The detective and I enjoyed sumptuous four-course meals befitting the event. For our appetizers, I partook in crab cakes served with a chipotle apple sauce while the detective chose lobster meatballs that were lightly coated with Italian-seasoned bread crumbs and served with a creamy honey-cinnamon dipping sauce. As our salad selections, I went with the Caesar while the detective had a sesame shrimp and green bean salad served with a light honey-mustard dressing.
We were already getting full by the time our entrees arrived. The detective laid into his 16-ounce N.Y. strip steak that was served with mushrooms, potato medallions, and grilled asparagus with fortitude and gusto. And while I loved a good steak, I was in the mood for something different so I went with the veal chop stuffed with mushrooms, garlic marinated spinach, and mozzarella, and served with parmesan mashed potatoes and green beans.
Thankfully, after all that, desserts were light yet delicious servings of spumoni ice cream accompanied by two delicate gingerbread wafers and a small peppermint stick served in gleaming silver bowls.
As the show drifted on; so did we. The detective and I were both so stuffed with food and champagne and so completely relaxed by the soothing songs and stories that we were listening to that our heads were bobbing dreamily by the program’s end. It wasn’t that the show wasn’t fantastically interesting. But with the warmth of the ballroom, our full bellies, and finding it extremely easy to close our eyes and envision in our minds the places and characters that were being described in the broadcast, it became such a calming environment that it was hard not to doze off from time to time.
We had no desire to further discuss the case after the show ended. Therefore, I booked the detective a room so that he didn’t have to drive home after all the drinks. Meanwhile, I retired to my own suite where I quickly undressed, hunkered down in my bed, and was asleep almost instantly.
* * *
The next morning I was up bright and early and even beat the detective downstairs. It was barely 6 a.m., but I had something on my mind that I wanted to check out before he arose.
At the front office, Kristen was typing away at a general-use computer we had set up for the supervisors and shift managers who didn’t have their own work stations.
“Good morning. Working on the manager report?” I greeted her.
“Yes, I’m almost finished,” she turned to look at me as I passed. “You’re up bright and early.”
“Have a good night?”
“Pretty good. A couple minor issues with the wedding, and we had to call security to take Mr. Stoddard back to his room in a wheel chair.”
“Oh no,” I said, stopping to hear what had happened to our guest of honor. “Did he hurt himself?”
Kristen just shook her head and went back to typing, “Drank too much and then twisted his ankle going after the young gal who jumped out of his birthday cake.”
I just chuckled and continued to my office. Sitting down at my computer, I opened the front desk screen and then clicked on the “Lost and Found” tab.
Hotel lost and found items remained active in the system for 180 days before they were disposed of, at which point they were either given to the employee who turned the item in, put in a “freebie” bin if that particular employee didn’t take it, or the item was thrown away if no one took it after a few days. Certain items like cell phone, computer, or European outlet adapters were kept in bins in the lost and found room since guests were always misplacing or forgetting such items and we could often match their electronic device with something we had in our bin of leftovers.
The records of disposed items remained in the front desk system for another six months. That made the total retention time a full year until the record was ultimately purged from the computer’s memory only after a hardcopy record was printed and filed for posterity.
I had the option of sorting our lost and found records by date (or date range), description, or location of where the item was discovered. I started with the “description” field. I typed “knife” and hit the enter button. I left the date range at “all” so that I pulled records going back as far as possible.
A list of 39 records appeared. I began the process of clicking each item and reading its description one at a time. I found what I was looking for at record number 27. According to the system, this particular item had been disposed of in September. The description read as follows: “Eight-inch knife, four-inch blade. Initials, ‘D.E.P.’ engraved on side of knife’s wood handle.”
The knife had been recovered back in March, in the ninth floor stairwell by a room attendant named Lydia Cockscomb, a long-term employee of the hotel. It had been turned in to security by housekeeping floor manager Claudia Meeks, and logged into the system by the dispatch guard on duty that day…Elon Hernandez.
“Bingo!” I said, printing the page with the record’s information.
Unfortunately, we didn’t keep records on who ultimately claimed the leftover lost and found items. Most of them went to the people that found them or security guards since they were the ones charged with regularly cleaning out the lost and found room. The job could be a sizeable one considering the number of left items in a hotel the Lanigan’s size, so the leftovers were looked at as an added bonus for the security guard or guards charged with the duty. They often got some pretty nice swag. Everything from tech gadgets to brand new clothing, books, bags, jewelry, accessories, and more were up for grabs. This made the job of sorting through things like soiled clothing, nasty toiletries, and other unsavory items more tolerable. If I could have proved that Elon had claimed the knife upon its disposal, it would definitely have firmed up the case against him, but this was better than nothing. Still, all that could really be proven with the discovery was that Elon had logged the knife, not that he had claimed it or used it to commit a murder.
The detective came downstairs shortly after my discovery, and like me, was pleased to see what I’d found, but he also agreed that it wasn’t enough. He said he’d have to talk to the room attendant who’d found the knife as well as the manager who had turned it over to security to see whether they had claimed it.
