The Sun Down Motel

by Simone St. James

  This meant something, she was sure of it. She just had no idea what.

  “Close,” she said to herself, to Alma, to Betty. “I’m so damned close.”

  She went through the papers again. Then the suitcase, the clothes. She circled the room, looked in the trash can, the dresser drawer, the nightstand drawer. All were empty. She walked into the bathroom. It was dark and silent, untouched. She looked at the shower curtain, the single thin towel hanging on a rail.

  The lights flickered again, a few quick blinks this time, on and off, like someone flipping a switch. Except there was no switch that would turn the entire motel on and off in an instant.

  Betty.

  A warning.

  Viv turned from the bathroom and stepped out into the main room again. She patted her pockets for her key. The suitcase was sitting open on the bed, the contents obviously rifled through. Viv straightened the clothes quickly and flipped the lid of the case closed. She was fastening the latches when a voice in the doorway said, “What are you doing?”

  * * *

  • • •

  Simon Hess was damp now, the shoulders of his overcoat wet with rain. Water had splashed the hems of his trousers. The bedside lamp lit his features, his even and regular face. He had brown eyes, Viv realized for the first time. He looked very calm.

  Still, her gut turned and her blood pumped, every nerve ending screaming danger. “I—I’m sorry,” she stammered.

  The words hung there, inadequate. Hess looked at the suitcase she was closing, then back up to her face. He blinked. “You,” he said, his voice soft with surprise. “It was you.”

  Viv took her hands off the suitcase and turned to face him. He blocked the doorway and there was nowhere to run. “I don’t know what you mean.”

  “Yes, you do.” He took a step into the room and closed the motel door behind him. As he did, Viv could hear the click and bang of one of the doors slamming open. Then there was no sound as Simon Hess closed the door, trapping them in his room.

  “I don’t,” Viv insisted. Cold sweat was beading under her clothes.

  “Then why are you here?” The question was asked calmly, as if he were a doctor or a teacher, but Viv could see the splotches of red on his cheeks that meant anger. “In my room, going through my things? You were at that bus stop. Your footprints were in my garden.”

  Viv couldn’t look away from him. This close, she could see the beginnings of stubble on his jaw and his neck. Five o’clock shadow, his mother had always called it when her father hadn’t shaved. Her parents were very far away now.

  She was afraid, and yet she wasn’t. She’d been following him for weeks now. Part of her was ready.

  “I’m going to call the police,” Viv said. “You killed Tracy.”

  He didn’t flinch. “Who did you tell?”

  She shook her head. “No one.”

  “You told someone,” Simon Hess said. “The boy who called me on the phone just now, for example. You told him, did you not, when you asked him to lie to get me out of my room?”

  He put emphasis on the word lie, as if that mattered. As if he were offended by dishonesty after what he’d done. He looked at her with a tinge of disgust, and Viv felt the anger flush hot in her own cheeks.

  “You’re just angry because you got caught,” she said. “You thought no one would ever do it, but I did.”

  “Wrong,” Hess spit back. “You haven’t caught me yet. I’m still standing here. Call the police if you want. What can you prove?”

  “I saw you with her.” She was angry, so angry. “I saw you with Tracy. Watching her. Following her. Why did you do it?” The words were wild, unwise, but they came out of her anyway. They had been dammed up for too long. “She never did anything to you. None of them did. Why did you have to kill her? And why do you keep coming back here?”

  Outside in the corridor, a door blew open with a loud bang. It was the door to the next room. Then something soft hit their closed door, one thud and then another. A palm.

  “Help me,” came a woman’s voice from outside, raspy and hoarse. “Help me!”

  Viv’s hands went cold. The voice was the most terrifying and the saddest thing she’d ever heard. It was the voice of someone who knew she was dying, that after a long fight it was going to be over. That she would never win.

  “Help me!” the voice screamed hoarsely, the palm hitting the door again, weaker this time.

