The Girl in the Motel

by Chris Culver

  I went inside, gave the dog water, called my boss to let him know I’d come in late, and then crashed on my bed. News reporters could wait. Sleep couldn’t.

  33

  Sherlock’s feet dug into the plush carpet as he paced the conference room floor. His investigators, Alonzo Morrison and Scott Gibson, sat on the other side of the table. Both held coffee mugs and had bags under their eyes. The moment they had shown up on his doorstep that morning, their faces told him they had failed. Thankfully, they had kept their heads about them enough to dispose of the evidence.

  “How many people saw you?” asked Sherlock.

  Alonzo shifted on his seat. “Christopher Hughes and Warren Nichols for sure. The girl outside may have seen me, but I don’t know.”

  Sherlock ran a hand across his face. “Hughes, we can deal with. He’s weak. The girl’s trouble, though. She’s a detective in some podunk town south of here. She shouldn’t have been there.”

  “What should we do?” asked Gibson.

  Sherlock walked to a window and looked out over the bustling streets of Brentwood beneath him. Cars streamed in and out of the shopping center across from his building as shoppers visited Whole Foods and Nordstrom and the AT&T store. When he rented this office, it had seemed perfect for him. It was respectable and clean. The location had plenty of parking and foot traffic. Even his white-collar clients wouldn’t have minded meeting him there. He wondered whether this cushy office and life had made him grow too soft.

  Ten years ago, his employees wouldn’t have failed. They would have killed Joe Court already and tied up Christopher Hughes so they could burn him with cigarettes during an interrogation.

  “If Detective Court is watching Christopher, she’s a danger to us. She’s got to go.”

  “I won’t kill a cop,” said Gibson. “Even one from some podunk county. Job like that has legs that follow you to the grave.”

  He was right. Killing a cop wasn’t like knocking off a gangbanger. Nobody cares if you shoot a gangbanger. You shoot a cop in St. Louis, though, and you’ll have a thousand of the most motivated, vindictive, and evil motherfuckers on the planet beating the bushes looking for you. Nobody needed that hassle.

  “We can’t kill her, but we’ve got to take her out somehow. You guys were cops. How would you get her off the case?”

  Alonzo almost said something, but Evelyn, the office assistant, walked into the room before he could speak. Sherlock tried to mask his annoyance.

  “Evelyn,” said Sherlock, forcing a polite smile to his face. “Yes?”

  “Christopher Hughes is on line two,” she said. “He says it’s an emergency. He sounded stressed.”

  Given that a trained killer had tried to murder him the night before, he had every reason to sound stressed. Sherlock nodded and then walked to the conference room’s phone.

  “Thank you,” he said, hitting a blinking button to answer. Evelyn nodded and left. “Christopher, it’s Sherlock. I’ve been working on your case all morning. The St. Louis County executor is considering my proposal for a settlement. If he accepts, it’ll be six million dollars.”

  Christopher paused. “You said they’d offer me eight figures.”

  As much as Sherlock wanted to call him a greedy asshole, he couldn’t piss him off that much yet.

  “It’s a considerable sum of money.”

  Christopher paused again and then sighed. “Yeah, yeah, whatever. You’re my lawyer, right?”

  “Yeah,” said Sherlock, nodding.

  “So that means I can tell you anything, and you can’t tell anybody.”

  Sherlock hesitated. “There are exceptions to attorney-client privilege, but it’s a strong protection. If you say you plan to commit a major crime, I’m obligated to go to the police. If you tell me you’ve already committed a crime, I can’t share that with anybody.”

  “Good,” said Christopher. “Because I need your help. Somebody tried to kill me last night.”

  Sherlock glanced to Alonzo and Scott.

  “Are you sure?” asked Sherlock. “Why would someone try to kill you?”

  Alonzo rolled his eyes. Scott just grinned.

  “Cut the shit,” said Christopher. “You understand who I am and the business I ran. My old crew turned against me. I tried to meet a friend last night, and this fucking guy just comes out of nowhere and tries to shoot me. Then somebody else showed up with a gun. I can’t trust anybody else.”

