CHAPTER NINE
Forcing myself to move quickly, I untwisted my legs and waist from beneath the steering wheel, sore all over. Blindly, I felt around for the gun I’d flung onto the seat beside me, and found it on the floor wedged up near the heater vent. I pulled it out, then pushed open the passenger door, desperate to get out of the car in case the shooter decided to finish me off. The door swung open easily, bouncing on its hinges before settling. I tumbled out into the dirt, crawled to the back of the car, and peeked over the trunk toward the road.
The man’s car was gone, nowhere in sight. All I saw was the empty road and the unplanned exit lane I’d carved into the dirt. The pungent scent of farmland hung in the air, along with the steady buzz of insects. A placid calmness resettled over the evening. A few miles away, the interstate traffic cut through the hills, moving in slow motion silence as it entered and exited the valley. To the right: the road I’d skidded off stretching toward an ancient beach, powdered silver by grains of sifted moonlight. To the left: Highway 111 disappearing southward, not a speck of traffic on it. It seemed I was alone.
Then I became aware of the faint sound of music somewhere behind me. Turning, I saw a small house about two hundred yards away, illuminated by glaring security lamps. In my panicked flight through the field I’d missed it. Now I could see shadows moving against the brightly lit background of the house, several silhouetted figures making their way toward me. As they approached, I put the gun in the car, not wanting to seem a threatening presence on this darkened property. I wondered if the shooter would have been scared off so easily if not for those lights.
There were three of them. One was holding a flashlight, a full-moon circle of light bobbing up and down in the darkness. Tall, wearing a red baseball cap stained dark with grease, a tanktop and dungarees. The other two both wore T-shirts and one had a tattoo on his forearm.
They stopped on the other side of the ditch in front of my crippled vehicle. The leader pointed the flashlight at me, running the light up and down before settling on my face. The glare obscured my view of them.
“What are you doing here?” he asked warily.
I thought quickly, came up with something about a drunk driver running me off the road. “Didn’t you see him?” I asked. No response. “Could you get that light out of my eyes?”
The light dropped to my feet. They were probably migrant workers, leery of dealing with the police. That was fine with me. “He was driving the opposite way and he came right toward me,” I continued, pointing back along the road.
“What about your windows?” one of the others asked, as the flashlight played over the car.
Shit. I hadn’t thought of that. Kept my mouth shut, hoping they’d just want me off the property. I could see them thinking, obviously suspicious of my story. One of them circled around to the opposite side of the car, looking at the damage. The gun was right on the front seat, another question I couldn’t answer. So far, they hadn’t seen it.
“You need help with your car?” the first one finally asked.
Twenty minutes later, after a lot of grunting and heaving, we managed to get the car out, first by digging the driveshaft out of the dirt, then starting it up and pushing.
Back on level ground again, I shook their hands and said I owed them a cold one, but we all knew that would never happen. I backed out the way I’d come, so as not to further damage their crop by turning around. Slow going, the car sluggishly negotiating the dips and ruts and raising clouds of dust. Eventually, I reached the edge of the field and stopped on the shoulder of the road. The headlights, undamaged when they hit the soft dirt bank of the canal, threw twin rivers of light that shifted and swelled in the swirling dust.
The men watched me leave. Just before I turned into the road, I gave them the high-beams as a farewell, but they had already turned back toward the house.
CHAPTER TEN
My car seemed to guide itself back toward Indio and the Blue Bird Motel as I tried to make sense of everything that had happened. It wasn’t easy with the headache pounding in my skull. I drove slowly to give myself time to think.
If not for my bruises and the sprinkles of glass all around me, I would hardly have believed that the last few hours weren’t some half-remembered episode of a TV cop show. In fact, the whole night seemed like one of those hallucinations you get just before falling asleep, your imagination running wild while the rest of the world goes on normally.
Tonight had been as far from routine as you could get without ending up dead, and I thought about what I should do next. I was lucky those men had helped me with the car. And glad that my car was old enough to not have airbags. Without a tow-truck driver to report the accident, I didn’t have to tell the police about anything other than discovering that matchbook. Leaving out the rest of it, though, meant they wouldn’t get my description of the motel room intruder, and more important, the gun that was now sitting in my back seat.
The gun. My prints were on that gun.
I could wipe it clean, but that would remove the shooter’s as well. Out of the question. I wanted to give the police every chance of solving the crime. I’d take my chances and play it straight.
Pulling into the motel parking lot a few minutes later, the second thoughts began to take over. There was no chance I wouldn’t spend the night in jail. My prints on the weapon could get me convicted of murder. I didn’t think it would come to that, but it was possible.
I had to bite the bullet though. Finding that boy’s killer was too important to me.
I parked in front of the office beside the dust-covered Plymouth and turned off the ignition. The office windows were still lit from within. The neon vacancy sign buzzed and flickered, then seemed to synchronize with the ticking of my engine as it cooled. Looking to my right, I noticed the other vehicle parked in front of number 2. That room’s lights were still off, and I could see number 12’s door hanging ajar, the way it had been left in my sudden departure.