  Viv looked at Simon Hess and saw that he had a dreamy smile on his face. “Betty,” he said. “That’s why I come here. Because she’s here. I can’t . . . I go as long as I can without seeing her, but I always have to come back.”

  Outside, the voice sobbed. “Help me. Please. Please.”

  She sounded like that, Viv thought, when he did whatever he did to her.

  What does violated mean?

  “She was in my trunk,” Hess said, his voice a calm counterpoint to Betty’s screaming. “I thought she’d be quiet, but that was a mistake. She wasn’t quiet at all.” He shook his head. “I never made that mistake again. I learned my lesson. They aren’t quiet when you want them to be.”

  Viv thought of the Betty she’d seen in the photo, calm and confident. A teacher. Spinster was the word the papers had used, even though she was only twenty-four when she died. “Why Betty?” she asked Hess.

  “I loved her,” Hess replied. “I’ve never loved anything in my life, but I loved Betty. I just had to make her see.”

  Betty screamed again, her palms pounding on the door, and Hess smiled. Betty had sounded like that in his trunk. She’d screamed like that, pounded on the trunk lid like that. To Hess, it was a lullaby. Her stomach twisted and she thought she was going to be sick.

  She walked toward the door. She had to brush past him to do it, but he didn’t move. She tried not to recoil as she got near him.

  “What are you doing?” Hess asked.

  “Letting her in,” Viv said. She put her hand on the doorknob—it was ice-cold, so cold it almost burned her fingers—and wrenched it. The door opened and the cold, wet wind blew in. There was no one in the corridor.

  She looked at the outside of the door. There were bloody palm prints on the cracking paint. Viv opened her hand and placed her palm over one of the prints, feeling the cold blood against her skin. It’s almost like it’s real, she thought crazily. Her palm fit perfectly over the print on the door.

  Run, Betty had told her, standing in front of her windshield while Viv crouched in the car. Run.

  She could run now. She had the door open. She had no doubt Hess would chase her; he might even win. He was older than her, less agile, but he was a hunter who had chased down his prey many times. Maybe she’d never know how many times. He’d chase her down, and then she’d be the next one on his list.

  He had the same thought. “Do you think you’re going somewhere?” he asked calmly, even though she stood in an open doorway, ready to run.

  She could do it. Get down the stairs, get in her car. Drive away from this place, from this killer. Tell the authorities.

  What good would it do?

  Nothing would happen. No one would believe her. Simon Hess would seem like a reasonable, law-abiding person who was falsely accused by a crazy girl. And it would start all over again.

  Or he would kill her, and he’d get away with it. Again.

  She stepped back from the doorway and turned around to face him. “No,” she said. “I’m not going anywhere.”

  Three things happened.

  All of the lights, including the sign, went out and everything went dark.

  Betty screamed.

  And Viv pulled the knife from her sweatshirt, slid it from its holster, and sank it into Simon Hess’s chest.

  Fell, New York

  November 1982

  VIV

  It was surprisingly hard. Pu
tting a knife in a man’s chest was like pushing it through thick cardboard, the blade punching through cloth and muscle. But the hunting knife was sharp, and Viv was full of adrenaline. She felt numb and strong and outside of her own body. She felt terrified and pure.

  The wind howled through the open door, and footsteps ran past in the dark, heading for the stairs. “You got him!” the little boy’s voice cried out. “You got him!”

  She could see nothing in the darkness. She heard a deep, gasping breath from Simon Hess, the sound of his footstep as he backed away. She let go of the knife handle and left it stuck in his chest as he moved. This isn’t happening, she thought wildly. It isn’t real.

  All of the doors in the corridor were open now, and she could hear them banging. She blinked in the darkness, unsure whether she should step forward or retreat. There was a thump in the empty air of the room, then another, harder one. Simon Hess hitting the floor.

  He was still breathing. She could hear it. Heavy, shaking, slow breaths. He might stop, Viv thought. He might die. Here, now. She didn’t want that yet. She stepped forward into the blackness, following the sound of his breathing. She knelt on the floor and crawled toward it, her eyes adjusting so she could barely see the shapes of her hands.

