The Bright Silver Star (27 page)

Standing there gazing at Donna Durslag, Des experienced that same mix of despair, horror, and fascination that she always felt when she saw what people were capable of doing to each other. She would need crime scene photos. She would need to get this down on paper. Possibly life-sized, so she could bring forth the full impact of Donna’s figure as it knelt there in death. She would draw this.
Had
to draw this. It was how she kept it together.

And to hell with Professor Weiss and his damned trees.

“How often do you run the vacuum in here, Danny?” she asked, starting back around the bed toward him.

“Once a week . . . maybe,” he replied.

Meaning there would be tons of hairs in the rug from past guests. Most likely, the tekkies wouldn’t even bother with it. But they would for sure check the surface of the bed for hair or fiber transfers, and the blood spatters for a blood sample that was not the victim’s. Also
the smashed night table drawer for prints, although he’d doubtless wiped that clean same as he’d wiped down the bathroom. Des was certain that they’d find nothing. It smelled like a clean kill all the way.

“Where’s her car, Danny?”

“Around in back.”

It was faded gray Peugeot station wagon. Locked. Both the passenger seat and backseat were strewn with empty take-out coffee cups and food wrappers. There was one other vehicle parked back there, a red Nissan pickup truck that belonged to Danny.

He led Des back to his office now, where there was a reception counter made out of fake wood, a Coke machine, television, a couple of green plastic chairs. The worn linoleum on the floor was the color of canned salmon. A door marked Private led back to the inner office.

“What time did she check in?”

“Just after ten o’clock,” Danny replied, taking his place behind the counter. The man seemed much more at ease now that he was back there, straighter and taller.

“Was she alone?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Did she sign the register?”

“You bet. We run a clean operation here. No hookers, no minors, no monkey business.”

Des glanced at the register—Donna had signed her own name, clear as can be. “Did she pay you in cash?”

“Credit card,” he said, his bony hands shaking slightly as he produced the credit card slip for her. She suspected he was in need of a drink. He settled for another cigarette.

“The lady had a husband,” Des said, surprised that Donna had made no apparent effort to cover her tracks. “Is this typical?”

“Yes and no,” Danny answered, thumbing his stubbly chin shrewdly. “Some of ’em are real careful about keeping their after-hours activities off the household books, others aren’t. Depends on who takes care of the bills every month, is how I always figured it.”

“Had you ever seen her before?”

“No, ma’am. She was a first-timer. On my shift, anyway, and I been here on overnight for thirteen years.”

“How did she seem to you? Had she been drinking? Was she high?”

“She was nervous. A lot of ’em are. Men and women both.”

“And what does that generally tell you?”

“That they’re doing something they never thought they’d be doing.”

Des turned and glanced through the front window at Donna’s bungalow across the courtyard. “Did you see him arrive?”

“No, ma’am, I didn’t. Got no idea who he was.”

“Maybe you saw his car pull in. Think hard, please. This is important.”

“I wish I could help you, ma’am, but we’re real busy that time of night. Eleven, twelve o’clock is my rush hour. Lots of folks coming and going. Going, mostly. Some drop the key off in here with me. The rest just leave it in the door—the ones who don’t want to be seen together by
anybody,
if you know what I mean. Shoot, I must get one suspicious husband in here a week, offering me cash money for the lowdown on his missus.”

“And do you give it to him?”

“Hell no,” Danny replied indignantly. “Our guests have a right to their privacy. That’s why they come here.”

Des had happened upon this peculiar phenomenon before—people with tremendous professional pride where you least expected to find them. And why not? Danny Rochin certainly had more class than, say, Dodge Crockett. “That lady got herself pretty beat up in there. You didn’t hear them going at it?”

“Well, maybe . . .” Danny cast a longing glance over his shoulder at the office door.

“You want to go take care of what you need to take care of?”

He slipped gratefully into the back room, shutting the door softly behind him. Des could hear a desk drawer slide open and shut. A moment later Danny returned, smelling of whiskey. “I did hear a
woman . . . shriek, I guess you could say. And it did come from the direction of that bungalow, number six.”

“What time was this, Danny?”

“About one-thirty,” he replied. “Look, it may have been nothing. Some couples, they make certain noises when they’re . . .” He trailed off uncomfortably, his eyes avoiding hers.

