Page 67 of Summers at the Saint
“Yes.Mattress. Are you deaf?” he shouted, pounding his cane on the floor. “The other girl wrote it down in her book. She wrote everything down in her book. Just check it and you’ll see.”
“I don’t know anything about a book,” Traci said. She glanced down at the shelves below the desktop and saw brochures for local attractions, a stack of coupons for area restaurants, even bound menus for the resort’s own restaurants, but nothing resembling a book.
“It was blue. Find the book and you’ll see every single thing she was supposed to take care of. Like the mattress, which I want replaced immediately.”
“I know we bought all new mattresses within the last six months,” Traci said. “Maybe, somehow, the one in your room didn’t get replaced. I’ll look into it myself. You’ll hear something from Livvy by the end of the day, I promise. Now, is there anything else?”
There was, of course, much, much more. Livvy found a pad of paper and a pen and dutifully wrote it all down: room too cold—she promised to send someone from engineering to check the thermostat. Not enough towels—she would have housekeeping send up additional towels. Not enough envelopes and stationery. Livvy wondered just how many of the hotel’s guests actually wrote letters on stationery these days, but she promised to send up more.
“One more thing,” the Colonel said. “The most important thing, actually.”
Great,Livvy thought.Finally, we get to the bee in Colonel McBee’s bonnet.
“It’s these damn kids. They’re everywhere. Causing a fuss in the dining room, tracking in sand from the beach. Just this morning, when I was trying to swim my laps in the pool, one of these little urchins actually jumped on top of me! Where are the rules? Why are these little menaces allowed to roam the property at will?”
“What time was this, Colonel?” Traci asked.
“Approximately eleven hundred hours.”
“Oh dear. That’s the problem. You see, we have dedicated lap lane swimming every day from seven to tenA.M. After that, the pool is open to everyone, including families with children,” Traci explained.
“That’s ridiculous. Mrs. McBee and I have been coming here for decades and I never heard of such a rule.” He pointed a gnarled finger directly at Traci. “This place has gone all to hell. Nothing has been the same since Hoke Eddings died.”
Livvy gasped. She watched as the smile faded from her employer’s face as she absorbed the blow of the old man’s spiteful remark.
“Colonel?” Traci’s tone was even but her expression was steely. “You should know that my staff and I strive every day to meet my late husband’s exacting standards for the Saint. But if you’re truly unhappy with your accommodations, you’re welcome to check out early. We will refund you the cost for the remainder of your stay.”
“What? Leave early? Not at all. Mrs. McBee and I always stay ’til mid-June. I have no intention of changing our plans this year.”
“As you wish,” Traci said. “Livvy here will do her best to address the issues you’ve raised. But I must insist, sir, that you treat her—and all my staff—with the same courtesy and respect which you expect to be shown by them.”
He raised one bristling white eyebrow, started to say something, then changed his mind. “Respect,” he huffed, and turned and walked away.
“Hateful old dinosaur,” Traci muttered, watching his departure. “I’d almost pay him to leave now, but that could set a dangerous precedent.”
She turned to Livvy. “Did you ever see Parrish with a notebook like the one he described?”
“Come to think of it, I did. It was like one of those old school composition books we used to have in high school. Parrish called it the ‘bitch book.’ I’ll look around and see if I can find it. But maybe the police won’t want us going through her stuff in her room, or at the dorm?”
“I’ll ask the sheriff if it’s okay for us to go into Parrish’s room now,” Traci said. “And I’ll also ask if they found the notebook. I’d be interested to see what’s in it.”
“Colonel McBee’s gripes probably take a whole chapter,” Livvy quipped.
She opened the lid of the laptop computer on the desktop and began clicking through the tabs. “Okay. Here’s the McBees’ room number. I’ll put in a work order, like you showed me, for engineering and housekeeping. What should I do about the mattress?”
“Check in our warehouse and see if we actually have any new ones in our inventory, and if we do, ask engineering to deliver it. They’ll need to remove the old one, and then housekeeping will need to go make up the bed with fresh linens, ASAP,” Traci said.
“I’d go up there and supervise the switchover myself, but I’ve been out of my office too long, and I dread seeing the mountain of phone calls and emails that have piled up in my inbox. As soon as you hear from engineering that they have the mattress, I’d like you to go up there and personally supervise the replacement. But have you even had a lunch break yet?”
“Actually, I haven’t.”
“Go ahead and take your break, and then you can check on the great mattress switcheroo. I want to know exactly what’s wrong with that thing.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Livvy said. “But how do I tell if a mattress is good or bad? I’ve spent my whole life sleeping on a mattress that was my mom’s when she was a kid. In fact, it was probably even older than that. Could have been my grandma’s, even.”
“You should be able to tell whether or not it’s new. But take a photo of the old one before engineering takes it away. And in the meantime, when I get back to my office I’m going to ask Charlie to look at the purchasing orders to see if we can get to the bottom of this.”
Shortly before Livvy’s shift ended, Reginald, the hotel’s engineering chief, called to say that the new mattress was on its way to the McBees’ suite.
