It takes another minute before he notices my tapping. By this time I’m playing the armrest like a drum, and the exit is fast approaching.
“Come on, Steps! That’s irritating.”
I don’t say a word. With a raised eyebrow, I tilt my head sideways at him, look purposefully at the strumming finger on the steering wheel, and then back at him.
“Oh.” That’s all he says; no less, no more. Sometimes the simplest statements are the most powerful.
Regardless, the finger stops.
A moment later the right blinker starts again; the grind resumes.
Hour Nine
By the time we grind our way through Beaumont, Texas, and its offering of hotels and motels, the sun has made its gracious exit from the sky, and vestiges of its radiance have all faded from the long horizon.
Interstate 10 carries us away from the city in a southwest direction and we pause just long enough to grab some burgers from a fast-food joint off the highway. One of our must-sing songs comes on the radio, but we’re too exhausted to pay proper tribute, and by silent mutual agreement we let the song bleed out without the benefit of our voices.
Jimmy wants to drive until at least midnight.
I’m too tired to argue.
We grind on.
Hour Ten
Fourteen miles west of Winnie, at exit 815, the blue sign for a safety rest area leads us back off I-10 near Hankamer, Texas. The spot is hidden behind the trees, but as we draw near, the rest area emerges from the darkness ahead and stands as a beacon in the night. My first impression is that it’s one of the nicest rest areas I’ve been to—and I’ve been to a lot. The main building is well lit, as are the scattered pavilions and outbuildings. There’s even a state-of-the-art playground for kids.
“Nice,” Jimmy says, parking the Charger and shutting it down. He points: “They have free coffee.”
Then I see it.
Not the coffee stand—the ice-blue shine leading to the coffee stand.
I throw the door open so hard it rebounds and catches me hard in the shin. Despite the pain, I jump out and chase the shine. I imagine I look a bit ridiculous, like a bloodhound on a fresh scent, turning this way, then that.
Jimmy’s right behind me, not asking questions, just following. Like me, the find seems to have put energy back in his steps. After several minutes that take me all over the complex, I stop at a picnic table.
Jimmy lets me breathe a moment, lets me digest what I see. He doesn’t have to wait long before it comes bubbling out.
“He parked over there,” I say, pointing to a spot near the main building, about ten spaces farther down from the Charger. “He probably went to the men’s room first, then got some coffee. After that he walked around and looked at pretty much everything; he even stopped at the fence around the play area and watched the kids—though I image it was still early morning, probably even dark when he was here, so he may have been staring at an empty play area.”
“Maybe that’s relevant,” Jimmy offers. “Maybe that’s what drives him.”
“You think he turned vigilante because he lost a son or daughter?”
“Think about it,” Jimmy presses. “If something was going to send me off the deep end, what would it be?”
“You want a list?”
He gives me a smirk that says, Touché, and presses on. “For me it would have to be something involving Jane or Pete—for you it would be Heather and Jens, your mom, your dad … maybe even Ellis.”
“I like Ellis,” I say, “but not enough to go full schizoid for him.”
“Okay, but you get my meaning. The worst for me would be if something happened to Pete. I love Jane with everything that’s in me, and would kill or die for her, but with Pete there’s something else. I suppose it’s that primal parental instinct to protect, and the fact that he’s so vulnerable.”
“Maybe it wasn’t a child he lost,” I offer, “but the hope of a child. Maybe something happened to his girlfriend or wife. Or maybe he’s just angry at the world because he can’t get a girlfriend or a wife. Could be he’s socially awkward, or there’s something else about him that drives women away … assuming he’s a guy.”
Jimmy’s shaking his head. “Female serial killers are rare enough; one that could cut off feet, yank teeth, and carve out tattoos is hard to imagine. No, most serial killers are white males, and I’m guessing this one is between, say, twenty-five and forty years of age.” Jimmy’s voice is suddenly low, quiet. “Something happened to him.”
I don’t argue the point. Jimmy is uncannily accurate when it comes to profiling suspects, and I’ve learned to trust his instincts.
