Checking Inn (2 page)

Which reminds me, I have to get to the front desk before my mother has a chance to introduce herself to Samantha.  She was never fond of Samantha growing up, which either stems from her hatred for Samantha’s mother or the fact Samantha made my life a living hell in school. 

It really is a fifty-fifty call. 

It took all my persuasive powers to convince Mom to speak to Mrs. Manning about securing a review. 

My phone rings again and I stare at it while tapping my hand on the table.

Tracy looks at the clock and then rubs more vigorously on the cotton strip.  “Okay, on three.  One, two–”

The knock on the spa door causes both of us to turn, Tracy pulling off the next wax strip.

“Sweet Jesus!”

“Sorry, sorry,” Tracy rushes to the door, opening it only a crack to look out.  “Yes?”

“I need Miss Kate.  
Now
.” I can hear Luisa’s thick Spanish accent on the other side of the door.

“We’re nearly done,” Tracy says.  “What’s wrong?”

“I need her 
muy rápido
,” I can hear the panic in Luisa’s voice and I start to sit up.

“What is it?” I say, getting up and putting one leg in my pants.

“Kate, you can’t go when you’re only half done.  It looks horrible!” Tracy argues.

“No one’s going to see it,” I say.

“Well, if someone does, make sure you say you got it somewhere else.  Or it’s a new trend,” she adds while I scramble to the door.

“Luisa, what is it?” I ask as I come around the door to look at the housekeeper.

Her face is drained of all color and I can see tears in her eyes.

“Luisa?”

“She is…” she starts, then swallows while grasping her handkerchief.  “She was like that when I get there.”

“What? Who?”  I ask.  When she doesn’t reply I grab her arm.  “What’s going on?”

“That senorita, the review lady,” Luisa says.

“Samantha Manning?” I ask.

Luisa nods.

“Well, what?” I ask, starting to get worried.  Oh God, I hope Luisa didn’t walk in on her naked or anything.  The last thing I need right now is a sexual harassment claim.

“She’s… 
dead
.”

“What do you mean she’s 
dead
?” Tracy asks.

“She’s dead!”  Luisa yells hysterically.  “
Muerto
!  She goes to 
cielo
!  SHE’S DEAD!”

“She can’t be dead; she hasn’t written the review!” I yell. 

Okay, that came out wrong. 

“What I mean is, are you sure she’s 
dead
?” I ask.

Maybe dead means something different in Spanish.  Like… really, 
really
 sick. 

“
Sí,
 I’m sure.” Luisa says.  “I go to her room to clean and knock on the door.  She never answer, so I went in, and she is on the cama… dead.”

“Maybe she was just… sleeping,” Tracy suggests, and I nod in encouragement.

Luisa shakes her head and darts her eyes back to me.  “I touched her,” she cries and looks at her hands as though they are a foreign object.  “I don’t know what to do, should I try to breathe life back?”       

I look to Tracy, but she looks as horrified as me.

“Her eyes stare at me with death,” Luisa says with a faraway voice, looking at the wall between Tracy and myself.

“Oh God,” I cry and put my shaking hand to my chest.

“What do I do?” Luisa asks.

“Well, we have to call the police,” Tracy says.

“No, we can’t call the police!” I say, looking frantically at both of them.  “They will shut us down.”

“Kate, I know this is a lot to process right now–” Tracy places her hand on my arm.

“You know, I know someone,” Luisa says in a whispered tone.

“What do you mean?” Tracy asks.

“If Miss Kate needs the 
cuerpo
 to disappear,” she says.

“You can’t be serious!” Tracy yells. 

Tracy looks at my eyes and throws her arms up when I don’t immediately rebuke the suggestion.  “Kate!”

“Okay, okay,” I say, holding my hands up.  “We will call the police.  But we need to try and do this as discreetly as possible.”

Luisa nods, turns around, and shuffles her feet  back to the reception area.

Oh God, I can feel my chest tightening.  My breath is coming in short gasps and I want to put my head between my knees.  I look at Tracy with pleading eyes.  “Tell me this won’t ruin us.”

“Of course not,” Tracy says, putting a reassuring hand on my back.  “We work in the hospitality industry, I’m sure this sort of thing happens more often than you would think.”

Luisa reappears with the cordless phone and hands it to me.

