by Клео Коул
“Stop!” I shouted.
“Clare? What’s happening?”
I turned to find Madame standing in the corridor.
“Guard Alicia’s room!” I shouted over my shoulder. “Tell the police where I’m going! Tell them she might be dangerous!”
“Where are you going?”
“I’m chasing that blonde in black!”
“Blonde in black!” Madame called. “What blonde in black?”
Looking ahead, I realized the woman had already turned a corner. I picked up speed. She was wearing stilettos. I was in low-heeled boots. It seemed inevitable I’d catch her. What I would do after I caught her, I’d have to improvise. (Tripping came to mind. Also holding on and yelling.)
One thing I was certain of: My simple mention of the police had rattled that woman. She knew something about the butchered Candy Man, most likely something incriminating, and I wasn’t letting a source like that get away.
As soon as I rounded the bend in the hall, I spotted the lighted Exit sign thirty feet ahead. After Blondie dove through it, I picked up speed, dodged that housekeeping cart, and caught the steel fire door just before it clicked shut.
On the stairwell landing, I stopped, held my laboring breaths.
Footsteps echoed below me.
I took off again, heading down. This was a service staircase, and I assumed it would lead to a kitchen, a store room, or some kind of back alley door at street level. As fast as I could, I continued descending. When I hit the fourth-floor landing, I heard a stumbling sound below, followed by a hissed curse.
Got you!
At street level, I tried the exterior door, but it was firmly locked. That’s when I heard a new noise below me—a door opening and closing!
I hurried down two more flights, found an interior door marked Staff Only. Pushing through, I saw nothing but a green cinderblock wall, but the hot, dry air washing over me told me where I was—the hotel’s laundry.
I turned sharply and raced down a long concrete ramp. The stinging stench of bleach and soap grew stronger; the whir of machinery louder. When I finally hit the bare concrete floor, I faced a wall of giant washers and spinning dryers.
Despite the glaring fluorescent lights, much of the room was shrouded by mobile ceiling racks. Acres of dry-cleaned clothes hung like the vines and fruit of a plastic-covered rain forest.
A half-dozen workers were busy at the far end of this huge basement. Much closer, a slender woman stood beside a massive laundry bin on wheels. Her back was to me, but I could see the blue housekeeping uniform and dirty blond ponytail. This was the same maid I’d seen on the tenth floor!
Encouraged that she might have seen the woman in black or noticed what had happened with the corpse in Alicia’s room, I approached her. I doubted she could hear me coming with the noise of the washers and dryers. I didn’t want to startle her. So I reached out and gently touched her shoulder.
She whirled to face me, and that’s when I realized this wasn’t a she at all, but a scrawny skeleton of a man with watery blue eyes, a yellow-toothed snarl, and enough chin stubble to cover a saguaro cactus. Around his neck was a long nylon rope with a key card attached.
Boy, does this guy look wrong. “You work here?” I yelled over the noise.
Immediately, he swung his fist, but I was already moving back from surprise, and his roundhouse just missed connecting with my left temple.
Before I could bolt, he brought his left into action—and there was more than a fist this time. A large, white object sailed toward my head. I dodged enough for the thing to wrap around one of the support poles for the dry-cleaning racks. The pole wavered, the rack trembled, and the dry cleaning swayed as the white thing burst open, scattering enough watches, rings, cash, iPhones, and gold jewelry to fill a Saudi prince’s birthday piñata.
That’s when I realized: the white thing was a pillow case; the booty inside was stolen; and the man in a maid’s uniform was a hotel burglar. Somewhere in my chase, I had lost the Blonde in Black and ended up following this creep!
The burglar cursed. I turned to run, but after three steps the man body-slammed me into that gigantic canvas laundry bin. The brakes must have been on because the bin’s wheels didn’t budge. Before I could turn and fight, he grabbed my legs and pitched me into it. I tumbled down, hitting the wooden base with a solid clunk.
For a second, I saw little stars dance. As my vision cleared, I rolled over and found myself staring up at two aluminum doors in the ceiling—just as they swung open.
Oh crap.