“At some point he ended up right here,” I say, pointing at the seat in front of me. “He sat at the picnic table and drank his coffee. I can see where his right hand kept lifting up and coming to rest in the same general spot on the table. The shine from his hand is in a reverse C shape, or maybe a close parenthesis, indicating he had it cupped around the coffee. He was here a while.”
“This is good,” Jimmy says, gently hitting the table three times with the ball of his closed fist. “This proves he was on I-10 … just as you predicted.” He gives me a grin. “Not that I doubted the logic behind your idea, but I was starting to wonder if maybe he took a different route.”
“I never had a doubt,” I reply in a haughty tone.
Jimmy knows it’s a lie and we both smile broadly, then he says, “No, this is really good. He was obviously tired—he had to be. And it’s still a long way to El Paso. He’s going to stop somewhere, and probably soon.”
Hour Eleven
The coffee from the Hankamer rest area proves inadequate and by the time we reach Mont Belvieu twenty minutes later, Jimmy and I are both ready to call it quits for the night.
A certain peace came with the discovery of IBK’s shine.
We now know we’re on the right track and that, from here on out, it’s simply a process of time and elimination. We don’t have to find where he stayed tonight, or even tomorrow night. We’re at ease because we know we’ll find it.
After checking the sixteen hotels and motels in and around Mont Belvieu, we cross the San Jacinto River. All of Houston lies before us—our biggest challenge yet. Even though our search will be limited to those lodgings within a mile of I-10, the sheer number is staggering. This will require fresh minds and fresh eyes.
Houston is a battle best fought in the light of a new day.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Houston, Texas—September 12, 9:05 A.M.
“Where’s the battle station?” Jimmy says to the teenage barista with the stained HANK’S COFFEE apron tied sloppily around her waist. She stares at him blankly a moment, and then her head shakes back and forth rapidly in a one-inch range that makes it looks like she’s having a meltdown.
“Where do you keep your cream and sugar?” Jimmy clarifies.
“Oh,” she says. “It’s right over there.” She points to a shelf hidden against the adjacent wall. “Battle station,” she snorts. “That’s cute.”
Jimmy stirs two packs of sugar into his coffee and takes a sip from the obsidian broth. His face grimaces horribly and he sets the cup back on the counter. “Back home they’d run you out of town for serving swill like this,” he mutters. Dumping two more packs of sugar into the cup, he chases it with a long pour of creamer.
Jimmy’s a coffee snob.
He’s had coffee all over the country, at roadside dives and fancy restaurants, and half the time he places it in one of three categories: awful, terrible, or just disgusting. I always agree with him, of course, but then—I hate coffee. Still, I’m forced into coffee shops everywhere we go, north, south, east, and west, so over time I’ve perfected a drink that camouflages most of the bitter coffee taste, plus it tastes pretty good. I’d even say it tastes pleasant.
Jimmy calls it the why-bother; I call it a twenty-ounce mocha with a single shot of decaf, one-percent milk, and no whip.
It’s a glor
ified hot chocolate.
Good or bad, this coffee stop is our last oasis this side of sanity. Having reviewed and studied our varied collection of maps and travel books this morning, I suspect that Houston is going to chew us up and spit us out in little chunks that resemble wet cat food.
But that’s just me; I’m an optimist.
* * *
Sunset arrives at 7:26 P.M. and as dusk settles, the evening lights of Katy, Texas, arrive outside my window, flashing by and then slowing as we exit to do our checks. It’s a relief to arrive in the town, because it means that we’re finally beyond the sprawl of Houston and its suburbs.
After getting back on I-10, we travel another seven miles and see a sign that reads BROOKSHIRE CITY LIMITS, POP. 4702. There are three motels, all within a thousand feet of the freeway. We check the Executive Inn, the Super 8, and, farther west, the La Quinta Inn, and find nothing.
We’re almost back to the I-10 on-ramp when Jimmy suddenly pulls a U-turn and heads back to the La Quinta.
