“Will you show me around the place?”
We left the office, me first, while Jean Trent locked the door behind her. I hadn’t seen much to steal, but she wasn’t taking chances, even if we weren’t going far. The first thing I wanted to know about was the soda machine. Did folks drink a lot of Dr Pepper? What did she do with the empties? Wasn’t there a receptacle for the bottle caps? Jean shrugged her shoulders and said folks drank whatever soda was there; the distributor drove down from Gloversville every Thursday to stock the machine and take away the cash and the empties; no, this particular machine didn’t seem to have a slot for the bottle caps, and folks just threw them into the garbage can.
“What garbage can?” I asked.
Jean made a double take to the left of the machine. “Can you beat that?” she said. “Someone stole my damn garbage can!”
Nothing remained of the receptacle that had once swallowed Dr Pepper bottle tops except a rusted ring on the concrete.
“I’m gonna kill that Julio,” she said.
“Who’s Julio?” I asked. “Garbage can thief?”
“Real clever, missy. He’s my handyman. Just a kid, really, who helps me out.”
“Where is he now? Maybe he saw something the other night.”
Jean Trent waved a hand and set off for number 4. “He wasn’t here Friday.”
The room looked as I had expected: dingy, flat carpet, worn from door to bed and bed to bathroom. If my memory served, I had spent a Friday afternoon in that very room after the Republic’s Christmas party a year before. The junior editor.
“What did this look like Saturday morning?” I asked. “Anything out of the ordinary?”
“Rumpled sheets are par for the course around here,” she said, lighting another cigarette. “She had a good roll Friday night, I can tell you that. I’ve been cleaning up after fornicators for twenty years. Julio calls me the Love Detective.”
“Just where is this Julio?” I said, since she’d brought him up again. “I’d like to ask him a few questions.”
“Most days he shines shoes and sweeps up hair at Pirfo’s barbershop downstreet,” she said. “But it’s Sunday. Probably in church.” She smirked. Then she returned to the state of number 4 on Saturday morning. “Covers were pulled back to the foot of the bed, sheets torn loose, not taut like when I put them on. And there were more than a few hairs—short ones, if you catch my drift—some dark, some light. You might say the room smelled of sex.”
I cleared my throat. The Love Detective, indeed.
“You want to know something else about your pretty blonde?” she asked coyly. I was listening. “You remember I said I thought she was turning tricks in here? Well, Saturday morning, I figured out that she only slept with the first guy.”
“How do you know that?” I asked. “Peeping through the window?”
Jean swore at me. “I don’t peep through no windows, see? So if you want to know how I know, cut the crap.”
“Sorry,” I said, and she continued as if lecturing to a protégée.
“Garbage tells you more than you’d ever want to know about a person. What do people throw away? What don’t they throw away? Sometimes what’s missing is just as important as what’s there.”
“And what did you conclude from her garbage?”
“She was a virgin. At least when she got here.”
I remembered the IUD and realized Jean Trent was as dim as she looked. I begged her to elaborate.
“Bloody tissue in the wastebasket,” she announced as if dropping the bomb on Hiroshima. “And a bloody towel in the bathroom.”
“That’s it?” I asked. “Maybe she had a bloody nose.”
Jean Trent rolled her eyes. “She wasn’t sparring with Marciano. These were lovers. There was blood in the bed. Not too much; they probably tried to save the sheets once they noticed. So I figure no virgin would screw three guys her first night out. I’d bet the farm she only slept with the first guy.”
“May I see the towel?”
“No,” she said, looking properly disgusted by my request. “Cleaners picked it up yesterday afternoon.”
I weighed Jean Trent’s story. How many virgins went to the trouble of having an experimental contraceptive device implanted in their uterus for their first time? I remembered my first time—it was his, too—and we used a latex condom he’d bought from a vending machine in a men’s room at the Port Authority Bus Terminal.
“You said the towel was in the bathroom?” I asked, putting her facts in order. “And the bloody tissue was in the wastebasket?”
“That’s right,” she said carefully.
