Kiss Her Goodbye

47

He went straight to the Chrysler, shut himself inside, then closed his eyes and leaned his forehead against the wheel.

Willing himself to concentrate, he tried to remember what he’d done last night. He knew he’d followed Nemo, saw him get out of the Del Sol, go into the motel office — then nothing. Nada. Zip. Zero.

Now Luther was dead and Donovan had mud on his shoes. And a dull, sick ache in his stomach told him that Waxman was wrong. It wasn’t Nemo who shot Luther. It wasn’t Nemo at all.

Sitting upright, he reached under his coat, pulled out his Glock, and ejected the cartridge. It had been full when Al Cleveland gave it to him. Now, three rounds were missing.

Three rounds.

But that didn’t add up, did it? Luther had taken one to the arm and another to the back, while Charlie Kruger took three hits, making a total of five.

So maybe Waxman was right, maybe the killer had been Nemo after all.

But what about the blood on the carpet?

Unlike Waxman, Donovan had spent some time with homicide, just prior to going federal, and he knew-just as the forensics techs would soon confirm-that it wasn’t Charlie Kruger’s blood on that carpet. Charlie was already on the bed when he was shot.

The simple process of elimination said it was Nemo’s blood. It had to be.

And if Nemo had been lying on that carpet, where was he now? No way he could’ve lost that much blood and walked away. Besides, the stain was static. No trail to the bed, no trail any…

The bedspread. One of the bedspreads was missing.

Had someone used it to transport the body?

When investigating a crime, it’s easy to come up with a half dozen different theories, different ways the job could have gone down. Each one is kept in mind as the crime scene is processed, but no matter how many theories you come up with, there’s always one that stands out. One that makes the most sense. One that sticks in your mind even before the evidence is collected.

The one in Donovan’s mind went something like this:

Nemo drove straight to the motel, which meant he’d been here before. He knew Charlie Kruger, had met him sometime in the past, and he knew that Kruger was hiding Luther. Pissed off and wanting his money, he grabbed Kruger and forced him to take him to Luther’s room.

Once inside, Nemo demanded the cash, shooting Kruger in an attempt to scare Luther into giving it up.

Then something unexpected happened. An uninvited guest arrived, shot Nemo, winged Luther, and chased him through the bathroom window and onto the field.

Luther had been shot twice.

And Nemo?

Judging by the pattern of the stain, Donovan would guess he’d suffered a head wound. Probably a single shot, close range.

Which meant three rounds from the same weapon.

Nemo’s head, Luther’s arm and back.

Glancing uneasily at the Glock and its cartridge in his hands, Donovan shifted his gaze to the cigarette butts crowding the ashtray.

The killer had smoked a cigarette, flicked it onto Luther’s chest, then calmly walked back to the motel room, grabbed a bedspread, and rolled up Nemo’s body.

But why? And where had he taken it?

A sudden thought occurred to Donovan, accompanied by a surge of panic.

Bracing himself, he took the keys from the ignition, then climbed out of the Chrysler and moved around to the trunk. Shoving the key into the slot, he hesitated a moment, then slowly turned it.

The latch popped open with a loud thunk.

Glancing around to make sure no one was watching, Donovan carefully raised the lid, knowing exactly what was in there before he even looked inside.

To his surprise and relief, however, he was wrong. The trunk was empty. No bedspread, no Nemo.

Not that this changed anything. He had no doubt that Nemo was dead, nor did he harbor any illusions about who had pulled the trigger.

But again he wondered, where was the body?

Then he remembered the Del Sol.

He found it in the back of the gas station, only yards from where he’d parked last night. It sat in the middle of a row of cars in various states of disrepair. They looked as if they’d been there for half a decade.

The gas station was closed, just as it had been the night before, and judging by the condition of the pumps and the graffiti on the windows, it wouldn’t be opening anytime soon.

Donovan exited the Chrysler and crossed toward the Del Sol, pausing when he realized the driver’s seat was occupied.

Bobby Nemo.

He put a hand under his coat, touching the butt of his Glock, a precautionary habit more than anything else.

“Bobby?” he said, not really expecting an answer.

He didn’t get one. Nemo didn’t move. No reason he should. He was dead, the missing bedspread wrapped around him, a single gunshot wound to the right side of his head.

Donovan leaned in for a closer look and something caught his eye: a folded scrap of paper protruding from between Nemo’s lips.

He hesitated. What the fuck?

With trembling fingers, he reached in through the open window and pulled it free.

There was a logo just above the fold. Motel stationery, a dozen years old, printed back in the days when the Wayfarer Inn was halfway respectable.

His name was written across it in black ink:

Special Agent Jack

Not knowing what to expect, Donovan slowly unfolded it and found more black ink with nine underlined spaces beneath:

AUTOGENOUS WORK THAT CAN GET YOU ARRESTED

A makeshift crossword puzzle.

Knowing he’d just stepped off a high cliff into the abyss, Donovan mulled the clue over in his mind a moment, trying to make sense of it.

Autogenous work that can get you arrested.

Autogenous.

Produced from within.

It took him a moment longer, but when Donovan finally solved it, there was no doubt in his mind who the message was from and what it meant.

Alexander Gunderson was back among the living.