Authors note: This is a work of fiction. It does not reflect any actual events, and all of the characters are fictional. Any similarity to events or persons living or dead is purely coincidental.
There is a real city of Oceanside, California. It’s San Diego County’s third largest city with a below-average crime rate.
The Grand Pacific Hotel is fictional, but during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, there were at least two similar resort hotels that did exist, primarily serving railroad passengers and tourists as described in this book.
— Tom Morrow
Chapter 9
Later that morning around seven o’clock, Detectives Saenz and Steins walked into the squad room. Before they could grab a cup of coffee, Lieutenant Hastings motioned for them to come into his office and have a seat. He didn’t appear to be pissed off or anything but did have a concerned look on his face.
“Joe, you want to tell me what you and that forensics lady were doing over at the GP late last night?”
“You heard, huh?”
“All I know is that there was some sort of activity going on over there way past my bedtime. You want to fill me in?”
“Well, uh…”
“Lieutenant, I was there, too,” said Danny.
“Oh?”
“We were thinking about calling you, but it was late and didn’t want to disturb your beauty sleep and all and…”
“Well, it was disturbed! Got a call around one 0’clock. What the hell were you doing over there that late?”
“Joe, you better take it from here,” Danny said looking over at him.
“Lieutenant, we found another body.”
“Ohhh shiitt!”
“Well, actually bones.”
“Where?”
“In the old boiler furnace.”
“Boiler furnace? Now just how on earth did you think to look there?”
“This might take awhile.”
“I’ve got plenty of time. It’s early.”
“Well, after dinner in San Diego, Sara decided she wanted to….” And Joe went on to explain in great detail the events of the previous night and early morning. Lieutenant Hastings carefully listened while leaning back in his chair with his hands on his belly casually spiraling his thumbs. Danny occasionally nodded reaffirming what Joe was saying.
“So you’re telling me that Sara has some sort of inner gift that she can see death, huh?”
“Well, yeah. I mean … well, it is unusual, no doubt. But the fact is she did find the bones. And after they were removed, her apparitions went away telling her that death was no longer present.”
“And we’re supposed to go along with that?” asked Hastings.
“I see no reason why not. I mean, I was there. I saw her demeanor when she found the bones and when the bones were removed. I have to admit, it was a little weird; but I believe her. She has me convinced.”
“I don’t know. I’m still skeptical,” said Hastings, shaking his head in doubt.
“Look Lieutenant, it’s my opinion we shouldn’t bring any more attention to this investigation. It’s been fairly quiet this past week. If we take the notion to get back in there and start tearing the place apart piece by piece looking for more bodies, the news media will suspect something and start nosing around. And if by happenstance they discover how Sara found the bones, they’ll go crazy and turn this whole investigation into a media circus. We’ll be a laughing stock out there.”
“Yeah, well, you do have a point. They did spoof the mummy angle pretty good. I mean, hell, it went worldwide. What do you think, Danny?”
“Well, at first I was skeptical. I talked to Sara when they were excavating the privy pit, and I thought she was a nut. I mean, a real nut case. I just walked away. But after last night, I don’t know. I mean, she did find those bones. It’s kind of hard to dispute that.”
“And you agree with Joe?”
“Yeah, I guess I do. The bones were safely delivered over to the lab. I’m sure Sara and Laura are probably having this same conversation with their boss right now.”
“Probably.”
“I also think we just need to continue on with the investigation like we have been. Right now nobody is to the wiser as to what happened last night. And we should let Del get back to tearing the place down. The quicker, the better.”
“When?”
“Well, we sort of promised him it’d be soon, assuming Sara didn’t see any more death. And of course, she didn’t.”
“I bet he was confused over that statement, huh?”
“Yeah, he was. And he wasn’t too happy about turning his pickup truck into a hearse. But he got over it. I think we owe him.”
“Joe?”
“Lieutenant, Sara has me convinced the place is clean. I think we’re in the clear. You want me to give Del the go-ahead?”
“Yeah, hell yeah. Go ahead and give him a call. We need to get back with the case. Where you guys stand right now?” the lieutenant asked Danny.
“We’ve gathered statements from Aaron Hinkle, the guy who had a little shop there at the hotel; talked to Seth Adams, the old head bellman; and Ned Martin, the old night auditor. But his mind is gone.
