I quickly found myself nodding off as I attempted the exercise. Rather than continue in my failed efforts, I decided it would be best – both for better noting the details of this part of the hotel, as well as to help keep me awake – to go upstairs and investigate the area in person. Before I left, I printed out copies of the room history report pages and then checked the status of 15-201. It was listed as “VR” for “Vacant/Ready”. I quickly flipped it to “OOO” for “Out of Order” status so that it wouldn’t be sold to a guest before I got upstairs. The room that Mr. Statler had been staying in on the date of his demise, 15-202, was still locked up tight by CPD, but I wanted to get an idea of the view from a comparable room so that I could better understand what Mr. Statler might have seen and why he was requesting a room in this section of the hotel.
* * *
The Lanigan’s floors from the 7th, where the fitness center, pool, and spa facilities were located, all the way up to the 24th, above which sat the housekeeping department, were laid out pretty much the same.
The hotel had been completed just before Great Chicago Fire of 1871 and rebuilt right after. The hotel as it was laid out now had largely been constructed around and overtop of the first structure during an expansion in 1925. With the exception of a renovation of the hotel rooms themselves in the 1940s that knocked out walls between almost 3000 rooms, taking the hotel down to its current total of 1883 much larger rooms, and multiple updates to modernize the hotel since then, the structure as it sat now was the same structure constructed in 1925.
The best way to describe the Lanigan was to envision a sky-view down upon a building formed into a gigantic E-shaped configuration. From the 7th floor down, the spaces between the arms of the outstretched “E” were filled with the hotel’s meeting and convention space, fitness center, pool, spa, restaurants, lobby, ballrooms, etc. But from the 8th floor on up to the top of the building, there was open air between these branched extensions. And each of these branches contained several separate corridors worth of rooms.
The lengthy back side of the “E” contained the “200” numbered rooms such as Mr. Statler’s room, 15-202, and the room that I was currently on my way to, 15-201. These rooms faced across the street to a wall of towering skyscrapers. The three shorter extensions of the “E” faced out toward the rear of the building, running parallel to one another with open-air spaces between them. The views from the “100” rooms located along the outer facing portions of these sections were of other buildings, while the interior facing rooms looked out across the gap of about 50 yards that stretched between each extension.
As I exited the service elevators and walked down the hallway to where 15-201 and 202 were located, I slowed my pace to more carefully note my surroundings. 15-201 was located down the hall from the service and main guest elevator banks, close to a secondary bank of guest elevators. These particular elevators exited into a smaller foyer on the street level near the entrance on this side of the building and therefore offered a bit more privacy, something a guest trying to stay out of the public eye might enjoy. There was also an entrance to a stairwell about five doors down from Statler’s room. I noted that the linen closet, located near the center portion of the E’s three branches, wasn’t in close proximity to the room. This meant that Mr. Statler’s killer would likely have had to conceal the body to haul it the good 100 or 200 feet spanning the distance between 15-202 and the linen closet’s entrance.
Reaching 15-201, I slid my manager’s master key into the lock and waited for the flashing green light to appear, indicating the key-read was successful before I entered the room.
Inside, I began a slow inspection of the room. It was exactly the same layout as its neighbors, 15-200 and 15-202. I entered a small foyer to which the bathroom was attached. The adjoining, and only other room in the space, was the bedroom with a king-sized bed.
I walked over to the curtains drawn across the majority of the bedroom windows and pulled them open. It was snowing lightly outside, the sky a steely gray. Across the street loomed several skyscrapers constructed well after the Lanigan’s last rebuild. Their height and girth rudely blocked the scenic views our property once presented of Lake Michigan’s ocean-like expanse and its oft-choppy waters. Now the majority of the rooms on this side of the hotel simply peered into a wall of glass and steel. I stood staring, trying to think of why Mr. Statler might be interested in this particular side of the hotel.
