Silent Sentinels, Yvonne, France

Prologue - Watery Death

Here it is so far...enjoy!

Antonio Vitelli’s body lay in the contorted state in which it was found by the maid who had gone shrieking to the resort manager in her broken English mixed with Spanish, cackling about demons and possession and frothing at the mouth. Vitelli did have bubbles of saliva around his mouth, but it wasn’t actively frothing; the man was dead, after all. Detective Belkher scratched his head, wondering what his former fraternity brother was doing here, in the sleepy little enclave of Riverside, and what he had done to die in so hideous a manner.

Due to the foam around the deceased’s mouth, the crime scene investigators had to wait for the biohazard team from the local hospital to come. At least they remained engaged during the wait, as one of the more pesky local reporters, complete with her sidekick photographer, was doing her best to get a clear look at the body of the deceased in all its contorted glory and gruesomeness.

“Now, now, Ms. Haville, you know the rules – back to the other side of the parking lot, please!”

Lily Gorman, one of the crime scene technicians, shepherded Nancy Haville, star reporter for the Riverside Daily News away from the doorway of the front room where Vitelli’s body lay in full view of anyone passing by. She sighed as she heard the snap of the flashbulb and the whirr of the autowind on the camera behind her.

“I’ve got it. Gorman. Huey, unload and hand over the film. You, too, know the rules – no photographs without clearance from Detective Belkher. Don’t give me that hangdog look, old friend. Just hand over the film.”

Todd Rathsem was also well acquainted with the dynamic duo of Haville and Gomes from the Daily News. He took the film, put it in an evidence bag, and then escorted Huey Gomes to the side of Nancy Haville across the parking lot from the cordoned-off resort cottage. As he turned to walk back to the scene, he called one of the uniformed police over.

“Make sure these two stay on this side of the squad cars, okay Mac?”

“Sure thing Rathy – no problem!”

After Rathsem had crossed the parking lot, Nancy Haville turned her sea-green eyes to Mac and smiled a pouty smile at him.

“Ah no, missy – I’ve known you since you were in diapers! That pretty little pouty thing you do don’t work on me, darling.” Mac shot her an engaging grin of his own and held his post, keeping her and Huey firmly on the far side of the parking lot from the crime scene.

Finally the biohazard team arrived from County General and got to work securing the room, taking photos for the police before collecting various samples from the body before double-bagging it for the trip down to the special room in the morgue – the one exclusively for people who die under mysterious circumstances. A holdover from the good old days of worrying about nuclear radiation from the now-defunct local power plant, which had an incident or two, okay ten, in its day before local public outcry got the attention of the national environmental movement and the plant was shut down for good.

“Did you or any of your crew go near the body, Belkher?”

“Not any of my crew, Tibbs, but you might check the maid – the one still in hysterics over there with the hotel manager. She’s the one who found the body.”

“Will do – may have to put her in quarantine for a week or so just to be safe. And the cottage will definitely need full decontamination protocol as well.”

“Do you have an interpreter on your crew? The maid only speaks Spanish and seems to be a superstitious sort.”

“Thanks for the heads up. I’ll send Maggie over to her then.”

Belkher turned back to the scene of the crime and sighed. Decontamination protocol meant that neither he nor any of his crime scene technicians could physically examine any of the contents of the room firsthand. They had to wait for the state crew who were specially trained in such procedures, and trust them to handle the evidence properly. Belkher knew the head of the state biohazard investigative unit, and quite frankly, the man was a drunk who had gotten the job through special favors granted by the governor’s office three terms ago. Hopefully the folks on his crew were a bit more competent then he was, or they’d never crack this case! Belkher shook his head as he walked over to where his crime scene technicians were waiting.

“Well troops, now we wait for the state team to get here so we can turn the scene over to them for processing and decontamination.”

Gorman bristled. “You know how incompetent they are sir!”

“I know, Gorman, I know. But due to the victim’s condition, we have no choice but to consider a biohazard contamination, and treat the scene accordingly.” Belkher shook his head again. “I don’t like it anymore than you do, but that’s the rules we have to live by here.”