“Joe’s going to head over to the library, and I’m going over to the OPD storage building and hunt around there.”
“Well then, go on and get to it. I’ll brief the captain before he gets wind of all the shenanigans. I’m sure word’ll get to him sooner than later.”
“By the way, Lieutenant. Who called you last night?” Danny asked.
“Dispatch. She felt something funny was going on with Officer Bob Talbert. Wanted me to look into it because he had reported Joe and Sara at the site. She thought that unusual thinking Joe should have reported it himself if it was to be official business.”
“Why didn’t you look into it?” asked Joe.
“I told her I would in the morning. But in the meantime I told her not to worry about it because I felt you were on to something important and not to bother you. But I gotta admit, the something important sort of threw me for a loop.”
“Officer Talbert in any trouble?”
“For doing his job? Shit no! Now you guys go on and get the hell outta here. I got work to do.”
At about that same hour, Laura and Sara were in fact having a similar conversation of the early morning’s events with their supervisor, JoAnne Garner. The only difference was that JoAnne was not the least bit skeptical of Sara’s apparitions. She had been around her long enough to know that her forensics specialist carried an unusual gift even though she had never actually experienced anything from her.
But JoAnne was quite familiar with parapsychology herself, believing Sara had the post-mortem apparition—a belief that some undefined spirit of a recently deceased person lingers shortly after death before moving on to a mysterious world known only to the dead. It was a topic for discussion that she and Sara had many times after work. And Laura would sometimes listen in on the conversations just trying to understand the makeup of a person who had these mystical ideas. Even though she had no known apparitions herself, she did not dispute the people who had them—or said they had them.
Sara recapped to JoAnne in extreme detail how she discovered the body and how in some unknown manner the apparitions disappeared once the bones were removed from the site. She explained that Joe was the only one around when her phantasmal spirit revealed that no more death was present at the hotel. It was an unusual experience for him.
“So, Joe is now a believer?” asked JoAnne.
“More so than not, I think. But he was more awestruck when I found the body. It no doubt caught his attention. But what caught my attention was how he reacted following my lead in wanting to keep everything quiet. Had we not, the media would’ve jumped on this thing and turned it into a joke for the late night talk shows. If anybody needs to get reprimanded, JoAnne, it needs to be me. I did coerce him.”
“Sara, I don’t think anybody is going to get reprimanded. All in all, what you did was probably the right thing to do. But by no means was it by the book; then again, how you found those bones wasn’t by the book either if there ever was such a book.
“And you’re right. The media would’ve turned this into another fiasco as we well remember what they did with the mummy. Fortunately, things on that front have calmed and the last thing we need right now is to be world famous—again!
“So don’t worry about any repercussions. I’ll take of it from here. Okay, girls?”
“Thanks, JoAnne,” Sara and Laura said one right after the other.
“Now, where do we stand with the bones?”
“After getting them over here, Sara and I did some preliminary work separating the bones from the ashes,” said Laura.
“How well are the bones preserved?”
“Not too bad, considering. But to be honest with you, that boiler should have fried the body to ashes over time and it didn’t. Something’s not quite right with this scene.”
“Yes, interesting. When do you think you’ll get started?”
“We’re going to contact Southgate Jones and then brief the staff and swear them to secrecy. Don’t want any loose lips to cause us problems. Then we’ll get them to sift through the ashes and try to reassemble the bones as best they can. In the meantime, Sara and I would like to go grab some rest. I’m pretty beat, but I think Sara is wore out.”
“Yes, I can well imagine. Why don’t you both head for the hills and grab some shuteye and be back here first thing in the morning bright eyed and bushy tailed. How’s that?”
“Sounds good to me,” said Sara.
“Yeah, me too,” said Laura.
“Okay, see you tomorrow. Oh, Sara, by the way. How was your date with Detective Stein?”
“Aside from all the hoopla, we had a good time. I think he’ll ask me out again!”
Later that morning, the two detectives went their separate ways. Joe went to the Oceanside library, and Danny went to the old records storage building. They were there practically all day. By four o’clock, they met back at the office. Danny looked tired but Joe looked worse for wear. He had had very little sleep. After each had grabbed a cup of coffee, they sat at their desks.
“You come up with anything?” Danny asked Joe.
