Chapter Three: The Baldwin Arms

The old woman made the sign of the cross, forehead to belly, shoulder to shoulder. Clutching her rosary beads in her left hand and her keyring in the right, she mumbled a prayer, selected a key and slid it into the lock. There was a muffled groan, then a click as the bolt gave way and the door opened on room 213 of the Baldwin Arms.

It was the smell that came to her first. The smell never came out, no matter how much scrubbing you did or how much industrial strength cleanser you used. It lingered, hanging in the air like a bad omen. It seeped into the cracks and crevices you could not reach with a mop or a sponge. It became one with the fibers of the carpet and the paint on the walls. It was the smell of death.

And not a pretty death at that. No. The person who had met his end in this room had not gone peacefully in his sleep. He had not surrendered quietly to some fatal but mercifully quick disease. He had died hard. Very hard.

Analicia Delgado herself had found the body. It was not the first time and probably would not be the last. It was, however, the worst. She had worked at the Baldwin Arms as a chamber maid since she was sixteen years old. Almost fifty years now. And in those years, a good many people had checked into the hotel and checked out before they ever left their rooms. It had earned the dubious reputation as a good place to die.

Analicia had thought that she had seen it all, and it never failed to amaze her. A person intent on doing himself in could certainly be creative about the task. If they could put that creativity to work in their lives, she often thought, they would not have ended up here. All that was in the past, though, and if the lives that had been lost at the Baldwin Arms had had no effect elsewhere, they had effected Analicia. She would certainly never look at a butter knife in the same way again. And she would absolutely, positively, never, ever carry a purse with a shoulder strap. She had learned a valuable lesson in what these seemingly harmless things could be made to do.

But none of this had prepared her for the sight awaiting her inside room 213 on that day just a week ago. Nothing could prepare her to witness first hand what one human being can do to another when rage, hate, and basic animal instinct take over and all rational thought ceased.

Analicia had stepped across the threshold that day, and try as she might, she could not go back. One glance and she knew that she would never be the same. The picture would remain with her for the rest of her days.

She had gone home that night after giving her statement to the police for four solid hours, and had gone into her kitchen. There was some speculation among the police that the damage to the body had been done with a butcher knife, although, from what she could find out, no knife had been found. Even so, Analicia had loaded every large knife she owned into a box. She had driven ten miles, parked her car in a quiet, secluded spot, and thrown the knives, one by one, into the Willamette River, where the current would eventually carry them into the Pacific Ocean. These knives, at least, would never reek havoc with human tissue.

And now, Analicia stood once more in the doorway of room 213. Every inch of the room had been dusted for fingerprints and gone over with a magnifying glass and tweezers. The final humiliation of one young man's life had been documented in hundreds of police photographs, artless things with harsh, angry shadows, taken not with love but with disgust.

Analicia had not looked too closely at the body. She had not wanted to. The blood on the walls, on the floor, the bed, the ceiling had been more than enough. But even in that split second, out-of-the-corner-of-her-eye glance, she had noted that there was something terribly, hideously wrong. She tried not to think about it. After all, wasn't it enough to have seen such carnage. Did she really have to know all of the details?

But she had not been spared them. Little else was spoken of at the Baldwin Arms in the week that followed the discovery, and although, mercifully, very little was said in front of Analicia, and no one asked her about it, at least, not directly, because she was old and frail and didn't need the aggravation, she did overhear things. And, even though everyone was suddenly silent when she entered the room, she was finally able to put two and two together and come up with a horror story that even the sickest minds in Hollywood would not dare write.

"...heart was washed out and laying there right next to the sink to dry."

"...were ground into the carpet like a couple of old cigarette butts."

"...just cut the damned thing off and shoved it down his throat."

The images haunted Analicia by night. By day, she had taken to rattling her cleaning cart as loudly as she could so as to warn everyone of her approach. If there was more, she simply was not going to hear it.

