by Alan Russell
“Got an interesting note yesterday, Jimmy,” said Am. “It was from a Mr. Edward Bell. Does his name ring a bell?”
Jimmy’s blank face was perfection, his innocent and arched eyebrows making him a candidate for some cherubic order. “Can’t say it does, Am.”
“Mr. and Mrs. Bell checked in a few days ago. You helped them up to room four sixty-five.”
Still no overt glimmer of recognition. Jimmy liked to play poker, too.
“They were honeymooners.”
Jimmy produced a thoughtful lip. “Lots of honeymooners, Am. Must help twenty, thirty a week.”
“Do you remember taking their luggage?”
“Four sixty-five? Coupla days ago?”
“Woman wearing a white dress?” Am said in his most sarcastic voice. “Man in tuxedo? Sparkling new rings. Maybe some wedding cake crusted around their noses. Honeymooners, dammit.”
“Yeah, yeah, I remember, Am. Now I remember.”
“Let’s test your memory a little more, then. Mr. Bell thought he should fulfill the tradition of carrying his bride over the threshold, but he didn’t want to ruin his wedding night, either. He has a bad back. So he turned to you and asked for a helping hand. He wanted you to assist him in carrying his wife over the threshold. And you did.”
Jimmy remembered. He remembered very well.
“Mr. Bell gave you a tip, a generous tip. That’s usually a signal for the bellman to leave. But for some reason you chose to linger around long enough to say, ‘I’d be happy to help out in any other marital duties you can’t perform.’ Is that an accurate quote?”
Jimmy started rolling his eyes around. “It was just a joke, Am.”
“Mr. Bell didn’t like your joke. He said you were leering at his wife when you made your comment.”
“I was smiling at her, Am. And she was smiling at me. That’s probably why he didn’t like it.”
Jimmy thought most women had the hots for him. They exhibited this desire in a number of ways, all of which only Jimmy could discern.
“You were asked to pick up a bride, not put the make on her, Jimmy.”
“Just a joke, Am,” he repeated.
“Verbal warning,” Am said in his sternest voice, then added the lamest words in management’s vocabulary: “It better not happen again.”
The worker response, in time-honored litany: “It won’t.” Then, changing subjects or, more likely, already having forgotten the warning, Jimmy said, “Package arrived for you, Am. I stuck it on your desk.”
The large box Jimmy had left on his desk was plastered with “Rush” labels. Am couldn’t think of anything that would have necessitated so much postal signage, not to mention postage. Cautiously he lifted up the box. The contents were light. Am did some mild shaking and couldn’t come up with a guess. After opening the box, he became acquainted with some very visible reminders of one of his open cases. Memories of mammaries: Kris Carr’s bra shipment had arrived.
Am punched housekeeping’s extension, and the executive housekeeper answered. “Any bras turn up?”
Barbara Terry laughed. “None the size of which you’re looking for. You sure you’re not pulling my leg, Am Caulfield?”
“No. Cross My Heart bra and hope to die.”
Cradling the phone, Am dropped his gaze to the opened box. Curious, he hoisted out one of the bras. It wasn’t weight lifting, not exactly. He felt the fabric, ran his hands along it. They lingered for just a moment, a stretch of time almost imperceptibly brief, but long enough for Sharon to walk into his office and observe the placement of his hands.
Am dropped the bra as if his fingers had been scorched. Then he picked it up again, his face red and defiant. “It’s the Carr case,” he said, trying his damnedest to sound official.
“Looks like you have your hands full,” she said.
XVI
Partly to save face, and partly because it was a good excuse to act like one of the Hardy Boys, Am drove Sharon over to the security hut and hunted down the fluorescent tracer powder. Using gloves, Am started sprinkling the dust on the oversize bras. Sharon was as hard-pressed not to laugh as Am was to ignore her twitching mouth. While he powdered, Am brought up the strange case of Tim Kelly’s suicide.
