Sudden Vacancies (3 page)

Chapter 6

Tommy Williams had been working as the florist for the Paradise since 1998. His work was a continuation of the work he had done as a teenager in his parent’s shop. His parents were the second-generation owners of a florist shop in Akron and were very proud of their work.

However, Tommy was interested in branching out a little. His two sisters were currently managing the family shop, allowing Tommy the opportunity to take his own route. When asked why he had left the family business to work in a hotel, Tommy always replied the same way, “It’s nothing personal. I’m very proud of my sisters’ work and I even use some of the same vendors they use. However, I just felt that the hard work we’ve done over the years should be expanded to more markets.”

Entering the flower shop, Sandra was assailed with the fragrance of fresh flowers and smiled at the pleasant scent. “Tommy? You still around?” Looking around she didn’t see any sign of him, so she headed back to the coolers.

Tommy finished transferring the recent shipment of lupines into the display buckets, and then turned as he heard someone enter the shop and make their way to the back. “Miss Jones, hey, thanks for stopping by.” Wiping his hands on the rag at his waist, he approached and offered his hand.

Giving his hand a firm shake, Sandra looked around and was amazed at some of the arrangements that Tommy had created. He was a genius! “Tommy, those arrangements are spectacular. I got your message that you wanted to see me?”

Tommy nodded, leading the way out of the cooler and back to the front of the shop, “I was just wondering if any decisions had been made on how to clean up the riff-raff in this part of town.”

Taken aback at his question, “Well, I’ve never given a lot of thought to what goes on outside the walls of the hotel, to be honest,” she said. “In all candor, I’m sure some of the stuff that happens outside this place also happens around Akron, and every other city in the US. The only difference is that the stuff around here is a little more visible and we know where to look to find it. That small-town sensibility that Columbus has necessitates covering up the bad stuff. I bet you could find bad things going on just about anywhere there are people living.”

“But wouldn’t the world be better off if it didn’t have all that stuff?” Bruce added, having spotted them in the florist shop and only catching the tail end of the conversation as he entered. “I mean, there’s so much trash these days that it all gets in the way.”

“Yes, I do wish this place was cleaner, but what can we do? If anyone tried to clean up the streets, it would only draw attention to the problems and that usually makes more bad stuff show up. You know, misery likes company?” Sandra queried.

“But what about areas like New York? That place was a dark stain on polite society before they got it cleaned up.”

“Sure, New York is clean now, from what everyone can see. Rudy Giuliani, wasn’t it? But underneath the surface, I’m sure there’s still some dirty stuff going on around the place on occasions.”

Bruce and Tommy both nodded at her logic. “I guess you’re right. Maybe society just needs to get its act together,” said Tommy sadly.

Sandra nodded, “I don’t know what the solution is, but I think we can each do our part and make our little part of the universe the best it can be, for the time we’re here.”

Bruce whistled as he said, “That a great idea. Almost sounds like a slogan for some community outreach program.” He and Tommy shared a grin.

Turning to Tommy, Sandra asked him, “Was there something you needed to see me for?”

Tommy shook his head, “Nah, I just wanted to know what was being done, is all.”

“Good. Well then...,” Sandra looked at her watch and then at Bruce, “Aren’t you getting ready to do the dinner time show?”

Bruce nodded, “I was just heading over there when I saw you in here. I wondered if you wanted to listen in for a while.”

Sandra smiled and nodded, “That sounds good. Tommy, I’ll see you tomorrow, and don’t worry about the recent events. I think things are back to normal around here.” Giving him one last smile, she turned to Bruce, “Ready, Mr. Andrews?”

At his nod, she allowed him to lead her out of the florist shop, across the foyer, and into the restaurant.

Chapter 7

Bruce Andrews would normally play an acoustic guitar at the Blue Plate restaurant three or four times a day. He’d bring out an electric guitar every now and then but the guitar wouldn’t be too loud and he wouldn’t be too rough on it.

“I don’t want to just be the same old skinny-guy-with-an-acoustic-guitar type,” he said. “I like to mix it up a little bit. Besides, I’m not even a fan of those skinny-guy-with-an-acoustic-guitar or emo-with-a-piano types.”

Bruce had been playing guitar since he was eleven years old. He struggled with making friends as a kid and with relationships. However, his parents had turned to music in an attempt to get him to learn to express himself through music therapy. This worked perfectly as he was able to showcase himself as a smart musician who enjoyed performing for others.

Eventually, he played in the talent show at his high school as a guitarist and then went on to perform some open-mike nights at various bars around the Columbus area. He liked to keep it clean and friendly for everyone.

He never did think about getting a record deal or trying to release a record. “The thrill of playing for people is the only real thing that I care about,” he said.

He had been performing at the Blue Plate, the hotel’s five star restaurant, for the last eight years. In addition, he worked as a freelance performer and never had trouble making enough with his music to pay the bills. The gig at the Paradise was the perfect set up; they didn’t require exclusivity from him as a condition of his employment, and so he could perform all around Columbus.

Bruce’s opinion of the recent hotel death was one echoed by many. “It seems like there’s lots of people out there who just do stuff for no reason,” he said when discussing it casually, “I don’t know what happened but I’m sure he did something dumb. Why can’t the people around here start to grow up and try to be a little more logical in terms of who they are and how they act?”

Such utterances were met with suspicion.

*****

“I don’t know,” Bruce said to Andrew the next afternoon as he took a break between sets. “Do you really think Carla is thinking about this stuff?”

“This stuff’ referred to the continued speculation making its way through the hotel staff in regards to the death that had occurred on the ninth floor.

“Come on,” Andrew replied. “Do you really think she hasn’t thought about it? I mean, it’s been in our faces for days now. Why does it matter?”