“Why not flush the tissue down the toilet?”
“The wastebasket was handy.”
“Maybe she had her period . . .” Doc Peruso would have mentioned it, wouldn’t he?
“Nope,” said Jean. “No unmentionable lady products, if you know what I mean. A girl her age knows when it’s her time of the month. Don’t you know yours? And she don’t meet a sweetheart in a motel unprepared. I told you, what’s missing is just as important as what’s there.”
She was right about that, but I still doubted Jordan Shaw had been a virgin when she arrived at the Mohawk Motel Friday night. The blood was hers, all right, but it had come from the wound in her pelvis.
“May I have a look at your trash?” I asked.
“Are you nuts?”
“The garbage collector couldn’t pick it up yesterday, isn’t that right? Her car was blocking the way. The trash from her room must still be there.”
“You’re a real sicko,” said Jean Trent. “But if you want to pick through garbage, be my guest.”
Flanked by a gutted, rusted-out junker on one end and the shell of a television set on the other, seven dented trash cans sat unemptied in a moldering wooden enclosure about twenty yards behind the motel. The pen was there to discourage raccoons from rummaging through the garbage, but I sensed the varmints were carrying the day. A blue Ford pickup truck was parked nearby on a worn patch of grass.
Jean described her cleaning routine: Going from room to room, she filled up large, brown bags she’d collected from her trips to the Grand Union. She always started from her own unit, situated in the middle of the complex, before cleaning the guest rooms. Her trash would be at the bottom, with number 4’s at the top or close to it. Jean watched as I picked through the first can. I grabbed the two freshest-looking bags, pulled them out, and tossed them onto the ground behind me.
“Watch where you’re throwing that!” yelled Jean. “And you’re cleaning up this mess when you’re through getting your jollies.”
“I need you to tell me if you recognize any of this stuff,” I said, brushing off my hands.
I began retrieving articles from the first wet bag, holding them up gingerly for her inspection. Jean shook her head and uttered “Nope, don’t think so . . .” Then she found her bearings: “That foot powder was from number six. You’re in Thursday’s garbage.”
I scooped up the trash I’d taken out and dropped it back into the bag.
“Missed something,” said Jean, pointing to a wad of chewed gum and a brown banana peel. I threw her a glare, picked the ground clean, and moved on to bag number two.
“Yeah, you’re getting closer,” she said as I dug deeper. “That’s the stuff the trucker threw out. Number four can’t be far.”
Indeed it was not. I soon uncovered a wad of white tissue paper, stained with brownish-red blood. I removed it from the bag carefully and showed it to Jean Trent with glee.
“Maybe I look at garbage,” she said, shaking her head. “But I don’t touch it.”
A little larger than a golf ball, the wadded tissue was mostly soft, with crusty patches where the blood had dried. I unwrapped the package, peeling layers from its hide like leaves from an artichoke, expecting to find the missing skin—and the solution to the mystery—at the middle. But there was nothing.
“Are you some kind of weirdo or something?” she asked. “
You get your kicks from the blood of virgins?”
I frowned. “I’d sure like to talk to this Julio fellow,” I said. “Don’t you know where he lives?”
Jean Trent’s face kind of froze where it was. She didn’t exactly scowl at me, but I could tell she was vexed.
“I told you he wasn’t here Friday night. He’s just an ignorant Puerto Rican kid that helps out around here. He don’t know nothing. And now I got things to do, missy. Why don’t you let yourself out?”
With that, she turned on her heel and tramped back toward the motel. I watched her disappear around the corner of the building, and I ducked under the pickup to look for oil. Nothing. Then my eyes fell on the back wall of the motel, mostly obscured by a thicket of high bushes. Overgrown with weeds, paint flaking off the cinderblocks, the rear of the Mohawk looked even shabbier than the front.
