ‘Reports’ page. There, I scrolled through the list of dozens of available reports from which I could choose. Finally, toward the bottom of the list, I found the one I was looking for. Clicking on the “Room History Report” I sorted my search criteria by “Guest Name” and entered “Statler” in the “Last Name” field and “Derrick” in the “First Name” field; then I entered the past 90 days as my search timeframe, clicked the “Search” button, and waited while the computer scanned for results.

  Running the history of a room or particular guest was an often useless endeavor. It was a seldom used report that
typically generated little more than the dates of stay, times of check-in and checkout, form of payment, and notes entered by the agent making the reservation. Due to its obscurity, Detective Marino hadn’t asked to have a copy of it run for Mr. Statler, and I wondered it he was even aware of its existence. About the only time I ever had cause to run the report was when trying to delve into an issue such as when we billed a “no show” reservation and a guest disputed whether they had actually stayed at the hotel or even intended to book the reservation in the first place. With internet travel sites often being used by prospective guests to check rates and dates, sometimes rooms were booked inadvertently or unwittingly without the person ever knowing they’d actually committed themselves to paying for a room. Being able to see where the reservation had come from and how it had been created often helped us clear up whether the billed party should actually have been charged or not.

  It turned out that according to Mr. Statler’s room history; he had stayed at the Lanigan a total of nine times over the past 90 days. It seemed like a lot, but considering his type of work and the length of his commute from northern Indiana to downtown Chicago, it didn’t seem unreasonable. There were two reservations in October, three in November, and four in December. I assumed that the increase in reservation frequency likely corresponded to the deteriorating Chicago weather as winter made its presence known.

  As I scanned the room history report for each reservation, I noticed something interesting. At the bottom of each page, in the “Notes/Details” section was written, “Guest requests 15th floor room in the 200 block.”

  I sat back, trying to think of why Mr. Statler would make such a request. I closed my eyes, attempting to envision the layout of the hotel surrounding this particular portion of the 15th floor.