It wasn’t the first suicide the Hotel had experienced. There had been a handful of others, but not during Am’s tenure. He was interested in the death, not because of a morbid curiosity, but because nothing about it seemed right. Am told Sharon about Kelly’s family and business. He had come to the Hotel to have a good time, a golf getaway. With some trepidation, Am even told Sharon about the missing condom.
She didn’t laugh. His death sounded more and more senseless to her, even if the disappearance of the condom didn’t strike her as an important clue. “Maybe it just fell into his pocket,” she said.
Am shook his head. “His friend saw him slip it back into a fold in his wallet.”
“Then he probably got rid of it on the way back to his room. Maybe he was afraid his wife would find it on him when he returned home.”
“That’s possible,” said Am. “But he wasn’t due to check out until tomorrow.”
“You think he used it?” she asked.
“Pretty unlikely, isn’t it?”
“More than pretty unlikely. He leaves the bar a little before two, he’s dead a little before three, and somewhere during that time he has sex. It doesn’t even happen that way in soap operas.”
“Soap operas are one thing,” said Am, slightly petulant, “hotels another. Stranger things have happened.”
“So he finds some woman and seduces her in a half hour or so?”
“He’s drunk, she’s drunk,” said Am. “They meet on the elevator. Both are away from home. It’s possible.”
“And in the space of forty-five minutes they have sex, and the man ends up killing himself. Explain to me, then, why anyone contemplating suicide would wear a condom in the first place?”
“Maybe it was on the instigation of his partner.”
“That still doesn’t explain why he killed himself.”
“Maybe he couldn’t perform.”
“Kill yourself over something like that? Come on.”
“It can be very debilitating to a male,” said Am, then added quickly, “Or so I’ve heard.”
It was Sharon’s turn to shake her head. “The more we conjecture, the more plausible his suicide sounds. What kind of a woman would allow herself…”
They looked at one another and saw the same idea forming. “Wait a second,” said Sharon, walking over to the wall of police bulletins. Bra in hand, Am followed.
“Here,” Sharon said, pointing.
The bulletin wasn’t new to Am. It described prostitution-drugging crimes that had taken place in major hotels in Southern California. He took a close look at the mug shot of Conchita Alvarez, the woman wanted in connection with the crimes. Conchita was twenty-five years old and managed to look good even with a countdown of police inches behind her. She topped off at the sixty-five-inch level. Conchita’s MO was to approach affluent-looking men, usually in a hotel bar. After striking up a conversation, she invariably wangled an invitation to their hotel room for a drink. Then it was Mickey Finn time. But Conchita Alvarez didn’t have her chemistry down very well. One of her victims with a heart condition had succumbed to her fatal nightcap. Now there was possibly a second victim.
Sharon read from the pharmaceutical list: “Scopolamine hydrobromide, chloral hydrate, lorazepam, diazepam, benzodiazepine, Halcion, and Placidyl. This lady mixes a mean drink.”
Conchita had a long list of druggings to her credit, and it was suspected that most of her victims hadn’t even reported the crime because they had been too embarrassed to come forward to the police.
It was Am’s turn to read from the fine print: “The drugs are administered in high doses. Typically, victims are rendered unconscious for periods of six to twenty hours.”
“Or forever,” said Sharon, tapping her fingernail on the
description of the victim who had never awakened.
Neither Am nor Sharon spoke for several moments. Both were taking a measure of the possibilities. Am broke the silence: “He could have walked out to the balcony and been disoriented.”
“He literally might not have known which way was up,” said Sharon.
They looked at each other, and neither tried to hide their excitement. “I’m supposed to be meeting with Detective McHugh in half an hour,” he said.
“We are,” said Sharon, pulling down Conchita Alvarez’s police bulletin.
Detective McHugh was the lone occupant in room 711. He was seated on an easy chair and didn’t bother to get up when Am and Sharon walked into the room. McHugh looked like an old fifty, world weary without apologies. His eyes were a washed-out blue, the color you see in a pilot light.
