“Mr. Flynn?” she asked the stranger.
“Yes.” The man’s eyes shifted to Deacon, almost as if asking permission to speak.
“I’m Detective Steele,” she said, wresting back his attention.
“And I’m Detective Stenson,” Trent offered after a couple of beats.
“We’d like to ask you a few questions,” Amanda said.
“I just told him everything I know.” He flicked a finger toward Deacon.
“We appreciate that the officer here has taken your statement, but we have some questions of our own.” Amanda glanced at Deacon, who dipped his head and left in receipt of her silent message for him to leave them alone. “Let’s start with how you came to find the man in room ten.”
Flynn scowled and clenched his jaw. “Why must I keep reliving it?”
“We understand this may be difficult for you—”
“May be? I found a man. Dead.”
It was strange how someone else died and people could still make it about themselves. “Yes. Sadly, it happens all the time.”
“Maybe for you,” Flynn spat.
She took a long, deliberate sip of her coffee. When she lowered the cup, she met Trent’s gaze. Was he judging her, waiting for her to slip up so he could report her? “You’re right, I’ve seen a lot of death.” Her voice cracked ever so slightly on death. She refused to look at either Trent or Flynn for a few seconds. “You have the chance to help us figure out what happened to your guest.”
“Was he murdered? I mean, I suppose so given you guys are here.”
“It’s an open investigation at this time,” she said. “All I can tell you is his death is deemed suspicious, which simply means for his age he shouldn’t have—” She almost said kicked the bucket.
“Okay, okay, I’ll rehash it all,” he whined. He went on to relay exactly what Becky had told her. He’d gone for ice, saw the flickering TV, looked in, and spotted Palmer on the bed.
“Then you entered his room?” she asked, remembering clearly from the account he’d told Becky he hadn’t gone inside.
“I knocked on the window and called out. He didn’t respond, and as I said, something about him just didn’t look right. So, yes, I went in his room.”
So he’d lied to Becky. It was creepy to think of the motel manager watching his guests through the windows but not the end of the world. “Did you touch anything in the room?”
“Nope.”
She noted how quickly he’d replied—the honest truth or was he hiding something? “You told our fellow officer you never went into the room.”
Flynn’s eyes darted to Trent, then back to Amanda. “Just must have slipped my mind. Not every day I find a dead body.”
Amanda wasn’t sure she believed that was all it was. “Did you check the man for a pulse?”
“No need. He had—” Flynn pointed to his mouth and traced a finger around it, clearly indicating the vomit. “And I could tell his chest wasn’t moving.”
“Then what did you do?”
“Called the police.”
Amanda nodded. She’d get to the tidbits about when Palmer checked in and if Flynn had any other interactions with him, but first she wanted to be clear on something. Flynn’s wasn’t a face she recognized, but it was very possible Flynn was aware of Palmer’s past and her own. “Did you know the man who died?”
“Nah. Well, not really.” Flynn shook his head.
“I’m not sure what you mean by ‘not really.’ Can you clarify that?”
“I just know his name was Chad Palmer because I checked him in. That’s all.”