The Innocent (15 page)

"YOU SURE?" Matt asked.

Cingle nodded. "Talley's been there at least two nights. Room 515."

Matt tried to put some of the pieces together. Nothing fit. "Do you have the phone number?"

"The Howard Johnson's? I can look it up online."

"Do that."

"You're going to just call him?"

"Yes."

"And say what?"

"Nothing yet. I just want to see if it's the same voice."

"The same voice as what?"

"The guy who called me whispering about what he was about to do to Olivia. I just want to know if it was Charles Talley."

"And if it was?"

"Hey, you think I have a long-term plan here?" Matt said. "I'm barely winging it."

"Use my phone. The caller ID is blocked."

Matt picked up the receiver. Cingle read off the number. The operator answered on the third ring. "Howard Johnson's, Newark Airport."

"Room 515, please."

"One moment."

With the first ring his heart began to pick up its pace. The third ring was cut off midway. Then he heard a voice say, "Yeah."

Matt calmly replaced the receiver.

Cingle looked up at him. "Well?"

"It's him," Matt said. "It's the same guy."

She frowned, crossed her arms. "So now what?"

"We could study the video and picture more," Matt said.

"Right."

"But I don't know what that would tell us. Suppose I'm wrong. Suppose it was Talley in both the video and the picture. Then we need to talk to him. Suppose it was two different men…"

"We still need to talk to him," Cingle said.

"Yes. I don't see where we have any choice. I have to go over there."

"
We
have to go over there."

"I'd rather go alone."

"And I'd rather shower with Hugh Jackman," Cingle said, standing. She took out her hair tie, tightened the ponytail, put the tie back in. "I'm coming."

Further argument would just delay the inevitable. "Okay, but you stay in the car. Man-to-man, alone, maybe I can get something out of him."

"Fine, whatever." Cingle was already on her way to the door. "I'll drive."

The ride took five minutes.

The Howard Johnson's could have been located near an uglier stretch of freeway, but not without a dumping permit. Or maybe they already had one. On one side of Frontage Road was the New Jersey Turnpike Exit 14 toll plaza. On the other side was the parking lot for Continental Airlines employees. Take Frontage Road a few hundred more feet, and you were at the Northern State Prison, conveniently located- more convenient than the Howard Johnson's even- to Newark Airport. Perfect for the quick getaway.

Cingle pulled up to the lobby entrance.

"You sure you want to go alone?" she asked.

"Yes."

"Give me your cell phone first," she said.

"Why?"

"I have this friend- a financial bigwig on Park Avenue. He taught me this trick. You put on your cell phone. You call mine. You leave it on and connected. I put the mute feature on my phone. Now it's like a one-way intercom. I can hear what you say and do. If there's any trouble, just shout."

Matt frowned. "A financial bigwig needs to do this?"

"You don't want to know."

Cingle took Matt's phone, dialed in her number, answered her phone. She handed his cell phone back to him. "Attach it to your belt. If you're in trouble, just yell for help."

"Okay."

The lobby was empty. Not a surprise considering the hour. He heard a bell ding when the glass door slid open. The night shift receptionist, an unshaven blob who resembled an overstuffed laundry bag, staggered into view. Matt waved to him without slowing, trying to look as if he belonged. The receptionist returned the wave, staggered back.

Matt reached the elevator and pushed the call button. There was only one working elevator car. He heard it start toward him with a grunt, but it took its time coming. Images again started flashing through his head. That video. The platinum-blonde wig. He still had no idea what it all meant, no clue at all.

Yesterday Cingle had compared all this to stepping into a fight- you couldn't predict the outcome. But here he was, about to open a door literally, and in truth he had no idea what he'd find behind it.

A minute later, Matt stood in front of the door to Room 515.

The gun was still on him. He debated taking it out and hiding it behind his back, but no, if Talley saw it, this would all go wrong. Matt lifted his hand and knocked. He listened. A noise came from down the corridor, a door opening, maybe. He turned.

Nobody.

He knocked again, harder this time.

"Talley?" he shouted. "You in there? We need to talk."

He waited. Nothing.

"Please open up, Talley. I just want to talk to you, that's all."

And then a voice came from behind the door, the same voice he'd heard on the phone: "One second."

The door to Room 515 opened.

And suddenly, standing in front of him, with that blue-black hair and knowing scowl, was Charles Talley.

Talley stood in the doorway, talking on his mobile phone. "Right," he said to whoever was on the other end. "Right, okay."

He gestured with his chin for Matt to step inside.

And that was exactly what Matt did.

LOREN THOUGHT about the jolt.

Matt had tried to cover it, but he'd reacted to the name Max Darrow. The question was, of course, why.

