The Sun Down Motel (29 page)

Alma flinched a little. “Did he say why?”

“Because he liked it,” Viv said. “Because it was fun. A challenge. Because all of them were lonely. Because no one stopped him. Because he could.”

“Goddamn it,” Alma swore softly. She sounded nothing like she usually did; she sounded sad and almost broken. She lifted her gaze to Viv again, her face. “Did he hurt you?”

“No.”

“You’re not going home.”

Viv blinked. “What?”

“You’re not going home,” Alma said again. “Not tonight, and not for a long time. If we get rid of this”—she motioned to the trunk—“and we will, then it can’t be traced back to you. We can’t take that chance.”

“He’s a murderer,” Viv said. “A killer.”

“It’s that simple, is it? That cut-and-dried?” Alma’s voice was regaining its usual tone. “You have proof? Irrefutable evidence?”

“He told me he was.”

“And you think that’s good enough? That’s why you’re in this parking lot, doing your best to get rid of the body.” Alma shook her head. “I’ll tell you what’s going to happen. Simon Hess isn’t going to come home. His wife is going to report him missing. The police are going to investigate. And at some point their investigation is going to lead here. To tonight. To you. Tell me, did anyone else see Simon Hess here tonight?”

Viv remembered Robert White, his hands on her throat. The way he’d thrown her to the ground. And then—Simon Hess, standing there.
Are you assaulting that young lady?

White would remember Simon Hess. The question was, would he say anything?

Helen, driving up, slowing her car. Had Hess been there then? Had Helen seen him?

And then there was Jamie Blaknik. He technically hadn’t seen Hess, but he’d made that phone call. Viv had trusted him. But could he be trusted when he learned that Hess was dead?

“Two people saw him,” Viv said, because she wasn’t sure about Helen. She felt compelled to add, “It isn’t likely that either one will say anything. And he didn’t sign in. His name isn’t anywhere. It isn’t likely that anyone will know he was here.”

“Anything is likely,” was Alma’s reply. “Anything at all. They’ll come back to you, Vivian. And it will be over.”

“What about me?” Marnie said.

“You were never here.” Alma was in control now, the shock wearing off. “No one can put you at the Sun Down tonight except us, and hell, we might be lying. You should go home now and get out of this.”

Marnie looked from Viv to Alma. “I don’t think I can do that. There’s too much to do, and it has to be fast. And I have an idea of where we could put him.”

Were they really talking about doing this? Was this really happening? Were they going to put Simon Hess somewhere and hope no one found him? And what was going to happen to her?

Was Alma, a cop, really going to go along with it? She looked at Alma’s face and saw determination. Anger. And there had been that moment of shock that had almost undone her. This was affecting Alma; it had dealt her some kind of blow. For whatever reason, Alma was in.

Alma glanced out at the parking lot, which was still empty. But for how long? “Where do you think we should put him?” she asked Marnie.

“Martin Greer on Weston Road is in his eighties. His kids are putting him in a home. They don’t want the property, and he doesn’t maintain it. It’s huge and it’s empty.”

Alma thought it over and nodded. “I know the place. It’ll work for a few weeks, at least. If we come up with something better, we’ll move him.”

“You’ll move him,” Marnie corrected her. “I’m seeing this through, but I’m done after tonight.”

Alma looked at Viv, assessing her. “You’re still good for this? If not, speak up.”

“I’m good,” Viv said, though her face felt numb.

“We’ll need a plan for you. It needs to look like you left suddenly, and maybe not willingly. It can’t look like you decided to skip town.”

“What if I just stayed and pretended nothing happened?” Viv said.

“You, being questioned by police?” Marnie broke in, shaking her head. “You wouldn’t last a minute. The whole thing unravels if that happens, and you put all of us in danger. No, I like her idea.” She motioned to Alma. “You’re gone, but you didn’t skip town. You’re just gone.”

You’re just gone.
What about her parents? Her sister? “Won’t the cops look for me?”

“Sure we will,” Alma said. “We’ll look in the wrong places. And not right away.” She turned to the car and pulled the keys from where they were hanging in the lock of the trunk. “Leave your purse. Leave everything. Where is that file and notebook you showed me?”

“In the office.”

“Go get it. Don’t bring your wallet or anything else. Leave your car, everything in your apartment.” When Viv hesitated, she said, “You did this. You killed him. The consequences follow from that. Do you understand? There’s before tonight, and after. That’s what your life is from now on.”

Viv nodded.
There’s before tonight, and after.
She’d made a decision in that motel room. Now she was living the aftermath.

