The Sun Down Motel

by Simone St. James

  “I thought it was my aunt, but the police told me it was a man,” I said. “And then Callum called me and told me this crazy story about how his grandfather disappeared around the same time my aunt did. And I know he’s telling the truth, because a man named Simon Hess disappeared sometime around November 1982. His wife was too embarrassed to report it because she thought he’d left her. Simon Hess worked as a traveling salesman. Just like the last man seen with Betty Graham.”

  “Callum gets fixated on things,” Alma said. “His grandfather’s disappearance is one of them. He’s never been quite right. We think he has borderline personality disorder.”

  “Who’s we?” I asked.

  “He’s had more than one run-in with police,” Alma said, ignoring my question. “Usually for bothering girls. He stops when he gets a talking-to. He’ll stop bothering you if I talk to him.”

  “Not if he thinks my aunt murdered his grandfather and stuffed him in a trunk,” I said.

  Alma was quiet.

  “Did she?” I asked her.

  “You know I can’t answer that,” she said.

  “Then I’ll answer it myself. Marnie says there’s a notebook at the Sun Down that I need to read. I think I’ll go read it.”

  “You talked to Marnie?” Alma said, her voice shocked. “You have the notebook?”

  “I’m going to get it now. And then I’m going to meet her.”

  Alma hesitated, then nodded. “She’s right,” she said. “It’s time.”

  Now is as good a time as any for all of it to come out, Marnie had said to me on the phone. It was going to happen whether I wanted it to or not.

  Why now? Why me?

  “What am I going to find in the notebook?” I asked her.

  “You’ll see,” Alma said. She turned toward her door, then back to me. “Go meet her,” she said. “Do whatever she asks. Maybe you don’t want my advice, but that’s it.” Then she turned, went into the house, and closed the door behind her.

  * * *

  • • •

  No one followed me on the dark roads as I drove across town from Alma’s to the motel. Was I supposed to be working tonight? I didn’t even remember anymore. Maybe I was quitting. Maybe I was fired. It didn’t matter.

  The road sign was lit up, the familiar words blinking at me: VACANCY. CABLE TV! Nick’s truck was in the parking lot, and the office was closed and dark. I parked and got out of my car, letting the cold wind sting my face. There was no sound but the far-off rumble of a truck farther down Number Six Road. I could smell dead leaves and damp and the faint tang of gasoline.

  In a crazy way, I belonged here more than I’d belonged anywhere in my life. The Sun Down was the place I was supposed to be.

  And yet I had the feeling that I was here at the end of the Sun Down’s life. That it wouldn’t be here much longer.

  I walked to the stairs and climbed them, the feeling of being watched crawling up the back of my neck. Betty, maybe. Maybe one of the others. I no longer really knew.

  I reached Nick’s door and banged on it. It opened immediately and he was there, big and tousled, in a dark gray T-shirt and jeans, a worried look on his face. “Thank fucking God,” he said. He took my wrist and gently pulled me into the room, closing the door behind him.

  I paused, looking around. I’d never been inside Nick’s room before. There was a suitcase with clothes strewn over it, a wallet and a phone on the nightstand. The gun was nowhere to be seen. The bed was rumpled and slept in, a fact that would have embarrassed me except for the fact that it was also strewn with papers, a spiral notebook lying open in the middle of it.

  “The notebook,” I said.

  “I got your message,” Nick said. “It was in the candy machine, just like you said. Behind the panel I was working on, jammed into the machine’s works. She must have put it there recently. There was no way it was in there for thirty-five years.”

  I looked down at the papers strewn over the bed. They were all inked with the same hand: pages of writing, lists, maps, diagrams. “Marnie must have put it there after I started working here. I wonder how much she knows.”

  “Everything,” Nick said. “Carly, I’ve been reading through this. I’ve barely started. But it’s incredible.” He picked up a piece of paper. “This is a map of Victoria Lee’s street. Her house, the jogging trail, the place where her body was found. See this X? She’s put a note saying that from this spot you can see Victoria’s house and you can access the jogging trail at the same time. This was most likely where the killer was standing.”

