Courting Trouble raa-9

by Lisa Scottoline

  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 hooker 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.”

  “Oh, that’s okay. Maybe you wouldn’t mind giving us a key for Mr. Reseda’s room and keeping it our little secret? So we can surprise him when he comes home?”

  “I think we can arrange that, my dear,” the clerk said, with a wink. He reached behind the counter and took a duplicate key from the cubbyhole.

  “And could you ring his room if he gets back while we’re in there?” Anne knew they were taking a risk, but nobody could be convinced to stay behind in the car as a lookout. “We’ll need a little warning if he shows up, so we can . . . get ready.”

  “Powder our noses,” Mary said.

  Judy leaned over. “I have to build the cage.”

  “Okay. Here’s the key, and I’ll make the call, if I see him.” The clerk held the key just out of Anne’s reach, with lecherous grin. “Any chance I’ll get a gift from youse girls in return? I got a good ticker, still.”

  Anne laughed it off, or tried to. “I’m not your type.”

  Mary chuckled in support. “I’m too expensive.”

  Judy leaned over. “I sue people for fun.”

  The man’s leer evaporated, and he handed Anne the key with a nervous glance toward Judy. “She’s a little freaky, isn’t she?” he whispered.

  “Superfreak,” Anne assured him, and they teetered to the elevator bank.

  The tiny elevator was waiting, open, and the girls didn’t start bickering until they were stuffed inside it with the doors closed. Judy pushed a freshly moussed curl from a mascaraed eye, looking wounded at Anne. “You told him I was a freak!” she said, hurt.

  “All I did was play along so we could get past the desk.” Anne couldn’t wait to get upstairs, watching the broken floor-number change to two, but Mary looked increasingly worried.

  “Are we really going up there alone? Shouldn’t we call Bennie first and tell her? We said we would.”

  “Relax, it’s an empty room,” Anne said. “Also, she’ll stop us.”

  “I’m not in love with this,” Mary said, but Anne grabbed her hand as the elevator doors rattled open.

  “Come on, we’ll be fine.” She found herself on a covered balcony with a vending machine set against white stucco walls, gone gray with grime. Anne led them to the right because there was no other choice. The balcony had a view of the motel parking lot, the gas station, and a tire dump. “Let’s go.”

  “I’m no freak,” Judy muttered, tottering behind. “I don’t want to be a freaky hooker, I want to be a normal hooker.”

  “Then why’d you say that thing about the cage?” Anne checked the room key on the fly. It was stamped 247. They were at 240. Kevin was so close; at least his room was. Their platforms scuffed on the gritty tile floor as they clomped past 240, 241, and 242, with Judy still pouting.

  “I don’t know. My feet hurt.”

  “Well, I’m sorry if I libeled you. I really am.” Anne couldn’t fuss with Judy, not so close to Kevin’s room. Her stomach felt tight.

  Mary brought up the rear. “He liked you the best, Jude. I could tell, from the way he looked at you.”

  “You think? He said I was a freak.”

  “That’s how I know,” Mary said. “Men love freaky chicks. Crazy, freaky chicks. This is why I can’t get a date. I’m too Catholic.”

  Judy lifted an eyebrow, and Anne fell silent when she reached the door. She slid the key inside the lock in the doorknob and opened the hollow door, her heart starting to hammer. Even though Kevin wasn’t supposed to be here, she opened the door slowly. She felt suddenly loathe to enter his room, his world, his mind. When the door swung open, Judy appeared beside her and Mary filed in behind, surveying the bizarre scene:

  The room was small, with a bathroom to the immediate left, but all of the furniture was covered by papers. There were clippings from newspapers, tabloid headlines, written notes, cards, even stacks of photographs. It looked as if it had snowed inside the room, dropping a white blanket on a saggy double bed against the wall and a cheesy desk with a portable TV on a metal stand. Exacto knives and a Scotch-tape dispenser lay strewn on the thin, worn brown ru
g, along with snippings of newspaper.

  Anne felt instantly as if she had seen the room before, then realized she had. She flashed on the pictures of Kevin’s bedroom at his L.A. apartment, which were shown at his trial, exhibits A through whatever. His motel room was a replica of his L.A. bedroom; pictures, clippings, photos of Anne had littered the place, along with maps to her house and her office, with places where she ate and where she shopped encircled. She felt now as if she was stepping into one of the trial exhibits, and the realization momentarily stalled her. It was happening all over again.

  Mary closed the door behind them, hurried to the window, and moved the sheer curtain aside slightly. “I’ll stay here and look out, in case he comes back.”

  Judy walked past Anne to the bed. “What is all this stuff? Legal papers?” she asked, picking one up. “They are. Here’s the last brief we filed in Chipster.” She flipped through it in surprise, then set it down in favor of the others. “These are all of the papers filed in the Chipster case. Copies of the initial complaint, the answer, even the evidentiary motions, and the complete docket sheet. This is as good a file as ours, and all of it public record.”

  Anne willed her feet to move and crossed to the papers littering the desk. Newspaper clippings about Chipster.com lay scattered over the Formica surface, each one carefully razored from the paper. NAKED MAN APPEARS IN COURT, read one subhead, and Anne winced. She sifted through the articles, and it was as if Kevin had scoured all the newspapers; he had all the sidebars on Rosato & Associates and the features on the individual lawyers, as well as the Dietzes. Anne picked one up. It had been printed in color, from the web. How had Kevin managed that? She shoved the clippings aside and buried beneath was a laptop, hooked up to a Hewlett-Packard printer. “Hello. Add receiving stolen goods to the record, ladies.”

  Judy had moved farther up the bed and picked up one of the papers. “Look at this. It’s a map of the city with streets circled on it.” She turned on a cheap lamp by the bed and studied the map. “Anne’s house, the office, the courthouse. Weird, but true.”

  It sent a chill through Anne. “I don’t want to live through this again.” It came from her heart, speaking out of turn.