“Could be,” she said, her almond-shaped green eyes glittering at him in the moonlight.
“Then as far as I’m concerned, you flirt great. Care to start back in?”
“Hell, I’ll even race you back to the house.”
“You’re on. Provided you promise me one thing.”
“Name it.”
“Let’s steer clear of the kitchen floor tonight, okay?”
“Not a problem, boyfriend.”
They dashed back in the crisp night air, teeth chattering, and jumped right into a hot shower together, howling and snorting like a couple of rambunctious little kids. After they’d toweled each otherdry they made their way up into Mitch’s sleeping loft, where they forgot about everything and everyone and there was only the two of them and it was wonderful.
They were blissfully asleep at 4:00 a.m. under a blanket and a Clemmie when Des got paged. She started rummaging hurriedly for her clothes as the Westbrook Barracks dispatcher gave her the details over her cell phone.
“Wha’ is it?” Mitch groaned at her after she’d hung up.
She was already lacing up her shoes. Des could get dressed unbelievably fast. It was her four years at West Point. “Night manager of the Yankee Doodle Motor Court just found… There’s a woman dead in the tub with part of her head smashed in.”
Something in her tone of voice set off alarm bells. Mitch swallowed, fully awake now. “Who is it, Des?”
“Baby, it’s Donna Durslag.”
CHAPTER 12
If Dorset possessed what could be truly called a seedy side it was found up Boston Post Road just before the town line for Cardiff, Dorset’s sleepy, landlocked neighbor to the north, which benefited not at all from summer tourism and which elderly locals still called North Dorset, even though it had been a separate town since 1937. Here, just past Gorman’s Orchards, could be found a tattered strip of businesses operating out of wood-framed buildings that had once been residences. If someone needed to have their sofa reupholstered or their unwanted facial hair removed, they came here. Pearl’s World of Wigs, Norm’s Guns, and Shoreline Karate Academy were here. The Rustic Inn, a beer joint popular with the Uncas Lake swamp Yankees, was here.
And so was the Yankee Doodle Motor Court, which was a living relic from the bygone days of drive-in movie theaters and poodle skirts. To the casual passerby, it was a wonder that the decaying little bungalow motel hadn’t been torn down twenty years ago. It had no swimming pool, was not near the beach or the interstate. There was no apparent reason for anyone on earth to stay there-not unless they were terribly lost or desperate.
But Des knew better.
The Yankee Doodle enjoyed a prized niche in Dorset society-it was the place where married people came to mess around. Des had learned early in her career that every town, no matter its size or degree of affluence, had just such a place for illicit trysts. Mostly, what the Yankee Doodle offered couples was privacy. The bungalows were spaced a discreet distance apart, and the parking spaces were around in back so that people driving by on Boston Post Roadcouldn’t see who was parked there. The management was reputed to be very discreet.
She got there in the purplish light of predawn. Danny Rochin, the sallow, unshaven night manager, came right out of the office to greet her wearing a too-large Hawaiian shirt, slacks, and bedroom slippers. He was a stringy, sixtyish swamp Yankee with a jet black Grecian Formula hair job that looked totally unnatural under the courtyard floodlights, especially in contrast with his bushy white eyebrows. They always neglected the eyebrows. Big mistake.
“Is anyone still staying here from last night?” Des asked him as she climbed out of her cruiser.
“No, ma’am, we’re all empty,” he replied, eyes bright with excitement. He was missing a few teeth, and his narrow shoulders were hunched against the morning’s unusual chill. It had dipped down into the forties, which was a shock to the system in July.
“Let’s go have us a look, Danny.”
There was blood. The spread on the double bed was spattered with it. So was the wall behind the bed. So were the shades on the night table lamps. Donna’s wire-rimmed glasses, which lay neatly folded on one of the night tables, were spattered, too. The bed did not appear to have been used. The covers were still crisply folded, and the pillows had no depressions in them.