Am offered introductions, and McHugh stirred ever so slightly. “That’s right,” he said, motioning them to come closer, as if ready to offer a secret. “I’ve been wanting to talk to you.”
Am and Sharon leaned forward eagerly. “Got an anniversary coming up soon,” McHugh said. “Just how much would a room like this go for?”
McHugh’s question surprised Am. It took him a moment to reply. “The rack rate is two seventy-five.”
The detective whistled. “Is that your best suicide special?”
“How do you know it’s a suicide?” Am asked.
The pilot light in McHugh’s eyes activated and showed a harder blue. “I don’t,” he said. “I only know someone took a long walk off a short balcony. Maybe the booze was speaking to him. Maybe he thought the drop was just a shortcut to the beach. But I got to figure a four-foot balcony isn’t an easy obstacle to overlook. My call is suicide.”
McHugh pushed his words out, as if daring someone to challenge them.
“Quite possibly,” said Am, “but I thought you might be interested in some discoveries we made this morning.”
“By all means,” said McHugh, his sarcastic tone belying the words.
“Mr. Kelly never asked for a room on this top floor. He could have just as easily gotten a room on the first floor.”
McHugh shrugged his shoulders.
“Doesn’t that seem odd to you?” Am asked.
“No,” said McHugh. “You mix some booze and mix some melancholy, and strange things have been known to happen. Maybe he got a sudden urge. Maybe he clapped himself on the chest like one of those gladiators and announced, ‘Today’s a good day to die.’ “
“Did he leave a suicide note?” asked Sharon.
McHugh yawned. “Most suicides don’t leave notes,” he said.
“But there is going to be an autopsy?” Am asked.
“Standard procedure for a case like this,” said McHugh.
“Then you’ll know if any of these drugs have been administered,” Sharon said, handing him the bulletin.
McHugh took his time digging out some glasses from his shirt pocket, then unhurriedly scanned the circular. When he finished, he handed the page back to Sharon.
“And what makes you think this woman had anything to do with his death?”
Am and Sharon had another eye conference. “We think Mr. Kelly might have been entertaining just prior to his death,” said Am.
“Entertaining?”
“Having sex.”
“What makes you think that?”
“Mr. Kelly was carrying a condom in his wallet,” Am said, “a condom that was apparently on his person less than an hour before he died. The condom was not among the remains in his wallet.”
“And you think there might be some connection between safe sex and his death?”
Am was getting a little tired of being the rube. “I’m not making any claims,” he said. “I’m only being curious. I thought that’s what detectives were supposed to do.”
McHugh evidently thought differently. “What do you got besides your smoking condom?”
“Nothing much,” Am admitted.
McHugh sighed loudly. “Tell me more about the missing raincoat,” he said.
Am and Sharon went over the story again. When they finished, McHugh made it clear he didn’t buy any of their theories. He had already talked with the bartender on duty, as well as with Steve Daniels. Kelly had left the Breakers Lounge by himself. There was nothing, he said, that indicated Kelly had received company in his room. No extra glasses, or pulled-out chairs, or mussed bedspread. Not even a condom wrapper.
“Would the medical examiner be able to determine if Kelly had sex just prior to the time he died?” asked Am.
McHugh rolled his eyes, then nodded.
“Could you have that checked out?”
McHugh gave a repeat eye-rolling performance before reluctantly nodding his head again. Neither Am nor Sharon felt reassured. McHugh’s parting sarcastic words weren’t meant to encourage, either.
“Without a used rubber,” he said, “there’s not much hard evidence for me to go on. But bring me that soiled condom and I’ll muster all the manpower possible.”
XVII
“That arrogant jackass!”
Sharon made her announcement just outside room 711 and punctuated it by shaking her fist. Realizing there was a certain measure of temper tantrum in her response, and that Am was watching her, she forced herself to be more collected.
Am was having second thoughts about his partner. She was actually human. Her personality seemed to have blossomed under the California influence. Or maybe it was the potential murder that had brought out the best in her.
