The Sun Down Motel
Page 33
Betty Graham wasn’t there. Neither was Simon Hess, or the little boy, or Henry the smoking man. They were all dead and gone.
My phone rang in my pocket as I stood by the fence, and I pulled it out and yanked off my mitten to answer it. “Hello?”
“Victoria’s case is being reinvestigated,” said the voice on the other end. “They’ve pulled all the evidence and are going over it again. Including reexamining her clothes for traces of the killer’s DNA.”
I turned and started walking back to my car. “Don’t tell me how you know that,” I said to Alma Trent.
“Don’t worry, I won’t,” Alma said. “I managed to make a few friends on the force over the course of thirty years, despite my personality. That’s all I’ll say.”
“If they can pull scheduling records, it will help. Viv’s notebook says that Hess was scheduled on Victoria’s street the month she died.”
“I know. I’ve read the notebook.”
“Not recently,” I said. The notebook was mine now; I’d kept it. By now I’d read it a hundred times. “Have you called Marnie and told her?”
“I have no idea who you’re talking about.”
“Of course you did,” I said as if she hadn’t answered. “You called her first, before me.”
“The name sounds familiar, but I can’t say I place it. You’re thinking of someone else.”
“Tell her I said hello.”
“I would if I knew who you mean.”
I sighed. “You know, one of these days you’re going to have to trust me.”
“This is as trusting as I get,” Alma said. “I’m just a retired cop who takes an interest in the Vivian Delaney case. Call it a hobby, or maybe nostalgia for the early eighties. Where are you? I can hear wind.”
“On Number Six Road, watching the Sun Down get bulldozed into oblivion.”
“Is that so,” Alma said in her no-nonsense tone. “Do you feel good about that or bad?”
“Neither,” I replied. “Both. Can I ask you something?”
“You can always ask, Carly.” Which meant that she wouldn’t always answer.
“Victoria’s boyfriend was originally convicted of her murder. But his case was reopened and overturned. I looked it up, and it turns out that it all started when the boyfriend got a new lawyer in 1987. Do you know anything about that? I mean, something must have changed. There must have been some kind of tip that encouraged him to seek a new trial.”
“I don’t know any lawyers,” Alma said.
Right. Of course. Except she knew for certain that the wrong man had been convicted, and that the right man was dead in the trunk of a car. “Here’s the other interesting thing,” I said. “Right after Tracy’s murder, a homeless man was arrested because he tried to turn in her backpack. Everyone assumed he must be her killer. But the case was thrown out because it was circumstantial. And the reason he went free was because he had a good lawyer.”
“Is that so?”
“Yes. That’s kind of strange, isn’t it? A homeless drifter who has a really good lawyer? It sounds like something someone would help out with if they knew for sure that the man was innocent.”
“I wouldn’t know. Like I say, lawyers aren’t my thing.”
I sighed. I liked Alma, but it was impossible to be friends with her. Heather was more my style. “I took pictures of the Sun Down being demolished on my phone. I think Viv would like to see them the next time I visit her.”
“I hear they’re giving her medical treatment in prison while she awaits trial,” Alma said.
My heart squeezed. Despite everything, Viv was my aunt. “They’re giving her chemo, but they don’t know if it will work.”
Viv had cancer again. She was going to either die of it or spend the rest of her life in prison. Maybe both.
Maybe neither.
Either way, there was nothing more I could do.
Did I feel good about that, or bad? It depended on the day, on my mood, on whether I felt anger at what Viv had put my mother through or the ache of missing family or admiration at some of the things she’d done. There were times I felt all three at once. This was going to take time—time that Viv, maybe, didn’t have.
“She beat it once,” Alma said. “She can beat it again. She can beat anything.”
“Jeez,” I said. “It almost sounds like you know her.”
“I don’t, of course, but she sounds like an interesting lady. Tell her I’d like to meet her someday.”
I rolled my eyes. “Whatever.”
“It’s cold out on Number Six Road. Do you want to come by for a coffee? I don’t care what time it is. I’m a night owl.”
“Me, too,” I said, “but I’m not coming today. I have plans.”
“Is that so,” Alma said again. “It’s about time.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means have fun,” she said, and hung up.
* * *
• • •
Nick was wearing jeans and a black sweater. He had shaved and he smelled soapy. He had long ago moved into an apartment in a third-floor walkup, a small place that was sparse and masculine and somehow homey. He had started a partnership with an old high school friend in a renovation company, and he ran two renovation crews in town. Maybe some of the business came because he was notorious, but not all of it did. When Nick put his mind to something, he could do anything he wanted.
