The Mystery Guest

I buzz in with my keycard and prop the door open. The detective remains outside, but her head juts in, pivoting this way and that. I know what she’s doing because I do it, too. She’s memorizing the details of the room, saving them in her mind’s eye to be studied later.

The bed is freshly made, tight hospital corners folded just so. The water glasses on the table are fitted with sanitation covers. The carpet is freshly vacuumed in Zen-garden rows, the pile perfect and pristine. Not only has this room been recently cleaned but also Ms. Sharpe is clearly gone. There’s no suitcase anywhere, no personal items at all on any surface.

“Is everything okay, Molly?” I hear behind me. “Did we polish everything adequately?”

I turn to see Sunshine and Sunitha, two senior maids, standing by a cleaning trolley in the doorway beside the detective.

“Have either of you seen Ms. Sharpe?” I ask the maids.

Sunshine shakes her head. “Reception said she checked out. We were told to clean this suite and Mr. Grimthorpe’s adjoining one. He’s checked out as well.”

“That’s one way to put it,” Detective Stark says.

“He’s dead,” I explain to the maids. “Very dead.”

Sunitha’s mouth falls open. Sunshine’s eyes pop wide.

“You hadn’t heard?” I ask.

“We’re short two maids, Molly, because you and Lily were assigned to the tearoom. This is actually Lily’s room to clean, but Cheryl told us to do it. We haven’t left this floor all morning,” Sunshine explains.

“Can I look through your trash?” the detective asks.

Sunshine and Sunitha exchange a look that can only mean they suspect this giant of a woman dressed head to toe in black of lunacy, perversion, or a medley of both.

“She’s here to investigate,” I say. “Please produce the bagged garbage from this room.”

Sunitha nods and rummages through her trolley to extract a small white garbage bag, which she passes to Detective Stark.

“Got any gloves?” Stark asks.

Sunshine grabs a fresh pair of disposables from the trolley and passes them to her.

The detective puts them on, opens the bag, fishes around for a bit, then produces something from the bottom, a crumpled note on Regency Grand stationery. She smooths it out as I read over her shoulder:

You are an angel.

Regards,

Your Chiefest Admirer

The penmanship is perfect, written with a fountain pen, judging from the finely tapered curlicues and loops. It looks so familiar, and yet I can’t quite place it.

“Is it Mr. Grimthorpe’s handwriting?” the detective asks.

“Definitely not,” I reply. I can tell that much immediately.

The detective stares at me, her brow furrowed. “What makes you so sure?”

My mind races. My heart pounds. The edges of the room start to darken. “I know because…because he signed books earlier, for me and for many others,” I blurt out. “This handwriting is not a match.”

“Hmm,” Stark replies.

Sunshine and Sunitha have been following the conversation between us as though it were a tennis match, but trained as they are to serve guests rather than question them, they ask nothing about what in good heavens is going on.

“Ladies, did Sharpe leave anything else behind in this room?”

“Yes,” Sunshine says. “Those.” She points to twelve red, long-stem roses in a glass vase perched atop her maid’s trolley. “Molly, we kept them. It seemed like such a waste to throw them out. We wanted to ask you—is that okay?”

I immediately sympathize with the conundrum faced by my well-intentioned maids. On the one hand, A Maid’s Guide & Handbook to Housekeeping, Cleaning & Maintaining a State of Pinnacle Perfection (an official rule book I conceived of and wrote myself) states that items left behind by guests shalt be delivered unto the lost and found at Reception. However, a subclause also says that if and when items left behind by guests are deemed discarded rather than forgotten, said items may be acquired by maids for personal use.

“You may keep the flowers,” I say. “Waste not, want not.”

“What about Mr. Grimthorpe’s room?” Stark asks. “Was there anything left in it?”

Sunitha shakes her head.

“Nothing in the trash?”

“Nothing in the room at all,” Sunshine offers. “No suitcase, no garbage, nothing. Just a downturned bed.”

“So her boss dies suddenly and she hightails it outta here, just like that?” Detective Stark squints. She folds the note from the rubbish and puts it into her notepad, then walks over to the trolley, dumps the garbage bag she’s holding into the bin, and discards her rubber gloves.

“That will be all,” she says as she starts down the hall.

“Where are you off to?” I ask, trailing after her.

“To the station.”

“So your investigation is finished?”

She turns suddenly, and I almost face-plant right into her.

“It’s far from finished. You better hope for your sake—and for the sake of your little sidekick—that everything in the tearoom comes up clean.”

“Oh, it will,” I say. “Everything will be spotless once I’m done.”