Zahra Axinn

Chill

I hadn’t been there for five minutes when I heard the news. It was the sensation of the moment. Embellished tales of the incident were dripping out of the town like honey from a bear’s mouth, sticky and attracting flies. As I walked down the street from the bus station, I heard their conversations.

“They say she killed herself,” one woman would say in hushed tones.

Another would shake her head and reply, “To strangle yourself with your own necklace, there’s a death I wouldn’t like to face.”

Normally, I think these women would stop gossiping in front of a visitor. They would hold their faces hard and stony as they walked past the stranger on the street. But for me they did no such thing. Frankly, although they didn’t know me, if you had asked them they would have sworn that they recognized me. They would have sworn that I was the daughter or granddaughter or niece of a friend. Often times in these gambling towns I am stopped on the street for just that reason. Old women will grab my arm and say to me, “You are Susan’s girl!?” I shake my head. Sometimes they insist. Of course, there is a town where they are right and I am somebody’s daughter, coming home after months away.

I’ve often wondered what it is about my brown face and my deep eyes that makes people want to recognize me. People have told me that I’m beautiful, but that doesn't explain why I get stopped on the street all the time. Once a person close to me told me that it was my taciturn nature that people detected and it made them want to hear what I had to say.

Anyhow, it was this quality and the way that people always want to place me that led to my involvement with the events surrounding Mrs. Calhoun’s death. I was actually there to conduct interviews, to collect bits and pieces of the broken language that a few of the older men and women spoke. That was what I did, what I still do, I suppose, string together the fragments of the culture that is disappearing all too quickly. I’m good at it because people take my quietness to be respect and often open up to me. I’ve been to college and to graduate school, somehow escaping my so-called inevitable fate of being down-and-out.

So I passed those women on the street and overheard the first of many things. I was headed down to the casino, where the hotel was in that town. As I approached the casino, I spotted some police cars. Putting two and two together, I figured that the incident the ladies had been talking about had happened there.

I also figured that my reservation still had to be confirmed and that there was no sense in standing there gawking, so I went on towards the main entrance. The building was, of course, gaudy and flashy. The doors were made of glass and had brass around the panels and at the handles. Several police officers stood around near the front, apparently at a loss as to what they should do. They ignored me and I went into the floor of the casino.

The whirring electronic noises, the groans and yells of the gamblers and the seemingly never-ending windowless hall went unnoticed by me. I passed it all on my way to the front desk, not once tempted by the jackpot or the flaring lights, the spinning roulette wheel or the heavy clinking of the chips.

“Are you Ms. Delwood?” the man at the front desk asked.

“I am. I’ve come to check in,” I said plainly.

“Good, good. I’ll get to that in a moment. If you will just leave your bag behind the desk and follow me,” he instructed, pointing to indicate where I might place the bag. “You study languages, right?”

I nodded slowly and put my bag down where he had pointed, following him back towards the entrance.

“I’m currently employed to record as much native language as possible,” I explained.

“Yes. Well that’s a thing of luck for us, you see. We’re in need of someone who can interpret. As you may have perceived, we are having a little bit of a situation here.”

He looked at me, expecting me to say something. I just nodded again.

He continued, “The police will explain everything to you, I guess.”

So we went out the door and came to face the police officers. This time, when I approached, they came to introduce themselves to me.

One said to the hotel man, “This is Kimi Delwood, I presume.”

“Yes. You have your translator.”

I was confused. In my line of work, the police are not the usual clients. What did the law enforcement want with an almost dead language anyways? I looked over at the officers questioningly. I wanted some sort of explanation.

“Ms. Delwood, you are probably wondering what it is that’s going on,” said the officer who had spoken before. “We are currently investigating a death that took place in this hotel. So far, the evidence points to suicide. Our main witness doesn’t speak much English and is very old. Although many of the people here speak multiple languages, we would like to have an unbiased interpretation from someone who didn’t know Mrs. Calhoun. What we would appreciate from you is some simple translation. You will be compensated for your work, I’m sure.”

Even though it was out of my way, I accepted the job. I guessed that interviewing some old man about a suicide wouldn’t take very long and I could use the extra money. Once I had agreed, the police officers took down my contact information and gave me their number in case I had any questions. Then I decided that I’d better go back to the front desk and get the keycard to my room.

I got my bag back and went to the elevator. I pressed the button for the fifth floor, where my room was. There was a sticky note posted next to the buttons, which read:

Third floor closed to hotel and casino visitors. Thank you.

I assumed it was because the death had taken place there. It was somewhat unnerving to know that that woman had recently died that on that floor. I brushed away the thought. The elevator opened and I went down the hall to my room.

Honestly, I’d like to say that I went into my room, sat at the desk and brushed up on my translating skills. But, in truth, I fell asleep on the bed. I woke up to the sound of my cell phone’s overly bright ring-tone. I reached for my purse, which I had left on the bedside table and grabbed the phone out of it. I flipped it open.

