The Baroque Enigma Murder

 The Baroque Enigma opened ninety-nine years and three hundred sixty four days ago, but it appears even older. The ridiculously ornate hotel presents a living anachronism among the taller, sleeker rectangles lining either side of the highway. Across the street, a sign announces that an onyx and marble monolith of a hotel building will hold its grand opening tomorrow. Colorful strands of lights and rings of artificial pine branches scintillate in the frosted night. I leave my car in the eroding parking lot and pause at the front doors, which would not look out of place in a venerable Italian cathedral. I push one of the brass monstrosities open and enter the hotel.

While the exterior is wavy and erratic, rectilinear consistency dominates the interior as white and black tiles span the entire floor. In the maw of a looming fireplace, orange flames sputter and crackle, alleviating the permeating chill. The front desk stands beside a chapped leather couch. The attendant wears gloves and a sweater.

“I’m here for the Christmas party,” I say to him.

“Which one?”

“The police dinner.”

“And your name is?” He looks over a list.

“Detective Metzler,” I respond.

“Here you are. Stan, is it? Follow me, sir.” The concierge leads me down a hall illuminated by a series of chandeliers. The two of us pass a man in a tie nervously upbraiding a cowed bellhop. We stop outside one of several commodious dining rooms. “The Commissioner’s dinner is within,” he says with a bow before returning to the front desk. On the other side of the door, the dinner has not begun, but a mess of socializing and clamor had broken out anyway. I turn to one of the side rooms, a gallery of some sort. Framed paintings and photographs depicted significant points in the history of the hotel, elaborating on various urban legends and occult rumors that had culminated over the decades. Most lurid is the Centennial Curse, supposedly proclaimed on the Hotel’s opening day. Currently, the Baroque Enigma is frequented by paranormal enthusiasts. I leave the gallery and face the police gala.

Most of the guys and their wives are there, and everyone seems to be enjoying themselves. The commissioner was dressed in a Christmas themed red suit and cap, loudly recounting some story to his associates. This series of dinners for the precinct was his idea, financed from his own pockets, to celebrate our recent victory over an interstate drug ring. I sit in an unoccupied seat.

“Stan! You came!” Detective Michaels said.

“So I did,” I said with a shrug. “What do you think of this setup?” I gesture at the dining hall. "It Came Upon a Midnight Clear" issued from speakers mounted on the vaulted ceilings. A stage occupied the front of the room, suitable for either conferences or dinner theater.

My coworker scans the area. “I think it’s kind of creepy, but what really gets me is the cold! Would it kill them to turn the heat up?” He clasps his hands together.

A waiter leaves the kitchen holding a tray of wine bottles. He unscrews a bottle and pours a glass of pinot grigio for the police chief and starts to do so for the commissioner, but he convinces the man to leave the bottle at the table. After drinks are distributed, the diners receive bowls of salad. The lettuce, though edible, has a limp texture that saturation in dressing could not conceal. Rolls are at the center of the tables, but they have the consistency of baseballs. Everyone is given the same main course, garlic chicken. The entree surprises me with its quality; the night will not be a complete waste. As the dinner subsides, the commissioner rises, bumping against the table in the process. He turns to the stage and waddles up the steps, glass and nearly empty bottle in hand. The man steadies himself against the lectern and addresses the room.

“Attention!” he shouts. “I, Commissioner Waylon Williams, would like to make a toast.” He thrusts his wine glass in the air, seemingly incognizant of the translucent fluid splashing on the carpet. “You guys are some of the greatest people I have the pleasure- the honor of working with.” Sweat glistens on the heavy man’s brow as his Santa suit grows wet and dark. He catches his breath and digresses, “We saved so many lives this year. Drugs were going through the schools. They were?” Waylon doesn’t complete his thought. He slumps forward, bashing his head against the lectern. The police chief jumps up and dials 911. He approaches the body with our pathologist as he talks to the dispatcher. I catch fragments of the exchange. “Yes. The commissioner just collapsed in front of us.” The pathologist begins to remove his shirt. “We think it’s a heart attack. Wait!” The chief’s eyes grow wide and he disgorges a jumble of expletives into his cell.