Soiled laundry tumbled out of the chute, and an avalanche of damp towels, rumpled blankets, and wrinkled sheets came down on me. That jerk pressed the release button!
Furious, I tried to stand, but the crushing mass pushed me back to my knees. My arms windmilled, batting blankets aside, but the torrent of wool, silk, and cotton was too much. I was wrestling a textile octopus with a hundred tangling tentacles!
The whirring washers and dryers became muted, and my world grew decidedly smelly. Still, bad air was better than none. As the dark, suffocating pile grew heavier, I imagined an ignominious epitaph: Beloved mother and coffeehouse manager smothered under a shroud of soiled bedclothes.
Oh, hell no!
Forcing my muscles into locomotion, I dug and dug, struggling against the mass like a swimmer pushing through black quicksand. I didn’t even know if I was making progress until I smashed my finger against the bin’s canvas wall.
“Son of a—!”
Hand stinging, I managed to trace the rough cloth to the top of the bin and grasp the edge. Using one, fast-weakening arm, I pulled myself up. I knew I was close to breaking out when the noise from the machines grew louder. Finally, my head emerged, and I was out of the underworld, although my face was still covered with a used hand towel. (Ugh. I could still smell the shaving cream.)
Before I could swipe aside the white blind, I felt strong fingers wrap around my right wrist. Another hand gripped my left arm. I struggled, thinking the creep was back to finish me off, until the damp cloth fell away and I found myself staring into the faces of two young male police officers—one Caucasian, the other Hispanic.
The cops lifted me out of the laundry bin, set me down on shaky legs. As I sucked in gulps of bleach-tainted air, I noticed two more uniformed officers standing over the burglar.
The thief was on his knees, still wearing the maid’s getup. His hands were cuffed behind his back, his long, dirty blond hair released from its ponytail and dangling around his face.
“Are you okay, ma’am?” the Hispanic officer asked. His name tag read Suarez. “The elderly lady upstairs sent us after you. Looks like we got here just in time. I saw that perp assault you, toss you in.”
“I’m okay,” I said, wondering if he could hear my little croak over the noise of the washers and dryers. “Thanks for the help.”
A big African-American officer, swinging a long nylon rope with a keycard attached, stood beside the prisoner. I remembered seeing that thing hanging around the burglar’s neck. The big cop noticed me staring and flashed me a thumbs-up.
I blinked, still trying to get my bearings when I noticed the Caucasian officer talking on his radio. His name tag read Grimes. Suddenly, he turned to me, yelling over the noisy machines.
“Are you Clare Cosi?”
“Yes!” I told him, too loudly.
“I’m happy to hear that,” Grimes said, looking relieved. “Because we’ve got a pair of seriously annoyed detectives waiting for you upstairs!”
“Okay, I’ll go right up,” I said. But then I stopped to consider that murky underworld of towels, sheets, bedding, and blankets from which I’d been resurrected.
“Ma’am? Is there something wrong?”
“Officer,” I said, “would you look into something for me?”
“What?”
“Dirty laundry.”
Six
Back on the tenth floor, I found Detectives Lori Soles and Sue Ellen Bass milling
around the crime scene room as if it were the observation deck of the Empire State Building. The window curtains were fully open now, the morning sun streaming in.
“Why isn’t this room sealed?” I demanded.
Detective Bass folded her arms and threw a withering glance at her partner. “Excitable, isn’t she?”
Both women were dressed in beige slacks, white blouses, and sporty blazers—Lori’s milk chocolate, Sue Ellen’s bittersweet. They were acting true to form, too. If ever the Fish Squad pulled the old good-cop/bad-cop routine on a suspect, I had no doubt which one would play the heavy.
Right now Lori was shaking her short, yellow curls like a six-foot Raphaelite cherub while Sue Ellen’s dark ponytail appeared to be lashed tight enough to qualify her as a model for Munch’s Scream.
“Take it easy, Sue,” Lori told her partner, then turned to me. “When we arrived, Mrs. Dubois admitted us. There’s obviously no DOA here.”
“But there was. Didn’t she tell you that?”
“No,” Lori said, “as a matter of fact, she didn’t.”
