couch covered by an antimacassar. A lamp rested on a low end table casting a dim light on the green-and-white fabric. David could hear the muffled sound of a TV whose volume had been turned low, but he could not see the screen.
“Mr. Grimes?” David asked. The old man looked immediately suspicious. “My name is David Nash. This is Terry Conklin. I’d like to talk to you about the murder that occurred here a few months ago.”
“You reporters?” Grimes asked in a tone suggesting that he would not be upset if they were.
“No. I’m a lawyer. I represent the man who’s been charged with the crime.”
“Oh,” Grimes said, disappointed.
“I’d like to see the room if I could and talk about anything you might know.”
“I already told what I know to the police. Damn place was like a circus for a week,” he said, nodding at the memory. “Reporters and cops. Didn’t do business no harm, though.”
He laughed and it came out more of a snort. The old man wiped his nose with the back of his hand and turned to a pegboard on the wall behind the desk counter. It took him a moment, but he found the key he was looking for. He started to reach for it, then stopped and turned back. He had a crafty look on his face, and David knew exactly what was coming next.
“You know, I ain’t sure I should be doin’ this. You representing a criminal and all. I don’t know if the cops would like it. I could get in trouble.”
“I can assure you this is perfectly legal…”
“All the same…”
“And, of course, we would pay you for your time.”
“Oh, say, that’s mighty nice of you,” Grimes said with a smirk. David wondered how much dough he’d pulled in from the press for exclusive tours. He laid a twenty-dollar bill on the countertop. Grimes looked at it for a moment, probably figuring if there was any way to get more; then his fingers made the fastest move David would see all evening, and the bill was gobbled up and stuffed into his trouser pocket.
“We can talk while we walk,” Grimes said, taking the key off the peg and shuffling toward the door. Conklin held it open, and he and David followed Grimes across the parking lot toward the motel rooms.
“She sure was a nice-lookin’ gal,” Grimes said as they started up the metal stairs to the second landing. “Didn’t look like no hooker to me. I got suspicious right off.”
“You get plenty of hookers here?” Terry asked with a straight face.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
Terry shrugged.
“You said she didn’t look like one. I just supposed…”
The old man weighed his answer for a second, then snickered.
“Yeah, we get our share. I don’t take no cut, you understand. But there’s a few that likes our accommodations. Cops don’t care, so why should I?”
“Did you ever see the fella who was with the dead girl before that night?”
“Like I told the cops, he was out in the car and I didn’t pay no attention to him. She come in and I was readin’. Then she took up most of my attention, if you know what I mean. Nice tits, as much of ’em as I could see. I just didn’t have no interest in the john.”
“So you didn’t get a good look at him at all?”
“I didn’t say that. I seen him, but he didn’t make no impression. And it was only a little look, when he come tearin’ out of here after he killed her.”
“What do you remember seeing?”
“Nothin’ much. A man in a car. I already been through this with the cops.”
“I know,” David said, “and I appreciate your taking the time to talk to us now.”
They were on the landing and Grimes was leading the way toward a room at the end. Terry looked around, filing the layout away in his mind for future use. Grimes stopped and inserted his key in the door of the next-to-last room. The door opened. A large globe light to the right of the door hung above David’s head and cast a pale-yellow glow over the door. Grimes put his key in the lock and pushed the door open.
“There she is. Course it’s cleaned up now. It was some mess then, I can tell you.”
Grimes stepped aside, and David entered the unlit room. He turned and saw the neon signs on the boulevard. A reminder of the life outside. Here, in the sterile, plastic room, there was no sign of life or death. Just a twentieth-century motel limbo devoid of feeling. The shadowy figures of Grimes and Conklin wavered in the doorway like spirits of the dead. Grimes reached around the wall and found the light switch.
“There isn’t much we can learn here,” Terry said when he had toured the bedroom and bathroom. “The DA will have pictures of the scene.”
David nodded.
“The papers say it was some young lawyer,” Grimes said.
“That’s right.”
“That fits with what I seen. Fancy car he was drivin’ and the long hair.”
“You saw his hair?” David asked.
“I said so, didn’t I?”
“I must have misunderstood you. I thought you said he didn’t make an impression on you.”
“He didn’t. But I seen the hair. Brown hair.”
“You’re certain about that?” David said, casting a quick look at Conklin.
“I’m gettin’ along, but I ain’t senile. Say, you think they’ll put it in the papers when I testify?”
“No doubt, Mr. Grimes,” Terry said. Grimes smiled and nodded his head.
“I was in the papers once before. They had a robbery here and they listed me as the victim. I got the clipping in my desk.”
“I think I’ve seen all I want to. How about you?” David asked Conklin. The investigator just nodded. He and David walked onto the landing, and Grimes switched off the light and locked the door.
“Thanks for the tour,” David said when they reached the office.
“Anytime.”
“See you in court,” Conklin said.
The old man chuckled and shook his head. “That’s right,” he said. “That’s right.”
He was shuffling toward the back room as they drove away.
4
The main entrance to the county courthouse was on Fourth Avenue. David entered through the back door on Fifth. The rear corridor was jammed with police officers waiting to testify in the three traffic courts located there. Lawyers in three-piece suits huddled with straggly-haired dopers and stylishly dressed young women about defenses to their traffic citations. Court clerks shuffled people back and forth between the courtrooms and the large room where the fines were paid. An old lawyer listened patiently to the complaints of a young member of the bar, and an even younger district attorney tried to understand the testimony of a police officer as he prepared to try his seventh straight speeding case.
David pushed through the crowd and into the narrow alcove that housed the jail elevator. The courthouse jail was used to hold prisoners who had court appearances and for booking new arrestees.
The elevator stopped at seven, and David stepped up to a thick glass window and called through an intercom to a guard who was seated at a control panel.
“I’d like to see Larry Stafford. Do you have an empty booth?”
“Try two, Mr. Nash,” the guard said over his shoulder. David signed his name in the logbook. The guard pressed a button and a floor-to-ceiling steel gate swung open. David walked into the narrow holding area and waited for the gate to close. As soon as it clicked shut, the guard pressed another button. There was an electronic hum, and the solid-steel door at the other end of the holding area swung open. David walked to a door that opened into the conference area. Several identical booths were set up side by side. Each booth was divided by wire mesh that started halfway up from the floor. There was a chair on each side of the mesh and a ledge underneath it.
