by Alan Russell
“What are you going to do?”
“Try to talk to McHugh and see what he's learned about the murders.”
She didn’t hesitate: “Count me in.”
The day before, Sharon hadn’t wanted to have anything to do with security, and now she was willing to work into the night. Am was torn between teasing her about her change of mind and praising her for being so conscientious. His hesitation to act conspired with the call of his pager.
“Am,” said a cloying voice, “this is Mary Mason. I wonder if you could come help me out in the Spindrift Room. We have a minor situation. Thank you.”
“Shit,” said Am. He took off with a trot. Attempting to keep up with him, Sharon said to his back, “Mary indicated it was minor.”
“And she said the Bob Johnsons were an eensie problem.”
Despite his fears, Am slowed to a fast walk. “With Mary,” he conceded, “it could be anything. She makes fiascoes festive, or vice versa. The staff calls her ‘Typhoid Mary,’ and believe me, the nickname’s deserved.”
“So why don’t you fire her?”
Am had to think about his answer. “It wouldn’t be quite fair,” he said. “Believe it or not, most of the time she’s just the lightning rod that attracts disaster. Unforeseen things invariably go wrong. When Mary organizes a parade, it’s sure to rain. When Mary books a fishing expedition, everyone gets seasick. The way I heard it, the whole boat was throwing up their guts and Mary was trying to get them to sing ‘Kumbaya, My Lord.’ And you know how they have those fire-walks across coals? The organizer assured us that no one had ever gotten burned, but it was hot-foot central that fateful night, with all the Hotel limos full of burn victims. The group leader couldn’t understand what went wrong. But he couldn’t exactly blame Mary. Because she’s so nice, people continue to like her even when everything goes to hell.”
His facial expression was a cross between a smile and a grimace, and Sharon called him on it. “What brings on that look?” she asked.
“Last month’s luau on the beach. Mary went the whole nine yards. There were hula dancers, and tables of food, and Don Ho on the loudspeakers. There were mock coconut trees, and banana plants. There were Hawaiian shirts and grass skirts and puka shells and leis. There was even a pig roasting on a spit. Everything looked great.” He shook his head, lost in the reverie.
“So what happened?”
“She planned everything perfectly,” said Am, “save for one thing. Mary never consulted a tides table. And no one noticed until too late how the water was coming in. The last anyone saw of the pig, it was floating off to sea, apple in mouth.”
Sharon laughed, then considered the ramifications. “Did the group demand a refund?”
“For that kind of entertainment? They couldn’t have asked for a better show. That’s how it usually works for Typhoid Mary. The guests somehow leave happy.
“Maybe the staff, too,” Am said, after a little reflection. “We had a pig vigil for a while. We called it our wild boar hunt. There were watchers and search parties. There were T-shirts made up and rewards offered. We kept it up for about a month. The lifeguards put out an A.P.B., an all pigs bulletin, on their towers. There were purported pig sightings everywhere. He was spotted surfing. He was seen driving a stretch limo. He was sighted dining with the mayor. The reports got more and more absurd. It was almost as though everyone expected the porker to really show.
“Who knows,” said Am, opening a door into the Spindrift Room. “Maybe today’s our lucky day. Maybe the pig’s finally come home.”
If not the pig, then at least the pigpen: the Bob Johnson tablecloths-turned-displays lined the banquet room walls. Bloodied virgin sheets were never exhibited so proudly. The felt-tip-markered tablecloths featured drawings of where the bodies had been found, diagrams of where the murders had supposedly taken place, and lists of purported clues.
“Looks like an Amway sales seminar,” Am said with not a little amazement.
Near the dais were the actors and Mary. She was encircled by the thespians, who at the moment didn't look like audition material for The Sound of Music. Am was familiar with most of the troop, having seen them in other Murder Mayhem Weekend productions. There seemed to be two ringleaders: an older man with a handlebar mustache who usually played the British colonel and an artsy-looking younger woman with red-hennaed hair and a pageboy cut. Her chosen role at the moment was the aggrieved artiste.
