The Case of the Linen Pressed Guest (The M.O.D. Files Book 2)

by K. W. Callahan

  “No kidding,” he nodded. My train in to work was half an hour late. I about froze my you-know-what off.”

  “I bet,” I snorted. “How you looking for staff tonight?”

  “Not too good. I’ve got three call-offs on what was already a lean night. I only had twelve people scheduled to begin with.”

  “Ouch,” I said. “Well, I hate to add to your burden, but the snow’s starting to pile up again, the lobby stairs need to be shampooed, the entry mats need to be cleaned, and the arcade looks like crap.”

  “I know,” he nodded. “I saw it when I came in. Won’t matter if we do the arcade floor tonight. It’ll look just as bad after it gets trampled tomorrow morning by the morning rush hour traffic.”

  The arcade was a notorious shortcut as area workers took the opportunity to save an extra minute – and get out of the cold or rain when the weather was bad – by cutting through the center of the block where the Lanigan sat. In turn, they trailed the mess from their foot traffic across the arcade’s floors.

  “Yeah, you know that, I know that, but Tom’s not going to care,” I said.

  John frowned and nodded. “I’m going to have enough trouble as it is. I’ve got to pull cleaners from their regular routes for snow removal.”

  “Tell you what,” I said. “I’ll do some snow clearing if that’ll help you out.”

  “Sure would,” John smiled. “I can handle the carpet and the entry mats. I’ll have my marble technician run the floor machine over the arcade and spot mop the really bad spots. If we do that, we ought to be okay.”

  * * *

  It turned out to be a night to remember to say the least. The snow came down in buckets. I’d never seen a Chicago storm like it. I worked clearing snow with four of the housekeeping night crew – Ozell Palmer (the head floor tech), Ronnie Bucket, Maurice Jackson, and Terrance Phillips. They were all hardworking fellows that didn’t do a lot of talking, but I wondered if their lack of chatting tonight came more from the presence of a manager among their ranks than lack of topics of conversation. I had a feeling that the volume on what would otherwise have probably been some pretty loud complaining had been turned down due to my addition to their ranks.

  Even with the cold, I found myself sweating profusely in my suit, scarf, heavy gloves, and long wool coat. We toiled tirelessly until lunch time at 1 a.m.

  After lunch, Ozell approached me in the cafeteria. He had a funny, high-pitched, stuttering kind of way of talking that almost sounded like he was angry and yelling.

  “Ya…ya…you alright, boss,” he told me matter-of-factly, handing me a package.

  “What’s this?” I asked.

  “Sn…sn…snowsuit,” he nodded. “Ya…ya…you one of us now, boss. Ya…ya…you a hard worker.”

  “Thanks Ozell,” I nodded, then shed my coat to don my protective suit.

  By the time we were done eating and got back outside, you could hardly tell we’d done anything, so we got back to it double-time.

  Half an hour later, my M.O.D. phone buzzed. Fishing it from beneath my snowsuit, I cringed – it was Tom.

  “Oh boy,” I said, when I saw his name flash up on my phone’s screen.

  Ozell peered over my shoulder. “HA!” he laughed loudly seeing the name, then called to the others, “Bi, bi, big boss on da horn.” Then there was some gibberish yelling from Ozell to the others that, from what I could make out, sounded something like, “One big boss only da big boss ‘til da other big boss come. Then he ain’t da big boss no more, he da little boss, and he gotta go running like we do.”

  I had to admit, he was right.

  I ducked inside the hotel to talk.

  “Go ahead, Tom,” I breathed heavily, still out of breath from my shoveling.

  “Roberto…I was just down in the arcade. It looks terrible…especially the area right around the main entrance. We’ve got to get the marble crew on this asap. I want you to make sure they really drill down on this thing and ram it home by morning time.”

  I wondered what the heck Tom was down here at this time of morning – probably sneaking into the main kitchen to steal a midnight snack.

  “I’m down here now, Tom. I’ll get with John Rodgers and the marble guys and make sure they jump on it.”

  “Good boy, Mr. Roboto. I’ll see you in the morning.”

