'Tell us what you told them,' Monroe said. Tall, hair cropped around a receding line and with the shoulders of a long-ago college boxer, people tended to speak up when he asked a question.
'I don't know anything,' the guy whined, for nothing like the first time. 'Just what the chick in twelve told me when she checked out. Said there'd been noise from next door, this was a couple days ago. I only mentioned it to the officer because they said the guy who shot the cop had short hair and glasses and I thought, you know, that's kind of what the guy in room eleven looked like, in fact.'
Nina nodded. Her eyes were on a magazine half hidden under the counter. The manager saw her looking, and seemed to find it kind of a thrill. 'I just adore that stuff,' she said, looking back up at him. 'Makes me want to fuck every guy on the planet. You want to get on it right here, right now?'
The guy looked away. 'As I thought,' Nina said. 'So meantime give us the keys to rooms ten, eleven, twelve.'
Monroe took the keys and pointed at three of the cops. They followed the agents as they left the office and stepped into the courtyard. Room eleven was four doors down on the right-hand side. The drapes were still drawn. Two of the policemen were given the keys to the doors either side.
They drew their weapons, opened the doors quietly. Pulled them wide and then slipped inside the rooms.
A minute later both came out. One shook his head. The other said, 'I could hear something. Could be someone talking.'
'Three areas,' the other cop observed, quietly. 'Sitting room, bedroom in back, bathroom.'
'Okay,' Monroe said. For just a second Nina thought she saw him thinking about handing the remaining key to one of the cops, then realizing how it would look. That kind of thing — plus just turning away from people like they didn't matter, the way he had when she'd arrived — was precisely why the street cops didn't love them like brothers. She got her own gun out, holding it with both hands and clear of her body. She was careful not to let anyone see a small wince. Three months now, and her right arm still gave her trouble. Two doctors and three physiotherapists had told her there was nothing wrong with it any more. Nina thought maybe it was the small round scar on the upper right side of her chest talking, saying it knew all about guns now and wanted nothing to do with them. Tough, in that case. FBI agents are constrained to have their weapon with them at all times. She slept with hers under the bed.
Monroe squared up to the door, Nina just behind. He told the cops to be ready to follow, but to give them time. They nodded. They looked more up for this than she felt, but that was part of being a guy, she knew. Any one of them looked wobbly in front of a colleague, no one would want them at their back again.
Monroe slipped the key in the lock. Turned it. Waited a second, then pushed it. The door opened to a dark room. The drapes on the other side were drawn too. It was warm.
'This is the FBI,' Monroe said. His voice was steady. 'Put down any weapons and come out with your hands up. This will be your only warning.'
They waited. No one said anything. No one appeared. The old conundrum, polarizing options for the near future: either there was no one in the room and everything was cool and after-the-fact, or there was a very bad man inside and he had in mind shooting him some cop.
Nina was in position. She stepped into the room.
Leathery dark. Heavy air. Really, really warm, like someone turned the aircon off twenty-four hours before. Room a square, holding battered sofa, two chairs, desk, big old prehistoric television. No personal effects evident. Flicker-light from doorway in corner on courtyard side. Door partially ajar.
Also a low sound. Very likely television.
Who's watching it?
Nina side-stepped across into the body of the room, making space for Monroe. He came in silently, hand held back to signal the cops to stay where they were. Once he was positioned on the door to the other room she turned, moved silently to the cupboard. Held her gun short arm while she eased it open.
Empty but for the smell of dust. Left it open. Turned on her right foot to face back to the room, nodded to Monroe. The cops at the doorway stood quiet and ready. Monroe moved towards the door to the second room. Nina came up, a yard and a half behind. Stopped.
Everything flattens out into now.
Monroe pushes the door gently with his left hand. It swings. Reveals more of the side wall of the bedroom, a grey-blue shifting light, and a little more sound. The sound has that rustling, high-pitched note above the low rumble. It's television for sure. Sometimes people leave them on. It's company. They forget when they leave. They figure who cares, it's not my electric buck.
Monroe takes another step. This puts him on the threshold. A beat. He takes one more and turns quickly, gun pointed past the door into an area Nina cannot yet see.
But she sees Monroe's upper back do a kind of thud, as if his leading foot found itself two inches lower than he expected.
Another long beat. 'Ma'am?'
Nina's stomach goes cold. She hears Monroe swallow with his mouth open, a dry click. He is staring. He is wired. He is ready to shoot. He takes another half pace forward, seemed to bend down and look upwards. Then he side-steps out of sight. There is silence for a moment, then a quiet swishing sound. Silence again.
'Nina,' he says, finally. 'Come in here.'
She knew that meant just her, so she raised a hand to signal the other guys to hold position. She allowed her other arm to drop a little, but wasn't yet ready to let go of the gun.
The bedroom seemed even hotter than the other room. There was a strong odour. The television was a low burble up high to the left, fixed to the wall with a metal bracket. Monroe stood the other side of a queen-size bed.
A woman sat in the bed. She was in her late twenties. She had long brown hair. She didn't move when Nina entered, because she was dead. She was sitting bolt upright in bed, her head flopping slightly forward. She was dressed in well-worn blue cotton night clothes with a floral motif. Her stomach had begun to distend. Her face looked like painted putty. Her eyes were open. So was her mouth. Something had been put inside it.
'Jesus,' Nina said.
She leaned forward. The object in the woman's mouth was about the size of a waitress's notepad, about a quarter of an inch thick, two inches wide, and probably a little over three inches long, though it was difficult to be sure without removing it. It seemed to be made of shiny metal. A very narrow label along the protruding end had a string of numbers and short lines on it.
'What the hell is that?' Monroe said. He was breathing hard, and a line of sweat glinted on one temple.
Nina shook her head. 'I don't know.'
— «» — «» — «»—
Thirty minutes later Nina stepped outside. The first wave of forensic geeks had arrived. With the drapes still drawn and the heat still trapped, it was like milling around in a crowded, hellish cupboard. Nina made sure to take a thorough look around the suite, which was always easier when it had been established you weren't going to be shot at, and then left. Monroe was still inside. It would take the arrival of cameras to flush him out.
There were no other bodies in the room. The swish Nina had heard was the sound of Monroe checking the bathroom. It was devoid of personal possessions. There was no sign of the clothes the woman must have been wearing when she arrived. You can't wander into a motel dressed in pyjamas. Even at a place like The Knights. You would normally think to bring some toiletries, too, a handbag. There would be identification of some kind, somewhere, however accidental. Cops were already canvassing missing persons reports, but something told Nina news wouldn't arrive soon.
She walked out through a sunny courtyard which was full of yet more cops and the quickly moving bodies of civilians who thought they were going to be able to check out of this death block quickly and get back to their anonymous lives, but who were about to spend a large number of hours being asked a small number of questions. That evening they would see, on television, the place they'd spent the night before, as the media repeated its name again and again to make it one of those venues the mention of which would tug at the memory for years and possibly decades to come. Nobody involved was going to forget today in a hurry, least of all the woman Nina saw when she left the courtyard and walked back out into the lot. Patrolman Peterson was still sitting on the bench. Two of his colleagues were trying to restrain this woman, whose name was Monica, who had arrived to find her husband's remains had already been taken to the morgue and who was screaming at his ex-partner because there was nothing else to do.