Liquid fear

CHAPTER SEVEN

Call 911. Don’t call 911?

The body in the bathroom was cold, and even the world’s fastest ambulance would prove useless. But if Roland didn’t call right away, the suspicion would build, because the desk clerk would be able to confirm the time of the wake-up call.

Roland knew he was innocent (wasn’t he?), but the fact remained that he was behind a locked door with a dead woman in his motel room. Worst of all, he couldn’t account for a period of time that could range from hours to days. Maybe even weeks.

Roland glanced at the wallet lying on the bed. He couldn’t even prove his identity, at least not immediately.

How do you tell the cops you’re not David Underwood?

Wrestling his trembling legs into his pants, he collected the rental-car keys, painfully aware of all the surfaces he had touched. It was only when he found himself thinking about wiping down the doorknobs, the phone handset, and the light switches that he realized he was planning to flee.

A glance at the clock showed it was nearly ten. The maid would be by any minute, knocking on the door and reminding him to check out. Roland considered calling the front desk and putting another night on David Underwood’s credit card.

That would buy him some time to think. But he couldn’t stay in the room while a stranger’s body went through the early stages of decomposition a mere ten feet away. A soft gurgle echoed off the tiles in the bathroom, gastric acid settling inside livid flesh.

Had he touched her? Had sex with her? Not likely, since he’d awoken wearing his briefs. Then again, he had no idea how long she had been dead. He might have killed her two days No, he hadn’t killed anyone.

Right, David?

“I’m not David.” His own voice sounded alien to his ears. The name sounded vaguely familiar, like a character from a cancelled television show.

Or college. Most of college had been one long blackout. But that wouldn’t explain why he was here now with a corpse.

Possibilities ran through his head, and he pictured himself in a night club, buying her a drink, flashing that salesman’s smile. He might have asked her back to his place (“Short on charm but long where it counts, babe”), but even the friendliest woman was reluctant to go solo with a man she’d only just met. Serial-killer movies and Facebook perverts had all but snuffed out the chance for random hookups.

If she were a professional, then Roland had definitely fallen off the wagon and probably bumped his head in the bargain. She might even be someone he knew, maybe an old friend or previous encounter, or someone he’d met through one of the online dating sites.

Roland lifted the water glass from the nightstand and sniffed for lingering signs of liquor. Only the crisp smell of chlorine from municipal water treatment.

Some drugs are odorless and tasteless…

He tossed the inch of clear liquid into his dry mouth, working it down his throat, and replaced the glass, studying it for fingerprints. He wiped it with one of his socks, which was silly because his prints were all over the room. But this was one little detail he could control.

It was now two minutes after ten. He eased toward the bathroom door. Leaving more fingerprints, he reached inside and probed for the light switch. When he touched it, the phone rang, causing his heart to skip a couple of beats.

Four rings later, the sound abruptly died, and the ensuing silence, marred only by the muted whisper of traffic outside, was almost as jarring.

Roland peeked around the doorjamb as if respecting her privacy. Her left foot was nearest to him, toenails painted dark burgundy. Her legs were shaven, the skin smooth and unmarked. The robe had ridden up to just under the tuck of her buttocks, and her thigh was shapely, though the portion against the floor was heavy and blotched by lividity.

Farther up, near her waist, the robe was soaked with blood. In the greasy yellow light above the bathroom sink, the blood appeared crusty and brown. It was difficult to tell how long she had been dead without a closer examination.

He sniffed. No taint of decay filled the air, although the bathroom smelled faintly of mildew and cheap shampoo. The shower head leaked, creating an arrhythmic tick that measured its own time.

Roland glanced at the sink countertop. No sign of toothbrushes, razors, floss, aftershave, or the other usual detritus of the traveler. No clues.

Her face was turned away from the door, toward the tub. The hand nearest Roland was curled as if gripping an invisible ball. The fingers bore no rings. Her hair trailed in unkempt, luxuriant locks over her shoulders, though the blackness had lost a little of its natural luster and resembled a wig.

Eyeing the toilet, wondering if he’d be able to step over her if he needed to vomit, he edged toward the tub. Careful not to touch her, he knelt and peered under the folds of hair at her face. Her eyelids were sunken and grayish purple, mouth parted, lips gone pale.

Good. Never seen her before.

She appeared to be a few years younger than he was, but the bottle had aged him fast and he hadn’t spent a lot of time looking in mirrors lately. She was made up, the fake eyelashes a little exaggerated.

Her right hand, dangling on the rim of the bathtub, appeared to be pointing. It was most likely an act of rigor, tendons shrinking and tightening in decay. But Roland found himself looking at the back wall of the shower stall, in the direction of the finger.

Faint soap letters were scrawled in the shower residue: “C-R-O.”

Cro. Crow. Cro-Magnon. Crocodile Fucking Dundee.

The letters might have been there for weeks. In a low-budget motel, the shower might only get a good scrubbing twice a year. Some guest could have been playing a joke, goofing around, leaving a message for a spouse.

Sure, and some guest might have left a dead body in the bathroom for Roland to find upon awakening. Roland was grasping for bizarre explanations because he didn’t like the simplest one. Then again, he always looked for someone else to blame, no matter what the problem.

Unwilling to explore the body, both because of revulsion and a fear of leaving trace evidence, he glanced around the bathroom to see if he’d left any sign of his stay. For all he knew, she might be lying on top of one of his razor blades, a brand advertised to bring the girls up close and personal.

