The Case of the Guest Who Stayed Over (The M.O.D. Files Book 1)

by K. W. Callahan

  Kristen nodded, frowning. “Join the club,” she snorted.

  Tommy’s cheeks reddened. “Sorry. Guess I’m not much for conversation tonight. Not only is mom not doing well, but our ancient cat has been sick lately, and I spent a good two hours of my day running all over to heck and back looking for a certain kind of medicine he needs.”

  That was it. That was all it took. The tiny spark that lit the flame to a half-hour blaze of commiserating, sympathizing, story-telling, and even a few tears exchanged between Kristen and Tommy regarding their feline feelings. It left the two suddenly sounding like the best of friends rather than perfect strangers. By the end of lunch, I would have thought they’d known each other for years.

  This time it was me, the “non-cat guy” who couldn’t get a word in edgewise, and I wasn’t being sarcastic. Therefore, as the third wheel, I finished my burger that Habeebee had finally released to me, dumped half a lamb in the garbage, and rolled back downstairs to prepare the route for my tour.

  15-minutes later, Tommy and Kristen came strolling into my office, laughing, giggling, and thoroughly recovered from their earlier cat conniptions.

  It was nearly eleven o’clock.

  “Hey Kristen?” I said, interrupting her non-stop chatter with Tommy about some concert at which they’d both been in attendance the previous summer in Grant Park.

  “Yeah?” she said, breaking off her sentence in mid-stream.

  “You show Tommy the games in the lounge yet?”

  I really just wanted to get the blither twins out of my ear until it was time for the tour.

  “Oh,” she perked up. “Not yet.”

  She turned to Tommy, “Bet I’ll annihilate you in Pac-Man,” she challenged playfully.

  “Yeah, right!” Tommy laughed. “That’s my game. They’ve got an old arcade version at the pizza joint by my house. I still hold the high score there. I’ll blow you away.”

  “You’re on!” she laughed, pulling him out of my office and down the hall.

  “Have fun, kids!” I called after them. “I’ll collect you when it’s time for the tour!”

  The sound of their good-natured ribbing faded into video game “beeps” and “blips.”

  “Ah, the joy of being young again,” I reminisced.

  I pulled up the front desk “View Totals” screen on my computer.

  We still had 11 arrivals left.

  “Probably mostly no-shows,” I mumbled.

  I was bored, so I headed out to the front desk.

  It was relatively quiet in the lobby now compared to the hustle and bustle of the day and early evening hours. There were still a few wandering guests, and I could hear laughter and the clink of glasses floating out of Carlisle’s Whiskey Lounge.

  There were a several gamers still hard at it, and a young couple sat sipping wine at one of the marble-topped lobby tables.

  I could just imagine what housekeeping’s marble care team would say, knowing the number of acid-formed wineglass-shaped rings they’d polished out of those tables over the years.

  A lone gentleman carrying a single suitcase was walking up the stairs from the hotel’s main entrance.

  “There’s one of our eleven arrivals right now,” I said half to myself, and half to the nearest desk agent. “I’ll take care of him.”

  Sometimes when things were slow, I was a little bored, or if we were slammed with arrivals, I checked in guests personally. At times like this, it was mainly just to keep myself in practice, and let the staff know I still had it. Plus, it allowed me to show them how it was supposed to be done.

  As he neared, I stepped up to the computer closest me and clicked the arrivals list in order of those guests yet to arrive. I quickly scanned the remaining names and their home state locations.

  There were four from Illinois, two from Indiana, two from Wisconsin, one from California, one from New York, and one from Tennessee.

  It was obvious from this gentleman’s attire – and woeful lack of cold weather gear – that he was not a Midwesterner or New Englander. That left Tennessee and California.

  The guest appeared to be in his mid-50s, and his lack of a winter coat – replaced instead with a suit jacket over white dress shirt with the top two buttons undone, blue jeans, and brown loafers – left me banking on his origin being the Golden State.

