Mourning In Miniature (10 page)

Maddie gave every syllable its due, with equal emphasis. “Investigate” and its many inflections had become one of her favorite words, once she understood how exciting it could be to help her Uncle Skip.

“I’m going to . . . uh . . . check things out in case we have our next crafts fair here.”

That was enough to provoke an outburst of giggles. “Here,” she said. “Instead of the Lincoln Point high school multipurpose room, like every year since I was born.” There was incredulity, but no question mark in her tone.

“Once, when you were about three, we had it in the city hall auditorium,” I said.

She blew out a raspberry—something I hadn’t seen from her since that time we had the crafts fair in the city hall.

 

 

Maddie let me go peacefully, saying she had a lot of
computer work to do.

“Tell me about the project,” I said, though I was eager to go on my mission to the eleventh floor.

“Oh, it’s just gaming stuff. We’re learning how to make GUIs. That’s graphical user interfaces.” She said these words with great ease and familiarity. Was it that long ago that Maddie had a hard time pronouncing “Abraham Lincoln”?

“How interesting.”

“It’s okay, you can go, Grandma. I need to TM a few people in the class, too.”

I’d watched her nimble fingers all month, working the tiny pad on her cell phone, using abbreviations that were as new as the technology that spawned them. Besides the easily decipherable U8? I learned LSHMBH (laughing so hard my belly hurts), ?4U (I have a question for you), 1DR (I wonder), and GGN (gotta go now).

It took me a while to figure out why <3 represented “heart,” or “love,” as in “I <3 U,” until I realized that, looked at from a ninety-degree angle, the sequence was heart-shaped.

“Duh,” as Maddie would say.

“Thanks, sweetheart,” I said since she let me off the hook. “GNG.”

“It’s GGN, Grandma.”

I could hear laughter as I closed the door, pulling it several times to be safe.

 

 

I got off on the eleventh floor and approached room
eleven forty-three. The room was quite a distance from the elevator bank, down a long hallway, the carpet of which was a swirled pattern in shades of brown (dull, but, as even laypeople knew, the hallmark color of St. Francis). I passed the alcove that held the ice machine and a drink dispenser and another smaller nook with a table and a house phone. On the walls were many renderings of Duns Scotus and of St. Francis of Assisi himself, accompanied as always by birds and small wildlife.

I heard voices from several rooms as I all but tiptoed down the corridor. Otherwise, the hallway was quiet, the only sound that of a motor or generator doing I didn’t know what. The very busy Union Square with its shops and restaurants, just outside the door, might as well have been miles away.

As I rounded a corner I saw yellow-and-black tape, denoting a crime scene or construction (who was I fooling) across what had to be David’s room. I wondered if that meant he’d been murdered here in the hotel, or if the police were simply being thorough and checking where David spent his last night alive.

I closed the distance and stood in front of the door. I was surprised to see that the tape said simply
Caution
, not
Crime Scene
. Was it possible that the police hadn’t released the fact that David was murdered? This was the wrong place to be standing to ask Skip, so I deferred calling him until later.

If my possessing the key at all was questionable, entering the room crossed the line, so to speak. On the other hand, there was no officer guarding the room. For all the police knew, every guest who passed the room went inside for a look. I fingered the key card in my pants pocket. Probably not many other guests had the key, however. I took the key card out and oriented it for use. The face of the middle ages looked up at me. Was that disapproval I caught in Duns Scotus’s expression, or just the monk’s meditative state, full of gravitas?

I slipped the card in the slot.

Green light.

My heart skipped. Should I be doing this?

The green light went out.

I’d waited too long.

Another decision point. I could still turn around, pick up a San Francisco T-shirt for Maddie in the gift shop, and have committed only one transgression. I could always say that the key card must have gotten knocked off Skip’s desk and fallen into my pocket or my purse.

No one had entered or exited any room in the hallway since I arrived. There was no sign of housekeeping or maintenance personnel. I wouldn’t have minded running into a maid to get her scoop on Ben of jumpsuit fame, but I knew it was a long shot at this hour.

On the floor directly across from David’s room was a room service tray with a limp rose and two coffee mugs. A silver dome hid the remnants of what must have been late afternoon noshing.

I heard stirrings from the room service guests, as if they were about to leave. I had no choice now. I couldn’t be caught loitering.

Better to be trespassing. I inserted the key card. I’m not “breaking,” I told myself, just “entering.”

Green light.

I pushed down on the heavy metal handle, ducked under the loosely draped yellow tape, and entered the room.

I realized I hadn’t taken a breath in a while. I let out a long one. It dawned on me that the room might not be empty. Why hadn’t I thought of that a minute ago? What if someone else had the same idea I had? Someone like David’s killer.

I stood still in the dark entrance. The drapes were drawn across the large picture window. I noted again, as last night, that David’s accommodations were significantly more elaborate than ours. I thought of Maddie six floors below, unsuspecting of the risks her grandmother was taking. I couldn’t bear it if my actions were putting Maddie in danger. There could be a killer hiding in the closet of this suite, one who might go after my family after he finished me off.

I rocked back and forth, not moving my feet, turning my head in different directions, listening for signs of life. I sniffed the air for perfume or food smells.

Nothing.

I took a couple of steps, passing between the bathroom on the right and the closet on the left. If anyone were hiding, now would be the time he would jump out.

Nothing.

I wished I were anywhere but in David Bridges’s suite, the possible scene of the crime. I sniffed the air again, this time for the smell of blood.