In any case, she certainly wasn’t carrying identification, since she appeared to be naked beneath the robe. Another theory that Roland didn’t have the stomach to confirm.

Instead, he left the ceramic-tiled tomb and retreated to the relative sanity of the sleeping area. He checked the closet but saw no purse, underwear, or clothing. No lipstick, no condom wrappers, no high heels.

Ten minutes had passed since the ringing of the telephone, and though his mind still ran frantic loops, his hands no longer trembled.

He was slipping into his shirt when the knock came. The interior of the bathroom was hidden from view of the front door. Roland glanced once behind him to reassure himself of the bathroom’s angle and cracked the door, making sure his foot was planted firmly behind it.

A Hispanic woman, wearing blue jeans and a white uniform shirt with a towel draped over one shoulder, gave him an uneasy smile. She stood before a cart that held the tools of a maid’s trade: stacks of folded linen, spray bottles, mop, toilet brush, and a bucket of gray water that smelled of pine cleanser and bleach. She’d obviously expected to find an empty room and had given a perfunctory knock out of habit.

The woman pointed at her wrist, though she wore no watch, and said, “Time for checkout?” in a thick accent. A question, with the tone of one who had learned the hard way the customer was always right.

Roland managed a return smile, though his lips felt numb and paralyzed with shock. “Slept late,” he said, faking a yawn. “Give me ten minutes. I need a quick shower.”

The woman nodded and looked at a piece of notebook paper taped to her cart, then at the room number. “Okay, Mr. Underwood. But you tell the desk.”

She said “desk” as if the destination was some sort of principal’s office for wayward adults.

“No desk,” Roland said, the smile frozen on his face. He was hiding a corpse, but he could lie with his eyes and his face and his hands and his heart. Some habits never died.

“Por favor,” he said in bad Spanish, and he actually winked. He lifted a hand and realized it was still covered by the sock. He worked it like a puppet, grinned like an idiot, and then removed it. Digging into his wallet-David’s wallet, he chided himself-he pulled out a ten-dollar bill and held it toward the maid.

She shrank back as if it were the badge of a U.S. Immigration Service agent. She glanced from the office below back to the money. “I want no trouble.”

“Neither do I, but I don’t want to meet my wife at the airport smelling like a pig.”

“The desk finds out, I have trouble.”

“My wife can be trouble, too. Mucho bad.”

The maid hesitated, as if calculating the risk and mentally converting the dollars to pesos. “You hurry?”

“Five minutes, I promise.”

Roland was sickened by the look in the woman’s eyes and was ashamed how cheaply she could be led into conspiracy. But he was quite possibly a murderer, and bribery was several notches down the moral scale.

She took the bill and secured it in her pocket. Roland wondered if, when the police interrogated her, she would tell them about the money. He figured its DNA and fingerprint evidence would never enter a courtroom. He only hoped she had a green card, for her sake.

“Five minutes?” she asked, glancing at the office again and the omnipotent front desk that was hidden behind its tinted glass.

“Cross my heart,” he said, declining to complete the last half of the promise. He closed the door, found that sweat had stained the underarms of his shirt, and wondered if five minutes would be enough.

Even if he mustered the will to touch the body, the maid would find it whether it was tucked in the closet or hidden under the bed. He considered turning on the taps in the bathtub and locking the door, letting the maid assume he was showering. That might buy him an extra half an hour.

But minutes meant nothing in the face of eternity. In recovery from alcoholism, Roland had practiced principles of rigorous honesty and self-examination, including a core commitment to purposely harm no one.

Somewhere in the space of maybe three days, he had not only traveled five hundred miles but had lost his identity. Or maybe he hadn’t lost his identity at all, but found it.

If I’m David Underwood, who the fuck was Roland Doyle?

As he gathered his belongings and wiped down the telephone with the sock, he realized the police would be looking for David Underwood, not Roland Doyle. The world believed David had rented this room, and the police would put out an All Points Bulletin not for Roland, but for his spontaneous alter ego.

Despite the roiling of his gut and his hop-scotching pulse, he found comfort in the idea that David would be the fall guy. The latest contestant to suit up and show up for the Blame Game.

The car keys jingled in Roland’s jacket pocket. He pulled out the orange plastic vial and gave it a shake as he held it up for inspection. It contained maybe eight pills. A plain white label bore bold print that read simply, “D. Underwood. Take one every 4 hrs. or else.”

Or else what?

LSD? A kick-ass barbiturate? Diazepam?

And, the bigger question, how many of them had he taken? Enough to blot out a murder?

He shoved the vial back in his pocket. Two minutes until the maid returned.

Run now, sort it out later.

That’s what drunks and cowards did.

That’s what Roland Doyle had always done.

Familiarity gave him comfort.

A drink would offer even more comfort.

He slipped his bare feet into his Oxfords, gathered his laptop and satchel, and took a final look at the bathroom. Hand in sock, he twisted the door handle, exited the room, and hurried along the balcony, hoping that bastard David had left him the right car key.

The outside surroundings were urban, but rounded hills and a river bordered the low buildings, a series of steel bridges glistening in the morning sun. The air smelled of coal smoke and chemicals. He recognized the city now as definitely Cincinnati, its Revolutionary War roots giving way to redevelopment, the arts, and young corporate professionals.

And the occasional surprise corpse.

He picked out the car and slid behind the seat.

Sitting on the dash in front of the speedometer was a handwritten note. It said, “Or else you’ll remember.”