Creepers

17

Outside, after everyone left the room, Vinnie closed the door. Balenger stood across from the group, his headlamp showing Vinnie and Rick next to each other. Vinnie was thin, with slightly rounded shoulders and pleasant but soft features, while Rick had an athlete's solid build and was outright handsome. All things being equal, it was easy to see why Cora had chosen the latter, Balenger thought. It was also easy to see that Vinnie still cared for her. That was no doubt one of the reasons he went on expeditions with them.

As Vinnie and the professor looked toward Cora, Rick stroked her shoulder. He was clearly bothered about what had happened in the room. In the harsh lights, his face was stark, his eyes now darting toward the door.

"The photograph appears to have been taken on the boardwalk outside." Rick's voice was tight as he tried to express what troubled him. "I wonder if the woman came back here to try to revive better memories. The likely time for her to do that would have been while her grief was strongest, right after her ex-husband's death, not a couple of years later when she wasn't in as much shock."

"A reasonable assumption," the professor said.

"So let's say 1966, or 1967 at the latest."

"Again, that's reasonable."

"Carlisle died in 1971. The suitcase sat on that bed at least four years prior to that. Professor, you said Carlisle had peepholes and hidden corridors that allowed him to see what his guests were doing in private. He must have known about the suitcase. Why the hell didn't he do something?"

"Have it removed? I don't know. Maybe he liked the idea of gradually shutting down the hotel, leaving each room the way it was when its final guest checked out, wanting every room to have a memento that he could visit."

"What a wacko nutjob," Vinnie said.

"Yeah, we've come a long way from calling him a visionary and a genius." Rick's face remained stark. "How many other rooms have stories to tell?"

Vinnie moved toward a door farther along. He tested the knob, pushed the door open, and stalked into blackness, the door banging against the interior wall, the noise reverberating.

The others followed, Cora reluctantly. Balenger heard drawers being opened and closed.

"Nothing," Vinnie said, his light probing the room. "The bed's made. Everything's tidy. Apart from the dust, the place looks ready for its next guest. Nothing in the drawers, not even the customary Bible. Hotel toiletries on the bathroom counter, but nothing else, and nothing in the waste cans. Towels on a rack next to the shower. Everything the way it should be, except for this."

Vinnie opened the closet doors wider and showed them a Burberry raincoat, its wide lapels drooping, its tan belt dangling. "Back then, these things were a status symbol even more than they are now. Dustin Hoffman talks about how much he wants one but can't afford it in Kramer vs. Kramer. Okay, that movie's more recent than when the hotel closed, but the point's the same. Burberrys were exclusive and damned expensive. So why would somebody not take this?"

"An oversight," the professor suggested. "We've all forgotten something when we're traveling. It happens."

"But this isn't a pair of socks or a T-shirt. This is a very desirable overcoat. Why didn't the owner phone the hotel and ask a staff member to look for it?"

"You've got a point." Rick looked troubled. "But I'm not sure where you're going with it."

"What if Carlisle arranged for the owner to be told that the Burberry wasn't here? What if Carlisle made the owner think he'd lost it someplace else?" Vinnie suggested.

After Vinnie took a photograph of the coat, they left the room. On the balcony, it was now Rick who went to the next door. It too wasn't locked. He pushed it open. "For the love of…"

The group followed. The room was a mess: a pile of used towels on the bathroom floor, the wastebasket full, the bed unmade, sheets rumpled, bedspread thrown aside, a full ashtray on the nightstand, a glass and an empty bottle of whiskey next to it.

"I guess it was the maid's day off," Balenger said.

The professor read the bottle's label. "Black Diamond bourbon. Never heard of it. Must have gone out of business a long time ago."

Vinnie used a gloved hand to lift a cigarette butt from the ashtray. "A Camel. Unfiltered. Remember how people used to smoke all the time, how awful hotel rooms smelled?"

"Well, this room isn't a bouquet of roses." Balenger turned. "What's your theory, Professor?"

"Another room with a story. When Carlisle stopped accepting guests in 1968, he could have made sure the hotel was spotless and sanitized. But it looks as if he stopped renting the rooms one at a time and kept each in a kind of suspended state, each room retaining a hint of life."

"Or death," Cora said, glancing back toward the room where they'd found the suitcase.

"Professor, are you suggesting that after Carlisle closed the hotel, he wandered from room to room, looking in at scenes he'd preserved, absorbing himself in the past?" Balenger asked.

Conklin spread his hands. "Maybe to him it wasn't the past. Maybe the riots and his advanced years caused a nervous breakdown. Maybe he imagined the hotel was still in its heyday."

"Jesus," Vinnie said. He took a photograph and left the room. "Let's see what other surprises he created."

His light wavering, Vinnie walked along the balcony, reached the next door, twisted its knob, and pushed with obvious confidence that the door would open.