“I’m right with you, honey. Just keep on going.”

“So I didn’t think much of it—not until I started cleaning out the bungalows this morning and I found her in there. I’m real sorry if I did wrong, ma’am.” He seemed genuinely upset. “But I can’t go knocking on doors every time somebody lets out a shriek, can I?”

“Don’t be so hard on yourself, Danny. There’s no way you could have known what was going on in there.”

“Do you really mean that?”

“I really do.”

“I never had nothing like this happen before on my watch. Worst thing was an attempted rape charge three, four years ago. And that just turned out to be a lover’s quarrel.”

Outside, Soave and Yolie pulled up alongside of Des’s cruiser and got out. Each of them clutching a Bess Eaton take-out coffee container. Each of them wearing an angry glower. Soave’s lips were tightly compressed. Boom Boom’s chin was stuck out. They’d been spatting. Or they were just getting on each other’s nerves. It happened. Partners had to spend a lot of time together. And that’s not easy—especially when the case they’re working suddenly goes way bad.

Soave seemed relieved to see Des standing there in the office doorway. “Another early start to the day, hunh?” he said, forcing a weary smile onto his face. His eyes were bloodshot, his bulky shoulders slumped with fatigue.

“This could get to be a habit, Rico.”

“God, let’s hope not.”

Yolie couldn’t get away from the man fast enough. “I’ll check the register, put together a list of guests for us to canvass,” she told him hurriedly as she started inside, wearing a bulky yellow cotton sweater
that made her entire upper body look huge. “Maybe one of them saw somebody, recognized somebody. . . .” She halted in the doorway, smiling brightly at Des. “ ’Morning, girlfriend.”

“Back at you, Yolie. You’ll find the victim’s car behind the bungalow.”

“I’m on it.”

Des led Soave toward the crime scene, their footsteps crunching on the gravel. As they made their way across the courtyard two more cruisers pulled up, followed by a team of tekkies in a cube van. The uniformed troopers secured the perimeter. The tekkies got busy unloading their gear.

“I swear, that damned Boom Boom is going to drive me crazy,” Soave complained. “Right away, she wants to brace our movie star this morning. She’s convinced that Esme Crockett’s behind all of this. Her and Jeff Wachtell both, since each is the other’s alibi.”

“That’s interesting,” Des said. “Mitch went there, too.”

Soave glanced at her coldly. “So, what, Berger ’s backstopping my investigation now?”

Des let that one slide on by. “What did you tell her, Rico?”

“I told her we don’t have enough yet. This is
Esme Crockett
we’re talking about, not some gang-banger. She can hire the best team of criminal defense lawyers in the world. We have to get all our ducks in a row before we go anywhere
near
her.”

Des had to smile at this. When they were a team it was always Soave who was Mr. Great Big Hurry, Des who was Ms. Go Slow.

“So guess what she says back to me.”

“Rico, I can’t imagine.”

“She says I’m not secure enough in my manhood to accept her input. That I feel, quote, sexually threatened by her performance on the job, unquote.
And
that she finds it hard to respect me. Can you believe that?”

“She possesses what my good friend Bella Tillis calls moxie. Got to like that in a girl.”

“You’ve
got to like it—I don’t. She’s busting my balls, Des.”

“She’s hungry, Rico. Better that than a slacker, don’t you think?”

He shook his head at her. “Somehow, I
knew
you’d take her side.”

“Chump, I’m not taking anyone’s side,” Des shot back angrily. “And I have an excellent idea—solve your own damned personnel problems, okay?”

“Real sorry, Des,” he apologized, reddening. “I didn’t mean that. I’m just, I got like two hours of sleep last night and this case is now totally out of hand. I appreciate your input. Really, I do.”

They arrived at the bungalow. Soave went inside to take a look at Donna’s body on the bathroom floor, his face tightening. “Did you know her?”

“I did. This was a nice lady, Rico. A professional chef. She ran The Works with her husband, Will.”

“If she was such a nice lady what was she doing here?”

“Playing in the dirt.”

“Who with?”

“I wish I knew. As questions go, that’s the big kahuna.”

