The Sun Down Motel(39)

Marnie turned in her seat and looked at Viv. “Go on.”

“There’s a traveling salesman who comes to the motel,” Viv said. She pointed out the window, to the Sun Down, sheeted with rain. “He checks in here. To this place. Over and over. And he uses a fake name every time.”

It wasn’t the same as with Alma. Marnie stared at Viv like Viv was reading a page from a book she’d never thought to hear aloud. “You are shitting me,” she said, her voice almost a whisper. “Little girl, you are shitting me.”

“He was here the last time Helen was here,” Viv said. “The last time you were here. Taking pictures. So I want to know if he’s in any of your pictures. His face, anything. And I want to know if his car is in your pictures. Because if I can get a license plate, I can find out who he is. Who he really is.”

The words Marnie said were teasing, but her voice was dead serious. “This is what you’re doing, then? Playing Nancy Drew and solving the murder in the middle of the night?”

Viv held the other woman’s eyes and didn’t look away. Her answer was simple. “Someone has to.”

Marnie seemed to think things over. “Okay,” she said, “I can take a look at my shots. They’re all developed.”

“Can I look for myself?”

“You have a spine on you, you know that? But I get it. What happened to Betty Graham shouldn’t happen to anyone, and whoever did it is still walking around. If there’s a chance this guy is him, then I suppose I can go through some photos with you.”

“It isn’t just Betty,” Viv said. “There are others.”

Marnie shook her head, her lips pressed together. She said, “You mean the girl left under the overpass. The one with the baby.”

There was a feeling in the back of Viv’s neck like a tap that had been turned too tight, that was finally being twisted loose. Of something finally flowing that had been twisted off for too long, maybe forever. Marnie knew. Like it was common knowledge for every woman in Fell. Like the women here all spoke the same language. “Her, and another one. Victoria.”

“The jogging trail girl.” Marnie eyed Viv up and down again. “Are you a cop, or what? You say you work at the Sun Down, and you really don’t look like a cop.”

“I’m not a cop. I just spent some time in the library, looking up dead girls. I think there are a lot of them in Fell.”

“You think there are a lot of them in Fell.” Marnie repeated the words back. “You think? I’ve lived here all my life. Every woman was afraid when Betty Graham died. Every single one. We locked our doors and didn’t go out at night. Our mothers called us ten times a day. Even my mother, and Betty was white. Because we were all Betty. For a few weeks, at least. You know?”

Viv swallowed and nodded. “We’re all still Betty,” she said. “At least I am.”

Marnie shook her head again. “You’re a strange girl, but I like you. Get in the front seat.”

Viv got out of the back seat and got in the front, which Marnie had cleared of photography equipment. “Are we going somewhere?”

“I’ll get you your photos,” Marnie said, putting the key in the ignition and starting the car. “But if you’re so interested in dead girls, let’s take a little tour.”





Fell, New York

November 2017





CARLY


It took them four days to even realize Viv was missing,” I said. “Four days. Can you believe it?”

I was in the AMENITIES room with Nick. It was two o’clock in the morning. The candy machine wasn’t working, so Nick had agreed to take a look at it. He’d gone into the motel’s maintenance room—I hadn’t even known there was one—and come out with a toolbox. Now I was sitting on the ice machine while he poked at the candy machine in the tiny, closet-sized room. We’d found an old brick and propped the door open with it, because the door kept trying to close on its own.

“What do you mean?” Nick said. “No one called the police?”

“No. The papers said she likely went missing during her shift on the twenty-ninth of November. She talked to the guy who was on the shift before her, and that was the last anyone saw. Four days later, when the cops started looking for her, they found her belongings in the Sun Down office.”

Nick unscrewed something and the front of the candy machine popped open. “I’d say the staff wasn’t very observant, but then again I’ve been here for weeks. There’s barely any staff at all.”

“I know. Most of the time no one relieves me at seven in the morning. It makes me think that if I disappeared during my shift, no one would know.”

“I would know,” Nick said.

My cheeks went hot. I couldn’t think of anything to say.

He was looking at the candy machine and he didn’t notice. “I thought she had a roommate,” he said.

“The roommate’s name was Jenny Summers.” When Nick was focused on the candy machine, I could stare at his profile without him noticing. His profile was pretty much perfect when you looked at it closely. His blue eyes were set under a more or less semipermanent scowl, especially when he was concentrating. His nose was just right. He hadn’t shaved in a few days, and he had a dark brown shadow of beard along his jaw and under his cheekbones. When he turned the screwdriver, mysterious and amazing things happened in the muscles and tendons of his forearms, and his biceps flexed under the sleeve of his T-shirt. It was time to admit I had a crush on the mysterious occupant of room 210.