"Sixteen-oh-seven? As in the date Jamestown was founded?" It seems odd to hear a reference to Jamestown. I just mentioned Jamestown to Anna last night when I was talking about Benton.
Stanfield nods deeply. "As in Jamestown. Sixteen-oh-seven. That's the business rate, or so they call it. The amount for the business week, and let me add, ma'am, this isn't a very nice motel, not at all, no ma'am. A fleabag is what I would call it."
"Does it have a history of crime?"
"Oh no. No ma'am. No history of crime I'm aware of, not at all."
"Just seedy."
"Just seedy." He nods deeply.
Detective Stanfield has a distinct way of speaking with emphasis, as if he is used to teaching a slow child who needs important words repeated or emphasized. He neatly arranges photographs in a lineup on the countertop and I look at them. "You took these?" I assume.
"Yes ma'am, I sure did."
Like him, what he has captured on film is emphatic and to the point: the motel door with the number 14 on it, the view of the room through the open doorway, the scorched bed, the smoke damage to the curtains and walls. There is a single chest of drawers and an area to hang clothes that is nothing more than a rod in a recessed area just inside the door. I note that the mattress on the bed has remnants of a cover and white sheets but nothing else. I ask Stanfield if perhaps he submitted the bedcovers to the labs to test for accelerants. He replies that there was nothing on the bed, nothing to submit except burned areas of the mattress, which he placed inside a tightly sealed aluminum paint can_"according to procedure" are his exact words, the words of someone very new at detective work. But he does agree it is odd that the bedcovers were missing.
"They were on the bed when he checked in?" I ask.
"Mrs. Kiffin says she didn't accompany him to the room, but is sure the bed was properly made because she cleaned it up herself after the last guest checked out several days ago," he replies, so that is good. At least he thought to ask her about it.
"What about luggage?" I ask next. "Did the victim have luggage?"
"Didn't find any luggage."
"And the fire department got there when?"
"They were called at five-twenty-two P.M."
"Who called?" I am making notes.
"Someone anonymous driving by. Saw smoke and called from his car phone. This time of year, the motel doesn't do a lot of business, according to Mrs. Kiffin. She says about three fourths of the rooms was empty yesterday, being as how it's almost Christmas and the weather and all the rest. You can see by looking at the bed, the fire wasn't going nowhere." He touches several of the photographs with a thick, rough finger. "It pretty much had put itself out by the time the fire trucks got there. All they needed was fire extinguishers, didn't need to hose things down, which is a good thing for us. This here's his clothes."
He shows me a photograph of a dark pile of clothing on the floor just beyond the open bathroom door. I make out pants, a T-shirt, a jacket and shoes. Next I look at photographs taken inside the bathroom. On the sink is a coppertone plastic ice bucket, plastic glasses covered with cellophane and a small bar of soap still in its wrapper. Stanfield fishes in a pocket for a small knife, opens a blade and slits the evidence tape sealing the paper bag he brought with him. "His clothes," he explains. "Or at least I assume they're his."
"Hold on," I tell him. I get up and cover a gurney with a clean sheet, and put on fresh gloves and ask him if a wallet or any other personal effects were recovered. He tells me no. I smell urine as I pull out clothing from the bag, careful that if any trace evidence is dislodged, it will fall on the sheet. I examine black bikini briefs and black Giorgio Armani cashmere trousers, both soaked with urine.
"He wet his pants," I tell Stanfield.
He just shakes his head and shrugs, and doubt crosses his eyes_maybe doubt tainted by fear. None of this is making much sense, but the feeling I have is clear. This man may have checked in alone, but at some point, another person entered the picture, and I am wondering if the victim lost control of his bladder because he was terrified. "Does the lady in the office, Mrs. Kiffin, remember him dressed like this when he checked in?" I ask as I pull pockets inside out to see if there is anything in them. There isn't.
"Didn't ask her that," Stanfield responds. "So he's got nothing in his pockets. That's kind of unusual."
"No one checked them at the scene?"
"Well, I didn't bag the clothes, to tell you the truth. Another officer did that, but I'm sure nobody dug in the pockets, or at least no personal effects was found or I would know and have them with me," he says.
"Well, how about you call Mrs. Kiffin right now and see if she remembers him wearing this clothing when he checked in?" I politely tell Stanfield to do his job. "And what about a car? Do we know how he got to the motel?"
"No vehicle's turned up so far."
"The way he was dressed is certainly inconsistent with a low-budget motel, Detective Stanfield." I am drawing pants on a clothing diagram form.
The black jacket and black T-shirt as well as the belt, shoes and socks are expensive designer labels, and this makes me think about Jean-Baptiste Chandonne, whose unique baby-fine hair was found all over Thomas's decomposing body when it showed up in the Richmond Port earlier this month. I comment on the similarity of the clothes to Stanfield. The prevailing theory, I go on to explain to him, is that Jean-Baptiste murdered his brother, Thomas, probably in Antwerp, Belgium, and switched clothing with him before sealing the body inside a cargo container bound for Richmond.
"Because you found all those hairs I been reading about in
the paper?" Stanfield is trying to understand what would be difficult for even the most experienced investigator who has seen it all.
"That and microscopic findings that relate to diatoms_algae_consistent with an area of the Seine near the Chandonne house in lie Saint-Louis, in Paris." I talk on. Stanfield is completely lost. "Look, all I can tell you, Detective Stanfield, is this man"_I refer to Jean-Baptiste Chandonne_"has a very rare congenital disorder and allegedly has been known to bathe in the Seine, maybe thinking it might cure him. We have reason to believe the clothing on his brother's body was originally Jean-Baptiste's. Make sense?" I am drawing a belt and noting from the indentation in the leather which notch was used the most.
"Well, to tell you the truth," Stanfield replies, "I been hearing about nothing but this weird case and this Werewolf fellow. I mean, ma'am, that really is all you hear when you turn on the TV or pick up the paper, and I guess you know that, and by the way, I'm really sorry for what you been through and to tell you the truth, can't figure how you can even be in here or thinking straight. Godalmighty!" He shakes his head. "The wife said if something like that showed up at our door, he wouldn't have to do a thing to her. She'd die right off of a heart attack."
I catch a spark of his misgivings about me. He is wondering if I am completely rational right now, if I might just be projecting_if somehow everything I experience becomes tainted by Jean-Baptiste Chandonne. I slip the clothing diagram off the clipboard and place it with John Doe's paperwork as Stanfield dials a number he reads from his notepad. I watch him insert a finger in his free ear, squinting as if Turk's sawing open another skull hurts his eyes. I can't hear what Stanfield is saying. He hangs up and comes back over to me as he reads the video display of his pager.
"Well, we got good news and bad news," he announces. "The lady, Mrs. Kiffin, remembers him dressed real nice in a dark suit. That's the good news. The bad news is, she also remembers he had a key in his hand, one of those remote kinds that a lot of new, expensive cars have."
"But there's no car," I reply.
"No ma'am, no car. No key, either," he says. "Sure looks