What could possibly unnerve my boss that much? I walk toward the stage and discover the source of his consternation. The body of Waylon Williams lies prostrate on the stage. Lesions have formed on his cheeks and throat. A substance has eaten through the stomach; I can see hastily chewed swaths of chicken amidst the blood and peptic compounds. The smell of bodily fluids, the allinaceous spices and something my mind contorts to interpret invades my nose. I struggle to keep my food down. “Nobody eat or drink anything!” The police chief ordered.

“It’s the wine!” I yell, pointing at a discolored spot on the floor. The carpet was gradually receding from the spilled fluid.

“Wait! I drank that poison!” The chief shouted. The paramedics had arrived by this point. They take him aside for medical attention. A uniformed officer sends the bottle to the forensics lab. District Five works with its signature efficiency. The hotel is immediately on lockdown, and the persons of interest are rounded up and isolated.

“Do you think foul play is involved?” Another detective asks me.

“I hope so, or there’s a dangerously negligent beverage manufacturer somewhere,” I digress. “Anyway, until we get results from an autopsy or the forensics lab, our best chance at understanding what is happening is to interrogate the staff. We start with the waiter who gave him the bottle.”

Frank the waiter can barely speak through his rattling jaw. From his testimony and that of the other waitstaff, I glean that the kitchen is understaffed and overworked, dealing with three large dinners, and preparing food for tomorrow morning’s ceremony. Frank reports grabbing the nearest wine bottle off a counter.

“What about the seal?” I ask him.

“What?”

“Wine caps have a metal ring that separates when the bottle is opened. Was the seal broken or intact?”

“I don’t remember! The manager was on the warpath and I didn’t want to lose my job.” Frank describes the newly graduated manager the superiors installed. He had graduated with an MBA this year and possesses little practical experience. He has been making the lives of his underlings miserable. The investigation is going nowhere. The boss comes back from his examination. He has been found completely devoid of symptoms. I turn the investigation over to him and excuse myself.

I walk to the nearest bathroom, besieged by memories of that horrid stench. Inside the bathroom stall, I smell the strange compound again. Beside the sink, I notice an open bottle of drain cleaner. I guess the janitor had been detained while unclogging a drain. I watch the mixture of of solvent and stagnant water before cleaning my hands and running back to the crime scene. I slam open a door. “Frank! Where’s the dehydrator?”

Two minutes later, everyone gathers in the kitchen. “What’s your angle, Stan?” Detective Michaels asks.

“We can safely conclude that this is a murder. I discovered the corrosive agent used to kill the commissioner, it smells identical to the industrial drain cleaner used at the hotel. Moreover, the substance which was in that bottle was different than the substance used in the hotel; it has been concentrated!”

“How do you know?”

“The chief and the commissioner both drink from the same bottle, but only the latter suffers. I conclude that someone concentrated the solution by removing the aqueous components, thereby increasing the density.” I open the dehydrator. The telltale stench arises from the stratified trays.

“Now what?”

“We need to find the person responsible for the scheduling of the staff,” I say.

“That’s the manager!” Frank adds.

We go to the place where the man was detained, but he is nowhere to be found. I ask the hotel detective, “Is there a security room?” We go to the security center, but it is barred from the inside. After ramming the door, we pile inside to the an open window. Outside the manager is fleeing down the vacant street, clouds of breath in his wake. I chase him down and arrest him for tampering with evidence. We take him to the station. After his lawyer arrives, we subject him to interrogation. Eventually he cracks, delineating the rest of his plan. Murder was never his actual goal. The poisoned wine was supposed to be cooked into a meal for a party on the next day to generate publicity regarding the Centennial Curse so that the media would pay more attention to The Baroque Enigma than the new hotel’s grand opening. He believes that the poison would have been digested by the time anyone would have checked the victims' biochemistry. Someone else processes him. As I trudge out of the police station, the big clock in the town square strikes midnight. I go home desiring nothing more than twelve consecutive hours of sleep for Christmas.