Ribbons (8 page)

11

Matt was trying to figure out how to cook breakfast. He had cracked a bunch of eggs into a pan and swirled them around, hoping they would turn into scrambled eggs. Instead, they stuck to the pan like glue. The bottom layer started turning black while the top remained a runny mess. He tried to scrape up the bottom layer in an attempt to flip the whole thing over. Maybe he was actually making an omelet? But the eggs wouldn’t come off the pan, and he started to wonder if eggs could actually catch fire. He wasn’t sure whose eggs these were, but they were going to be disappointed.

Adam and Christy were sitting at the little round table. Matt could see them from where he stood in the kitchen. The TV was on, but none of them were really watching it. Adam was rooting around in a cereal box with a look of disappointment on his face as Christy opened a fresh carton of milk and poured some in his bowl.

“Are you digging for buried treasure?” Christy asked him. She seemed mostly recovered from the night before.

The boy set down his cereal box, the toy inside eluding him for the moment. “What’s a brain embolism?” he asked.

It took Christy a second to reply. “It’s when somebody’s brain doesn’t work the way it should.” She folded the milk carton closed and then added, “You don’t need to worry about that.”

“But sometimes my brain doesn’t work right.” Adam patted the cereal in his bowl with his spoon.

“That’s different. The doctors said it’s because your brain is working extra hard. Plus, they gave us new medicine for that.” Christy used a finger to turn Adam’s face toward hers. “Did you take your pill?”

Adam dug a pill bottle out of his pocket and set it on the table. Then he turned back to his bowl and took a bite. Mouth still full, he pointed his spoon at the bottle and said, “It says, ‘Take with food.’”

“Then eat up.”

“Why would Uncle Quent’s brain just stop working?” Adam asked. “That doesn’t make sense.”

“I don’t know, honey.” Christy sipped her coffee.

Matt turned off the stove. He looked at the contents of the pan and then immediately started scraping it into the garbage disposal. He decided he would blame the pan. Damn stainless steel.

He flicked a glance up at Adam again, who was kicking his legs back and forth under the table as he ate. “Are we going to have to move out of Uncle Quent’s place now that he’s dead?”

Christy didn’t look at Matt. She kept her eyes on her coffee. “I don’t know, honey.”

“What about your job?”

“I don’t know.” It came out a little harsh, and Christy turned away with her hand on her forehead.

Adam stopped eating. “Mom? Are you mad?”

“Yes,” she said. “But not at you.”

Matt had heard them come back to the house a couple of hours before. Adam might have slept a bit at the hospital, but Christy looked strained and worn thin. It was a weekday, but clearly Adam wasn’t going to school today. And they were opting for breakfast instead of collapsing into bed. Breakfast for Adam, anyway. Christy hadn’t made anything for herself other than a cup of coffee. He really wished his eggs had turned out better.

Matt pretended that he hadn’t been listening to their conversation as he walked toward the table. “Mmm. What’s for breakfast?”

Adam frowned at his bowl. “Not quite Cheerios.”

Matt sat down at the table and opened the box. He grabbed a hand full of O’s and popped a few into his mouth. “Oh, come on. You can’t taste the difference.”

“I can.” Adam gave him a matter-of-fact nod.

“So can I,” Matt admitted.

Christy rubbed her forehead a couple of times and sniffed. Then she turned to Adam. “They’re organic,” she said, her voice a little more cheerful.

Matt leaned over to Adam and gave him a stage whisper, “You know, there was no organic food when I was growing up. It was all fake.”

Matt looked at Christy out of the corner of his eye in a way that was obvious he was sneaking a look at her. He gave her a little smile. Christy stared at him over the top of her coffee cup before shaking her head and taking a sip.

              Matt turned to look at her for real. “So how many people live here?”

Christy set her mug on the table but left her hands wrapped around it. “Full time? Just me and Adam. And you apparently. Some of the other girls stay from time to time but not for more than a couple of days. Uncle Quent was kinda looking out for Adam and me.”

Matt tossed a couple more organic O’s into his mouth. “Seems kinda weird, doesn’t it? How does that work?” Matt pointed a thumb at Adam. “With him here, I mean.”