“He wasn't exactly encouraging, was he?”
“He was horribly condescending,” she said, “and that's something I find intolerable.”
They stepped into an elevator and started their descent. “But he did leave us an opening,” said Am.
“What are you talking about?”
“McHugh said it: Bring him the condom, and he'll put people on this case.”
The elevator doors opened. They walked out to a hallway
of people, so Sharon lowered her voice to a whisper: “But the condom wasn't in the room.”
“Which means what?”
“I can assure you, Am Caulfield,” she said, “that I am no expert on these matters, but I assume the thing was probably flushed down the toilet.”
“Wrapper, too?”
“Presumably. Where else would it be?”
“You'd be amazed at what people throw from their balconies,” said Am. “Absolutely amazed.”
Sharon considered his implication. “But that would be like—like finding a needle in a haystack.”
“Depends,” said Am, “on where the condom landed. The Hotel uses a bulldozer to clear seaweed from the beach every morning. But the stretch of sand just beneath the rooms gets raked by the grounds crew every day. They manicure the sand, give it a special look, do everything but imprint the Hotel logo in it. Even a used condom wouldn't escape their notice.”
The glamour of their enterprise, Sharon thought, was dulling rapidly. “Not exactly a treasure hunt,” she said, screwing up her face slightly.
Even Am had to concede that hunting for a used condom didn't rank anywhere near searching for a missing weapon. It might have been evidence, but it was hard to envision it as desirable evidence. “Just think of it,” Am said, trying to put the best light on the object, “as looking for a clue.”
Sherlock Holmes never solved any cases this way, thought Sharon, but Am was right. A clue was a clue, wasn't it?
Am could see her doubts and decided he should quote Chief Horton: “You don't look a gift horse in the mouth,” Am said, “and you…”
He stopped himself before finishing with the Chief's, “And you don't fart into the wind.” The man truly wasn't quotable. The break in his own wind wasn’t noticed, though; another voice had stepped in.
“Am! Oh, Am!”
Only Mary Mason could sound that excited. Am groaned. It wasn’t that Mary was a bad person. It wasn’t that she didn’t try hard in
her job. But her Pollyanna demeanor would have driven Norman Vincent Peale to take a poke at her. The word perky had been invented to describe Mary. A television game show hostess didn’t have anything on her, but if ever the right person had been mated to the job, Mary was it. She was the Hotel’s social director. Mary was the one who led Hotel guests in limbo lines and sing-alongs. She organized clam bakes and passed out the wood for the beach bonfires. As she was quick to tell everyone, her job was “so much fun!”
“I was just about to page you, Am!” she bubbled. Mary was the only adult Am knew who really bubbled.
Am introduced Sharon to Mary and in the same breath tried to explain their need to run, but Mary wasn’t about to be denied an audience.
“I just heard about Chief Horton,” she said, “and I can tell you that news threw me something terrible. Did you know the Chief was supposed to talk to one of my groups today?”
“No, I didn’t Mary. Look—”
“Then I heard that you were serving in his place, and you know what I thought? Why, Am could give the same talk.”
She was more Valium than human, Am thought. “What talk, Mary?”
“Hotel security.”
Am’s first impulse was just to say no. His second was to protest that he hadn’t even had the job for twenty-four hours. He settled on his third response: What group would possibly want to hear such a speech?
“Murder Mayhem Weekend, Am!” exclaimed Mary. “It’s upon us.”
Shit, he thought. Murder Mayhem Weekend. Of all the artificial events the Hotel sponsored, and there were hundreds of them, murder mystery weekends were the worst. Imagine a high school pep rally going on for two days, and you had some idea of what a hotel staff endured during such goings-on.
“Mary…”
“It’s important, Am. These things are so much fun, but sometimes they do seem a teensy bit unreal. This time we agreed to inject a little reality at the onset of the event. Besides, it’s in their contract. Hotel security talk. See?”
