Ghost Tour

by Claryn Vaile

  Lochlan assessed her critically, sensing polite curiosity. “Look, there are no simple, sound-bite answers to questions like that. I’ve studied these things for most of my life. If you’re genuinely interested, I can recommend books, websites, whole series of tapes.”

  Rebecca dropped her gaze, somewhat ashamed that she was not credulous enough to make the effort. “Maybe another time.”

  But after hearing Lochlan’s far-fetched theory about the Grand Avenue entrance being perfectly synced with the equinox sunrise, she pulled out city maps of downtown Denver and analyzed them with new eyes. Clearly, one set of streets ran along the compass points, while another from the older part of town ran at an angle to them. Intersection, triangle, end of story. Or was it? More careful examination revealed easily overlooked but unmistakable anomalies in the pattern around the Griffins Keep. A tiny jog in the street to the west, a slightly tighter angle of the intersection to the northeast. Why had she never noticed these before?

  Rebecca set out on foot to confirm what she’d seen on the map. Sure enough, a block away, Sixteenth Street veered a few feet from its otherwise straight course. Ditto with Grand Avenue where it crossed over Carson. Why the minor variances? Had the hotel’s orientation really been intentionally tweaked, as Lochlan contended?

  Chapter 5

  Momaday’s death was more than a week ago. Rebecca could not pass the service elevator on the eighth floor without thinking of the congenial server and her tragic end. For three days, professionals had examined and tested the lift’s mechanical and electrical systems. Finding everything in perfect working order, they concluded that what had happened could not possibly have happened. Management – both current and incoming – had swept the matter under the rug and apparently had no intention of acknowledging it -- or Momaday.

  Rebecca had read enough ghost stories to know that many told of spirits who could not rest until their tales were told, their plights recognized by those still living. Unfinished business shackled them to the corporeal realm, prevented them from moving on in their afterlife journey. Would Momaday be doomed to haunt the Griffins Keep as an unhappy ghost? Rebecca didn’t believe in any of that, but she knew many of her fellow employees did. Momaday should not have to pass without respectful memorialization. It offended Rebecca’s sense of justice. But what could she do? What influence could she wield? How could she give Momaday’s story voice?

  An email from Human Resources Director Angelina Mariposa that morning reminded Rebecca of the deadline for her contribution to this month’s employee newsletter. It always included a feature on some aspect of The Keep’s long history, researched and written by the hotel historian herself.

  Rebecca’s emailed submission brought a delayed response from Angie. “This is perfect. But dangerous. Please come by my office to discuss.”

  She reported to Angie’s office in HR immediately. The attractive young Latina was invariably as composed and as compassionate as she was professional. She invited Rebecca to sit and closed the door.

  “You’re taking a chance with this piece, I’m sure you know,” she said, “and I’ve decided to take it with you. This is important to our associates’ morale. It must be addressed, and it’s the right thing to do. I’ve decided to run it, but I want to be sure you understand the risk. We’re going to ruffle some powerful feathers, and there may be repercussions.”

  “I understand,” Rebecca said, “and I admire your courage in supporting my effort. Thank you, Angie,” she added sincerely, “from me and from Momaday.”

  The next day, the latest issue of the Griffin Gazette caused quite a stir from top to bottom of the in-house strata. The historian had chosen to write about the contributions of immigrant associates throughout The Keep’s long operation. Beginning with Italian, German, Scandinavian, and Irish immigrants of the late 1800s, the story chronicled the early twentieth-century influx of Central and Eastern Europeans, and Hispanic and Latino workers beginning in the 1950s.

  “They served The Keep in housekeeping, maintenance, the kitchens and the laundry. They were wait staff and doormen, stewards and musicians. Though we know very few of their names, we know their hard work and dedication to excellence built the impressive reputation the Griffins Keep enjoys today.”

  The full-page feature concluded with a long list of the nations represented within the current staff: Ethiopia, Nigeria, India, Russia, China, Jamaica, Guatemala, Venezuela.

  And Senegal.