  “You called the right person,” said Sherlock. “I’ll take care of you. Where are you right now?”

  “A shitty hotel on the south side of St. Louis.”

  “Good,” said Sherlock. “Stay there. I can set something up for you, but I’ll need time. You got a gun?”

  “Yeah. I got it from Warren last night. He’s dead, so he didn’t need it.”

  “Okay,” said Sherlock, nodding to himself. “Keep your gun handy and keep your eyes open. I’ll set something up and call you back as soon as I can. I won’t let anything happen to you. You’re my meal ticket, Mr. Hughes.”

  Christopher laughed. “All you care about is money, isn’t it?”

  He liked sex with Christopher’s ex-wife, too, but it didn’t seem like the right time to bring that up.

  “Makes me trustworthy,” said Sherlock. “I got your back. Okay? Hang tight, and I’ll get you somewhere safe as soon as I can.”

  Christopher thanked him and then hung up. Sherlock hung up and said nothing while he processed the conversation. Christopher didn’t seem to understand what had happened the night before. Good.

  “He say anything about us?” asked Scott. Sherlock shook his head.

  “No, he didn’t,” he said. “You guys take a walk. I need a few minutes to think.”

  Alonzo and Scott left, giving Sherlock the privacy and quiet to think. Joe Court was as big a problem as Christopher Hughes. He had known it from the moment he took the case. Somehow, Christopher had convinced himself that Detective Court wanted him and was playing hard to get. Never mind he had raped and tormented her when she was a teenager. He’d never leave her alone, and she’d never leave him alone.

  Now, Sherlock had to deal with both. He had driven by the detective’s house twice so far in the last few days. It was remote. The nearest neighbor—an elderly woman who lived alone—was about a quarter mile away. Detective Court didn’t have a traditional security system. Instead, she had a massive dog who barked at everything that moved.

  He needed to figure out how to use all this.

  The plan coalesced in his mind over twenty minutes of pacing back and forth. If he pulled it off, he’d kill two birds with one stone. If he failed, he’d have enough money that he wouldn’t care.

  He picked up his phone again and dialed Christopher’s number.

  “Christopher,” said Sherlock, drawing in a deep breath once the ex-convict answered. “I made a lot of phone calls and set up a safe house. One of my clients has a mother who lives outside St. Augustine. It’s an old, shitty house. It’s remote, but it’s defensible. Nobody will look for you there.”

  Christopher sighed. “Thank you, Jesus.”

  “Thank your lawyer, not Jesus,” said Sherlock. “You understand how many favors I had to call in for this?”

  “I owe you,” said Christopher. “This is above and beyond. When do I go?”

  “Tonight,” said Sherlock. “After dark. Can you use that cell phone I gave you to call for a car?”

  “Yeah,” said Christopher. “Uber. I remember.”

  “Good. Call an Uber and have the driver drop you off about a block from the house. Bring as much cash with you as you’ve got. The old lady wants ten grand, but she’ll take whatever you can give her. She’s got a dog. He’s big, but my client says he’s a sweetheart. He won’t bother you if you bring him something to eat.”

  “I’ll give him a sandwich or something,” said Christopher. He paused. “You sure I should wait until tonight?”

  “Yeah,” said Sherlock, nodding. “You go early,
the old lady’ll shoot you. She’s paranoid.”

  “Okay,” said Christopher, his voice low. “What next, then? I can’t stay at some old broad’s house forever.”

  “No, you can’t. That’s why you’ve got to disappear. I don’t know who’s after you, so we need to get you out of town. I can help, but it will cost money.”

  “How much?” said Christopher.

  Sherlock paused. “A lot. You’ll get a new ID, a new passport, new everything. I’ve got a guy who works in the Canadian Embassy in Washington. They’re legit, but they’re expensive. Hundred grand.”

  “Jesus,” said Christopher. “I don’t have that kind of money.”

  “You had a quarter million hidden in the walls of your ex-wife’s house,” said Sherlock. “I can front you a hundred grand, but you better find going-away money fast.”

