Courting Trouble

by Lisa Scottoline

  “Not too long,” Judy answered. “There’s a line to the toll booths, but they’re not taking tolls this direction, so it’ll move along.”

  “It’s enough time to call Bennie,” Mary ventured. “I have my cell. Maybe we should.”

  “No,” Judy and Anne answered in unison, and Anne was liking Judy better and better.

  “Don’t back out now,” Anne said, to a worried Mary. “We settled this. We’ll call Bennie as soon as we see that Kevin’s checked in at the Daytimer. Why bother her if it’s a dry hole? If this isn’t the pen he left? We’re just taking a chance that he’s at the Daytimer, and it’s a remote chance, at best.”

  Judy nodded. “Anne’s right. Also Bennie would never let us do this, and why shouldn’t we? It’s fun! We get to play hooky! Isn’t it so cool up here?” She waved her arm against a clear blue backdrop of sky and a soaring arc of expansion bridge, but Anne couldn’t stop thinking about Kevin. They were back on track, after losing him at the service. She would get him yet. She was so close she could shoot him.

  “It’s smart of Kevin to stay in New Jersey, isn’t it?” she asked, idly. “It gets him out of town and takes the heat off.”

  Judy agreed. “Plus, it raises a jurisdictional question with the Philly police. Requires cooperation with the FBI, which is problematic.”

  Mary covered her ears. “We shouldn’t be discussing this. This is wrong. We’re going against Bennie. She’ll fire us.” She uncovered her ears and turned to the backseat. “Murphy, let’s talk about the case. Chipster. You have to make a new opening argument, now that you’re going to tell about the affair.”

  “You’re right,” Anne considered it, then reached into her purse, snapped the phone open, and hit speed-dial for Gil. “Here we go. Everybody be quiet.”

  “No fart noises, Mare,” Judy warned. The VW stopped next to a gigantic billboard for Harrah’s Marina, in which a woman drove a steamboat as big as an ocean liner. Sequined letters glittered, i’ll take you there. The call was picked up.

  “Gil, it’s Anne.” She cupped the phone around her ear to keep out the traffic noise.

  “Anne, where are you? Are you okay? I was so worried about you, after what happened at the Chestnut Club.”

  Right, that’s why you haven’t called. “Listen, we need to discuss your new defense. Meet me tonight, at the office at seven and bring any evidence you have of your affair with Beth.”

  “Evidence? Like what?”

  “Cards, letters, anything.” Anne flashed on I love you I love you I love you. Weird how parallel the relationships seemed. “Cards from flowers. Hotel receipts, phone bills, calendar notations. Any writings at all that show your relationship with Beth was consensual, not a quid pro quo for continued employment. We’re not going to hide the truth. We’re going to prove it.”

  “Anne, no! I don’t want that public, not now.”

  “It’s the only way you’ll win. We have to preempt any argument Beth may have, any proof of a sexual relationship.”

  “She has nothing! I never wrote her anything. You think I’m stupid?”

  Don’t answer. It’s not good client relations. “They have Bonnard, the French woman. She’s already testified at her dep that you forced her into sex, so they have pattern and practice. We’re moving to exclude it but the judge won’t rule until next week, and he’ll probably let it in. If they come at us, you’re dead and so is Chipster.”

  “But I didn’t force her! I didn’t force any woman! I did have a thing with Janine Bonnard, but—”

  Oh, great. “I know, you’ve been fooling around for years. That’s our defense. It isn’t pretty, but it isn’t illegal. We’ll talk when we meet. Just bring the stuff. I have to go.”

  “What do I tell Jamie? That I’m going to humiliate her in public?”

  You did that already. “Tell her I want her at that trial every day, in the front row. And when I put her up, she’s going to tell the truth. Testify about the pain your affairs caused her, but say that you wouldn’t force sex on anyone. Your philandering will win this case, Gil. Your pattern and practice is cheating, not harassment.”

  “That would be awful for Jamie, and for me!”

  “No, it will be awful for you, but I have a feeling Jamie would love to tell her story, and she just may save your sorry ass. She’ll be a counterpoint to the plaintiff, and the truth of what happened comes out best through her, because it’s so obviously against her interest to admit. The jury will see that you’ve been punished, and go for the defense.”