  Rebecca’s piece was accompanied with a sidebar featuring a photo of Momaday holding her newborn grandson. It included an invitation.

  “We welcome you to celebrate the life of Momaday Benga this Wednesday at 5:00 in the Silver Spoon Club. Momaday cared deeply for the Griffins Keep. Let us demonstrate that we cared for her, as well.”

  More than 50 associates accepted the invitation. Both Mr. Beaumont and Mr. Branson recognized their duty to attend, now that Momaday’s death had been brought into the light.

  “We are here as a community,” said another African employee, “to comfort, encourage, and heal those who are hurting. Life and personality do not end with death. It is a path by which we join our ancestors in a realm on the other side of a deep river, a place of rest and safety.”

  The kitchens prepared traditional Senegalese dishes using lamb and beef, goats and oxen being unavailable. Drummers, flute players, and male singers performed traditional African dances, intended to provide the deceased with “light feet” for her journey.

  Two photographs of Momaday, one in Senegalese garb and the other in her Keep uniform was projected on a large screen, underscored with the African saying, “When an elder dies, a library closes.”

  The future TITHE general manager made a point to take Rebecca aside midway through the memorial. They had never been introduced, but Mickey Branson wasted no time on courtesy.

  “You and Ms. Mariposa acted without upper-management authorization in arranging this event, Ms. Bridger,” he said. “If I was in charge, you’d both be facing serious consequences. Lucky for you, this thing seems to be turning out OK. Looks like it might even have been a good idea. But let me be clear. This sort of loose-cannon crap will not be tolerated when TITHE takes over next month. I’m not about to let you use the hotel’s history to advance your personal agenda.”

  “Agenda?’ Rebecca echoed, unintimidated by the bullying young executive.

  “You know exactly what I mean,” he said. “I’ll be reviewing everything that’s published in that newsletter from now on. You may or may not be allowed to contribute.”

  The adversarial dynamic between them was quickly and solidly established. But Rebecca knew that Great-Aunt Frankie would have been proud of her.

  Frances Beryl Chase had been a pioneering female journalist, a reporter for the Denver Mountain Herald beginning in the 1920s. Frankie Chase was never afraid to take on the rich and powerful when she knew her cause to be just. Rebecca had always admired her father’s younger sister.

  At the conclusion of the hour, Momaday’s family members were presented with money collected to pay the funeral expenses, and every guest was given a kola nut, associated with all important life events in Senegalese culture.

  Closure. The primal yearning had been satisfied for all who took part. Momaday’s daughter thanked Rebecca with a smile as warm as her late mother’s.

  “Now she can begin her deeper connection with all of creation,” she said. “My mother is not ended. She is transformed.”

  When Rebecca encountered an unfamiliar young lady the next morning, perched on a stool overlooking the lobby from the Mezzanine and sketching on her drawing pad, she sensed that the artist was there on assignment. She’d seen Mickey Branson showing her around the day before

  “Hello,” she said in her cheeriest voice as she approached the young lady. “May I ask what you’re working on?”

  “Oh, hi,” the girl replied, looking up. “You work here, right?” she deduced upon seeing the silver name badge.

&nb
sp; “I’m the hotel historian, Rebecca. Always curious about new developments.”

  “Of course. Nice to meet you, Rebecca. I’m Kinsey, a designer with TITHE’s production company in LA. Just brainstorming some ideas for this lobby area.”

  “May I see?”

  “Sure,” Kinsey said, passing the sketch pad to her. “I’m starting with the griffin theme and creating a sorta Harry Potter-Hogwarts thing around it. See, here in the corner I think we could put an inflatable kid-scaled castle. You know, a bouncy part on the bottom, maybe a slide from the turret on top. And from the skylight, we can suspend some actual griffins – papier mache, probably – three or four of them at different heights. Maybe one perched on the seventh-floor balcony railing.”

  Rebecca nodded, momentarily incapable of comment as she examined Kinsey’s fanciful renditions.

  “The fountain is cool,” the designer granted. “But it’s boring. Blup, blop, blup, blop – it’s monotonous. We could get that guy who did the Bellagio fountains in Vegas to animate it – program a cyclical choreography of streams and jets and spurts, add some colored lights. Really make it pop.”

