Work Text:
Working Vacation?
“Aloha, Mack.”
Jim nodded politely to the hotel maid as she gave him a wink and a hungry look. He’d heard that Hawaii was a friendly place, but the greetings and looks that he had gotten all through the airport and now at the hotel were giving him the creeps.
Still if that was the worst thing to happen then this would be a good trip, the vacationing detective thought to himself as he made his way to the front lobby to wait for his friend Blair Sandburg to finish getting ready so they could start their first day of sight-seeing and unannounced Sentinel tests, in paradise.
“You got here quick.”
Jim turned to see a uniformed officer from the Honolulu PD looking at him expectantly. He turned back around to see who was behind him that the officer was speaking to.
“Well, come on. It’s this way,” the officer said as he turned and headed back into the hotel. As if he sensed that he wasn’t being followed, the officer turned back around and asked, “You coming or not?”
Once again, Jim turned around hoping to see someone else that the officer could be addressing. With a heavy sigh Ellison followed the officer. His years on the force had taught him that it was better for civilians to do as a uniformed officer instructed, and since he was on vacation and out of his jurisdiction, that made him a civilian.
The uniform stopped at the door to one of the large meeting rooms that the hotel used for large parties and conventions. He opened the door once Jim had caught up, and then headed back down the hall towards the lobby. “I’ll just go and wait for the ME to show up while you get the ball rolling.”
Jim spun around, intending to ask just what the uniform meant, but before he could get the words out, his senses were assaulted by the metallic smell of blood. The Sentinel continued all the way around, tracking where the scent was coming from. He saw another uniform leaning against a table a few feet away from an obviously dead body.
The vacationing detective spun around again, hoping to see the first officer, as if that would clear up his confusion. Seeing nothing but an empty hallway, he completed the full revolution and looked once again at the second officer and the crime scene. Heaving a sigh, he gave one last look over his shoulder as he walked towards the second officer and the dead body.
Stopping far enough away from the body to avoid contaminating the scene and any evidence, Jim gave the officer, Palmer, according to the name tag, a questioning look and waited.
“You OK?” Palmer asked.
“Just a bit confused,” Ellison replied as he once again looked back at the door for a possible escape.
Not really paying attention to the answer, Officer Palmer pulled out his notebook and updated the detective, “Just the usual stuff. The victim has no ID. One of the hotel maids found her when she came in here to take a break. Nobody has reported anyone missing to the hotel staff yet.”
Jim silently stared at the local officer for several moments, trying to figure out why he was giving a random tourist information about a crime.
“Well, are you going to take a look around or just wait for the ME and Forensics to do everything for you?” the officer asked with annoyance.
Jim’s confusion quickly changed to anger, which he made no attempt to hide. “Is this your standard operating procedure?”
Having, obviously, gotten tired of the clueless routine, Officer Palmer snapped back, “Look, Mack…”
“Shhh,” the sentinel held up a hand to silence the local while scanning the room, trying to find the source of the sound he’d just heard.
When the uniform didn’t comply, the sentinel looked him right in the eyes with his fiercest glare.
With a look of shock, the uniform wisely did as he was told.
Having secured silence, the sentinel resumed his search for the source of the sound that had caught his attention. Allowing his ears to guide him, Jim walked around the crime scene and towards a stack of chairs and tables in the back corner of the room. Upon reaching the stack, he knelt down and easily looked into the darkness underneath.
“Hey sport, I’m Detective James Ellison,” he said, showing the terrified boy his police badge. It might be for the wrong city, but the kid didn’t know that. “I’m a police officer. Nobody’s going to hurt you. What’s your name?”
Getting no response from the boy, Jim turned around to address the local officer that hadn’t followed him. “Hey, Palmer, call for child services and an ambulance.”
Ellison tilted his head and listened as Palmer did as instructed. When the uniform finished relaying the request to dispatch the detective said, “There’s a guy at the front desk, long brown curly hair, about 5’ 7’’, kind of bouncy, goes by the name of Blair Sandburg. Could you get your partner to bring him here?”
Officer Palmer gave the other policeman a disbelieving look, but did as he was told.
**********
“You Blair Sandburg?” the uniformed officer asked as he walked up to the front desk.
“Yes,” the visiting grad student replied questioningly.
