Haircutting.
I passed one new-looking strip mall, the usual beige texture coat and phony tile, some of the storefronts still vacant, a FOR LEASE sign prominent at the front of the commodious parking lot. One of Richard's projects? If I was right about Joanne's motives, just maybe, because the motel was in clear view across the street, sandwiched between a liquor store and a boarded-up bungalow that bore a faded, hand-painted sign: GOOD-FAITH INSURANCE.
The Happy Trails Motel was a single-story, U-shaped collection of a dozen or so rooms with a front office on the left-hand tip of the U and a dead neon sign that pleaded VACANCY. Red doors on each room, only two of them fronted by cars. The building had blue-gray walls and a low white gravel roof. Over the gravel, I saw coils of barbed wire. An alley ran along the west side of the motel and I drove around back to see what the wire was all about.
The coils sat atop a grape-stake fence that separated the motel from its rear neighbor: a trailer park. Old, sagging mobile homes, laundry on lines, TV antennae. As I cruised closer, a dog growled.
Returning to the street, I parked. Nothing crisp about the air here. High eighties, arid, dusty, and heavy as unresolved tension. I entered the office. No reception counter, just a card table in a corner, behind which sat an old man, hairless, corpulent, with very red lips and wet, subjugated eyes. He wore a baggy gray T-shirt and striped pants. In front of him was a stack of paperback spy novels. Off to the side sat a collection of medicine bottles, along with a loose eyedropper and an empty pill counter. The room was small, murky, paneled with pine boards long gone black. The air smelled like every kid's first booster shot. A comb dispenser hung on the rear wall, along with another small vending machine that sold maps and a third that offered condoms and the message Be Healthy!
To the old man's right was a glass display case filled with photos. Ten or so pictures of Marilyn Monroe in black-and-white. Scenes from her movies and cheesecake shots. Below the montage and stretched across the center of the case, pinned in place like a butterfly, was a pink satin two-piece bathing suit. A typed paper label, also pinioned, said,
CERTIFIED GENUINE M.M.'S SWIMSUIT.
'It's for sale,' said the hairless man wearily. His voice was half an octave below bassoon, clogged and wheezy.
'Interesting.'
'If you meant that, you'd buy it. I got it from a guy used to work on her pictures. It's all bona fide.'
I showed him my police consultant badge. The small print tells them I've got no real authority. When they're going to be helpful, they never bother to check. When they're not, a real badge wouldn't impress them.
The old man barely looked at it. His skin was pallid and dull, compressed in spots, lumped like cooling tallow. Licking his lips, he smiled. 'Didn't think you were checking in for a room, not with that sport jacket. What is it, cashmere?'
He stretched a hand toward my sleeve and for a moment I thought he'd touch it. But he drew back.
'Just wool,' I said.
'Just wool.' He humphed. 'Just money. So what can I do for you?'
'Several months ago a woman from L.A. checked in and-'
'Killed herself. So why're you here now? When it happened, the police didn't barely want to talk to me. Not that they should've, I wasn't working that night, my son was. And he didn't know much, either-you read the report, you know.'
I didn't deny it. 'Where is your son?'
' Florida. He was only visiting, doing me a favor 'cause I was indisposed.' His fingers brushed against one of the medicine bottles. 'Back in Tallahassee. Drives a truck for Anheuser-Busch. So what's up?'
'Just doing some follow-up,' I said. 'For the files. Did your son ever talk to you about who checked Ms. Doss in that night?'
'She checked herself in-the coward. Barnett said she didn't look too good, unsteady on her feet, but she did it all, paid with a credit card-you guys took the receipt.' He smiled. 'Not our usual clientele.'
'How so?'
His laughter began somewhere in his belly. By the time it reached his mouth he was coughing. The paroxysm lasted too long to be trivial.
' 'Scuse me,' he said, wiping his mouth with the back of a dimpled hand. 'Like you don't know what I'm talking about.'
He smiled again. I smiled back.
'Not poor, not horny, not drunk,' he said, amused. 'Just a rich coward.'
'A coward because-'
'Because God grants you your particular share of years, you go and laugh in His face? She was like that, too.' Pointing to the Monroe case. 'Body like that and she wasted it on politicians and other scum. That bikini's worth something, you know. Big money, but no one around here appreciates memorabilia. I think I'm gonna get myself a computer, list it on the Internet.'
'Did your son mention anyone with Ms. Doss?'
'Yeah, there was someone out in the car, waiting. Behind the wheel. Barnett never looked to see who it was. We look too hard, we don't get business, right?'
'Right,' I said. 'Was there anyone else here who might've noticed?'
'Maybe Maribel, the cleaning girl. The one who found it. She came on at eleven at night, was working till seven. Asked for night work because she had a day job over at the Best Western in Palmdale. But you guys already talked to her. She didn't tell you much, huh?'
I shrugged. 'Yeah, she was a little…'
'She was sick is what she was,' he said. 'Pregnant, ready to drop. Already had a miscarriage. After she found… what she found, she wouldn't stop crying, I thought we were gonna have one of those real-life video situations right out there in the parking lot-ever deliver a baby?'
I shook my head. 'She end up delivering okay?'
'Yup, a boy.'
'Healthy?'
'Seems to be.'
'Any idea where can I find her?'
He crooked a thumb. 'Out back, Unit Six, she's working days now. Someone had a party last night in Six. Longhair types, Nevada plates, paid cash. Should've known better than to give pigs like that a room. Maribel'll be cleaning that one for a while.'
I thanked him and headed for the door.
'Here's a little secret,' he said.
I stopped, turned my head.
He winked. 'Got the Monroe Playboy, too. Don't keep it in the case, 'cause it's too valuable. One price gets you all of it. Tell all your friends.'
'Will do.'
'Sure you will.'
Maribel was young, short, frail-looking, in a pink-and-white uniform that seemed incongruously proper for the pitted lot and the splintering red doors. She was gloved to the elbows. Her hair was tied back, but loose strands were sweat-glued to her forehead. A wheeled cart pulled up to Unit Six was piled with cleaning solvents and frayed towels. The trash bag slung from the side overflowed with filthy linens, empty bottles and stink. She gave the badge a bit more attention than her boss had.
' L.A.?' she said, with the faintest accent. 'Why're you coming out here?'
'The woman who killed herself. Joanne Doss-'
Her face closed up tight. 'No, forget it, I don't wanna talk about that.'
'Don't blame you,' I said. 'And I'm not interested in making you go through it again.'
Her gloves slammed onto her hips. 'Then what?'
'I'd like to know anything you can remember about before. Once Ms. Doss went in the room, did she ever come out? Did she ask for food, drinks, do anything that caught your attention?'
'Nope, nothing. They went in after I got here- around midnight, I already told them that. I didn't see them
