Black River

FORTY-NINE

It was a few minutes after four o’clock in the morning when O’Brien pulled his Jeep onto the hotel parking lot. Although mostly filled with cars, the lot had a secluded, surreal look as a soft rain fell through bluish light cast from two streetlights. The shower did little to loosen road dirt on the cars; most of which bore out-of-state license plates. O’Brien scanned the car tags as he drove across the lot. He glanced at windshields, looking for signs that wipers may have recently been turned on or off.

All the cars appeared to have been parked for a while. Business travelers, sales people, tourists — everyone tucked into their temporary beds behind doors with numbers painted on them. O’Brien read the room numbers while he cruised slowly through the lot. He could see that the hotel had at least eighty rooms, the first forty or so on the ground floor. He looked for room twenty-three. There it was. Bottom floor. Curtains closed. Lights off.

And then he looked for surveillance cameras. There were two that he could see. Maybe more. His options were to kick in the door — his break-in would be caught on camera, or he could find the front desk clerk and convince him or her to open the door to room twenty-three. He pulled his Jeep into a spot near the office and ran toward the door.

The lobby was brightly lit. No one could be seen. A stack of USA Today newspapers sat near the desk. The phone buzzed. No one came out from the back office to answer it. The Weather Channel played on a TV monitor above the front desk, the meteorologist talking about a tornado touching ground in Arkansas. O’Brien looked around the lobby. He thought there was a trace of spent gunpowder in the air. His heart beat faster.

The first sign.

Amber colored glass lay shattered on the white tile floor near one corner of the lobby. The security camera had been hit with a bullet, lens splintered, replaced with a single dark and vacant hole staring at O’Brien like a blinded, one-eyed creature. He lifted his Glock, went behind the front desk, carefully opening the office door.

The smell of fresh human blood and gunpowder met him at the threshold. The body of a middle-aged man lay sprawled next to a desk, face and hands ashen, more than a quart of blood on the floor near what was left of the man’s head.

O’Brien glanced up at the bank of security monitors. No images. Nothing but black. He turned, picked up a paper napkin near a coffee pot, and ran out of the lobby, ran quietly down the cement walkway near the ground-level rooms. Within thirty seconds, he stood in front of room twenty-three. He leaned closer, placing his right ear on the door. Listening. Silence. The only sounds came from a tractor-trailer rig changing gears on a freeway entrance ramp.

He looked to his left, then to his right. Moths flew in and out of the light from a flood lamp on one corner of the hotel. O’Brien placed the napkin gently on the doorknob and tried to turn it. Locked. He stepped back and kicked hard, the heel of his shoe striking near the handle. The door flew open, wood splintering. O’Brien stepped inside, leveling his Glock, sweeping around the small room. There was the same smell of death. Burnt gunpowder and spilled blood. The odor of copper pennies, urine and feces.

O’Brien felt the rush of adrenaline-fueled blood pumping through his temples. He looked at the body of Professor Ike Kirby lying in the bed, his head back against the headboard, shot between the eyes, his lifeless eyes open and staring at the ceiling. O’Brien stepped into the bathroom, Glock extended, his heart pounding.

No one.

He searched the room, careful not to touch anything, looking for the Civil War contract. He looked in drawers, the professor’s open suitcase. Nothing. Then he hunted for the dead man’s cell phone. It was on the floor. O’Brien used a handkerchief to pick up the phone. Had the killer scrolled through emails, text messages or phone calls? That would give him access to Ike’s immediate circle of friends, including Dave Collins. O’Brien scrolled to the last number called. It wasn’t Dave’s number…it was someone else. O’Brien looked at the time of the call and the length. Odd. Less than five seconds.

Sirens. Police and emergency vehicles racing to the scene.

O’Brien set the phone down. He ran from the room. Ran from the horror — the reek of death. He drove east toward a steely sunrise, the illusion of dawn squinting through charcoal gray clouds. Three squad cars, two unmarked cars, blue lights spinning, engines roaring, sped past O’Brien’s Jeep. He knew they were responding to the information they just got from Laura. Maybe Detective Dan Grant was en route. O’Brien could turn the Jeep around, drive back to the hotel and tell Dan or officers what he found. But that would create unnecessary complications. The killer had vanished. They’d find nothing but bodies. It was too late for the police cavalry. Too late for a genteel history professor and a middle-aged hotel clerk simply trying to pay the bills. Both killed by someone they didn’t know, and for reasons they’d never know.

O’Brien knew that whoever killed Ike Kirby left no evidence behind. Taking out the security cameras meant having to take out the hotel night clerk. It was the work of a pro. Who was he? A hired gun, or someone working for himself? Why was the Civil War contract so valuable to someone that it was worth killing three people to get it? Could the executioner have the stolen diamond as well? Who did Ike try to call before he was killed?

O’Brien thought about that as he drove through the dim morning, a misty rain spraying the windshield. He was exhausted but could feel the current of adrenaline in his body. He glanced down at his phone on the Jeep’s console. There was no way he’d deliver the horrible news to Dave over the phone. Soon the pendulum swing of the wipers and the hypnotic drone of the engine helped evaporate some anxiety from his mind. He’d be back at the marina in forty minutes — forty minutes to think of a how he’d tell Dave that his friend of forty years was dead.