  He put that down and flipped a page in the notebook. “These are her notes about Simon Hess’s sales schedule at Westlake Lock Systems. It says he was in Victoria’s neighborhood the month she was killed. He sold locks to Cathy Caldwell. And this here”—he picked up another sheet—“these are her notes about the day she followed Hess to Tracy Waters’s street and watched him follow her.”

  “What? She saw him stalk her?” I looked at the notes. “She must be the one who wrote the letter to Tracy’s parents. She must also be the one who phoned the school principal. There’s no other way.”

  “This, here,” Nick said, turning to yet another page, “is her diary of Simon Hess’s movements. His address, his phone number, the make and model of his car, his license plate. When he left the house every day and what he did. Where he went. Vivian was following him. For weeks, it looks like.”

  He was right. I scanned the notes and saw day after day listing the times Simon Hess left his house and where he went. There were gaps in the timeline, with notes: Not sure—missed him. Fell asleep. Lost him somewhere past Bedford Rd. But there was no mistaking that Vivian had been following Simon Hess. Stalking him.

  On the bottom of a note listing Hess’s name, address, phone number, and place of work was a note: That was easy.

  Whatever had happened to Simon Hess, it hadn’t been an accident. He had been targeted for a long time.

  Maybe my aunt Viv was crazy.

  I pulled up the room’s only chair and sat down. I put my head in my hands.

  “Marnie had all of this, all this time,” Nick said.

  “She must have,” I said. “But where is Viv?”

  His voice was gentle. “Dead, maybe. It’s been thirty-five years.”

  “She left that night,” I said, still staring down between my knees as I cradled my head. “She ran. She wasn’t abducted. She killed Hess and took off without her car or her wallet. Without money. How?”

  I heard Nick move to the bed and move the papers. “She had help.”

  “Which means Marnie, and maybe Alma, have been hiding her all these years. Maybe supporting her. Why? Why not turn her in?” I shook my head. “Hess was a serial killer. The pattern is right there in Viv’s notes. He was dangerous. Why not call the police and claim self-defense?”

  “Because she’d still go to jail,” Nick said. “No matter who she killed, she’s still a killer. The circumstances could be mitigated a little, but that’s the best-case scenario. The worst case is that there’s no evidence at all that Hess killed anyone—at least nothing that can be proved in court. So Viv goes down as a crazy girl who decided to commit murder one night and chose an innocent man as a victim. Either way, she goes down.”

  Maybe she should have, I thought. I’d seen the car parked in the old barn, the dried blood on the ground beneath it. Maybe the person who did that should go to trial. To prison. If she didn’t, what was to prevent her from doing something like that again?

  “Do you smell smoke?” Nick asked.

  I lifted my head and realized I did. Cigarette smoke, fresh and pungent. The smoking man, though I’d never felt him up here on the second floor before.

  “Henry,” I said.

  “What?” Nick asked.

  I stood up. “Henry. That’s the smoking man’s name.” I walke
d to the door and opened it, looking over the dark parking lot. Waiting for the lights to go out.

  The lights stayed on. Nick’s truck and my car were the only cars in the lot. But standing in the middle of the lot was the figure of a man. He was thin, cloaked in shadows. I watched him raise a cigarette, watched the smoke plume around him. He was facing my way, and I was sure he was watching me.

  Then he lifted a hand and pointed down Number Six Road. I froze still. There was a figure on the side of the road—a man, walking quickly along the shoulder, his hands in his pockets, his head down, his shoulders hunched. I peered into the darkness, trying to decide if I recognized him, trying to see if he was a living figure or a dead one. I didn’t know the difference anymore.

  But before I could decide either question, the man approached the motel and ducked around the corner toward the office, out of sight.

  I looked back at the parking lot, looking for Henry. But the parking lot was empty. He was gone.

