Checking Inn (3 page)

It’s true.  Maybe it’s because I learned at an early age that my mother has a tendency to get herself into 
situations
.  I also learned that I am the one that is going to have to fix it for her.  I can just look at my mother and know she is hiding something.  Then I make a list and use my deductive reasoning, and I can usually figure out what it is in under an hour.  The marriage proposal took me seven minutes.  It’s my all-time best.

“Anyways, as I was saying before, we are really slow today…” I look to the others for encouragement.

“Isn’t that girl here to write the review?” My mother asks, and I can feel all three of us go tense.  “I don’t want you to be alone with her.  She was always so nasty to you, bullying you like that.  And I want to make sure for myself that she’s not going to write a bad review for us.”

I can feel Tracy shuffle awkwardly at my mother’s words.  Tracy was Samantha’s right hand girl in high school, so a lot of the nasty comments and not so funny pranks came from her, too. 

“And that mother of hers is a real piece of work, as well.  You would think she was doing me the biggest favor in the world by calling her daughter.  Did I look down my nose at her last year when I had to make that special ointment for her thighs?”  My mother tosses her silk scarf back over her shoulder.  “I’m a firm believer, though, that people like that get what’s coming to them eventually.”

Luisa whimpers beside me.

“Luisa, darling, what’s wrong?” my mother asks, but I put my arm around Luisa’s shoulders to stop her from responding.

“Luisa is feeling a little under the weather,” I say, stroking her hair.

“Oh, you poor thing,” my mother says.  “Do you need to take the day off?”

Luisa nods her head and wipes her eye.

“That might be a good idea,” I say, seeing my opportunity.  “Why don’t you take Luisa home?”

“I’ll ask Mr. Patterson,” my mother says, referring to the handyman at the Inn.  “I can start on Luisa’s work.”

“No!” I say, quickly taking my arm from around Luisa’s shoulder.  “She’s actually not that sick.”

“You know, I’m not feeling too good,” Luisa says to me and I wave away her comment. 

“You’ll be fine. “  

“Kate, if she says she’s not well…” my mother argues.

“She’s fine!  We are all fine,” I say, trying to hide my panic and look to Tracy for help.

“You know,” Tracy hedges, “we do need someone to go and pick up those new brochures from the printers in Ridgewood.”

“Right,” I nod, catching her drift.  “And we need them for this weekend.  Shoot.  I can’t believe I forgot.”

I try to cover my nostrils, pretending I have an itch on the top of my nose.

“Well if you need to go, I can cover things here.” My mother starts to sit in the chair behind the desk.

“No!” I pull her back up.  “I can’t go, I have to sort out the catering for tonight, and I’m the only one who knows the menu.”

“Write it down, then,” my mother says.

“I haven’t decided on everything yet,” I explain.

“Well, I don’t want to drive all the way to Ridgewood.  It will take me all day to get there and back.  Can’t you send a courier?” she argues.

“They don’t have anyone to get it here in time,” I say and try to remain calm.  Honestly, I ask her to do one thing, and it’s like it’s the end of the world.

I can tell my mother is still hesitant and I play the only card I have left.  “Maybe I should just ask Viv.”

I can see my mother’s lips tighten.  Really, I don’t want to encourage it between the two of them.  But, desperate times call for desperate measures.

“Honestly, I’m sure Vivienne has better things to do than go out and get brochures for our Inn,” my mother argues.

“Probably, but if she knows it’s important to me...” I say, but my mother is already picking up her purse.

“No, I can go and get them.  No need to bother her,” she says.  “In fact, I was thinking that with the review it might be better to postpone our dinner tonight.  Our attention should be fully focused on the Inn right now, don’t you think?”

“I can honestly say my entire attention is focused on our critic,” I reply.

“Good,” my mother nods.  “Not that I wasn’t looking forward to tonight.  You’ll have to send my regrets to Vivienne.  And Greg the Great, of course.”

“Of course,” I say and kiss my mother on the cheek.

I watch her leave, peering out the window until I see her car’s taillights disappear from the Inn’s parking lot, before letting out my breath. 