  As soon as I got off the phone with Tom, I found John using the hand extractor machine to clean the stairway carpet leading from the main entrance up to the lobby. I explained to him what was going on and asked him to give his stone care guys a call.

  “It’s only Maynard here tonight,” he explained. “Don called off.”

  “Darn!” I hissed, remembering that John had told me this earlier in the evening. “Well, have him meet us here anyway with his equipment,” I told him.

  Five minutes later, Maynard arrived pushing a floor polishing machine in one hand while pulling an old bell cart full of supplies in the other. “Got to go back for a few more things if we’re polishing the floor tonight. Not much time left before guests start getting up, so we’ll have to hurry,” he said, looking dismayed.

  I glanced at my watch. It was almost 2 a.m. Guests would start trickling into this area of the hotel starting around six, and the side entrances to the arcade would be opened at about the same time.

  “How long does it take to polish the floor?” I asked Maynard.

  “A section like this?” he gestured around at the area below the lobby stairs. “Almost an entire night to do a full cut on the stone,” he explained.

  “A full night?” I said in exasperation. “We’ve got three…maybe four hours at best. Are there any other options to get it looking good but in a shorter amount of time?”

  Maynard considered. “We could just use some of the slurry on it to shine it up a little, but this floor here looks pretty beat up from all the salt coming in. I’d say we’d at least have to go red-up on it.”

  “What’s ‘red-up’?” I asked.

  “There are different colors of diamond pads we use to polish the marble – green, black, red, yellow, gray, blue, and orange. To get the best shine on the stone, it’s better to start with the green pad and go all the way up through orange, but we can still get it honed and looking good by starting at the red pad and going up from there. It’ll cut a couple hours off the process, but without a mop and vet-vac man here to assist me, it’ll add that time right back on.”

  I liked to learn as much as I could about different departments and employee roles within the hotel, and sometimes trial by fire was the best way to do so. “Tell you what, how much time you got left on the stairs?” I asked John.

  “Almost finished,” he said.

  “I don’t mind helping Maynard with the stone polishing if you want to switch off and shovel snow for a while.”

  “Sounds like a plan to me,” John nodded. “I’ll put this stuff away upstairs and then head outside. How are things looking out there?”

  “Pretty good, but the snow is still coming down as fast as we can clear it.”

  Ten minutes later, Maynard and I were set up. It was my job to mop the floor clean before Maynard began each cut and then use the vet-vac to suck up the slurry he left behind. The interim between the two duties was mostly a lot of standing and watching, but I picked up some good tips on how to polish stone in the meantime.

  Almost as soon as Maynard and I got started, a voice boomed behind me, “Haze! What the hell you doing? They got you polishing floors now?”

  I looked behind me to see Sergeants Grakowski and Mitts, two night-shift CPD officers who regularly stopped by the hotel as part of their nightly routine. More often than not it was just to get inside out of the weather, do a little chin-wagging, and grab something to eat from the cafeteria. The two reminded me of Jake and Elwood Blues or maybe a couple of Bill Swerski’s Superfans made famous in the Saturday Night Live skits in which they spouted, “Da Bears” or “Da Bulls” in heavy Chicago accents.

  “Just helpin
g out where I can,” I replied, shaking hands with the two officers. “Snow’s got us a little shorthanded tonight.”

  “Helluva storm out there,” Grakowski nodded. “Barely made it over here.”

  “Yeah, you’re running late tonight, lunch is already over,” I laughed.

  “Oh come on! We stop by for more than just lunch!” Mitts guffawed.

  “Oh yeah?” I eyed them warily.

  “Sure…we have to make sure you guys aren’t knocking off any more of your guests,” Grakowski quipped.

  “Thanks a lot,” I gave a wry half smile. “We appreciate all your efforts. You two had any updates on the case?”

  “You know they don’t fill us in on stuff like that unless they need us to act as errand boys for the detectives working the case, then they only tell us what’s absolutely necessary. You probably got a better chance of hearing something from them than we do,” Grakowski frowned.”