While the others put the shower curtain in the trunk and closed and locked Hess’s room, Viv jogged back to the office. The lights were on, the door unlocked. Her jacket hung from the hook. Her purse sat next to the desk.

She went into it and got out her notes, quickly, trying not to touch anything in her purse. If she touched her things, she’d pause and rethink. She couldn’t stand to see or feel her wallet, her ID, her keys. The makeup she kept in her purse.
Those belong to a dead girl. I am starting everything o
ver.

She walked to the desk and opened the key drawer. The envelope of Robert White’s money was still there, stacked with bills. She took it and
stuffed it in the back pocket of her jeans. She was starting everything over, but she had a little money to do it. White would never know where his money went. The thought made her feel a little better.

She took a last glance at the guest book. Jamie’s name was in there, and Mrs. Bailey’s. Both of them would be questioned. But Mrs. Bailey was passed out, and she didn’t think Jamie would talk.

Actually, she was sure he wouldn’t. Because she’d ask him not to.

Turning her back on her old life, she left the office. Alma was behind the wheel of Simon Hess’s car; she was wearing some kind of plastic doctor’s gloves, her hands on the wheel. Marnie got in her own car and motioned to Viv.

“Come with me,” she said. “Let’s take a ride.”

Viv walked to Marnie’s car and got in.

Fell, New York

November 2017

Callum’s car followed in my rearview mirror as I drove out of downtown Fell, onto the back roads. I gripped the wheel and my mind spun as I wondered what I should do. Pull over? Try to lose him? Call someone? Who?

What did Callum want?

He can’t possibly want to hurt me.
That was the first thing that came to mind. Did a man just follow a woman around in order to hurt her?

Yes, you idiot. He could.

He had invited me out by lying to me. He had told me a crazy story about his grandfather—who, if Callum was telling the truth, was serial killer Simon Hess, formerly of Fell and now long dead in a trunk. And then Callum had followed me. He wasn’t friendly or nice. Whatever he wanted, I didn’t want to know.

And suddenly I knew what to do. I left Fell and took the back roads to the west, away from the Sun Down. The sky was dark and, except for the odd car, the roads were quiet. There was just me and Callum. He wasn’t even trying to hide that he was following me.

I turned onto another familiar road, and then another. I sent up a silent
prayer that the person I was going to was home. And then I pulled into Alma Trent’s driveway.

I turned off the ignition. A dog barked wildly in the house, and the front porch light switched on. I sagged in relief.

Alma Trent opened her front screen door and walked out onto her porch. She was wearing jeans and a navy blue sweatshirt, her hair tied back in a ponytail. She looked at me, still sitting in my car, and then her hard gaze moved to the car still on the road at the foot of the driveway, idling. She watched it for a long minute, and then Callum’s car pulled away.

I opened my driver’s door with a shaky hand and got out.

“Evening, Carly,” Alma said, her voice its usual unhurried speed. “Were you having a little trouble?”

Her tone said that trouble didn’t scare her. That she’d spent decades walking toward it instead of walking away.

“Maybe a little,” I said. “A guy was bothering me.”

“Well, that’s goddamned rude,” Alma said. “I can talk to him if you like. Some guys don’t get the message until they get a talking-to from me.”

“His name is Callum MacRae,” I said.

Alma went very still. For the first time, I saw a crack in her cop’s façade. “I see,” she said. “I didn’t realize you knew Callum.”

“It’s strange,” I said. “I first met him at the Fell Central Library. I was doing research there, and he introduced himself. I’m wondering now if maybe he found me.”

“Callum can seem nice enough, but sometimes he’s a little unstable,” Alma said. “Do you want to come in for a cup of tea?”

I took a step forward, but I didn’t answer her question. “You were on shift the night that my aunt Viv disappeared, right?”

Alma hesitated for the briefest second. Then she nodded. “I was.”

“But you didn’t know she was missing until it was reported four days later.”

“How would I know she was missing?”

It was a hunch. Only that. But every instinct in my body and my brain told me I was right. “I’m wondering now if maybe my aunt didn’t die that night,” I said. “I’m wondering if maybe she lived and someone else died.”

“Carly,” Alma said, “you should really come in for a cup of tea.”

“I don’t think so. I don’t think I’m going anywhere with you. Or Marnie Clark. I’m sure you heard about the body I found in a trunk this morning?”

Alma’s eyes were fixed on me, but I couldn’t read them. Pity? Kindness? Fear? I realized now that to survive decades as the only female cop on a male police force, Alma had become very, very good at hiding what she was thinking. “I heard about it, yes,” she said.

