Sudden Vacancies (9 page)

Chapter 25

A series of investigators descended upon the Blue Plate later that afternoon. They spent plenty of time looking at the many different things that were found around the restaurant. While they did not find traces of toxin on any of the surfaces, they did find a few critical concerns.

First, there was a lack of protection in the freezer section of the kitchen. This allowed warm air to flow into the area, thus keeping the meats that should have been hard frozen just barely above freezing. This made it easier for the meats to be thawed quickly, but also provided an ideal environment for bacteria to develop over time. Could the toxins also increase in the same conditions?

Carla had told Detective Young that the restaurant had passed its safety inspections with flying colors. Upon further investigation, it was discovered that the last inspection had been ten months prior. Carla had only been in charge of the kitchen as the head chef for about six months. Evidently, things had gone downhill in her time as manager. The kitchen was found to be in violation of many issues relating to keeping foods intact and safe. While the police were not willing to put Carla responsible for any of the murders, they had enough evidence to officially name her as a person of interest.

Detective Young felt that the serious violations of health and safety, combined with the number of food poisoning instances, were justification for making an initial arrest. They didn’t have enough evidence to arrest her for the murders, so the charges were based upon her endangering the restaurant patrons and lying to the police when questioned.

*****

The next day, Carla was arrested as she arrived at the hotel.

“Miss Deangelo, you are under arrest for endangering people at the Blue Plate restaurant at the Paradise Hotel,” an officer told her before reading off her rights.

Carla was silent as she was handcuffed and placed into the back of the police car; it was almost as if she had known this was coming.

However, as the officers entered the car, she started to talk a little more. “Sir, I honestly don’t know what’s going on, but I can assure you that I didn’t have anything to do with those murders.”

The policemen did not respond; they instead drove her to the station where she would be kept in custody for the time being.

*****

“Miss Deangelo, are you aware of what you’ve been doing?” the detective asked the woman in custody.

“I know about these murders and I can assure you I…”

“The fact is that your kitchen at the restaurant has not been up to par with what it is supposed to be doing. We spent many hours in the kitchen yesterday and found numerous health and safety violations. What can you tell us about what’s been going on since you became the manager of the restaurant?”

Carla explained the problems of the kitchen-such as the broken seal in the freezer and the oven problems.

She was not happy. “You’re just arresting me because I’m such an easy target-”

“Madam, please control yourself. This is not the place for you to get all excited about what’s happening here. We insist that you cooperate with us in our investigation.”

Chapter 26

Sandra hadn’t lifted the moratorium on reservations because there wasn’t definite proof that the person responsible for the murders was in police custody. However, she continued to hold out hope that the pressure in the case would cause Carla to confess to the murders.

Still, Carla was steadfast in her belief that she did nothing wrong. She continued to tell everyone at the precinct that she knew nothing about what was going on. Carla began to get the feeling that she was once again being punished for her past and that people were unfairly looking at her for who she once was and not who she’d become. Her anger was prevalent and she felt a strong need to get back at those who felt that she was nothing but a thug.

*****

The police continued to analyze the entire kitchen to figure out what was going on. They also reviewed all the necessary paperwork that came from orders for different items, repairs, and other functions.

Some of the members assumed that this was going to be an open and shut case and that she was indeed responsible for everything—however, all of the information that came from the case proved to corroborate what she originally said. As it turned out, she did indeed order the right things to maintain the freezer and regular checks had consistently been made on the oven and other materials.

The only problem that showed up was with the vendor for the seal. Apparently, the vendor struggled to make its freezer seals properly. It seems the vendor had run out of some of its materials, and had substituted poor quality materials in their place. In addition, the vendor had received several complaints from people in recent weeks, arguing that their seals were either coming apart or wearing out and therefore ineffective.

It seems that Carla was telling the truth. Therefore, the police decided to let her go.

Carla looked relieved at first, but as she left the station, anger began to churn within her at the way she had been treated. She was angry and wanted revenge on the people behind her arrest. The question was, how was she going to get it?

*****

Carla was sick of being treated like a thug. She wanted everyone to know that she was a changed woman, someone who wasn’t a threat to anyone. But how was she supposed to accomplish this in a place where there was so much suspicion?

She figured that the best way to get back at the hotel and all the people who’d been suspicious of her was to file legal action. The question was how? After all, she didn’t have much evidence to prove that she was mistreated or discriminated against.

She decided that maybe the best thing to do was to protest her work at the restaurant. She refused to come back to work to run the restaurant and starting working to find a position at a different place. She just wanted to go some place where her checkered past wouldn’t be in the way.

Would anyone at the Blue Plate or the Paradise miss her? It was doubtful.

Later Captain Charles was discussing with Bruce about local business. “Have you heard anything about what’s happening at the music store nearby?” Charles asked him. “Apparently, they’ve been shy on business lately. They’re struggling, and worried that they might have to shut down for good if this fiasco isn’t resolved. The weirdest thing about this is that people are buying some smaller things these days. They keep buying guitar strings for some reason and returning them.”

“Really? I haven’t bought any new guitar strings for a month! I did have to return a string once but that was a few weeks ago. Apparently, the string wasn’t staying in tune as well as the others and it was from a brand that I really like. I guess that’s what happens when you replace individual strings, rather than all of them.”

Charles and Bruce went over to the bar at the restaurant and talked it over while drinking root beer.