Eager to get this over with, I got out of the car and swung the door shut. Broken glass fragments rattled around inside. The office door, like the rest of the place, was covered with old peeling paint, and a dingy blind was closed in the window. It had a “Manager” sign at eye level and a doorbell to the left, identified as the night bell and feebly illuminated under a layer of grime. I pressed it and heard a strident buzzing inside, followed by the faint sounds of someone grunting and moaning as if he’d been injured.
The door wasn’t locked when I tried it, swinging open slowly on squeaky hinges. Stepping inside the well-lit office, I noticed a blank-screened TV in the upper right corner and a counter running across the room in front of me. The sounds of muffled struggle turned more frantic, coming from the floor behind the front desk.
He was tied up down there, hands and feet, squirming in the tight space behind the counter. Eyes bugged out in fear. His mouth was duct-taped and his breath came out in a rapid, shallow whistle.
An open door on my right said “Private.” Beyond that, a dark alcove that I went through to get to the area behind the front desk. A short corridor on the right presumably led to the proprietor’s living quarters.
Someone had done a thorough job incapacitating him. His legs were bound together at the knees and his feet were crossed one over the other and secured, preventing him from getting up to a standing position. The man’s throat was working, his Adam’s apple bobbing up and down as he struggled to get enough air around the duct tape. I ripped it off in one quick motion. He gasped several times, filling his lungs. There was a small patch of blood on the back of his head, a shiny, dark red spot congealing in his thick hair. Sweat beaded his face, which was as red as a bad sunburn. It was obvious he’d been getting pretty worked up over his predicament.
“You okay?”
“Who are you?” he asked, still breathing hard.
“My name’s Tim Ryder,” I answered, undoing his hands from behind his back.
“That guy isn’t still around, is
he?”
“You mean the one who did this to you?”
“’Course. Who else would I be talking about?”
“What did he look like?”
I got the last of the tape off, and he rubbed his hands together, getting the circulation back.
“Tall, maybe six foot. Leather jacket and jeans. Red hair. White dude,” he added, reaching for a pair of scissors under the counter. Next to them, a roll of duct tape with its ripped end hanging off. The manager was lucky it had been there, I thought. Those scissors could have been buried in his neck right now instead.
“Why? You know him?” the man asked, cutting the tape from his knees and feet.
“Not really,” I answered.
A nervous look. “Not really? What does that mean?”
“Relax. He’s no friend of mine.”
“So who is he, then?”
“I’m not sure,” I said, helping him up. “I’ll tell you what I know after we call the police.”
“You don’t look so good yourself,” he said, eyeing the bruise on the side of my face.
I brought my hand up to it and felt a bump. “I’ll be all right.”
Nodding, he brushed past me, and I followed him into a sitting area in the back that was part of the living quarters. He veered toward an easy chair next to the couch and sat down heavily.
“Dizzy,” he said, touching the back of his head.
“You should get that looked at.” I went into the kitchen to get him a glass of water, which he drained in several long gulps.
“’Preciate it, bud. I was beginning to think I’d be there all night.” He got up and took the empty glass to the kitchen sink. “I gotta take a leak somethin’ terrible. Be right back.” Just before he left the room, he turned back to me and asked, “You ain’t gonna rip me off, are you?”
“I would have left you tied up,” I answered, shaking my head. “We should call the police, though.”
“Soon as I’m done,” he agreed, then disappeared down the hall past the kitchen.
I went to the phone sitting on the kitchen countertop and picked it up. Dialing my number, I recalled the way it had been marked in the phone book inside room 12. It rang three times before Deirdre answered. She sounded groggy, her voice thick with sleep.
“Deirdre, it’s me. Are you awake?” I glanced at my watch. After one.
“Tim? Where are you? When did you leave?” she asked, perking up.
“I’ll explain everything when you get down here.” Or the cops will, I thought.
“Down where? What are you talking about? You’re scaring me.”
“Everything’s fine,” I assured her, trying to sound less worried than I felt. “I’m just going to need your help.” I paused, looking for a way to put it. “I’ll probably be in police custody within the hour.” That sounded bad.
“Under arrest? For what? Damnit, Tim!”
“Nothing serious,” I lied. “It won’t stick. But I’d like you to be here.”
“Fine. Just tell me where you are. I’ll get there as soon as I can.” Her voice hardened, all business now, no stranger to late night phone callers needing her help. Deirdre was always at her best under pressure and I relaxed with that thought.
“The Blue Bird Motel down in Indio. On Indio Boulevard as it turns into Highway 86.”
“Dillon exit?” she verified, on the ball as usual. God, I loved her.
“You got it. Make a right at the tracks and follow Indio Boulevard north. The Blue Bird is on your left, three miles or so. Can’t miss it.” Especially with the cops that will be crawling all over the place.
“Gimme thirty,” she said.
“Deirdre?”
