Deadlock

42

Lock stood in the tiny wood-paneled reception of the motel just off North Riverside Avenue in Medford and slammed his hand down on the old-fashioned bell. The desk jockey, an overweight man in his early thirties with red hair, emerged from the back room.

‘Good morning, sir, and how may I help you?’ he chirped, his sunny outlook verging on the Canadian.

Jesus on a stick, thought Lock, the guy was acting like the town had just been awarded the Olympics rather than having just stood witness to a jailbreak worthy of one of the shittier Afghan provinces.

The desk jockey, his grin threatening to annex his jaw from the rest of his face, leaned forward, and Lock caught a whiff of day-old fried onions overlaid by breath mints. ‘Sir?’

Lock propped his elbows on the desk and leaned in too, mirroring the man’s body language. ‘Are you OK?’

The man’s grin ebbed at the edges. The look in his eyes suggested that he thought this might be a trick question. ‘Yes, sir,’ he replied nervously. ‘Why do you ask?’

‘Well,’ said Lock, ‘last night this town was lit up like downtown Basra, but you look happier than a pig in shit.’

The man shook his head slowly. ‘I know. Terrible. And in Medford of all places. But life moves on,’ he added, perking up again.

‘Sure,’ said Lock, thinking that for quite a few people it wouldn’t. He stood up straight again. ‘Were you on duty last night?’

‘Sure was.’

‘One of your guests, a Ms Jones…’

The man looked blank.

‘African-American woman. Late twenties. Tall. Good-looking.’

‘Oh, yes. Very elegant lady. Very nice manners.’

‘Quite,’ said Lock. ‘I need to know when you last saw her.’

The man stroked an imaginary beard. ‘Let me see now. She came back in around nine o’clock to pick up her key. But after that, I don’t know. I didn’t see her leave.’

‘She was murdered last night. The van that exploded outside the courthouse, she was in it when it went up.’

The desk jockey went pale. He opened his mouth, then closed it again. Evidently this isn’t something covered in training, Lock thought.

‘So you didn’t see her leave?’

‘No, sir.’

‘Do you have CCTV cameras?’

‘Just here in the office.’

Lock looked up. A single camera was mounted in the corner of the far wall behind the desk to capture anyone coming in or leaving. ‘In that case, may I see the room she was staying in?’

At this, the man looked serious. ‘Sir, are you with the FBI or something?’

‘I can’t tell you who I’m with,’ said Lock, taking a chance. ‘But I need to see that room.’

‘Do you have some identification?’

Lock leaned over the counter. ‘What’s your name?’

The man’s eyes flitted beyond Lock to the door. ‘Dale.’

‘Dale, do you love your country?’

‘Yes, sir.’

Lock made a show of pushing back his jacket so that the holster holding his SIG was in plain sight. Not that he looked down, or even acknowledged that he’d done it, but Dale’s eyes were growing wide. ‘I’m very glad to hear that, because there are people out there right now who definitely don’t. And I need to find them, fast. And you can help me, Dale. You can help me by showing me that room.’

Dale still looked unsure, so Lock pressed on, his right hand on the handle of his Sig. ‘Now, Dale, are you going to be a true American patriot and help me out here?’

‘Absolutely, sir,’ said Dale.

Visibly shaking, he reached beneath the counter for a key attached to a black fob with the room number etched on it in white, which he slid towards Lock.

Sensing that Dale was going to be on the phone to the local cops as soon as he was out of sight, Lock took the key and walked quickly towards the elevator.

Jalicia’s room was tucked away at the back of the main motel building along with half a dozen other rooms, all of which ran at a ninety-degree angle to the rest of the hotel, which faced out on to the main avenue. The room’s position would have made Jalicia hard to spot as she came and went, Lock thought. Perhaps she’d chosen it for that very reason, thinking that the lower a profile she kept the safer she would be.