  Gil sounded distinctly unhappy. “Anne, I have to think about this.”

  “We’ll talk tonight, after I see what you got.”

  “Does this mean you’re still my lawyer?”

  “See you tonight.” Anne snapped the phone closed, feeling uneasy. She’d liked the case so much better when she believed in Gil. Now she knew the truth.

  Judy met her eye in the rearview mirror. “Traffic’s starting to move,” she said. “It’s a sign.”

  “Let’s go get ’em,” Anne said, and Mary managed a cautious smile.

  Fifteen minutes later the VW was zipping through the toll booths and negotiating Admiral Wilson Boulevard, which didn’t show the Garden State to great advantage. Its four lanes snaked through strip bars, liquor stores, then more strip bars and liquor stores. Sometimes the scenic wonder was interrupted by another casino billboard or a strip bar that called itself a gentleman’s club. Anne felt confident that no gentlemen went there. The VW took a left, then a right, winding past tire warehouses, an auto body yard, and a stop for the PATCO speed line, a monorail tram that took commuters over the bridge into Philadelphia. After getting lost a little, the Beetleful of sweaty lawyers finally found themselves in the parking lot of the Daytimer.

  It was a small, tawdry motel that looked like it had been built in the sixties, with a low-slung sloping roof at the entrance, which was meant to serve as a carport. The glass over the front door was covered by security bars, and to its right flickered a neon sign that read VACANCY. As disgusting as the place was, it was all Anne could do not to run in. “I can’t believe we’re here. We got him!”

  Judy pulled into a space facing the entrance and cut the ignition. “Whoa,” she said, looking over the curved hood. “Take a look at this layout. I like it.”

  Anne boosted herself up and realized immediately what Judy meant. The motel had been designed as a short, straight line, like a hyphen set parallel to the parking lot, and it consisted of two floors, so that its two decks of numbered rooms were in full view of the lot and street. “We can see all the doors, and when he goes in and out.”

  “Hey, check out the license plates.” Mary was eyeing the parking lot. “They’re all out-of-state. Connecticut. New York. Maine. Virginia. That’s funny. There’s nothing to see around here, no tourist attractions.”

  “It’s a cheater motel, dufus,” Judy said knowingly. “Out-of-staters come here to cheat, probably traveling salesmen and people like that. The locals don’t come here to cheat because if they do, they’ll be seen.”

  Anne hung over the front seat. “That must be how Kevin got the room here on the holiday weekend. The business trade is down because of the Fourth. Even the cheaters stay home.” The more she thought about it, the more sense it made. “And he’s close to the PATCO speed line, between Philly and Jersey, if he stays here. That must be how he gets back and forth to the city, since he probably doesn’t have a car.”

  “Look!” Mary exclaimed, pointing up, and they did. A short, older man dressed business-casual was leaving a room on the second floor. Next to him sashayed a much younger woman in red hot-pants and matching platform shoes. “Is that a—”

  “Hooker,” Judy supplied.

  Anne was disappointed it wasn’t Kevin, but Mary gasped.

  “Is she a hooker? An actual hooker?” Mary couldn’t stop watching the couple as they strode past on the top balcony, the woman’s hips rolling expertly as she walked. “I never saw a real ho
oker before.”

  Anne was intent on getting Kevin. “So now what do we do? We have to find out if he’s registered here, and if he’s in.”

  Mary watched the entrance. “I wonder if we should call Bennie, or the cops. Let them take it from here.”

  “No!” Anne and Judy answered, again as one.

  Anne leaned toward. “Don’t worry. We don’t know anything yet, not for sure, so we shouldn’t call Bennie. And which cops would we call? The Philly police have no jurisdiction in Jersey, like Judy said, and we don’t know anybody in the Jersey police. I wouldn’t even know where to start.”

  “It’s an FBI matter,” Mary said, biting her thumbnail. “We’d start there.”

  Judy looked over. “Mare, what’re we gonna do? Call ’em up? Hello, FBI?”

  “Yeah, I guess,” Mary answered, but there was little conviction in her voice.