“Lt. Wolfe wants to speak with you,” was all the officer said before turning to lead the way to the meeting room.
Blair gave a shrug to the clerk behind the counter and hurried after the officer.
The young tourist’s surprise at being led to a crime scene was quickly forgotten when he saw his friend kneeling in the corner. “Jim! What’s going on?”
Neither man from Cascade saw the look of confusion growing on the face of the local police officer that had stayed to guard the scene.
Blair quickly circled the crime scene, making sure to stay well away from the body and any evidence, to avoid spoiling the scene and joined his partner by the stack of chairs and tables.
Jim turned to greet his friend. “Hey, Chief, there’s a really scared boy under here. I’m not sure what he saw, but it’s likely he saw something. Would you stay with him while I try and sort out what‘s going on?”
Turning back to the boy under the tables, Ellison continued, “Sport? This is my friend, Blair Sandburg. He’s going to stay with you for a while. You just sit tight, OK.”
Seeing the boy nod his head, Ellison gave Sandburg a friendly pat on the shoulder and returned to a not so patient Officer Palmer.
“I’m sorry, we haven’t properly met,” Jim said while holding up his police ID and badge. “I’m Detective James Ellison, Major Crimes division of the Cascade Police Department, Cascade Washington, the state on the mainland. I didn’t realize the Honolulu PD was so hard up that they had to draft tourists to help with homicide investigations.”
Without waiting for an answer, Det. Ellison turned to the dead body and began to go through his well practiced routine. “From the color of the blood and the way it’s started to congeal, I’d say our victim has been dead at least thirty minutes. I can see some material underneath the fingernails. Make a note to have the ME put a priority on that. You might be able to get a DNA sample.”
Jim paused and looked up at the confused uniform. “You might want to write this stuff down. I didn’t bring my notebook. Since I thought I was going on vacation.”
Seeing the uniformed officer pull out his notebook and quickly write down what he’d heard, Ellison returned to his evaluation of the body. “I don’t see any sand on her skin, even around her feet, so she probably hasn’t been to the beach since she last showered. It’s kind of hard to tell with all the hair, but it looks like there is some swelling on the back of the skull. It could indicate a peri-mortem injury, but the ME will have to determine that. Also there are some abrasions around the piercing on her right ear. She might have lost an earring in a scuffle. I’d check for rigor mortis, but,” Jim held up his gloveless hands and wiggled his fingers, “I didn’t think I’d need to bring gloves on vacation.”
“Since when did you start paying attention, Mack?”
Ellison and Officer Palmer turned around to see Dr. Dawn Holliday standing in the doorway.
“Did my Captain put you guys up to this?” Jim asked.
Officer Palmer looked nervously between Ellison and Holliday, “Um, Doc, this is Det. James Ellison from the mainland. He’s agreed to help out.”
Jim once again held up his ID and badge for the local to examine.
Dawn studied the out of state ID, then gave the taller man a long hard look. “Ha, good one, Mack. Now if you don’t mind, I can finish with the body from here.”
Stepping out of the way, Ellison held his hands up in surrender, “Don’t let me stop you.”
With the dead body turned over to the medical examiner, Jim checked on Sandburg and his charge. Blair had taken some of the chairs and tables and built a little screen to help hide the crime scene from the boy’s view. Using his heightened hearing he could easily hear the anthropologist recounting a story about the native Hawaiians and how Pele had formed the islands.
Before Jim could rejoin his partner in the back corner another uniformed officer entered the room.
“Hey, Mack, we’ve got a couple from Chicago reporting their son missing.” Officer Watanabe held out a picture showing a young boy holding a puppy.
“That’s our witness,” Jim stated, looking at the picture, not bothering to clear up the identification confusion. “Can you give me a name?”
“He’s Scotty Pauldowsky, from Chicago, 8 years old,” Watanabe provided.
After scanning the limited HPD personnel on the scene, the visiting detective just sighed and accepted the inevitable. "Hey, Chief," he called and waited for his partner's head to appear above the makeshift barrier. "Scotty Pauldowsky. Chicago. 8 years old.”
Blair nodded in understanding and gave a thumbs up, before he returned his attention to the still terrified boy.
Waving at Watanabe, indicating that he should accompany him, Ellison headed out into the lobby to speak with the parents.
Watanabe quickly led the detective out to the lobby and pointed out the boy's parents.