I glanced around. “Where is Mrs. Dubois?”
“She went back to her hotel room. A lawyer arrived to consult with her friend, and they’re having a private conversation.”
“Well, take my word for it,” I said. “This is a crime scene.”
Sue Ellen waved an arm. “Does this look like a crime scene to you?”
I took a breath, let it out. “Listen, I saw the body and so did Mrs. Dubois. What exactly did she tell you?”
“What she told us,” Sue Ellen said, “was that she suspected there was some misunderstanding.”
I blinked, shocked at Madame’s equivocating. “There’s no misunderstanding. I know what I saw—”
Sue Ellen smirked. “So you know the difference between the terms DOA and MIA?”
“My DOA is MIA—and I have no idea where he went!”
“Maybe he got up and walked away.”
“That would make him a zombie.”
“Not unheard of in this town, Cosi.”
“Be serious.”
“I am. You ever work Midtown graveyard? Try the Port Authority Bus Terminal at three AM—”
While Sue Ellen and I continued to battle (what passed for) wits, Officer Suarez appeared in the doorway and motioned Lori Soles into a huddle. When they broke, she was all smiles.
“We’ll have to cut the Coffee Lady here some slack,” Lori told her partner. “She just helped nab the Key Card Burglar! They’re putting him in a sector car now.”
Sue Ellen stared. “Pull the other one.”
“No, it’s true. The uniforms responded to our call. So it’s our collar.”
Sue Ellen’s expression went dark for a second, but then a grin broke wide. “Nice going, Coffee Lady!” Her big hand slapped my back so hard I felt my teeth rattle.
Suarez nodded. “You two detectives are going to have some day. The whole city’s been waiting for this case to break.”
“Yeah,” Sue said, “the brass’ll be out for this one.”
“Hold on!” I said. “The Credit Card Burglar is not why I called you two here!”
“Key Card,” Lori corrected. “Don’t you know about this guy? He’s part of a ring that’s been ripping off rooms all over Midtown—”
“But—”
“Your loo had a theory on the case, right?” Suarez asked.
Lori nodded. “With no sign of forced entry, our lieutenant figured the perp was bribing staff members at different hotels. The staffers would sweep through rooms with pass keys, picking up small, expensive items but not taking any risk of holding them or stashing them in their lockers—”
“Smart,” Suarez said.
“Excuse me,” I said.
“Instead,” Lori went on, “they’d leave the stolen goods in one empty room where this guy would pick them up and walk them out. With this perp finally in custody, we should be able to take the entire ring down.”
Sue Ellen nodded, dark ponytail swinging. “You bet.”
“Hello! What about the dead man? There was a corpse in this room!”
Suarez gawked at me, along with the two Amazon detectives.
“Okay, Cosi,” Sue Ellen said, hands on hips. “Produce the body.”
I scowled up at the woman, ready to retort when Lori jumped in. “Sorry, Cosi. My partner’s right.” She gestured to the room and slowly shook her curly blond head. “There is no evidence that anything happened here.”
Once again, Sue Ellen smirked. “Maybe the burglar stole the body.”
“I saw what that burglar stole,” I shot back. “A giant pillowcase full of it. And nobody runs down ten flights with two hundred pounds of dead weight on his back. Can’t you canvass the floor, start knocking on room doors?”
Lori put her hand on my shoulder. Her big blue eyes went wide, sympathetic. “Calm down. We’ll be canvassing guest rooms as a matter of course because of the burglary—and we’re going to need your statement on what happened in the basement between you and the perp. Can you do a lineup for us?”
I held my head. “How long will that take?”
“Maybe two hours.”
“Fine,” I said, “whatever you need, but listen to this statement, okay? I saw a man’s body in here. He had a carving knife in his chest, and there was blood all over the bed. A blond woman in a black raincoat came to the door. When I mentioned the police were coming, she ran. I chased her. She must have gone up the stairs instead of down—and I ended up chasing the burglar instead. I’m certain she’ll have some answers if we can find her. She may even be an accomplice.”
“Accomplice to what?” Sue Ellen asked. “The burglaries?”
“The murder!”