“I thought it was my aunt, but the police told me it was a man,” I said. “And then Callum called me and told me this crazy story about how his grandfather disappeared around the same time my aunt did. And I know he’s telling the truth, because a man named Simon Hess disappeared sometime around November 1982. His wife was too embarrassed to report it because she thought he’d left her. Simon Hess worked as a traveling salesman. Just like the last man seen with Betty Graham.”

“Callum gets fixated on things,” Alma said. “His grandfather’s disappearance is one of them. He’s never been quite right. We think he has borderline personality disorder.”

“Who’s
we
?” I asked.

“He’s had more than one run-in with police,” Alma said, ignoring my question. “Usually for bothering girls. He stops when he gets a talking-to. He’ll stop bothering you if I talk to him.”

“Not if he thinks my aunt murdered his grandfather and stuffed him in a trunk,” I said.

Alma was quiet.

“Did she?” I asked her.

“You know I can’t answer that,” she said.

“Then I’ll answer it myself. Marnie says there’s a notebook at the Sun Down that I need to read. I think I’ll go read it.”

“You talked to Marnie?” Alma said, her voice shocked. “You have the notebook?”

“I’m going to get it now. And then I’m going to meet her.”

Alma hesitated, then nodded. “She’s right,” she said. “It’s time.”

Now is as good a time as any for all of it to come out
, Marnie had said to me on the phone.
It was going to happen whether I wanted it to or not.

Why now? Why me?

“What am I going to find in the notebook?” I asked her.

“You’ll see,” Alma said. She turned toward her door, then back to me. “Go meet her,” she said. “Do whatever she asks. Maybe you don’t want my advice, but that’s it.” Then she turned, went into the house, and closed the door behind her.

No one followed me on the dark roads as I drove across town from Alma’s to the motel. Was I supposed to be working tonight? I didn’t even remember anymore. Maybe I was quitting. Maybe I was fired. It didn’t matter.

The road sign was lit up, the familiar words blinking at me:
VACANCY. CABLE TV!
Nick’s truck was in the parking lot, and the office was closed and dark. I parked and got out of my car, letting the cold wind sting my face. There was no sound but the far-off rumble of a truck farther down Number Six Road. I could smell dead leaves and damp and the faint tang of gasoline.

In a crazy way, I belonged here more than I’d belonged anywhere in my life. The Sun Down was the place I was supposed to be.

And yet I had the feeling that I was here at the end of the Sun Down’s life. That it wouldn’t be here much longer.

I walked to the stairs and climbed them, the feeling of being watched crawling up the back of my neck. Betty, maybe. Maybe one of the others. I no longer really knew.

I reached Nick’s door and banged on it. It opened immediately and he was there, big and tousled, in a dark gray T-shirt and jeans, a worried
look on his face. “Thank fucking God,” he said. He took my wrist and gently pulled me into the room, closing the door behind him.

I paused, looking around. I’d never been inside Nick’s room before. There was a suitcase with clothes strewn over it, a wallet and a phone on the nightstand. The gun was nowhere to be seen. The bed was rumpled and slept in, a fact that would have embarrassed me except for the fact that it was also strewn with papers, a spiral notebook lying open in the middle of it.

“The notebook,” I said.

“I got your message,” Nick said. “It was in the candy machine, just like you said. Behind the panel I was working on, jammed into the machine’s works. She must have put it there recently. There was no way it was in there for thirty-five years.”

I looked down at the papers strewn over the bed. They were all inked with the same hand: pages of writing, lists, maps, diagrams. “Marnie must have put it there after I started working here. I wonder how much she knows.”

“Everything,” Nick said. “Carly, I’ve been reading through this. I’ve barely started. But it’s incredible.” He picked up a piece of paper. “This is a map of Victoria Lee’s street. Her house, the jogging trail, the place where her body was found. See this
X
? She’s put a note saying that from this spot you can see Victoria’s house and you can access the jogging trail at the same time. This was most likely where the killer was standing.”

He put that down and flipped a page in the notebook. “These are her notes about Simon Hess’s sales schedule at Westlake Lock Systems. It says he was in Victoria’s neighborhood the month she was killed. He sold locks to Cathy Caldwell. And this here”—he picked up another sheet—“these are her notes about the day she followed Hess to Tracy Waters’s street and watched him follow her.”

“What? She
saw
him stalk her?” I looked at the notes. “She must be the one who wrote the letter to Tracy’s parents. She must also be the one who phoned the school principal. There’s no other way.”

“This, here,” Nick said, turning to yet another page, “is her diary of
Simon Hess’s movements. His address, his phone number, the make and model of his car, his license plate. When he left the house every day and what he did. Where he went. Vivian was following him. For weeks, it looks like.”