“Hello?”

“Ms. Delwood?”

“Yes.”

“This is Officer Banks, we spoke earlier. I’m calling because we have the witness available. We were wondering if we could set up a time soon when we could have you help us with the interrogation.”

“Of course.” I looked at myself in the mirror that was hung over the desk. I had the print of the pillow case on the side of my cheek.

“We will take your schedule into account, but we do want to get this report finished and filed.”

I nodded absentmindedly, forgetting that he couldn’t see me.

“Right, right.”

I agreed to meet them at the police station around six pm. That gave me some time to order some room service and to prepare for the translation with my notes.

The police station was a few blocks away from the casino, rather conveniently located. It was a drab enough building, with peeling gray paint and no windows at the front. I entered and found myself standing in a cool lobby with some hard plastic chairs and an indoor window to the reception.

After I had checked in, I was led down to the interrogation room by a police cadet. Although the station was pretty bare overall, they did have a two-way mirror in the interrogation room. Other than that, there was a table and three of the plastic chairs from earlier. After the cadet left, I waited in the brightly lit room for the witness and the officers.

Once they got there, with the old man stumbling in bewildered, the police instructed me on how I was to conduct my interpreting.

“Be sure not to change any of the phrasing. We want this to be as close to a direct conversation as possible.”

So we began. The old man’s story was pretty simple, although it took a while for him to get to it. He spent a lot of time explaining how much he had held Mrs. Calhoun in esteem, how much of an asset she was to the community, and other praises. The police officers eventually got him to get to the point, but it took a lot of prompting on their part.

Basically, he said that he had been vacuuming the halls when Mrs. Calhoun came up from her card games around four am. He saw her come through the halls and go into her room. The man said that she seemed happy enough, from his perspective. She even greeted him, although he couldn’t say what she had said, because it had been in English. After that encounter, he had been a little surprised because he had never talked to her before and was a little bit in awe. He stood in the same spot in the hall for a while. During that time, which was presumably when the death occurred, he heard nothing out of the ordinary. Seeing as his vacuum was shut off, he would have heard something if there had been anything.

She had ordered a wake-up call at 4:15 to remind her to go to sleep, ironically. When she didn’t pick up, the hotel decided to send someone up to remind her, because she was such an important guest. It was at this point that her body was found, with the necklace in hand. The man told the first part, while the police filled everyone in on the rest.

“Isn’t it sort of strange that he heard no noises when she choked herself?” I said, after the interview was over and the police were going over their notes. “I mean, there must have been some sort of muffled groan or something. Also, she left no note. From what he said about Mrs. Calhoun, she seems like someone who would put things in order.” It was unlike me to speak up like this, as I generally keep to myself, but there was something about this particular situation that compelled me.

The police officers, who were still piecing everything together themselves, just nodded and kept on discussing the notes. After a second, one of the officers said that I could go.

When I got back to the room, for some reason, the air-conditioning in the room was malfunctioning and it was really cold. I tried to reprogram the thermostat, but it didn’t seem to make any difference. Another thing that bugged me about the room, which was trying to hard to be less like a casino room and more like a fancy resort room, was the air freshener. Even after I had unplugged it, I was still surrounded by the overwhelming fragrance.

Some way or another, I managed to be convincing enough to the police that they took me with them to check out the hotel room. They were there to check and see if they had missed anything. I was there to translate for anyone who might need it, in case they found another person to interview who would know something and didn’t speak English too well.

The room was, of course, on the third floor. It was a suite that was at the end of the hall. The police had one of those housekeeper’s keycards, which could open any of the rooms, and they pulled it out once we got to suite 340. When they opened the door, I immediately noticed two things. The same air freshener scent was there, hanging in the air, as in my room. If it was possible, it was even more pronounced and somewhat sickly sweet. Also, the air conditioning was blowing full force, even though it was two in the afternoon. In my room and― I assumed— every other room, it only went on at nights, no matter how much you coaxed the thermostat.

“What is this?” Officer Banks asked as he went over to the thermostat.

I was about to say that it was no use, when he pressed a quick combination of buttons and the cool air stopped circulating.

“You certainly have a way with the air-conditioning. I can’t get the one in my room to work,” I said, impressed.

“Unfortunately, the body is not here anymore,” Banks began. “They haven’t done the autopsy yet but we will have the opportunity to examine the body before the signs of strangulation go away. Ms. Delwood, I understand if you do not want to come with us.”

“I don’t see why I shouldn’t come. After all, it’s quite a suspenseful position to be in for me, having seen the crime scene and all.”

“Well then, I guess we’ll all go then.”