  I clicked on the reservation, which was made under last name “Johnson” first name “Jerry.”

  The fresh arrival strolled up to the front desk and set his suitcase down before reaching inside his suit jacket to remove a packet of papers that I took to be his travel itinerary.

  “Here to check in, Mr. Johnson,” I greeted him.

  No other guests or agents were within earshot, so I wasn’t concerned about the privacy issues involved with using his name.

  “Well…yes…” he smiled, somewhat taken aback by my knowledge of who he was.

  “But how…how did…” he fumbled in surprise.

  “At this hour of the evening, sir, we here at the Lanigan do our best to make your transition from a long day’s journey to a comfortable bed as seamless as possible.”

  I clicked on the reservation screen under the billing information section. “Now, I see that all your room charges are to be direct billed to your company. If that is correct, I’ll just need a photo id.”

  He removed a wallet from inside his jacket and slid a driver’s license onto the desk before me. As he did so, I continued the spiel that had been driven into every desk agent’s brain from day one on the job regarding room amenities, available hotel services, restaurant locations, and checkout times.

  I printed out Mr. Johnson’s registration card and had him initial and sign on the necessary rates, dates, and billing agreement sections.

  “This will be your room,” I pointed to a number written at the top of a room key packet I handed him. “Do you have any questions?” I followed up.

  “No,” he grinned. “I think you’ve covered it. I have to say, this has been the easiest portion of my trip. I appreciate that. Thank you.”

  “Thank you, sir,” I nodded, “and we hope you enjoy your stay here at the Lanigan Hotel. Have a great evening and a Happy Halloween.”

  “Same to you,” he nodded as he picked up his suitcase.

  “Elevators are just through the lobby and to your left,” I pointed him off in the right direction.

  I walked back to my office and sat down at the desk. I watched the screensaver on my computer screen. Colorful lines snaked across the screen. Some reminded me of collapsible clothes hangers as they zigged and zagged back and forth.

  The thought pinched something in the back of my mind again. Something related to the murder, but that I just couldn’t put a finger on.

  Hangers, clothing, suits, murder, storage locker, evidence, eleventh floor. Something was in there among the jumbled thoughts, but I just couldn’t put it together. It was driving me nuts because it seemed like it should be jumping out at me, but I just couldn’t get it.

  A voice behind me made me jump.

  “You about ready?”

  It was Kristen.

  I shook the cloud of mist from my mind and began prepping it instead for my night of mystery and intrigue. I was excited but a little nervous too. I hoped that the staff accompanying me on my trip through time would find the journey interesting.

  If nothing else, I figured they’d be happy for the break from work, something different in their nightly routine, and the chance to see some new areas of the hotel that they might be able to add to their list of possible hidden napping spots.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  After remembering to grab a flashlight from one of the maintenance closets, I made my way down to the end of the lobby near the Boardwalk Café entrance. We had a pretty good-sized group for the tour. Doug and Dan from security were there, costumed as…security guards. John Rodgers and eight of his night cleaners were there from housekeeping. John was wearing a pirate’s hat and an eye-patch, fittingly
proclaiming himself “Jolly Rodgers.”

  There were five guys from facilities, my Elvis and vampire-outfitted desk agents, and even Bill from property operations had sallied forth from his domain in the bowels of the hotel, fittingly dressed as a green-faced ogre. Throw in Tommy, Kristen and myself, and we had nearly 20 people in tow – pretty good turn out if I did say so myself.

  Everyone seemed excited and were chatting among themselves as they waited for their guide to begin the tour. After a minute, I cleared my throat, and a hush settled over the group. They all clustered a little tighter together in anticipation.

  “Happy Halloween everyone,” I began. “I’m so glad you could attend the Lanigan Hotel’s first annual Halloween tour.” There was a light smatter applause.