She actually took up Matt's challenge and semi-followed him- that is, she drove ahead and planted herself near the offices of MVD. She knew that the owner of the private investigation firm was an ex-fed. He had a reputation for discretion, but maybe he could be squeezed.

When Matt pulled in- just as he'd said- there were two other cars in the lot. Loren wrote down the license plate numbers. It was late. There was no reason to hang around now.

Twenty minutes later, Loren arrived home. Oscar, her oldest cat, nestled up for an ear scratch. Loren obliged but the cat quickly grew bored, meowed his impatience, and crept into the dark. There was a time when Oscar would dart away, but age and bad hips had ended that. Oscar was getting old. The vet had given Loren that look during the last checkup, the one that said she'd better start preparing. Loren blocked on it. In movies, it was always the kids who were, à la Old Yeller and its subsequent ripoffs, devastated by the loss of a pet. In reality kids get bored with pets. Lonely adults feel the loss most acutely. Like Loren.

It was freezing in the apartment. The air conditioner rattled against the windowsill, dripping water and keeping the room at a good temperature to store meat. Mom was asleep on the couch. The television was still on, playing an infomercial for some contraption guaranteed to give you six-pack abs. She flicked off the air conditioner. Her mother did not budge.

Loren stood in the doorway and listened to her mother's smoke-phlegm snore. The grating sound was something of a comfort- it eased Loren's own desire to light up. Loren didn't wake her mother. She didn't fluff her pillow or pull a blanket over her. She just watched for a few moments and wondered for the umpteenth time what she felt for this woman.

Loren made herself a ham sandwich, wolfed it down over the sink in the kitchen, and poured a glass of Chablis from a jug-shaped bottle. The garbage, she saw, needed to be taken out. The bag was overflowing, not that that ever stopped her mother from trying to stuff more into it.

She ran the dish under the faucet and lifted the garbage can with a sigh. Her mother still did not stir; there was no disturbance or variance in her phlegm-snore cycle. She took the bag to the Dumpster outside. The outside air was sticky. The crickets hummed. She tossed the bag on the heap.

When she got back to her apartment her mother was awake.

"Where were you?" Carmen asked.

"I had to work late."

"And you couldn't call?"

"Sorry."

"I was worried sick."

"Yeah," Loren said. "I saw how it affected your sleep."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"Nothing. Good night."

"You're so inconsiderate. How could you not call? I waited and waited-"

Loren shook her head. "I'm kinda getting tired of it, Mom."

"Of what?"

"Your constantly berating me."

"You want to throw me out?"

"I didn't say that."

"But that's what you want, isn't it? To have me gone?"

"Yes."

Carmen opened her mouth and put her hand to her chest. There was probably a time when men would react to such theatrics. Loren remembered all those photographs of the young Carmen- so lovely, so unhappy, so sure she deserved more.

"You'd throw out your own mother?"

"No. You asked if I wanted to. I do. But I won't."

"Am I that horrible?"

"Just… just stay off my back, okay?"

"I just want you to be happy."

"Right."

"I want you to find someone."

"You mean a man."

"Yes, of course."

Men- that was Carmen's answer to everything. Loren wanted to say,
"Yeah, Mom, look at how ecstatically happy men have made you,"
but she bit down.

"I just don't want you to be alone," her mother said.

"Like you," Loren said, wishing she hadn't.

She did not wait for the response. She headed into the bathroom and started getting ready for bed. When she came out, her mother was back on the couch. The television was off. The air conditioner was back on.

Loren said, "I'm sorry."

Her mother did not reply.

"Were there any messages?" Loren asked.

"Tom Cruise called twice."

"Fine, good night."

"What, you think that boyfriend of yours called?"

"Good night, Mother."

Loren headed into the bedroom and switched on the laptop. While it booted up, she decided to check the caller ID. Nope, Pete, her new boyfriend, hadn't called- hadn't called, for that matter, in three days. In fact, other than those that had emanated from her office, there had been no new calls at all.

Man, that was pitiful.

Pete was a nice enough guy, on the overweight side and sort of sweaty. He worked some district job for Stop amp; Shop. Loren could never figure out what he did exactly, probably because it really didn't interest her much. They were nothing steady, nothing serious, the kind of relationship that just glides along, that scientific principle about a body in motion will keep moving. Any friction would pretty much stop it in its tracks.

She glanced around the room, at the bad wallpaper, the nondescript bureau, the Kmart snap-together night table.

What kind of life was this?

Loren felt old and without prospects. She considered moving out west- to Arizona or New Mexico, someplace warm and new like that. Start fresh with great weather. But the truth is, she didn't like the outdoors all that much. She liked the rain and cold because they gave her an excuse to stay inside and watch a movie or read a book guilt-free.