  * * *

  • • •

  The office was dark, but someone had kicked the door. Nick and I had heard the thumps as we left his room. Now even in the reflected light from the road sign I could see the marks of a shoe where it had hit the wood.

  “What the hell was he thinking?” Nick said, his voice low. “Did he think he could get in?”

  I stared at the shoe marks, unsettled. “Callum MacRae followed me from town,” I said. “I had to drive to Alma’s place before he left me alone.”

  “MacRae,” Nick said. “Do I know him? His mother is a professor at the college, right? What does he want with you?”

  “I’m not really sure.” Callum’s interest in me had sometimes seemed personal, sometimes not. “But tonight he wanted to tell me that he’s Simon Hess’s grandson.”

  Nick paused, then shook his head. “Fuck it, I’ve been gone too long. I don’t know all the town gossip anymore. If I ever did.” He stepped back and looked around. “If he followed you, then he was driving.”

  “Yes.” Though that didn’t explain why he was walking along the side of Number Six Road now. Or kicking the office door. If it was even Callum at all.

  “He didn’t go back to the parking lot. He must have gone this way.” Nick walked around the corner toward the empty pool.

  I followed him, shoving my hands in the pockets of my coat. It was darker back here, on the other side of the building from the corridor lights. The dark made it seem colder. I kept close to Nick as he walked toward the broken-down chain-link fence around the pool, his boots scuffing in the layers of dead leaves.

  “MacRae!” he shouted.

  There was no answer.

  “Let’s just go back,” I said.

  Nick held up a hand. “I hear him.” He took a step and paused. “MacRae!”

  I looked around, trying to see in the darkness. The empty pool with the fence around it. The broken concrete walkway that had once been the path that guests would take to the pool. The back doors that led to the utilities room and the storage room. From the other side of the building a truck went by on Number Six, making a loud, throaty barreling sound. There was the faint click I recognized as coming from the ice machine in the AMENITIES room, forever making ice that no guest ever used.

  “There’s a break in the fence,” I said. I picked my way toward it, trying not to trip on the broken concrete. It was on the far side of the pool.

  “Wait,” Nick said. “Be careful. Let me check it.”

  “I can’t tell if it’s recent or not,” I said, touching the edge of the break without going through it toward the pool. “This fence is so old it might—”

  A shadow came out of the darkness. Big hands grabbed me and shoved me through the break. I stumbled back toward the pool, letting out a scream.

  “Carly!” Nick shouted.

  The hands shoved me farther. My ankle bent and I tried to keep my balance on the broken concrete. Whoever it was was in shadow and I couldn’t see his face. But when the voice spoke, I recognized it.

  “Fuck you, bitch,” Callum MacRae said, and pushed me backward into the empty pool.

  Fell, New York

  November 2017

  CARLY

  I landed hard on the concrete, and everything happened at once. Pain lanced up my back and my shoulder, reverberated through my chest. My head hit the ground and my glasses came off. The breath left me in a whoosh and for a second I was curled up and gasping, trying to breathe.

  “Carly!” came Nick’s panicked voice. “Carly!”

  I opened my mouth. I’m okay. I don’t think anything’s broken. The words were just a thought, a whisper of breath. I couldn’t make anything come out of my lungs and into my throat.

  “Carly!”

  “Nick,” I managed. I was lying in a pool of garbage and leaves, old beer cans and fast-food wrappers. I couldn’t see much in the dark without my glasses. Pain was throbbing through my body, from the back of my head and down to my tailbone. I managed a deep breath and tried again. “Nick. I’m okay.”

  I heard him at the edge of the pool above me, the rustle of his footsteps. “Are you hurt? Do you need help?”

  The only thing I could think of was Callum MacRae running off into the trees, getting farther with every second. The thought put me into a dark, black rage, and for a second I was more furious than I had ever been in my life. More furious than I had ever imagined being.

  “Go get him,” I shouted at Nick. “Don’t let him go.”

  He must have heard something in my voice that said I wasn’t helpless, because he swore and the next thing I heard were his boots taking off over the concrete, swift and hard.