  “Tonight is one of my favorite nights of the year,” I continued, “and I wanted to celebrate the occasion by doing something special for those of you on the night shift who don’t always get the opportunity to enjoy many of the other activities in which the day shift staff partakes.”

  This roused a bit more applause and a few grumblings and colorful comments from the housekeeping staff about how lazy the first shift was. That’s one thing I’d learned during my time working nights. In many hotels, there was a real disconnect between the day and night shifts, and the evening staff often felt overlooked and underappreciated. So anything we could do to make them feel special and as if they were more a part of the team was a step in the right direction.

  “And so, without further adieu, if everyone would follow me.”

  I turned and led the group through two of the black, swinging double-doors that let up a ramp and onto a service elevator back landing. From there, we crowded into two separate elevators that took us down to 3B where we re-gathered at that floor’s service elevator landing.

  “Uh oh,” Bill mumbled, “I know where this is going.”

  “I’ll bet you do,” I said. “You probably know this area better than all of us combined.”

  “You’d better believe it,” he laughed. “This is my home away from home.”

  I led the group into Bill’s lair and over to where the sump pit lay. While we didn’t venture down into the pit, I explained its purpose, pointed out the old tunnels, and talked about why they were there and why they’d been sealed up.

  “You got anything to add, Bill?”

  “Yeah,” he said. “You left out the most important part.”

  “And what’s that?” I asked curiously.

  “The part about the body they found down here during the big flood.”

  “Body?” I asked. “What body? I never heard anything about that.”

  “Not many people did,” Bill went on. “There wasn’t much left of it anyway; just a few bones, a skull, and some old clothing. They got washed in here during the flood when that river retention wall broke a while back; that was before they sealed up the tunnels. Police thought it was probably a body that got stuffed in one of the back sections of the tunnels years ago, probably a mob killing or something like that. Figured it got dislodged by the water and floated in here during the flood.”

  “Did anything ever come of the discovery?” I pushed.

  “Na,” he said. “Don’t think so. Nothing I ever heard about as least. Cops said the clothing looked old. Could have dated back to the 20s…you know, Capone’s day. They used to use the tunnels that connected many of the downtown loop buildings and had been built for transporting coal and other goods between businesses for running their liquor and all that, so who knows how many bodies got stashed in them.”

  “Wow,” I said. “See there folks,” I said to the group, “you just never know when you’ll learn something new about this hotel.”

  Next, I led them to the property operations locker room where they had filmed the horror movie Resurrection, detailing the gruesome scene that had taken place there.

  “You know I was in that movie,” Bill said, after I was done describing the scene.

  “What?” I said, incredulously. “Yeah, right!”

  “No, I was. That scene you just talked about. I was working down here when they filmed it. They needed a few extras and didn’t want to waste time pounding the pavement looking for them, so they just grabbed a couple of us prop op guys. You remember the guy that got his guts spilled in the shower?”

  “No way,” both Kristen and I said at almost the exact same time. She had moved her way forward from Tommy and the back of the group upon hearing that Bill had been in the movie.

  “Yep, that was me…in my younger days of course,” Bill said proudly.

  “Man, now I’ve got to watch that movie again,” I said.

  “Look for my name in the credits,” Bill beamed.

  “Never thought we’d be lucky enough to have a celebrity in our midst,” I said to the group. Everyone laughed as Bill looked on proudly.

  “Moving on,” I said, leading the group back to the elevators. “Up to 1B and…the club with a murderous past,” I breathed in my best nasal-toned attempt at a Vincent Price impression.

  Inside the old Triton Club, I explained how the space used to be the Street Light Club, it’s history, how it appeared back in the day, and some of what used to go on inside. Then I showed the group the secret room in the back and recounted the tail of the unsolved murder that once took place within its dark confines.

  My tour group stood in intense silence as I played my flashlight around the room, highlighting the eye-level watch holes in the wall, the spot where the man had been stabbed, and the door through which his unknown assailant had escaped.