  She reached out and touched something covered in fabric. Something hard, the bone of a knee perhaps. A hand shot out and grabbed her wrist, jerking her off balance. The hand was big and soft and cold, so slick with chilled sweat she almost slid out of its grasp. But Hess was still strong, and he shoved her so she landed on one side, her hip hitting the floor and her head banging against something hard—the edge of the bed, or maybe the nightstand. This is the second time I’ve been attacked tonight, she thought. I’m going to have bruises.

  They wrestled in grim silence for a minute, Hess trying to grasp her with his slick hands, the strength in his arms faltering, Viv thrashing back and kicking him. Hess gave a dark grunt and grabbed at her again, his neat, trim fingernails trying to dig into her flesh. Outside, there was the slow click of high heels in the corridor and a strange, rotten smell.

  She kicked Hess away again and then his hands were gone. There was a wheeze as he seemed to fall back to the floor, weak. She flipped her body and put her hands on him again, feeling numbly along his torso. Her fingers hit warm blood.

  “Tell me,” she said urgently. “Why Betty? Why?”

  He reached up and grabbed her hair, twisted it, but his strength was failing. “Betty was mine,” he said, his voice a harsh whisper as if he were telling her a secret. “I loved her. I just wanted her to see.”

  She had so much she needed to know. There was no time. She went still as his hand twisted harder in her hair. “And Cathy?”

  “My daughter went to the dentist’s office where she worked.” He wheezed, and she recognized the sound as a sick sort of laugh. “She meant nothing to me. She was so obviously alone. So easy. I wanted to know if I could do it again. It turned out I could.”

  She was so obviously alone. That was what they had in common. Not hair color or age or build. Betty, living her spinster life. Cathy with her husband deployed. Victoria with her fights and her anger. Tracy with her parents who didn’t keep her home.

  Viv thought of Cathy’s baby, of her grieving husband, of her mother on the phone. A sweet girl who wanted to earn her next paycheck and raise her baby. Do you know who killed her? Can you end this for me? Her fingers gripped Hess’s shirt, soaked in blood. She wished she could see his face—and yet she didn’t want to see it at all. “Victoria?” she asked, her voice cracking.

  “A mistake,” Hess replied. He cleared his throat. His hand was still wound in her hair, his grip surprisingly hard, and Viv stayed braced in case he attacked her again. They were in a strange embrace, here in the dark, fighting and telling each other secrets. “She was there when I sold her mother a lock system. I thought she wouldn’t be a challenge. But she fought me. She bit me, that little bitch. And the location wasn’t right. It was hasty and too exposed. I had to cut my losses.”

  Cut my losses, to Simon Hess, meant strangling a teenaged girl and throwing her in the bushes in the rain. The tips of Viv’s fingers touched the handle of her knife, still sticking out of his chest. She gritted her teeth as bile rose in her throat. Or perhaps it was tears. She made herself say the final name, grind it out of her furious throat. “Tracy Waters.”

  Hess coughed, the sound wet. “What do you think?”

  “She was good and sweet,” Viv said. “Innocent. She had a family who loved her. She never did you any harm.”

  Hess laughed. “You haven’t caught on. None of them did me any harm.”

  “She wasn’t beautiful,” Viv said. “She wasn’t sexy or cruel. She’d never even met you. She was a girl. Why did you do it?”

  His hand twisted in her hair, and his grip was strong but she could feel him trembling. “Because no one ever stopped me,” he said. “Because I could.”

  “How many others are there?”

  He was quiet. She could hear his breathing. She knew this was a game—he had something she wanted, knew something she wanted to know. And she desperately wanted to know. Did I miss someone? What girl didn’t I see?

  “The map in your suitcase,” she said, more urgently now. “What is that?”

  He didn’t answer, torturing her.

  She struggled in his grip, changed her angle, and grabbed the handle of the knife. She gave it a shove, tried to twist it. It was stuck solid, as if in thick glue. Simon Hess gave a low groan of pain.