The Yankee Doodle was the sort of a place where things like lamps and televisions were bolted down, just in case some low-class guest might be tempted to walk off with them. But Donna’s killer had still managed to find something to club her with-a night table drawer. It lay on the rug next to the bed, smashed, splintered and bloodied. Her shoulder bag was on the dresser next to the TV, as was her gauzy summer peasant dress, carefully folded. Also a see-through black nightie, very slinky, very hopeful, very sad.
The bungalow was tiny. There was barely enough space to squeeze around the bed to the bathroom, where Donna was on the floor. From where she stood, Des could just make out her bare feet.
“Did you touch anything, Danny?” Des asked him as he remained outside, pulling nervously on a cigarette.
“Not a thing, I swear. Her purse is just as I found it. I’m not here to steal no twenty bucks from some poor woman’s billfold.”
“I know that, Danny,” she said, flashing a reassuring smile at him. “I’m just trying to assess the crime scene.” Now she went farther in for a better look.
Donna was naked on her knees before the bathtub with her big butt sticking up in the air for the whole wide world to see. Not that she was obese but she wasn’t a nineteen-year-old runway model either. And the bathroom floor is not the most dignified place to die. Go ask Elvis. There was a foot of blood-tinged water in the tub. By the look of things, her killer had knocked her unconscious with the drawer, dragged her in there and held her head underwater until she was gone. Her center of gravity had tumbled her a bit backward after she’d died, lifting her face up out of the water. There were broken blood vessels around the eyes, and her lips were blue. The bloody wounds to the back of her wet head were readily apparent to Des from the bathroom doorway. There was some blood on the floor, but not much. No bloody shoeprints. The floor had been wiped. Des could not see any bloody towels in there. No towels at all, in fact. He’d taken them with him. Whoever he was, he was careful.
Standing there gazing at Donna Durslag, Des experienced that same mix of despair, horror, and fascination that she always felt when she saw what people were capable of doing to each other. She would need crime scene photos. She would need to get this down on paper. Possibly life-sized, so she could bring forth the full impact of Donna’s figure as it knelt there in death. She would draw this. Had to draw this. It was how she kept it together.
And to hell with Professor Weiss and his damned trees.
“How often do you run the vacuum in here, Danny?” she asked, starting back around the bed toward him.
“Once a week… maybe,” he replied.
Meaning there would be tons of hairs in the rug from past guests. Most likely, the tekkies wouldn’t even bother with it. But they would for sure check the surface of the bed for hair or fiber transfers, and the blood spatters for a blood sample that was not the victim’s. Alsothe smashed night table drawer for prints, although he’d doubtless wiped that clean same as he’d wiped down the bathroom. Des was certain that they’d find nothing. It smelled like a clean kill all the way.
“Where’s her car, Danny?”
“Around in back.”
It was faded gray Peugeot station wagon. Locked. Both the passenger seat and backseat were strewn with empty take-out coffee cups and food wrappers. There was one other vehicle parked back there, a red Nissan pickup truck that belonged to Danny.
He led Des back to his office now, where there was a reception counter made out of fake wood, a Coke machine, television, a couple of green plastic chairs. The worn linoleum on the floor was the color of canned salmon. A door marked Private led back to the inner office.
“What time di
d she check in?”
“Just after ten o’clock,” Danny replied, taking his place behind the counter. The man seemed much more at ease now that he was back there, straighter and taller.
“Was she alone?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Did she sign the register?”
“You bet. We run a clean operation here. No hookers, no minors, no monkey business.”
Des glanced at the register-Donna had signed her own name, clear as can be. “Did she pay you in cash?”
“Credit card,” he said, his bony hands shaking slightly as he produced the credit card slip for her. She suspected he was in need of a drink. He settled for another cigarette.
“The lady had a husband,” Des said, surprised that Donna had made no apparent effort to cover her tracks. “Is this typical?”
“Yes and no,” Danny answered, thumbing his stubbly chin shrewdly. “Some of ’em are real careful about keeping their after-hours activities off the household books, others aren’t. Depends on who takes care of the bills every month, is how I always figured it.”
