Death in the Primrose Hotel, A Jake Curtis / Vanessa Malone Mystery

By Tony Flye

Vanessa, along with her husband Jake a D.C. private investigator, while on a tour of the about to be demolished Primrose Hotel, stumble on a skeleton with a bullet hole in the center of his forehead. The curious thing about the skeleton is it is laying in the dust behind the bar in a long abandoned speakeasy in which no one has set foot in since prohibition ended in 1933. The speakeasy is located in the hotel's unknown, undocumented sub-basement and was only recently rediscovered by the prep work for the demolition.
Jake and Vanessa's natural curiosity and sense of right and wrong demands they find out who the skeleton was and who committed this murder. If they don't solve this murder, the killing goes unsolved. The town police don't have the time or the funds to investigate the old killing. They're going on the assumption everyone connected to the skeleton is already dead. Town police detective lieutenant, Tom Forsythe, convinced the town father to hire Jake and Vanessa as police officers, but without pay, to investigate the case and give them police authority in their investigation along with the power to make arrests.
They start by talking with the tour guide, the elderly woman whose grandfather owned the hotel during prohibition. Their investigation leads them to a variety of people who knows of the hotel or worked there. Several people they talk with allude to the disappearance of a hotel maid just before prohibition ended. Every one thought she ran off with her lover until the woman's decomposing body is discovered in the woods a year later. Post mortem examination reveals the woman was strangled, and pregnant. Now Jake and Vanessa have another murder on their hands which seems to be intertwined with the skeleton.
They struggle along with the feeling they are fighting an uphill battle to solve this case as everyone has nothing to offer until they talk with Detective Forsythe's maternal grandmother, a woman who Jake and Vanessa feels knows something about the skeleton and is determined to take what she knows to her grave.
During the course of the investigation, Jake is shot on the sidewalk in front of the police station and Vanessa draws her pistol from her purse and deftly handles the shooter. Jake's wound is not life threatening.
The interviews continue until they talk with the gay, timid scullion worker who worked in the kitchen of the hotel during the time of the maid's disappearance. He loved the man everyone thought ran off with the maid. Jealousy makes the scullion worker follow the maid and her lover as they head into the woods for a romantic picnic. He watches the romantic picnic turn into a heated shouting match. He sees the shouting become physical between the two and watches his love interest kill the maid. He keeps the secret to himself until Jake and Vanessa pry it from him.
Jake and Vanessa feel they will never solve the death of the skeleton until they make the detective's grandmother tell them what she refuses to tell. The detective's mother, Sara, who took her mother in when granny could no longer care for herself properly, stands over her mother like a snarling watch dog. Jake and Vanessa resort to drastic actions to get the grandmother to talk. How far will Jake and Vanessa go to get the old woman to talk? Will they resort to arresting the old woman as a uncooperative material witness? The detective feels his family places him in the middle as his mother wants him to protect his grandmother while the lawman in him wants to see the murder solved.
Under three days of questioning, the grandmother relents and tells a fantastic story of her past and how it relates to the skeleton and who shot Jake. Who is the murderer and how does it relate to the detective?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Tony Flye
• Release date: Aug 16, 2014
• ISBN: 9781310065965

Tony Flye

Tony Flye's third book in the Jake Curtis / Vanessa Malone Mystery series, DEATH IN DIVORCE is in the final stages of editing and should be available by Christmas Tony is also working on a collection of short stories tentatively titled STORIES OF HORROR AND MURDER

Book preview

DEATH IN THE PRIMROSE HOTEL

A Jake Curtis / Vanessa Malone Mystery

Copyright 2014 Tony Flye, LLC.

Published by Tony Flye at Smashwords

Smashwords Edition

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Cover photo Wikimedia Commons - Cover art by Rocky M.

