ROOM 406 of the Norman Hotel
Yesterday's continued tale
Now at the time, under Illinois law, when the resident of a home or apartment died in it and no one else was living there, the Police would process the place and search for identification and a possible list of relatives, friends, etc. Normally found among mail, other personal effects like telephone books, diaries, etc. Once the body had been removed, a seal was placed on the door; a sticker that had the seal of the County’s coroner’s office on it. Also, a hasp was put on the door with a small padlock tag like thing with a serial number and the two could only be removed by either the police or the coroner’s office. The property remained sealed and no one could enter for 90 days unless a proven relative was found and given entry. However, if no relative is found within that 90 day period, the only other way is to have someone who represents the property’s owner to go to the County Coroner’s office with the proper documentation as to ownership of the property, and the coroner’s office contacts the local police who then come to the property and unseal the apartment. Which, being the assistant manager of the Norman, was one of my duties so after 90 days when no one came forward for either Mr J. or Mr. A. I found myself heading down to the proper office to get things opened up as the Norman’s owner was interested in making the apartment ready to be rented.
One of the duties of the housekeeper, besides providing clean linen to those residents, was to clean and make ready vacancies for upcoming rentals and in the case of apartment 406, Mary was to clean out the apartment, removing it’s items to one of the basement area lockers where it would be secured for another 30 days, then to clean the apartment up, including fresh linen on the Murphy Bed so it could be quickly rented. A day after it was unsealed, Mary was given the key and with the help of her husband Delmar, the two went about doing the job. Two days were spent packing and moving all of the belongings of Mr. J. and Mr. A. and then a third day doing the cleaning of the Apartment. It was a weekday and I was at work behind the front desk on that afternoon as Mary was finishing up the cleaning of apartment 406. It was a bit after one when Mary stepped out of the elevator and upon seeing her approach the desk, I readily assumed that she had completed the job at hand and was returning the key. But as she drew near and I looked at her, I could see that the expression she wore was not of someone who had finished a job and was ready to move on to her next, but one of confusion and fear. And in a soft and distant sounding voice, as though she was talking into a recorder, she began to tell me the events of which had just occurred to her.
At approximately eleven forty-five, she had been working in apartment 406 and was almost finished when she took a break for lunch, going to her own apartment on six. Prior to leaving apartment 406 and locking the door, she had made sure to open all of the windows in the apartment as to air it out as it was a nice Sunny July day out. She then locked up the apartment and headed off to lunch. She claimed to have returned at twelve-thirty and finished cleaning and wiping down the bathroom. The last thing to do was to put fresh sheets on the bed and as she went about her task, she claimed she neither felt or heard anything unusual. But as she finished up and turned about, she claimed to have seen Mr. J. sitting in the over-stuffed chair which he had been found in and it took a couple of seconds for it to register in her mind. Mary said that he appeared quite normal with the exception of a bullet hole plainly visible in his head. He smiled at her and nodded his head. She’d exited the apartment in such a hurry, that she had left the apartment door wide open and her maid’s cart sitting in the apartment. I had her come behind the desk and take a seat in the office with Pauline who gave her a glass of water and I headed upstairs. She had indeed left the door to apartment 406 open and her maid cart was where she had said it was. But there was no sign of anything amiss, nor any sign that she had been visited by Mr. J’s ghostly form. However, as I exited the room and closed the door behind me to lock it, there was just the faintest of a scent. That of Old Spice after shave, the same after shave favored by Mr. J.
So there you have it, another story about the Haunted Hotel called The Norman. I'm actually sorry to say that although the Norman Hotel's exterior continues to look like it always has, the interior has all been gutted a few years back and it was turned into up-scale "flats" for the young turks with brains and money. Much of the old things are gone now, not just there in Chicago, but everywhere and they call it progress among other things. Fifty years from now, I sit back and picture someone like myself sitting behind his desk and looking backwards. No doubt in another fifty years the landscape will have changed again, perhaps the Norman will be torn down and a super-center put up in it;s place. What do the ghosts think, I wonder? I think they look at us in this world and shake their heads, wondering what the hell were we thinking! I look at them and I see a connection not only of the afterlife, but of our past...
Happy Saturday everyone!
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