“What’s the deal with your mother and Vivienne?” Tracy asks as she sits behind the reception desk.

“I’m not sure how it started, but it’s a mutual hate, not so carefully disguised as a tolerable friendship.”

Vivienne is Greg’s mother.  She lives just around the corner from me, and is an up and coming interior designer.  She only started working again a few years ago after Greg’s father died– not that she needs to. Apparently Greg’s father made all the right investments and left Vivienne a small fortune.  Most of her clients are in the city, but she helped me pick out all of the furniture for the Inn.  Well, I say help.  We mainly disagreed about everything because my tastes run towards antiques and floral, and her taste is very contemporary and sleek.  She did convince me on some heavy silver metal phones for the rooms which do look very retro. 

One day, after a fight with Greg, I was unloading my story onto my mother (the one and only time, and really it’s because he broke my new clipboard), it all came out.  My mother hates the way Vivienne’s hair is so red that it could stop cars, “but she refuses to admit she dyes it.  And those god awful matching nails of hers don’t help.” She also hates how she walks, how she talks, and how she laughs.  But most importantly, she hates that Viv tells everyone I’m the daughter she never had.

I bend my head to study one of the reservation names that the front desk clerk has illegibly written down.  I love a neat and tidy appointment book, and the scrawling name is like a blemish staring up at me.

I nearly jump out of my skin as the shrill noise of the front desk bell breaks my concentration.

The shock on my face is met with a pair of studious brown eyes.  His tall frame supports wide shoulders, covered by a sports coat which is open at the front to reveal a wrinkled white shirt underneath.  Though his upper body is built, I can see there is a leanness to his frame, most likely due to his height.  His sandy brown hair is a bit of a mess, either from the wind or it’s just naturally all over the place, which emphasizes his strong cheekbones and straight nose. 

He places his forearms on the ledge of the reception desk, his tall frame forced to lean over to rest on his arms.  He moves the stack of business cards with my name so he can read them.  He doesn’t move them back into place afterwards, and I pick up the pen in front of me to stop my hands from straightening them.

“Checking in?” I ask.

“No, I’m looking for Katherine Foster,” he says in an off-handed tone while his eyes take in the surrounding area.

“That’s me; is there something I can help you with?”

He stands up straight and stretches his hand out to me.   “I’m Detective Ben Gable.  This is my partner, Donald Rice.” I didn’t notice the man standing behind him.  Detective Rice is much shorter and has a military-style haircut; his shirt is ironed and neatly tucked into his pants.  His eyes take in the reception area, looking at every corner while Detective Gable focuses on the three of us standing behind the desk.

“We got a call about a–”

“You must be here for the fire drill,” I interrupt as Mr. Patterson comes out of the kitchen carrying a toolbox.

Detective Gable looks from me to Mr. Patterson and doesn’t say anything.

“I have made sure everyone knows they have to stay here, until the drill is over,” I say, trying to let him know where I am going with this. Mr. Patterson puts his toolbox down and takes out a screw driver, inspecting the wall plug by the front door.

“Shall I show you where we keep the fire extinguisher?” I ask and wait.  Wait for him to react; wait for him to announce that we have a murdered woman upstairs and his SWAT team is waiting outside for his signal.  Wait for him to straighten my business cards.

“Please,” he says.  “Lead the way.”

Picking up my clipboard and telling myself the business cards can wait, I place a check mark on the bottom of the piece of paper.  
Show detectives the body: check
.  I nod my head to Tracy and Luisa to tell them to follow me.

We reach the bottom of the staircase and I stop suddenly. 

“Sorry, I just forgot something.” I run back to the reception desk.  I open the drawer and discretely put my inhaler in my pocket.  I’m not sure how I am going to react to seeing Samantha, but I’m pretty sure passing out isn’t going to help.  

I also straighten the cards.  Honestly, it’s just one less thing to think about.

Returning to the staircase I notice a bemused look on Detective Gable’s face. He was obviously watching my every move as I ran back.

Once we are at the top of the staircase, I turn to the right side and make sure they are following. When we get outside the door of Samantha’s room I put my hand on the doorknob and I hesitate.

Taking a deep breath I turn around and block the doorway.

