RESIDENT EVIL PIERSHERRY

Chapter 2

SOMETHING WASN'T RIGHT.
Sherry had been trapped inside her hotel room for nearly two hours
while the Chicago Police Department supposedly conducted their
investigation. She knew enough about crime scenes and witness
questioning to know that this was not standard protocol.
For starters, nobody was telling her anything. The police had arrived
shortly after the hotel manager escorted her back into her room. A
middle-aged, slightly balding and extremely cranky Detective Slonsky
introduced himself to Sherry and took a seat in the armchair in the corner
of the hotel room and began to take her statement about what she had heard
that night. Although she had at least been given two seconds of privacy to
throw on yoga pants and a bra, she still found it awkward to be questioned by
the police while sitting on a hastily made hotel bed.
The first thing Detective Slonsky noticed was the half-empty glass of
wine that she had ordered from room service still sitting on the desk where
she'd left it hours before. That, of course, had prompted several preliminary
questions regarding her alcohol consumption over the course of the evening.
After she seemingly managed to convince Slonsky that, no, she was not a
raging alcoholic and, yes, her statement at least had a modicum of reliability,
they moved past the booze issue and she commented on the fact that
Slonsky had introduced himself as "Detective" instead of "Officer." She
asked if that meant he was part of the homicide division. If for no other
reason, she wanted to know what had happened to the girl in room 1308.
Slonsky's sole response was a level stare and a curt, "I'm the one
asking the questions here, Ms. Birkin."
Sherry had just finished giving her statement when another
plain-clothes detective stuck his head into the room. "Slonsky--you better get
in here." He nodded in the direction of the room next door.
Slonsky stood and gave Sherry yet another level stare. She wondered if he practiced the look in his bathroom mirror.
"I'd appreciate it if you would remain in this room until I get back," he
told her.
Sherry smiled. "Of course, Detective." She was debating whether to
pull rank in order to start getting some answers, but she wasn't quite at that
point. Yet. She'd been around cops and agents all her life and had a lot of
respect for what they did. But the smile was to let Slonsky know that he
wasn't getting to her. "I'm happy to cooperate in any way I can."
Slonsky eyed her suspiciously, probably trying to decide whether he
heard a hint of sarcasm in her voice. She got that look a lot.
"Just stay in your room," he said as he made his exit.
The next time Sherry saw Detective Slonsky was a half hour later,
when he dropped by her room to let her know that, due to certain
"unexpected developments," she would not only have to remain in her room
longer than anticipated, but that he was posting a guard at her door. He
added that "it had been requested" that she not make any calls from either
her cell phone or the hotel line until "they" had finished questioning her.
For the first time, Sherry wondered whether she personally was in
trouble. "Am I considered a suspect in this investigation?" she asked
Slonsky.
"I didn't say that."
She noticed that wasn't officially a "no."
As Slonsky turned to leave, she threw another question at him. "Who
are 'they'?"
He peered over his shoulder. "Excuse me?"
"You said I can't make any calls until 'they' finish questioning me,"
Sherry said. "Who were you referring to?"
The detective's expression said that he had no intention of answering
that question. "We appreciate your continued cooperation, Ms. Birkin. That's
all I can say for now."
A few minutes after Slonsky left, Sherry looked out her peephole
and--sure enough--was treated to the view of the back of some man's head,
presumably the guard he had stationed outside her door. She left the door
and went back to sitting on the bed. Sherry glanced at the clock and saw
that it was nearly 7:00 A.M. She turned on the television--Slonsky hadn't said anything about not watching TV, after all--and hoped that maybe she would
see something about whatever was happening on the news.
She was still pushing buttons on the remote, trying to figure out how to
get past that damn hotel "Welcome" screen, when the door to her room flew
open once more.
Slonsky stuck his head in. "Sorry--no television either."
He shut the door.
"Stupid thin walls," Sherry muttered under her breath. Not that
anyone was listening. Then again . . .
"Can I at least read a book, Detective Slonsky?" she asked the empty
room.
A pause.
Then a voice came through the door, from the hallway.
"Sure."
And indeed the walls were so thin, Sherry could actually hear the
faint trace of a smile in his answer.
"THIS IS GETTING ridiculous. I have rights, you know."
Sherry faced off against the cop guarding the door to her hotel room,
determined to get some answers.
The young police officer nodded sympathetically. "I know, ma'am, and
I do apologize, but I'm just following orders."
Maybe it was her frustration at being cooped up in her hotel room for
what was now going on five--yes, five--hours, but Sherry was going to
strangle the kid if he ma'am-ed her one more time. She was thirty-two years
old, not sixty. Although she'd probably given up the right to be called "Miss"
somewhere around the time she had started thinking of twenty-two-year-old
man-boy police officers as kids.
Deciding that throttling a cop was probably not the best way to go when
presumably dozens more stood right outside her door (she couldn't say for
sure; she hadn't been permitted to even look out into the hallway, let alone
step a toe out there), Sherry tried another tactic. The man-boy clearly
responded to authority, maybe she could use that to her advantage.
"Look, I probably should've mentioned this earlier, but I'm an assistant
U.S. attorney. I work out of the Chicago office--"