“At least we can thank our local press office for photos of the crime scene before anything was moved or taken.” Rathsem waved the evidence bag containing the film from Huey’s camera in front of them with a devilish grin on his freckled face.

Belkher returned the grin. “Not much to work with, but a definitely better start than what we might have had. Remind me to ask Ms. Haville out for dinner sometime, will ya Gorman?”

Gorman grimaced. “Not on your life boss! Sorry.”

Belkher noted the arrival of the state crew, with the bumbling debarking of their fearless leader from the passenger side of the official vehicle.

“Ah, Sadtler. Glad to see your crew was able to get here so quickly.”

“Belkher. Well, yes, we are here, so your crew is relieved. Y’all can go home now.”

Belkher wrinkled his nose at the smell emanating from Sadtler, the smell of liquor that seemed to ooze from every pore of the man’s body.

“Actually, we still have some folks to question in the area. Let us know if you find anything of interest, now ya hear?”

“Will do, Belkher, will do.” Sadlter turned to his crew and bellowed for them to start processing the scene before stumbling back to the vehicle to root for the ever-present flask in the glove box.

Shaking his head in disgust, Belkher directed Gorman and Rathsem to check the neighboring cottages to see if any of the other residents of the resort had seen or heard anything relating to Vitelli and his cottage over the last few days. Once his crew was dispatched, he walked over to the resort manager’s office for a chat.

“Hello, sir, I’m Detective Belkher. I’ll need information on the gentleman staying in cottage 231B – when he checked in, how he paid, any visitors he had, anything else you might want to add that may be relevant to figuring out what happened.”

“Always happy to help our local boys in blue, detective. Just let me pull the room file here. The gentleman’s name is, was, Antonio Vitelli, and he checked in four nights ago, planning to stay a full week. Paid with a credit card. I’ll give you a copy of the room file. Looks like he made several phone calls too. I’ll get you those numbers as well. Didn’t seem to have many visitors, although I do remember one very striking young lady looking for him two days ago. Because many of our guests come her for solitude, we screen all visitors here first before allowing them access to the cottages. She was on his list of approved visitors, so Tina let her through. I’ll see if she can remember the young lady’s name.”

“Thanks. Actually, if I could talk to Tina, that would be grand.”

“Of course, detective. Let me get her for you. Here is the copy of his room file, and I’ll get those phone numbers for you as well. Just a moment.”

The manager walked to the back of the office, calling for Tina and then rifling through some papers on an unseen desk. A young blonde came to the front desk.

“I’m Tina. How can I help you?”

“Hi, Tina, I’m Detective Belkher. The manager said that the gentleman in cottage 231B had a young lady friend visit him a couple of days ago, and that you might remember her name, since you were working the counter that day.”

“Ah, Antonio’s visitor. Yes, I remember. While she was on his list of approved visitors, he was very upset that we’d let her through without calling him first, which I found odd. Her name was Mariana de Gilletto, and she looked as exotic as that name sounds. All dark hair and legs, that woman was, and cool as a cucumber – not one of those excitable Latinas if you get my drift. Come to think of it, her eyes were the color of cucumbers, too, the inside part I mean.”

“Did you know Antonio personally or do you call all the guests by their first name?”

“All the girls “know” Antonio here, detective. He is quite the ladies man.” Tina gave a knowing smile.

“Do you remember what Mr. Vitelli said about Ms.de Gilletto, as to why he was upset you’d let her through?”

“He called her a she-devil, and denied putting her on his list – at least until we showed him the list, which was in his own handwriting.”

“Did you notice how Ms.de Gilletto arrived at the resort?”

“No, I didn’t. I just turned around from making a reservation for another guest and there she was. Came in really quiet, ‘cause I usually hear the door open.”

The manager came back with the list of phone numbers dialed from cottage 231B and handed it to Belkher.

Belkher thanked Tina and the manager for their time, and left his card with them in case they remembered anything else about Mr. Vitelli or his visitors.