Nothing.

The entry led to a large sitting area with a round table and chairs, a sectional sofa, and a television set. A doorway next to the television stand opened into a bedroom with two king-size beds. The drapes and comforters were more colorful than those in my room, but still unmistakably hotel décor. The bedroom drapes were open and I wished I had the time, and the right, to reflect on the magnificent view, looking northwest toward the Golden Gate Bridge.

I walked around, careful not to touch anything. There was no sign of life. Or death. The room was stripped bare, even the usual coffeemaker and basket of expensive snacks gone from the dresser.

I’d done something foolish, and indeed for nothing. I needed to get out as inconspicuously as I’d gotten in.

As I headed for the door, I saw a quick flash. A stream of light coming through a small opening in the otherwise closed drapes had hit a bright object. I traced the line of the reflection and found the object in the narrow space between the carpet and the wall in the entryway. I bent down and picked it up: a tiny oval mirror, about a half-inch long, with a thin gold rim.

A layperson might think of the item as a bauble loosened from a piece of jewelry, or a bit of broken glass. A miniaturist would know it was a mirror from a dollhouse dressing table set. A miniaturist in my crafts group would recognize it as a mirror from Rosie’s locker room.

I held the mirror by the gilt edges, between my thumb and index finger. It was impossible to see my reflection in the small area, but I knew my eyes looked weary, my face drawn, sad, and confused.

I dropped the mirror into the same pants pocket that held the key card. Did such a tiny article count as evidence? The police had obviously left it there. If a tree falls in the forest . . .

I almost laughed out loud. But another sound kept me in check.

A rattle! The doorknob was moving. Someone was trying to get in. Someone who also had the right key card?

I held my breath. I didn’t dare walk the two steps to the door and check the peephole. I had no confidence that those things worked only one way.

Tap, tap.
Not too loud. A woman’s knock?

No one is here,
I wanted to shout.

Another rattle, another knock, and he or she was gone.

I stepped to the door and looked out the peephole. This action unnerved me; I wouldn’t have been surprised to see the nose of a gun pointed at me. Could a bullet penetrate a peephole lens? All was clear, however, except for the room service tray still in place across the hall, outside the door. No other person or thing filled the cone of view.

I wished the room were closer to the elevator so I could hear a ding that would tell me when or if the knocker had left the floor.

I waited until I couldn’t stand it any longer. I opened the door a crack and looked up and down the corridor.

No sign of movement.

I slipped under the tape and walked as fast as I could toward the elevator. I kept my head high, my walk confident, as if I’d just exited a room that was legitimately mine.

In my pants pocket were a life-size key card and a miniature locker room mirror that made my face flush at the thought of them.

I came to the corner. One more lap to the bank of elevators. I felt more than saw another presence. A wave of fear came over me as I passed one door after another, staying as close to the center of the hallway as possible, lest I be easily dragged into a room on one side or the other.

I had only two more rooms to go when a door behind me opened and closed. I stepped up my pace. A tall hulk of a man passed me on the right, then turned, stood, and faced me, stopping me in my tracks. If he hadn’t been so well groomed and dressed to the nines, I might have fainted, instead of just freezing in place.

“Did you find it?” he asked. His sharp dark suit spoke of wealth and power; his heavy whisper carried authority and threat.

My heart pounded; the tiny mirror in my pants pocket seemed to be rendering the fabric transparent so that my accoster could see its outline. “What—?”

“I know you were in Bridges’s room. Did you find it?”

My gaze followed his right arm down to where his hand was hidden in a bulging pocket.

“Excuse me,” I said, moving to the left to pass him.

I knew he’d block my way. I thought this might give me an excuse to scream. He hadn’t touched me, but I felt as though he had me in a choke hold.

“Look, I know you’re from Callahan and Savage,” he said. “Tell them we’re looking for it, too.”

Wonderful. I took a breath. It was simply a case of mistaken identity. I could clear this up in no time.

“I’ve never heard of them. You have me confused with someone else. I’m here with the reunion. The Abraham Lincoln—”

“Listen,” he said, closing the already small gap between us. He gripped my arm.

I opened my mouth to scream.

The elevator doors opened and a crowd of teenagers came out. The group was loud and loaded down with packages and shopping bags. I was relieved when they headed in our direction, taking over the hallway with their different-size purchases. I looked at the red logo souvenir bags and translated the slogan to “I <3 SF.” I was delirious.

When the kids started up a chorus of the song I nearly joined them. They sang out, “I Left My Heart in San Francisco.”

The thought of my granddaughter and her <3 symbol gave me a burst of energy. I rushed past the hulking man to the elevators and slipped into the car with its doors still open to accommodate a straggler who had dropped her bundles. Frantic, I edged the teen away from the doorway, slammed in the CLOSE DOORS button, and pushed the button for the third floor. (I hadn’t sat through James Bond movies with Richard and Ken for nothing—when being pursued, never choose your actual floor on the elevator panel.)

I got off at three, found the stairwell, and ran up two flights. I arrived breathless at the door to my fifth-floor room. I knocked, said, “It’s Grandma,” and searched for my key card, all at the same time.

Maddie opened the door, the ever-present white earbud wires around her neck.

“You’re out of breath, Grandma.” She laughed, as she always did before one of her own jokes. “Was someone chasing you?”

“Very funny, sweetheart. Let’s get ready for dinner.”