  “So what was for lunch?” Mitts asked, getting back to more serious business.

  “Chili and cornbread. Perfect for a night like tonight.”

  “Mmm,” the sergeants’ eyes both half-closed, their hands going to their bellies at the thought.

  “Who’s working the kitchen?” Mitts asked.

  “Your favorite…Habeebee. He’ll probably whip you up some leftovers if he’s still down there.”

  “Awww,” they moaned in discouraged unison.

  “I’m hungry, but I’m not that hungry,” Grakowski shook his head.

  “He’s a great guy, but he just gives you sooo much,” Mitts added.

  “You’re preaching to the choir on that one,” I shrugged.

  “Well, I guess we’ll go see what damage we can do down there,” Grakowski mumbled.

  “More like what damage that crazy cook’s wheelbarrow full of food will do to us,” I overheard Mitts’ grumbled interjection as they sauntered off in the direction of the cafeteria.

  * * *

  For someone who doesn’t get a heck of a lot of exercise besides a little walking in his daily routine, the night was exhausting yet invigorating for me. In the process, I made some new employee bonds with the night-shift crew and learned much more than I ever thought I’d know about stone care. Maynard even let me do the final polish to the arcade floor on my own.

  By the end of the shift, the arcade was sparkling, the entry mats and lobby stairway carpet were clean, and the snow was as cleared as it was going to get considering the storm continued to lay down layer upon layer of white.

  I made my way back to my office where I collapsed into my desk chair. It was twenty minutes to seven. I wanted to check a few things related to Mr. Statler’s murder, but I was just so tired. So I wrote up a brief M.O.D. report for the evening, mostly recounting the housekeeping night shift’s fantastic endeavors at keeping our hotel spotless on such a challenging evening, and then headed up to my room to have a quick shower and catch some shuteye.

  On my way upstairs, I took a quick detour to the 15th floor linen closet. The room attendants had yet to receive their room assignments from their managers this early in the morning, so the area was still quiet.

  I used my manager’s master key to enter the room, fumbled for the light switch in the dark, and flipped it on. I did a slow scan of the room. I’d estimate the space at about 30 feet by 30 feet. To my right, several metal shelving units were piled with a variety of fresh linens and towels. There was a folding table directly in front of me for room attendants to stack or refold linens as they prepared to load their carts. To my left there was a row of room attendant carts all lined up in one corner of the space. Their Lanigan logoed ends faced me. A floor number and section assignment to differentiate which cart belonged to which room attendant – 15-1, 15-2, 15-3, and so forth – were stenciled in white paint below each Lanigan logo. Beside these sat four open-topped houseperson carts with similar logos. The hotel housepersons were charged with keeping the hallways, back landings, guest elevator areas, and stairwells clean as well as with bringing up fresh linens to the closets and disposing of the dirty linens that accumulated in room attendants’ carts. The housepersons filled their own carts with soiled linens from guest rooms and hauled their loads back to the linen closet where they could be dumped down the linen chute. The linen chute itself was located on the wall to my immediate left, just beside the entry door to the room and adjacent to the garbage chute.

  The bases of these two chute doors began about two feet from the floor, and each door was about 20 inches wide by 20 inches tall. There was a gap of about two feet between the two doors. I moved over so that I could inspect each. Both had handles set at their tops, and both had latches to secure them.

  The proximity of the two chutes to one another made me wonder why the killer hadn’t used the garbage chute. Doing so would have deposited Mr. Statler’s body directly into the hotel’s trash compactor and would have made it less likely that his body would have been discovered.

  I took a moment to unlatch and open each door. In doing so, I understood why the killer had avoided the garbage chute. Trying to load an adult-sized body into the garbage chute would have been a much more difficult task. Pulling the door outward toward me and down, I realized that it only opened to about a 45-degree angle from the wall as an old-fashioned flour bin in an antique hutch might have. I guessed that the door had likely been constructed this way as a safety feature in the old days to keep a potential stray child – or even an employee – from falling down the chute at a time when it had exited directly into the hotel’s incinerator. Falling into the linen chute might not have been much better, but chances were, it would likely have resulted in a softer landing. With the garbage chute door built the way it was, it would have meant the killer would have had to lift the full weight of Mr. Statler up and over the top of the door to drop him down inside, a sizeable feat for anyone of non-superhuman strength.