And it struck me that the killer might have come around to the back Friday night, that maybe Jordan Shaw’s body had been carried out through a window. I approached the back of the Mohawk, pushed through a narrow opening in the shrubs, and picked my way through the brambles and overgrowth to the wall. A narrow pathway ran along the back of the motel, where little more than a stubble of muddied grass grew. There was no way the body could have been taken out the back way, as the only egress was through the louvered bathroom windows outside each unit. Too small for a body to pass through without broken glass and a whole lot of noise. I crouched down for a closer look at the worn trail. The ground was smooth, no prints, but obviously in frequent use. Rising to my feet, I reached out to touch one of the louvers on a window and found it swiveled freely on its hinge. In fact, virtually every louver on every window opened and shut from the outside, offering varying views inside. From some windows, I could see the entire bed, while others—number 4 for instance—showed only a portion. I stifled a gasp; the Mohawk Motel had a Peeping Tom.
I hacked my way out of the jungle, collecting some burrs on my coat and skirt in the process, then went around to the front and knocked on Jean Trent’s door again.
“I thought you left,” she said, standing behind the storm door.
“I had a thought. Do you think someone could have gone around back the other night?”
“What are you driving at?”
I explained about the peeper’s paradise, that one could spy through the bathroom windows with little chance of discovery and that the bushes made for perfect cover, especially at night.
“I already told you; I mind my own business here,” she said, her face tightening like a screw. “The only reason I’m still in business is because people know this place is discreet. You think I’d risk everything to peep through some windows?”
I assured her that I hadn’t meant to imply she was the guilty party.
“Maybe it’s a local kid,” I said. “Have you ever noticed anyone hanging around?”
Jean’s eyes clouded over. “If you start spreading rumors I got a Peeping Tom, you’ll ruin me. So just keep your mouth shut!”
With that, she slammed the door in my face. I turned and walked to my car, eyes down, examining the ground for triangular oil spots. There were none.
From the Mohawk Motel, I drove to Sheriff Olney’s office, where Pat Halvey told me Frank was in an important meeting.
“Who’s he got in there?” I asked.
“George Walsh.”
“What’s he doing here?”
“They’re talking about the murder. Imagine that: both you and Walsh working on the same story for the paper.”
George Walsh was the scribbler considered—unofficially—the number-one reporter for the Republic. Everyone knew it was because he’d been there longer than anyone else—twenty-two years—and because he happened to be Artie Short’s son-in-law.
“Well, they’re expecting me,” I said. It was a pitiful lie, but Halvey bought it and let me pass.
“What the hell do you want, Ellie?” whined Frank, packed into his usual swivel chair behind his desk. George Walsh was seated before him, pad and pencil in hand.
“Pat let me in,” I said, taking a chair. “How are you doing, Georgie Porgie?”
My colleague cast a wicked look my way. “This is my story, Eleonora, so you can just clear out.”
“Since when do you hand out City assignments?” I asked. “And aren’t you still working on the Lindbergh baby kidnapping?”
George’s smug grin ached to be slapped right off his face. He leaned back in his folding chair, as if he expected it to swivel like Frank Olney’s. When it didn’t move, he righted himself and told me Artie Short himself had put him on the story.
“Mr. Short didn’t want an assignment this important handled by a greenhorn, and a girl besides. Why don’t you go brew us a pot of coffee? Then you can buff your nails till suppertime.”
“Sure thing, Georgie. Lend me your emery board?”
Greenhorn? Coffee? I remembered the time two years earlier when Mayor Simpson had suffered a heart attack. Crack reporter George Walsh spent the night outside the Intensive Care Unit at City Hospital, waiting for a statement from Dr. Henderson, while the mayor was expiring in a bed across town at St. Joseph’s.
“Frank, I’ve got to talk to you,” I said, ignoring Walsh.
“You two better decide who’s writing this story,” said the sheriff. “I can’t carry out an investigation if I’m constantly tripping over both of you.”
“Why don’t we call Mr. Short?” asked George, still smiling.
“Frank,” my tone was urgent. “You know I’m always straight with you, so if I say I’ve got important information, you’ve got to talk to me.”
George took up the offensive, bellyaching that it was his story, and the sheriff should call Mr. Short.