  “Tell me,” she said.

  Behind her came the click of heels from the corridor, turning to soft footsteps on the cheap motel carpet. Ice-cold air touched Viv’s back.

  “Betty,” Hess said, his voice high with fear.

  A low moan came behind her, the sound unearthly. Viv wondered if Betty was wearing her purple dress, if her hands were bloody. How did this happen?

  “She doesn’t love you,” Viv said to Hess, pushing on the knife. “She never did. She hates you. She haunts this place because she hates you so much. You come here and she gets so furious I can feel it, taste it. She makes me furious, too. Do you understand me? Betty hates you.”

  That low moan behind her again, and she felt the rise and fall of Hess’s chest. Slower and slower by the minute. “I can see her,” he said softly. “I watched her for so many weeks. I memorized her face. She’s mine. She’s still mine.”

  “She isn’t yours,” Viv whispered back. “It’s the other way around. You’re hers, or you’re going to be.”

  His voice was trembling now. He let go of her hair and traced his hand over Viv’s face, his fingertips cold and clammy. “I know you from somewhere,” he said. “Where?”

  Viv went still, feeling his touch on her skin. He was touching her. Touching her. She tightened her grip on the knife handle.

  Hess’s fingers brushed over her mouth, traced her lips in the dark. “I don’t remember,” he said, his voice faint and vague now. “There are so many. I know all of their faces. But I can’t see you. Which one are you?”

  “I’m the one you didn’t kill,” Viv said. She pulled the knife out of his chest. And as he took in a breath of pain, she plunged the knife back down.

  Fell, New York

  November 2017

  CARLY

  Was I awake or asleep? I didn’t know. I was somewhere dark, and my phone was ringing.

  I opened my eyes. I was on the sofa in my apartment, where I had sat down a long time ago—for just a minute, I’d thought. Now I was slumped against the arm of the sofa, fully dressed. My cheek ached and my throat was dry. It was dark outside the windows and there was no sign of Heather.

  I picked up my phone from the coffee table and answered it, picking up my glasses with my other hand and putting them on. “Hello?”

  “Carly, it’s me. Callum MacRae.”


  I cleared my throat. “Um.”

  “I’m sorry. Were you asleep? It’s only six thirty.”

  I glanced at the dark windows. Night came early this time of year. “I’m fine,” I said. “I work nights. What’s up?”

  “I got some news,” he said. His low, pleasant voice was excited. “They found a body in an old barn just outside of town. It was just this morning. And I know you’re looking for your aunt, so I checked it out for you.”

  I scrubbed a hand under my glasses, rubbing my eye. “It isn’t her,” I said. “I already asked. It’s a man.”

  There was a beat of silence. “Oh, okay.” He laughed. “You’re good. I called some of my contacts, and the word from the Fell PD is that they have an identity and a cause of death.”

  “Already?” We’d found the body just this morning.

  “Well, it isn’t one hundred percent yet. They won’t announce it until they know for sure. But yes, they have preliminary findings already. Why don’t you come meet me?”

  “Meet you where?”

  “There’s a coffee shop just down the street from the central library. It’s called Finelli’s. It should be open for another hour or two. Come down and I’ll tell you what I know.”

  I looked around the darkened apartment. Where was Heather? She’d gone to bed when we got home; I wondered if she was still asleep. Nick had said he was going back to the Sun Down to try to sleep, too.

  “Carly?” Callum said.

  “Yes,” I said, getting my thoughts on track. “Um, sure. Yes, I’ll meet you.”

  “Great. Twenty minutes. I’ll see you then.”

  I hung up and stood, stretching my aching neck. “Heather?”

  There was no answer. I turned on a lamp and saw a note on the kitchen table.

  Gone to see the rents. I need to retreat for a while. Don’t worry, I took my meds. I don’t really know when I’ll be back. But I left you this present, which I got from the depths of the Internet. Don’t ask questions. Here you go.