The Cascade detective once again held out his ID and badge and introduced himself. "Mr. and Mrs. Pauldowsky? I'm Detective James Ellison from the Cascade Police Department, Cascade Washington. I was in the hotel and thought I'd help out. Your son is safe and unhurt, but I think we should sit down and talk."
The parents released the breath that they didn't realize they had been holding. With a quick nod, the father guided his wife over to a sitting area by the elevators.
Det. Ellison knelt down in front of the still shaken parents and explained, "We found Scotty in one of the meeting rooms. He is hiding underneath a stack of tables and chairs and is really scared.”
Ellison took a steadying breath before continuing. Experience had taught him that the best way to give bad news was to just be straight forward. "We think Scotty may have witnessed a murder."
The mother gasped and her husband held her even tighter.
"I have a friend of mine sitting with Scotty now, but we've left him where he is. It's best to not try and bring him out until we can get the scene cleaned up,” Ellison explained.
The parents nodded their understanding, "Thank you, Detective."
Jim gave them his best reassuring smile, "Officer Watanabe is going to stay here with you for a while. He’ll make sure that you get a chance to speak with Child Services when they arrive. They’ll be able to answer your questions better than I could. Once the scene is cleaned up, we'll need your help to talk Scotty out from his hiding spot."
With the parents reassured and under the care of the recently arrived Child Services, Jim made his own way back to the crime scene.
He found that Doctor Holliday had made quick work of her on-scene examination and was zipping up the body bag. "Hold on a second, Doc," Jim said as an idea suddenly occurred to him. He jogged to the back corner where Blair was trying to get Scotty to take one of the snack bars that he'd packed for sight-seeing. "Hey, Chief, let me have that digital camera that the university gave you to test out will ya?"
Without even a questioning look, Blair dug into his ever present backpack and pulled out the camera and handed it to his friend.
Returning to the ME, Jim explained, "Let me get a quick picture and I'll see if any of the hotel staff recognize her.
Dawn Holliday raised a questioning eyebrow, as she wondered how Mack had gotten one of the new digital cameras while her own request was still tied up with red tape, but she still did as instructed. She had never seen Mack so focused and on the ball before.
Jim snapped a couple of pictures from varying angles and then allowed the ME to zip the body back up so she could transport it to the morgue.
As she and her assistant wheeled the gurney through the door, Dawn jokingly asked, "So? Where should I send the post mortem report?"
"Room 346," Ellison replied without skipping a beat.
Jim motioned for Officer Palmer to join him and they went out to the lobby.
"You're really not, Lt. Mack Wolfe, are you?" the officer stated more than asked.
"Not the last time I checked," Ellison answered.
As they passed Scotty’s parents, Jim told Officer Watanabe that he could take the parents back and try to get the boy out of hiding. "The EMT's should check him out just to make sure he's OK, but I think he's mostly just scared. "
Officer Palmer then stepped in and took over the conversation. No use letting a guest do all the work. It would make the department look bad. "You can bring Scotty down to the station where he can tell us what he saw. We'll have a child psychologist there who can help him work through everything."
Ellison then handed the digital camera with the pictures of the victim to Officer Palmer and simply stood by as he questioned, first the front desk clerk, and then a couple of the maid staff. Luckily the front desk clerk recognized her from when she and her husband had checked in yesterday morning.
The Cascade detective and a couple of HPD uniforms proceeded up to the room that had been assigned to the victim and her husband.
“Honolulu Police!” Officer Palmer announced as he knocked on the door. Upon getting no answer he retrieved the key card that the manager had given them along with permission to enter and conduct a search.
Ellison reached out and grabbed Palmer’s arm before he could swipe the card. “Someone’s in there,” he informed the other officers.
The other uniforms, already confused that Lt. Wolfe wasn’t taking the lead, looked at Palmer for confirmation. He nodded and they took up positions, ready to enter the room on alert.
Officer Palmer held the key card over the slot in the lock and put his other hand on the door handle. He quietly counted to 3, then in one swift move he swiped the card, twisted the handle, swung the door open and stepped back to allow the other uniforms to enter.
Like a well trained team, the uniforms swiftly entered and secured the hotel room.
A man fitting the description of the victim’s husband was sitting on the floor with his head in his hands, sobbing.
The officers didn't even have to question the man; he just started telling his tale, glad to have someone to hear it.