“All right, shut up, the both of you!” bellowed Olney. “George, I’ll talk to whoever the hell I please, whether Artie Short likes it or not. And Ellie, you better settle with Charlie Reese and Artie Short who’s writing this story. In the meantime, George, I want to talk to Ellie alone.”
Walsh’s scalp almost blew off his head, and he stormed out of Olney’s office. I was sure he’d be crying to his father-in-law as soon as he could find a pay phone.
“The judge’s car is at Phil’s Garage,” I said, once I was alone with the sheriff. “They towed it yesterday morning from the Mohawk Motel. Here’s the license number.” I handed him a page from my notebook for him to verify.
Olney flipped open a folder on his desk and compared my number to the one in his report. They matched. The sheriff punched the intercom on his desk and told Pat Halvey to send two men to Phil’s immediately. “Call the state police and have them meet you there. They’re gonna have to dust for prints and all the usual. And then I want that car brought back here on a flatbed—not a wrecker, you got that?” He switched off the intercom without a goodbye and folded his fat hands on the desk before him. Then he asked me to go on. “I’m sure you’ve been to the Mohawk already. Let’s hear it.”
“Jordan Shaw spent the night there Friday.”
He sighed. His job was getting worse as the victim came into focus. “Are you sure?”
I told him everything Jean Trent had told me, about the three cars and the men who’d visited her room. Then I explained what I’d found in the trash, retrieving the tissue from my purse and placing it on the desk before him.
“Her blood,” I announced. “From the gash in her pelvis. The skin wasn’t there. You’ll want to send that for blood-typing.”
He eyed me briefly with annoyance. Men really didn’t like me telling them what to do.
“So what do you make of it?” he asked after prodding it once or twice with the nib of a pencil.
I shook my head slowly as I looked through the window at the gray day outside. “I’m not sure. We could be dealing with a sadistic psychopath who gets his kicks dissecting his victims. But the girl didn’t scream; Jean Trent would have heard.”
“Go on.”
“Fred Peruso thinks the m
urderer cut her after killing her; that explains why she didn’t lose much blood. But why cut her at all and why there?” I circled around his desk, considering the bloody tissue. “The cut was made cleanly, about two inches long, an inch wide, and half an inch deep; you can see it in my pictures.”
“We got a goddamn maniac running loose,” said Frank, sobered by the sight of Jordan’s blood. “There’s no rhyme or reason to a crime like this.”
It seemed Big Frank was right, but the order of events bothered me. If the evidence had pointed to a struggle, if there had been a scream, I might have believed it was the work of a sadist. But her pelvis had been cut after she was already dead, and a sadist couldn’t get his kicks like that.
“Anything else for me?” asked Olney.
“Just this,” I said with a half-hearted chuckle. “The Mohawk Motel has a Peeping Tom.”
Olney pursed his lips, eyes darting between some invisible foci. I could hear gears churning inside his head.
“There’s a beaten path along the wall behind the motel,” I continued, thinking about my own visits to the Mohawk. “It looks like it’s been in use for a while.” God, when had I last spent an afternoon there?
“Any idea who?” asked Frank, almost licking his chops. He could taste an arrest.
“Yes, but I wouldn’t like to say. It’s just a hunch, and I don’t think he’s our man, anyhow. The voyeur has a good thing going, right? So why now, after all this time, would he decide to snap a girl’s neck and take a gash out of her pelvis?”
“Maybe she caught him looking.” Frank was convinced already.
“You don’t kill for that.”
“You might if you’re a homicidal maniac. Look at Jack the Ripper.”
I didn’t quite get the comparison, but I let it pass.
The sheriff rose from his chair and lumbered across the room to retrieve his red-plaid hunting jacket from the rack. I didn’t need to ask where he was going, and I already regretted having told him.
“I almost forgot,” he said, stuffing his bearish arms into his coat. “Judge Shaw wants to see you tonight. About six.”
“What?” I asked, a little spooked. “What’s he want from me?”
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