The office was dark, the neon open sign was unlit, and even the Christmas lights over the window weren't blinking. The door, however, was unlocked. He entered a cramped room lit by the blue glow of a muted television monitor mounted in the corner and a fish tank that took up most of the wall opposite the counter. Fox News was on the television, a pretty blonde interviewing a dour old man in a charcoal suit; the ticker at the bottom read HOW MUCH DO LIBERALS HATE AMERICA? When the door opened, a chime sounded through the open door behind the cluttered metal desk, in some back room out of sight. There was a faint whiff of cigarettes in the air.
"Yeah?" a gruff voice called.
"I'm here about a room," Gage said.
The man grunted. An interminable amount of time later, he emerged from the deep darkness behind the office into the slightly less dark office itself, a bulbous man in a sleeveless white T-shirt, an anchor tattoo on each of his hairy arms. He was a large man, mostly fat, but the fat was so compacted that at a casual glance it gave the illusion he was more muscular than he really was. His bald scalp gleamed with sweat. He made no move to turn on the light.
"Just one night?" he said, grabbing a leather binder from the clutter of paper.
"I said I'm here about a room," Gage said. "I didn't say I want one for myself."
This comment took a few seconds to register, and the man, who'd been paging through the contents of the binder, stopped and stared blankly at Gage.
"I have some questions about the murder," Gage said, "in one of your rooms."
"Aw, Christ," the man said, snapping the binder closed. "I just got done talking to a cop—for like the tenth time already this morning!"
"Yeah, I'm sorry about that."
"This is ruining my God damn business! Think anybody wants to bed down here when they see a bunch of cops parked out front? And then add the press creeps on top of it? No way in hell!" He was really going now, working himself into an epileptic fit at the injustice of it all. It was really something to behold, the way the muscles on his face twitched and spasmed in random ways. It was like he was about to come undone at the seams. And the more he went on the, worse he smelled, a musky, sweaty stench that was filling the room. "It's killing me! And it's not like I got a lot of extra dough to begin with! The goddamn government takes most of it so welfare moms can stay home and pop out more welfare babies!"
"I wonder if, just for the time being, you might try speaking without exclamation points."
Judging by the man's rapid eye blinking and general open-mouthed demeanor, this wasn't the response he was expecting.
"Huh?"
"I'm standing right here," Gage explained. "You don't need to shout." And as the man started to sputter and fume in his indignation, Gage added, "And I'm not a cop. I'm a friend of the victim."
This finally took the man down a notch in his rage, though there was still plenty of raw, unbridled anger in his voice when he answered. He was just itching to go off half-cocked again at the slightest provocation. "Well, I'm sorry to hear that. I'm not sure what you want me to do. Wait, you're not gonna sue me or nothing are you?"
"Do you think you should be sued?" Gage replied.
"No! I didn't do nothing wrong. I'm just running an honest business here—then all these government types come in here and try to ruin it. You know how many stupid codes I gotta meet to keep these doors open? And don't get me started on trying to hire nobody to help me! It's not even worth it. Me and Barb handle it all ourselves except for the maid service, and I contract that stuff out. And then somebody gets killed by those whack jobs—"
"Angela. Her name was Angela Wellman."
"Right, this Wellman woman gets killed and that's pretty much going to put me under. What I did I do? Just turned on my open sign, that's what!"
The man's rage was like a virus. Gage could feel it infecting him, raising his blood pressure, stoking the fires of his own hate for all that was unjust in the world. He could play the part of the aggrieved as well as any man. But even as he steeled himself against the impulse, he realized that the man's anger could serve as a potential strategy for getting what Gage wanted.
"I hear you," Gage said. "Before you know it, all the commie bastards will be in here taking over your motel."
"Damn straight!" the man said.
"That's why I'm here. Honestly, I don't trust those idiots to do their jobs. I figure they'll just try to sweep my friend's death under the rug. So I'm going to have to do what they won't do and find out who killed her. I just need some help. I'm hoping you can help me."
