Ghost Tour

by Claryn Vaile

  “What do you remember about your father’s involvement with the hotel?” Rebecca asked.

  Portia pondered the question for a long moment before replying. “As you probably know, after Grandfather’s death in the late 50s, hotel ownership was transferred not to my father personally, but to the Kuhrsfeld Foundation. And though Father was chairman of the foundation board, he really had little interest in the management of The Keep, left it to others. We lived here, on and off throughout my youth, in a big Parapet apartment on the eighth floor. It was closer to our school than our Capitol Hill mansion, and that house held some bad memories for Father.”

  “Your mother’s fatal accident?”

  Portia nodded. “My stepmother Faye loved the prestige of living at The Keep, where she’d had a smaller apartment before she married Father.”

  “What was living here like?”

  “Uncomfortable,” Portia admitted candidly. “The hotel staff all treated us differently. Some of them became great friends as I got to know them over the years. But with others, I felt like I was somehow feared, even resented. It bothered me, especially in the self-conscious adolescent years. My stepmother, on the other hand, insisted upon their deference. She liked being Queen of the Parapet. Very imperious. Thought she was superior to everyone else, especially non-white staff. Used to wave her red lacquered cigarette holder around like a scepter.”

  “Which apartment did your family live in?”

  “It was 865.”

  “There’s no Room 865 today,” Rebecca said. The eighth-floor configuration had changed quite a bit with the conversion to executive suites in the 1980s.

  “Our apartment was in the center of the Grand Avenue side,” Portia explained. “What’s now the Kuhrsfeld Board Room was our living room, and we had rooms on both sides of it.”

  “864 and 866?”

  “If you say so.”

  Pieces began to fall into place as Rebecca processed this new information. Of course the Joe Kuhrsfeld family would not have been included on the hotel’s annual Christmas poinsettia gift list, the only source she had for Parapet Apartment residents. They were the hotel owners.

  And the red lacquered cigarette holder rang a distant, nearly forgotten bell. Where had she encountered something like that before? Rebecca remembered an archives contribution from a houseman who found just such a holder in the trash, around the time of Momaday’s death. How could that possibly tie in?

  She had to ask the one-time resident. “Do you believe The Keep is haunted?”

  A cautious smile transformed Portia’s features. “I don’t recall that question on your list. I imagine you get asked about it all the time.”

  Rebecca nodded. “So many people are obsessed with the subject. Most of them seem desperate to be convinced by some evidence of spirits. They’ve heard The Keep is haunted and they want it to be true.”

  “Of course they do. Of course. Because the existence of ghosts provides hope that death is not the end. But so many ghost stories are about unhappy spirits, trapped spirits, spirits with unresolved issues who can’t move on to the next level of existence. Those are the ones that really scare us.”

  “You’re avoiding my question,” Rebecca persisted. “What do you believe?”

  Reluctant to continue, Portia nevertheless sensed Rebecca’s personal agenda on this particular subject and replied at length, “I’m no expert on existential matters. But I will tell you this – in strictest confidence, mind you. There’s something very strange about that boardroom space, our former livingroom. On three separate occasions when I was growing up – all in October, right around Halloween – when Patty and I were alone in the apartment, we heard faint orchestra music. It seemed to be coming from directly above us on the ninth floor. And voices, as if several people were conversing at once. I suppose it could have been a phonograph or a television. But it was eerily wavering, louder, then softer, then louder again… a sort of oscillation. And there were voices, laughter. We weren’t scared, just intrigued.”

  It was Deanna’s anniversary night story all over again.

  “The third time we heard the music, we crept outside to investigate the sounds. The muffled conversations could have come from any room down the hallway. But it was very late, 2 or 3 in the morning. It didn’t make sense to us. We both got goosebumps and scooted back to our own apartment.