“Well, given her past, I could see something like this pushing her over the edge, can’t you?” replied Bruce.

“You can’t just assume that because something bothers you, it has the same effect on someone else. You especially can’t assume that someone’s going to go crazy over it.” Andrew shook his head.

Carla D’Angelo had a past, as did everyone who worked at the hotel. The difference being, her past included a history of drugs and alcohol abuse. At the age of 17, she’d been arrested for cooking meth in her parent’s house.

She’d been introduced to the drug at a friend’s house a mere month earlier, and easily become addicted to it. Her grades had begun to slip and she had even feigned an illness to get out of going to school. The police had been sent to the house on a routine truancy warrant. Suspicious of the fumes coming from the basement window, they had gained access to the house and discovered her in the process of cooking crystal meth. Her parents had been heart-broken, and when the magistrate had suggested a lengthy stay at a local youth rehabilitation center, they had readily signed the papers remanding her guardianship over to the state.

A year later, clean and attempting to walk the straight and narrow, she finished her GED. For several years, she kept it together and obtained a boring job working in a retail outlet. Looking for more excitement led her to taking her first hit of ecstasy during a smoke break with a friend from work.

The friend told her that ecstasy was a recreational drug, and you didn’t have to worry about becoming addicted to it. You could take or leave it with no consequences. However, the friend was dead wrong.

Carla quickly got into the distribution end and ended up spending the next five years in jail for ecstasy possession. Upon her release, she was forced into a halfway house for six months where she was carefully observed. After being released, she came to the realization that something had to change. It wasn’t her environment that was causing her problems, it was her. She kept making bad choices.

One day, while searching through the Help Wanted ads, she saw a television commercial advertising a new culinary institute. At odds with her time, and knowing that she needed something to focus her time on, she signed up for courses and was amazed that it could actually get somewhere and wasn’t just a swizz.

It turned out that cooking was the one thing that was missing in her life. She began to have fun making foods and enjoyed trying out all sorts of new ideas in the kitchen. She graduated two years later at the top of her class.

While her past drug record kept her from being hired by some of the higher end restaurants, Jeffrey Thorn, the previous owner of the Paradise, had been willing to give her a chance. She had been hired as an associate chef and quickly found many champions within the staff of the hotel.

Three months ago, she had been promoted to the head chef position. The previous chef had decided to retire early and return to his native country of Britain. Carla had been excited at the challenge and finally felt like she was getting some well-deserved respect.

Still, there was always the risk of relapsing back into using drugs. Just that morning she had told her reflection in the mirror, “I wish there was a way I could truly be free, but I also know that I will always have to control the urge to use drugs again. I’ll never be truly free of them,” she told herself. “I really hope I can continue to be strong and not let myself and everyone else down.”

So, would she ever get back into drugs? There is always the risk that comes with hiring a former drug addict, no matter how long it’s been since someone has used them. This was the context of Bruce and Andrew’s current concern.

“She really doesn’t look very happy of late,” said Andrew. “Frankly, I’m worried about her.”

Bruce nodded, “Yeah, she seems more down of late. I wonder if the stress of being head chef is more than she can handle.”

Andrew shrugged. Carla was known for trying to be completely self-reliant. She adamantly refused to attend any meetings-it seemed that most relied in faith in a higher being.

“I think she’ll be okay. She does seem a little more fragile lately, and she has some dark circles underneath her eyes, but everyone’s been a little stressed out recently,” Andrew replied.

Bruce didn’t disagree, and he admired Carla’s need to make sure she was pleasing those around her and not to fall into bad habits. After everything she’d been through, he wouldn’t blame her if she didn’t trust anyone farther than she could throw them. At only 5’3” tall, that wouldn’t be very far.

Carla had made no secret of her past, hoping that by sharing her story maybe someone else would avoid having to learn the hard way. Unfortunately, there were always those few who made her feel unwelcome, and constantly waited for her to mess up.

Andrew and Bruce were always worried about her. So much so, that there were times when Carla felt she was going to go insane from their overprotectiveness.

“Well, I just think we should keep a closer watch over her,” Andrew suggested.

Bruce huffed a laugh, “Don’t hold your breath on that one. She’s the most independent female I’ve ever run across.”

“Really, don’t you think it’s a problem? Let’s be honest,” said Andrew, “You’d think that after a while someone would have a relapse.”

Andrew nodded. He worried that at some point, Carla would encounter a situation, which triggered her to relapse and use drugs once again.

“You know how a relapse works, right? Things usually go really well for a bit but as life gets harder, their resistance starts to breakdown to the point where they end up doing something to themselves—or to someone else.”

Andrew looked up at Bruce sharply, as he registered the hint of accusation in Bruce’s last statement. “You’re not implying that Carla had…”

Bruce quickly shook his head, “I didn’t say that. There’s absolutely no evidence to suggest that she or anyone who works for the hotel had anything to do with that guy’s death. I just wonder what she thinks about all of this. To my knowledge, she’s been really quiet on the subject and even forbade the kitchen staff to discuss it while working.”

“I hadn’t heard that,” answered Andrew. “Mind you chefs have all sorts of strange rules. Keeping recipes locked in safes, refusing to serve someone wearing a tie, that sort of thing.”

“Why don’t we just talk with her,” Bruce responded.

Andrew nodded, “Finish your last set and I’ll head back to the kitchen and see if she wants to sit and chat for a bit. Things are starting to slow down now.”

As Andrew headed back to the kitchen, his pager went off, and he spent the next several hours listening to various security companies present the latest and greatest technology to both he and Sandra. By the time he finished, the dinner rush had started. He and Bruce decided to wait around for her in the hotel bar, and left a message with the concierge for her to come find them when she was finished up for the night.

As things would happen, she would be taken aside before they ever got a chance to talk with her.