Killer Look

ELEVEN

Mike interviewed three other employees after Josie. They were from the saw-nothing, heard-nothing, knew-nothing school of witnesses. They had black holes where their memories should have lived.

Charles Wetherly came back upstairs to see how things were going. It wasn’t that he was interested in our well-being, but hopeful that we would let him know whatever it was that we were finding out.

“Tell me about Josie,” Mike said.

“Nothing special to tell. She’s been here longer than I have,” he said.

“But she wasn’t allowed to deal with Wolf Savage? To clean his room?”

“Nonsense. Did she tell you that?”

“Well, that’s not her assignment, was it?”

“Frankly, Mr. Chapman, Mr. Savage was put off by her ramblings,” Wetherly said. “He thought Josie was a bit unhinged.”

“In what way?”

Charles Wetherly could barely conceal his annoyance. He didn’t want to give any more information to us-having no idea the direction in which we were going-but rather wanted us to tell him what was going on.

“I think it’s fair to say that Josie has some idiosyncrasies, Detective. She talks to herself a lot, she makes up stories-”

“You calling her a liar?” Mike asked.

“Not my choice of words at all,” Wetherly said. “She’s not malicious. She just likes to tell tales.”

Not what any of us wanted to hear. How could we trust the story about finding the key card to the room, or any of her other observations?

“Her ramblings,” Mercer said, “are you talking generally or about her religious beliefs?”

“We all know Josie takes her voodoo very seriously. I think that was very off-putting to Mr. Savage. All the talk about spirits, with the occasional zombie thrown in.”

“Zombie?” I asked.

“I’m surprised Josie didn’t tell you herself,” Wetherly said. “She hounds the rest of the staff with her views.”

“Try me,” Mike said.

“When one dies an unnatural death, like a suicide-”

“Or a murder…”

“Yes, Detective, or a murder-then his or her soul is vulnerable to the voodoo priests, who control them. Josie calls them the undead,” the manager said, as though wishing to wash out his mouth when he said the words. “Or zombies.”

“So zombies and Wolf Savage?” I asked.

“He was a businessman, Ms. Cooper. He surrounded himself with professionals, all first-caliber,” Wetherly said. “Savage didn’t brook fools or incompetence or, for the most part, people who disrespected him.”

“Are you talking about Josie?”

“For one, yes.”

“How did she disrespect him?”

“There was a young model, a Russian girl,” Wetherly said. “Quite beautiful. She did some work for Mr. Savage, which nailed him the cover of Vogue two years ago. She was staying here at the time, down the hall in one of Josie’s rooms. Then she was let go from WolfWear, but was lucky to land on her feet, for Vera Wang no less.”

“And she fell out of a ninth-story window in her apartment in the Financial District,” I said. “Front-page news.”

“Sure,” Mike said. “Manhattan South had the investigation. No signs of foul play, if I’m right. They ruled it a suicide.”

“Then you know the story,” Wetherly said.

“Wait,” I said. “Was Savage involved in that in any way? Seeing her? Angry with her?”

“Not at all,” Wetherly said. “He had no concern for the girl once he stopped using her. The last person to see her alive was her boyfriend, but the police cleared him. All of us who knew her followed the case quite closely, as you might imagine.”

“And Josie?”

“Josie was very fond of the girl, so naturally, when she had such a tragic end to her life, Josie told everyone who’d become acquainted with the model while she stayed here that she was-I know, it sounds like one of those ridiculous TV shows-that she was undead. A zombie.”

“And Wolf Savage didn’t like that,” Mike said.

“Josie has this thing-she says it’s the moral code of Haitian voodoo, but that’s not my expertise, Detective-that greed and dishonor are the two great sins. Unfortunately, she felt the need to stop Mr. Savage in the hallway one day and accuse him of both.”

“Ballsy move, for a housekeeper,” Mike said. “The greed I can understand if the rumors of his net worth are true. Dishonor?”

“I’ve told you, I don’t like being the source of this kind of thing, but in this instance it was reported at the time on Page Six,” Wetherly said. “The Russian girl.”

“What? Savage had an affair with her?”

“I have no personal knowledge of that. It was Josie’s theory, and it was certainly true that Mr. Savage sort of discarded the young woman rather precipitously.”

“So she accused him of turning the girl into a zombie?” Mercer asked.

“Yes, she did. And she convinced everyone that the dead girl’s spirit was trapped on the tenth-floor hallway, because of the way Mr. Savage dishonored her.”

Mike shook his head. “Is it true that he once complained about Josie’s physical appearance?”

Wetherly looked puzzled. “I’m not sure he ever took notice of that. What do you mean?”

“Well, that she was fat, or she was old. That he wanted a more attractive type to service his room.”

“That, Detective, sounds just like Josie trying to stir things up. She thrives on that, and she’s extremely jealous of Wanda, who covers the main suite. Wolf Savage never had that kind of conversation with me. I wouldn’t stand for that anyway,” Wetherly said. “For a male guest to be so interested in his housekeeper that he comments on her body or looks? I’d remember that distinctly. The last thing I’m looking for at the Silver Needle is a Dominique Strauss-Kahn sort of situation.”

“So here’s what I don’t get, Mr. Wetherly,” I said. I didn’t know what to make of Josie at this point. “Savage was one of your best customers, right? I mean he ensured you full payment on all these rooms, year-round. How come he didn’t demand that an employee who talked to him so rudely that way be fired?”

“That, Ms. Cooper, is a secret that died with Wolf Savage, I’m afraid.”

“What do you mean?”

There was a knock on the door that startled both of us.

“I actually told Mr. Savage that I would get rid of Josie. That I would place her at another hotel, if the union wouldn’t let me dismiss her,” Wetherly said. “He was furious with me for suggesting it. He told me he was willing to tolerate all the hocus-pocus of her voodoo, all her in-his-face gibberish, and that I was to leave her alone.”

“But why?” I asked. “Didn’t you ask him why?”

“Do you ask the district attorney ‘why?’ when he directs you to do something?”

I’d tried it once not too long ago and the results were disastrous. “No, sir,” I said.

“Josie had some kind of hold on Wolf Savage,” Wetherly said. “Ask her about that, not me. It was he who had the hotel hire her-before I came along.”

“You mean, Wolf Savage knew Josie before she started working here?” Mike asked.

“He’s responsible for getting her this job.”

“What was their connection?”

“I assume you would have asked her that question, Mr. Chapman, or that she would have brought it up with you,” Wetherly said. “Her employment file is silent on the issue, except that Wolf Savage is listed on her original application as a reference.”

“Let’s get her back up here right now,” Mike said. “I dropped the ball on this one.”

“She’s gone for the evening, Detective. Her shift was over by the time you’d finished questioning her.”

“Where does she live?”

“Little Haiti,” Wetherly said. “In Crown Heights.”

“What time does she come in tomorrow morning?”

“She won’t be in for the next few days, Mr. Chapman. She wants some time off, actually,” Wetherly said. “Blames you for it, in fact.”

“Blames me? What the-”

“Josie said you tried to force her into the dead man’s room, Detective. That it was against her religious beliefs, and that you mocked her for that. I doubt you’ll be seeing Josie LaPorte again anytime soon.”