  I wondered if Nick would catch him. I wondered if Callum was armed. I wondered if Nick had his gun.

  Fuck you, bitch, Callum said in my head.

  “Fuck you, bitch,” I said back to him, my voice throaty as I still gasped for breath. I rolled onto my back and took stock.

  I had a bump on the back of my head. My shoulder was screaming with pain, and when I rotated it, it made a sickening click sound that said it had been dislocated. I screamed through my gritted teeth, then took more breaths as the pain eased a little.

  I had taken most of the impact on my back, and it throbbed from top to bottom. I moved gingerly, patting the leaves and garbage around me, looking for my glasses.

  Feet shuffled in the dead leaves next to the pool, a few feet behind me.

  I went still. At first I couldn’t see anything in the out-of-focus world around me; then I saw a smudge move from the corner of my eye, like someone shifting position.

  “Nick?” I said.

  There was no answer. I was cold, so cold. Trying to keep an eye on the blur, I felt for my glasses again.

  A voice came, high and sad, almost faint. “I don’t feel good.”

  My mouth went dry with fear. It sounded like a child—a boy. The boy I had seen. The boy who had hit his head in this pool and died.

  I felt for my glasses again. They hadn’t fallen far. I ran my fingers over them. They were wobbly, but they weren’t broken. I picked them up and listened to them click as my hand shook.

  “I don’t feel good,” the boy said again.

  Slowly, I put my glasses on. I made myself turn around and look. He was standing at the far end of the pool, wearing shorts and a T-shirt. His arms and legs were thin and white in the darkness. He was looking at me.

  “I—” I made myself speak. “I have to go.”

  He started to walk toward me, the leaves rustling at his feet.

  I sat up fast. I was bruised and filthy. When I moved a foot I heard a clink and knew there was broken glass in here somewhere. I tested with my palms before I put them down and pushed myself up, getting into a standing position as fast as I could as the pain moved through me.

  The only way out of here was to climb th
e rusted old ladder that hung from the edge on the other end of the pool. I started toward it as the footsteps came behind me.

  “Why don’t I feel good?” the boy asked, making me jump. But I moved one foot after the other, shuffling and limping, trying to gain speed, dirt and leaves on my clothes and in my hair. I likely looked like an extra in a zombie movie, but I kept moving. Slowly, too slowly, I climbed the incline from the deep end toward the shallow end and the ladder.

  “I’m sorry,” I said as I walked. “I have to go. Maybe you’ll feel better soon.”

  “Help me, please,” he said, still behind me, his footsteps still moving in the leaves.

  “I can’t,” I said, my voice nearly a whisper of fear. “I really can’t.”

  “Help me, please!”

  The bolts on the ladder had nearly rusted to dust in the decades since the pool had last been used, and the ladder wobbled dangerously when I grabbed it. I swung my weight onto it and climbed out. Gritting my teeth in pain, I moved as fast as I could toward the break in the fence, but I couldn’t resist looking back over my shoulder.

  The boy was standing at the bottom of the ladder, still watching me. I turned back and half ran toward the motel.

  I could hear nothing from the direction Callum and Nick had run. No shouts, no gunshots. I felt in my pocket for my cell phone, then remembered I’d left it in my car because there was no service here. I needed to call the police.

  My keys were in my coat pocket, and I fumbled them in the dark until I opened the office door. I flipped on the overhead light and walked around the desk. I picked up the desk phone.

  Now is the moment when you realize someone has cut the phone line . . . someone who hasn’t left the motel.

  “Shut up,” I croaked aloud to my overactive brain. “This isn’t a horror movie.” And it wasn’t. The dial tone came loud and healthy from the clunky old handset.

  I dialed 911 and looked down at myself in the fluorescent light. I was streaked with dirt and old leaves, and there was a bloody scrape on my left wrist that I hadn’t even felt yet. My body begged me to sit in the office chair, as uncomfortable as it was, but I was afraid if I sat down I’d never manage to stand up again.