“Think, Haze,” I said to myself. “Think, think, think. Mr. Statler worked in consulting. He often did work for downtown firms. Could one of those firms be located in a building across the street?” I pondered aloud. “And if so, what was he looking for?” I stood staring at the buildings a hundred yards away. “What could he possibly see from here that would provide him with information related to his role? Was he watching for something…someone? Was he timing something…watching for what hours someone worked…or didn’t work?”
I pulled a notepad from my coat pocket and jotted a note to ask Detective Marino the next time I saw him: “Binoculars in Statler’s belongings?”
If Statler had brought binoculars, a telescope or other viewing equipment with him to the hotel, maybe he was watching a computer screen, possibly gathering insider information – data related to a company or their finances. With technology these days, I’m sure that it was possible, and in his role as a consultant, maybe Statler had stumbled across something in his work that had led to a potential money maker. But not everything had to point to Statler being the wrongdoer. Maybe he had uncovered illegal activities taking place in one of his client’s companies and he was working to gather proof of their underhanded dealings. Maybe that was what got him killed.
If Statler had such viewing equipment among his belongings, it would go a long way to confirm such theories. Otherwise, maybe he was just an oddball who liked this part of the hotel for some reason. It wouldn’t be the first time we’d had guests request certain rooms or areas within the hotel for no other reason than they were a tad superstitious, a little obsessive compulsive, found a particular number or series of numbers lucky, or they just liked a particular view of the city.
CHAPTER 9
Before I headed back to my own room to hit the hay, I contacted the front desk to have room 15-201 put back into service. Then I called Detective Marino to set up a breakfast meeting at the Boardwalk Café for tomorrow morning.
After I got off the phone with the detective, I warmed some leftovers from my dinner the other night and ate a quick lunch. By the time I shed my suit and crawled into bed, it was close to two in the afternoon.
The bed sheets felt heavenly, and I was quickly back asleep.
Amazingly, I slept soundly and uninterrupted by calls until after 9 p.m., but I awoke still feeling tired. The extended sleep had been so long and felt so good that it left me wanting more. I closed my eyes again, just wanting five more minutes; plus, I wanted to finish my dream.
I’d been dreaming about a college love interest, a relationship I’d pursued, but one where the stars had never aligned. She’d been a senior, preparing to graduate and venture into the working world. I was but a naïve sophomore, largely uneducated in the ways of women.
In my dream, the lovely young woman and I had dinner before seeing a show, and just before I’d awoken, I had escorted her back to her college dorm room. Unlike the real life event my dream was shadowing, in my dream, I was preparing to kiss her goodnight, an opportunity I’d missed during the actual date and had regretted ever since.
Now I wanted my dream shot at closing the evening out right.
But just as in real life, my dream wasn’t molded to perfection. Rather than sealing the deal, I re-entered a dream segment that instead landed me in the 15th floor linen closet. I felt myself being crammed into the linen chute by an unknown entity, and then tumble down, down, down into darkness where I eventually plopped face first into hot, soft, wet towels and sheets. I tried to push myself up and out of the mess, but I didn’t have
the strength or the room to maneuver my way out of my predicament. I felt more linens being dropped down upon me, the pressure building upon my legs, feet, head, and face, and the little bit of spare space around me was being filled with more cloth. My movements became ever-more constricted, and I was overcome with a feeling of terrified claustrophobia as my movements succumbed to the pressure and my face was pushed forcefully down into the suffocating sheets surrounding me.
I woke with a start, sweat-covered and gasping for breath, the tucked sheets of my bed having bunched themselves tightly up around my shoulders. My head was nearly covered by my pillow.
I found myself with a renewed appreciation for and understanding of the horrific way in which the unfortunate Mr. Statler had met his demise. The feeling of having experienced his death – even if only in my dream – left me sad, angry, and more determined than ever to try to be of assistance in any way possible to help Detective Marino uncover the person responsible for such a traumatic fatality.
