The Sun Down Motel(33)



“A traveling salesman who comes to the Sun Down, where her body was left. And doesn’t say who he is.”

“Okay.” Alma looked at her watch. “Look, I’ll tell you what: Get me something, anything I can look up, and I’ll look it up for you. Hell, no one gives a shit what I do on my shift anyway. Next time this guy comes in, get me something. Try to get a name, make and model of car, a license plate, the company where he works, anything. Chat him up a bit. Be nice, but be careful. You’re a good-looking girl and not everyone is as nice as you are.”

“I know.” She knew that now.

“Okay then, we have a deal. I have to go to work now. See you later, Vivian. And if nothing comes of this—please drop it. If not for yourself, then for me.”

Viv nodded, though she knew she would never drop it. It was in her blood now. She gathered her papers and notebook and went to work.

There was no one in the office again, though the lights were on and the door was unlocked. She put on her uniform vest and sat at the desk.

Next time this guy comes in, get me something.

She hadn’t told Alma about the ghosts. About the woman in the flowered dress. About the fact that every time the traveling salesman checked in, the motel woke up and became a kind of waking nightmare.

As if the Sun Down didn’t like him at all.

Next time this guy comes in, get me something.

Run.

Maybe it was nothing. It was probably nothing, and she was just a stupid girl who didn’t know what she was talking about.

“Betty?” she said aloud into the silence.

There was no answer. But when she breathed in, Viv caught a faint trace of fresh cigarette smoke.

What does “violated” mean?

The man in the car, his hand on her thigh.

What does “violated” mean?

Get me something.

Betty, then Cathy, then Victoria. Three women murdered in Fell in the past few years. Their bodies dumped like trash. Even if one of them was solved, that still left two whose murderer was still out there. The salesman was the only lead she could think of, the only place to start.

She had a problem: She didn’t know when the salesman would come again. She was stuck for however long, until he chose to check in. If he chose to check in ever again.

When he was here before, he’d left no trace of who he was. Except . . .

Viv thought it over and smiled to herself.

Maybe she wasn’t stuck after all.





Fell, New York

November 2017





CARLY


Libraries were my places. I was that girl who maxed out her library card every week, starting with The Hobbit and The Witch of Blackbird Pond and moving up from there. I could kill an hour by wandering into an unfamiliar part of the Dewey Decimal System and checking it out. Computers, card catalogs, microfiches—I could navigate them all.

So the Fell Central Library was immediately familiar. It was set in the middle of downtown in a building that was large-ish and supposed to be prestigious based on its fake marble and columns. Inside it was musty and boxy, a huge cube with high windows and open stairs to the upper level. I bypassed the circulation desk on the main floor and headed for the back of the building, taking a guess at where the media archives room would be. I passed a few retirees, a thirty-year-old woman obviously studying feverishly for an exam, and a handful of students my age who probably went to Fell’s tiny college. They likely assumed I was one of them, since I was wearing jeans, my lace-up boots, and a sweater under a waist-length jacket, my hair in its usual ponytail.

I hefted my messenger bag and wandered the stacks. The back of the library was pleasantly dusty and dim, far from the windows and full of empty corners. It suited my exhaustion, since it was four o’clock in the afternoon—the middle of the night for me. I’d had to rouse myself from bed to get to the library while it was still open. I hadn’t had the heart to wake Heather and drag her with me since she slept so rarely, and was still asleep in our apartment.

I had to go upstairs to find what I wanted, but it was indeed at the back of the library: a glass door with the words FELL ARCHIVE ROOM on them. Inside the room I had the place to myself—just me, a couple of computer terminals, a few long tables, and a few shelves of books and magazines. I didn’t even bother asking a librarian; I just sat down.

Twenty minutes later I’d figured out the archive system. It was time to learn about Fell.

I started with the obvious searches: Viv Delaney, Viv Delaney missing, Sun Down Motel. I’d only ever had the two articles I’d found in my mother’s belongings, those two scraps of newsprint, but in Fell’s database there was another article that mostly repeated the same information I already had, as well as one more titled WHO WAS VIVIAN DELANEY? Local girl’s disappearance leaves questions behind. I entered my credit card number and hit Print on that one.

The Sun Down Motel search gave me different results. I narrowed the search parameters to 1980–1983 and didn’t get many hits, so I expanded the years and then deleted the parameters entirely. What I got from that was, in its bits and pieces of glory, a chronological history of the Sun Down Motel.

It was built in 1978 on a plot of land called Cotton’s Land because it had belonged to a farmer named Cotton before he sold out. It opened in early 1979—still the cold season, before the tourist season began. There wasn’t much fanfare about its opening except for a photo of the motel, taken from just past the sign on the edge of Number Six Road. In front of the motel stood a woman, a man, and a young boy, their hands on his shoulders. The caption read: Janice and Carl McNamara, with their son Christopher, in front of their new motel, called the Sun Down. The motel is now open for business and features a pool, cable TV, and rooms at twenty dollars per night.

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