NINETEEN

GERALD FOOS took great pride in the fact that he was never caught, that his secret was never discovered. But there was at least one instance when he came dangerously close to exposure.

Up in the attic one day, watching a couple who had been staying in the motel on a weekly rate, Foos saw the husband look up at the ceiling and heard him ask his wife, “What is that vent for? That isn’t a heat vent . . . I’m a construction worker and I would recognize it.”

“What is it, then?” she asked.

“It could be a peephole.”

His wife giggled. “You mean someone could be watching every­thing we do?”

He said, “There are a lot of weirdos in this world.” Then he added, “I’ll find out.”

Gerald records “feeling somewhat apprehensive at the proceedings going on below.” He cautiously backed away along the attic floor, left, locked the door, and went back to the office.

In the office he pondered the severity of what he had heard. From the first, his plan, if discovered, was to call the observation platform a “‘service walkway,’ i.e. to service electrical wiring, heating pipes, plumbing access, etc. . . . The vents were used to disperse smoke and bad odors from the rooms. This is what the subject would be told if he suspected anything out of the ordinary, and then the burden of proof would be placed directly on him.”

“The next day, I didn’t know what to expect,” Gerald wrote, “but I thought perhaps the subject might call the police to investigate, or that he would confront me personally. He did neither.”

Gerald “stayed completely away from the observation tower for several days, and tried to determine what the subject was contemplating.”

“After about four days, I ventured up to the observation platform and noticed that the subject had taped the vent shut with paper. However, there was a small crack on one side, which enabled a partial observation. On this particular evening, they were engaged in an oral sex routine, which later evolved into intercourse.”

Two days later, the wife came to the office and told Gerald that her husband had gone back to their home state and she was going to follow him shortly. “At this time,” Gerald wrote, “she revealed some startling facts to me: namely, that [her husband] had climbed through the vent into the ceiling and walked around. He was a very small man, and was just barely able to get through the vent. I never thought it was possible for anyone to get through the vents, other than a small child. I explained to her that it was strictly a service area platform and she accepted this without question.”