I threw up my hands. Something rotten had gone down here, and I was starting to formulate a theory. Alicia’s polished pumps were still sitting on the carpet, but the man’s scuffed-up loafers were gone, along with his clothes. The fact that the martini glasses were gone, too, made me look at that vase of wilting flowers in a whole new light.
I moved to the vase, picked up the flowers, and sniffed. “These stems smell like alcohol!”
Lori frowned. “Are you feeling okay, Cosi? You want to sit down?”
“There were two empty martini glasses on this night-stand,” I told them as calmly, clearly, and sanely as I could. “Someone removed them, along with the body and the bloody sheets. But before that happened, someone else must have dumped alcohol into this vase. Why?”
Sue Ellen glanced at her partner. “Maybe they wanted their drink shaken, not stirred.”
“Maybe the drink was drugged,” I said.
“I didn’t want the drink . . .” The voice was loud and cut-tingly clear. Alicia Bower was back.
All of us turned to see her striding into the room, head high. Her loose terry robe was now tightly wrapped and firmly knotted. Her tangled short hair was combed smooth. Her face was washed clean of tear streaks; her sickly complexion dusted with enough peach blush to make a zombie look fit.
“Dennis St. Julian and I were business acquaintances,” she explained with assiduous crispness (not one syllable burbled). I noticed her slight British accent had rejoined us, too.
“He rang me. I invited him up to my room. He brought mocha martinis from the hotel bar. I’d already had plenty of wine at dinner. Unfortunately, he insisted I drink it. I didn’t wish to argue. Instead, when he began to disrobe, I simply dumped most of it into that vase—”
She flung out her arm and held it there, pointing to the end table in the sort of exaggerated pose I hadn’t seen since I stopped watching daytime drama.
Lori Soles looked briefly at me then studied Alicia. “Was this Dennis St. Julian alive when you last saw him?”
“I woke up in a dark room,” Alicia replied, slowly lowering her arm. “I was disoriented. I’m not sure what I saw . . .”
I noticed Madame had drifted into the room. Just behind her stood an older gentleman, briefcase in hand,
a scowl on his face. This, I assumed, was the lawyer Madame had called, and he didn’t appear happy with Alicia’s making statements to the NYPD. What lawyer would be? But then, I realized, what choice did he have?
Clearly, Alicia Bower’s inner executive had reemerged, most likely the instant she heard about Dennis’s body disappearing (along with all the evidence), and she’d decided to “handle” the police herself.
When Alicia fell silent, Lori glanced at me again, pointedly this time.
I was dying to speak up—with questions, accusations, critiques of Alicia’s acting ability—but Madame’s eyes were now mutely pleading for me to hold my tongue.
Fine, I thought, I’ll play along. But what the heck happened to the body? Not to mention the man’s clothes, the martini glasses, and the bloody bedding?
The answer came without my having to ask. Grimes, the officer from the basement, rushed into the room, slightly breathless, carrying a bundle of white sheets saturated with dried pools of burgundy.
“The bloody sheets!” I cried. “You found them!”
“In the laundry bin,” Grimes said with a nod. “Just like you thought, ma’am. Only I don’t think this is blood . . .”
“What?” I crossed to him, the detectives on my heels.
When I’d first glimpsed these sheets, it was at a distance, in a dimly lit room. Now the curtains were open, shedding light in more ways than one.
“You’re right . . .” I told Grimes.
The stains felt sticky and smelled sweet. I pulled a swatch of the material up to my nose. The cloying candylike scent was the same aroma I’d noticed when I first walked into the room.
Finally, I recognized the stuff. I’d just used it in my own kitchen!
“This is corn syrup.”
“Corn syrup?” Lori and Sue Ellen were now flanking me, handling the sheets for themselves.
“Are you sure?” Lori asked.
“I just used it last night on my chocolate-glazed hazelnut bars. Corn syrup is what gives the chocolate glaze the right consistency for drizzling.”
“But corn syrup is clear, isn’t it?” Sue Ellen countered. “This stuff is red.”
“Because this is flour, corn syrup, and food coloring,” I said, touching and smelling it more aggressively, “the recipe for fake blood!”