“I'm afraid that's impossible,” the woman said in a stage whisper. “When I wrote this play, the gestalt is what made it. It's not mix and match.”
“Breach of contract,” said the colonel. “Pure and simple.”
Through the surrounding bodies, Mary noticed Am and Sharon. She motioned for them to come forward. “This is our assistant general manager,” she said, “Am Caulfield. And this is Sharon.”
The colonel stepped close to Am, but not to shake his hand. The only prop he was missing was a monocle. He inspected Am with a dubious stare, then announced, “I thought you were supposed to be the house detective.”
Am considered saying, “And I thought you were supposed to be an actor,” but his hotel training stayed his purer instincts. He replied diplomatically, “Like you, I am called upon to play many roles.”
Good cop, bad cop time. The hennaed woman stepped in front of the colonel. Sotto voce, the playwright said, “Mr.Caulfield, Ms. Mason is asking us to do the impossible. She wants us to reconvene the production in the morning, believing that our audience's homicidal madness will have passed by that time.
“I was raised in the theater,” she added, one hand raising itself majestically. “I was weaned on the commandment that the show must go on. But we can't perform for uninterested groundlings, and we can't truncate the first and second acts into some new and bowdlerized version. We're professionals. We don't do the hodgepodge.”
Seven heads behind her nodded emphatically, but Am appeared unmoved. Having worked in hotels his entire adult life, he considered himself versed in theater.
“Open tab tonight,” he announced, as if that were the only question in dispute. “Drinks and dinner on the house. Rediscover your collective muse. Regroup so that you'll be prepared for the early matinee.”
“I suppose,” the director said with grudging, albeit whispered words, “we could work on revisions over dr …dinner tonight. Mind you,” she added, “much will have to be extemporaneous.”
“That's in keeping with the theater of hotels,” said Am.
The theater of the absurd.
He offered them a nod that was almost a bow. For his parting lines, he closed with his avuncular mein host: “Mary will be glad to see to all of your arrangements. Enjoy your evening.”
After motioning to Sharon, they exited the banquet room. When they were out of sight of the actors, Sharon commented, “That was fast.”
Am nodded, an answer not good enough for her.
“How did you know their complaints weren't of a truly artistic nature?”
“I've seen them perform before.”
She digested that for a moment. “And how did you know what compensation to offer?”
“I’ve seen their bar tabs.”
“They were quick to accept your offer. That usually means you started too high.”
“Maybe,” he said. “But since we have pressing matters to attend to, I knew better than to start with the traditional nickel.”
“Nickel?”
“The man asking the woman if she’d go to bed with him for a million dollars, and the woman thinking about it, and deciding that for a million dollars, yes, she would. Then the man asking if she’d go to bed with him for a nickel, and she responding indignantly, ‘A nickel! What kind of a woman do you think I am?’ Then the man replying, ‘We’ve already established that, now we’re just quibbling over price.’ Thus, the traditional nickel.”
“You’re cynical.”
“Some might say experienced.”
“I suppose,” Sharon said,
“we’re just quibbling over semantics.”
They smiled at one another. In the midst of a hellacious day, they kept discovering each other’s smiles, and each other.
“Nickel for your thoughts,” said Am, his voice huskier than he intended.
“You buy off the actors with dinner and drinks, and then offer me only a nickel?”
“Dinner and drinks, then.”
She had encouraged him in his offer; they both knew that. But now, not for the first time, she backed away. “Maybe tomorrow night,” Sharon said. But the tone of her voice sounded a more permanent deferment than twenty-four hours.
Was she a tease? Am wondered. Why her sudden ambivalence? Neither spoke to the other while walking to room 605. The quickness of their pace wasn’t enough to mask their uncomfortable silence. This time they were stopped not by police tape, but by a police officer. He stood with the pose of a seasoned bouncer, his considerable bulk positioned so that the only way through the door was through him. Pat-ton’s army might have paused to consider that advance.
