Chapter Twenty-Five
Jess was on the floor, furiously scrubbing the tile grout in the bathroom when Sam got home. Crocheting like a mad woman hadn’t helped clear the ick from her day. Yes, she’d done an excellent job for her client. Yes, she’d stopped a pair of scammers from ruining the business of a very nice lady, but it still didn’t make her feel better. She’d hoped hard labor would lift her mood. So far, no success.
“You have a bad day?” he said when she grumbled under her breath at his hello and didn’t look up.
“I will never be able to enjoy sex ever again,” she said and told him about the Johnson’s. He pulled her to her feet, yanked the rubber gloves off her hands, and proceeded over the next thirty minutes to show her she was incorrect in that assessment. Darn it.
Afterward, during requisite post-coital chitchat, she told Sam that she needed a new job.
“You love your job.”
This was hard to argue. “Okay, but I’m not a fan of peeping through windows at people having sex.”
Sam slid up against the headboard. “We all hate part of our jobs. I saw things in Chicago homicide that would break your heart.” He tugged her up next to him. “You have to compartmentalize. You do a lot of good, too.”
Her mind went to a recent case where she’d helped find a missing girl who’d gotten mixed up with a local thug. If not for Jess, and her determined and loving parents, who knows where she’d have ended up.
Damn. He was right again. This was becoming a habit.
“Agreed.” She rolled from the bed and headed for the bathroom while he let out a low whistle. “No more of this sex stuff. We have a sniper to catch.”
* * *
Since the sniper was likely not local, and Summer was eager to jump into the case, Jess asked her to shoot a list of the names and addresses of all the hotel/motel/B&B’s within a twenty-mile radius that had a least one single female guest and an extended stay. Those that couldn’t be eliminated through Summer hacking into security cameras were kept on the list. By the time she finished digging, they had a solid dozen or so potential suspects. Add the vague description of the shooter to the mix, and they were ready.
“I don’t like this,” Sam said as he slid his dark slacks up his legs. It was a shame for him to wear clothes. “We should stay together.”
“Noted.”
Despite Wheeler’s misgivings about splitting up, Jess insisted they could cover more ground separately. While he finished dressing, Jess fed Spike, took him outside, and put him in her SUV. The dog appeared to be smiling. He did love going for rides. Anything was better than the laundry room.
“Happy?”
Wheeler grumbled and drove off.
The dog stuck his big head out of the open window. His ears flapped in the breeze when they got up to cruising speed on the freeway. Her first stop was just on the edge of Ypsilanti. The hotel booked by the hour.
The smell of stale cigarette smoke and rose-scented air freshener caused her throat to close up as the glass door swung shut behind her. A short woman in a floral muumuu ambled out from the back at the overhead bell ringing on the door.
She appeared worn and tired and long past the time when she’d had the youthful hope of a bright future.
“Help you?” she asked and coughed into her elbow.
Jess handed over her card. “I’m looking for a woman somewhere between twenty and thirty who’d have rented a room for at least a week. Maybe two. She’s a curvy girl and might be carrying a long gun case.”
The woman stared. Jess pulled out a ten and slid it over the desk. “Ain’t seen her.”
“But do you have an extended stay guest?” The girl could be in disguise. At this point, Jess couldn’t rule anyone out.
The woman sighed. “Solange. If anyone asks, what she does in her room ain’t none of my business.”
Ah. A working girl.
Jess watched the clerk vanish back into the office. Normally she’d confirm the info but was fairly sure their sniper was not supplementing her income with that type of side job.
She walked out. “No luck, buddy.” Spike barked.
Next was a B&B. The two women residing in room 205 were in their fifties and on their honeymoon. Jess congratulated them and left. The third hotel was a medium-sized chain hotel. The desk clerk informed Jess that the privacy of their guests was critical and she wouldn’t give her any information, other than the extended guests were Asian and in Ann Arbor for the month on business.
“Thank you.” Another dead end.
She and Spike hit a drive thru for a yogurt parfait for her and a small chicken nugget box for Spike. “If I was a teacher, I’d be on the tail end of my summer break right now and not smelling like smoke and canned flowers.”
Spike burped.
“Yea. You’re right. I’d make a terrible teacher.”
They drove on. The next motel was a squat one story building that abutted a cracked parking lot near a pair of gas stations. It was right off the freeway.
The beige paint over stucco was decades past needing an update and the green shutters on several of the windows hung askew and were missing slats. The motel sign touted long-term rentals and Jess had to wonder what would entice anyone to stay here for one day much less long-term.
A thin man with a droopy face and blank expression leaned against the desk as she parked out front and stepped inside. The carpet smelled perpetually damp and the fan on the ceiling did nothing to ease the heavy humidity in the office.
The clerk’s white shirt was stained with ketchup and he had the same hopelessness of the other woman, but he managed a half smile anyway, as if pleased to be employed at all.
She appreciated the effort.
“You need a room?” he asked and reached for a pen.
“Not today.” She produced her card and explained her visit, ending with, “She’s young and probably keeps to herself. She’d also have few visitors.”
He blinked. She pushed a ten across the counter. Irving would enjoy her expense accounting for this month. He saw small bribes as a way of getting information. It helped add legitimacy to the business.
“There’s a woman in 110 at the end. She fits your description. Kind of odd, that one.”
In a place like this, Jess had to wonder what would rise to the level of odd in his eyes.
“Do you know if she’s in?”
He walked around the desk with an unsteady gait and looked out the door. “Her blue car is there. She’s in.”
“Thank you.” Jess walked back to the SUV and got her gun and Mace. She’d take no chances. Spike had his head and shoulders out the window. “Be a good boy and don’t eat my seat.” She gave him a head scratch, then put her gun in the holster at her waist. She sent Wheeler a text to let him know where she was and headed toward 110.
An old man in an electric wheelchair outside the open door of room 106 nodded as she passed and adjusted a flowered quilt on his lap. He was staring blankly at a smart phone in one hand as if trying to figure out how to use it. Jess said hi and continued on.
Since each room had a designated parking space, she easily found the car the clerk had mentioned. She glanced at the window of the room and the curtains were closed, so she took a brief walk around the car. It wasn’t a rental from what she could tell and it was in rough condition. If it belonged to the sniper, she spent her money elsewhere.
After approaching the door, she knocked. A blast as the door exploded into bits knocked her to her knees.