Sixkill

17

I went to the lobby of the Inn on the Wharf and sat down in a designer armchair, and waited. If I sat there long enough, someone from security would come over and ask me if I was a guest at the hotel. It took a bit more than an hour of sitting before a slightly stocky blonde woman in a dark blue pantsuit came over. She wore a small earpiece, like they do.

“Excuse me, sir,” she said. “Are you a guest of the hotel?”

“No, ma’am,” I said. “I want to talk to someone in security, but I don’t know who is or isn’t, you know?”

“So you came here and sat and assumed after a while someone from security would present themselves,” she said.

“Exactly,” I said.

“Why didn’t you ask at the desk?” she said.

“Been told by a lawyer,” I said, “that I’m not supposed to talk with you.”

“Really? What lawyer?”

“Never got his name,” I said. “Hotel Counsel.”

She shrugged.

“Why do you want to talk with someone from security?” she said.

“I’m a detective,” I said. “Working on the Dawn Lopata case.”

“Who you work for,” she said.

The polished public self was beginning to wear away, revealing the presence of an actual person.

“I’m private,” I said. “Right now I’m working for Cone, Oakes, and Baldwin.”

“The law firm?”

“Yes. They’re defending Jumbo Nelson.”

“Pig,” she said.

“Agreed,” I said. “But is he a guilty pig? I’d like to talk to the first people into the room after he called down.”

“I was one,” she said.

“What’s your name?” I said.

“Zoë,” she said. “Zoë Foy.”

“Sit down, Zoë,” I said. “Tell me what you saw.”

“Against the rules to sit with a guest,” she said. “The big Indian let me in. It’s a suite. Jumbo is there, in the living room, sipping some champagne.”

“Dressed?” I said.

“Wearing some kind of velour sweat suit, ’bout size one hundred.”

“Shoes?”

“The stupid-looking flip-flop slippers the hotel provides,” she said. “Me and Arnie — Elmont, the other security person — go right past them into the master bedroom and she’s on the bed, fully clothed, lying on her back, with her hands at her sides.”

“Bed made?” I said.

“Yeah,” she said. “Rumpled, but the spread was still on.”

“Was she alive?” I said.

She shook her head.

“When I was on the job in Quincy,” she said. “I had some EMT training. Me and Arnie could see right away she was cooked. But I tried resuscitating her, until the ambulance arrived.”

“No luck?”

“Nope.”

“They took her to Boston City?” I said.

She smiled faintly.

“Boston Medical Center,” she said.

“I’m old school,” I said. “Anything else you saw that matters?”

“Fatso looked a little worried,” she said. “The Indian didn’t look anything. Nobody looked, you know, like, sad that this kid had died.”

“You think they knew she was dead?”

“She didn’t look alive,” Zoë said.

“Anything else?” I said.

She shook her head. I took my card from a shirt pocket and gave it to her.

“If you or Arnie have any recollections of interest,” I said, “give me a call.”

“The pig did it, you know,” Zoë said.

“You sure?” I said.

“Creepy bastard,” Zoë said.

“Be nice if we could hang it on him,” I said. “But maybe he didn’t.”

She shrugged.

“Idle question?” I said.

“Sure.”

“How come you were willing to talk with me after I told you Hotel Counsel said no?”

Zoë smiled.

“Fuck him,” she said.