“Yes?”
“Don’t get a ticket.” I felt her smile at the other end.
“You either,” she countered. “See you soon. And stay out of Branson’s face if he shows up. I don’t want to get there and find you in a choke hold.”
“I’ll try to be nice. I love you.”
“Oh, Tim,” she said. “I’m sorry about earlier.”
“I know. I’m sorry too.” A forgiving silence. “You better get going.”
When I hung up the manager was standing in the hallway. “Your wife?”
“Yeah,” I said, pushing the phone toward him.
He came over and picked it up, punching in the numbers. I heard him give his name—Ken Sutter—to the dispatcher as I walked back to the front office for a quick peek outside. It seemed as normal as it could be under the circumstances. I double-locked the door just in case. Went behind the front counter and took a look at the key rack on the wall. Sixteen rooms, two keys for each. Attached to big plastic tags with the room number on it but not the name of the motel. Probably for security. The credit card-type ones at the hotel chains didn’t even have the room number.
I saw that room 2 had one key out. Both keys gone from the space for number 12. The guy I’d fought with had one of them, probably not legitimately. I looked around for the motel register, but didn’t see it. No computer either. I went back into the living room.
Sutter was still on the phone. I took a seat on the couch, under a faded painting of Palm Valley, as it was called in the early days. There was a glass-topped coffee table in front of me, chipped, and the recliner next to it didn’t match the couch. Between them, a small end table and lamp. A rickety entertainment center sat against the opposite wall, and the kitchen was separated by the countertop and bar. Faint light filtered in through threadbare curtains covering the room’s one window.
“That’s right, the Blue Bird,” Sutter said into the phone. “No, no, I’m all right … Yeah, I’m sure … Okay … We’ll be waiting for ’em. Thanks.”
Sutter hung up, came over and sat down. “They’ll be here in a few minutes.”
He was a big man with a paunch that hung over his belt and pallid, doughy skin. He told me that he’d been running the place for about ten years now, and lived here too, as I could see.
“Indio’s stayed pretty quiet all this time,” he said, “’cept for the drug flare-ups every now and then.” There it was again, I thought.
“Hasn’t grown around here like it has in Palm Desert and some of the other cities,” Sutter continued. “Shopping centers, golf courses.” He shook his head. “Just brings in a lot of traffic. ’Course, we see a little more with the casinos down here.”
“What about tonight?” I prompted.
“Well, everything seemed pretty normal up until about eleven or so,” he began. “That’s when I stepped outside for a cigarette. I don’t like to smoke inside,” he explained. “Smells bad enough in here as it is.”
“What time did you say?” I asked, trying to tie it in with what I’d been doing.
“After eleven, ten minutes after maybe.” I was in number 12 then, nosing around. “I usually step out around that time. Anyway, I’m just about to light up when I see this guy walking in like he owns the place.”
“Where, in the parking lot?”
“Yeah.”
“Toward room twelve, down at the other end?”
“I guess so. Could have been in that direction. How did you know?”
“I’ll tell you later,” I answered. “Go on.”
“So he stops when he sees me, like he was surprised or something, and I could tell he was up to no good.” He shook his head. “I shoulda turned around right then and come back inside and locked the door. But I’d only gotten one puff, didn’t want to waste it.” A chuckle. “Funny the little things that can screw you up. Tied up and gagged in my own place ’cause I wanted to finish my cigarette.”
“Ever seen him before?”
“Nope, didn’t know him. But then again, it’s not unusual to see strangers walking in and out.”
I wanted to ask what type of residents he normally got, short-term, long-term, out-of-towners, but knew we were pressed for time. The police would be here any second.
“What happened next?”
“He walks up to
me and asks if I’m the manager, then wants a room. I tell him it’s cash only, which is fine with him, so he follows me into the office. Never did get to finish my cigarette. Anyway, once we’re inside, he pulls a gun, and I’m thinking ‘Oh shit, is he gonna rob me?’ But instead he asked me about the guest register. Told him it was in a drawer below the counter. Next thing I know I’m on the floor with a knot on my head, tied up with that tape.”
“Can I take a look at the register?” I asked, hoping the guy hadn’t taken it.
“Why?”
“Like to see who was in twelve.”
I could see he was about to ask why again, but instead he shook his head and got up. “Follow me.”
Sutter opened a drawer behind the lobby desk and put the book on the counter. It was big, too big to fit in a pocket or stick in the waistband of your pants. I opened it and found something that didn’t really surprise me. The pages for the last few days had been ripped out.
“Jerk,” Sutter muttered, seeing what had been done.
“You wouldn’t have this information somewhere else would you?” I asked.
Sutter shook his head no.
“Damn.” I thought a moment. Someone was going to some trouble to make sure the victim on my lawn wasn’t identified, assuming the victim was the one who’d rented the room. Because after he’d died on my property, they’d spent a few seconds taking his wallet and ID. And the motel room key, most likely. Now this.
A Stranger Lies There Page 8