  “Just outside our door, at the foot of the staircase between the eighth and ninth floors, stood a couple dressed in formal wear – he in a tailcoat, she in a long blue gown. He had his arm around her waist, and their backs were toward us. They were gazing straight ahead at the glass-brick wall of the atrium, as if they could see through it. The man was humming along to the music. And as we stared, transfixed, the pair grew more and more transparent, until they seemed to just melt away into thin air. The whole thing probably lasted only a few seconds. We both saw it, Patricia and I, but we never told anyone else about our experience.”

  “You doubted your own perceptions,” Rebecca said.

  The older woman studied her seriously for a long moment. “You’ve seen something yourself,” she guessed. “Something you can’t explain rationally. Then you understand. There are layers of parallel existence within this hotel we can only glimpse.”

  Rebecca nodded, grateful for the validation of her new awareness.

  “Marvelous, isn’t it? The most delicious secret. This calls for a toast,” Portia announced, picking up the phone to call room service. “I’m ordering us a bottle of champagne.”

  “Thanks, but I can’t, I’m just on lunch break…”

  “And I’m treating. I’m a VIP guest, and I insist. I’m not tackling any more of your questions until we take a break.”

  Portia Kuhrsfeld-Tagawa did not ask Rebecca to share her personal experience with unexplained phenomena. But she did ask what the historian – deposed historian – intended to do with the notes she was taking of their interview.

  Rebecca hesitated before confiding. “I set aside a few hotel artifacts, documents, photographs – without authorization or disclosure – in a safe place, away from the things to be auctioned off last November. I plan to add your memories to that cache.”

  “Good for you!” her new friend declared with a spontaneous thumbs-up. “I’m pleased to hear it. Your secret’s safe with me. One day, when the hotel management’s attitude returns to appreciation of The Keep’s past, you’ll be considered a hero for your small subterfuge.”

  The two women listened to classical music on the Bose radio as they sipped their champagne. Portia gazed out the window five stories above the intersection of Carson and Seventeenth. “I miss the view of the mountains,” she said. “Before all these skyscrapers, you could see at least a hundred miles along the Front Range on a clear day from The Keep’s upper floors. That’s the price of progress, I guess.”

  Portia set her empty flute on the coffee table. “Better now,” she announced. “Ready to continue our interview. Fire away.”

  “What is your favorite Griffins Keep memory?”

  Portia smiled. “I’ve been thinking about this since I first read through your questions,” she said. “There are so many to choose from. Stuffing Pop Tarts into the mail drop slots. Launching paper airplanes from the seventh floor into the atrium lobby.

  “But I’d have to say my single most cherished memory is the Snow Ball when I debuted as one of the Ice Princesses. I don’t want to tell you how long ago it was, but even by that time the tradition was anachronistic, the remnant of an earlier time when Denver society controlled everything and The Keep was a citadel of snobbery. Being a Princess still meant that you were presented as a candidate for marriage into an equally prosperous family. And although I recognized it for the elitist and sexist ritual it was -- God help me -- I loved the elegant white dress and elbow-length gloves. Descending the Grand Staircase, feeling beautiful with my elaborate up-do and my first diamond earrings, all eyes on me… It was the closest thing to a Cinderella experience
in my entire life. Never had a formal wedding, so the Snow Ball meant even more to me than it might to others. It’s shallow and vain, I know. But there it is, and I won’t apologize.”

  “No reason you should.”

  “I realize the whole overblown affair is self-indulgent and self-congratulatory. But it’s also elegant, gracious, timeless and genteel – qualities increasingly rare in today’s world, it seems to me.”

  Rebecca realized as their conversation evolved that she liked Portia Kuhrsfeld-Tagawa. Liked her a lot. They seemed to see things in the same way.

  “On to a question I hope you’ve had time to give some serious thought,” the interviewer continued. “What do you think the Griffins Keep means to the people of Denver and Colorado?”

  Portia cocked her head and studied Rebecca’s face. “Are you from here, Rebecca?” she asked.

  “From Denver? No. I grew up in Colorado Springs. But I came to Denver – to the Griffins Keep – every year at Christmastime with my Great-Aunt Frankie for Holiday Tea.”