  “I don’t think he’s in there,” Anne said, eyeing the motel. Nobody was going in and out of the front entrance. The place looked sort of empty. “We know Kevin was in Philly at noon, at the memorial service. My guess is he’s still there, in town. Watching my house or the office, or hanging out in a gay bar until the excitement from the memorial service dies down. Planning his next move. A fugitive would want to stay mobile, so he can react as the situation changes.”

  “This sounds dangerous.” Mary turned around, and Anne could read the fear straining her brown eyes.

  “If he’s not in there, there’s no danger. We’re not going to try to take him down ourselves, anyway. We go inside, see if he’s registered, then call the cops. That’s the plan.” Anne’s resolve strengthened. “This is me, planning. Right before your very eyes.”

  Judy grinned. “It doesn’t count as planning if you do it when you need it, Anne. It has to be in advance, like premeditation.”

  Anne was dying to get inside that motel. “Okay, so we have to find out if he’s registered. Otherwise we’re waiting out here for no reason.”

  “How do we do that?” Judy asked, turning to Anne. “He wouldn’t be registered under his real name.”

  “We can describe him to the clerk, like we did to Rachel. Maybe the clerk will remember something.”

  Judy shook her head, so her lone silver earring dangled. “The clerk won’t tell you, or let you see the register. He’s not supposed to, and I bet he won’t, at a cheater place. Especially to a woman. You could be the guy’s wife.”

  “What if I paid him? I could slip him a twenty, or even a fifty.”

  “That only works in the movies. This is New Jersey.”

  Anne began to smile. “I have a better idea.”

  “Is the FBI involved?” Mary asked.

  “Quite the contrary. But first, somebody has to go shopping. Mary, you’re elected. Take the car. Cherry Hill Mall is less than ten minutes away. Judy and I will stay here, so we don’t miss Kevin if he comes back. We’ll hide in some car, if one is open.” Anne twisted around, scoping out the surroundings. “Or maybe in that gas station. If Kevin comes back, we call the cops right away.”

  “What’s your idea?” Mary asked. “And why do I have to go shopping? I just went shopping!”

  “This is what happens when girls fight crime,” Anne answered. And, as politically incorrect as it was, nobody even tried to deny it.

  An hour later, three women emerged from a chartreuse VW Beetle and wobbled in red platform shoes across the gritty asphalt parking lot of the Daytimer Motel. Heavily made-up, they wore red satin hot-pants and midriff tops covered with blue-and-white stars. They were supposed to be hookers, but Anne thought they looked like an X-rated women’s gymnastic team. Either way, they were sashaying a step closer to finding Kevin.

  “I don’t see why we had to dress all the same, Mare,” Judy grumbled. She was a large-boned, strong girl, but looked surprisingly slender in her midriff and hot-pants. Makeup added years to her face, so she looked almost postpubescent. “I don’t think real hookers dress alike when they go out on . . . jobs. Or whatever they’re called.”

  “It saved time to get three outfits the same, and it’s a Fourth of July theme.” Mary’s ankle collapsed, but she righted herself. She cut a curvy, compact figure in her outfit, and the hot-pants made her short legs look longer. Her hair was pulled back into a ponytail, and her lips were a crimson red, expertly applied by Anne, who’d had to make them all up. Mary hadn’t resisted the hooker makeover. “Besides, it’s better for the plan.”

  “It’s a dumb plan,” Judy said.

  “It’s a good plan,” Mary said.

  “It’s an awesome plan,” Anne said. “At least the hot-pants are cooler than the black dresses.” She wasn’t a midriff fan, especially since she was still retaining water, but she was in love with the platforms. “Stiletto heels and ankle straps. I love ankle straps. They look like a pair of Bruno Maglis I saw once, for ten times as much.”

  “Watch out, a curb!” Mary shouted, like the lookout on the Titanic. The paved curb to the entrance of the Daytimer Motel loomed straight in their path. “Curb! Dead ahead!”

  “Heads up!” Judy warned.

  “Don’t look down!” Anne advised them. “Hold hands and go for it! On the count of one, two, three!”

  “Wheee!” They held hands like paper dolls and jumped onto the pavement. “We did it!”

  “I love these shoes!” Anne said, exhilarated, and Mary giggled.

  “I like being tall, even if I can’t walk.”

  Judy grimaced as they reached the motel’s front door, and she grabbed the smudgy glass handle. “Shopping for clothes, talking about clothes, wearing new clothes. Catching a psycho killer can only pale in comparison.”

