“Teresa McLaughlin,” Decker said. “Have you ever met her? We hear she was a friendly gal.”

Zatch thought. “I don’t remember.”

“She has a fourteen-year-old son,” Decker said. “We don’t think she would have left him alone voluntarily.”

“Ah, the boy. I remember him. He plays piano like a master.” He shook his head. “It does not sound promising…her being missing. And you think that one of my men had something to do with it?”

Decker said, “This is routine, Mr. Zatch. We’re just checking who went in and out of the suite while she was staying there.”

Zatch’s expression was sour. “You notice how hot it is in here?”

“Hard not to notice,” Eliza said as she continued to fan herself.

“Management has turned off the air-conditioning in the office.”

“That stinks.”

“I’ve complained. They say if we don’t like the working conditions, we should leave. And you know what? Most have left. We’re down to four…no, not four. Three men. One of them just quit yesterday morning. That means the lone survivors are working double shifts. None of us hurt your lady. Too busy answering calls.”

“Did the guy who serviced the toilet in 229 quit?”

“I have to check…when was the date of the call?”

“I don’t know the exact date. The call was a couple of weeks ago.”

Zatch sighed. “What was the unit number? Two twenty-nine?”

“Yes.”

He consulted his books. It took around ten minutes to find the call in the service book. “That was Reffi Zabrib. He left about two weeks ago. Most of the people left then because the new management offered two weeks of free salary if they’d leave one month before the closure. Most of my men took the money and began looking for new jobs. I need the money and need overtime. Otherwise I’d go, too.”

“Then who would be in charge of maintenance?”

“No one, because there’s nothing to maintain. All I do is answer calls. If something breaks, it stays broken unless it’s a major pipe. Then I call a plumber. It’s stupid—to sit around answering calls, looking at the problem, and then doing nothing.”

Decker said, “So your guys are busy but you’re not doing anything?”

“We’re busy answering calls. If it is a simple problem—like plugging in a TV—we fix it. If not, we hem and haw and then the front desk moves them to another room. Still, we have to answer every call we get. And since nothing has been fixed in over three months, we get lots of calls.”

“Could we have his phone number anyway?”

“Whose phone number? Reffi?”

“Yes.”

“He’s probably back in Europe, but I’ll give you whatever number I have.”

“Thank you very much. Also you said someone just quit yesterday morning?”