The Sun Down Motel Page 18

  I wrote down Brenda Bailey, because it seemed like I should. “What about the man who worked the shift before Viv’s? He might be the last person to see her alive.”

  “Johnny? Sure, you can talk to him if you want. He’s in his seventies now. Lives in an old folks’ home in New Jersey, where his niece put him so he can be close. He never had anything to say about that night except that Viv showed up and he went home. His mother confirmed he was home by eleven fifteen.”

  This was hopeless. I was getting nowhere, so I changed the subject. “Did you work the Cathy Caldwell case?”

  I looked up and saw that Alma’s face looked shocked, like someone had given her bad news. “There is no connection between Vivian’s disappearance and the Cathy Caldwell case.” The words came out of her automatically, like the Snickers bars in the Sun Down’s semifunctional candy machine.

  “But we don’t know that,” I said. “They were around the same time. Cathy’s murder is unsolved. So was Betty Graham’s. And there was Victoria Lee, which everyone thought was solved, but it turns out it wasn’t. So all three are open cases.”

  Alma’s voice was firm. “Like I say, there’s no connection.”

  “Isn’t it too much for coincidence?” I insisted. “All these girls dead right before Viv? And then it stopped?”

  Alma shook her head as I spoke. “Damn the Internet, honestly. Carly, honey. I know it’s tempting. But we had detectives working those cases—good ones. They wanted to solve those murders, and if there was any connection with Vivian’s disappearance, they would have jumped on it. But they couldn’t find that connection. Without a body, there’s nothing to go on.”

  She sounded so firm, so confident. And she had that cop’s voice, the one that said I know what I’m doing, so just do as I say. But still. All of those women, murdered and unsolved around the same time. What were the odds that they were all different killers? And that Viv had crossed paths with yet another killer? This place would be worse than the town in Murder, She Wrote. Didn’t the cops see that? Shouldn’t they be the first ones to see it?

  But from Alma’s expression I knew I was trying to dig on stony ground. “Okay,” I said. “It was just a thought.” I closed my notebook. “Thanks for your time.”

  “I’m sorry,” Alma said. “It’s just that those cases are near to me. I’m not a detective, but we were all hands on deck after Betty and Cathy. People were scared. It was a difficult time.” She pressed her lips together. “We had a strange run of deaths in the late seventies, early eighties, I’ll give you that. But it stopped, and Fell was quiet for a long time. We didn’t have any more headline-grabbing cases until the Harkness murder.”

  Nick. His father shooting his brother, then coming up the stairs as Nick jumped from the window.

  “I’ll tell Nick you said hello,” I said.

  Alma’s eyebrows went up. “Nick is back in town?”

  Oh, shit. Was that supposed to be a secret? Don’t mention my name, Nick had said. I was such an idiot. “I guess so,” I hedged. “I met him at the Sun Down.” I put my notebook in my lap.

  “Nick Harkness is staying at the Sun Down?”

  “Just for a little while, I think.” Why hadn’t I kept my mouth shut? Nick wanted his privacy. Maybe he didn’t want it all over Fell that he was back. “He’s the one who gave me your name and suggested I talk to you.”

  “Yeah, he’d remember me,” Alma said. “I dumped him in the drunk tank to sleep it off enough times.” She pushed her chair back. “He isn’t a person you want to get too close to, Carly. Take it from me.”

  “He’s grown up now,” I said, even though I didn’t know Nick all that well. “He doesn’t get in trouble anymore.”

  “Or so he says.” Alma looked at me thoughtfully. “You know, we could never prove anything, but I always wondered if Nick was really upstairs in his room like he said he was. Tell him I say hello.”

  Fell, New York

  November 1982

  VIV

  Without sleep, the nights were long. It felt like Viv lived in an endless stretch of darkness, punctuated only by fleeting daylight in which she dozed, her eyes restless behind her closed lids. Tonight she was at the Sun Down, sitting in the office alone. Her limbs ached and her eyes were half closed. She’d come in to find a single white envelope on the desk marked Paycheck—Janice’s only interaction with her employee.