Approaching the cop, Am felt like a kid trying to pass off a bogus ID. He offered his business card and asked to speak to Detective McHugh. With a pointed finger, the officer directed Am and Sharon to remain outside the room until he passed on the message. Being told to cool his heels in his own place of work didn’t improve Am’s mood, and neither did the bouncer’s reappearing with the message that it would be a few more minutes before McHugh could see them. The minutes passed, and a few more, before the detective finally emerged.
“You got some more theories?” he asked, his tone irritable, his face a sneer.
“You need some?” asked Am, upping the animosity ante.
“Not likely,” McHugh said, “after your last one. Sex, drugs, and a missing condom. Them’s the kind of movies I see on TV. And when two young, bright, attractive people come on so persuasively, it does make you think. So, against my better judgment, I made a call to the ME. I red-flagged the case as a priority, and I told him what I wanted looked at hard. And you know what? Just before a couple of real murders brought me back to this hotel, I heard from the pathologist. No drugs. No sex. But a blood alcohol level that was about two point four. Maybe it wasn’t suicide. Maybe you were right about that. Maybe our jumper thought he was the Great Wallenda performing on his balcony. But his death sure as hell wasn’t murder.
“Now,” he said, jerking his thumb toward the opened door, “I suppose you're going to tell me the two bodies we took out of there weren't murdered, but committed suicide.”
McHugh looked at Am, then at Sharon, with pretended interest. He opened his hands as if imploring them to respond.
“We came in the hopes of being briefed about what's going on with the case,” said Am, his lips barely moving, his face red.
“You mean you didn't come to me with all the answers? You don't have a murderer for me?”
Sharon saved Am from having to respond again. “We have a hotel full of concerned guests. We have demands being put upon us by the media. And we have a lot of fear and confusion all around us. We are trying to respond to all of that with staffing, and security, and reason. Your cooperating might help us to deal with that.”
An articulate woman with a well-reasoned response is a male cop's worst nightmare. He can't crack heads or go male ego mano a mano. Shuffling slightly, McHugh said, “I already held a press conference.”
“Where your main comment was 'No comment,' ” said Sharon.
“That, and his brandishing a Hotel California knife as if it were Excalibur,” said Am, “and telling the world a similar knife was the supposed murder weapon.”
“A Hotel California steak knife was the murder weapon. And I wasn't brandishing it. The press wanted it raised so they could get some photos.”
“They wanted the Hotel insignia on the front page of every paper in California, and you gave that to them.”
“You suggested,” Sharon interjected quickly, “that a burglar might have been interrupted in the midst of a theft.”
“I did not,” McHugh said emphatically. “That is how the media interpreted the information that I passed on to them. What I said was that the female victim's purse had no identification or money, leading us to believe those items had been removed. I also said that there was no cash in the man's wallet.”
“What about his credit cards?” asked Am.
“They were left,” McHugh said.
“Isn't that unusual?”
“Not necessarily. You can't trace cash. And if you're in a hurry…”
McHugh's insinuation didn't sound emphatic enough to Am. “That's the assumption, isn't it? No one's mentioned premeditation.”
“And I haven't, either,” McHugh snapped. But, with a grudging admission, he added, “The crime scene contains contradictions.”
“Contradictions?”
“There are certain discrepancies.”
Am to Sharon: “Are you following this?”
“Can you elaborate?” she asked.
“This is off the record, and not attributable.” McHugh's pale blue eyes sought Am's and Sharon's, and they both nodded.
“You've probably heard the victims were found in a walk-in closet?”
Cotton had told his story enough so that everyone on staff had heard. They nodded again.
“Well, the murderer took the precaution of cleaning up.”
“Wiping for fingerprints?” asked Am.
“More elaborate than that. And less elaborate. He wrapped the bodies in bed linen, and cleaned up where the struggle took place. He worked hard at getting the blood out of the carpeting, but he didn't dispose of the murder weapon, and he didn’t wipe off his fingerprints. The evidence guys are having a field day in there.”
“Why would you clean,” asked Sharon, “if not for the purpose of covering up?”
