Before I Wake (8 page)

With the strike Rae knew the Justice Police Department was stretched very thin. There was always a possibility that another pair of hands would make the difference between a good outcome and bad. She was still a cop in her heart. There were church services tonight; she could come back.

Rae followed Nathan.

* * *

Nathan followed the Sunburst Hotel manager down the hall to room 3712. The first responder to the scene stood before the closed door.

Several guests were clustered out in the hall watching what was going on. Nathan didn’t need them hearing the report or seeing this scene. “Sergeant, close off this wing of the hall and task the arriving officers for the perimeter; then come give me your report.”

“Yes, Sir.”

Nathan pushed open the door of the hotel room. “Step inside so the door can close, but stay there,” he instructed the hotel manager. Nathan stepped toward the king-size bed and the body lying still beneath the covers.

He touched his radio transmit button. “55-J, 10-97. Confirm 10-54. Notify appropriate.”

“10-4.”

The lady looked asleep, her head resting square on the pillow with her right hand limp atop the covers.

Nathan simply stood and looked for a long time, absorbing the details from the eyelashes against her cheek to the way her mouth slackened on the left side. There were possibly the faintest signs of a seizure—a touch of dried spit on the corner of her mouth, the jaw a little off for a natural slacking of the muscles in sleep. Her hands were open, fingers curved, her left hand partially caught in the sheet.

The covers were disrupted only slightly, suggesting it had been her own movements disturbing them. There weren’t signs of violence marring her face as it recorded the circumstances of her last breath. Her hair had been brushed before she turned in, for while it showed the disruption of movement during sleep, it still had a brushed-in shine. Death had come early in the morning?

“Did the maid come into the room, touch anything?”

“No. Lucinda knocked, came in to deliver the towels and toiletries requested on the form last night, and got a shock when she saw this. She closed the door and used the hotel radio to call down to my office. She wasn’t very coherent, but she was real insistent that she just shut the door.”

“I can understand her shock; this isn’t something you expect to walk in and see. Where is Lucinda now?”

“My assistant manager took her down to her office. We’ll see that she doesn’t talk to anyone else before you speak with her.”

“Good.” Guests died in their sleep of natural causes, it happened even in a small town like Justice, but rarely to someone this young. A suicide? A drug overdose? He needed definitive answers on this one, and the sooner the better.

“Please get the room records, anything she signed, how she paid for the room, if there were calls made. Bring them up here.”

“I’ll get them,” the manager agreed, looking relieved to be able to leave the room.

* * *

Nathan scanned the tables and dresser: no prescription bottles to be seen, no drinking glass. Her things were in order, with a random carelessness that suggested they remained where she had set them down. There was no ring on her hands, and he saw none that she had removed. A book rested on the bedside table, near the edge.

Nathan stepped to the bathroom door and turned on the light, studying the counter. A toothbrush, washcloth, makeup, hair dryer. No sign of a prescription bottle or pill case. Numerous towels were draped over the shower rod and the side of the tub to dry. She’d used the pool on Saturday? He could faintly smell chlorine.

There was nothing visible that caused him concern.

Lord, she just died?

He didn’t like the feel of that answer, for it made him feel so small. She didn’t wake up. It brought back the vividness of the child’s prayer:
Now I lay me down to sleep, I pray the Lord my soul to keep.
. . . Only he had always said it differently,
I pray the Lord my soul to leave.
A child’s fear of the bogeyman in the night, of going to sleep and never waking again.

Death came suddenly; that was God’s business. But when death came with assistance; that was his business.

* * *

Who was she?

Why had she come to town?

Nathan needed answers to both questions. Two Chicago newspapers were on the table, one from Friday, another from Saturday. There were no signs of a laptop or briefcase, making him doubt she was here on business.

Nathan pulled on latex gloves and picked up the trash can. She liked Diet Mountain Dew, granola bars, and had tossed away the last two bites of a bagel with cream cheese. A small empty sack from the Fine Chocolates Shop downtown confirmed she’d visited at least the downtown area since she had arrived in town.