Christy started to glare. It probably wasn’t the right time to ask that question, but it had just kinda popped out of his mouth.

“Weird?” she said. “Aren’t you the one who just inherited a brothel?
That’s
weird.”

Adam spoke up. “It’s okay, Mom. It is kinda weird living here.”

Matt started to open his mouth to reply, but Christy went on the defensive. “People live above bars and casinos all the time. That’s probably way more dangerous for a kid.”

Matt started again. “I was just—”

Christy was still going, though. “When he’s not at school, he mainly stays up in his room. Nobody’s allowed up there. You saw the velvet rope, right? Besides, we didn’t have too many options when Quent took us in.” Christy took a sip of coffee, then turned to Adam. “Which reminds me . . . You still need to take your pill.”

Adam made a zombie face. “They make me feel funny.”

“Hospital bills make me feel funny,” Christy countered.

Adam rolled his eyes but popped the pill into his mouth. He used his cereal milk to wash it down, tipping the bowl up to his face. When he lowered it, he had an epic milk mustache.

“What’s that?” Matt asked Christy. He gave a nod toward the bottle of pills.

“I never get the name right,” she said. “It’s supposed to help with his episodes.”

“Seizures?”

“Something like that. The specialists aren’t even sure.” Christy started clearing the table. “They say the pills can help suppress the shaking. But they don’t know what causes it.”

Matt looked at Adam. “Must be hard.”

Adam wiped his face with the back of his sleeve. “It’s all right. I think it’s getting better.”

Matt looked past Adam to Christy, who was putting dishes in the sink. He caught her eye, but then she looked down and gave a slight shake of her head.

“Should I, uh—” Matt hesitated and almost didn’t continue “—ask about the sergeant?”

“I’m tired. I don’t really feel like yelling right now,” she said.

Matt held up his hands in defense. “No problem. Didn’t know if there was anything I should be doing.”

“No.” Christy kept her eyes on the bowl she was scrubbing. “It’s fine. He won’t do anything about this place. He comes by every week or so to check in on Adam. He knows better than to come during business hours.
Usually
.”

Adam twisted in his chair to watch TV. “Dad said he could pick me up from school sometime.”

“He doesn’t really know our routine,” Christy said. “He hasn’t been around long enough.”

“I could tell him when I usually do my homework and when I need to take my pills,” Adam suggested.

Christy seemed to ignore that. “Plus, he could get called away for work at any time.”

Adam turned to look at her. “But he’s been trying,” he pleaded.

“What did I say about not wanting to yell?” It was kind of a half yell anyway.

Adam gave in and turned back to his show. He looked like he had tried to start this conversation a dozen times before and knew what the final result would be. Better to cut his losses before yelling turned into being grounded with no TV.

Matt didn’t know what to do with himself in the awkward silence that followed. He decided to watch TV, too.

When Christy came back to the table, she had a cup of coffee and a cereal bar in her hands. She set them both on the table in front of Matt. “So how long do we have?”

Matt raised an eyebrow at the cereal bar but then went ahead and opened it up. “Before?”

“Don’t you want us out of here?” Christy asked.

“Not particularly,” Matt said. “Truth is, I don’t know what to do with this place.”

Christy sat down next to Adam and ruffled his hair as a peace offering. “And until you do?”

Matt took a bite of his bar. “Business as usual.”

12

Dani’s breakfast had consisted of a slice of pizza straight out of the fridge, a lonely cup of coffee from her single-cup brewer, three Tic Tacs to get rid of the coffee breath, and the last of the chocolate chip cookies from a batch she made over the weekend. She justified the last by telling herself that they were going stale. Which, unfortunately, was true.

She was regretting all those choices now.

She leaned up against the wall outside the motel room. The smell alone had been enough to make her break a sweat. She knew that if she got to the point where her stomach started turning on her, she would probably pass out before she vomited. So at least there wouldn’t be a mess to clean up. At least not
her
mess. She wasn’t a lightweight, either. Blood didn’t usually bother her. She even donated whenever the hospital made its rounds with the mobile clinic. That was different, though. Then, she knew what she was signing up for. Today, she was going to have to pace herself.