  Next, we headed up to the global sales office that sat oddly positioned between the 4th and 5th floors. We visited the space behind it that now sat empty and unused but that had once been a kitchen for the old employee cafeteria before it had been moved to 1B, and then to its current location. The space was dilapidated and looked like it had been ravaged by a grease fire at some point, but amazingly, the steel sinks, stoves, ovens, and certain other kitchen appliances and accoutrements were still there, gauzed in years of grease, grime, and dust. The ceramic tiled floors were nearly obscured by years of drywall dust and mold-green colored paint flakes from the peeling ceiling.

  “It was nearly 60 years ago that a fire claimed the lives of three kitchen employees here,” I lied. I had no idea if anyone had ever actually been killed in the space or even suffered a work-related injury, but I had to spice things up a little, otherwise the space was just a dingy old kitchen. And since it looked the part, I thought it would be a good stop on our tour.

  “A grease fire broke out and the employees suffered smoke inhalation while attempting to escape the blaze. Some nights they say you can still catch faint wafts of smoke and hear the distant hacking coughs of those who lost their lives here that fateful day.”

  There was an eerie silence after I finished the words, as if we were waiting, listening for choking sounds, and sniffing the air for the faint smell of smoke.

  I breathed in heavily through my nose, and then continued. “Several years later, after the area had been closed up and as you see it now, another tragedy unfolded here.”

  “Yeah, I heard about this one,” I heard Doug from security lean over and whisper to Dan, his cohort and brother in arms.

  I paused, unsure as how to proceed. I was going to make something up about a drug deal between staff members gone bad, but I hadn’t expected anything had really happened up here. So to hear him say that he’d heard of a tragedy in this location caught me off guard.

  “Doug,” I said, “I’m not really sure about the specifics, so would you mind telling us what you heard about the incident?”

  He looked a little hesitant, and I knew that most staff members really weren’t used to public speaking, but he shrugged and went ahead.

  “Yeah, sure,” he said a little nervously. “There used to be this old guy down in security. His last name was Parker; I can’t remember his first name. Anyway, he’d been around the hotel forever,
and he ended up retiring about five years ago, but I remember him taking me up here one day and showing me around when I first started. He didn’t say anything about the fire you talked about, but he told me about a co-worker of his back in the 70s. Said this guy was a security sergeant and was making it with one of the maids…” he looked around, realizing his audience, “…sorry…I mean, room attendants. Anyway, he found out that she was cheating on him. So he brought her up here one day. She thought they were going to some secret rendezvous spot he’d found for a little hanky-panky if you know what I mean. But instead, he killed her. From what I understand, he was so jealous that he strangled her and then shot himself, right here in this area.”

  He paused looking around, “I heard, kind of like you,” he nodded at me, “that if you listen sometimes, you can still hear the room attendant’s last gasps for breath. That guy, Parker, the one who brought me up here; he said he’d heard ‘em here before.”

  The group was deathly silent.

  Even I was slightly in awe of the tale Doug had just recounted. He caught my eye and gave me a wink as the others gazed about the space. “Was that about how you heard it, boss?”

  It was then I realized he was just playing along with my stories, adding his own little touch to a special Halloween night…or was he?

  Now it was my turn to be intrigued and just a little confused about the Lanigan’s tenuous past. I wanted to ask Doug if he was just pulling our legs or it the story was true, but in a way, I preferred not knowing.

  I nodded, “Yep, that’s pretty much how I heard it too, Doug. You told it much better though,” I smiled. Doug just grinned back at me.

  For our next stop, I felt that something a little more recent and more relevant to the staff’s current work environment might be in order. Therefore, we made our way up to the 11th floor.

  I grouped everyone in the service elevator area, reminding them that we were entering areas in which guests were sleeping and that we needed to watch the volume of our voices to avoid disturbing them. Then I led them out and down the hallway to just outside room 11-124.