“Had you ever seen her before?”
“No, ma’am. She was a first-timer. On my shift, anyway, and I been here on overnight for thirteen years.”
“How did she seem to you? Had she been drinking? Was she high?”
“She was nervous. A lot of ’em are. Men and women both.”
“And what does that generally tell you?”
“That they’re doing something they never thought they’d be doing.”
Des turned and glanced through the front window at Donna’s bungalow across the courtyard. “Did you see him arrive?”
“No, ma’am, I didn’t. Got no idea who he was.”
“Maybe you saw his car pull in. Think hard, please. This is important.”
“I wish I could help you, ma’am, but we’re real busy that time of night. Eleven, twelve o’clock is my rush hour. Lots of folks coming and going. Going, mostly. Some drop the key off in here with me. The rest just leave it in the door-the ones who don’t want to be seen together by anybody, if you know what I mean. Shoot, I must get one suspicious husband in here a week, offering me cash money for the lowdown on his missus.”
“And do you give it to him?”
“Hell no,” Danny replied indignantly. “Our guests have a right to their privacy. That’s why they come here.”
Des had happened upon this peculiar phenomenon before-people with tremendous professional pride where you least expected to find them. And why not? Danny Rochin certainly had more class than, say, Dodge Crockett. “That lady got herself pretty beat up in there. You didn’t hear them going at it?”
“Well, maybe…” Danny cast a longing glance over his shoulder at the office door.
“You want to go take care of what you need to take care of?”
He slipped gratefully into the back room, shutting the door softly behind him. Des could hear a desk drawer slide open and shut. A moment later Danny returned, smelling of whiskey. “I did hear awoman… shriek, I guess you could say. And it did come from the direction of that bungalow, number six.”
“What time was this, Danny?”
“About one-thirty,” he replied. “Look, it may have been nothing. Some couples, they make certain noises when they’re…” He trailed off uncomfortably, his eyes avoiding hers.
“I’m right with you, honey. Just keep on going.”
“So I didn’t think much of it-not until I started cleaning out the bungalows this morning and I found her in there. I’m real sorry if I did wrong, ma’am.” He seemed genuinely upset. “But I can’t go knocking on doors every time somebody lets out a shriek, can I?”
“Don’t be so hard on yourself, Danny. There’s no way you could have known what was going on in there.”
“Do you really mean that?”
“I really do.”
“I never had nothing like this happen before on my watch. Worst thing was an attempted rape charge three, four years ago. And that just turned out to be a lover’s quarrel.”
Outside, Soave and Yolie pulled up alongside of Des’s cruiser and got out. Each of them clutching a Bess Eaton take-out coffee container. Each of them wearing an angry glower. Soave’s lips were tightly compressed. Boom Boom’s chin was stuck out. They’d been spatting. Or they were just getting on each other’s nerves. It happened. Partners had to spend a lot of time together. And that’s not easy-especially when the case they’re working suddenly goes way bad.
Soave seemed relieved to see Des standing there in the office doorway. “Another early start to the day, hunh?” he said, forcing a weary smile onto his face. His eyes were bloodshot, his bulky shoulders slumped with fatigue.
“This could get to be a habit, Rico.”
“God, let’s hope not.”
Yolie couldn’t get away from the man fast enough. “I’ll check the register, put together a list of guests for us to canvass,” she told him hurriedly as she started inside, wearing a bulky yellow cotton sweaterthat made her entire upper body look huge. “Maybe one of them saw somebody, recognized somebody…” She halted in the doorway, smiling brightly at Des. “ ’Morning, girlfriend.”
“Back at you, Yolie. You’ll find the victim’s car behind the bungalow.”
“I’m on it.”
Des led Soave toward the crime scene, their footsteps crunching on the gravel. As they made their way across the courtyard two more cruisers pulled up, followed by a team of tekkies in a cube van. The uniformed troopers secured the perimeter. The tekkies got busy unloading their gear.
