The Sun Down Motel

I turned and walked down the corridor to the motel office. The door was unlocked, the lights on. Inside, the office looked like I’d left it, with my messenger bag on the floor next to the desk. I inhaled when I came into the room, searching for the smell of cigarette smoke. There was none.

Nick’s footsteps came behind me as I walked to the desk. I opened the guest book and flipped to tonight’s page. The name was there: James March, room 103. The handwriting was dark and spindly, and I didn’t recognize it. I walked around the desk and pulled open the key drawer. I rifled through the keys, and except for Nick’s key to room 210, they were all there. The key to room 103 was right there in the drawer.

I picked it up by its leather tab and held it out for Nick to see.

“He could have returned it,” Nick said. “The office door was unlocked, and so was that drawer.”

“There wasn’t a car,” I said.

“What did he look like? Did you check him in?”

“I have no idea, and no.”

“Who checked him in, then?” Nick asked.

“There was no one in the office when I got here tonight,” I replied. “It was open, the lights on, and this name was in the guest book. That’s all I know.”

Nick pulled the guest book toward him and looked at the name written on the page. “James March,” he said. “If he isn’t here, then where is he?”

Fell, New York

October 1982

VIV



   There was a diner called the Turnabout on a stretch of the North Edge Road, close to the turnoff for the interstate. It was on the outskirts, when you were in the territory of overnight drivers and truckers, where you could find a place that was open until midnight.

The Turnabout wasn’t a fancy place, and the coffee wasn’t particularly good, but Viv found that she didn’t mind it. For three dollars she could get a meal, and there were people here—real people who knew each other, who sometimes sat around and talked. She’d forgotten what it was like to be around people who weren’t just passing through.

Tonight she sat in a booth and waited, fidgety and impatient. She had her notebook and pen with her, along with a manila folder stuffed with papers. She’d spent a week gathering everything, and tonight she would find out if she’d wasted her time.

You can’t do this.

Yes, you can.

To say it was a rabbit hole was an understatement. Ever since Jenny, her roommate, had made those comments about Cathy Caldwell and Victoria Lee, Viv had felt an uncomfortable itch, a need to know. It felt like curiosity mixed with something lurid and mysterious, but Viv knew it was deeper than that. It felt almost like a purpose. Something she was meant to find.

She’d left the apartment early every day and gone to the Fell Central Library, digging through old newspapers. It wasn’t hard to find articles about Cathy and Victoria; their murders had made the news. After a week each girl had dropped off the front page of the Fell Daily, and then you had to find updates—what few there were—in the back pages, with headlines like POLICE STILL MAKE NO HEADWAY and QUESTIONS STILL REMAIN.

The waitress poured Viv another coffee, and Viv anxiously glanced at the door. Because Alma Trent had said she’d come.

She did. She came through the door five minutes later, wearing her uniform and nodding politely at the waitress. “How are things, Laura?”

“Not so bad,” the waitress said. “You haven’t been here in a dog’s age.”

“You haven’t had to call me,” Alma said practically. “But I’d sure like a cup of coffee.” She slid into the booth opposite Viv. “Hello, Vivian.”

Viv nodded. Her palms were sweating, but she was determined not to be the speechless idiot Alma had met before. “Thanks for coming,” she said.

“Well, you said you had something interesting for me.” Alma glanced at her watch. “I’m due on shift in forty-five minutes, and if I’m not mistaken, so are you.”

Viv put her shoulders back. She was wearing a floral blouse tonight, and she’d put on a yellow sweater over it. She’d considered wearing darker colors to make herself look more serious, but she liked the yellow better. “I wanted to talk to you about something. Something I think that could help you.”

“Okay,” Alma said politely, accepting a cup of coffee from the waitress and stirring some sugar into it.

“It’s about Cathy Caldwell and Victoria Lee.”

Alma went very still.

Viv opened her folder. “Well, it isn’t only about them. It’s—just listen, okay?”

“Vivian.” Alma’s voice was almost gentle. “I’m only the night-shift duty officer. I don’t work murder cases.”

“Just listen,” Viv said again, and there must have been something urgent in her voice, something that was almost alarming, because Alma closed her mouth and nodded.

“Cathy Caldwell was killed in December 1980,” Viv said. “She was twenty-one. She worked as a receptionist at a dental office. She was married and had a six-month-old son. Her husband was deployed in the military.”

She knew all of these things. She recited them like they were the facts of her own life. Alma nodded. “I remember it.”

“She went to work one day and left her son with a babysitter. She called the babysitter at five o’clock and said she was picking up groceries on the way home, that she’d be fifteen minutes late. At six thirty, the babysitter called her mother, asking what she should do because Cathy wasn’t home yet. The mother said she should wait another hour, then call the police. So at seven thirty, the babysitter called the police.” She looked at Alma, then continued. “The police searched for her for three days. They found her body under an overpass. She was naked and had been stabbed in the side of the neck three times. The stabs were deep. They think he was trying to get her artery. Which he did.”

“Vivian, honey,” Alma said. “Maybe you shouldn’t—”

“Just listen.” She had to get this out. It had been boiling in her mind for days as she scribbled thoughts into her notebook. Alma quieted and Viv pulled a hand-drawn map from her file folder.

“The article said that Cathy’s usual grocery store was this one here.” She pointed to a spot on the map, halfway between the X marked with Cathy’s work and the X marked with Cathy’s home. “No one saw her there that night. Her car was found just out of town, parked at the mall, so there was a theory she went shopping instead. But that wasn’t like Cathy at all. And you see, it makes sense. Because he dumped her at the overpass, here”—she indicated another X—“and then he drove her car to the mall, which was ten minutes away. Just because her car was there doesn’t mean she was ever there.”