He moved to the dresser. He found a slim clutch billfold in the top drawer, picked it up, and opened the clasp. A single key with a rental car tag, a set of cards including a phone calling card, and a credit card. He found a driver’s license.

Peggy Worth, 433 Greenbriar Drive, Waukegan, IL.
She’d signed her license to be an organ donor.

He looked toward the bed where she lay, a silent witness to his search. She was twenty-eight years old.

She was so incredibly young to be dead.

She was also staying at a hotel less than three hours from her own home. That struck him as odd.

He counted the cash she was carrying. Three hundred and twelve dollars in small bills, mostly tens and twenties. It seemed a bit much, but it fit with a tourist. The billfold yielded a card for a hairdresser appointment, a slip from a dry cleaner, but no photos.
Who was important in your life, Peggy? Who is wondering what has happened to you; why you are late to arrive or to call?

* * *

“This is unfortunate.”

His deputy, Gray Sillman, head of the investigative division, joined him. Nathan offered the license. “I’m getting a mixed sense of this; I haven’t seen anything particularly alarming yet, but it just doesn’t feel right.”

“Pretty lady.”

Nathan nodded. “See if you can find a scanner in this hotel, enlarge the photo, and get a couple dozen copies made. Let’s get officers canvassing to find out who saw her before a guest who might have useful information checks out.”

“I expect she’ll be remembered.” Sillman stepped out to make the arrangements.

Nathan checked through her suitcase.

The hotel manager returned. “Her name is Peggy Worth, and she registered with a Visa card.”

“How many nights?”

“Four. She checked in Thursday evening and was scheduled to leave Monday. There are room-service charges on her bill but no outgoing long-distance phone calls. Local calls wouldn’t show up.” The manager handed over the paperwork.

“Thank you. The coroner is on the way. Would you arrange for him to come up through the service entrance?”

“Already arranged. Do I need to move the guests who stay on this wing to different rooms?”

Nathan closed the suitcase, not finding anything particularly helpful. “You might want to clear the two rooms on either side of this one as people will be coming and going for a few hours, possibly the rooms by the elevator as well. I’ll also be down to talk with the maid in a few minutes. Your assistant’s office is located where?”

“Behind the check-in desk.”

“Would you also pull the security log for this room; let me know when she came and went from her room since the time she arrived.”

“I’ll start work on it,” the manager agreed and left.

* * *

“Sir.” The initial responding patrol officer stepped into the room to offer a folded note. Nathan took it as two more officers joined him.

He held out the car key. “Let’s see about finding her rental car in the parking lot; maybe we’ll find something there to get us to next of kin.”

“Yes, Sir.” The officers headed out to get the search started.

Nathan opened the note.

5’7”, blonde hair, green eyes, designer eyeglasses. She has a workout jacket with an LA gym logo above the pocket. She left the exercise room about 7:40 p.m. Saturday heading for the hotel sauna and after that said she had a late-night, first-time date to see the movie
Holiday Park
. She’s a freelance reporter with the
Chicago Daily Times
and the
National Weekly News
.

He turned over the note. It wasn’t signed.

Nathan stepped to the door. “Who gave you this?”

The officer pointed down the hall to a group of guests watching what was going on. “The lady in blue.”

Rae Gabriella.

She was talking with a young teen, making notes on a pad of paper. She was dressed for a morning out in a simple and elegant dress, her hair pulled back by a red ribbon and the high heels accentuating her graceful posture and long legs. Nathan watched her for a moment, making herself at home in the investigation with the ease of an officer assigned to the case.

Rae had a room at this hotel, and Nathan had never met a cop yet who wasn’t curious. She’d probably stepped out of her own room and into this scene. Nathan walked toward the group, not sure what he wanted to say to her, deeply appreciating the note she had passed him, while knowing this was probably a crime scene she shouldn’t be involved with.

Nathan paused as the elevator opened. The coroner stepped out; a spry man at sixty, the doctor and former medical naval officer was one of the county’s irreplaceable personnel. Nathan had never seen Franklin Walsh lose his focus even at the most awful of crime scenes.

“What do we have, Nathan?”