DEDICATION

To Susan and Joe, my inspiration.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Acknowledgements

Dedication

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

About Tony Flye

Other books by Tony Flye

Connect with Tony Flye

CHAPTER 1

The vacant eye sockets of the cobweb covered skull laying in pile of dust on the floor, stared up blankly into the depths of Vanessa Malone's soul. The rest of the skeleton lay with the skull in perfect anatomical placement behind one of the two intricately carved walnut bars in the old, long abandoned speakeasy beneath the Primrose Hotel. My wife jumped back and took a sharp breath as she leaned her right hand on the old dusty bar to steady herself.

But, how did we get to the skeleton? It's a long question.

I'm a licensed private investigator operating a single practitioner agency based in Washington, D.C. I am also a veteran of Gulf War I and an inactive U. S. Marine, since there are no such thing as a retired Marine, only inactive Marines. My only fears are being in small, confined place and being in the dark. Being in a small, confined place in the dark is even worse.

Vanessa is a smart, beautiful woman five feet ten with rust colored hair, green eyes of Irish descent and a temper to match. Her figure's too good to be true but it is. Her one complaint about herself is she thinks her nose is too big. I think it fits her face just right. Vanessa operates a single practitioner law firm across the hall from my office. The tenants in that office left in the middle of the night when a bad guy got shot in my office. I had to shoot him. It was either him or me.

Vanessa and I were enjoying a leisurely drive through north-central Pennsylvania on our way back home to D. C. after visiting family in Altoona, PA. We celebrated the arrival of our first nephew. My brother Bob and his wife Jan brought young Bob, Jr. into the family. I tried to get them to name him Jake, but even my wife didn't like that idea. I thought it was a terrific idea and I still do.

A high, blue sky filled with large white cottony clouds rapidly being blown across the sky by high level winds contributed to the clear crisp fall day. It was a beautiful day for a leisurely drive in the cool fresh mountain air. We had no reason to hurry home and thought taking the scenic byway would be relaxing compared to the hectic Pennsylvania Turnpike. The leaves in Central Pennsylvania were just beginning to lose their green, allowing their natural colors of, reds, oranges, and golds, to come vibrantly forth. Summer was definitely over, at least here in the mountains of Central Pennsylvania.

Vanessa and I enjoyed our drive on the back roads taking in the beautiful mountain scenery and looking at the small communities along the road as we drove through them. The radio played providing us with white background noise.

The music ended and a man with a deep, classic radio announcer's voice came on the air with the news.

Our lead story this late morning is The Primrose Hotel on the square in Mossville is offering a once in a lifetime opportunity for the general public to tour the old historic hotel at one PM this afternoon. The Primrose Hotel is due to be demolished starting Monday morning. It was one of first Art Deco buildings in the country and opened in early 1920. The decision to demolish the hotel came after the last ditch court efforts to save the historic hotel failed. The tour starts in the former lobby. Now a word from Tom's Exxon Station and auto repair shop located at...

That sounds interesting. Lets take the tour, Vanessa said. Just as she spoke I saw a Lions Club road sign welcoming us to Mossville, Pennsylvania, The Little Town That Cares.

Why not, we have the time, I said.

The mechanical chime on the clock tower on top of city hall just struck the twelfth chime, noon, as we reached the square in the center of Mossville. We had an hour to kill so we stopped at the town hall looking for any tourist information available for Mossville, there wasn't any. The racks were filled with brochures for Pittsburgh, Gettysburg, Lancaster, Philadelphia and even a few for Washington, D.C.

We walked into the town hall to the information desk manned by a teenaged girl behind the counter. May I help you?

Yes, we heard about the tour of the Primrose Hotel and we thought we'd enjoy taking it but we're a little early, Vanessa said.

The Primrose Hotel is diagonally across the square. You can't miss it..

Can you tell us about the history of Mossville? I asked.