  Portia nodded. “Then you know the answer to that question as well as I do. But I’ll try to put it into words.”

  She poured herself another glass of champagne and refilled Rebecca’s flute. They both took sips.

  “From the beginning, the Griffins Keep has represented the very best that Denver has to offer. Both locals and visitors have found welcome here, rest here, haven here. The Keep is the setting for celebration and accomplishment, secrets and scandals, joys and heartaches.”

  The woman who had practically grown up in The Keep sipped her champagne once again before continuing, and Rebecca tried to record her well-chosen words in notes.

  “The Keep brings together all the elements that make a great city – finance, politics, commerce, philanthropy, culture and hospitality – under one soaring stained-glass ceiling. It is an oasis of elegance in the midst of the Great American Desert, a wellspring of refinement in the dust of the uncivilized Wild West. The Griffins Keep stands for uncompromising excellence, impeccable service, and quality in every detail.”

  It pained Rebecca to think about how all that was changing under TITHE ownership.

  “I would say this hotel embodies what Coloradans have always strived for, what they value, and what they’re proud to share with the rest of the world.” Portia drew a deep breath and smiled at her own passionate summation. “How’s that?”

  Rebecca leaned back in her chair and clapped her hands together. “I wish I could write fast enough to have caught all that. Wow.”

  Portia smiled, and Rebecca sensed that she, too, felt a warm camaraderie blossoming between them. It made addressing the final topic somewhat easier.

  “One last question, if I may, please,” Rebecca ventured. “It’s a two-parter. How do you feel about the hotel being back in your family’s hands? And what do you think of the changes currently occurring under TITHE’s auspices?”

  “Ahhh… the BIG question,” Portia began, hesitating. She set down her glass and peered over her readers into Rebecca’s eyes. “May I tell you something off the record, completely in confidence?”

  The historian laid her pen and paper on the table between them. “You can trust my discretion. I really want to know, for my own information.”

  Satisfied, Portia began. “Although the Tagawas – Stan and Chad – are technically my family, we haven’t been close in many, many years. My husband began to change soon after my father decided to welcome him into the Kuhrsfeld empire. He taught Stan ‘the ropes’ as they had been taught to him by my grandfather. As you may have gathered, the Kuhrsfeld dynasty was successful, but it was also ruthless. When I fell in love with Stan, in those early years, we were both young and idealistic. It was his simplicity, his sincerity and his honesty that attracted me. I guess you could say I was sort of a hippie back then – peace and love and flower power – all that stuff that seems so foolish now but seemed so revolutionary in the 60s. I believed The Beatles when they told me ‘All You Need is Love,’ and I truly believe that’s what Stan and I had at first.”

  She smiled weakly, then dropped her gaze and fiddled with her rings. “I watched Stan harden under my father’s mentorship, little by little, becoming the man I now scarcely know – and no longer love. It happens. It hurts. We stayed together for the children, and later just because it was easier than battling through lawyers over all the finances. When you have homes all over the world, it’s not difficult to lead very separate lives. For all intents and purposes, our marriage ended long ago.”

  Rebecca related to the heartache, if not the contributing factors.

  “When his nephew Chad won the lottery, helming TITHE left Stan no time for a personal life. We almost never see each other anymore. I’m here with him now – in separate suites, I’m sure everyone has noticed -- only because of my past with The Keep. I had to see what he and the company were doing to the place.”

  “And what do you think of the changes so far, and the further changes planned?”

  Portia’s eyes flashed and her demeanor darkened. “I’m appalled. What TITHE is doing to the Griffins Keep may be even worse than what my grandfather did to the hotel in the 30s. They’re turning a palace into a circus tent, a Grande Dame into a cheap whore. TITHE’s so-called vision for Griffins Keep is a perversion. The company trivializes every property it touches, but it never mattered to me until now.”

  “Surely you’re in a position to do something about it,” Rebecca said hopefully. “Won’t your husband listen to your concerns and opinions?”