She had gotten the call about an hour ago and had almost ignored it. She wasn’t supposed to be on duty until noon. She and Dwayne had the swing shift this week, and that always screwed her up. She never had any idea what to do with herself in the morning. She was used to rolling out of bed, getting straight into the shower, and then picking up breakfast on the way to work. She’d forgotten how to sleep in long ago, though, so she had been awake and showered when they called her in. Dwayne still wasn’t here, but then, last night had been pretty rough for him.

The motel was small. It was right off the freeway near the air force base, and Dani wasn’t sure how it stayed in business. If she had to guess, the rooms were either rented by the week or by the hour. The dated sign pointing to the check-in office might have been considered nostalgic fifteen years ago, but now it had decayed to creepy. All the room doors faced a small parking lot, so at least she was outside. A couple of doors down, a police officer was questioning a cleaning lady. Dani was pretty sure they were speaking Spanish, and she tried to translate to give her mind something to do.

The officer probably said, “One more time. A bit slower please.”

The cleaning lady’s reply wasn’t slow, and Dani only got bits and pieces. “. . . about eight in the morning . . . going to get the laundry . . . bad smell . . . bloody hell . . .”

No, not
hell
,
huella
. Dani thought for a moment, then remembered the translation.
Footprint.
She focused again on the woman.

“. . . told the boss . . . he said clean . . . knocked on the door . . . used key . . . blood on the . . .” Dani guessed
pomo
meant
doorknob
because there was now an evidence bag taped around the knob to room 105.

The sergeant’s car pulled into the parking lot then, so she wasn’t able to hear the rest of the conversation. Dwayne didn’t bother using one of the regular parking spaces. Instead, he parked his car right in the middle of the lot, a clear indicator that people might want to reconsider staying there tonight.

Dani met him as he was stepping out of his car. He looked like he hadn’t slept, and he certainly hadn’t showered. She took the coffee cup out of his hand and put it on the hood of his car.

He didn’t stop her, but he did say, “Uh, what the fuck?”

“It’s bad, sir,” she said.

“It must be real bad if you’re calling me sir.” He looked at his cup like he wanted to take another sip but then left it where it was.

They started walking toward the yellow tape blocking off room 105.

“Sorry, I know your night was shit,” Dani said. “How’s Adam?”

“He’s fine.” Dwayne didn’t sound convinced. “They say he’s fine, anyway. He should be home by now.”

“What else did they say?”

“Nothing new. Make sure he takes his pills. Reduce his activities. Be careful of overstimulation. Watch his diet. Basically, avoid being a nine-year-old boy.”

The officer who had been questioning the cleaning lady looked up from his notes as they ducked under the tape. He was done with his questions, and the cleaning lady was pushing her cart back toward a door marked
Staff Only
. He held out something to Dani.

“What’s that?” she asked.

“Got it from the cleaning lady,” the officer said.

“Evidence?” Dwayne asked.

“No. Toothpaste.” The officer unscrewed the cap. He offered it to them. “Put a dab under your nose. It might help with the smell.”

“Really?” Dani asked. “That’s not something they taught at the academy.”

“Maybe,” he said. “I read it online.”

A minute later they were standing at the foot of the bed in room 105 with toothpaste mustaches. Dwayne stayed quiet for a long time, taking it all in. He didn’t point out the obvious like,
There’s blood everywhere
or
She didn’t put up a fight
. That was good. It meant he wasn’t nervous. Dani needed him firing on all cylinders for this one.

Dwayne finally spoke. “There was an evidence marker on the ground outside. Number two, I think? Was that a blood stain?”

Dani didn’t have to look at her notes; she knew what he was talking about. “Yeah, partial footprint.”

“What about fingerprints?” he asked, still looking at the bed.

“The guys are coming in after you’re done, but yeah, I’ve already seen some on the doorknob.”

“So he was either sloppy, or high, or he just didn’t care.”

“He?” Dani asked, though that’s what she was thinking, too.

“There’s a condom on the nightstand. It’s still in the wrapper but . . .” Dwayne shrugged.

“Yeah,” she said. She didn’t like to assume anything, but the simplest explanation usually led to your dirt bag.