Yes, certainly. Mossville was named for Phineas Moss, an Englishman who in the early 1800's acquired three thousand acres of virgin Pennsylvania timberland. He made his fortune in lumber. How Phineas actually acquired the acreage is still a deep, dark, well kept secret. The secret is so well kept no one today knows what it is. I don't know the secret and I don't know of anyone else who does either. Tradition has it the town square sits on the site of the original lumber camp and saw mill. We also had a foundry down by the river where they cast plumbing things, you know, faucets and such. My dad and older brother worked there before it closed. My dad said Mossville died the day the foundry closed," the teenager said.

Vanessa and I decided to leave the Jeep and walk across the square. The Primrose Hotel stood prominently on the corner of North and West Streets facing the town square. We stopped in the center of the square at the base of the large grayish brown block of granite pedestal under the statue of a World War I soldier, his soup bowl helmet sat at a rakish angle on his head and his rifle at shoulder arms standing guard over the town. Carved into the pedestal were the names of the town citizens who served in the war to end all wars with a special notation of the four citizens who made the ultimate sacrifice in that conflict. Being a combat veteran myself, I have a great deal of respect for veterans who have fought for this country. We later found out the town's people call the statue, The Doughboy. In addition to the Primrose Hotel on the square facing North Street, the square was bounded by streets apply named South, East and West Streets. The Doughboy faced towards East Street and to Europe beyond.

We headed across the square towards the Primrose Hotel and stepped into the lobby. Even with its age and derelict condition, I could see in my mind's eye the magnificence that once was this hotel in its prime.

We joined the tour just as our tour guide started her presentation. The tour group consisted of four couples of which Vanessa and I were by far the youngest.

One of the couples consisted of a blue haired lady and a bald man with a ring of gray hair around the sides of his head. They appeared to be in their sixties and maybe they were trying to relive their childhood memories or maybe even their courting days. The second couple, probably in their mid forties both sported the same unnatural silver colored hair. The third couple appeared to be a successful distinguished looking gray haired gentleman with his arm around a blond haired woman in her mid thirties, probably last season's trophy wife.

The elderly lady tour guide cleared her throat. My name is Madeline and I will be your docent today on the first and only tour of this once magnificent hotel.

What's a docent? The blond asked.

Shh, the gray man with her said. I'll explain it later.

The Primrose Hotel is old, crumbling and will be coming down starting next Monday morning. Madeline appeared to be a very refined lady in the truest sense of the word. She was in her late seventies and had the look of someone who could afford to take care of herself. A dainty white lace handkerchief stuck out from the long sleeve of her powder blue shirtwaist dress with its simple white lace collar and cuffs. Her blueish white hair looked professionally styled and she wore gold frame glasses hanging on a gold chain around her neck. She walked slowly on black flat patten leather shoes with the aid of a carved oak cane.

My grandfather and then after he passed, my mother, once owned the Primrose Hotel. I was practically raised in this hotel. The present owners asked me to come here on this special day, the last day the public will be able to see the inside of the Primrose Hotel to tell its story.

Couldn't this wonderful piece of our town history be preserved? Asked the blue haired woman.

Preservation groups failed in their legal efforts to prevent the demolition. Money, or rather the lack of money, was the problem. Everybody wanted to preserve the hotel but no one had the funds to do it. There were no private funds available and the town of Mossville didn't have the money either so the Primrose Hotel is scheduled to be turned into a vacant lot starting next Monday. Oh, what a shame it will be. She took the hankie from her sleeve and dabbed her eyes then returned it to her sleeve.

My parents used to come here often when they were courting and continued coming here even after I was born. When I came here as a child, my parents told me the hotel then looked very much like it did when it first opened.

When did the hotel open? Asked the blond haired trophy wife. Her most outstanding attributes clearly apparent under the formfitting light blue cashmere sweater she painted on. On her left ring finger was a rock the size of Gibraltar. It was clear enough to see how she became the trophy wife of the older man of means whose arm wrapped possessively around her shoulder.