  Portia shook her head. “He hasn’t listened to me in years. And I’m only a minority shareholder in the TITHE corporation. It breaks my heart to witness the tasteless transformation of a place so dear to me. But I’m helpless to stop it.”

  As her eyes began to brim with tears of frustration, Rebecca caught Portia’s pale hand and squeezed it sympathetically. “Welcome to my world,” she said sadly.

  Chapter 20

  When she responded to his request to meet in the carpentry shop, Rebecca found a furtive Lochlan, apparently concealing something under his painter’s coat.

  “You’re not going to believe this,” he said, closing the door. “I found this yesterday in one of the walls we’re dismantling to create new meeting room space on the mezz level.” From inside his coat he withdrew, in brown paper wrapping, a book, about 5’ X 8 ‘and about a half-inch thick.

  “What is it?” Rebecca asked, reaching to take it from him. “Some sort of ledger?”

  Lochlan shook his head, handing it over. “A journal,” he said, “from the late 1920s, early 1930s.”

  The mauve-colored cover was made of a soft suede-like material. The pages inside were notebook-lined. When Rebecca opened the journal, a handwritten note fluttered out of the inside cover. She carefully retrieved it from the floor and read aloud:

  “April 10, 1931

  To whomever may come upon this journal:

  I cannot imagine how many years will pass before this notebook is found. I took

  the opportunity to conceal it within a wall of the proposed beauty salon as they run new

  wiring throughout the second floor of the hotel.

  This journal chronicles the strange and troubling events I have personally witnessed or

  heard about from reliable sources during my tenure with the Griffins Keep as hotel

  stenographer. Were I to reveal them now, it would surely mean my job, as so many

  prominent and powerful people are involved with the incidents described herein. But I feel

  bound by my conscience to record what I know, even if it should remain hidden until long

  after I am gone.

  Take care, Dear Future Reader, with whom you share my account. Regardless of how things

  have changed between my time and yours, I suspect that influential men will

  still be keeping secrets at the Griffins Keep, as they have since the beginning. May God

  forgive me my cowardice i
n not confronting the evil when I encountered it.”

  The note was not signed.

  “Helluva preface,” Rebecca said. “Have you read the journal itself?”

  “What do you think, with an intro like that? Took it home last night and was up ‘til midnight with it. Your turn now.”

  “Her penmanship is lovely,” Rebecca noted as she scanned the first few pages. “Hotel stenographer. Didn’t even know they had such a position.”

  “She mentions at some point in the journal that she learned her trade at the Emily Griffith Opportunity School here in town, soon after her husband passed away. The school’s employment bureau helped her get the Keep job as soon as she completed the course.”

  “So what’s this ‘evil’ she speaks of in the note? Sounds ominous.”

  “Read her account for yourself. We’ll talk first thing tomorrow.”

  Rebecca finished reading the journal by 8:00 that night. But she was up until 2:00 AM, unable to sleep after what she’d read. What it described was disturbing. What it implied was unthinkable.

  Covering a period of about a year and a half, from 1929 -1931, the stenographer's journal entries were not daily, but random, written apparently when developments compelled her. Early entries reflected the excitement of her new position with the prestigious Griffins Keep. Stationed at a small desk in the lobby, her services were available to any guest of the hotel. She took dictation and typed up correspondence, reports and proposals of all sorts. Her written communication skills were impressive and efficient.

  Several entries reflected the writer’s routine encounters with notables of the day. Attorney Clarence Darrow, nationally known for the so-called “Scopes Monkey Trial,” actor Douglas Fairbanks, Sr., and aviator Charles Lindbergh all availed themselves of the hotel stenographer’s services during their stays at The Keep. In one entry she remarked upon her brush with Eleanor Roosevelt, then the wife of the governor of New York, who hosted a fundraising dinner for Democratic women at the hotel. In the process of dictating several personal letters, she impressed the stenographer as radiating a compassionate intelligence. “Mrs. Roosevelt had a way of making you feel you were the most important person in the room,” she wrote in her journal.