“Are you here a lot?”
“Often enough.”
“Have you seen anyone suspicious around?” I asked. “Other than yourself.”
Jeff’s short laugh morphed into a hacking cough. Gasping, he replied, “Lady, half the people who want pictures with me are suspicious. I mean, who the hell wants a picture with a fake serial killer? You know what I’m saying?”
Jeff, clearly, wasn’t going to be of much help.
“Thanks for your time, Jeff. Sorry for your trouble—”
“There is this one lady,” Jeff went on, as if he hadn’t heard me. “Real pretty, but she’s got a shifty look to her. Got a tattoo of a birdie right here.” He pointed to the underside of his chin with his index finger like he was aiming a gun. “Kinda weird, right? Where ya going, ladies?”
“He’s off his rocker,” Evelyn muttered to me as we left Jeff to scam tourists on his street corner. “Sorry he wasn’t more of an asset.”
“Not sure what I was expecting from a guy dressed like that,” I admitted. “Let’s go back to the hotel.”
Evelyn groaned. “So soon? For once, I was hoping you’d keep me out a little longer.”
“I need a lead,” I said. “The Saint Angel is ground zero.”
Her phone buzzed. She checked the screen and clicked the button to decline the call.
“Who was it?” I asked.
“Marie,” she replied. “Guess she needs me for some other wedding stuff. Back to hell it is.”
Old times returned to new times as Evelyn dropped me off at the Saint Angel and sped away to help Marie with whatever wedding errand happened to be on today’s agenda. Alone again and unwilling to go inside, I leaned against the alley wall, stared at the spot Megan Hollows had fallen to her death, and waited for inspiration to hit.
I looked up and studied the two buildings on either side of the alleyway. The Saint Angel dwarfed the blocky apartments next door. On the ground floor of the neighboring building was a walk-in clinic and a pharmacy. With no other leads to follow, I went inside.
It smelled of disinfectant and moist carpet. Rows of first aid supplies, cough medicines, and knee braces lined the pathway to the single office and pharmacist’s counter at the back of the small shop.
“Dropping off or picking up?”
The pharmacist, a tiny woman with a heavy Indian accent, stepped onto a stool so she could better see over the counter.
“Actually, I was wondering if I could ask you a few questions.” I flashed my investigator’s license. “What’s your name?”
“Chetna,” replied the pharmacist. “What’s this all about?”
“Do you know anything about the body that was found in the alleyway next to your shop?”
“I heard about it,” she said. “But I don’t own the shop or the building. I just work here.”
“Were you working that night?”
“No, the pharmacy closes at six.” She hesitated. “I live upstairs though.”
I perked up. “Where?”
“On the thirtieth floor,” Chetna replied. “I was home that night. Had my windows cracked to get some fresh air. I heard yelling from the Saint Angel.”
“Yelling? As in arguing?”
She nodded. “It’s nothing new. It happens so often I hardly pay attention anymore.”
“Where was the yelling coming from?”
“Above my unit.”
I drew my phone from my pocket and began typing notes. “Are you sure it was coming from the Saint Angel? Not your apartment building?”
“I’m positive. I know almost all the people who live here,” Chetna explained. “They come into the walk-in clinic. Besides, the walls are thin here. We hear everything our neighbors do.”
“Do you know if this building has security cameras?”
“In the hallways and lobbies,” she replied. “But none that cover the alley. Your best bet is the one that’s angled toward the front door. Sometimes, it catches people walking by on the sidewalk.”
“Can you email the footage to me?”
Chetna answered the ringing pharmacy phone and placed the caller on hold. “You’d have to contact the owner of the building to get the security footage. Like I said, I just work here.”
“Who owns the building—?”
She held up a finger and went back to the phone. “Grout’s Pharmacy and Walk-in Clinic. How can I help you? Yes, Mrs. Williamson, your prescription is ready…” Chetna covered the phone’s mouthpiece to speak to me. “I don’t know who owns the building, but I’m sure you could look it up in the city’s records. Good luck.”
Taking Chetna’s advice, I returned to the Saint Angel and made a beeline for the on-site museum. The hotel’s history proved important enough to warrant an entire lounge dedicated to the building’s preservation. Black and white photos depicting the hotel’s construction lined the walls. Long before the building had been erected, the Great Chicago Fire had burned down the property before it. The Saint Angel emerged from the ashes in 1929, but the plans were abandoned before completion due to the stock market crash.
A few years later, an old blue-blooded family bought the hotel and made it into the prime place to stay in Chicago. They held onto it until recently, when it was bought out by the mysterious Bianchi Group that Wolf had mentioned during our lunch together. Unfortunately, the Bianchi Group hadn’t managed to keep the Saint Angel fresh and interesting for newer generations.
“And here we are,” I muttered to myself, examining the most recent picture of the hotel.
A glass case in the middle of the room held the Saint Angel’s original blueprints. The lines and scribbled notes had faded significantly, but I got the gist of it. The middle floors, where most of the guest rooms were, followed one of two patterns, depending on the size of the suites. The ground floor, penthouse, and service areas interested me most, since they differed greatly from the rest of the hotel.
To my surprise, I discovered the Saint Angel actually had two penthouse suites. Wolf’s secret elevator led straight up to the larger one, which was complete with a full kitchen, three bedrooms, a dining room, and an outdoor balcony. The second penthouse could be accessed
