Lindsay picked up on his sarcasm and decided to play along. “You sure two of us are enough?”
I didn’t reply, but only smiled tightly and left.
“Serena Gonzalez? Yeah, she rents number eight.”
The desk clerk was in her fifties and looked every day of it. Her hawk-like face held a constant suspicion. It was in her voice, too. I’d heard it when she asked if she could help me and then again when she demanded to see my badge twice.
“When did she start renting here?” I asked her.
She narrowed her eyes. “Is she in some kind of trouble?”
“No, she didn’t do anything wrong.”
“Cause she’s a good renter. And that’s a rarity around here.”
The room stunk of stale cigarette smoke. The lines around the woman’s mouth told me that she was the culprit. I glanced at her nametag and read it.
“Peggy, are you the owner?”
She snorted. “Hardly. I’m just the manager.”
“Do you always work day shift?” I asked.
“Why you asking?”
“I’m wondering if there’s a night manager. I’d want to talk to him, too.”
She reached toward the counter and her pack of cigarettes. As she picked up the pack, she glanced back at me. I thought for a moment that she was going to ask if I minded that she smoke, but she had no such inhibition. She looked me up and down as she lit up her cigarette and tossed her lighter back onto the counter.
She took a deep drag and let it out. “Mister Detective, I’m the day manager and the night manager. The owner of this place lives in Portland, Oregon and has only been here once. He gives me my own room for free and eight hundred bucks a month. His beady-eyed little accountant comes by once a month to check the books and since they’re just fine, I never hear from him.”
The smoke hung in the air between us.
She took another drag and finished her speech. “So if there’s something going on with one of my tenants, I think you better just come right out and tell me.”
“Peggy,” I told her, “your tenant was murdered two days ago.”
Peggy was more helpful after that. She confirmed Serena was still a tenant and was paid up until the coming Friday. I called Lindsay and had him start out to the motel so I could go write the search warrant. Then I called Glenda and told her some of the details so she could at least get the beginnings of the warrant started. I sat in the hard chair of the small motel lobby making notes for the search warrant.
Peggy watched me while I made notes, suspicion still etched in her face. When Billings and Lindsay finally arrived, I didn’t feel guilty at all about leaving them there. The three of them deserved one another. I sped back to the station and dictated directly to Glenda, who typed faster than I could talk. After a quick proofread and then an agonizing three minutes while Crawford looked it over and signed his approval, I hustled over to the courthouse and caught Judge Thompson still in his office. He was about to leave, but didn’t make a fuss about it. He read the warrant carefully, and then signed it without a single question.
“Good luck, detective,” he told me as he handed the search warrant across his desk.
Ten minutes later, I stood outside of room number eight of the Palms Motel. Lindsay was on the other side of the doorway, his gun drawn and at his side. Billings stood several feet behind, looking bored. Peggy, her suspicion now outweighed by curiosity, waited several doors down, watching us intently.
I considered doing a knock and announce, which was required by law. But Peggy said that Serena never had any visitors and no one else was on the room registration. The odds of surprising anyone inside were slim.
Lindsay noticed my hesitation. “You want me to announce?”
“No.” I slipped the key into the door. Then I drew my pistol and swung the door open.
The room was empty. The only place I couldn’t see was in the bathroom.
“Police!” Lindsay called into the room. “Search warrant!”
I made entry and went straight to the bathroom. It was empty, too. “Clear.”
Lindsay holstered his gun and stepped through the doorway.
I held up my hands. “Stop.”
He stopped in mid-step. “Huh?”
“I said stop. Go down to the car and grab some paper bags. Get six of each size. Have Billings maintain the crime scene there at the door.”
Lindsay’s face fell. “I thought you might want help processing the scene.”
“You are going to help me with the search. I just want to be orderly about it.” I motioned to the empty table next to the window. “We’ll use this as an evidence table.”
Lindsay nodded, then turned around and nearly ran from the room.
I suppressed a sigh and turned to the motel room.
Serena Gonzalez was a neat and simple woman, I quickly learned. She folded her clothes and kept them in the drawers. Her empty suitcase was in the closet. She had typical toiletries in the bathroom. Nothing out of the ordinary.
I found her room key on the nightstand next to the bed. She must have forgotten it that night, I figured.
Lindsay followed me around the room with an armful of bags. I was grateful that he didn’t ask any more questions. Once it became clear that Serena Gonzalez did not have a lot of possessions to go through, I set him to work collecting her clothing and bagging it up. Since there was no next of kin to claim her belongings, we’d have to secure it at police property.
I couldn’t find a purse anywhere in the motel room. I remembered that she hadn’t had one with her when her body was discovered, either. That bothered me. I wondered if the killer kept it. Or if robbery was the motive. Maybe it started out as a robbery and devolved into an assault. Then a rape. Then murder. Sometimes things get out of hand and it happens that way.
In the drawer beside the bed, I found a postcard. On the front was a picture of the clock tower in Riverfront Park with the city slogan. River City. Near nature. Near perfect. I flipped it over and saw the beginnings of a letter in feminine hand.
Queridisima Prima, the letter began. ?Como estas? I got a good job here, working at the grocery store. It pays well and because I speak Spanish they said they might make me a manager.
That was all she had written. I wondered if it were true for a moment, that she had started work at a grocery store, but guessed it was a lie. Who writes home and tells the ugly truth? The postcard wasn’t addressed, so that was no help.
I slipped the postcard into a small paper bag and initialed the bag near the top.
The bottom drawer of the nightstand was empty, except for the standby Gideon Bible. I almost closed the drawer, but then I noticed something. Reaching inside, I pulled out the Bible and examined it. There were two bookmarks. I opened to the first one. It was in Psalms. None of the chapters or verses were marked in any way. I flipped to the second bookmark. It was in the book of Matthew. Once again, no marked passages.
I made an X on both book marked pages, in case the bookmarks fell out and slid the Bible into an evidence bag. Wandering over to the door, I glanced outside to see where Billings was. He wasn’t at the door. I looked down at their car and saw him seated in the driver’s seat, reading a paperback. I shook my head in disgust.
“What’s wrong?” Lindsay asked. He held a bag full of toiletries and was initialing the top.
I thumbed toward Billings. “Your partner’s a lot of help.”
Lindsay stepped over and looked outside. His face showed no surprise. When he looked back at me, he said, “He’s, uh…he’s about ready to retire.”
“Ready? I’d say he already has and the paperwork just hasn’t caught up to him yet.”
“He works his cases,” Lindsay said weakly.
I gave him a knowing look. “I’ll bet he does. I’ll bet he works the hell out of them.”
“His clearance rate — “
“Let me guess. His clearance rate is satisfactory. Which means he works just enough cases to keep Crawford off his back and suspends the rest because he’s just too busy.”