“Okay,” I say, nodding.  I punch in the numbers 9-1-1 and put the phone to my ear.

“9-1-1, what’s your emergency?  Do you need fire, ambulance, or police?”

“Umm, all I think,” I say.  “Well, not fire.   And not ambulance, because it’s too late for that.  So just police I guess,” I say, my hysteria causing me to not think coherently.  Really, I should have made a list to follow during emergency deaths.  This is so unlike me.

“What’s your emergency?”

“I run the Summerside Inn–”

“Kate?” the operator asks.

“Yes?”

“It’s me, Suzanne!”

“Oh, hi Suzanne,” I say.  Suzanne is my mother’s neighbor.

“How are you?” she asks, losing her professional telephone voice.

“Er, not great actually–”

“You know, I have been telling your mother for ages to get you to give me a call to see how Becky’s working out there, and I bet she never even told you–”

“Listen, Suzanne.  We have a bit of an emergency here…”

“Oh yes, of course,” Suzanne has the professional voice again.  “You need the police?  What’s wrong– vandalism?  I just saw that nasty Sawyer boy hanging around the back of the supermarket smoking, and I bet you he–”

“No, it’s nothing like that,” I say.  “It’s one of our guests.  They’ve umm… died.”

I hear the gasp of shock on the other end of the phone, and my panic at what everyone else’s reaction is going to be causes me to grasp the phone tighter.

“No!  Oh, you poor thing.”  I can hear Suzanne type something into the computer.  “What do you think was the cause of death?”

“What do you mean?” I ask.

“The cause of death.  I need to know what you think might have happened to tell the police.”

“Oh, right.  Okay,”  I say and put my hand over the mouthpiece.  “She wants to know what the cause of death is.”

“How the hell should we know?” Tracy asks.

I shrug my shoulders and take my hand off the mouthpiece to talk to Suzanne when I hear Luisa say, “
estrangulación
.”

“
What
?” Tracy and I yell together as I quickly try to cover the phone so Suzanne doesn’t hear.

Oh please God, let that translate to “died peacefully in her sleep”.

“Her neck is all bruised.  I see the fingers marks on her throat,” Luisa says in an ominous voice as she puts her own hands to her neck to demonstrate.

“Why the hell didn’t you offer that little tidbit earlier?” Tracy yells, and I wave my hands to tell her to lower her voice.

“You never ask me!” Luisa says.

“Did she say 
strangulation
?” I hear Suzanne’s voice in my ear, and I honestly think I might pass out.

“We– she– we don’t know,” I say and look at Tracy’s bewildered face.  “Luisa may have seen something, but she’s not sure.”

“This is serious,” Suzanne says, and continues typing.  “I’m going to have to send out a team.  Probably some detectives from Hartford.  I’m not sure Summerside’s  police are able to deal with homicides.”

“What is she saying?” Tracy asks as all the color drains from my face.

“They have to send out a team,” I reply and shake my head.

“Don’t let anyone leave the Inn.  The police will want to talk with anyone who may have had contact with the victim.”

The victim.  Oh my God, we’re finished.

“Kate?” Suzanne says when I don’t respond.

“Of course, no one will leave.” I reply.

And no one will ever come back, either. 

Two

Okay, get it together Kate.  You’re a professional.

At least, this is what I keep telling myself as Tracy, Luisa, and I are huddled around the reception desk waiting for the police to arrive.  I haven’t told the other staff yet.  I just told them we were having a fire and safety drill, and a bunch of emergency personnel are coming so we need to keep the hallways clear and encourage the guests to stay put for an hour or so.  So far I think everyone has bought it. 

We don’t know for sure that Samantha was murdered.  Luisa’s English isn’t very good, and she has been known to exaggerate from time to time.  Maybe Samantha was just wearing a weird looking scarf…

I just don’t want to alarm anyone.  I mean, they could send one or two detectives out and that’s it.  No need to get everyone panicked about that.  

Though, if SWAT shows up, I honestly think I will pass out.

The first thing I do when I get back behind the reception desk is have a good long inhale on my puffer.  Then I start organizing.  I put the pens back into their proper compartments based on color coding.  I straighten the calculator and reservation book so they are exactly parallel to the desk’s edge.  I go over to the table where I keep the guest sign in book with little candies, and make sure everything is perfect there too.  With every straight line and tidy surface I can feel my breathing return to normal.