“I want to study criminology,” I said to him as we ate a late-night dinner at a Thai place downtown. “I can start in the spring, get credits over the summer before I enroll for the fall.”
He lowered his chopsticks. The restaurant lighting was dim, making his dark hair and his shadowed cheekbones almost stupidly gorgeous. I couldn’t decide if I liked him better with his insomnia stubble or without.
“Are you sure about that?” he asked me.
“Yes.” I poked at my pad thai noodles. “I think I’d be good at it. Do you?”
He looked at me for a long moment. “I think you’d be brilliant at it,” he said, his voice dead serious. “I think the world of criminology isn’t ready for you. Not even a little.”
I felt my cheeks heat as I dropped my gaze to my plate. “You just earned yourself another date, mister.”
“I have to earn them? This is like our tenth.”
“No, it’s our ninth. The time we ran into each other by mistake at CVS doesn’t count.”
“I’m counting it.”
“I was in sweats,” I protested. “I had a cold. Not a date.”
“I sent you home, and then I bought all of the cold meds you needed and brought them to you. Along with food and tea,” he countered. “It was a date.”
I most definitely still had a crush on the former occupant of room 210 of the Sun Down Motel.
“Well, tonight is going to be better,” I told him.
It was. We finished our dinner, then went to the revue cinema for a midnight showing of Carrie. There were exactly fourteen people there. I held his hand through the whole thing. When it was over and we went outside, it was snowing. We barely noticed on the drive back to his apartment. We were too preoccupied.
Like my aunt Viv said, a girl has to lose her virginity somewhere, right?
Hours later, when I lay warm in bed with Nick’s arm over me, I turned toward the window in the darkness. I watched the snow fall for a long time before I finally fell asleep.
Acknowledgments
Thanks to my editor, Danielle Perez, for her sage help with this book, and thanks to the rest of the team at Berkley for their hard work and my amazing cover. Thanks to my agent, Pam Hopkins, for everything she does. Thanks to Molly and Stephanie, who read a draft of this book and told me it wasn’t terrible. Thanks as always to my husband, Adam, who understands my need for writing time and makes sure I have it. Thank you to the bo
oksellers and librarians who work so tirelessly to get the word out about my books. And thank you, readers, the ones who keep picking up my books and talking about them. Without you, none of this happens. Thank you so much for reading my stories.
The Sun Down Motel
SIMONE ST. JAMES
Readers Guide
Questions for Discussion
1. Why do you think the author chose to tell this story across two time periods and two points of view? Do you think it was effective? Why or why not?
2. Discuss how each of the victims were described in the media. Do you think the way the media characterized these women played a role in the overall investigation—and the failure by the police to catch the killer? How does their characterization compare to how victims are described by the media today?
3. From the beginning, Viv is determined to uncover who the female ghost is and why she’s haunting the motel. Why do you think this was so important to her? Why do you think she didn’t just flee Fell, New York, and the motel?
4. Viv, Carly, and Heather all have a somewhat morbid curiosity surrounding both the Fell, New York, murders and true crime in general, which reflects the fact that young women tend to be the biggest consumers of true crime content. Why do you think this is?
5. Discuss the ghosts that haunt the motel, especially Betty. What do you think each of them represented, if anything?
6. There are multiple instances where the women of this novel discuss what women should be doing to protect themselves, although as Viv notes: “It was always girls who ended up stripped and dead like roadkill. . . . It didn’t matter how afraid or careful you were—it could always be you.” What do you think the author is saying about the experience of being a woman? Do you think the novel might have been difference if Viv and Carly were men? If so, how?
7. How are the concepts of female rage and empowerment explored in this novel, if at all?
8. Consider Alma and Marnie, and the relationships they formed with Viv and with each other. Why do you think they allowed themselves to become involved with Viv’s investigation?
9. Multiple characters throughout this novel end up returning to the small town of Fell, New York, or choose to remain there despite many reasons—and opportunities—to leave. Why do you think they are drawn to the town?
10. Building off the previous question, why do you think the author chose a remote town—and an even more remote roadside motel—for the setting of this novel? How do you think the story would have changed with a different setting?
11. Discuss the way the killer was finally stopped. Do you think those involved did the right thing? Do you think, especially with consideration of the time period, that they could have done anything differently?
About the Author
Simone St. James is the USA Today bestselling and award-winning author of The Broken Girls, Lost Among the Living, and The Haunting of Maddy Clare. She wrote her first ghost story, about a haunted library, when she was in high school, and spent twenty years behind the scenes in the television business before leaving to write full-time.
What’s next on
your reading list?
Discover your next
great read!
Get personalized book picks and up-to-date news about this author.
Sign up now.