"Well . . ."
"Name's Garrison Gage, by the way." He stuck out his hand.
Somewhat reluctantly, obviously unsure about this new direction the conversation had taken, the man shook Gage's hand. It was like shaking hands with a wet sponge. "Hank Reynolds," he said. "I wish I could help you, but not sure what I can do. Like I told all them cops, I really didn't hear nothing. I was asleep in the back."
"Do you know if anybody said anything about a car driving in between eleven and three?"
Hank shrugged. "Who knows? But I don't think so. I asked all the guests that checked out this morning and nobody heard nothing. And don't ask about no security camera. If I had something like that, we'd nail that sucker."
Gage considered this. If what Alex told him was true, and these guys were highly trained, there was no way they would have risked killing Angela without first scoping out the place. They certainly wouldn't have driven into the motel in the middle of the night. They would have come in on foot. But the compressed time frame would have made their jobs all the more difficult. It wasn't like they could have known where Angela was staying unless they followed her.
"Did anybody else check in yesterday?" Gage asked.
"Well, sure. This may not be the Ritz, but it is a motel on 101. We got people coming and going every night."
"Would you mind giving me their names?"
"Well . . ."
"It would help Angela a lot."
Hank scratched his chin, the sound like two pieces of sand paper rubbing together. Grease lined his rather long fingernails. "Man, I'd like to help you out, but I could get into trouble doing that. I already gave that stuff to the police."
"The police," Gage scoffed. "They've probably already lost it all."
"Yeah. Yeah, you're right about that probably."
"You know I'm right. Bastards will either lose it or just do nothing—and later, if they take heat for it, they'll just say you gave them bad information. So if you don't give it to me, nobody's ever going to find out who killed my friend."
"Well . . ."
Gage could see Hank struggling. It must have been difficult fighting through the haze of his various prejudices. Gage debated about offering him money, but he knew this would probably backfire. The guy would see it as affront to his integrity.
"Look," Gage said, before Hank offered up another refusal, "I know I'm putting you in a tough spot. I know how tough it is to make a living in this town. But my friend Angela—nobody's looking out for her but me. And maybe one of the other guests saw something. A lot of them are gone, and it'd be hard talking to any of the others with all the craziness going on here. I really need your help. I tell you what, I don't expect you to photocopy it for me or anything." Gage tapped the leather binder still gracing the counter. "Maybe you could just leave it here, head back to whatever you were doing. If somebody happens to glance in it, how would you know?"
Hank frowned, but Gage could see the glimmer in his eyes. "Hmm. Yeah, I guess I could just forget it here. I do that sometimes."
"I appreciate it."
"Appreciate what? I ain't doing nothing. I'm just going back to rest my back. It's killing me. Too much helping people carry luggage. Everybody thinks they need to pack their whole bedroom these days. Better rest up before the next clown comes in here asking if we have a senior discount."
He started to shuffle away, heading back to his lair. The comment about the senior discount made
something occur to Gage.
"One last quick question," he said.
With a sigh, exaggerated to great effect, Hank turned. "Yeah?"
"Do you remember when my friend Angela checked in? It would have been pretty late."
"Sure I do—I told the cops. Was just before the 6 o'clock news. Remember being irritated she was interrupting it."
"Do you remember if anybody stopped in after her—you know, asking about a room? Or maybe just somebody asking for directions?"
Hank shook his head. "What, you think I got a photo memory or something? I don't remember stuff like that. There's always tons of people stopping in asking if we got a room or what our rate is or just where the hell the casino is. Bums wanting handouts. Kids looking for donations to the school band. Hell, if I had a nickel—"
"It's all right," Gage said. "It was just a stab in the dark."
Muttering to himself, Hank started to turn, then stopped. He looked back at Gage. "Well, there was this one weird guy I do remember, now that you mention it. He was selling insurance."