I sat up in bed, taking several deep breaths and immediately shedding myself of my constrictive bedding. I felt myself lucky to be able to do so, unlike poor Mr. Statler. I did my best to shove aside the claustrophobic feeling that still enshrouded me.
I shivered in the blackness. Sleep was no longer an option. I looked at the alarm clock beside my bed. It read 9:56 p.m.
I got up and walked over to the bedroom windows. Pushing the blinds aside, I looked outside. The thoroughfares below were aglow in the haze of yellow streetlights. Snowflakes fell gently. Even from my lofty perch, I could see the mounds of snow the city plows had pushed up along the street edges. At one corner, a front end loader was filling a dump truck with loads of snow, presumably to be hauled off and dumped into Lake Michigan in an effort to keep the sidewalks and streets from becoming veritable canyons of snow. With further accumulation apparently inevitable, it appeared to be a race against time. A powdery fluff of white had built itself into a newly formed inch-high lining along the base of my window sill where it sat waiting for a strong gust of wind to dislodge it. Unlike the past few days, it appeared relatively calm outside, a slight wisp of wind occasionally blowing the falling snow slightly askew.
I stretched and walked to the bathroom for a quick shower in an effort to wake myself up more than anything else. Then I donned some long underwear, my newly presented snowsuit along with my boots, grabbed my gloves, hat, and scarf, and hustled upstairs to housekeeping to link up with the night crew. I’d been cooped up in the hotel too much lately, possibly part of the reason for my claustrophobic dream, and I wanted to get some fresh air. I’d enjoyed the physical labor the other night. For someone who spends so much of his time indoors handling guest service issues, it was nice to undertake more physically taxing yet less mentally stressful work once in a while. The other night’s work, and the resulting muscle stiffness, had proven to me just how therapeutic (and apparently much needed) such efforts could be for someone who did just a little too much chair warming during Chicago’s long winter months. With occupancy still low, and there not being many events going on in the hotel, I decided another reprieve from my usual routine was in order.
I found the night shift just getting underway up on the 25th floor, John Rodgers having already handed out the nightly assignment sheets.
“You back again?” he looked surprised.
“Couldn’t resist,” I grinned. “This kind of work is good for me sometimes, and I learned a lot working with your crew last night.”
“Well, I’ve got a full staff tonight, but I’m sure the guys wouldn’t mind some extra help with the snow we’ve got tonight. I think they’re starting to get fed up with being stuck outside in the cold for hours on end.”
“Sure thing,” I nodded agreeably, ready to help where needed.
I saw Ozell headed toward me from the equipment room. He was pulling a snow blower behind him.
“Ozell,” John called, “Robert is with you guys again tonight.”
“Su, su, su, sure thing, boss,” he said. “You na, na, know how ta, ta use one dez?” he stopped beside me with the snow blower.
“Been a while, but I don’t recall it being too difficult.”
“Den, da, da, dar ya go, boss!” he shouted angrily but with a smile that told me everything was a-okay.
The snow ended at just after 11 p.m. and we worked clearing the hotel’s sidewalks until just before 1 a.m. when we then went inside for lunch.
The cafeteria was lively with a mixture of banquet, catering, front desk, facilities, property operation, and housekeeping staff.
Of course ‘ol Habeebee was there too and up to his old tricks. As usual, I found my best attempts to deter his gratuitous serving sizes thoroughly trounced. Carrying the monstrous tray of food, piled high with several inch-thick slabs of meatloaf and a second plate mounded with at least two pounds of buttery mashed potatoes, my stomach began to rumble, not with hunger pangs but with revulsion. But this time would be different I told myself. I was not to be dissuaded. I would show this so-and-so that the mashed potatoes massed higher than the snow banks outside, and his hunks of ketchup-glazed meatloaf were no match. I steeled myself, determined to make a good showing and bolstered by a healthy appetite from my work outside. Looking at my tray, I felt like I was on one of those eating challenge shows.
I sat down at a big table with my fellow snow movers. They were all chomping heartily at the piles of provisions that Habeebee had laden them with.