“Maybe. Found an article from 1965 about the GP. It was going through a renovation and they interviewed the hotel manager. Fellow by the name of John Traiger. Then did an obituary research of our surrounding area to see if he had died. Found numerous Traiger names but none showing they ever worked at the GP. Assuming he’s still alive, I researched all the Traiger names for the area and found quite a few. However, after the process of elimination, came up with one that lives in Anaheim. This fellow’s about ninety-years-old or so which would pretty well match our time frame. I think we ought to give it a shot.”
“You get an address, too?”
“I did. And phone number.”
“Want to head that way in the morning?”
“Yeah. I’ve already called. They’re expecting us around ten.”
“They?”
“Mr. Traiger and his daughter. I talked with her on the phone. Apparently he’s living with her. Did you find anything over at storage?”
“I don’t know just yet. Pulled a lot of records around our time frame that looked interesting. It was too much to go through at the time. I handed it all over to Janice and asked her to go through it for me and sort it out; try to find something with common ground that might fit what we’re looking for. I gave her a criterion to look for.”
“Janice is sharp as a tack. She’ll come up with something,” Joe said.
“I hope so. She knows we’re under a lot of pressure to get something going. The lieutenant gave her the go-ahead to drop what she was doing and go through our mess. She’s a good girl.”
“That she is.”
“Well, looks like we have a plan. Want to go grab a beer?”
“Danny, I’d love to. But I’m so tired right now, I need to get back to the condo and hit the sack. The last couple of days have really kept me wired up.”
“Yeah, you do look a little like hell warmed over.”
The next morning, Joe and Danny met at the office. Joe looked more refreshed. After several cups of caffeine and making a few phone calls, they weaved their way over to the San Diego Freeway and headed north to Anaheim to interview the old hotel manager, John Traiger. He lived on a side street just off East Sycamore Avenue with his youngest daughter—well, if you want to call her young. She was seventy-one.
The fifty-seven mile trip up the highway was peppered with various conversations from Joe’s date with Sara and his excursion to the hotel to the San Diego Chargers and how they needed to beef up their pass rushing defense with a good pick in the draft. If they did, they just might make the play0ffs.
The detectives arrived just after ten 0’clock and parked on the street in front of a small wooden framed house with peach colored siding that appeared to be well kept. It had a covered porch with a white metal railing across the front and was just big enough for a small round table and two chairs. The front yard was cut and trimmed and looked very nice. It was representative for what the neighborhood looked like. Parked in the short single driveway beside the house was a relatively new silver Honda Accord.
The detectives verified this was the correct address and walked to the porch. Before they knocked, the door opened where a pleasant looking white-haired lady greeted them with an open smile.
“I presume one of you is Detective Joe Stein?”
“Yes ma’am. That would be me. And this is my partner Detective Danny Saenz. I assume you are Mr. Traiger’s daughter?”
“Yes, I am. Please come in. My name is Gretchen Traiger.”
The detectives walked in, shook Gretchen’s hand, turned down a cup of coffee—and a glass of tea. Before they took a seat, Joe embarrassingly asked if he could use the bathroom. He was coffee-logged and was about to bust a gut. Gretchen understood. While Joe was relieving himself, she told Danny that her father was getting dressed and would be out in a minute or so.
When Joe returned, she explained to them she had never married and that her father came to live with her after she left a thirty-year bookkeeping job with a small law firm.
The firm through the years had become prosperous and caught the eye of a larger firm who eventually bought them out. They didn’t care to bring Gretchen into the fold so she just decided to retire. Basically the timing was good. Her father had just become widowed and needed assistance. He agreed to move in with her.
Because of her warmth and care and good home cooking, he became less remorse and returned to the enjoyment of life. However, his days behind the wheel of a car came to an abrupt halt when he creamed a car at an intersection. Fortunately, he and the other driver remained unhurt, but the cars were a total loss. The Honda in the driveway was the replacement car.
“Gretchen! You got my coffee ready?” Mr. Traiger said opening the door from his bedroom.
“Yes, Dad. But first come into the living room. Two gentlemen would like to talk with you.”
“Yeah, okay. I’m comin’, I’m comin’.”