"Yeah?"
"Don't think he was no killer though. Really professor like, with those hoity-toity glasses they wear so they can look over the tops of them at you. Little guy, probably didn't even weigh as much as my right leg. Hell, my right foot even. I only remember him because I thought it was kind of late to be going door to door."
"Did he ask a lot of questions about the motel?"
"Well, I guess. He wanted to know what kind of insurance I had and what it covered. He was pretty insistent. I kept saying no a hundred different ways until finally I practically had to kick him out the door."
"You don't know his name?"
Hank shook his head.
"Did he leave a card?" Gage pressed. "Or write down how to contact him?"
"Naw, I would have tossed it anyway."
"You remember anything else about him? How about what he was driving."
"No, I—well, wait." Hank stopped, his big forehead furrowing like wrinkles in leather. "Yeah, I do remember. It was a big white van. Don't remember what kind or nothing, but I remember think it was a hell of a big van for such a little guy."
"You tell the police about this?"
"Why would I tell the police about some guy selling insurance?"
"Good point."
Shaking his head, his muttering even louder than before, Hank disappeared into his back room. Gage flipped open the leather book, took a pen and a little notebook out of his leather jacket, and began to jot down names.
Chapter 12
With names in hand, Gage returned to Books and Oddities to have Alex see what he could turn up on any of them with his FBI access. Fog rolled in off the ocean while Gage was inside, thickening the air in the parking lot, the lights of the stores turning hazy in the fading evening light. Gage expected Alex to be grumpy about staying past his store's closing, but he actually seemed pleased. Turned out Eve's sister was in town one more night, so the longer Alex stayed away the less time he would have to spend in Marilee's self-righteous presence.
Gage knew the names were a long shot. Even if the killer or killers stayed there—which he doubted—it was unlikely they used their real names. And as expected, nothing obvious turned up.
A retired couple who lived in a golf community in Phoenix. Three young men in different rooms, who, by their posts on a Kite-flying website, were in town to take advantage of Barnacle's Bluff's famous ocean winds. Some of the other names were just names, but nobody had a criminal record except for one of the kite-flyers. Gage didn't think being busted for marijuana possession when the kid was nineteen made him a prime suspect. It was hard to imagine your average pot-head surfer leading a double life as a Bible thumping cult killer.
Still, as Alex shut down his computer and turned off the store lights, he said he'd do a bit more digging from home. Eve would protest that he wasn't spending time with her sister, of course, but she'd just have to understand. This was a matter of national security.
That left the vague lead of the insurance salesman with the white van. On his way to the Bugle, Gage mulled this over in his mind. Posing as a salesman to scope out the motel still seemed a bit risky for a pro, but the time frame was right. The killer probably didn't think he had enough time to do a more careful reconnaissance.
No breeze stirred the fog that hung low over the road when Gage stepped out of his van next to the candy store. Traffic was light; a couple of cars, only their headlights visible until the last second, rolling at half-speed through the thick moist air. The lights in the windows, in the walk-up the Bugle called home, were dark. Gage thought Carmen might have gone home—it was a rarity for her to leave early, being a one-woman show as she was—but then saw her emerge from the covered stairway.
He saw her feet first, her pumps bright white against the Astroturf carpet that coated the stairs, before the rest of her took shape in the mist.
There were other cars parked in front of the stores, so he wasn't directly in her line of sight. This gave him just a moment before she spotted him by the van, standing just in front on the driver side, a moment where he could take in her beauty without her knowing he was doing this. She always changed when she knew he was staring, became self-conscious and guarded, so he'd learned to appreciate these fleeting moments.
Her legs, at least up to the calves, were bare—and a hell of a pair of legs they were. She wore a fashionable gray overcoat, untied and unbuttoned, revealing the long gray skirt and a low cut blue blouse underneath. The blouse may have been green. It was hard to tell in the fog and the reddish glow from the candy store sign above her. She clutched a black satchel bursting with paper under her arm. She projected strength and confidence, but there was something else, something he only saw when she didn't know he was watching—a hint of vulnerability, just a flicker, that lay carefully guarded behind that veneer of tough female guile.
