In Quest of Another's Suicide

The manager of the Mormon Hotel went up to his office.  He sat in his chair and leaned back.  He looked out the window overlooking Washington, D.C.  He rubbed his face with his hands.  What a way to start the day.  The look on Lori’s face haunted him, and he kept thinking about the stupid guard.  This is not going to be good he thought. 

            He poured himself a cup of coffee and added some liquor to it.  He sat down again, with his back to the door and leaned back.  He watched the scurrying of people below and sipped on his coffee.  He thought about how he was going to explain this mess to Mr. Mormon.  He looked out the window a while longer.  He finished his coffee and turned in his chair.

            He pushed the call button for his secretary, “Janet, get Mr. Mormon on the phone please.”  After enough time passed for him to take a few deep breaths, Janet buzzed him back. 

“Mr. Stevens, Mr. Mormon is on three for you sir.”

 Tom picked up the phone.  “Good morning, Mr. Mormon, how are you sir?”

 Mr. Mormon replied, “I’m fine Tom, just fine.  How goes the battle?  Everything good there in the beautiful city of D.C.?”

 “Well, actually sir, that’s why I’m calling.  We have a bit of a problem here, a little incident that happened last night.”

 “Oh,” asked Mr. Mormon, “I’m sure it’s nothing we can’t handle.  Don’t sound so down.  What happened, somebody break into housekeeping again and steal some towels?” he said with a chuckle in his voice.

            “Well, not exactly sir.  You see we had the junior high kids here from Connecticut.  We hired guards and posted two guards on each floor to make sure the kids weren’t running around the hotel all night long.  One of the guards heard some of the girls staying up all night, and he went into the kitchen and brought them food.” 

Mr. Mormon interrupted, “Oh, so he brought them food.  Are we worried about some food?  Just put this particular guard on our black list and see that he doesn’t get hired on for future assignments.” 

“Well, sir, that’s not really the problem.  See the problem is that when the girl brought the plate back to give it to the guard, he pulled her out of the room and into the stairwell.  She got away from him, but she is really shook up and seems in shock to me.” explained Tom.