A few moments later, John Traiger walked into the living room guiding a black walking cane that had seen better days. He was typical looking for a ninety-year-old-something-or-other meaning he was somewhat frail. But his face was flush, and he carried a smile happy to have made it through another night to another morning alive.
He again asked Gretchen for his cup of coffee. Before getting it, she introduced him to the two detectives who both stood and shook his hand. He had a firm grip and looked the young men directly into their eyes. He motioned for them to take their seats. He sat in a navy blue leather recliner that had seen better days. Gretchen went for his coffee.
“So, what can I do for you fellers?”
“Well sir, we’re here to talk to you about the old Grand Pacific Hotel. We understand you were the manager there,” Danny said.
“This have anything to do with that mummy you folks found down there a few weeks ago? All over the news, ya know.”
“Uh, yes sir. It is,” Danny replied.
“Yeah. Quite a story. Y’all find out who he was yet?”
“Yes. But we’re looking for the next of kin before we release any more information. So far we haven’t found anyone,” said Danny.
“Might take a while goin’ back that many centuries,” Mr. Traiger said with a laugh.
“Yeah, it might. So, tell us about your time at the GP.” Danny said asking a broad question.
“Been a good while, ya know. I was there a right long time even to when she finally closed down. Around 1985, I think. So, what’s that? Twenty-seven years ago?”
“Sounds about right,” Danny said looking at his fingers.
“Yes, sir. I was sixty-four then. Just about the right time to retire.”
“How old are you now,” Joe asked being curious.
“Son, you do the math. That would make me ninety-one.”
“Uh, yes sir. Sorry.”
“Ah hell, son, don’t be sorry, Kids today just don’t have the know-how to do math in their heads. Gotta have a calculator or some other device. Never seen anything like it. Everywhere you go these days, kids walkin’ around with their eyes glued to some computer device they’re holdin’. One of these days they’ll walk into a sinkhole and disappear. That’d teach ’em.”
“Uh, yes sir. It probably would,” Joe said feeling stupid.
Gretchen walked back into the room with her father’s coffee and a fresh donut. She set it on the little side table by his chair.
“You put one ice cube in the coffee, hon?”
“Yes I did, Dad. Just like always.”
“Hate to drink hot coffee. One cube cools it just enough so ya can start drinkin’ it without havin’ to wait so doggone long. Gretchen here offer you fellers some coffee?”
“Yes sir, she did. We had plenty before we left the office. But thank you anyway.”
“So, they’re finally tearin’ the ol’ gal down, huh?”
“Yes sir, they are,” Joe said.
“Run across any more bodies?” Mr. Traiger asked with humor.
“Found one in the old closed-off privy.” Danny said.
“You did? Damn! Must’ve missed that story. Find out who she was?”
“She?” Danny said with wide eyes.
“Well, I mean, you know, he, she, it. ‘She’ just popped outta my head.”
“Yes, sir. I know what you mean,” Danny said.
“You found out who ‘it’ was, yet?”
“No, sir. We’re still working on it,” Joe said this time.
“Wonder how ‘it’ got down there?” Mr. Traiger asked taking a bite of his doughnut and following it with a sip of coffee.
“We’re pondering the same thing.”
“Well, it’s doubtful she, I mean it, fell through the seat. Those holes weren’t big enough.”
“Oh, how do you know that?”
“Have some old pictures of it. It looked to be a mighty fine privy!”
“You have photos of it?”
“Around here somewhere. Saved a lot of stuff from those days. Longest place I ever worked, ya know. Started in 1953; right after Korea. But if I can find any photos, they’d be stuffed in some old box stored in the garage. And I want ya to know that garage is in one helluva mess right now. It’ll take some doin’ to find ’em. How soon ya need ’em?”
“Well, as soon as you can find them. It’d help in our investigation,” Danny said.
“Gretchen, ya think we might can round up a few of the neighborhood boys to help me go through those boxes?”
“Yes, Dad. I think we can.”
“Good. Now what else you boys want from me?”
“So, you said you started working at the GP in 1953?” Danny asked.
“Yep, sho’ did. Right after I got back from Korea in late 1953.”
“Weren’t you a little too old to be fighting?” asked Danny.
“Fought in WWII. Didn’t actually fight in Korea. I was a major in logistics. I was behind the lines,” Mr. Traiger said with a blank stare. Danny sensed he didn’t want to talk about it so moved on.