“I don’t know about you,” he says, “but if I have to look at another hotel or motel I’m going to scream. What do you say we check in, have a beer, and sit in the hot tub for a while?” He looks at me and tries to grin. “It should be safe; Marty’s not with us.”
“Works for me.”
Having looked at perhaps two hundred hotels and motels in the last thirty-three hours, and being sick and tired of even the look of them, and disheartened by the mere thought of them … we check into a motel.
Brookshire, Texas—September 13, 9:05 A.M.
After the therapeutic effects of the hot tub, a couple beers, and nine hours of sleep, Jimmy and I are both alert and invigorated, though neither of us is excited about another day of hotel-hunting. Jimmy insists on a sit-down breakfast, and, since this is Texas, I decide to have steak with my eggs and hash browns.
What arrives is bigger than the steaks I normally have for supper, and as I work my way through it I decide that I could get used to this.
“Diane called this morning,” Jimmy says between mouthfuls of omelet.
“Let me guess, she wants to know what we’re doing wasting our time driving through Texas?”
Jimmy chuckles. “Yeah, that was part of it.”
“And the other part?”
Jimmy shifts uncomfortably in his seat. “She’s got missions stacking up. Two cases in Ohio that might be related, one fresh, the other a year old—they want our opinion. She also mentioned a missing pair of hikers in the Olympics.”
“How long have they been missing?”
“Two days.”
I sigh and push the half-eaten steak to the center of the table; I was full anyway. “One more day,” I say. “If we don’t find something by this evening we can have Les and Marty pick us up and fly us straight to Port Angeles. We can be in the Olympics early tomorrow morning.” I give Jimmy a hard look. “We’ve come this far.”
He nods and pushes the balance of his omelet away. His fingers strum the tabletop three times, and then he says, “That’s exactly what I told her.” Picking up the blue cloth napkin from his lap, he wipes his mouth, then his hands, and tosses it on his plate. “We’ve got twelve hours to prove your theory. What do you say we hit the road?”
* * *
Fifteen miles west of Brookshire is the town of Sealy, Texas.
Ask a hundred people if they’ve ever heard of the town, and ninety-nine will likely say no. The irony is that almost all of them know the town; they just don’t know that they know the town.
That’s because in 1881, cotton gin builder Daniel Haynes, a resident of Sealy, began making mattresses filled with cotton for friends and family. By 1889 he patented an invention for compressing cotton for mattresses and his product eventually became so popular that the term “Mattress from Sealy” was coined. The Sealy-brand mattress is with us still, and the Sealy Corporation, now based in North Carolina, employs close to five thousand people—the rough equivalent of the entire population of present-day Sealy, Texas.
As we pull off I-10, Jimmy asks, “How many?”
I glance at the list. “Looks like eight, all within a mile of each other. We should be able to get through them quickly enough.”
We start on the north side and work south. As expected, we run by the first six in less than fifteen minutes … and then we reach number seven.
The Southern Cross Inn on Main Street doesn’t have the appearance of a franchise motel, the type with cookie-cutter architecture and neutral colors. Instead, the inn blends well with the surrounding buildings, asserting its place as a long-standing member of the community, not some recent interloper.
Formerly a two-story commercial building dating to the early days of Sealy, the inn has been nicely refurbished and stands as one of the grander structures on the street, but it’s not the glass work, the old lamplights, or the oiled wood that draws my gaze.
No.
It’s the trail of ice-blue shine that walks up the sidewalk and right through the hundred-year-old double doors leading into the lobby.
A surge of adrenaline dumps into my system, pumping through my veins with the force of a garden hose so that I hear my own heartbeat in my ears. Unbidden, my left hand clamps onto Jimmy’s arm even before it’s off the steering wheel, startling him.
“We found him,” I say. Then, exhaling deeply, I slump in my seat for a moment, closing my eyes, feeling the relief.
“You’re sure?” Jimmy’s as excited and I am, but won’t show it.
“I’m positive.”
