The Sun Down Motel(32)

Viv tapped her fingers on her notebook. She couldn’t say, really. The papers had portrayed it as an open-and-shut case. But it was those words Jenny had said: Don’t go on the jogging trail. Words of wisdom from one girl to another. Like it could happen again.

“They were so close together,” she said to Alma. “Cathy in December of 1980, Victoria in August of 1981. Two girls murdered in Fell in under a year. Maybe it wasn’t the boyfriend.”

This earned her a smile—kind, but still condescending. “Honey, the police and the courts decide that. They did their job already.”

The court. Was there a transcript of the trial? Viv wondered. How could she get one? “It doesn’t feel finished,” she said, though she knew it sounded lame said out loud. “Why the jogging trail? Why there of all places? He knew her. He could have killed her anywhere. He could have phoned her and lured her somewhere private, say he wanted to apologize or something. And she’d go. Instead he killed her where anyone could walk by.”

“Who knows why?” Alma said. “It was a frequented spot, but it was raining that day. He was angry and irrational. He killed her quickly, dumped her in the bushes, and went home. You’re young, Vivian, but it’s an old story. Trust me.” Alma set her empty coffee cup on the table and gentled her voice. “You’re a nice girl, but you aren’t trained for this kind of thing. I don’t know why you think it’s connected to Cathy. Is that what you’re getting at?”

She couldn’t have said. Because they were both cautionary tales, maybe. Don’t be like her. Don’t end up like her. It was a gut feeling. Which was stupid, because she was just a clueless girl, not a cop or a judge. She had no area of expertise.

Except being a potential victim. That was her area of expertise.

“There weren’t two murders,” Viv said. “There were three.”

She pulled a newspaper clipping from her file and put it in front of Alma. Local family still search for their daughter’s killer, the headline read.

“Betty Graham was murdered, too,” Viv said.

Alma looked at the article, and for the first time her expression went hard. “I’m not going to talk about Betty Graham,” she said. “I shouldn’t be talking to you at all.”

This was why she had done all this research. This was what mattered. To Viv, it was all about the woman in the flowered dress. Who, she now knew, was Betty Graham.

“Betty was unsolved,” Viv said, pushing her. “Before Cathy. In November of 1978.”

Alma’s face was fully shut down now. She shook her head. “That’s what this is all about, isn’t it? I get it now. You heard about Betty and where her body was dumped. That’s what set all of this off.”

“A schoolteacher,” Viv said. “Killed and dumped. The articles say her body was ‘violated.’ What does that mean? Does that mean rape? They didn’t say Cathy was violated.”

“Vivian, this isn’t healthy. These kinds of topics aren’t normal. A nice girl like you, you should be thinking about—”

“Parties? Boys? Movies? Cathy and Victoria cared about those things, I bet. Betty, too, maybe.” She tapped the article sitting between them. “Her body was dumped at the Sun Down Motel.”

Alma’s voice was tight. “It wasn’t the Sun Down Motel. Not then.”

“No, it was a construction site. He killed her and dumped her body on a dirt heap at a construction site.”

“It was years ago.”

Maybe, but Betty is still there. She’s still at the Sun Down. I’ve seen her, because she never left.

She’s still there, and she’s telling me to run.

Betty had been twenty-four. Unmarried with no boyfriends, no enemies, no wild habits. Gone from her own house in the middle of a Saturday, never seen alive again. Betty’s parents were still grieving, still looking. “We just want to know who would do such a thing,” Betty’s father was quoted in the article as saying. “We can’t understand it. I suppose it won’t help in the end. But we just want to know.”

The photo of Betty was of the woman she’d seen at the Sun Down. Her hair was tied back and there was a smile on her face for the camera, but it was her.

“What does ‘violated’ mean?” Viv asked again.

Alma shook her head. “You should drop this, honey. These are dark things. They aren’t good for you.”

“Dark things are real things,” Viv said. She’d sat reading articles in the Fell library, her stomach sick. She’d gone home and wept soundlessly on her bed, the sobs coming as drowning gasps, thinking about the woman in the flowered dress, how she was still there where her body was dumped, as if she couldn’t leave. “Listen,” she said to Alma yet again. They were both due on shift in ten minutes. “The last person to see Betty alive was a neighbor who saw what she thought was a traveling salesman knock on Betty’s door. She opened the door and let him in.” Her blood pounded so hard in her temples that she heard her own voice like an echo. “There’s a traveling salesman who comes to the motel. He uses fake names every time he checks in.”

That made Alma go still for a minute as she thought it over—but only for a minute. “So you’ve seen a traveling salesman, and you think it could be Betty’s killer?”