He opened the door and stepped inside. The room itself was basic. A double bed dominated the small space. It was still made up, although Lock noticed that the sheet stretched over the red-patterned comforter was wrinkled at the bottom right-hand corner, as if someone had sat on that part of it. Opposite the bed was a desk. Next to the desk was a wardrobe and a chest of drawers. A small portable television was perched atop the wardrobe.

Lock closed the door behind him, crossed to the desk and opened the first of three drawers. A Bible. In the second drawer were a couple of leaflets on local tourist attractions. Nothing looked like it had been moved. Lock couldn’t imagine that Jalicia would even have glanced at the leaflets. Thinking about it now, he couldn’t even imagine Jalicia outside work. She must have a family, he thought. Did they know she was dead? He opened and closed the final drawer, which was empty, thinking of the bitter blow it would be for them. From what little he knew, Jalicia had clawed her way up from a disadvantaged background. He could only imagine the sacrifices both she and they must have made.

Lock stood there for a moment, allowing his anger at the injustice of it all to settle, cold and hard, at the base of his stomach, then he took a few steps and opened the wardrobe. Her clothes were still on the hangers. He’d never really registered her perfume when he met Jalicia, but he could smell it now. It was feminine, but understated. You wouldn’t have been aware of it unless you were up close, which he guessed not many men had been.

He quickly rifled through her clothes, then ran his fingertips along the bottom of the wardrobe, although he wasn’t sure exactly what he was hoping to find. Closing the wardrobe door, he moved to the chest of drawers. The top drawer contained Jalicia’s underwear, which was mostly black and lace-edged. For the first time since he’d walked into the room he felt like he was being intrusive. He closed the drawer and went quickly through the others. Everything was folded neatly.

Finally, he moved into the small bathroom. A make-up bag lay open on the counter, and the shower curtain was pulled back. A vaguely damp towel was folded neatly over a rail. He walked back out of the bathroom and stood next to the bed. Nothing disturbed. Nothing out of place. The room told at least part of the story: Jalicia had left of her own accord.

Lock exited the room and stood outside the motel, his back to the wall. Jalicia’s car was a pale blue Volkswagen Jetta. He was sure he’d seen her get into it after Reaper’s testimony had come to an abrupt end.

He walked to the front of the motel but couldn’t see it. He retraced his steps back to Jalicia’s room and beyond, to an area at the back of the motel. There it was, parked in a row of five lined spaces that were marked out next to two huge commercial trash containers. But her keys hadn’t been in her room, and neither was her handbag. She must have left with them, Lock thought, but not used her car.

So, she would have walked out of the room some time after nine but never made it as far as her car — a distance of maybe twenty yards. Yet there were rooms all around, and people in them. If there had been a struggle, surely someone would have heard something?

Of course, maybe they had. Lock walked towards the middle of the parking lot and turned to face the building. It was a low-rent motel late at night. If Jalicia had made a noise, the other guests might have put it down to any number of things.

Even with all that, he couldn’t imagine Jalicia being abducted without putting up a hell of a struggle. She was a fighter; that was her nature. He walked slowly towards her car, hunkering down, looking for something, anything; a speck of blood, something dropped from her bag. But there was nothing.

He stood back, his hands still on his knees, his head down. From close by came the trill of a cell phone. Not from a room, but outside. Just feet away. Lock looked around to see if there was anyone to whom it might belong. Maybe Dale the desk jockey had come to check on him? But no, Lock was still alone.

It kept ringing. It was coming from one of the big trash containers. Lock grabbed at the top of the first container, hauled himself up and looked down into it, spotting the flashing display almost immediately. He let go, stepped back, and this time took a running jump, almost falling into the container head first. His elbows over the lip, he swung over a leg, reached down and managed to pluck out the cell phone just as it stopped ringing.

Extricating his leg, he dropped back down to the ground and jammed the phone into the back pocket of his denims as two Medford Police Department cops rounded the corner.

‘Sir, place your hands where we can see them, and do not make any sudden movements.’