I can feel him staring at me, and when I open my eyes he’s grinning broadly. Without a word, he springs from the Charger and rushes toward the front doors as I scramble to follow, nearly knocking over an old woman who’s dragging a rat terrier around on a short leash. There’s no one in the reception area, so I follow the shine up the stairs and down the hall, where the trail disappears under the door of room 113.
But that’s not all.
“He stayed here before,” I whisper to Jimmy. “There’s new shine—very recent, plus a faded track, probably from the same time frame as the older shine we found at the swamp. Eight to ten years, give or take. Both times he stayed in this room”—I point at the door with both index fingers—“and she was with him the first time.”
“She? You mean the she from the swamp? Bronze?”
“Bronze with acid-green swirls,” I whisper with a single firm nod.
Jimmy’s mind is churning; my mind is churning. His fingers are strumming his pants while I pace five steps up the hall and then five steps back. A moment later we speak simultaneously: “We need to get into this room.”
The front desk has one of those old-fashioned bells where you tap the nob on top to summon assistance. I tap it—a few times. The woman whose head pokes out of the office isn’t amused. Nonetheless, she puts on a welcoming Texas smile and comes around to greet us. Her name tag reads ANGELA.
“What can I do for you gentlemen this morning?”
Jimmy badges her, holding his credentials up long enough for her to get a good look, then says, “We’re going to need some help from you today, Angela.”
“Wh-whatever I can do.” She’s biting her lower lip now, which means she’s either nervous we’re going to arrest her for something, or she finds me attractive—or she finds Jimmy attractive … I suppose.
“We’re in the middle of a very important investigation,” my partner explains in an official tone. “Can you tell me if there’s anyone currently registered in room one-thirteen?”
“Normally I could tell you that off the top of my head,” Angela says, “but my shift just started an hour ago and I’ve only checked two out and one in during that time.” She sidles over to the computer at her left and brings the monitor to life with a wiggle of the mouse. Her fingers twitch at the keyboard as she begins to type. “Shoot,” she says a moment later, hitting the backspace button several times.
She tries it again with similar results and finally makes a
go of it on the third attempt. “Just don’t know what’s wrong with me today.” Her eyes quickly scan the results. “No, that room is currently vacant. It was last occupied yesterday.”
The words spill from Jimmy’s mouth: “We need a list of everyone who stayed in room one-thirteen from September—” He’s snapping his fingers.
“They found the body on the third,” I say.
Angela’s eyes suddenly look like white porcelain saucers. “B-body?”
“Make it the third through the sixth,” Jimmy says.
Angela’s fingers click the keyboard for several seconds. “I have two names for that time frame. Mrs. Shepard was in the room on the fifth and sixth—she was here from Tallahassee visiting her grandkids. Sweet lady. The second guest was Lawrence Wilson from El Paso.”
“Lawrence Wilson?” I say, dumbfounded. “Larry Wilson?”
“That’s correct. He checked in late on the third, and stayed just one night.”
“That’s quite a trick, Angela,” Jimmy says, “since Larry Wilson was dead on the third. In fact, he’d probably been dead several weeks by then.”
“Oh, my!” Her right hand moves up to cover her heart, as if wounded, and her eyes stare accusingly at the words on the screen. “But the computer…” She lets the words fall into a silent grave.
“What’s your check-in procedure?” I ask.
Angela retrieves a form from under the counter, which is printed on a half sheet of regular printer paper, and hands it to me. “We have them fill out the form themselves, and we enter it into the computer later, after they’re registered. It speeds up the process. That way we can get them taken care of quickly and have them on their way.” She smiles.
“So they fill out the form themselves. Do they have to show identification?”
“Only if they’re paying with a credit card or check—though we don’t see very many checks these days.”
“And how would I find out if he paid cash or used a card?”
“We would have marked it on his registration form,” Angela says, nodding at the paper in my hand. “But then it would have been entered into the computer.” As she’s speaking her hand moves to the mouse, which she repositions and clicks several times. She types in Larry’s name and almost immediately says, “Uh-oh.” Grimacing, I’m sure for our benefit, she says, “It looks like he paid cash.”
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