There was more. And her tactics did not work with everyone. Denzel Jefferson, a retired bell hop who spent his days in the lobby of the Baldwin Arms reading the newspaper and shooting the bull with whatever deskclerk happened to be on duty, was deaf as a stone and did not hear Analicia's loud approach.

"Sho' nuf, dey foun' 'is fin'ernails whens dey done de o'topsy. Right dere in 'is stomach. Ha'f digested, I hears. Ma boy's a p'lice officer, and he tolds me so."

It was only then that he saw Analicia standing halfway between the desk and the elevators, face tinted slightly green, knees shaking.

"I's sorry, Miz Annie. I din hear ya come in." He was truly sorry. She could see that. His pleasant, wrinkled face had changed. His skin, the color of rich mahogany, now more closely resembled cherrywood. He cast down his yellowing eyes and turned away from her.

Analicia saw no more. She ran for the ladies' room as fast as her stiff, elderly legs would carry her. She had almost made it, too. Fortunately, cleaning was her job and no one ever had to know.

Mr. Jefferson was not in the lobby when she came out of the restroom fifteen minutes later. She had had time to get herself together and wanted to tell him that she accepted his apology. That it really wasn't his fault. That he had done nothing wrong. But the desk clerk told her that he had left as soon as she had run off. So, with a pang of guilt, she returned to her work, hoping against all odds that kind, gentle Mr. Jefferson would have one of those memory lapses that seemed to come more and more frequently as the years went by. That just maybe he would forget having felt so bad.

But at four o'clock, when she got off work, he was there waiting by the door. He had changed into his best Sunday suit and held in his hand a five dollar bouquet of daisies and baby's breath, which he held out to her the moment she appeared. She accepted them, and he turned to go, but in a move she could only call impulse, she put one hand on his shoulder, and the moment he turned around, she planted a kiss on his cheek. Once more, mahogany turned to cherrywood, this time accompanied by a sheepish grin.

All of this had happened just yesterday, and tonight, the two of them were to dine at Mr. Jefferson's apartment. He was going to fix collard greens, which Analicia had never tasted, but was willing to try, and gumbo, just like his dear wife used to fix before she got so sick and passed on.

Analicia felt a bit giddy at the thought. Silly, she knew. After all, they were both widowed and getting on in years. But, then again, they did seem to have a lot in common, and just maybe they could become good friends.

But before any of that, she had her job to do. Just one more room to clean and then she would go home, shower, and change into her best dress and be at Mr. Jefferson's door right on time. Maybe she would even wear her pearls. True, they were just wooden beads painted to look like pearls, but they made her feel good. She could pretend, couldn't she?

If only she could pretend to do her work and just slip out the back door. It wasn't as if the Baldwin Arms was so busy that one room more or less would make a difference. Or even be noticed, for that matter. But it wasn't like Analicia Delgado to leave anything undone. And, if she didn't clean this room, it would be preying on her mind all evening. To put it simply, she didn't want to be thinking about blood stains when her mind could be occupied with more pleasant matters.

The police had called just this morning to tell the manager of the Baldwin Arms that they had completed all of the tests and taken all of the photographs that needed to be taken. So, in other words, the yellow tape printed with the red words 'POLICE LINE - DO NOT CROSS' could be taken down and the room could be cleaned and rented out, and the whole messy affair could be forgotten. Until and unless an arrest was made.

The room would have to be painted, of course. And the carpeting would have to be replaced, since the police had cut out sections of it for analysis. Before any of that, though, it had to be cleaned.

And that brought Analicia to the door of room 213, where she stood in the doorway, looking at what was left of the not quite final resting place of an anonymous young man. She crossed the room and opened the windows to let in some fresh air. Then she went about her work, quietly and quickly, trying not to think too much about what she was doing.



Back to index
Prologue Chapter One Chapter Two Chapter Three Chapter Four
Chapter Five Chapter Six Chapter Seven Chapter Eight Chapter Nine Chapter Ten