“Before we go in there, I just want you to all know that I have put my life into this Inn.  My blood, sweat and tears are in every single floorboard.”  

Literally.  I nearly lost my index finger when I tried to operate the chop saw for the wood floors.  “Whatever we find in here, I can assure you, you will have our full cooperation.  But, I am begging you–” I stop myself when I see the detective’s raised eyebrows.

I nod sharply, turn around and insert the master key into the lock, and turn the handle.

Three

I open the door and enter the room, stopping abruptly when I see Becky standing in the sitting area with a duster in her hand.   Suzanne, the emergency operator, begged my mother to give Becky, her daughter, a job at the Inn after she dropped out of high school last year.  Becky’s actually been doing very well and is a great help in translating Luisa’s Spanish.  Apparently Spanish was the only thing Becky was actually good at in school.  Luisa has taken the young girl under her wing, and I know she loves bossing her around.  Becky has a large set of headphones on and is bobbing her head to the music while swiping the duster back and forth over the sitting room table. 

My eyes are wide with shock and I stand frozen in place, but Luisa pushes past me and grabs the duster from the girl’s hand, causing her to jump. 

“I told you not to use this duster on 
la mesa
,” Luisa says and inspects the wood.

“Gosh, sorry.” Becky says and takes us all in, looking very nervous.  “Am I in trouble?  I just forgot which duster– I’ll get it right next time.”

“It’s okay.” My eyes dart around the room.  It has a large sitting room as you first walk through the door, with an opening to the right leading to the bedroom.  The door has been left ajar, but Becky obviously hasn’t gone in there yet.  At least, I hope her reaction after seeing a dead body wouldn’t be to clean the coffee table.

“Who are you?” I hear Detective Gable ask Becky.

“Becky Barber, I’m the housekeeper.” Becky sees Luisa’s death stare and quickly amends, “
Assistant 
housekeeper.”

“Alright, this is really important Becky: what have you touched?”  he asks her and nudges me to the side to get into the room.

“Nothing, I was just finishing dusting the room.” I see the panicked look on Becky’s face as she tries to figure out what she has done wrong.  “But I’ll do it again… properly this time.  Ms. Luisa asked me to start on the sitting room.”

“I say do room 
dos cero ocho, not dos cero 
siete,”
 Luisa argues.

“Sorry, I didn’t get to numbers in class,” Becky says and looks at me with pleading eyes.  “Please don’t tell my mom about this, she’ll freak.”

“It’s okay,” I say and take a step forward.  “We’re just having a fire drill today and this is the… umm… home base.  No one is supposed to be in here.”

Becky looks around, taking us all in, and finally shrugs. “Okay, no problem.”

I breathe a sigh of relief and turn around to Detective Gable.  “She’s just a young girl.  She shouldn’t be here,” I say, silently pleading with him.  I can see all the others looking at us and following the conversation.

He studies my face, his jaw tightening before he nods.  “You get her out.  We see what the situation is, but if it’s… bad… we have a procedure we need to follow.”

I nod and turn to ask Becky to leave, but she’s not by the table anymore.  I look around to see Becky opening the bedroom door with a pile of towels in her hand.

“I’ll just put these away before I go,’ she says.

“Becky, no–” I say, but it’s too late.

I have never heard someone scream so loud in my entire life.  It seems to go on and on, and now I am petrified by her reaction to go anywhere near the door.  Detective Gable is the first to move and puts his body between Becky and the door opening.  He looks over his shoulder, taking in the situation in a few short seconds, before returning his attention to Becky’s face.

“Becky,” he shakes her shoulders hard to get her attention.  “Becky!”

She stops screaming and moves her eyes away from the door.

“Becky, this is very important.  I need to know exactly what you touched.”

I’m not sure Becky hears anything he says.  She just keeps staring at the bedroom door as her body shakes.

I propel myself into motion and rush over to Becky, putting my arm around her.  I know it’s the detective’s job, but he obviously can’t see that Becky is in a state of shock.

“Becky, come sit down,” I instruct, but the detective grabs my arm. 

“No, no one can move.  This whole scene could be contaminated,” he looks around with a frown.