Hastings was alone when he returned to the Thunderbird Motel. He parked the Jaguar in the spot where they had found Adele Sayers’s Camaro. He walked away from the car and looked at it from different points around the motel parking lot. He stood in front of the lobby and looked at the car, pretending it was hers.
The medical examiner had said that there were no traces of semen in her at the time of her death. Mickey Crawford had said that he was asleep in his motel room when she came knocking. She had knocked on the door of that room on the other side of the parking lot. He followed her here, watched her get out of the car, Hastings thought. Jumped out of his car and got into hers while she was still in sight. Her back would have been to him. It would have been dark, but all she would have to do was turn around to see him.
Quite a risk he was taking. He didn’t wait until she got into the hotel room before he got into her car. Why didn’t he wait? Was he too anxious? Did he get off on the risk? Did he perhaps want to be seen by her?
If she turns around and sees you, what do you say? Do you introduce yourself, show her that you’re harmless? Deceive her the way you deceived Marla Hilsheimer?
Were you bored? Was that it? Did you want to change it up to keep it interesting?
Or did it make you feel clever to get inside the woman’s car? To hide and wait for her to come back so you could spring? . . . Maybe the fact that she returned to the car early made it more fun? An unexpected kick.
Hastings pulled out his cell phone and called Rhodes.
“Howard?”
“Yeah, George. I’ve got the computer. I’m at county with it. Escobar wants to keep it here for the time being, but he’s letting me look at it. The e-mails for the last three weeks have been tracked and identified. Except one. It’s from the county library. Here in Clayton.”
“He used the computer at the library?”
“Yeah. You can use it without having to leave an identification.”
“Shit.”
“Yeah,” Rhodes said. “I still don’t know if he went to Harvard or not, but he’s smart.”
“You guys going to check out the library?”
“Yeah. We’re going in about ten minutes.”
“Keep me posted.”
“Will do.”
Hastings drove downtown.
He parked near the Adam’s Mark Hotel. He took the elevator up to the room Reesa Woods had shared with Geoffrey Harris. Hastings stood in the hallway for a few minutes, looking at a closed door. A maid came down the hall with her cleaning cart. She looked at him curiously, and he said hello and took the elevator down to the lobby.
In the lobby, he asked for the desk manager. It was not the same guy they had dealt with before, but Hastings referenced himself and the man cooperated with him. They went back up to the room, which was vacant and clean. The desk manager remained in the room with the detective. Hastings looked around, trying to feel things that probably couldn’t be felt. The manager grew uncomfortable with the silence and said, “We’ve got this reserved for this evening. But we don’t expect the guest to check in until four o’clock or so.”
Hastings nodded at this. A moment later, he said, “Okay.” And they both walked out.
The desk manager said, “Was there anything in particular you were looking for?”
Hastings shook his head. He had little idea, really.
The elevator doors opened at the mezzanine and two men got in. They had name tags dangling from their necks. They were well-dressed men, wearing slacks and expensive golf shirts. The tags read, NATL.
After a moment, Hastings asked, “What’s that acronym?”
The smaller guy said, “National Association of Trial Lawyers.”
“You’re here for a convention?”
“Yeah. Some genius said we should have it here instead of Vegas.”
“It’s what happens when you let women plan it,” the other lawyer said.
Hastings smiled with them and they got off the elevator in the lobby.
The desk manager turned to him and asked if there was anything else he could do. Hastings told him that there wasn’t and thanked him for his time.
On his way out, Hastings looked around the lobby again. His gaze took him to the escalator going up to the mezzanine. He wondered why the lawyers hadn’t just taken that. Conventioneers. As Klosterman had once said, if you want to bring convention business to the city, you’ve got to have two things: casinos and pussy.
Hastings went back to the desk manager.