The Sun Down Motel

“No, ma’am, I do not think that,” Viv said with the straight seriousness that Alma would give the words. “But I would like to know, if one of your men was in the area, if there’s anything he remembers seeing. Strangers or suspicious folks hanging around, if you know what I mean.”

“Oh, sure, I get it.” Viv heard the rustle of papers. “Did you say Peacemaker Avenue? We keep records of which salesman covered which territory. It’s important to keep it straight so they aren’t overlapping and the commissions are paid right.”

“I’m sure you keep good records, ma’am, and I appreciate anything you can tell me.”

There was more rustling of papers, the sound of pages turning in a scheduling book. “Here it is. You say someone saw one of our salesmen there?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Well, I don’t know what they were talking about. We haven’t had a salesman cover Peacemaker Avenue since August of last year.”

Viv was silent, her blood singing in her ears, her head light. Victoria Lee, who lived on Peacemaker Avenue, had been killed in August of ’81.

She had just connected the traveling salesman with Victoria Lee—whose boyfriend was in prison for the murder.

“Hello?” the woman on the other end said. “Are you still there?”

Think, Viv. “Yes, sorry,” she said, channeling Alma again. “Can you let me know which of your salesmen that was? I’d still like to talk to him. Maybe he’s been back to the area and it isn’t in the schedule.”

“That’s true,” the woman said to Viv’s relief. “He may have made a follow-up call. That wouldn’t be in the book.” There was a pause. “Well, darn. We do the schedule in pencil because there are so many changes, but someone’s gone and erased the name right out of the book.”

“Really?” Checkmate, Simon Hess, she thought. “That’s strange.”

“It sure is. Maybe two of our men were going to trade and the new names didn’t get written in.”

Viv thanked the woman and hung up. So Simon Hess was covering his tracks. But it was something. She was closing in. She wrote a checkmark next to Victoria’s name.

She flipped to another phone number she’d pulled from the phone book. It was time to put Simon Hess and Cathy Caldwell together.

“Hello?” an older woman’s voice said when Viv had dialed the number.

She didn’t use Alma’s voice this time. Instead, she used the voice she’d just heard at Westlake Lock Systems. “Hello, is this Mrs. Caldwell?”

“No, I’m not Mrs. Caldwell. I’m her mother. Mrs. Caldwell is dead.”

Viv’s throat closed. Stupid, so stupid. She’d assumed that Cathy’s mother would also be Mrs. Caldwell, though of course Caldwell was Cathy’s married name. “Ma’am, I’m so sorry,” she managed.

The woman sighed wearily. “What are you selling?”

“I’m not—” She had to get a grip. “I’m, um, calling from Westlake Lock Systems. I wanted to know if you’re satisfied with the locks you bought two years ago.”

It was a long shot. But all the woman had to say was I don’t know what you’re talking about and the conversation would be over. I wish I really were a police officer, she thought. It would be so much easier to get people to answer questions.

But the woman replied with, “I suppose they’re fine. I remember when Andrew and Cathy bought them. They didn’t want to spend the money, but your salesman convinced them. With Andrew gone so much, they thought it would make Cathy safer. It didn’t work.”

Viv’s hand was shaking as she put a checkmark next to Cathy’s name. “Ma’am, I think—”

“You’re one of those ghouls, aren’t you?” the woman said. “You aren’t from the lock company at all. Then again, I wonder how you knew about the locks Cathy put in. You’re likely not going to tell me. So let me tell you something instead.”

“Ma’am?” Viv said.

“You think we haven’t had dozens of phone calls at this house? Hundreds? I moved in after Cathy died because my grandson was left without a mother. Andrew is deployed again so it’s just my boy and me. And I’m the one who answers the damn phone calls. They’ve tapered off over the past two years, but we still get them. I can tell a ghoul from the first minute I answer the phone.”

Viv was silent.

The woman didn’t need an answer. “I’ve heard everything,” she continued. “Cathy was a slut, Cathy was a saint. Cathy was targeted by Communists or Satanists. Cathy was killed by a black man, a Mexican. Cathy was having a lesbian affair. Cathy got what she deserved because she had left the path of God. I’ve told Andrew to unlist the number, but he won’t do it. You ghouls have all the answers, except one: You can’t tell me who the hell killed my daughter.”

The woman’s voice was raw with pain and anger. It came through the phone line like a miasma. Viv still couldn’t speak.

“It’s never going to happen,” the woman said. “Finding him. Arresting him. Letting me watch him fry. I thought for a long time that I would get that chance. But it’s been two years, and they still don’t know who took my girl. Who stripped her, put a knife in her, and dumped her. A sweet girl who wanted to earn her next paycheck and raise her baby. Do you know who killed her? Can you end this for me?”

The words were right there. Sitting in her throat. His name is Simon Hess. But something stopped her; maybe it was the knowledge that saying it wouldn’t end this woman’s pain. “I—”

“Of course you don’t know,” Cathy’s mother said. She sounded angry and tired, so tired. “None of you people ever know.”

“He won’t get away forever.” Viv’s voice was hoarse with her own emotion—anger and a different kind of exhaustion. She was tired, too, though she couldn’t imagine how tired Cathy’s mother must be. “He can’t. He’ll make a mistake. He’ll come into the light. There will be justice, I swear.”

“No,” Cathy’s mother said. “There won’t. I’m going to die not knowing who killed my baby. He’s going to walk free.”

There was a click as she hung up.

Viv sat silent for a long time after she put the phone down. She wiped the tears from her cheeks. Then she got up to get dressed.

* * *

• • •

“Thank you for meeting me,” Marnie said to Viv the next day as they sat on a bench in a park in downtown Fell. “During the day, no less.”