Night Fall

CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

Mr. Leslie Rosenthal walked into the lobby dressed casually in slacks and sport shirt, sans whale tie.

I stood and said, “Good evening.”

“Good morning is more like it.” He asked me, “Are you here for more file reconciliation?”

“I am.”

“At one-thirty in the morning?”

“The FBI, sir, never sleeps.”

“I do.” He observed, “I have the feeling you are not here on a routine assignment.”

“What was your first clue?”

“The hour, for one thing. What’s this all about?”

“I’m not at liberty to say. Did you bring your keys?”

“I have. Have you brought my missing files?”

“Actually, since I saw you last, I’ve been in the Mideast. See my tan? Want to see my airplane ticket?”

He didn’t respond to that and asked me, “What would you like to see?”

“Your receipt books for the video lending library.”

I watched him ponder this, then he said, “We got rid of the video library about three years ago and donated all the tapes to a hospital.”

“That’s very commendable. But you kept the receipt books, of course.”

“I believe so. Unless some idiot threw them out.”

“Other than yourself, what other person has the keys to the file room?”

“No one.”

“Well, there you are. Let’s take a look downstairs.”

I followed him to the basement door, which he unlocked. He turned on the lights, and we descended the stairs.

He unlocked the door to the archives room and went directly to the rear of the room, where cardboard storage boxes were stacked on metal shelves. Each box was labeled and dated, and within a minute we found a box labeled, “Video Library Receipts-Feb ’96-March ’97.”

I stared at the box, and asked Mr. Rosenthal, “Did the FBI ask for these receipts in 1996?”

He replied, “I showed them how the file cabinets were organized, then left them alone. I don’t know what else they looked at.”

On that note, I took the box down from the shelf and set it on the floor.

Mr. Rosenthal said, “I suppose you think that this couple may have signed out a videotape.”

Everyone’s a detective all of a sudden. I replied, “The thought has occurred to me.” I opened the box, which was filled with receipt books. Truly the work of an anal compulsive.

I started removing the receipt books from the box, noting the start and end dates written on the cover of each book, half expecting to discover a missing book, replaced by a note from Liam Griffith saying, “Fuck you, Corey.”

I asked him, “Why do you save these?”

He explained, “I have a policy of saving all records for seven years. You never know what the IRS or sometimes the hotel owners want to see.” He thought for a moment, then said, “Or the FBI. Seven years is safe.”

“Cover your ass, I always say.”

I found a receipt book dated, “June 12-July 25, ’96.”

I moved under a hanging fluorescent light and began flipping through the pages of video receipts. My hands were actually a little unsteady as I flipped the pages toward July 17.

The first receipt for that date was at the top of a page and was signed, Kevin Mabry, Room 109, and Kevin borrowedButch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. The next receipt was signed Alice Young, Guest Cottage 3, who borrowedLast Tango in Paris. Go, Alice. Then, an indecipherable signature in Room 8, which must have been in this building, and that person borrowedThe Godfather. I flipped the page and read two more signatures and movie titles for July 17, but neither person had given their room number as 203. Then the last receipt at the bottom of the page was dated July 18, the following day.

I stood there and stared at the open receipt book.

Mr. Rosenthal asked, “Any luck?”

I didn’t reply.

I flipped back a page and looked at the pre-printed red receipt numbers, then flipped forward. Three numbers were missing from the sequence.

I bent the book back and could see where a page had been neatly razored out of the receipt book. “Bastards.”

“Excuse me?”

I threw the book into the box and said, “I’d like to see the receipts for borrowed library books.”

Mr. Rosenthal retrieved the appropriate box and I found the receipt book for the period in question. I flipped through the receipts, thinking that perhaps Don Juan or his lady had taken out a book, but no one in Room 203 had borrowed a book on July 17, 1996. I dropped the book in the box and said, “Let’s go.”

We walked toward the door, with Mr. Rosenthal glancing over his shoulder at the mess on the floor.

In the back of my mind-but not too far back-I knew that the FBI could not possibly have stayed in this hotel for two months without thinking about the lending library. I mean, they weren’t real detectives, but they certainly weren’t brain-dead either.Damn it.

But Ihad proved something-someone in Room 203 had borrowed a videotape, and thus the missing page. Great deductive reasoning, leading to another piece of missing evidence.Bastards.

Mr. Rosenthal was about to lock the door of the archives room when I thought of something Roxa

“They’re given to the guest when the book or videotape is returned.”

“What if it’s not returned?”

“Then it stays in the receipt book until the guest has departed and the borrowed item is discovered to be missing. Then, it’s pulled for a monthly inventory of missing property.”

“Okay… so the guests in Room 203 checked in on July 17, and on July 18, at noon, you discovered they had left without checking out. The morning of July 19, the FBI arrived inquiring about a missing bed blanket. Later that morning, more FBI people showed up asking about the guests in Room 203. Is it possible that by then someone on your staff had pulled out the pink receipt from the receipt book and marked it as missing?”

He replied, “The librarian waits to see if a maid or anyone returns the item. If not, sometime that day, or early the next day, the pink carbon is sent to the bookkeeper, who will bill the guest for the missing item, or put it on their credit card. Sometimes the item is actually returned to the hotel by mail, or shows up later, but if the item is still missing or hasn’t been paid for, the pink copy goes into the tax file as a deductible property loss.”

“And after that?”

“As with all tax records, the pink carbons are archived for seven years.”

“Lead the way.”

Mr. Rosenthal led me to a cabinet marked “Tax Files, 1996,” and found a manila envelope marked “Library Receipts-Missing, Lost or Stolen,” and handed it to me.

I opened the envelope. Inside was a wad of pink receipts, held together by a rubber band. I snapped the rubber band, and began flipping through the two dozen or so receipts for missing books and videotapes.

Mr. Rosenthal asked, “Can I help-?”

“No.” They were not in strict chronological order, so I went through them slowly. Each was marked, “Not Returned.” Toward the middle of the stack, I stopped at a receipt dated July 17. The room number was 203. The borrowed item was a videotape-A Man and a Woman.

The signature was scrawled, and the person had not pressed hard enough to leave a clear imprint on the carbon copy.

Printed on the receipt in a different handwriting were the words, “Not Returned,” and the name “Reynolds,” which, according to Marie Gubitosi, was the name that Don Juan had used when he checked in.

I asked Mr. Rosenthal about that, and he replied, “Apparently the person borrowing the videotape didn’t have a room key, so the librarian checked her computer and saw that the name signed on the receipt didn’t match the name of the guest in Room 203. She inquired of the person borrowing the videotape and that person gave the name of the registered guest, which matched the name on the computer.”