  Christopher swore under his breath and then went silent for ten or fifteen seconds.

  “All right,” he said. “I’ve got money, but it’s at a bank in a safe deposit box.”

  “Then I’ll get it,” said Sherlock. “I’m your lawyer. If you trust me with your life, you can trust me with your money.”

  Christopher swore again. “I don’t like this.”

  “Nobody likes this,” said Sherlock. “We’ve got to improvise. What’s it going to be? You trust me and survive, or do you sit in a hotel room until your old business partners slit your throat?”

  Sherlock counted to five before Christopher spoke.

  “I trust you. I’ve got four safety deposit boxes in banks in Clayton. They don’t have keys. They’ve got passcodes. You got a pen?”

  He recited a long string of numbers, which Sherlock wrote down.

  “What’s my cut?” asked Sherlock.

  “It’s all about money with you, isn’t it?” asked Christopher.

  “Yeah. We’re both businessmen. My organization is providing you a valuable service, and I think we should get paid for that. You understand. Five hundred ought to do it.”

  “Five hundred grand,” said Christopher. “That’s a lot of fucking money.”

  “You can’t expect me to do this for free.”

  “For five hundred, I don’t want to owe you anything else. That’s it. Five hundred, you get me out of the country, and we’re done.”

  “It’s a deal,” said Sherlock. He read off Joe Court’s home address. “That’s where you need to go. Show up at between one and two in the morning. Lights will be off. The dog will probably bark, so throw him a piece of ham or something. That’ll shut him up. The old lady’s expecting you, but she’ll be in bed. She will unlock the back door. You can sleep on the couch.”

  “I don’t like this,” said Christopher. “Sneaking around doesn’t feel right.”

  “Sorry if you don’t like sneaking, but it’s either this or die,” said Sherlock, forcing a measure of annoyed sharpness into his voice. “Make your own arrangements.”

  “I didn’t mean to sound ungrateful, but this is my life we’re talking about. It’s important.”

  “Yeah, it is,” said Sherlock, softening his voice. “Which is why you called me. Nobody will come after you at the old lady’s house. In a week, you’ll be sipping margaritas on the beach in the Dominican Republic. In the meantime, I’ll get your money and put this together. Keep your head down, and we’ll get through this. All right?”

  “Yeah,” said Christopher, his voice stronger and more confident than it had been just a few moments earlier. “You’re a real friend. I can’t thank you enough for this.”

  “Pay me, and we’ll call it even.”

  “You’re a cold motherfucker,” said Christopher, laughing. “That’s what I like about you.”

  “Stick to the plan, and you’ll stay alive.”

  Christopher thanked him again before hanging up. Sherlock rubbed his eyes. In fourteen hours, Christopher Hughes would sneak into Detective Joe Court’s home. She’d shoot without hesitation.

  Sherlock knew no one who deserved it more.

  34

  I woke at about noon. My entire body ached, and my head pounded as if I were hung over. Roger must have heard me get up because he ran into my bedroom and licked my hand as I swung my legs off the bed. The sweatpants and shirt I had picked up at the hospital felt rough and scratchy. My arm hurt, but it didn’t burn or itch—two signs of infection the doctors at the ER had warned me to watch for. That was nice.

  I drank a glass of water before showering and getting dressed. The doctors at the ER had given me some antibiotics and painkillers, so I took both and drove into work. I should have taken the day off. If I did that, though, I’d sit around all day thinking about the shooting. The round that grazed my arm could have hit my chest, or it could have nicked a major artery.

  As a police officer, I knew the risks that came with wearing a badge. I had never lost a colleague while in St. Augustine, but a couple hundred police officers per year died in the United States in the line of duty. Despite the risks, I put on my badge every morning because I believed in the work I did. People needed help, and I gave it. Nothing I did could bring a murder victim back from the dead, but I could give a family justice.

  I didn’t like the thought of almost dying while chasing Christopher Hughes. He had taken enough from me. He didn’t deserve more.

  Trisha stopped me as I walked into the station. The waiting room was empty, making it a rare quiet moment during fair week.