  Meanwhile, the linen chute door, while opening in the same way, retracted all the way to a 90-degree angle, making it much easier to load both bulky linens as well as bodies.

  I opened both doors again and let them slide back on their hydraulic hinges. I could hear the soft sucking sound as the pressurized hinges pulled them tightly closed again. I repeated the process several more times with the linen chute door, trying to envision what had occurred here, thinking about poor Mr. Statler and his final moments as he was loaded inside the chute and then released. Even at the door’s relatively low height, it wouldn’t be an easy process to heft a lifeless body up and into the chute. And with the door’s hydraulic hinges attempting to pull the door shut during the loading process, it would leave the killer having to manhandle the body while at the same time keep the door open, making the job even more difficult. Once the body was onto the chute door, its weight would have held the chute door open, and once the body was a good third of the way inside the chute tube, gravity would likely have pulled the rest of it inside and down.

  Had Mr. Statler been aware of what was going on? Had he attempted to fight back?

  I looked around the chute door for signs of a struggle – blood spatter, hair, scratches on the wall, anything of note – but I saw nothing. I figured the police would have caught such clues in their search of the area, so I don’t know exactly what I was looking for. I guess I was just curious, wondering what had led to such a strange demise. I could see someone being stabbed, but why ditch them in the linen chute? I guess it was a quick way to buy the killer some time to escape or cover their tracks.

  I shook my head and took a deep breath, saddened by the macabre thoughts of Mr. Statler’s final moments. As much as I enjoyed working with and observing them, I never would fully understand people.

  CHAPTER 8

  To: allstaff.lanigan@sharedresorts.com

  Subject: 1/2 MOD Report

  THE LANIGAN HOTEL

  CHICAGO, IL

  MANAGER ON DUTY REPORT

  Monday, January 2nd

  Weather: 12/-5 Morning snow/afternoon flurri
es

  Occupancy: 56%

  Arrivals: 523

  Departures: 187

  Event Resume:

  Grand Ballroom (9 a.m. – 3:30 p.m.) – DST Truckers Asso. annual convention

  3rd Floor Meeting Rooms – III, IV – Lanigan new hire orientation

  6th Floor Meeting Rooms – Oak, Elm, Sycamore – Chicago Oil Painters Guild

  Carlisle’s Whiskey Lounge (Open 6 p.m. – 1 a.m.)

  Triton Club – (Closed Monday)

  Blue Velvet Room (6 p.m. – 10:00 p.m.) – DST Truckers Asso. dinner

  *** A special thank you to the housekeeping night shift for keeping the hotel looking fantastic during the blizzard!!! ***

  * * *

  I was awakened at just after 11 a.m., just three hours after I’d fallen asleep following my post-nightshift shower, by the sound of my M.O.D. phone that sat on my bedside table. I wanted to pretend that I didn’t hear it, but that wasn’t an option. As I reached for the phone, I felt the soreness in my muscles. My back was tight, my arms and neck were stiff, and my legs ached.

  My eyes felt like they were glued shut. After fumbling around in the darkness of my blackout blind darkened cave for several seconds, I finally found the phone. Never opening my eyes, I punched the talk button. “This is Robert, go ahead,” I said in my best ‘wide-awake’ voice, which this morning, I had to admit, didn’t sound very wide awake.

  “Good morning, Robert. This is Mike from the finance department.”

  Mike Andrews was a recent addition to the hotel, having transferred from a much smaller property in Indianapolis to replace our former director of finance who had retired. I think Mike was having a tough time adjusting to the size and scope of the financial picture at the Lanigan. He was doing his best to walk the walk and talk the talk while managing to fumble his way through the first few introductory months at a property five times the size of his last hotel. Still, it was hard for him to disguise that he was in a little over his head, especially to someone who’d been around the block as many times as I had.