The computer sprang to life. She checked her e-mail. There was a message from Ed Steinberg sent within the hour:

Loren,

I don't want to get into Trevor Wine's file on Max Darrow without involving him. We'll do that in the morning. Here are the prelims. Get some sleep, I'll see you at nine A.M.

– Boss

A file was attached. She downloaded the document and decided to print it out. Reading too much on a computer monitor made her eyes ache. She grabbed the pages out of her printer and slipped under the covers. Oscar managed to jump on the bed, but Loren could see him wince from the effort. The old cat cuddled next to her. Loren liked that.

She scanned the documents and was surprised to see that Trevor Wine had already come up with a decent hypothesis for the crime. According to the notes, Max Darrow, a former detective with the Las Vegas Police Department and current resident of Raleigh Heights, Nevada, had been found dead in a rental car near the Hebrew cemetery in Newark. According to the report, Max Darrow had been staying at the Newark Airport Howard Johnson's. He had rented a car from someplace called LuxDrive. The car, a Ford Taurus, had been driven, per the speedometer, eight miles in the two days the car had been in Darrow's possession.

Loren turned to the second page. Here was where things got interesting.

Max Darrow was found shot dead in the driver's seat of the rental car. No one had called it in. A patrol car had spotted the bloodstains on the window. When Darrow was found, his pants and boxers were pulled down around his ankles. His wallet was gone. The report stated that Darrow was wearing no jewelry when found, implying that he'd probably been robbed of those items too.

According to the preliminary report- everything was still preliminary- the blood found in the car, especially the trajectory on the windshield and driver-side window, showed that Darrow had been shot while sitting in the driver's seat of the car. Splatters were also found on the inside of his pants and boxers, which would be consistent with the man having his pants pulled down before the gun fired, not after.

The working theory was obvious: Max Darrow had decided to get lucky- or more likely, to buy some "get lucky." He had picked up the wrong prostitute who waited for the right moment- pants down- and then rolled him. Something had gone wrong then, though it was hard to say what. Maybe Darrow, being an ex-cop, had tried to make a hero play. Maybe the prostitute was simply too strung out. Whatever, she ends up shooting and killing Darrow. She takes what she can find- wallet, jewelry- and runs.

The investigative team, in cooperation with the Newark Police Department, would squeeze the prostitution trade. Someone would know what happened. They'd talk.

Case solved.

Loren put down the report. Wine's theory made sense if you didn't know about Darrow's fingerprints being found in Sister Mary Rose's room. Still, now that Loren knew that the lead theory was crap- what did she have left? Well, for one thing, this was probably a pretty clever setup.

Play it out for a second.

You want to kill Darrow. You get in a car with him. You put a gun to his head. You tell him to drive to a sleazy part of town. You make him pull down his pants- anyone who'd ever watched any forensic TV show would know that if you pulled the pants down after the shooting, the blood splatters would show that. Then you shoot him in the head, take his money and jewelry, make it look like a robbery.

Trevor Wine had bought it.

In a vacuum Loren probably would have come to the same conclusion.

So what would be the next logical step?

She sat up in bed.

Wine's theory had been that Max Darrow had done some cruisin' and picked up the wrong girl. But if that wasn't the case- Loren was sure of that much- how did the killer get in the car with Darrow in the first place? Wouldn't it be most logical to assume that Darrow was with his killer from the beginning of his car trip?

That meant Darrow probably knew his killer. Or at least did not view him as a threat.

She checked the mileage again. Only eight miles. Assuming he used it the day before, well, that meant that he hadn't driven very far.

There was something else to consider: Another set of fingerprints had been found in Sister Mary Rose's room- more specifically, on her body.

Okay, Loren thought, suppose Darrow was working with someone else- a partner maybe. They'd stay together, right? Or near each other, at the very least.

Darrow had been staying at the Howard Johnson's.

She checked the file. The rental car company LuxDrive- they had a counter at the same hotel.

So that was where it all started. At the Howard Johnson's.

Most hotels have security cameras. Had Trevor Wine checked out the ones at the Howard Johnson's yet?

Hard to say, but it would definitely be worth it for her to check it out.

Either way, it could wait until morning, right?

She tried to sleep. She sat in bed and closed her eyes. She did this for well over an hour. From the other room, she heard her mother's snores. The case was heating up. Loren felt the buzz in her blood. She pushed back the covers and got out of bed. There was no way she could sleep. Not now. Not when there was something of a clue in the air. And tomorrow she'd have a whole new set of problems, what with Ed Steinberg calling the feds and Trevor Wine getting involved.

She might be taken off the case.

Loren threw on her sweats, grabbed her wallet and ID. She tiptoed outside, started up her car, and headed for the Howard Johnson's.