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Rubbing the back of her neck, Dela walked into the security room of the Spotted Pony Casino. Instead of going home at two a.m., as she’d been doing since the head of the casino’s security was arrested for aiding a human trafficking ring, she’d ended up spending all night due to a glitch in a bank of slot machines. After the cashier noticed a machine had paid out more than it took in three times, she’d called Dela.
Not wanting to leave the premises until the technician checked out what had caused the glitch, Dela had grabbed a couple hours of rest in a small room off the security suite.
The ear bud connected to her shoulder mic buzzed and Kay James, one of the surveillance members, voice said, “Something odd is happening on the tenth floor.”
“What do you see?” she asked, heading toward the door.
“Kara is standing just outside the door of the supply room on the tenth floor. She looks like she’s seen something awful. And there is red streaked on the bottom of the wad of sheets in her arms.”
Dela’s gut twisted. That didn’t sound good. “I’ll grab Kenny and head up there. Keep an eye on things.” She hurried across the casino as quickly as her swollen lower limb would allow her to travel. She’d been warned too many hours on her feet would inflame the still tender nub where her leg was amputated.
Shoving the pain and irritation to the back of her mind, she glanced toward the entrance and found Kenny. She motioned to the big Umatilla man who had moved into her second in command since she’d become the head of security.
He fell in step with her. “What’s up?”
Her phone buzzed. Housekeeping. “Dela,” she answered.
“Kara says there is a body in the laundry chute on ten.” Mrs. Young’s voice faltered as she relayed the message.
“I’m on my way.” She punched the up button on the elevator, ticking off the seconds until the doors opened.
“Did I hear her say a body in the laundry chute?” Kenny asked, following her onto the elevator.
“That’s what she said. From what Kay said, I have a feeling that’s what we’ll find.”
The elevator doors opened. They made a right and a left.
Kara still stood outside the supply room.
“Give me those.” Dela grabbed the sheets, avoiding getting any blood on her gold colored polo shirt and navy slacks. She set them on the housekeeping cart inside the door and walked over to the laundry chute door. The metal panel stood open. She eased her head close enough to see the bottoms of a pair of shoes, small hands, the top of a head and bloody sheets around the body. From the crew cut and loafers she’d say male, but these days, one couldn’t be too sure.
Dela called housekeeping. “Make sure no one on the eleventh and twelfth floor put laundry in the chute.”
“I already called up,” Mrs. Young said.
“Good. Thanks. And call the tribals. We have a homicide.” Dela sighed. “Have someone meet them out front and bring them up the employee elevator, please.” She didn’t need this just as she was trying to convince the casino Board of Trustees she was the right person to replace their discredited head of security. When Godfrey Friday was convicted as an accessory to a human trafficking ring, the board told Dela she had six months to prove she deserved the job. In the meantime, they would either be looking to hire someone to be the head or to take over as the second in command, what she had been to Godfrey.
“Do we pull him out?” Kenny asked.
“No. We need to leave him there until the police arrive.” She turned to Kara. “Do you want to continue working until they arrive and take your statement, or do you want to go to the breakroom and wait?”
“Can I just...just stand here?” The woman’s face had drained of color.
Dela had to remember she was one of a handful of women from the rez who had gone off to war and had seen death up close before. Especially violent death.
“Sure. Do you want Kenny to get you a chair?” As the words came out, Kenny was already headed out of the room to find one.
She hollered after him. “See if you can get a flashlight brought up.” She wanted to know if this was an employee or a guest. A flashlight would be needed to see the man’s face in the dark chute.
While she waited, Dela walked back over to Kara. “Did you see anything when you came up and grabbed your cart?”
The woman, nearly ten years younger than Dela shook her head. “I came in as usual, turned the light on, loaded my cart, and headed out to clean rooms. I came back to toss the trash and shove the bedding down the chute...” Her lip quivered. “When the bedding wouldn’t go down, I tried shoving it. That’s when I smelled something funny and pulled the sheets out. I looked in and...” She stifled a small cry. “I think I shoved him in farther.”
Dela patted the woman’s shoulder. “That’s okay. He didn’t feel anything.”
Kara stared at her open-mouthed before snapping it shut and saying, “How can you say such a thing. A man is dead.”
