“I’m just as bad as you are, Kristin,” I said, pulling on my coat. “The only good thing in all this is that maybe it’ll teach Natalie a little humility.”
When I got to the door, Kristin laughed and said, “Yeah, right.”
The Stay-Rite hadn’t changed, still the stucco-cracked, window-cracked hellhole it would always be. I wondered if Heather’s black eye had faded any.
I parked my rental in the nearest slot I could find. There were still several official vehicles taking up the other spaces and uniforms and forensic people combing the littered parking lot.
A battered SUV pulled in next to me, one of those despondent metal animals that would soon be laid to rest in a scrap yard. It had been red once, but now it was a pinkish color. And when the side door opened the hinges made a noise not unlike a scream.
Out stepped one of those ragged little women you always see in church basements where free food is given to the indigent. She wore a rumpled white Western hat, a Toby Keith T-shirt, and a pair of jeans that were ripped from age, not fashion. The sallow unhealthy skin and the desperate brown gaze made guessing her age impossible. She was likely a skinny, beaten forty going on seventy.
She had been facing me without looking at me. She went back to the SUV and reached in and withdrew a child of maybe three or four, a chubby but pretty kid. She took the little girl’s hand, and they moved to the walk running in front of the motel.
The husband appeared then and he was a perfect match for his wife. The same unhealthy grayness of skin, the same forlorn look in the eyes. His T-shirt was from NASCAR. His Western hat was flat and black. And when he started to walk it was shocking and grotesque to see. He limped with such violence that most of his body was jerked about when he moved. The woman, still holding the little girl’s hand, went over and slid her arm through her husband’s. And it was the sort of thing that could break your goddamned heart because it was so simple and loving and said so much about their years together. They were playing a shitty hand, one the dark Lovecraftian gods were probably still laughing about, but they were bound up and redeemed by their loyalty.
The little girl smiled at me as they crossed in front of my windshield. I waved back. Then her mother saw me and smiled, too.
I didn’t have any problem finding Detective Kapoor. She appeared to be the only Indian woman in sight. She stood just inside the yellow crime-scene tape talking to a uniform. When she saw me she nodded in my direction. I doubted that she’d tell me much, but I waited her out.
The crowd was sparse. From what I’d been able to gather on the radio reports coming over here, the body had been discovered three hours ago. People had most likely drifted back to work. The crowd seemed to be residents here. A number of them stood in front of open motel doors. A baby bawled. A wind carried the scent of forensic chemicals from inside the murder room.
When Kapoor walked to the edge of the tape, she had her sleek head attached to a cell phone. She was laughing, but as soon as she clicked off the laugh died and she frowned at me.
I stood on my side of the tape.
“Unless you’ve come to answer my questions, I don’t know why you’re here, Mr. Conrad. You’ve been no help in the death of Monica Davies, and I’m sure you’ll be no help with this one.”
“You’ve already decided that Bobby Flaherty is guilty of this one, too.”
She wore a dusky gray silk jacket and black skirt. The white blouse revealed small upscale breasts. “There is a connection between these two. As a citizen, I’d think you’d want to help us find out what that connection is.”
“As I said, you’ve convicted him already.”
“He’s wanted for questioning.” The dark eyes seemed amused now. “Just because he was seen at Monica Davies’s room on the night of her murder and now we learn that he had several physical altercations with his father — why do you think I’ve convicted him already?”
I tried not to look surprised. I probably didn’t pull it off.
A woman in a white lab coat appeared in the doorway of Donovan’s room. “Detective Kapoor, would you come in here for a minute?”
“If you decide to be honest with me, Mr. Conrad, you can get hold of me day or night.”
With that she was gone. In another situation I would have stayed to admire the elegant way she walked back to the room. For now, curiosity triumphed over idle lust. I needed to find Heather, the beautician who’d been staying with Donovan.
Hair Fare was located in a strip mall between a video shop and a pawn shop. One step inside I knew that this wasn’t a place for men. Four women under hair dryers and four women in barber chairs gaped at me as if I were something rarely seen in this shop. The odors of the sprays and oils and lotions suffused my nostrils. I counted three Chicago Bears calendars and four Bears pennants.
The place was filled with posters and counter displays for hair products. At a line of sinks against the back wall a woman was getting her hair washed. The beauticians wore their own clothes, no kind of uniforms at all. The last of them to look up from cutting hair was Heather. When she saw me her body jerked, as if she was going to bolt. “Sorry,” said the older woman who was clearly Heather’s sister. “We just cut for women here. Cost Cutters is just two blocks down.”
“I’d like to see Heather when she’s free. My name’s Dev Conrad.”
“Oh, yeah?” She was chewing gum. At the mention of Heather, she cracked it. She was heavier than Heather and not as pretty. She wore something that resembled a bouffant hairstyle and was dyed an orangish red. In her Bears sweatshirt and jeans she looked ready for a tailgater. She angled her head back to Heather and said, “You hear, this guy wants to see you.”
“Well, I don’t want to see him.”
Sister smiled at me. The customers were intrigued by the potential for some nasty fun. “My sister’s got a bad disposition.”
“Really? I hardly noticed that.”
A number of the customers laughed.
“I don’t have to talk to you if I don’t want to,” Heather said.
Sister said, “She drop you, did she? You’re better dressed than most of the bums she hangs out with. She should’ve hung on to you. She’s always trying to find a rich one. You look like you might get lucky someday.”
“I hope that’s coming up soon.”
She had an amazing female smile. “I didn’t mean to give you a bad time. It’s just that my little sister never stops getting into trouble.”
“I don’t want to talk to him and you can’t make me.”
“I think he’s cute,” said a woman in one of the barber’s chairs. Three or four others laughed.
I was in a world of women and I didn’t know the rules. Should I press the issue or just go away?
“I’m trying to help somebody who’s in trouble, Heather. I need to talk to you.”
“He’s talking about the kid that killed Craig,” Heather said from down the row, silver scissors poised to snip away at the garishly dyed red hair of her customer.
Sister said, “Didn’t surprise me when somebody killed him. Man who hits women has got it coming. My sister’s too dumb to understand that.”
A woman in one of the chairs said, “I told my husband if he ever lays a hand on me I’m gone for good and I’m taking the savings account with me.”
“I wish I could convince my next-door neighbor of that,” another woman said. “The son of a bitch she’s married to is always hittin’ her.”
“You a friend of this kid Heather is talking about?” Sister asked.
“He’s twenty. His wife is pregnant. He isn’t really a kid.”
“Heather likes ’em in their forties.” Sister smiled. “That’s why she thinks this guy is a kid.” She glanced back at Heather again. “You get done with Shirley’s hair there, you go in the back room and talk to this man.”