  What if I didn’t show up at all? Viv wondered to herself. Would anyone notice? Would Johnny tell anyone? How many nights could I simply not come to work before someone wondered where I was?

  It was a lonely thought, and for a second she felt soft and bruised by it. She should call her mother sometime, maybe. Her sister. Try talking to her roommate, Jenny, again, even. How long had it been since she talked to someone? She rubbed her eyes and stretched her cramped legs beneath the desk.

  There was no one at the motel tonight. Literally no one. For the first time since starting this job, Viv felt so empty and so achingly lonely she found herself near tears. She wished Jamie Blaknik would show up with his tousled hair and his strangely kind smile. She wished anyone would show up at all.

  The phone rang, the noise loud in the silence. Viv picked it up. “Sun Down Motel, can I help you?”

  “Viv, it’s Marnie.”

  Tears stung the backs of Viv’s eyes at the sound of a familiar voice. She needed to get a grip on herself. “Marnie,” she managed.

  “Yeah. Look, I was out on another job and I drove by your suspect’s house. His car is in the driveway and the windows are dark. Looks like he’s sound asleep.”

  Viv sat up straighter, the loneliness dissipating. Marnie did this for her sometimes—followed the traveling salesman when Viv couldn’t. “Thanks.”

  “I also talked to a cop I know on the Fell PD. I told him I’d met a girl who thought she might be Betty Graham’s cousin. I asked him if the cops think Betty and Cathy Caldwell could have been killed by the same man.”

  “And?” Viv asked.

  “He didn’t say much,” Marnie said. “He was tight-lipped about it. He said they’d looked at that and haven’t found any evidence. I have to be honest, Viv. The more I get into this, the more I think your theory is wrong. Those women didn’t know each other, didn’t travel in the same circles. Betty was a spinster teacher and Cathy was a married mom. My contact wouldn’t even talk to me about Victoria Lee, because her case is closed. And Cathy’s injuries were different from Betty’s. Very different.”

  “Tell me what Betty’s injuries were,” Viv said. “I know you know. The papers wouldn’t say.”

  She heard Marnie sigh. “This is just cop talk. But Betty had a lot of bruises. Like she fought hard. And she was raped.”

  Violated, Viv thought.

  “Cathy was raped, too, and Victoria wasn’t,” Marnie said. “You see what I mean. It’s too random. And this salesman—I’ve never seen him do anything except go to work and back. You’re barking up the wrong tree, honey.”

  “He might hunt them all differently,” Viv said. “It’s how he works. He likes it. But you’re right, he finds them somehow. There has to be a connection.”

  “Jesus, you’re obsessed,” Marnie said. “I worry about you. You spend too much time alone at night. You need a boyfriend, bad.”

  Viv laughed. “Do you have one?”

  “Always. I don’t need a man, but I like one. They come in handy sometimes. You should try it. Leave behind all this darkness-and-death stuff. It’s no good for you. Never mind the fact that you could get yourself killed.”

  “I’ll be careful,” Viv said.

  “You better,” Marnie said. “If something happens to you, whoever does it is going to have to deal with me.”

  * * *

  • • •

  The cigarette smoke was pungent tonight. After she hung up the phone, Viv stood with her palm pressed
to the office door, her eyes closed as she took breaths. It was definitely the smoking man, the man who had walked behind her the first night the ghosts came, his footsteps crossing behind her back as if he walked past an open door. There was another footstep on the walk, and with an inhale of breath Viv turned the doorknob and pushed open the door.

  There was no one there, just the frigid cold darkness, the air that was starting to smell like snow. The wind hushed in the naked trees beyond the motel, and on a far-off street a siren wailed, the sound carrying high and faint.

  I could disappear. I could die. Who would look for me?

  Victoria’s own parents hadn’t thought to look for her because they assumed she was at a party. No one knew Betty was missing until she didn’t come to work.

  There has to be a connection.

  There was a distinct crunch of gravel in the parking lot, and Viv heard the snick of a door opening. Then another, and another.

  Betty was awake.