Her eyes flicked involuntarily to the bed and then intentionally away. They landed on a glass of water sitting on a small table that served as the room’s desk. There was lipstick on the rim of the glass and a swirl of blood floating in the water. As she watched, another red drop plunked into the glass, making the swirl of blood dance. The drop came from the lamp above it. The lampshade had been splattered with two stripes of blood that merged together before drooping toward the glass.

Dwayne took a few steps forward to stand at the head of the bed.

“The room was paid for with cash,” Dani said. “And the motel doesn’t have any security cameras, which is probably one of its selling points. There’s an ATM across the street, though. We’re working on getting the video from that.”

Dwayne snapped on a pair of latex gloves and started working the fingers into place.

“And there’s this.” Dani stepped forward carefully. It was almost impossible not to walk in blood. She handed Dwayne a small plastic evidence bag. Inside there was a glossy card with a picture of someone who could have been the girl. In the picture she was wearing a tight white T-shirt that had
Las Vegas
spelled out in a flashy font across the chest. She was pulling the hem of the shirt down to just barely cover her crotch. Underneath that, it said,
Vicki wants to show you the REAL Las Vegas.
The phone number underneath was partially obscured by blood, but she was sure they could figure it out.

“She must have had a driver,” Dani said.

Dwayne sighed. “I guess he wasn’t paying attention.”

“We’ll track him down.”

“Did you see her eyes?” he asked. He was looking at the Vicki in the room, not the Vicki on the card.

That forced Dani to look down at the bed again. If she just looked at the girl’s eyes, Dani was fine. They stared straight up, frozen in a look of wonder rather than pain or fear. On the card they were a brilliant blue and her eyelids were closed just enough to be seductive. In the room, her eyes were opened as wide as they could be, and the blue was clouded with a translucent white. Her lips were parted like she had just oohed and ahhed after a fireworks display.

But nothing from the girl’s neck down looked like a person anymore. Just one glance made Dani start sweating again. She imagined it might look like what was left over on the floor of a slaughterhouse after a hard day’s work. Muscle tangled with viscera, and bone gleamed through congealed blood. Nothing seemed to connect or fit together the way it should, and skin spiraled off in ribbons.

Somehow, Dani managed to keep her shit together this time. Maybe the toothpaste was helping.

Dwayne knelt down to look at the girl’s arm dangling off the side of the bed. It was mostly intact and hung limp over a pool of blood on the carpet. He grabbed a flashlight off his belt and clicked it on. Then he bent down a little farther.

“Looks like we need another Baggie,” he said. He straightened up again, holding something with the tips of his gloved fingers. It looked like a pen of some sort, the big felt-tip kind that they use in preschools. This one was covered in blood, but Dani could make out the cartoony picture of some kind of berry on the side.

Over the next several hours there were a lot more things placed into Baggies. Pictures were taken, and things were covered in fingerprint powder. When the ambulance came, Vicki was also placed into a bag. Dani and Dwayne followed her out.

As the EMTs loaded the body into the back of their ambulance, Dani glanced across the street and saw the vultures starting to circle. The news vans were blocked from coming into the motel parking lot so they were lining the curb across the street. Cameras were zooming in, and reporters were getting their money shots.

Nobody was near them, but the sergeant still spoke in a low voice. “We’re in the shit. And I’m not just talking about some hooker—” He caught himself. “Some girl getting killed. I’m talking about news vans parked outside my office, shining a spotlight on everything we do. If somebody did this for attention and we
give it
to them, we’ll be cleaning up another body by the end of the week.”

One of the police officers intercepted a paparazzo who rushed forward to try to get a closer shot. A couple of other officers were standing by the police cars blocking the entrance, keeping the gawkers at bay.

“So what’s our play?” Dani asked.

“Move quick,” Dwayne said. “Keep quiet for as long as possible. This guy’s already screwed up pretty big.”

The ambulance driver got behind the wheel and then looked at them expectantly. The woman nodded her head toward the roadblock to emphasize the point.

Dani nodded back at her and held up a finger, the universal sign for
Just a sec
. She turned back to Dwayne and motioned at the news vans with her thumb. “What do I tell these guys?”

“No comment, on-going investigation, fuck off, I don’t care.” Dwayne seemed half-serious. “Just no details.”