“Sheriff, that’s negative. We’ve got a mess here.”
“Three ten, stand by.”
“I don’t know what the hell he wants,” I said to Estelle.
“He doesn’t know about Francis yet,” she replied.
“I’m sure he knows by now. Torrez is good at keeping things off the air, but-” The telephone rang, sounding so loud that we all jumped.
I picked up the receiver, not knowing what to expect.
“Bill,” Martin Holman said, his tone clipped and businesslike. “You need to get down here ASAP. I know what you’ve got going there. Mitchell told me. There’s something here that ties into the boy’s abduction, and I want you to see it for yourself. Hustle. And bring Estelle with you.”
“She’s not going to want to leave Carlos,” I said.
“Then bring him.” The line went dead. I realized it was the first time Martin Holman had ever cut short a conversation with me.
“What is it?” Camille asked.
“I don’t know,” I said, then turned to speak to Estelle. “Sweetheart, we need to go down to the Posadas Inn. Holman’s got something he wants us to see. He says it ties in somehow.” And for the first time in our working relationship, I saw Estelle Reyes-Guzman hesitate. Two car doors slammed and I stepped to the entryway.
Deputy Tom Pasquale’s long stride was matched by Dr. Francis Guzman. The young physician’s face was grim. “Thank God you’re here,” I said.
“You need to go to the motel,” Guzman said as he brushed by me. In two or three long strides, he was kneeling beside Estelle. “Go with him,” he said to his wife. He disengaged Carlos from her embrace. “I’ll be here, and Tommy’s been assigned to stay here until we know what’s going on. From what the sheriff told me, it’s really important that you go to the motel. Then come right back.”
Estelle nodded, stood up, and shook her head as if breaking loose from a tangle of cobwebs. She turned to Camille and Gayle. “Can you both stay?”
My daughter nodded. “Good,” Estelle said. “We won’t be long.”
We left the house, Estelle at a dead run. She started toward her own unmarked county car, then thought better of it and climbed into the passenger side of 310. Across the street, I saw a heavyset woman-the wife of the county road superintendent-standing on her front step, watching the action. When she saw me, she started a step or two toward the sidewalk. I ignored her, and by the time I’d grunted myself into 310, she’d gone back up on the porch.
The telephone circuits around Posadas would be buzzing, if they weren’t already. There would be a lot more ammunition for gossip before the night was over.
The Posadas Inn was just off the interstate on Grande, less than four blocks from my house. During the two minutes it took to cover a little less than three miles, I didn’t have much time to reflect on what could be so important that Martin Holman would summon us both.
Chapter 32
Approached from the interstate, the Posadas Inn looked about as cheerful and clean as neon and plastic could make it. The front of the motel faced southeast, with a covered portal. The generous parking lot circled the building. As we approached from the village, I could see the flutter of yellow tape under the harsh illumination of the parking lot’s sodium-vapor lights.
The barricade had been set up to include a service entrance, the sidewalk in front of it, and about a third of an acre of the parking lot itself. A November night hadn’t attracted many guests to Posadas, and if anyone had parked around behind the motel, they had evidently been asked to move.
Under normal circumstances, a homicide would have attracted enough patrol cars to equip a sizable fleet. Every law officer in whistling distance would want a share, or, at the very least, a private tour-if for no other reason than to break the monotony.
But the place was damn near vacant. I recognized Martin Holman’s brown Buick, and one of our department’s older marked units. Parked on the opposite side of the roped-off area was one of the Posadas Village Police units, its red lights pulsing.
Sheriff Holman, a portable radio in one hand and a cellular phone in the other, stood near the door marked SERVICE ONLY. He was in animated conversation with DeWayne Sands, the night manager of the motel, gesticulating over his shoulder as he talked.
DeWayne did not look happy. He was well over fifty and going to flab. Standing outside in the chill November night while watching police take over his motel to find out who had whacked one of his guests was enough to make his blood pressure go over the top. I recognized all the signs, even from across the parking lot.
Holman saw us and said into the handheld radio, “Back door over here, Bill.” By then, I was already out of the patrol car, concentrating on keeping up with Estelle’s dogged pace. She ducked under the ribbon when she reached the sidewalk that skirted the bank of heat-pump units.
“DeWayne,” Holman was saying as we approached, “you’re going to have to make doubly sure that no one comes or goes until we say otherwise. And I mean no one, and I mean from the entire motel. I don’t care if their room is a mile away on the other wing. No night staff, no maintenance crew, no patrons. If you’ve got a long-haul trucker who needs to leave, make sure you clear him through me or Chief Martinez. No one comes and no one goes. Understood?”
“Well, sure, but-”
“No buts,” Holman said, and he steered Sands away from the door. Sands trudged off down the sidewalk, muttering to himself. “In here, Bill, Estelle.”
The service door opened into a small foyer. Immediately on the left was a flight of stairs. Yellow plastic taped it off top and bottom. Directly ahead of us, a hallway stretched beyond the limits of my eyesight, ending eventually, I knew, in the front foyer, with restaurant to the left and check-in desk to the right.
Another hallway took off to the right, beyond the game room and the ice and soda machines, and that’s where Marty Holman led us. He walked on the right side of the hallway, sticking close to the wall.
“The victim’s name is Roberto Madrid,” he said over his shoulder. “At least that’s what some rental-car paperwork we found in the room says. Other than that, we don’t know.”
The rooms began with 140 on the right and 141 on the left. About halfway down the hallway, Holman stopped. That was just as well. I was running out of breath. It wasn’t exercise, but anxiety, the kind of awful jolt to the nerves that I hadn’t felt in more than a decade.
He pointed at the door at the far end. Standing beside it were Chief Eduardo Martinez and one of his part-time officers, George Bohrer. “That door leads to the west parking lot. It’s one of those deals that’s locked after nine P.M. under normal circumstances. There’s some evidence that the door was used by the assailant.”
“Martin,” I started to say, but the sheriff held up a hand. He lowered his voice. “I wouldn’t have called you over here if I didn’t think it was important.”
We stopped in front of the door to 167, two rooms from the end of the hall. Holman held up a hand again, like a cavalry trooper halting his patrol. The door was open, and, looking inside, I could see two chairs crashed together against one wall, the mattress askew, and glass from the shattered TV’s picture tube scattered across the pale blue carpet.
“Who did prints?” Estelle asked quietly.
“Torrez,” Holman replied. “And myself. But we’ve got a lot more to do.” He indicated the outline of the body, white chalk on blue carpet. “There’s no one else staying in this wing, which is peculiar. But one of the other patrons who had come down for some ice heard a ruckus. He says one or two gunshots, not very loud. Maybe three shots at the most-he’s not sure. And then he heard what might have been a loud groan. He’s not sure about that, either.”