  Viv had come to think of it that way. Betty slept, and the motel slept; but sometimes Betty was awake, which meant the motel was awake. Usually she awoke when the traveling salesman checked in, but he wasn’t here tonight. Tonight there was no one here but Viv.

  No one here but Betty and me.

  Viv stepped out onto the walkway, past the AMENITIES room. Ahead of her, around the bend of the L, the doors were opening one by one, starting at the end and working toward her. She could hear them upstairs as well: Snick. Snick. Snick.

  “Betty?” Viv said.

  The sign flickered but stayed on, its garish neon colors strangely comforting in the darkness.

  She pulled her collar up around her neck, let the wind lift her hair, and stepped off the walkway into the parking lot. The gravel crunched beneath her sneakers. I could just disappear, she thought. Become one of the ghosts here. No one would ever know. Maybe some future girl would work in the front office, and first she’d smell cigarette smoke, and then she’d hear the rumble of the ice machine, and it would start all over again. A year from now? Five? What would that girl look like? What would she think when she saw the ghost of Viv herself, scuffing gravel through the parking lot?

  She turned away from the L, from the opening doors, and walked back to the office, though she didn’t go in. That door was open, too, though she couldn’t remember if she’d closed it behind her or not. Inside she was almost not surprised to see a man sitting at the desk she’d just left. He was older, skinny, and he was slumped over the desk, his head in his hands.

  Viv stood in the doorway, her hand on the jamb to keep herself from falling. It felt like her breath was frozen in her throat. The air was suffused with the smell of cigarette smoke.

  As she watched, the man raised his head and looked at her. His eyes were black and blazing.

  “Goddamn bitch,” he said.

  Viv backed away and walked on shaking legs around the corner, toward the empty pool. It was nearly pitch-dark back here, farther away from the lights of the road and the sign, and Viv made out the black shape of the fence, the inky pool filled with leaves and garbage. Her tennis shoes scraped loudly on the broken concrete. Overhead there was a sliver of moon that gave barely any light.

  She made herself take a breath deep into her lungs, letting the cold sting her chest. She tilted her head back and looked up at the sky. The exhaustion had left her and she only felt the pumping of her blood in her veins, the humming of her own skin. She closed her eyes, then tilted her head down and opened them again.

  In front of the fence was a boy, sitting on the ground, his knees up, his back to the fence. His skin was pale and he was wearing a T-shirt and shorts in the icy cold. He was the boy who had hit his head and died. He, too, raised his head and looked at Viv, though his expression was helpless instead of angry.

  “I don’t feel good,” he said, his voice high-pitched and insubstantial in the chilled night air.

  “I can’t help,” Viv told him. “I’m sorry.”

  But the boy still watched her, unmoving, waiting, and Viv took a step back, unable to look at him anymore. “I’m sorry,” she said again.

  He was still watching her when she turned and walked back past the office, careful not to turn her head and look at the man inside. She rounded the corner and saw that the motel doors were open—every single door on both levels, ajar as if someone had forgotten to latch them closed. The lights at the end of the row blinked out, and then the next lights, and then the next. On the second level, a woman in a flowered dress appeared in one of the room doorways, then turned away again.

  “Betty,” Viv said, and this time it wasn’t a question.

  Behind her, the motel sign went out. Now there was only darkness, growing and growing as each light went out at the motel. I’m alone in the dark, Viv thought. There’s only me here. But that wasn’t quite true. And this time, she wasn’t afraid.

  She walked to the stairs and climbed them, her hand numb with cold on the railing. Her cheeks were losing sensation and her nose was starting to run. But she kept walking. She reached the doorway where she’d seen the woman and, with only the briefest breath of hesitation, she stepped inside.

  It was dark in here, with a stuffy smell. Viv’s tennis shoes went silent on the old carpet. The wind skirled in through the open door, but it was no longer cold. It was airless in here instead, unpleasantly warm like a chair that someone else has just sat on, the smell a little sickening, like a stranger’s armpit. Viv made out a bed, a cheap nightstand, a mirror. And the woman.