I need to stay positive.  I can’t freak out.  I have to be the leader here. 

Right, positive thoughts… positive thoughts… like… umm… oh– maybe a nicer colleague of Samantha’s will come to collect her things, see our fabulous Inn, and write a five-star review.

No, on second thought, it might be a little too soon to have positive thoughts.

It’s better just to clear my mind.

Tracy squeezes my hand and I offer her a small smile of thanks. 

Suzanne said the police would be here in a few minutes, and I keep darting my eyes around the parking lot. My eyes widen when I notice a blue sedan pull in and I run my hand through my hair.

“Oh, shit,” I say and grab for my inhaler again.

“Are they here?” Tracy asks.

“Worse.  It’s my mother.” 

My mother is honestly the last thing I need right now.  I would take a bulldozer coming through the front door over my mother at this exact moment.  For one, my mother is capable of more damage, and at least the insurance would cover the bulldozer.  I know this because the insurance salesman talked my mom into getting every single possible thing covered when our insurance was up for renewal last year.  He came in one day, when I was off sick (which I have made sure I have never been since then for this exact reason), talked her into the premium plan, and got her to sign on the spot.  Now I have a three year term that costs a fortune to cancel, and my insurance rates are triple what they used to be.  Though, if there is a tsunami which causes the Inn to flood, and a shark bites one of our guests, I can rest assured that we will be covered.  The sad thing is, I am not even joking.

“She’s coming in,” Tracy says.

“No one can tell her what is going on.” I peer through the glass to see how far away she is and turn back to the other two.  “Swear to me you won’t tell her.”

“Kate, she’s an owner of the Inn.  She’s going to find out,” Tracy says.

“I know that,” I say.  “But I will tell her after the police have been here.  If she finds out she will insist on being a part of the investigation; you know how she lives for the drama.”

“There is a woman upstairs that has probably been murdered.  Do you honestly think your mother can make the situation any worse than it already is?” Tracy frantically whispers so the guests in the library next to us won’t hear.

I look at my mother who walks away from her car only to be jerked back as part of her flowing kimono  is trapped in her car’s door.

“Yes.  Yes, I do.  Not a word.”

I turn as the door opens and see my mother’s arms open wide.  My mother has always had a great figure with lots of curves.  The streak of grey at the front of her curly mop of hair gives her an artsy look that I know she loves.

“Kate, darling,” she says.  “Sorry I’m a bit late, I couldn’t find my zen this morning.”

“Not a problem,” I say, and shove my inhaler in the drawer.  I’ve had chronic asthma since I was six, but I try and only use the puffer in real emergencies.  If she sees it, she will know something is wrong.  “Actually, it’s really slow today, so you can have the whole day off.  Find all the zen you need.”

My mother laughs and puts her bag down on top of the reservation book, scattering my neatly lined notepad and pencils in all directions. 

“No need, I already found it.”  She smiles and lifts her eyebrows.  “Did I walk in on a gossip fest?  There’s nothing I love more than women huddled together with hushed tones, as nature intended us.”

“We weren’t talking about anything,” I say, darting my eyes to the other girls.  “We were just going over some things.”

“Kate, I can always tell when you’re lying because your nostrils flare,” my mother says and turns to Tracy. “Were you talking about men?  Kate never talks about men with me.  Even Greg the Great.   I still can’t figure out why.”

“Maybe it’s because I’ve asked you a million times not to call him that,” I say in an irritated tone. 

“You still date that man?”  Luisa says, and I shoot her an exasperated look for encouraging the conversation.

“They are days away from an engagement, aren’t you darling?”  My mother asks, and I have to clamp down my teeth to stop my response.  Greg apparently hinted to my mother months ago that he was going to ask me to marry him, but he still hasn’t proposed.  I think my mother secretly enjoys every day that passes by.  It’s not that she doesn’t like Greg.  I mean, what’s not to like?  He’s great. 

“Tara!  You said you weren’t going to tell Kate he brought it up,” Tracy says.

“I didn’t tell her,” my mother says.  “She just looked at me and knew.  I could never keep anything from her. It’s kind of creepy actually.”