Nathan glanced down the hall at Rae and left that conversation for later.

* * *

Nathan turned back to room 3712 and held the door for the doctor. “She’s young. Peggy Worth, twenty-eight, according to her driver’s license.”

Franklin set down his bag and walked over to the bedside to lean down and study her face. “Tell me what you’ve found in the room.”

“No medication of any kind, not even an aspirin. The only food in the room are the remains in the trash of a bagel and cream cheese, granola bar wrappers, an empty Diet Mountain Dew can, a chocolate sack from the shop downtown.”

“Bag them for me. I wouldn’t think food allergy, but we’ll rule it out. Any inhaler for asthma, a medical card?”

“Nothing so far. We believe she was working out in the hotel exercise room last evening around seven-thirty, and then may have visited the sauna. The damp towels in the bathroom suggest she might have also gone for a swim at the pool.”

“Anything that looks like performance-enhancement drugs or even simple vitamins?”

“Not so far. We’re still looking for her car and any more luggage.”

The coroner loaded film in his camera and took several photos; then he set it aside and pulled on gloves. He moved back the blankets. “There’s no gross sign of physical trauma, no bruises on her neck or her arms.”

He opened her eyelids to study her eyes. Using a tongue depressor, he opened her mouth and studied her tongue and gums.

“Maybe a seizure, rather than a heart attack. Her shoulders are a bit drawn under her like her chest had lifted up, and these look like bite marks on her inner lip. Her eyes are a little cloudy but that could be the time until the body was found. You called for the transport?”

“Yes.”

“I’ll do the autopsy this afternoon and put a rush on the toxicology.” Walsh stepped back. “To die in your sleep the reflex to breathe has to be suppressed or blocked, and in someone this young—something massive has to go wrong to make that happen by natural causes. When we move the body, let’s keep it simple. Wrap the sheets over her and put the entirety in the body bag. Send the blankets over as well.”

“I appreciate the expedite.” Nathan stepped out to the hall as he heard a stretcher being maneuvered from the elevator. “They are here now.”

Rae was no longer with the group by the elevator; she was farther down the hall talking with an elderly lady watching what was happening. Nathan headed her way. Rae nodded and closed her pad, thanked the lady. Rae came to join him.

“You’ve been busy.”

“I’m not trying to step on your investigation. It just felt really strange just standing here not doing anything.”

Nathan raised a hand to pause her words. “You’re fine, Rae. I appreciate the note you sent to me. What else do you know?”

“Everything I’m sure of is in the note.”

“I’m the kind of guy that likes to hear the less-than-certain maybes too.” He scanned the top page of her notes and saw a neat orderliness. He could either encourage her away from talking with guests, or he could trust Bruce’s judgment that she was a good cop and knew how to do a field interview that didn’t suggest the answers by the questions she asked. “Keep taking notes. As soon as I get things organized here, I’m buying you a cup of coffee and I want to read that notepad.”

“Thanks, Nathan. If I’m not here or in the lobby downstairs, I’ll be in my room—” she pointed—“that one —3723.”

Five doors down. “I shouldn’t be long; I’ve got an interview to do downstairs. If for some reason I get delayed and you need to leave the hotel, would you mention it to an officer?”

“Sure.”

He paused long enough to smile at her. “For what it’s worth, this kind of thing doesn’t happen often in my town.”

“It’s a quiet town; I’ve been assured of that many times.”

His words were getting echoed by others . . . it was a bit disconcerting. Nathan went to interview the maid who had found the lady.

7

Nathan tapped on Rae Gabriella’s hotel-room door forty minutes after their brief hallway conversation. He heard the chain slip off and Rae opened the door holding a phone in her hand. “Come in, Nathan. I’m almost done.” She turned away from the door and back into the room. “Is there any indication of what kind of chemical it is in the vat, Frank?”

Nathan hesitated before stepping into the room, not sure he wanted to eavesdrop on her conversation. Rae had changed from her dress to jeans and a sweatshirt. Her hotel room was neat, the bed made, a well-read newspaper folded back together on the table, and a cup of coffee cooling on the desk.