"She said a second honeymoon would help to fix our marriage. What she didn't know is that I was planning on leaving her for my mistress. I... I... I even thought about arranging for an accident on our trip. The poor husband takes his wife on a second honeymoon only to have her trip and fall off a cliff, oh how tragic,” the words just spilled out in a flood. Once he got started, momentum kept him going.
“But I realized that I couldn't do it. We might not love each other anymore, but I couldn't kill her. I tried to talk her into going to one of the more touristy places, but she insisted we go on our original hike. We argued. Oh, how we can argue." Then, as if seeing the officers for the first time, he looked up and asked, “Am I under arrest?”
Officer Palmer answered, “Yes, sir,” as he bent down and handcuffed the husband, then helped him to stand.
One of the other uniforms that had joined the investigation took charge of the prisoner and read him his Miranda rights as they escorted him out of the hotel room.
With the suspect removed from the room, the Sentinel did a quick scan. There was always the chance that the husband hadn’t told the whole story and had been hoping to convince the officers that it was an accident. It wasn’t unheard of for a rookie detective to fall for the ‘sobbing husband’ routine and thus miss a vital piece of evidence.
“Hey Palmer, you got any evidence bags?” Ellison asked.
Palmer shook his head, “No, I’ll get Kimo to send a forensics tech up, though.”
Jim nodded in acknowledgement. “Her missing earring is in the corner under the table. Make sure they go over the bed sheets, too. There’re some fresh fluid stains on them.” The sentinel paused to allow the local officer to take notes and continued to scan the room. He smiled in triumph as he pointed out the pad of paper on the night stand. “I think the DA will want to know what was last written on that notepad too. There’s just something not right about the husband’s story.”
“I’ll be sure to pass that on to the DA,” Officer Palmer said as he finished writing. He then looked expectantly at the visiting detective, “You got anything else to add?”
“Nah, I think I’ll let the forensics team do all the work for me,” Ellison answered with a smile and a wink.
The two men let themselves out of the room and Officer Palmer ensured that the room was locked and secured.
"I’m sorry about the misunderstanding, Det. Ellison," Officer Palmer said as they headed back to the meeting room.
"Yeah, about that, what possessed you to draft a tourist? How did you even know I was a cop?" Ellison asked.
Palmer shook his head, still not completely believing what he was about to say. "You look exactly like Lt. Mack Wolfe from our Homicide team. If I hadn't watched you work that scene downstairs, I would think you really were Mack and you were trying to pull a really good practical joke."
Even with listening to the officer's heart rate, which gave no indication of deceit, Jim wasn't sure if he believed that he looked enough like someone else for the misidentification to be that extensive, but he just wanted to get on with his vacation, so he took the officer at his word. He and Sandburg gave Officer Palmer their official statements and after promising to swing by the station to complete any other necessary paperwork and to provide proof for a story that Palmer doubted anybody would otherwise believe, allowed the local officers to finish processing the scene.
Epilogue
Ellison and Sandburg decided to make their escape while they could and headed back up to their room to regroup for the day. Working the crime scene had only taken a few hours, but it had ruined their plans of going up to Sacred Falls for the day. It didn’t take long for them to decide on a shorter trip up to Hanauma Bay for some snorkeling.
Jim and Blair were headed down the sidewalk when Jim spotted a familiar face driving a fancy convertible towards the hotel. He watched the sports car come to a halt in front of their hotel and stared in amazement as someone who could only be Lt. Mack Wolfe got out and headed towards the building’s front door.
The Cascade detective couldn’t resist the temptation, “Hey Lt. Mack Wolfe! You owe me big time for covering your butt today. Next time do your own job!” He then quickly turned around and ducked into the crowd of tourists before the Honolulu officer could spot him.
Lt. Mack Wolfe looked up when he heard his name called. He looked around to try and spot the speaker, but only saw the perpetual throng of tourists.
Gnawing on his red vines and grumbling to himself, he turned and headed inside the hotel. It was bad enough that he’d gotten caught up in traffic, but nobody was going to believe the other stuff that had conspired to keep him away from the crime scene that he’d been dispatched to.
“Oh well, I’d better not keep everyone waiting any longer than necessary,” he grumbled to himself and headed inside only to find an empty crime scene, with no body and no police personnel.