  And the hookers hobbled inside.

  22

  There was no lobby in the Daytimer Motel, only a small paneled room with a fake-wood counter that blocked access to the elevators beyond. Folded brochures, improbably for Amish country, flopped over on a metal rack next to an old tan computer, a dirty telephone, and a stack of free newspapers called Pennysavers, their ink so black it came presmudged. The man behind the counter was pushing eighty years old, with greasy glasses, dark eyes, and a stained, white, polo shirt. His grizzled beard enveloped a fleshly leer that appeared the moment Anne walked in the door, leading her cadre of Fourth-of-July prostitutes.

  She swiveled her hips as she approached, making the most of the distance to the counter, then leaned over and flashed the clerk an ample view of her stars and stripes. “I’m looking for a man,” she purred. “Me and my friends, that is, we’re looking for a man. We were told that he’d be staying here.”

  “He’s a lucky man,” the clerk said, sneaking a peek.

  “Oh, he’s very lucky.” Anne batted her eyelashes prettily. It wouldn’t have done much for Matt, but he wasn’t old enough to remember Betty Boop. “We’re sort of a present, for July Fourth. Sent by some friends of his, from his college frat. They wrote the man’s name on a card, but I lost it. Silly me.”

  “Poor you.”

  “So the only way we can find this frat boy and give him his . . . gift is for you to help us. So will you? Help us?”

  “Please help us,” Mary murmured, flirting backup.

  “If you don’t help us, we’ll get fired.” Anne pouted. “A girl’s gotta make a living, you understand? We can’t get fired. That would be awful.”

  “Terrible,” Mary added.

  Judy leaned over. “Then we’d have to go to law school.”

  The clerk heh-heh-hehed, his lips newly wet. “Sure, I’d be glad to help youse, all a youse. But how’m I gonna find the guy, if you don’t know his name?”

  “We know a little what he looks like. He’s young, with real short hair, and he’s kind of tall. Maybe six feet, kinda muscle-y. He’s got blue eyes, and he’s white. He has either black or blond hair, I forget. He likes to change it around, like a rock star or somethin’. He checked in recently, no more than a week ago at the most. He mighta gone out today.”

  “Got it.”
The clerk was already typing away on a dirty gray keyboard, checking an ancient 286 computer. His eyes went back and forth slowly as he read the screen, and he popped the Enter key with a dirty fingernail. “He’s staying here, ya think?”

  “Yes, we think so.” Anne nodded, as did the others. So say we all, said the nod.

  “Come on, honey.” Suddenly the clerk stopped hitting the key and looked skeptically around the monitor at Anne. “You’re lying about the frat boy, aren’t ya?”

  Anne tried not to look nervous. “Well, why do you ask?”

  “’Cause the man you described, he sounds like this guy in 247, but he’s no frat boy. He checked in five days ago. His hair was blond, but from the cut, I’d bet a million bucks he just got outta prison, not college.”

  “Really?” Anne’s heart gave a little jump, in platforms. It had to be Kevin. “Maybe that is the man we’re supposed to party with. Maybe the guys who hired us just didn’t want to say. Not that I’d hold it against him, if he served his time and all.”

  “That’s how I feel.” The clerk clicked backward on the computer, then pointed at the screen. “Here he is. The name Ken Reseda ring a bell?”

  “Yes!” Anne answered, with excitement she couldn’t hide. Kevin was born in Reseda, California, she remembered from his file. Ken Reseda had to be Kevin Satorno. “That’s him. Aren’t you so smart!”

  “Well, I don’t know.” The clerk smiled under his grizzle. “I can spot an ex-con a mile away. You’d be surprised what you learn, people-watchin’. I see plenty here. Been in the hotel business twenty-five years. I own the place, you know.”

  “I assumed. It’s so well-run.”

  “And homey,” Mary added.

  Judy leaned over. “It’s the fucking Ritz.”

  Anne suppressed her smile. “So, do you happen to know if Mr. Reseda is in or not?”

  “I wasn’t on this morning, but I’ll check.” The clerk looked at the old-fashioned wooden cubbyholes behind him, then turned back. “His key ain’t there. You were right. He musta went out this morning.”