seymoure

Questions

“I often wish... that I could rid the world of the tyranny of facts. What are facts but compromises? A fact merely marks the point where we have agreed to let investigation cease.”

-Bliss Corman

We arrived at the hotel in a much shorter time than I expected. We entered the lobby and identified ourselves, and then went to inspect the elevator. This, of course, with my limited understanding of the workings of the machines

I took some photos and interviewed all the lobby crew who were present that day. They had all been coached very well, but it amounted to what they knew as the truth.

The manager arrived with a folder of newspaper clippings he had kept from that day. I might have been very concerned about the fact that he showed them to me in laminated form, until I saw that he was quoted or pictured in all of them. People’s singular connection with history is something that we cannot underestimate. If everybody who says they were at Woodstock had been, then the entire state of New York would have been over-flowing.

What I saw in his file was nothing beyond what I already knew, so I wasn’t able to divine much.

About the time I decided that it was a dead end, the manager came over.

“My former house detective asked that you call him,” the man said. “He doesn’t work here anymore, so you’ll have to call his home.”

He stuck out his hand and presented a slip of paper with a name, phone number and an address scrawled on it. Chester and I sat in the lobby as I dialed the phone.

“Hello?”

“Is this Becker?” I asked.

“Who is this?” came the reply.

“My name is Dillon from Otis Elevator; I was given your number this morning.”

“I’m at home, could you come here in a bit?”

“Certainly,” I assured him and hung up.

We got a cab and were at the address in less than 20 minutes.

The house was modest, but clean. It was the kind of home you might expect from a retired police officer. We knocked and the door was answered at once.

“Mr. Dillon?” the occupant asked.

“Yes, and you are Vern Decker?”

“Yeah, yeah, come on in,” he said curtly as he waved us in.

“This is my assistant, Mr. Goode,” I said as I presented Chester, who was greeted with a quick handshake.

“Could I see your identification?” he said suddenly. I handed the card to him and he took it over to a lamp to inspect. He adjusted his glasses and gave the credentials a thorough going over.

“Well, those are very good. Top drawer,” he said, and it back to me, “Now who are you really and why are you here?”

I took a breath.

“I’m old enough to remember Mr. Dillon and Chester Goode, so I doubt a double coincidence. I don’t know what you think you could profit by this action, so why don’t you explain it to me.”

“Name’s Dan Grant and we’re Private Investigators and I’m checking into Gary Barton’s death because an interested party believes it may not have been an accident. My associate here is really named Chester. I’m sorry for the mislead, but nobody wants to answer the questions of somebody who is unofficial. I hope you understand there is no financial gain involved, just a search for the truth.”

A smirk crept across the old man’s face.

“Hell, if you can take those bastards for a couple of million, I’ll be happier. They fired me because I started to ask a few questions that they felt were ‘out-of-line.’”

He offered us a couple of chairs and some glasses of water.

“What did you want to tell us?”

“They weren’t lying when they said there was an Otis guy there that day, I checked him out myself,” he lit up a pipe and after a drag continued, “The catch was that he was there DURING the accident. He got there about an hour before hand. He was fiddling with things when the guy’s car took the plunge. Then he did a quick inspection, said it was an aging cable he had intended to change. He called the office and made a report, and then about three hours after the whole thing happened, he okayed a call to the Medical Examiner. He met with the police, filled out a form, and took off.” He sat back in his over-stuffed chair. “We never saw him again or heard from the company.”

“You’re sure he was with the company?”

“Oh, I checked him out good. He started there 6 months before the accident and quit the next week. Said he was too traumatized to continue. Smelled to heaven to me.”

Chester made a clicking sound I had heard him make when he hit a weather bank that was unexpected.

“Then when you said something you got fired?”

“They blamed it on my wife’s suicide two years ago. Said I was making a big deal about the accident because I was trying to take my mind off being guilty for her killing herself. Hell, she killed herself because she had brain cancer and our medical plan at the hotel declared they didn’t have to pay for treatment.”

His face went cold for a second. The memories flooded in; we didn’t say a word.

“She killed herself by putting her head in the gas range.”

“I’m sorry,” Chester said, in a voice so fragile a falling feather would have crushed it in passing.

“Well, it made me update this old house.” He tried to change the tone. “Got rid of all the gas in the house. Now we’re in the age of electricity. Not a single gas outlet still hooked up.”

I let the slightest smile cross my face. He seemed to appreciate it.

“Those boys at the Muenster probably hoped I’d do the same thing, what with losing the job and all, but I would only burn my hair in that oven.”

I took a drink of something he had brought out of the kitchen, I think it was water.

“Did you tell anyone else about this?” I asked.

“I told everyone up and down the line at the hotel, and when they ignored or fired me I took it to some old buddies at the P.D., but they got the same stone-wall I got. So this week I wrote it up on the old Remington I hoped to become a Pulp novelist on and sent carbons to both local newspaper. Haven’t heard anything back yet.”

“How long ago did you send them?”

“About three days, so they really might not have done anything yet, but I don’t put the company beyond pulling some strings to kill the story.”

“Didn’t they try to buy you off to get you to be quiet?”

“They knew me too well. All they gave me was two weeks’ severance, and some coupons they probably had sitting around the office.”

Chester was intrigued, “What kind of coupons?”

He actually chuckled, “Well, I can have a free breakfast at the ‘Golden Arches’ and dinner at Dennys.”

“That all?” Chester followed up.

“No, no, no…” He hit this one hard, “The gave me a case of bottled water. Good for whenever it goes on the market. Some kind of hillbilly springs.”

“Perfect Spring?” I stood as I said.

“Yeah, I think that is it, why?”

“Have you heard their commercials?”

“I…. don’t own a TV.”

“One more thing….”

“Yeah?”

“You ever heard of Terry Mahoney?”

He thought for a second and then shook his head.

For the most part, that was the end of the interview. I didn’t feel like following up, as he was suddenly aware of how little he had, and what he had given up by pressing for the truth. The man had lost most everything in the last couple of years. I made a note to mail him an invitation to come for a job at one of our plants as the house detective. He was obviously a good man, and also one who would not take charity.

I also noted that if I hadn’t thought these hotel guys were evil, the Perfect Springs thing proved it to me. Have I said how much I hate those commercials?

Back to the Beginning

Continue on to Chapter 11