I was just about to get to that, Madeline said. The Primrose hotel opened in early 1920 and was said to be the first Art Deco style building constructed anywhere. The Primrose Hotel started the art deco building craze. I'm told the Art Deco style took off during the roaring twenties when life was good and modernization was even better.

I wonder if you have any photographs of the hotel in its heyday? Asked the silver haired man. His wife's silver hair matched his own. Their hair color came from the same bottle. Her face makeup looked as if it were troweled on.

No I'm sorry I don't think there are any. I know I personally don't have any, Madeline said.

Madeline pointed to her left. "The Primrose Restaurant was located on your right just off the lobby. Within weeks of the hotel's opening it became the best place in Mossville to enjoy an elegant dinner. Everybody who was anybody in Mossville dined here at least once a week, sometimes more often.

What really made the restaurant unique was the food. The Primrose Hotel owners stole Chef Henri Mathieu away from a very famous restaurant in Paris, France. Mathieu roughly translates from French into gift of God and he thought his cuisine was just that, a mathieu, Madeline chuckled at her little word play, then continued. Much later I found out Mathieu was being paid the unheard of amount in those days of two hundred dollars a week. He ran the kitchen with an iron hand and wouldn't take any input or suggestions or directions from anybody including Edwin Bruton, the managing partner of the hotel and his boss, and my grandfather's silent partner.

The man with the yellow golf shirt raised his hand. How much is two hundred dollars in today’s money?

I don't happen to know. Does anybody else know? Madeline asked.

I smiled. It's somewhere between fifteen hundred and two thousand dollars today. Vanessa smiled up at me.

Wow, said the trophy wife.

Our tour will take us through this lobby, the restaurant, the new bar lounge opened after the repeal of Prohibition. We will also tour some of our more famous rooms. Rooms that gave overnight rest to politicians, movie stars, heads of state and heads of criminal enterprises; sometimes all at the same time. Madeline laughed.

Madeline cleared her throat and coughed into her hanky. The fancy Art Deco architecture stopped on the first floor. The seven stories of rooms above were stylish and comfortable hotel rooms. The Primrose Hotel had one new and innovated modern design feature. Each room had its own bathroom complete with tub and built in shower. The bathrooms were the most modern money could buy in 1921.

We walked into suite 701. This is the suite in the late twenties Patsy Barrow, the silent movie star climbed into a bathtub of hot water, opened her wrists with a straight razor and bled to death after she learned she had been dropped from the studio roster because she failed her sound test, Madeline said.

Why would she kill herself? The blond asked.

Her husband looked at her, a look of dismay on his face. I'll explain later, Maybe he had his next trophy wife in the on deck circle.

The blond pouted. You always say that but you never do. Yeah, he has his next trophy wife already picked out.

Unphased by the couples banter, Madeline smiled and continued. They said her voice sounded somewhere between chalk being scraped across a blackboard and a screeching hawk. The next day Chicago mobster Johnny Torrio stayed in this very same suite while his protege stayed in suite 702 across the hall. The protege's name was Al Capone.

We rode the elevator down one story to the sixth floor, walked down the hall to room 607 and stepped inside. It looked like any other hotel room. The only difference in this room was the oversized walk in closet which concealed the access to the hidden elevator.

This room was the only known entrance, using this special elevator, to the speakeasy down in the secret sub-basement. The elevator only stopped on two floors: the sub-basement and in this sixth floor room. The walk in closet had a secret access panel tucked in the back wall whose existence even the housekeeping staff didn't know. The panel leaned against the back wall of the closet and in its place the heavy steel door with as wire reenforced glass paned at eye level came into view. Madeline stepped back and allowed the eight of us to look at the door in the closet wall.