“Tell me, Bruce, what inspires you to keep performing here? Especially with all of the suspicion in the place? I mean, usually someone would just give up and stop working here, simply out of fear. Plus it’s not like you’re getting any people to come over here or anything, what with there being so many restrictions about who’s allowed to come in and out.”

“I think it’s just because it keeps me from losing my skill. I mean, I’m glad I’m still being paid and all. But - at the same time, if I don’t actually get work not only will I go broke, but I’ll lose my skills. Without my skills I can’t even begin to make a living. What else do I have to provide to the world, other than performing music in random places?

“As much as I would like to be more popular, that’s not where I am right now. I wish my career was in a better space but at the same time, there isn’t really much of a need to argue if you’re actually going to get somewhere in your job.”

Bruce then took a drink real quick and continued, changing the topic a bit. “I was actually talking with that guy who’s also looking at the case. Michael, right?”

“Yeah, Detective Michael Young.”

“I noticed him and he seems like a nice person. We just talked for a bit about stuff, nothing much about the case in particular. I know that he seems to be steadfast in trying to find out what’s going on around here. I really do appreciate how he tries so hard to get in touch with everyone and wants to work on getting people to help figure out what’s happening for a change.”

While he was happy, there was still that sense of fear over what was going on behind the scenes. He wondered how far Michael Young was willing to go when trying to figure out what was happening in the case. Is he just going to start randomly picking people out of the employee list, or would he fix his attention on people who he thought might have a history, or need cash?

Then again, would Sandra let him just start randomly accusing people?

*****

When Bruce went out to perform that night, it seemed as though there was a sense of happiness in the hotel that hardly anyone had noticed in the last few days. He actually felt joy and was happy to be there.

The restaurant was only one-quarter of the way filled; normally the place would have been at least three-quarters capacity or more, depending on the night. However, the fact that there were actually some people coming to watch him perform that night was a real surprise considering everything that was going.

Charles didn’t seem to see anything unusual with Bruce; with that fact uppermost in his thoughts, he struggled to think about others that might have been responsible for all these murders. One thing was for certain, until proven otherwise, he wasn’t prepared to trust anyone.

Chapter 27

Michael Young was still looking at his notes trying to figure out who to question next. While he was happy that he could definitely rule out Randall and all the people at the custodial department, he was still worried about what crucial piece of evidence he was missing. He didn’t feel like he could just throw Sally, Bruce, or any of those other people out of the equation. Knowing his experiences, he felt that there was no real way he could possibly trust just anyone. For all he knew, Randall could have done it, even though he was seemingly cleared.

He did look at Tina’s records and found that she didn’t appear to be hiding anything. In fact, he found that as the murders were taking place, she was not even in the hotel at the time. She was instead, back on campus; in fact, she was attending late-night study sessions during two of the evenings when the murders took place.

He did contact one of her roommates in her dorm for information on this. He used a strict code of privacy to make sure the conversation was confidential. The last thing he wanted to do was to tell her that he was looking at her in this case; after all, she was already losing money to pay for her college bills, with the work dramatically dwindling at the hotel.

As he sat there, the time for lunch came and he ordered a Red Bull with vodka from the Blue Plate. He normally didn’t drink while on the job, but as he was pretty much done for the day, he figured it couldn’t hurt. As he watched Bruce perform, he noticed that Carla was nowhere to be seen. He didn’t know she was refusing to go back to work for the hotel and was looking for employment elsewhere.

He didn’t look different from anyone else who was dining there. He had taken steps to ensure he wouldn’t stand out. He was wearing standard street clothes but adhered to the semi-formal policy used around the hotel. The last thing that he wanted to do was to make people feel as though he was being overly analytical. He didn’t even think about whether or not anyone who worked at the hotel even recognized him at the time. Maybe he should have done.

*****

Several minutes later, he walked out to his car. Having finished his drink and watching Bruce perform, he still had not seen Carla anywhere.

“Maybe she’s someplace else,” he thought to himself. “I mean, she’s a woman with a bad history but you know deep down inside she’d want to do anything she could just to prove herself.”

She had been able to answer every accusation and question presented to her, yet he still wasn’t ready to remove her from his list of suspects. He would have liked to have spoken with her again, and was disappointed that she had not been working today.

Bruce had stopped and spoken with him briefly after finishing his set, and Michael had inquired about Carla’s whereabouts. He was concerned when Bruce had told him that Carla was refusing to come back to work, and in fact had not been in to the restaurant since her arrest. Maybe she just didn’t like being singled out?

He reached his car at the nearby garage. It was a green hatchback; he didn’t want his car to give away any details suggesting that he was with the police force and had brought his own personal vehicle to the hotel.

He started to feel short of breath. The feeling seemed odd and not one he associated with the drink he had just consumed. The caffeine from the Red Bull normally offset the depressant effect brought on by the vodka.

As he headed for his parking space on the fifth floor, he started to have serious heart stress. He wondered what was going on but assumed it was because he took the stairs up to the car. The elevator was out of order so he had to walk a few flights of stairs to the fifth floor parking level.

Getting into his car, he started it up, wanting to get home as quickly as possible and lie down. His heart was racing; he couldn’t control himself and he started to experience some physical tics. It was like nothing he had ever felt before.

As he started out of the parking area, the muscle tics became so pronounced that his right foot slammed down on the accelerator, thus causing the car to burst through the guardrail on the fifth floor. His car sailed off the parking level, nose-diving towards the ground, nearly sixty feet below.

A large fireball came from the car as it landed, pinning one passerby. The passerby was killed instantly; Michael’s body was completely burned up in the resulting fire.