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.
"Zoe," she said.
"Zoe Foy."
"Sit down, Zoe," 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," Zoe 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," Zoe said.
"You sure?" I
said.
"Creepy bastard,"
Zoe 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?"
Zoe
smiled.
"Fuck him," she
said.