  It was the woman from that first night, the one who’d stood in front of Viv’s car as she cowered inside. Run, she’d said then, and Viv had simply stared in terror, unable to process any other emotion. Now the woman stood with her back to her, wearing that same dress, and all Viv could feel was pain and a horrible, horrible kind of pity.

  I couldn’t just leave her, she thought.

  “Betty,” she said, the word coming out a rasp from her dry throat.

  Slowly, the woman turned. Viv’s eyes had adjusted to the dark—or perhaps it wasn’t as dark as she’d thought—because she could see the woman so clearly, the line of her neck and the white of her skin. The hair that fell just past her shoulders, dark honey brown and carefully brushed, pinned back from her face. The way, Viv knew now, that Betty had pinned it back that final day before she opened the door to the wrong man.

  Her stomach dropped because in the strange light she could also see Betty’s scratches. The bruises and scrapes on her cheekbones. The deep marks on her neck. The blood smeared over her hands, over her fingers and palms, the nails ruined. Betty’s lip was split and her left eye was swollen mostly closed. Below the hem of her dress, blood ran from her knees down her shins.

  Horror came over Viv, so complete it was a wash of sensation crawling up her back and burrowing into her stomach, like cold hands on her neck and cotton in her throat. She stared with cold tears on her face as Betty spread her hands and looked down at them.

  And then she spoke, like the man had spoken, like the boy. Her voice a far-off reedy sound in the wind. Coming from somewhere and nowhere at once.

  “How did this happen?” she said.

  Viv raised a hand to her cheek, smeared one of her tears with her icy fingers. “Betty,” she said in a whisper.

  Betty lifted her face and looked at Viv, and her expression was confusion and burning rage. “How did this happen?” she said again.

  “I don’t know,” Viv said, and she had no idea if Betty could hear her or not, because she simply stood unmoving, her bloody hands held out. “Who was he? Tell me.”

  Betty stared with those blazing eyes, and through her terror Viv had the urge to step forward, get closer. Her feet wouldn’t move. A plume of white rose in the air, and Viv realized it was her breath in the suddenly freezing air.

  Betty’s mouth moved. Her voice was fainter. “How did thi
s happen?”

  “Tell me!” Viv shouted. “I can fix it! Please!”

  A horn honked from the parking lot and Viv jumped, a scream coming from her throat. Red and blue light briefly flashed through the window and the half-open door, and there was a blip of a siren.

  Viv turned her head, distracted, and when she turned back Betty was gone.

  On shaky legs, she walked to the door. In the parking lot below her was a police cruiser, parked diagonally in the middle of the empty space. Next to the driver’s door stood Alma Trent, flashlight in her hand.

  She looked up and saw Viv. “Jesus, you gave me a heart attack!” she said, her voice ringing clear through the night air. “The office door is wide open and there’s no one inside. I couldn’t find you anywhere. I thought some creep had stuffed you in his trunk and drove off.”

  Viv stood, staring down. Cold sweat trickled down her back, beneath her shirt and her sweatshirt.

  “Aren’t you cold?” Alma asked. “Why are the lights out? I didn’t hear anyone call in a power outage.” She flipped on the flashlight and raised it to Viv’s face. “Are you okay? Why are all the doors open?”

  Viv opened her mouth to say something—she had no idea what—and with an angry buzz the neon sign suddenly flipped on, the yellow and blue glowing in the darkness. Then the lights turned on, starting at the end of the L and moving up. One by one the doors clicked closed.

  It took a silent stretch of minutes. When it finished, Viv still stood staring down at Alma, who had lowered the flashlight. The two women locked gazes for a long minute.

  “Vivian,” Alma said at last. “Come down here and we’ll talk.”

  Fell, New York

  November 2017

  CARLY

  I had been on shift at the Sun Down for an hour. It was midnight, and I was reading the old copy of Firestarter I’d found in the office. Drew Barrymore’s baby face was on the cover, her hair lifting in the draft from the wall of flames behind her. Andy and Charlie had just been captured by the CIA, and things were about to get really bad. Then the office door opened and Nick walked in.