"If you live in Chicago, what are you doing spending the night in a
hotel?" Officer Man-Boy interrupted.
"I'm redoing my hardwood floors. The point is--"
"Really?" He seemed very interested in this. "Because I've been trying
to find somebody to update my bathroom. The people who owned the place
before me put in this crazy black and white marble and gold fixtures and the
place looks like something out of the Playboy Mansion. Mind if I ask how you
found a contractor to take on a job that small?"
Sherry cocked her head. "Are you trying to sidetrack me with these
questions, or do you just have some weird fascination with home
improvement?"
"Possibly the former. I was under the distinct impression that you were
about to become difficult."
Sherry had to hide her smile. Officer Man-Boy may not have been
as green as she'd thought.
"Here's the thing," she told him, "you can't keep me here against my
will, especially since I've already given my statement to Detective Slonsky.
You know that, and more important, I know that. There's clearly something
unusual going on with this investigation, and while I'm willing to cooperate
and give you guys a little leeway as a professional courtesy, I'm going to
need some answers if you expect me to keep waiting here. And if you're not
the person who can give me those answers, that's fine, but then I'd like it if
you could go get Slonsky or whoever it is that I should be talking to."
Officer Man-Boy was not unsympathetic. "Look--I know you've been
stuck in this room for a long time, but the FBI guys said that they're gonna
talk to you as soon as they finish next door."
"So it's the FBI who's running this, then?"
"I probably wasn't supposed to say that."
"Why do they have jurisdiction?" Sherry pressed. "This is a homicide
case, right?"
Officer Man-Boy didn't fall for the bait a second time. "I'm sorry, Ms.
Birkin, but my hands are tied. The agent in charge of the investigation
specifically said I'm not allowed to talk to you about this."
"Then I think I should speak to the agent in charge. Who is it?" As a
prosecutor for the Northern District of Illinois, she had worked with many of the FBI agents in Chicago.
"Some special agent--I didn't catch his name," Officer Man-Boy said.
"Although I think he might know you. When he told me to guard this room, he
said he felt bad for sticking me with you for this long."
Sherry tried not to show any reaction, but that stung. True, she
wasn't exactly buddy-buddy with a lot of the FBI agents she worked
with--many of them still blamed her for that incident three years ago--but with
the exception of one particular agent who, fortunately, was miles away in
Nevada or Nebraska or something, she hadn't thought that anyone in the FBI
disliked her enough to openly bad-mouth her.
Officer Man-Boy looked apologetic. "For what it's worth, I don't think
you're so bad."
"Thanks. And did this unknown special agent who allegedly thinks he
knows me have anything else to say?"
"Only that I should go get him if you start acting fussy." He looked her
over. "You're going to start acting fussy now, aren't you?"
Sherry folded her arms across her chest. "Yes, I think I am." And it
wouldn't be an act. "You go find this agent, whoever he is, and tell him that
the fussy woman in room 1307 is through being jerked around. And tell him
that I would appreciate it very much if he could wrap up his little power trip
and condescend to speak to me himself. Because I would like to know how
long he expects me to sit here and wait."
"For as long as I ask you to, Ms. Birkin."
The voice came from the doorway.
Sherry had her back to the door, but she would've recognized that
voice anywhere--low and as smooth as velvet.
It couldn't be.
She turned around and took in the man standing across the room from
her. He looked exactly the same as he did the last time she'd seen him three
years ago: tall, dark, and scowling.
She didn't bother to mask the animosity in her voice. "Agent Nivans . . .
I didn't realize you were back in town. How was Nevada?"
"Nebraska."
From his icy look, Sherry knew that her day, which had already been
off to a most inauspicious start, had just gotten about fifty times worse.