“I swear, that damned Boom Boom is going to drive me crazy,” Soave complained. “Right away, she wants to brace our movie star this morning. She’s convinced that Esme Crockett’s behind all of this. Her and Jeff Wachtell both, since each is the other’s alibi.”
“That’s interesting,” Des said. “Mitch went there, too.”
Soave glanced at her coldly. “So, what, Berger ’s backstopping my investigation now?”
Des let that one slide on by. “What did you tell her, Rico?”
“I told her we don’t have enough yet. This is Esme Crockett we’re talking about, not some gang-banger. She can hire the best team of criminal defense lawyers in the world. We have to get all our ducks in a row before we go anywhere near her.”
Des had to smile at this. When they were a team it was always Soave who was Mr. Great Big Hurry, Des who was Ms. Go Slow.
“So guess what she says back to me.”
“Rico, I can’t imagine.”
“She says I’m not secure enough in my manhood to accept her input. That I feel, quote, sexually threatened by her performance on the job, unquote. And that she finds it hard to respect me. Can you believe that?”
“She possesses what my good friend Bella Tillis calls moxie. Got to like that in a girl.”
“You’ve got to like it-I don’t. She’s busting my balls, Des.”
“She’s hungry, Rico. Better that than a slacker, don’t you think?”
He shook his head at her. “Somehow, I knew you’d take her side.”
“Chump, I’m not taking anyone’s side,” Des shot back angrily. “And I have an excellent idea-solve your own damned personnel problems, okay?”
“Real sorry, Des,” he apologized, reddening. “I didn’t mean that. I’m just, I got like two hours of sleep last night and this case is now totally out of hand. I appreciate your input. Really, I do.”
They arrived at the bungalow. Soave went inside to take a look at Donna’s body on the bathroom floor, his face tightening. “Did you know her?”
“I did. This was a nice lady, Rico. A professional chef. She ran The Works with her husband, Will.”
“If she was such a nice lady what was she doing here?”
“Playing in the dirt.”
“Who with?”
“I wish I knew. As questions go, that’s the big kahuna.”
The crime scene technicians wanted to squeeze in th
ere and start taking pictures.
Soave made way for them, moving back outside. “No, Des,” he countered. “The big kahuna is how does this fit into the Tito Molina death?”
“You think the two are connected?”
“Don’t you? Two violent deaths three days apart in a town this size-they can’t be unrelated, can they?”
“I agree, Rico. Although there was no effort to make this one look like a suicide.”
“That could have been dictated by circumstances,” he suggested, taking a noisy slurp of his coffee.
“Again, I agree. But why did Donna pay for the room with her damned credit card? What kind of way is that to sneak around?”
“Des, I can’t get my mind around what’s going on here, can you?”
“Not even.”
“Tito Molina and Donna Durslag are both dead and there has to be a reason why,” he mused aloud, smoothing his former mustache. “You know what I keep coming back to? I had me a very wise lootonce who had this saying: ‘It’s never complicated. It’s about money or it’s about sex. Or it’s about money and it’s about sex. But it’s never complicated.’ ” He paused, grinning at her. “She was a wise person, that loot.”
“Still am, wow man. Don’t kid yourself.”
They stood there in silence for a moment. A car drove by on Boston Post Road, the driver slowing for a look before he sped past.
“Any chance Donna was romantically involved with Tito?”
“I doubt that, Rico. If she was mixed up with Tito then what was she doing here last night? Or, more precisely, who was she doing here last night?”
“You have a point there, Des.”
“Then again, so do you.”
“Which is?…”
“That Donna wasn’t so nice. She slept around on Will. Mitch did tell me they were having marital problems. Let’s say she was involved with Tito. Say Tito wanted to break it off, and she didn’t, and she killed him in a jealous rage. Maybe someone else, someone close to Tito, figured it out and paid her back last night.”
“Like who?” he wondered.
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