“Thirty-two years in one place is quite an accomplishment,” Joe said with bravado quickly adding in his head.
“Yep, sho’ was. Five years in one place today is a career.”
“But you didn’t start out as manager?” asked Danny.
“Nope. Started out as an assistant bookkeeper, worked my way to head bookkeeper, and then to manager in 1963 after the previous manager died. Stayed in that position til she closed.”
“You remember Ned Martin?”
“Ha! Ol’ Ned. What a character! He still livin’?”
“Yes, sir. He’s in a retirement center down in Oceanside.”
“How’s he doin’?”
“Well … he seems happy.”
“Say he’s a nut, huh?”
“I suppose you could say that. But he seems happy.”
“Don’t know what happened to ’im. He was doin’ a good job as the night auditor but then all-sudden like up and quit.”
“When was that?
“Sometime in 1966. Just decided to quit. Took another job with some department store. Ran into ’im sometime later and asked ’im what happened. Just told me he had to quit. Never did explain. Don’t know what happened.”
“Don’t know, huh?”
“Nope. But somethin’ happened rather abruptly to cause him to quit. Say you tried to talk to ’im, did’ja?”
“He wasn’t very responsive. Talked in circles. Likes to watch Law and Order.”
“Wish I could help ya. But that’s all I know,” Mr. Traiger said rather abruptly wanting to move on to something else.
“Well, whatever it was it’s locked away now. So, you saw a lot of ups and downs of the place?” Danny asked.
“And there were a lot, I tell ya. Right after Korea, the place started gettin’ back to normal. That is the military slowed down and the vacationers started comin’ back again. Lots of high-rollers during those times. Spent a lot of money. Those soldiers didn’t spend much. But they didn’t have much. But with the high-rollers, business was good. Real good.
“Then sometime in the mid-sixties, the money started fizzlin’ again. Vietnam, ya know. Those Camp Pendleton boys descended on us again and the vacationers took off. We didn’t really recover ’til sometime in the early seventies. Then we spruced the ol’ place up but it never really got back to the way it was. We survived but it was always touch-and-go. Then in the mid-eighties, the owners just decided to close ’er up. It was a sad day.”
“Yes, I imagine. But from what I remember reading in the paper, you had one last big party for the closing,” Danny said with a smile. It also brought a big smile to Mr. Traiger.
“Yep, we sho’ did! Threw a big wingding. What a night! Had lots of toast and impromptu speeches. Everybody was huggin’ everybody. Then it was over. A few days later, we sold and auctioned off most everything that wasn’t nailed down. That was a sad time. Yep, it was.”
“Yes, I’m sure it was a sad time. But let’s go back and talk about the mid-sixties. I’m more interested to know about those times.” Danny was most interested in those times because it was determined that their first body, the mummy, was an AWOL Marine from that era.
“Lots of Marines. Many came with their girlfriends and many came looking for girls; know what I mean?”
“Ah, call girls?”
“Yep.”
“I always thought the GP was a clean place that didn’t have that sort of thing.”
“Well, for the most part it didn’t. It was mainly during the war years. I was only familiar with the Vietnam era, but I understand it happened during WWII and Korea. The years in between, it was a lot less; but it did happen. The women did come.”
“You didn’t try to kick them out?”
“Some we did, some we didn’t.”
“Oh?”
“The ones that were blatant about it, we booted. The ones that remained discreet, we turned a blind-eye.”
“Ever had any trouble?”
“Uh, no. Not really. It controlled itself.”
“How’s that?”
“Well, ya gotta understand. That hooker business was hard for us to really control. But we did have some unwritten rules for ’em to follow. And they followed ’em. But if there was trouble, it was usually from the Marines.”
“Just the Marines?” Danny said.
“Mostly. They came to party. Wanted to have a good time. You know what I mean.”
“The girls?”
“Yeah, the damn girls!”
“Were the girls controlled by anybody?”
“Hell if I know!”
“You just turned a blind eye, huh?”
“I had other important business to attend. The girls weren’t an issue. Hell, my biggest problem was leaking pipes. When they installed the new plumbing, those old pipes started leaking. It wasn’t a single leak, they leaked all over the damn place. There were times we had to close off good rentable rooms for a day or two to fix the damn pipes. Son, that was my headache!”