He was right. I scanned the notes and saw day after day listing the times Simon Hess left his house and where he went. There were gaps in the timeline, with notes:
Not sure—missed him. Fell asleep. Lost him somewhere past Bedford Rd.
But there was no mistaking that Vivian had been following Simon Hess. Stalking him.

On the bottom of a note listing Hess’s name, address, phone number, and place of work was a note:
That was easy.

Whatever had happened to Simon Hess, it hadn’t been an accident. He had been targeted for a long time.

Maybe my aunt Viv was crazy.

I pulled up the room’s only chair and sat down. I put my head in my hands.

“Marnie had all of this, all this time,” Nick said.

“She must have,” I said. “But where is Viv?”

His voice was gentle. “Dead, maybe. It’s been thirty-five years.”

“She left that night,” I said, still staring down between my knees as I cradled my head. “She ran. She wasn’t abducted. She killed Hess and took off without her car or her wallet. Without money. How?”

I heard Nick move to the bed and move the papers. “She had help.”

“Which means Marnie, and maybe Alma, have been hiding her all these years. Maybe supporting her. Why? Why not turn her in?” I shook my head. “Hess was a serial killer. The pattern is right there in Viv’s notes. He was dangerous. Why not call the police and claim self-defense?”

“Because she’d still go to jail,” Nick said. “No matter who she killed, she’s still a killer. The circumstances could be mitigated a little, but that’s the best-case scenario. The worst case is that there’s no evidence at all that Hess killed anyone—at least nothing that can be proved in court. So Viv
goes down as a crazy girl who decided to commit murder one night and chose an innocent man as a victim. Either way, she goes down.”

Maybe she should have
, I thought. I’d seen the car parked in the old barn, the dried blood on the ground beneath it. Maybe the person who did that should go to trial. To prison. If she didn’t, what was to prevent her from doing something like that again?

“Do you smell smoke?” Nick asked.

I lifted my head and realized I did. Cigarette smoke, fresh and pungent. The smoking man, though I’d never felt him up here on the second floor before.

“Henry,” I said.

“What?” Nick asked.

I stood up. “Henry. That’s the smoking man’s name.” I walked to the door and opened it, looking over the dark parking lot. Waiting for the lights to go out.

The lights stayed on. Nick’s truck and my car were the only cars in the lot. But standing in the middle of the lot was the figure of a man. He was thin, cloaked in shadows. I watched him raise a cigarette, watched the smoke plume around him. He was facing my way, and I was sure he was watching me.

Then he lifted a hand and pointed down Number Six Road. I froze still. There was a figure on the side of the road—a man, walking quickly along the shoulder, his hands in his pockets, his head down, his shoulders hunched. I peered into the darkness, trying to decide if I recognized him, trying to see if he was a living figure or a dead one. I didn’t know the difference anymore.

But before I could decide either question, the man approached the motel and ducked around the corner toward the office, out of sight.

I looked back at the parking lot, looking for Henry. But the parking lot was empty. He was gone.

The office was dark, but someone had kicked the door. Nick and I had heard the thumps as we left his room. Now even in the reflected light
from the road sign I could see the marks of a shoe where it had hit the wood.

“What the hell was he thinking?” Nick said, his voice low. “Did he think he could get in?”

I stared at the shoe marks, unsettled. “Callum MacRae followed me from town,” I said. “I had to drive to Alma’s place before he left me alone.”

“MacRae,” Nick said. “Do I know him? His mother is a professor at the college, right? What does he want with you?”

“I’m not really sure.” Callum’s interest in me had sometimes seemed personal, sometimes not. “But tonight he wanted to tell me that he’s Simon Hess’s grandson.”

Nick paused, then shook his head. “Fuck it, I’ve been gone too long. I don’t know all the town gossip anymore. If I ever did.” He stepped back and looked around. “If he followed you, then he was driving.”

“Yes.” Though that didn’t explain why he was walking along the side of Number Six Road now. Or kicking the office door. If it was even Callum at all.

“He didn’t go back to the parking lot. He must have gone this way.” Nick walked around the corner toward the empty pool.

I followed him, shoving my hands in the pockets of my coat. It was darker back here, on the other side of the building from the corridor lights. The dark made it seem colder. I kept close to Nick as he walked toward the broken-down chain-link fence around the pool, his boots scuffing in the layers of dead leaves.

“MacRae!” he shouted.

There was no answer.

“Let’s just go back,” I said.

Nick held up a hand. “I hear him.” He took a step and paused. “MacRae!”