The Sun Down Motel

But of course she wouldn’t do that.

Instead she toggled the phone a few times to make sure the line was clear, then dialed the number for the Fell Police Department.

A bored, gravelly male voice answered. “Fell PD.”

“Hi,” Viv said. “I, um, I work at the Sun Down Motel. At reception.”

“Yeah.”

“There’s a fight going on in our parking lot. Two truckers. They’re, um, fighting.”

This didn’t impress him. “They armed?”

“I don’t think so?” she said, hating how she sounded like a stupid girl, which of course he assumed she was. She thought of the woman with the whiskey voice, how effortlessly dignified she was, and she made an effort to change her tone, sound more worldly. “I didn’t see any weapons. But they’re having a fistfight and punching each other right now.”

“’Kay,” the man said. “Hold tight. Chances are they’ll sort it out themselves, but we’ll send someone anyway.”

Ten minutes later, the fight was still happening. The guests had stayed in their rooms and Viv was standing by the office door, poking her head out and biting the hangnail on her thumb. Her shoulder throbbed. She caught a faint whiff of cigarette smoke. Not now, she pleaded silently to the smoking man, Not now.

A police cruiser pulled into the parking lot, silent, cherry lights off. It pulled up in front of the two trucks that were parked in the lot, next to the fighting men, and a cop got out. Viv breathed a sigh of relief, and then she realized the cop was too small, too slight, the hair tied up at the back of her neck. It was a woman.

She took another step out onto the walkway to see more closely. A woman cop? She’d never seen one except on Cagney & Lacey.

But this cop was real. Unlike Cagney and Lacey she was wearing a uniform, dark blue polyester with a cap on her head. Her belt was heavy with a gun holster, a nightstick, and a radio, but it fit her hips snugly and she walked with a swagger that looked powerful and confident. As Viv watched, she walked straight to the fighting truckers and pulled one man off the other, breaking them up.

The truckers obeyed. They looked angry and one spit on the ground next to the cop’s feet, but they stopped fighting and stood still as the cop spoke to them. Viv watched her take out a notebook and pen and start writing down information, like she wasn’t at least fifty pounds lighter than each man.

When the cop finished writing, she took the radio from her belt and talked into it. Both truckers retreated to their trucks. The one who had spit turned and added a second gob, aiming it so it hit close to the cop’s heel without hitting her. The cop didn’t seem to notice, or care.

She turned and saw Viv standing at the corner of the office. Caught gawking, Viv raised a hand in a shy hello. The cop nodded and started in her direction as Viv ducked back into the office.

“Crazy night,” the cop said as she followed Viv through the office door. Up close, Viv could see that the cop wasn’t more than thirty, with dark brown hair tied neatly back under her cap. She wasn’t precisely pretty, but she had high cheekbones, dark brown eyes, and a tired air of complete confidence. Viv retreated behind the desk and touched her teased hair, suddenly self-conscious about her white blouse on its third wear and her ugly uniform vest.

“Crazy,” Viv said, thinking, You have no idea. No idea at all. She pressed her shaking hands together and hid them under the desk. She could still feel the imprint of the two palms on her chest, shoving her backward. She worked hard to take a deep breath.

The cop yanked a chair from its spot against the wall next to the rack of ancient and wilted tourist brochures and plopped down in it, pulling out her notebook and crossing her legs. “It says here it was called in by one Vivian Delaney. Is that you?”

“Yes, ma’am,” Viv said.

The cop gave her an amused look. “I’m no more a ma’am than you are, honey. My name is Alma Trent. Officer Trent. Okay?”

“Yes, okay, Officer Trent,” Viv said. Why was it so comforting to have a cop around? It was an instinctive thing. She can’t protect you from ghosts, Viv reminded herself. No one can.

Officer Trent tilted her head a degree, studying Viv. “How old are you, anyway?”

“Twenty.”

“Uh-huh,” Alma Trent said. She had a no-bones way of speaking, but her eyes weren’t unkind. Without knowing she was doing it, Viv glanced and saw she wore no wedding ring. “You from around here?” the cop asked.

“Huh?” Stupid, she sounded so stupid.

“Here.” The cop made a circle with her index finger. “Around here. Are you from it?”

“No, ma’am. Officer Trent. I’m from Illinois.” Viv closed her eyes. “I’m sorry I sound like this. It’s been a long night. I’ve never talked to a policeman—woman—before.”

“That’s a nice sort of person to be,” Officer Trent said, again not unkindly. “The kind who has never talked to the police, I mean. You’re the night girl, I take it?”

This time, she sounded slightly less idiotic. “Yes.”

“On shift every night?”

“Yes, though I get one night a week off.”

“Worked here long?” The questions were rapid-fire, probably to help Viv keep her thoughts straight. It was working.

“Four weeks,” Viv said, and then she realized she couldn’t remember the last time she’d looked at a calendar, taken note of what day it was. “Five, maybe.”

“You called us in before?”

“No.”

“First time, then.” It was conversational, but Officer Trent’s gaze didn’t leave Viv. “No disturbances until now?”

“No.” Unless you counted the lights going out, the ghosts coming out, and whatever had been lurking in the AMENITIES room. Run. Viv cleared her throat and tried not to shudder. “It’s usually quiet here.”

“Yeah, I’ll bet,” the cop said. “We sometimes get calls about hookers and dealers out here. You see anything like that?”

Was she supposed to tell on her employer? What if she got fired? She saw hookers and dealers every day; if Alma Trent didn’t know that, she wasn’t a very good cop. “I don’t know,” Viv said. “It kind of seems like none of my business.”

“A philosopher, I see,” Officer Trent said. “You’ll fit right in at the Sun Down.” She gave Viv a smile and leaned back in her chair. “I work nights, so it’s usually me who gets the call. Drug deals, drunk and disorderly, fights, domestics, runaway teenagers. That’s the kind of thing that happens out here. If you’ve been here five weeks, I think you have the idea.”