The Sun Down Motel

Get me something.

Betty, then Cathy, then Victoria. Three women murdered in Fell in the past few years. Their bodies dumped like trash. Even if one of them was solved, that still left two whose murderer was still out there. The salesman was the only lead she could think of, the only place to start.

She had a problem: She didn’t know when the salesman would come again. She was stuck for however long, until he chose to check in. If he chose to check in ever again.

When he was here before, he’d left no trace of who he was. Except . . .

Viv thought it over and smiled to herself.

Maybe she wasn’t stuck after all.

Fell, New York

November 2017

CARLY

Libraries were my places. I was that girl who maxed out her library card every week, starting with The Hobbit and The Witch of Blackbird Pond and moving up from there. I could kill an hour by wandering into an unfamiliar part of the Dewey Decimal System and checking it out. Computers, card catalogs, microfiches—I could navigate them all.

So the Fell Central Library was immediately familiar. It was set in the middle of downtown in a building that was large-ish and supposed to be prestigious based on its fake marble and columns. Inside it was musty and boxy, a huge cube with high windows and open stairs to the upper level. I bypassed the circulation desk on the main floor and headed for the back of the building, taking a guess at where the media archives room would be. I passed a few retirees, a thirty-year-old woman obviously studying feverishly for an exam, and a handful of students my age who probably went to Fell’s tiny college. They likely assumed I was one of them, since I was wearing jeans, my lace-up boots, and a sweater under a waist-length jacket, my hair in its usual ponytail.

I hefted my messenger bag and wandered the stacks. The back of the library was pleasantly dusty and dim, far from the windows and full of empty corners. It suited my exhaustion, since it was four o’clock in the afternoon—the middle of the night for me. I’d had to rouse myself from bed to get to the library while it was still open. I hadn’t had the heart to wake Heather and drag her with me since she slept so rarely, and was still asleep in our apartment.

I had to go upstairs to find what I wanted, but it was indeed at the back of the library: a glass door with the words FELL ARCHIVE ROOM on them. Inside the room I had the place to myself—just me, a couple of computer terminals, a few long tables, and a few shelves of books and magazines. I didn’t even bother asking a librarian; I just sat down.

Twenty minutes later I’d figured out the archive system. It was time to learn about Fell.

I started with the obvious searches: Viv Delaney, Viv Delaney missing, Sun Down Motel. I’d only ever had the two articles I’d found in my mother’s belongings, those two scraps of newsprint, but in Fell’s database there was another article that mostly repeated the same information I already had, as well as one more titled WHO WAS VIVIAN DELANEY? Local girl’s disappearance leaves questions behind. I entered my credit card number and hit Print on that one.

The Sun Down Motel search gave me different results. I narrowed the search parameters to 1980–1983 and didn’t get many hits, so I expanded the years and then deleted the parameters entirely. What I got from that was, in its bits and pieces of glory, a chronological history of the Sun Down Motel.

It was built in 1978 on a plot of land called Cotton’s Land because it had belonged to a farmer named Cotton before he sold out. It opened in early 1979—still the cold season, before the tourist season began. There wasn’t much fanfare about its opening except for a photo of the motel, taken from just past the sign on the edge of Number Six Road. In front of the motel stood a woman, a man, and a young boy, their hands on his shoulders. The caption read: Janice and Carl McNamara, with their son Christopher, in front of their new motel, called the Sun Down. The motel is now open for business and features a pool, cable TV, and rooms at twenty dollars per night.

I looked closer at the little boy, recognizing Chris, the depressed guy who had hired me. Frankly, I hate this place. I come out here as little as possible. Every memory I have of this place is bad.

I looked at the photo for another minute. The Sun Down, on that day in early 1979, looked exactly like it did when I’d worked there last night—same doors, same fixtures, same sign. Except for Carl’s big collar, Chris’s gingham shirt, and Janice’s ultra-high-waisted pants—which were coming back in style anyway—I lived in this picture. Even the motel office sign behind Carl’s shoulder was the same one I saw every night. The parking lot was empty, the trees tall and dark in the backdrop. There was something creepy and comforting at the same time about the familiarity, as if Carl and Janice had never died, as if Chris hadn’t grown up miserable and wishing the motel had never existed. As if the woman in the flowered dress could open one of the room doors and step out to the railing, asking politely when the pool would open.

I printed the photo and flipped to the next mentions. The Sun Down hadn’t done well, even from the first—there was a marijuana bust there in December 1979, and a runaway girl was found there with her boyfriend in February 1980.

I scrolled to an article in July 1980 and froze.

BOY DIES IN TRAGIC POOL ACCIDENT, the headline read. It was buried in the back of the paper on July 13, 1980, two paragraphs in the “Local News” section. William Dandridge, known as Billy, age nine, had been staying at the Sun Down with his parents—they were driving to Florida—when he’d hit his head on the side of the pool. He’d been in the hospital for four days, his brain slowly swelling and dying, before he’d finally gone. His parents refused to speak to the press. When asked if the motel was going to hire a lifeguard, Janice McNamara had only said, “No. I think we’ll just close the pool.”

I stared at the monitor, my eyes going dry behind my glasses. That boy—I had seen him. Sitting on the motel’s second level, his hand against the panel as he leaned forward. I’d watched him run away.

It was him. And now I knew who he was.

“Excuse me,” a voice said at my shoulder. “Is this yours?”

I turned to find a man holding a stack of papers out to me. He was about my age, with soft golden brown hair worn a little long and brown eyes. He wore a black sweater and jeans, and behind him I could see a jacket and backpack on a table. I hadn’t even heard him come in.

I looked at the papers. It was the stack of articles I’d printed out—they were likely sitting in the printer on the other side of the room. The article on top was the headline that read WHO WAS VIVIAN DELANEY?

“Thanks,” I said, taking the stack of pages from him.

“Did you figure it out?” he asked. His voice was low but not quite a whisper. This was a library, but so far we were alone in this room.

“Figure what out?” I asked him.