The morgue was everything I had anticipated. Cold and silent, it gave me a creeping sensation up and down the goose bumps that had settled on my arms. Once we got into the room where the bodies were stored, I felt like it had been a mistake to come.

The morgue director pulled out the corpse, which was mysteriously unmarked.

“Shouldn’t she show signs of strangulation,” I asked, mindful that no one had spoken.

“It is weird, but not necessarily any indication,” said Banks.

We stood there awkwardly for a few seconds more, before the body was slid back into its cubicle.

After that the police felt that I had seen enough and sent me back to the hotel. I sat down in an armchair in my room, with my notebook, ready to get back to my work. Still, I couldn’t help but think about all the things I had been witness to. Slowly my mind began to try to fit all the pieces together. I had a smidgen of an idea, but I had to check a couple of things first.

I walked over to the bedside table, where the hotel’s telephone was. I pressed the button to dial the front desk and heard the ring before a man greeted me with, “Hello, front desk.”

“Hi, I have a question about my air conditioning. It won’t…” I was cut off.

“I’m sorry. We program our air conditioning from a main control room. You can’t change the settings from the room unless you have a code or the system in that room has been unlocked for some reason. If you have a personal temperature preference, I would be happy to write that down and enter it into the system.”

“Oh, um, that’s okay. I just was wondering why it didn’t work.”

“Happy to help, ma’am”

I put this information in the back of my mind for then and decided to go to the casino. Although I didn’t plan to gamble, I thought I might get a better sense of the people by going back there. Maybe I could get them to tell me some more about the mysterious death.

In the casino, there was a group of people having what looked like a heated discussion. I approached them and asked what they were so upset about.

“It’s Mrs. C,” an eager young man spouted.

“Yeah,” another person continued, “the card games haven’t been the same since she’s been gone.”

The first man spoke up again, “She had this way of turning the odds against the house. Mrs. C didn’t care who won, just as long as it wasn’t the casino”

“Wow,” I said. “That’s really interesting.”
They went on, describing the great times that had been had with “Mrs. C”. Meanwhile, I began to see all the pieces of her death coming together. I thought back to the cough I had had since I had visited her room. Finally, it all was making sense. I excused myself and went outside to make a call.

“Hello?” a voice mumbled.

“Banks?”

“Speaking. Is this Ms. Delwood?”

“Yes, I…”

“We don’t need your services anymore, thank you.”
            “I’m aware of that but I think you should just listen to what I have to say. I don’t think that Mrs. Calhoun committed suicide.”
            “Really, what makes you say that?”
            “I think that there was a motive for the casino to kill her.”
            “Ms. Delwood, I don’t believe you have any of the facts correct. She was a valued member of the community and a frequent customer at the casino. In fact, I don’t think we should be having this talk at all.”

He hung up.

I closed my cell phone and walked back into the casino. As I walked towards the elevator, I couldn’t help but marvel over the strangeness of the circumstances. It was ironic that I was figuring out this sort of puzzle. I had decided to study languages in school, particularly ones that were related to the Native American tongues that I felt made up a part of a culture that was close to my heart because it was both my own and quickly disappearing. At that point I never would have pictured that my work would lead me to anything like this. And yet, there I was, piecing together a puzzle fit for the crime-solving detectives of any TV mystery series. It was then, after the strangeness had surrounded me, that I really started to make all the connections.

Back in my hotel room, I opened the curtains, letting in strong sunrays. I thought about the information I had amassed. It fell together. What I had seen with the police officers had been some sort of a cover up. After the conversation with Banks it all really made sense. The alleged suicide had to have been a murder and that murder had to have been committed by people with a good enough motive. Those people were the casino owners and managers.

What it came down to was that Mrs. Calhoun had been killed by poisoned air freshener, which had been able to get around the room because of the air conditioning. That’s what had given me that cough.

Obviously Banks was in on it, because he knew his way around the system, when he had changed it when we were in the room earlier. The police wouldn’t want the casino to be responsible for the murder of an innocent. That was because the police derived a substantial income from the gambling business, just because of all the trouble it caused. The casino must have figured that paying off the police was going to be cheaper in the long run than having someone win at cards every time. They figured that if they didn’t get rid of the lady soon enough, she would pass her tricks down to someone else.

The poisoning definitely explained why the body had no marks. I also figured that the poison must take a little bit of time to leave the body, so the police having to examine the corpse made the perfect delay needed for the evidence to disappear. Assumedly, the poison made the woman die by asphyxiation, which would make it look like she choked in the autopsy. If those police officers also said the room was clean and somehow did away with the poisoned air freshener, then there would be nothing to prove that the death was anything but a suicide.

As soon as I had gotten all of this figured out, I was not sure what to do. Who do you turn to about a crime, when the police are involved? I decided that the only way for there to be justice was to tell the story to the world. I took out my notebook and started to write an article about the murder, and I fully intended to publish it.