“You didn’t make him any deader by shoving on him.”
Kara’s body made that involuntary jerk of something being rejected in the stomach.
Dela spun her into the room and leaned her over the large sink used to fill buckets.
Her friend lost what was left of her breakfast into the sink.
Dela turned on the faucet washing it down the drain. She grabbed a wash cloth off a shelf and handed it to her friend. “Use this.”
“What’s wrong with her?” Kenny asked, handing Dela a flashlight.
“Shock caught up with her. Help her out to the chair.” Dela walked over to the chute, turned on the beam of the flashlight, and shined it down into the hole.
There was no way to see his face with the body folded in half and wedged into the chute. All she could tell was his general build. He was a smaller framed man. His shoe looked about the same length as her size eight.
She pulled out her phone and dialed their head of surveillance.
“Hey, what’s up?” Marty Casper asked.
“Pull up the video footage from the hall outside of the supply room on the tenth floor from midnight until this morning when Kara is standing in front of the door looking terrified. I want to know how a body was put in the laundry chute and no one on duty saw it.”
“I’ll get right on it.”
The line went silent. She glanced at her watch. It had been about ten minutes since Mrs. Young called the tribal police. The idea of a homicide on the reservation should get them moving faster. Especially one at the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla’s largest employee and money-making enterprise.
Since the Casino opened, half of the tribal members had been employed at the casino. Not only did it supply jobs, the profits were used to build the community, adding new businesses, cultural buildings, and improving roads and schools.
The casino had helped the Confederated Tribes of Umatilla progress with the times and live a better life.
“How long do you think it will take the police?” Kenny asked, breaking into Dela’s thoughts.
“I would think they’d be showing up any time. Why don’t you get a list of the people staying on this floor last night? If they are still around, I’d like to find out if they heard or saw anything.” Dela had participated in murder investigations as part of the military police during her years in the Army. She’d planned to make it a career and retire after thirty years. However, an IED had shortened her career plans. Months of recovery and rehab had her cooped up on base until her discharge papers came through. From there she came back home to live with her mom.
Dela walked out of the supply room to check on Kara. “How are you doing?”
“Better. Am I going to get paid for sitting here? If not, I need to get back to work.”
“You’re fine. You’ll get paid. I’ll make sure payroll doesn’t dock you.” While she didn’t have any authority over in payroll, she did know the person who cut the checks, and she’d make sure no one docked Kara’s pay.
The service elevator dinged, the door whooshed open, and Detective Dick stepped out followed by a tribal officer who was the reservation coroner. Dick wasn’t the detective’s name. It was what Dela and a couple others called him. His real name was Detective Richard Jones. But he always talked down to the Umatilla people as if because he was white and a detective, he was superior.
“How do you know this is a homicide?” he asked, walking up to Dela, his eyes on Kara.
The five-eight, bald headed man in his fifties had only one thing going for him, he was one of the few white officers on the tribal police who didn’t carry around an extra forty or more pounds.
“I doubt he accidentally fell ass first into the laundry chute. And no one, even someone wanting to end their life, would jam themselves in there as a way to commit suicide. Not to mention the blood.” Dela led him into the supply room and pointed to the chute.
Dick stuck his head in the opening and peered down. “Got a light?”
Dela handed him her flashlight.
He shone the light down for several minutes before pulling his head out and waving to the hole. “Get several photos, then we’ll pull him out.”
Dick stepped back and the tribal officer held a camera in the opening, clicking and flashing light down the hole. The officer pulled his camera out of the opening, set it on a stack of sheets on the rack, and grabbed an arm and a leg.
The officer pulled and tugged, but the body wasn’t coming loose.
“Let me do this.” Dick shoved the officer, who was shorter than him, out of the way and grabbed into the chute, pulling on the victim’s feet.
Kenny returned with the list of guests still at the casino.
“Would you help Detective D-Jones pull the body out?”
The security guard’s eyes sparkled at her near slip of the tongue. He walked over, grabbed a hand and foot, and motioned for the detective to do the same. After back-and-forth tugging, the body popped out of the opening. They laid him down face up.
“That’s Tristan Pomroy from accounting,” Kenny said.