When the hotel was built, this special elevator, as well as the speakeasy, didn't appear on any known plans. This room was never rented but always had a lived in look. The bed was mussed up, used towels casually tossed on the bathroom floor. All of this use was carefully staged to give housekeeping the idea that the room was used. Housekeeping cleaned the room daily even pocketing the dollar tip left for them. They had no idea of the true reason for this room. Because the only known entrance to the sub-basement speakeasy was through this sixth floor room, the speakeasy below was never raided in the thirteen years of prohibition

Madeline tried to open the heavy steel door but it was too heavy for her frail body. The silver haired man, who was the closest to her stepped up and opened it. The once polished brass scissor gate inside the steel door had tarnished and oxidized over the years to a greenish gray color.

If you would please slide the scissor gate open, Madeline said. Silver hair complied. The gate resisted at first but with a solid push the gate reluctantly slid back.

The last stop on our tour will be the hidden speakeasy built in the sub-basement below the main basement. As I said the only known access to the old speakeasy was through this old and cramped elevator designed to fit four people but five could be packed in like sardines, Madeline said.

The elevator probably hasn't been serviced since 1933 I thought. I think it even had a two digit serial number.

We'll have to go down to the speakeasy in two trips. I'll squeeze in on the second trip. It'll be cozy but I think it'll be alright. Mr. Curtis, will you please take charge of the first trip? Madeline asked.

My pleasure My Marine bravado coming to the forefront. Vanessa and I followed the blue haired lady and the bald man into the elevator. I slid the scissors gate closed and pushed the button with the down pointing arrow.

The elevator groaned and creaked as it slowly descended. I could hear the old cables straining. Adding to the agonies inflicted on the ancient elevator was the shrill sound of unlubricated metal forcefully screeching against more metal.

Vanessa leaned close to me. Jake, do you think this elevator will make it to the sub-basement? I didn't answer her at first because my claustrophobia had its fingers wrapped tightly around my throat.

Oh, I'm sure it will make it down alright, but I'm not so sure it'll make it back up, I whispered back when I could get my voice to work without squeaking. An uncomfortable look came on the faces of the bald guy and the blue haired woman. I could swear I heard the woman whisper the Hail Mary.

Finally, the elevator came to a stop with what sounded like the screeching of a car stopping with its padless brakes grinding against the metal rotors. The elevator stopped six inches above the floor level and with a yank on the scissors gate, the elevator opened. The light from the elevator cast its illumination only a foot or so into the otherwise darkened speakeasy.

As soon as I closed the steel elevator door we were in total darkness. Panic set in. I also have this irrational fear of being stuck in an unfamiliar dark place. I once panicked in a cave when the docent turned out the lights to demonstrate real blackness. I managed for the sake of my male ego to control the panic. Maybe the blue haired lady would share her Hail Mary with me.

I heard the metal on metal screeching resume and fade away as the ancient machinery sent the car back up to room 607. After what seemed like an hour in the dark, but a glance at my luminescent watch told me it had only been a just a few minutes before the elevator stopped again in the speakeasy. This time the car stopped even with the floor. Madeline and the other two couples stepped out from the car.

Madeleine had an apologetic look on her face. I'm sorry, Mr. Curtis, I should have told you where the light switch was. She flipped a hidden switch. A dozen or so unfrosted teardrop shaped hundred watt light bulbs suspended in the dust and cobweb covered fixtures lit the room.

With the lights on and a quick glance the speakeasy measured about seventy-five feet deep by fifty feet wide and could easily accommodate several hundred people. It must've been a rocking place on the weekends.

Madeline resumed her talk. The speakeasy was a different matter. Where the hotel was Art Deco; the speakeasy was pure Edwardian. The bars in the prestigious men's club of Philadelphia and New York inspired the speakeasy's décor. You'll notice the absence of stainless steel in the speakeasy, Madeline continued, pointing around the room. "And the only glass in the room were the mirrors behind the bars and the glasses and bottles holding the alcohol. I am told the speakeasy looks just as it did the minute prohibition ended at the stroke of midnight, December Fifth, 1933. Everyone took the elevator up for the last time to the new bar upstairs where legal alcohol, real alcohol was being served again. My grandfather