When she spotted him, that vulnerability vanished as if it had never been there, replaced by surprise, then obvious pleasure.
"Oh," she said.
"Dinner?" he said, smiling.
He was glad he'd seen her before she'd seen him, because that obvious pleasure also disappeared, her forehead wrinkling, her lips turning downward in a frown.
"Didn't think you were going to show," she said.
"Sorry. Got held up at Alex's. Can I fill you in over calamari and red wine?"
She hesitated. It wasn't long, but he still noted it.
"Sure," she said.
"Everything okay?"
She shrugged. He opened the passenger side for her, waiting while she slipped those long legs of hers inside. He was always uncomfortable with her in his van. It really wasn't worthy of her.
Alexandro's, the best Italian restaurant in town, was on the far south side, so it took ten minutes to get there. On the way, with John Coltrane playing on the radio, he filled her in on everything that happened that day, from his trip to Eugene to the information he'd turned up at the motel.
She listened in cool silence. He didn't know what it was about, but he knew better than to let it fester.
"You're mad," he said.
"I'm not mad."
"You're acting mad."
She sighed.
"That was a hell of a sigh," he said.
"Garrison," she said, shaking her head. "Please. I'm just—I'm just tired. Been a long day."
Coltrane was no longer singing. They were giving the weather report—rain and more rain, coming their way. Enjoy the lack of rain now, the man said, because December was finally arriving with a bang, the man said. Gage turned it off. They drove the rest of the way in silence, or as close to silence as his door-rattling, window-whistling, seat-squeaking van could offer. She kept fiddling with the hem of her skirt, tugging on it as if she was trying to cover her legs. When he pulled into the cramped parking lot behind the restaurant, finding it nearly full, Carmen finally spoke again.
"So where's Zoe staying?" she asked.
"What? Oh, with me."
"Really," she said. It wasn't a question. It was a comment of disapproval.
"She insisted," he said.
"She insisted," she repeated.
He glanced at her to see what kind of game she was playing here, but except for a solitary lamp by the door to the lounge, the back parking lot was dark and he couldn't see her face. A tall wooden fence surrounded the lot, blocking the light. He found a spot by the dumpster. A big SUV had tried to crowd the space, in an obvious attempt to discourage anyone from parking next to him, but that only encouraged Gage to park there. "Yes," he said. "You know how she is. And after what happened in Eugene, I don't want to force the issue."
"And you don't think she would be safer somewhere else?"
"Well, yes."
"Then you should make her stay somewhere else."
"Right."
"I'm just saying, you need to put her safety first. She's a minor. She doesn't get to decide right now."
"Well, that's easier said than done."
"No, it's easier done too. You just have to do it."
He killed the engine. A group of people rounding the corner were laughing. What little internal light his van offered—which wasn't much—vanished, and they were left in darkness. "Carmen, come on," he said, "what's this about?"
"It's not about anything. It's just about Zoe. If you really care about her safety, you need to put that ahead of her feelings. And ahead of your own needs."
"What? Now you've lost me."
"Have you told the police about Bruzzi yet?"
"No."
She snorted. "Figures."
"All right, what's going on here? Spit it out. This isn't just about Zoe and you know it."
"Maybe you're pretty much focused on yourself, you know, doing your thing, but you should at least act like you care about others."
"Carmen, that's not fair."
"It isn't? It's not enough to just be with somebody. You have to, you know, every once in a while think about what they might be feeling. Sometimes that has to take precedence over other things, things you may want to do, things you may prefer. People don't just vanish from existence when you go off and do your thing. They're still out there thinking about you, worrying about you. It wouldn't hurt if you did the same once in a while."
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