“I pray to god they didn’t,” he said. “If they did, we’ll have a whole new path to go down to figure out how the knife got from one of them to the killer…or if one of them was involved in some way,” he added. The detective stood in my office thinking for a minute, and then he folded the printout I’d given him and put it in his navy blue suit’s breast pocket. “Help me get something out of my car, would you Haze?” he asked after a moment.
“Sure,” I nodded.
“I’m gone,” Kristen peeked her head inside my office door. “Hi,” she nodded to the detective.
“Good morning,” he replied with a nod.
“Sleep well,” I told her.
“Thanks,” she waved.
After she was gone, the detective said, “She’s a cute one, Haze. Why haven’t you ever gone after her?”
“Who says I haven’t?” I eyed him slyly.
“I am a detective,” he said. “I get paid to read people. And I can read you two like a large-print book. There’s something there, but neither of you have the guts to act on it.”
“Oh come on,” I threw my hands up. “I have the guts, but this is work. I can’t just go around jumping in the sack with every cute employee that looks at me twice. I’d have a litany of harassment suits on my hands.”
“She’s more than just a cute employee though, Haze. She’s got brains, a personality…seems like her only fault is that she’s got eyes for you,” he grinned.
I took a deep breath. “No time for love, Marino. I’ve got a wife, and her name is Lanigan. She takes all the love, affection, and attention I can muster.”
The detective just looked at me. “I don’t give advice too often, but I think you’re in need. You aren’t getting any younger. You don’t want to look back in twenty years when you’re old and gray and realize you traded a wife and a life for a pile of bricks and mortar. And
that’s all I’ll say about it.”
“Good,” I said. “Now what is it we have to get out of your car?”
“You’ll see,” the detective smiled.
* * *
It took quite some effort, about 15 minutes, and numerous stares from confused and somewhat concerned guests to haul the life-sized, full-weight dummy, and a long coil of rope from the hotel’s attached parking garage upstairs to the 15th floor linen closet.
“Where’d you get this thing?” I asked as we struggled to load the body onto a bell cart I’d retrieved once I saw what the detective had inside his car’s trunk.
“First off, it’s not a thing. Her name is Jessica. She’s one of our CPR practice dummies,” he explained. “They didn’t like what they heard when I told them my plans for her, but I took her anyway.”
“What are we going to do with it?” I asked.
“Her,” the detective corrected. “Just a little test,” he gave me a half smile.
I made sure that we took the service elevator up to fifteen to avoid frightening any more guests. I failed in my efforts however when we pushed our way into the floor’s linen closet only to be met with a high-pitched shriek from a terrified room attendant. It was Isabelle Landen, a sixty-something-year-old room attendant who had worked at the hotel for nearly 20 years.
“Dear lordy me,” she said, holding a hand to her chest and taking deep breathes. “You done near gave me a heart attack, Mr. Haze. I heard about the guest getting tossed down the chute up here, and you had me believin’ you was a pair a murderers done brought another body to dump.”
“I’m sorry, Isabelle. Didn’t mean to give you a start. Detective Marino and I are just conducting a little test.”
“Oh,” she said, taking a few more deep breathes and eyeing Jessica. “Well let me get out of your way before you do…whatever you’re going to do with that, that…thing,” she pushed her cart past us and out the linen closet door.
“Okay,” the detective said once we were alone, “Mr. Statler was five foot nine, one hundred and sixty pounds, which is a bit bigger than this dummy, but she’ll be somewhat representative of a life-sized human. We need to see just how difficult it would be for Elon Hernandez to get Statler loaded into the linen chute.”
“With just one good hand,” I added.
“Right,” the detective nodded. “He had a prosthetic, but it wouldn’t be of much help in holding the chute open since he couldn’t really grab or hold with it.”
After tying the length of rope the detective had brought with him to the end of Jessica’s feet to keep us from loosing her down the linen chute, we each took our turn attempting to load her inside.
The detective went first. He tried Jessica head first, then feet first. It was a struggle to say the least. By the time I gave it a shot, we’d learned that the best way to make the attempt was by hefting Jessica up along one side our bodies so that one hand held the chute door open while the other held Jessica’s torso between our arm and midsection. Then we could hold the linen chute open while flopping Jessica, head first, down onto the chute door. With the weight of her head and shoulders holding down the self-closing door, we could maneuver the rest of her inside.
What we really learned from our trials was that it took two hands to complete the process of using the linen chute to dispose of a body. One hand was necessary to hold the chute door open during the first stage of the loading process; otherwise, it would self-close on its hydraulic hinges. Another hand was needed to manhandle the body onto the chute door once it was open. Even then, it was a difficult process for two strong and able-bodied individuals like the detective and me. And the whole time, I was having flashbacks to my dream of being dumped inside the chute, and trying my best not to fathom just what poor Mr. Statler had gone through.
