he verbally stumbled, searching for words.
“Something’s not right?” I offered.
“‘Zactly,” he said with a nod. “Somethin’s hinky… I dunno what it is, but it just doesn’t look right.
“Why a motel room?” Felicity asked. “Are you thinking maybe suicide instead?”
He shook his head. “No. Prob’ly not suicide. Not unless the gun grew legs and walked off. Maybe robbery…”
As his last words trailed off, I started making my own connection with what I believed he was implying, so I asked, “Robbery as in a personal services transaction gone wrong, you mean?”
“Personal services transaction?” He wrinkled his forehead at me as he spoke. “When the hell did you get all PC?”
“Like you said,” I returned. “Lack of sleep.”
“Uh-huh. Well yeah, it’s a real possibility. Word is Wentworth had a thing for hookers… He’s been popped with ‘em more’n once, and the department looked the other way. Buried the whole thing so the press couldn’t jump on it.”
“Good to have friends in high places,” Felicity jibed. “I’ll bet the woman didn’t get the same treatment.”
Ben shot her a glance. “Got a soft spot for whores, do ya’?”
“I’d really prefer you didn’t use that term,” she returned coldly.
Ben paused for a moment, giving her a surprised look. “Well… Okay… Yeah, ummmm… Listen…” he finally stammered.
“So you think he might have been with a woman, and she robbed him?” Felicity suggested.
“Or her pimp,” he offered as he shot her a questioning glance. “Can I say pimp?”
She simply looked back at him without a word.
“Well, yeah, like I said it kinda looks that way.” He nodded then continued, “And that’s just a whole ‘nother reason this is gonna be a clusterfuck when the media jumps on it.”
“But you have doubts,” I offered.
“Shit, Rowan,” he spat. “I’ve always got doubts, but yeah, somethin’ just ain’t right in there.”
“Not right how?” Felicity asked.
“It just doesn’t look like… Well, you’ll see it when ya’ get in there. Maybe I’m just chasin’ my tail.”
“Detective Storm,” a uniformed officer called to Ben from behind the barrier tape. “Circus just came to town.”
We all looked up to see a pair of news vans pulling into the parking lot. My friend shook his head again and muttered, “Fuck me. Just fuuu-cck me.” Looking back to us he said, “Let’s get you signed in and workin’ before they start makin’ movies. Last thing I need is for Bible Barb ta’ see yer smilin’ face on the mornin’ news.”
My friend held out his arm and quickly ushered us toward the barrier tape and the waiting officer who was manning the clipboard.
This was the first time I’d heard him mention Barbara Albright’s name in several months. At one time, she’d been a constant vexation to him, even banning him for better than a year from serving on the Major Case Squad. Since the MCS was her command, he’d had little recourse and had spent that time more or less pushing paper around the city homicide division.
Her reasoning for his exile was primarily based on the fact that he was my friend, and she absolutely despised me. On the surface, the naked derision she displayed, even publicly, would have seemed unusual. However, when you considered all the facts, it instantly made sense. She was a fundamentalist Christian with a badge, and I was an out-of-the-broom-closet Witch who had been instrumental in solving more than one series of serial homicides. Not exactly what you would call a perfect match.
I’d made no secret of the fact that I blamed myself for Ben’s career derailment, even if he didn’t. And, while to this day I still felt guilty over it, ever since Albright’s promotion, things had gotten much better for him including being re-assigned back to the Major Case Squad.
“I thought you said Albright hadn’t been causing you any trouble since she made captain,” I commented as I waited my turn to autograph the crime scene log.
“Bee-bee?” the uniformed officer chuckled, overhearing me, then he muttered as he shook his head. “What a piece of work.”
“Yeah,” Ben answered me. “Well, not much anyway. She still gets her kicks in. But, you’re right. It’s been manageable. She’s been fast trackin’, and lately she’s climbin’ the ladder and bein’ a bureaucrat. Rubbin’ elbows just like she wanted.”
“So,” I asked as I scribbled my signature on the log and then handed the pen back to the officer. “What are you worried about?”
Felicity had already slipped beneath the crime scene tape and was photographing the exterior of the motel, approaching the task by-the-book, working her way inward on the actual scene.
My friend was holding the yellow barrier up for me as he answered my query with his own biting rhetorical question. “Like I said, she’s climbin’ the ladder, and there’s a dead federal judge in that room over there. You’re not gonna get much more high profile than this. Jeezus H. Christ, gimme a break. You really think she’s not gonna make for damn sure she’s up to her scrawny ass in it?”
CHAPTER 5:
The Chippewa Courts Inn was your typical no-tell-motel. The building itself was an unremarkable, twenty-four unit, one-story structure in the shape of a lopsided, block-style letter “U”. At the truncated end, which was farthest from us at the moment, was the office. Behind that there were four rooms. The two longer expanses housed the remaining eighteen less-than-spacious accommodations, ten in one section and eight in the other. Each had a double window, exterior door, and a single parking space in front of it.
Across the almost deserted expanse of the parking lot, a timeworn marquee stood in front of the office, near the street. Its mismatched backlit letters proclaimed “FREE IN-ROOM ADULT MOVIES.” Beneath that bit of visceral marketing, a pinkish neon pretzel struggled to announce “VACANCY,” occasionally blinking into darkness, only to eventually issue a loud buzz and snap back to something less than brilliance before flickering off yet again.
Room seven, where we were now entering, was itself your typical hourly-rate special-rectangular, not quite clean, and poorly lit. The streaked windows next to the weather-beaten door were covered inside by heavy drapes, which were themselves a good decade out of style, if not more. In keeping with a basic configuration, there was a dressing area and sink at the back of the room. Over the basin sat a large mirror that was now reflecting the flicker of lights from outside as they bounced in through the open doorway. To the right of that area appeared to be a smaller room, most likely the bathroom and shower.
Ben pointed to the smaller room as if he’d been reading my mind. “Body’s back there in the john,” he offered, thereby confirming the suspicion.
Wafting on the chilled atmosphere was the usual unsavory blend of odors one encountered in such a room- stale smoke, musty carpet, and old intimacy. However, in this case the olfactory aura of bygone lovemaking was merely a subtle backdrop to the unmistakable odor of recent, unbridled sex. In fact, the very charge of extreme passion hanging in the air would have been enough to provoke arousal were it not underscored by the less than commonplace, but just as palpable, funk of death. As if that weren’t enough, pulling the unlikely melange together was a cloying watermelon-like scent.
“TV assholes are here,” Ben called out to the lone crime scene technician inhabiting the room. My friend swung the door closed behind us then stabbed a finger toward the silvery back wall as he instructed, “We better keep the door shut, or one of the fuckers’ll be bright enough ta’ try pointin’ a camera into that mirror.”
The dust-mask-wearing technician gave a nod as he took a few steps toward us. “What about the plate on the car?”
“Covered,” Ben replied. “Got a squad parked behind it.”
From all indications, the tech had simply been milling about and leaving the scene untouched, presumably waiting for us to arrive and create the visual record that was the next step in the chain of evidence. I was getting ready to ask about the mask when he quickly turned away and pulled it down. Slapping a handkerchief up to his
