“You questioned him,” I said. “I thought you weren’t a detective.”
Her expression turned defensive. She pulled her hand from her dog’s head and put it back in her lap. “I asked around. That isn’t the same thing. There wasn’t a lot to do on the night shift unless someone was drunk and disorderly. And I knew a different set of people than the day shift guys. Not that any of them wanted to listen to me anyway.”
“Because you were just the duty officer.”
She gave me a smile that had a layer of complexity behind it I couldn’t read. “Because I was the Fell PD’s only female officer,” she said. “You think I did thirty years on nights by choice? That was the only shift they would give me. It was either take it or quit. And boy, were they mad when I worked it instead of quitting.”
“That’s crazy. Isn’t it illegal or something?”
She laughed, a real laugh that came from her belly. “You’re a smart girl, but you’re so young,” she said. “I started on the Fell PD in 1979. I was lucky to be able to get a credit card in those days without a husband. My coworkers called me ‘Dyke’ instead of my name, right to my face. I could have dated Robert Redford and they still would have called me that. If I got married and had babies, I was weak. If I stayed single, I was a dyke. I learned to appreciate the night shift because I didn’t have to listen to pussy-eating jokes. If I’d complained, I would have been ridiculed and probably fired.” She shrugged. “That was the way it was in those days. I wanted to be a cop, and I wanted to be in Fell. This is my town. So I took the night shift and I did things my way when no one was looking. And that included asking around after Viv disappeared.”
I leaned back in my chair. “If I ever get a time machine, remind me not to go back to the seventies.”
“It wasn’t so bad,” Alma said. “We had Burt Reynolds and no Internet and no AIDS. We didn’t know how much fun we were having until the eighties came and it started to dry up.” She sipped her coffee. “Jamie was around Viv’s age and not bad-looking. He would have noticed a girl as pretty as Vivian. But I knew him most of his life, and he wasn’t the violent type.”
I pulled out a pen. Anyone who had met Viv was still on my list. “Do you know where I can find him?”
“Dead,” she said bluntly. “Ran his car off the road and wrapped it around a tree. Gosh, when was that? The early nineties.”
“Okay.” I clicked the pen. “Who else did you suspect? Who else did you talk to?”
“There weren’t a lot of options. I did talk to Janice McNamara, who owned the place and hired Viv.”
I thought of the picture I’d seen in the newspaper in 1979, of the woman with her husband and son standing in front of the brand-new Sun Down Motel. “I work for her son, Chris,” I said. “He says he doesn’t spend any time at the motel if he can help it.”
Alma gave me a look that was almost speculative, and for a second I wondered if she was going to bring up the topic of ghosts. “Janice was the same,” she said. “There was an accident at the motel soon after it opened.”
“The boy in the pool.”
“Right. The boy died in the pool, and Henry, the motel employee who called the accident in, died of a heart attack in the office six months later. Janice and Carl never really wanted to be in the motel business in the first place—they thought it would be easy money with the amusement park that was supposed to come here, and that the land would appreciate in value. When the park fell through and the deaths happened, they both lost their steam. Carl got sick and couldn’t work the place. Janice worked the front desk, but she didn’t care much. She sure as hell wasn’t there the night Viv disappeared. Chris took over after both of them died, but he doesn’t want it, either.” She shook her head. “It’s just a place that’s never been wanted from the first, you know? Right from the time Betty Graham’s body was found at the construction site. I don’t believe in curses, but the Sun Down is just one of those unloved places.”
My stomach had fallen and I felt light-headed. “Someone . . . someone died in the office?”
“Yes. Oh, Jesus, I’m sorry.” Alma shook her head. “I spent too many years as a cop, and we talk about this stuff. I forgot that you work in that office. Yes, Henry died of a heart attack. He was under stress after that boy died. I guess it caught up with him.”
Was he a smoker? I thought wildly. Because I think he still is.
“It wasn’t a big loss,” Alma said when I didn’t speak. “Henry, that is. He was a bit of an asshole, honestly. When I called his ex-wife after he died—she was still listed as next of kin—she said he could rot in hell and hung up on me. We’d had complaints from her over the years about him threatening her, but nothing ever came of it. She always dropped the charges. Henry wasn’t much of a charmer.” She picked up her cup and sipped her coffee. “I’m talking your ear off. You’re a good listener.”
“It’s fine,” I said. “Thank you.” I looked down at the paper I was supposed