  “The Bellagio guy. Right.”

  “And you know that upside-down panel on the balcony? People love that, trying to spot it. I think we should have one on every level. Even change where they are every six months or so to keep regular visitors guessing.”

  “Your ideas are very creative,” Rebecca said. “The new owners asked you to do this?”

  “Oh yeah. I did all the guestrooms at Haggis Castle and the Dolphin Delights playground on the Bahamas cruise ship.”

  “You must be very proud.”

  “Yeah, sure I am,” Kinsey said, looking away dreamily, reappraising the soaring atrium and laying her pencil aside. “But this place is different somehow. I don’t know. I sorta don’t feel right -- like I’m messing with something that’s always been exactly like it should be.”

  Rebecca smiled and touched her gently on the shoulder. “You’re a very perceptive young lady,” she said. “Tell your employers exactly that, and you’ll have the eternal gratitude of all who love The Keep.”

  “From here we’re going to head upstairs,” Rebecca announced about two-thirds of the way through each tour. “And I urge you to brace yourselves for a little time travel. Because on these first seven floors, you’re surrounded with decorative touches from the era of the hotel’s opening – sort of late Victoriana, turn-of-the-last-century sort of thing. When the elevator doors open up on 9, you’re going to be confronted with a completely different era.”

  With that teaser, the tour headed for the lifts. Rebecca rode up with the final elevator load of ghost tourers, and as she stepped out onto the top floor, she exclaimed rather belatedly, “Surprise!”

  The most immediately striking difference on the ninth floor was that the center atrium was completely enclosed by glass brick. Gone were the Victorian touches, and in their place were streamlined, unfussy elements.

  “It’s like another hotel up here, isn’t it? When you see these Art Deco details – terrazzo floors, rounded corners, these light fixtures and, my favorite thing, the numbers on the doors – what decade or decades do you associate this look with? Think old movies…”

  Guesses were all over the twentieth-century map. But the history-savvy among the group generally pegged it as the 1930s.

  “Can’t you just see Greta Garbo coming out of this door?” Rebecca prompted. “These changes date to 1935, the middle of the Great Depression. Before that time, much of the Keep’s eighth floor below us was two stories high. In one of the 45-degree-angle corners was the two-story Grand Ballroom. And in the other acute corner was a two-story room called the Ladies Ordinary – a combination ladies lounge and changing room. If you came for dinner in the hotel and you weren’t staying here, there was actually staff to help you change into your evening wear back in those elegant days.”

  “Like ‘Downton Abbey,’” an older lady contributed.

  “The eighth floor also housed the dining rooms and the kitchen. But you know, during the Depression, so many grand hotels – all around the country – began downhill slides from which many of them never rebounded. They fell into disrepair and disrepute and eventually became the victims of what I call Urban Removal in the 1960s and 70s.”

  “Like the Ashford Arms that used to be across Grand,” a longtime resident remembered.

  “And the Knickerbocker at the end of Seventeenth,” another guest said.

  “I think the Griffins Keep’s survival was due to the owners during those years, the business-savvy Kuhrsfelds. During the Depression, they realized that there was not going to be much call for big formal balls and private dinner parties. And they also recognized that many of Denver’s wealthiest citizens – their friends – were being forced by the economy to downsize their living arrangements.”

  “Been there,” a tour taker muttered to his wife.

  “So the hotel owner at the time, R.J. Kuhrsfeld, decided to convert these top two floors into private residential apartments. They were called the Parapet Apartments, and it was a very prestigious, very pricey address. The steady income from those permanent residents allowed the hotel part of Tthe Keep to continue operating, without sacrificing any elegance or excellence, throughout the Great Depression, World War II, and beyond -- an early successful experiment with what we’re now calling ‘mixed use’ and thinking we just invented.”

  “Do people still live up here?” someone asked.