By the time we were done with our experiment, the detective and I were hot, sweaty and breathing hard. Worst of all, we felt defeated since our efforts had largely proven that it would be extremely difficult, if not impossible, for a man with Elon Hernandez’s disability to accomplish the feat…at least unassisted. And if we weren’t confident it could be done, how could we expect a prosecutor to convince a jury that it was possible?
Defense attorneys would point out every impossibility of Mr. Hernandez – disabled war vet, military hero, security guard at the prestigious Lanigan Hotel – having accomplished it.
* * *
As we hauled Jessica back out to Detective Marino’s car, he asked me, “So tell me, Haze, how does a young, good looking, reasonably successful guy like Statler end up having an affair with a room attendant? Don’t get me wrong, I’m not knocking room attendants, but it just seems like an odd pairing. I could see a security guard knocking boots with a housekeeper…the close proximity of their workplace, plenty of opportunity, and they’re both on about the same income level. I’m just trying to get into the head of a young, single, college-educated guy with a nearly six-figure income shacking up with a single-mother of two who never made it through high school and is working as a room cleaner.”
I shrugged, “What do they say? Love knows no bounds?”
“Yeah, I get that, but…I don’t know, it just doesn’t add up. I mean, he must have just been using her for the sex. It couldn’t have been much more than that, right? I highly doubt he had plans of marriage in mind. And she had to have known it. You would think it would have been kind of…I don’t know, degrading or demeaning for her. A rich college boy from the suburbs, fancy job, nice salary, staying at a top-tier hotel like the Lanigan, using one of the staff as his sex toy. She had to realize that it wouldn’t last.”
I took a deep breath. “I think it’s hard to understand unless you work around room attendants…work with them. They’re an interesting lot. Most of them are pretty tough birds. Their work is extremely physical, yet monotonous and certainly thankless. While that seems to harden them in some ways, many come from rough backgrounds to begin with, and a lot of them have jumped through any number of hoops just to get to this country in the first place. A good number have dealt with abusive or at least stressful situations and relationships at home or as children, and most endure tough financial situations since their pay isn’t that great. This means that they often have a kind of steeled exterior. Then they have to deal with the jibs that are thrown at them from extremely detail-oriented managers, and pushy, sometimes arrogant guests. Add to this that other departments within the hotel tend to look down at room attendants and the housekeeping department in general. All this added together can really punish them when it comes to self-confidence. A lot of them are just looking for someone to be nice to them for once, to say a kind word or two, to appreciate them for something, even if it’s just for their bodies or their abilities in the sack. So say a guest like Derrick Statler, a handsome, smart, well-educated, successful young man takes a minute to talk nice to one of them, say Felicia Gonzalez for example. He shows her some attention and maybe even a little respect. Just that little bit of attention can make a world of difference, and, as in this instance, apparently led to something more.”
We had made it out to the parking garage with Jessica riding on the bell cart.
“I guess I can see that,” the detective nodded. “He was a lonely traveler, she was a hard-working single mom. Both were looking for something they found in the other and with very little attachment.”
“Problem for Mr. Statler was, there was an attachment…in the form of Elon Hernandez,” I added.
“Was there?” the detective said. “You saw how hard it was to load Jessica into the chute with two hands. And right now, all our evidence is circumstantial. There’s no way I’d get a prosecutor to take what we have so far to trial.”
We stopped in back of the detective’s car.
“Yeah,” I huffed. “I know. There’s got to be something else. I know there has to be something else, something we’re missing…something that Elon is trying to hide…or was trying to find that we didn’t catch. Why else wou
ld he have been in the linen sorting room trying to set the place on fire?”
“If that was even him,” the detective sighed.
“So what’s the next step?” I asked uncertainly.
“I’ve got to get Jessica back to the office. I’ll follow up on the lost and found murder weapon this afternoon. If you could call me with the contact information on the room attendant who found it and the floor manager who turned it in, that would be great.”
“Sure,” I nodded. “You going to arrest Elon?”
“Not yet,” the detective said. “I’m hoping that he slips up somewhere and points us toward whatever it is we’ve been missing and that he’s been trying to hide.”
“And if not?” I asked as we loaded Jessica inside the detective’s trunk.
He shrugged as he closed the trunk. “Don’t know. We’ll just have to play it by ear.”
We shook hands. “I’ll call you with that information shortly,” I said.
“Thanks,” he nodded as he climbed inside his car and started the engine.
* * *
The rest of the day was a continuous blur of phone calls, emails, guest service issues, and collecting the contact information Detective Marino had requested. By the time I had a chance to look at the clock it was already four-thirty. I hadn’t eaten since just after the detective had left earlier in the morning, and my stomach was growling. But I didn’t feel like doing battle with Habeebee downstairs. I’d rather have five ounces of well-prepared food than five pounds of grease-laden slop. Therefore, I headed downstairs to the Triton Club. They had a short list of appetizers and light sandwiches, and I figured that at this time on a Saturday, the club wouldn’t be too crowded. I wanted a respite from the constant crush of people stopping by the front desk with questions and problems.
The Case of the Linen Pressed Guest (The M.O.D. Files Book 2) Page 19