  “I heard what happened to you in St. Louis. You don’t need to be here.”

  “I’ve got paperwork to fill out,” I said. “I either do it here, or I sit home alone. The ambience here is nicer.”

  “I’m glad you’re okay.”

  “Me, too. Thanks,” I said, starting toward my desk. Before I could go more than a few feet, I stopped myself. “Have you seen Travis this morning?”

  “He’s with a detective from St. Louis. They’re trying to track down Christopher Hughes to ask about the shooting.”

  “So Christopher’s gone to ground?”

  “Best we can tell, yeah. We tried his hotel this morning, but he’s not there. His lawyer claims he hasn’t seen him, either. He’ll show up. He’s suing St. Louis County. There’s too much money at stake.”

  I nodded. Even after thinking about it, I didn’t know what happened last night. The shooters could have been trying to kill me, but they could have been after Christopher Hughes. They might have even targeted the shop’s owner. The investigating officers would figure that out. As a witness, I needed to stay away from it.

  “Those missing high school kids ever show up?” I asked.

  Trisha shook her head. “Not that I know of.”

  Now that was troubling. If they had been adults, I would have suspected they had eloped and gone on a honeymoon to spite their parents. Missing teenagers should have returned by now. They didn’t have enough money to disappear this long.

  “And no one’s even seen their car?”

  Trisha shook her head again. “Not that we know of. Highway Patrol has issued a statewide notice on the car. If it’s in Missouri, we’ll find it.”

  I nodded, already thinking. “If they’re gone too much longer, we’ll bring in some help. If you need me, I’ll be at my desk. I’ve got paperwork to fill out.”

  She smiled and nodded. Her phone rang almost the moment I turned my back. No rest for the weary during fair week. I looked forward to having free time again.

  I walked to my desk and checked my messages. My boss had called and left me a voicemail, which told me I was on desk duty pending an investigation into my shooting in St. Louis. St. Augustine wasn’t big enough to have our own internal affairs section, so the St. Louis Metro Police Department would handle the investigation. It was a formality considering I had only fired my weapon after being fired upon, but it was important. The rules mattered. I wasn’t above them because I carried a badge.

  While all that was going on, Travis, officers from the Highway Patrol, and detectives from both St
. Louis County and the city were trying to find Christopher Hughes. They could have him. He may not have killed the garage owner, but he was there when it happened, and he had gone there to commit some kind of crime. Once they found him, they’d book him on felony murder charges. He was toast.

  I spent the afternoon writing reports. Those missing teenagers worried me. Desk duty or not, I planned to follow up.

  I started by calling Paige Maxwell’s and Jude Lewis’s parents. Neither had heard from their children or their children’s friends. Next, I called the principal at their school, who said the kids hadn’t attended since their disappearance. Next, I called the local bank and learned neither had used their debit cards or withdrawn money from the ATM since going missing. After that, I checked their social media accounts, but neither had posted anything since their disappearance.

  On the off chance they were sitting in a holding cell somewhere out of state, I called law enforcement agencies in Illinois, Arkansas, Kentucky, and Tennessee. Nobody had seen the kids, and there had been no reports of traffic accidents involving their vehicle.

  After striking out all afternoon, I stood up from my desk with my stomach rumbling. It was a little after five. I hadn’t wasted the day, but it felt like it. The swing shift would come in soon. They didn’t need me.

  I got my things together, told Trisha I’d see her tomorrow, and then headed out. On my way home, I stopped by a grocery store and picked up a twelve pack of a pale ale I liked, two rice bowls with chicken and teriyaki sauce from the prepared food section, and a big bag of ice.

  At home, Roger met me on the porch and bowed in front of me, his signal that he wanted to play. I put my groceries away and tossed him a ball until he calmed down.

  Years ago, I couldn’t tire him out no matter what I did. We’d run through the woods for an hour in the morning, and then he’d want me to throw him a ball or a stick all day. Now, if he followed me jogging in the morning, he’d go—maybe—a quarter mile before turning around, and he’d only chase a ball a few times before having to sit.