“Sorry to hear that. I guess it was a mess ,” Danny said sensing Mr. Traiger was getting irritable. Gretchen also noticed her father getting antsy and stepped in on the conversation.
”Dad, do you want to continue this?”
“No, I don’t! I’m getting tired. I don’t care to go on any more.”
“Gentlemen, I think it’s best we stop for now.”
“Uh, yes ma’am. I think it probably is. Perhaps we can come back another time if that’s okay. We still have a few more questions we’d like to ask,” Danny said getting to his feet. Joe was right behind him in standing. Gretchen got to her feet but Mr. Traiger remained sitting.
“Please call first and I’ll see how Dad is doing. And if he finds those photos of the hotel privy, we’ll give you a call.”
“Yes ma’am. That would be great.”
“Let me show you out,” Gretchen said walking over to the front door. But before leaving, the detectives walked over and shook Mr. Traiger’s hand. It still remained firm. However, he didn’t look them in the eye; they remained glued to his lap deep in thought.
Instead of heading back to Oceanside, the detectives decided to grab lunch in Anaheim at a small out-of-the-way deli where Joe had eaten once before. He was in the mood for a Rueben sandwich with sauerkraut, and hot potato salad. Danny wasn’t much in the mood for anything but did settle for a hot pastrami on rye with potato chips.
“What do you think, pardner?” Danny asked Joe.
“Well, he seemed in good spirits at first but started to get edgy. Something was weighing-in heavy on his mind.”
“Yeah, I agree. Something he thought must’ve struck a nerve,” Danny said. Joe thought for a second and then reached into his coat pocket for his note pad. He opened it up and began reviewing his notes.
“You got something?” Danny asked
“I’m not sure, but I think I see a connection.”
“Like what?”
“Aaron Hinkle. You know, the guy I interviewed a few weeks while you stayed at the hotel; the guy my grandfather used to work for in the jewelry business. He worked at the GP, too. He had a gift booth—and, among his many jobs there, he was an assistant maintenance man in the early days.”
“Okay, I’m listening.”
“At the time, his comments didn’t seem like much; now they do.”
“Get on with it. What’s the connection?”
“Leaking pipes.”
“Leaking pipes? What are you talking about?”
“When I interviewed Aaron, he mentioned leaking pipes. And you just heard Mr. Traiger; he mentioned leaking pipes.”
“So, the old hotel had leaking pipes. Old pipes do leak.”
“Yeah, but they also talked about the Marines and hookers. Don’t you see? After all these years, they both talked about the same thing? Don’t you think that a little odd?”
“Well, it does some.”
“And another thing. When Aaron started talking about the leaks, his mind started to trail off. And you just heard Mr. Traiger; he got irritable and stopped the conversation.”
“So you think leaking pipes had something to do with murder?”
“I don’t know, yet. But I think it’s odd these two old coots, after all these years, would talk about something as mundane as leaking pipes.”
“Joe, that’s not much to go on. I think what you’re talking about is just a coincidence.”
“I don’t think so.”
“And you’re thinking we need to go back and talk to Aaron?”
“Actually, no. We need to go back and talk with Seth Adams. I think he knows more than he’s letting on. He also talked about the Marines and the hookers. Remember?”
“Yeah, now that you mention it, I do. As I recall, I asked him if he remembered any of the hookers, and he got a glazed look in his eyes. His demeanor did change.”
“Yes it did. I made a note of that. That’s why we need to go back to talk with him. When you combine his glazed look, Mr. Traiger’s agitation, and Aaron suddenly changing topics, I think we might have something to go on. And keep in mind our mummy was a Marine. Somehow all this is connected. I can feel it!”
“And the bones in the privy and the bones in the boiler?”
“Just another piece of the puzzle.”
“When we get back to Oceanside, we’ll stop by Laura’s lab. Maybe she has something,” Danny said.
“They don’t, just yet.”
“And how do you know this?”
“I called Sara this morning. They don’t have anything. Said it’d probably be a few more days. But they’re close.”
“Okay then, a few more days. I guess we can wait.”
“Yeah, we can wait. But when we go back to interview Mr. Adams, we need to put some pressure on him. He knows more than he’s allowing. I think he’s putting on act.”
“Yeah, he probably is. He probably is.”