The detective gave a significant shrug.
“When did the murders take place?” asked Am.
“They’re doing tests now.”
The same answer he had given during the press conference. “Preliminary analysis?” Am asked.
“Off the record,” said McHugh, “yesterday. Late afternoon or early evening.”
“Any suggestions,” asked Sharon, “on how we handle guest safety concerns?”
Out of habit, Am reached down and picked up some litter off the hall carpeting. The toilet lid wrap must have fallen off a maid’s cart. The Hotel California’s strips didn’t have the wording Am had seen at other properties, announcements like “Sanitized for Your Protection”; they merely had the Hotel’s insignia stamped on perfumed paper. Am had never been able to figure out the innkeeping tradition of using paper wrap for the privy, but it seemed as if fewer places were using them these days. The Hotel, he figured, would remain one of the last holdouts. He stretched the strip of paper with his two forefingers.
“Encourage normal precautions,” said McHugh. “Tell guests not to answer the door without checking the peephole, and offer escorts to all your rooms. Instruct the staff to offer simple, reassuring answers to any inquiries, and conclude by emphasizing that the police believe the assailant fled the scene of the crime some time ago.”
“And do you?” asked Am, the question offered with extended fingers and the toilet wrapper.
McHugh stared at Am. The look usually worked. “Most murderers don’t stick around to improve on their tans.”
Am responded to his words, not his eyes. “His cleaning up would seem—”
“Look,” said McHugh, “in times of stress you can’t expect people to respond rationally. We got a shrink on the department who figures a kid might have done this, someone fourteen, maybe fifteen. She thinks the kid was rifling the room when the couple walked out of the bedroom and he panicked. Afterward he was still thinking like a kid. Hide the bodies, clean up, and maybe no one will notice, sort of like what we all did when we broke Mom’s favorite vase.”
“Has the woman been ID’d yet?” asked Sharon.
> “Negative,” McHugh said. “The dead lawyer had lots of lady friends. One of his partners is flying up to do a positive ID on him, and we hope he’ll know who she is. In the meantime we’re doing our own tracking. Your front office manager, Roger, has been very helpful in getting us whatever we need.”
That didn’t surprise Am. Casper always enjoyed doing anything but front office work. Am wanted to ask more questions but felt a little silly trying to do so while facing McHugh with the paper wrap between his fingers. He had thought to slip it unobtrusively into a pocket, but there hadn’t been a good moment.
“Since we’re all busy people…” McHugh’s statement tailed off into a question as he stared pointedly at the toilet wrapper.
“Thank you, Detective,” said Sharon.
At McHugh’s departure, Am ripped apart the strip and looked around for a handy trash can, but he didn’t see one. Sharon pretended not to notice, which made the situation that much more ridiculous. Am decided this walking around each other, and being formally polite, had to stop.
“We’ve got this one guest who drives the maids crazy,” he said. “Whenever he’s with us, he never seems to use the toilet. The strip is always there. It looks like it's never disturbed. Barb the housekeeper thinks he might have one of those ileostomy bags, but I think he's just a joker who likes to play with people's minds. I'm convinced he slides the wrapper on and off.”
“That seems like a pretty silly thing to do.”
“Everyone has little tricks that get them noticed. Winston Churchill used to put pins in some of his cigars. During important debates, when the opposition had the floor, he'd light up his stogies. Everyone would watch his ash get larger and larger. They'd wonder, When is that damn thing going to fall? And after a while nobody would be listening to any speeches. They'd just be watching that growing ash on Winnie's cigar. That's how the maids are with this guest. They look at him with a bit of awe and a bit of fear. They see him in the room for days, and they wonder if there won't come the time when he just explodes. He's become quite the myth.”
Am stuck the remains of the strip into his pants pocket. A real hotel detective, he thought, probably wouldn't be talking about bodily functions at a time like this. But in a world of the strange there is still the need to talk about the offbeat, to stand back and try to reaffirm what is normal and what isn't. As he had gotten older, Am thought that arbitrating normality had become that much tougher.