Ozell Palmer, Ronnie Bucket, Maurice Jackson, Terrance Phillips, and I were joined tonight by Willard Scott (no, not the weatherman, but yes, that really was his name). Willard had been with the hotel nearly ten years and was typically assigned to cleaning and doing routine maintenance on the housekeeping department’s fleet of vacuum cleaners when he wasn’t assisting with snow removal. He was a rather portly man, having gained much of his girth from hours sitting and disassembling vacuuming cleaners.
Our party of six was demolishing our food. There was little talk over the noise of our eating until Ozell paused for a moment to ask me, “So wha, wha, what about dis murdered guy? Umbody dun ta, ta, tabbed him up good…tuck ‘im in da, da, da linen chute?”
It wasn’t a question I’d been expecting from Ozell, and it was a topic I really didn’t want to get into after my dream earlier in the evening. I finished chewing, “Yes, that’s pretty much it,” I nodded, hoping that my answer would lay the question to rest.
“They know who did it?” Willard asked.
“Not that I’m aware of,” I shook my head and loaded myself with a heaping mouthful of mashed potato-lathered meatloaf in an effort to waylay more questions.
It didn’t work.
“How many times they stab him?” Terrance glanced up from his food.
“I don’t know exactly,” I shook my head. “Quite a few from what I recall.”
“They find the murder weapon?” he continued his probing.
“Yes. It came down the chute with the body.”
“Dey, dey, dey know where it’d come from?” Ozell jumped back in.
“Not that I’ve heard.”
“Well, do dey know whe, whe, whe, where he killed?” Ozell nearly shouted.
We received several curious stares from nearby diners. I could see some of them start to lean over in their chairs as they attempted to listen in on our conversation.
“He was staying up on the fifteenth floor,” I said, a bit more softly, not wanting to be inundated with more questions about the murder from the casual eavesdroppers.
“So what!” Ozell exclaimed. “Do, do, do, don’t mean da, da, da, dat’s where he done ga, ga, ga, got hisself killed,” he stuttered excitedly.
I nodded, thinking. “I guess that’s true,” I said softly and half to myself. I felt so stupid for not thinking of it earlier. Just because Mr. Statler was staying on the 15th floor didn’t necessarily mean that this was the floor where he was killed.
“Did the police measure where he came out of the ch
ute?” Terrance asked. “Maybe they could tell where he was killed that way.”
“Would have been impossible because we’d already busted the chute…but they don’t need to,” I added after a second, “because I might know where he was.”
I looked down at my plates of food. I’d made it through two slabs of meatloaf and half the mashed potatoes. My stomach was packed solid and bulging outward. I felt somewhat nauseous, but overall I was pretty pleased with my efforts not just in the food eating realm, but I hoped with the murder solving aspect as well.
“It’s been a pleasure, gentlemen,” I said standing.
“You lee, lee, leavin’ us already!” Ozell barked.
“I have a meeting in the morning,” I explained.
“It’s be, be, been a pleasure,” Ozell outstretched a hand.
“Same here,” I said, shaking it and then accepting similar gestures from the others sitting at the table.
CHAPTER 10
To: [email protected]
Subject: 1/3 MOD Report
THE LANIGAN HOTEL
CHICAGO, IL
MANAGER ON DUTY REPORT
Tuesday, January 3rd
Weather: 18/8 Clear
Occupancy: 55%
Arrivals: 73
Departures: 48
Event Resume:
Grand Ballroom (9 a.m. – 3:30 p.m.) – DST Truckers Association annual convention
Carlisle’s Whiskey Lounge (Open 6 p.m. – 1 a.m.)
Triton Club (Open 4 p.m. – 1 a.m.)
Blue Velvet Room (6 p.m. – 9 p.m.) – DST Truckers Association convention dinner
The Case of the Linen Pressed Guest (The M.O.D. Files Book 2) Page 13