  Rebecca shook her head. “In the late 70s, early 80s, these gradually transitioned into our executive accommodations, the Keep-Sake Suites. And obviously, we’ve redecorated many times since the 1930s. But every time, they’ve chosen to keep a few of these Art Deco touches. The glass brick around the atrium was installed at the time of the apartments for privacy and quiet, and some guests still appreciate that. You notice we can barely hear the lobby piano from up here.”

  “What about ghosts?”

  “Well, because many people lived in the Parapet apartments for years and years, and several people died in them, these top two floors are among the more likely places for spiritual activity.” Rebecca’s narrative varied somewhat from this point on, depending upon which suite she was able to show. Regardless, she drew from the well of stock ghost stories again and again.

  “Are we going to see the haunted room?” a guest asked anxiously. The best known of all the Griffins Keep “ghost” stories referenced Room 940 and one of the earliest Parapet Apartment residents. As luck would have it, Rebecca had been able to reserve that room for show today. Her tour guests were thrilled.

  The historian tapped the key card on the lock scanner. It had worked fine when she’d previewed the suite less than an hour earlier. Now it refused to open.

  “Don’t be difficult, Sybil,” Rebecca said quietly, speaking, it appeared, to the door. She tapped the key to the pad again. Success.

  As the historian ushered her tour inside, she explained, “As you can see, these Keep-Sake suites are decorated in an updated deco style, with the rounded furniture, the mauve tones – but still flat screen TVs and Keurig coffee makers. Some of them even have elliptical trainers or treadmills. Have a quick look around and then find a seat here in the front room.”

  When they were all settled in for storytime, Rebecca began the narrative she had perfected long ago.

  “Mrs. Dawson Thorne – Sybil Thorne -- was the queen of Denver high society around the turn of last century, She moved from Savannah to Denver, determined to marry money, and managed to snag railroad heir Dawson Thorne. Sybil made it her personal mission to establish and oversee the social Who’s Who of Denver. She was an unapologetic snob, but she was also very beautiful. In her late 50s, she took a young man in his 20s as her lover – a ‘cougar’ before we coined the term.”

  She paused for the predictable bemused reaction here.

  “Barkley Heath was a dashing daredevil aerial balloonist, as well as an investment mana
ger with Kuhrsfeld & Company. Sybil was thoroughly smitten and not a bit discreet about their affair. She went so far as to hang a full-length portrait of Barkley in the foyer of her Capitol Hill mansion, right along with her husband Dawson’s.”

  “Makes you wonder about Dawson,” a guest commented.

  “Anyway, when Dawson passed away, Barkley asked Sybil to marry him. It promised to be the social event of the year. Sybil outdid herself planning every lavish detail of the ceremony and the reception here at The Keep.

  “But the day of the wedding came, and Barkley was a no show. He telephoned Sybil the next day to inform her that he’d married a younger woman.”

  She paused as a few listeners shook their heads or rolled their eyes, anticipating the fallout.

  “Sybil was humiliated, heartbroken. She did not take rejection lightly. She had made Barkley successful by persuading all of her wealthy friend to invest with him, and now she vowed to break him. She knew the men who could ruin him financially, and she saw to it that that happened. Destitute and despondent, Barkley ended up putting a bullet through his brain,” Rebecca said, pointing a finger gun at her own temple for effect.

  “Talk about blowback,” a leather-jacketed young man said.

  “Less than a week later, when someone asked Sybil at a party what had happened to the dashing Mr. Heath, she casually replied that she hadn’t the slightest idea.”

  Rebecca acknowledged the looks of disgust on her listeners’ faces before summarizing, “So this is the sort of heartless you-know-what I’m talking about. Sybil spent the last 25 years of her life right here in Parapet Apartment 940, now our Room 940. She grew progressively senile and progressively reclusive until she died of pneumonia in this room at the age of 91 in 1955.”

  The historian paused and took a breath. “Our story now fast-forwards to the year 2000, when my predecessor in this historian position, Gloria Vanelli, began offering special themed tours that we still present throughout the month of February in honor of Valentine’s Day, called ‘Romance and Scandal.’” Rebecca’s sensationalized exaggeration of the word “scandal” always brought smiles.