The crime scene technicians wanted to squeeze in there and start taking pictures.

Soave made way for them, moving back outside. “No, Des,” he countered. “The big kahuna is how does this fit into the Tito Molina death?”

“You think the two are connected?”

“Don’t you? Two violent deaths three days apart in a town this size—they can’t be unrelated, can they?”

“I agree, Rico. Although there was no effort to make this one look like a suicide.”

“That could have been dictated by circumstances,” he suggested, taking a noisy slurp of his coffee.

“Again, I agree. But why did Donna pay for the room with her damned credit card? What kind of way is that to sneak around?”

“Des, I can’t get my mind around what’s going on here, can you?”

“Not even.”

“Tito Molina and Donna Durslag are both dead and there
has
to be a reason why,” he mused aloud, smoothing his former mustache. “You know what I keep coming back to? I had me a very wise loot
once who had this saying: ‘It’s never complicated. It’s about money or it’s about sex. Or it’s about money
and
it’s about sex. But it’s never complicated.’ ” He paused, grinning at her. “She was a wise person, that loot.”

“Still am, wow man. Don’t kid yourself.”

They stood there in silence for a moment. A car drove by on Boston Post Road, the driver slowing for a look before he sped past.

“Any chance Donna was romantically involved with Tito?”

“I doubt that, Rico. If she was mixed up with Tito then what was she doing here last night? Or, more precisely,
who
was she doing here last night?”

“You have a point there, Des.”

“Then again, so do you.”

“Which is? . . .”

“That Donna wasn’t so nice. She slept around on Will. Mitch did tell me they were having marital problems. Let’s say she
was
involved with Tito. Say Tito wanted to break it off, and she didn’t, and she killed him in a jealous rage. Maybe someone else, someone close to Tito, figured it out and paid her back last night.”

“Like who?” he wondered.

“Then again,” she went on, “it’s not as if her killer brought a weapon along. He had to use a drawer to beat on her.”

“Meaning we could be looking at a spontaneous crime of passion,” Soave said, nodding.

Yolie came charging across the courtyard from the office now. She took a look inside the bungalow at Donna, then reemerged, grim-faced.

“Rico, we’d better notify Will,” Des said.

“Would you mind delivering the news?”

“Not a problem. I can try to feel him out while I’m there, if you’d like. He might know who her boyfriend is.”

“Go for it,” he urged her.

Yolie joined them now, hugging herself tightly with her big arms. She was either cold or freaked by the sight of Donna. Both, maybe. “Check it out, are we thinking it was a man who did her?”

Soave shot a blank look at Des, then turned back to Yolie, and said, “Why, where are you going with this?”

“That bed wasn’t slept in,” Yolie replied. “Her nightie was never worn. They can’t say for sure until they swab her, but it sure doesn’t
look
like she had sex before she died.”

“So he killed her before the two of them got busy.” An impatient edge crept into Soave’s voice. “So what?”

“So if there’s no evidence she had sex with him then there’s no evidence it was
a him,”
Yolie answered, her own voice getting sharp.

“She’s right, Rico,” Des agreed. “A reasonably strong woman could have done this.”

“Maybe Donna was waiting for her boyfriend to show,” Yolie continued, encouraged by Des’s backing. “Maybe her boyfriend’s jealous woman showed up first and decided to take care of business.”

“All possible,” Soave conceded. “But how would she know that Donna was shacked up here?”

“Easy,” Des said. “She listened in on another phone extension when they made the date. Or intercepted their e-mail. Or maybe she just followed her here.”

“Or
how about if the woman and the boyfriend were in on it together?” Yolie offered eagerly. “What if it’s a
couple
we’re after—a jealous, desperate woman and her boy toy? Esme and Jeff. First they killed Tito, now Donna.”

Soave immediately let loose with an exasperated groan.

Yolie lowered her eyes, pawing at the gravel with her boot. “Well, what do
you
think, Des?”

“Yolie, it’s not totally out of left field,” Des answered guardedly, not wanting to get caught in between them. “Esme doesn’t come across as a major-league schemer, but she
is
an actress and great beauty. For the sake of argument, let’s say she could manipulate Jeff into killing Tito for her. It still comes back around to this: What’s so damned special about Donna Durslag?”