Thumps got a body bag from the storage room, and the three of them loaded Greeley into Beth’s station wagon.
“Waste of gas,” said Beth. “The morgue isn’t that far. We could carry him there.”
Thumps tried to imagine walking down Main Street with the private investigator from Great Falls slung over his shoulder. What might he tell people he met along the way? Yes, it’s a dead body. No, it’s not a problem. Thanks for asking.
Cooley closed the tailgate. “Hate to say it, but that burger wasn’t very good.”
Beth cocked her head to one side. “That’s because fast-food burgers aren’t good for you.”
Standing next to Beth’s station wagon and a dead body didn’t seem a proper place or time to be discussing food, but if Thumps had had to choose, he would have gone with the vegetable lasagna.
“You kidding?” said Cooley. “Burgers have most all your essential food groups. Meat, vegetable, dairy, fat, salt, and condiments.”
“Don’t forget the sugar,” said Beth.
Cooley looked stunned. “Burgers have sugar?”
“The bun is all carbohydrates.” Beth slid in behind the wheel. “And don’t get me started on ketchup.”
THUMPS AND COOLEY stood outside the office, watched Beth drive the body down the street to the old Land Titles building.
“What do you want me and Deanna to do?”
“Be nice to know more about Greeley’s mystery employer.”
“He didn’t seem to know much.”
“Let’s gather up the pieces,” said Thumps. “See what we have.”
“Like a puzzle,” said Cooley.
“Greeley is hired anonymously to surveil a house. Watch the place. Have to assume this is about Nora Gage.”
“That’s why he had the monocular and the camera.”
“But things don’t go as planned. Gage lets her dog out, and the pooch either attacks Greeley or tries to play with him.”
“I vote for play,” said Cooley. “Dogs are generally friendly.”
“Okay, the dog knocks Greeley over the edge of the cliff or Greeley stumbles trying to get away. Whatever happens, he winds up on a ledge somewhat the worse for wear. The dog goes barking back to Gage, she comes out to see what the ruckus is about, and finds Greeley.”
“She thinks he’s dead,” said Cooley. “So she calls the office. You go out there and discover that he’s just hurt. You ask him about the monocular and the camera?”
Thumps shook his head. “Didn’t have the pack when we found him. The dog had run off with it. Turned it into a chew toy. We found the gear after Greeley was in the ambulance headed for the hospital.”
“No phone in the pack?” said Cooley. “No car keys? No motel keys?”
Thumps shook his head. “Must have had them in his jacket.”
“You didn’t ask him where he was staying?”
That had been a rookie mistake. Except Thumps knew a rookie wouldn’t have made it. Rookie one, DreadfulWater zero.
“I already called all the motels in the area,” said Cooley. “No reservations for Greeley or Brown.”
“Had to be staying somewhere close,” said Thumps. “So, the reservation is in a different name.”
“That’s what I figured,” said Cooley. “And most of the motels are completely booked ’cause of the PGA qualifier.”
Thumps went back to the narrative. “Greeley slips out of the hospital, takes a cab back to where he left the car.”
“And discovers it’s been stolen.”
“So, what does he do?”
“Goes back to the motel,” said Cooley.
“No car. Only one taxi company in town.” Thumps felt a little better. Rookie one, DreadfulWater one.
THE WAGON WHEEL Motel. That’s where the taxi had taken Greeley the night before.
“Was really hoping it would be the Holiday Inn or the Tucker,” said Cooley.
“Eleanor Lake still own it?”
Cooley sighed. “Didn’t you find a dead body in one of her rooms a couple of years back?”
“Actually,” said Thumps, “Eleanor found the body, called Beth instead of Duke. Figured it for a suicide. Didn’t want to have the place locked down. Was hoping Beth would just take the body away.”
“Sort of like garbage collection.”
“Sort of.”
“I’m guessing that didn’t work out,” said Cooley.
“Eleanor’s her own woman,” said Thumps.
Cooley pulled the cruiser up to the motel office. “You think two of us are enough?”
The Wagon Wheel had been built in the late 1950s, and, in all the preceding years, little had changed.
“The neon sign that looks like a wagon wheel is pretty cool,” said Cooley. “You don’t see stuff like that anymore.”
“It’s called nostalgia,” said Thumps.
A split-rail fence surrounded the property. Each year there was less split rail and more bailing wire to hold the pieces together.
“Panel sign is a bit tacky,” said Cooley. “Free cable, high-speed internet, whirlpool tubs, free coffee. None of that stuff is much of an incentive anymore.”
“Probably don’t want to share that with Eleanor.”
“I hear the rooms have vibrating beds.”
The office was dark and somewhat oppressive. Dark wood panelling, yellowed popcorn ceiling, a registration counter that might have originally been in the Bates Motel.
Eleanor Lake was nowhere in sight, which Thumps took to be a good omen. The sign in the office window said “No Vacancy,” which should have put her in a happy mood.
She might even be agreeable.
“You.”
One minute Eleanor wasn’t there, and the next she was.
“What the hell do you want?”
“Afternoon, Eleanor.”
“And who’s the moose?”
“Cooley Small Elk,” said Cooley.
“You Roxanne Heavy Runner’s nephew?”
“I am.”
“I like her,” said Eleanor. “Woman has iron.”
“That she does,” said Cooley.
Eleanor was just over five feet tall with steel-grey hair that had been cut short and at angles, so her head looked like an axe.
“What’s a nice boy like you doing with a photographer?”
“Thumps is the sheriff,” said Cooley.
“Deputy sheriff,” said Thumps. “Temporary.”
“Got no dead bodies for you today.”
Thumps held up a hand. “Not here about a body. Need to talk to you about one of your guests.”
“You ever hear of confidentiality?”
“Doesn’t apply to motel guests.”
“And what would a photographer know about that?”
Thumps bit down on his tongue. Gently. “I believe my office called you, asked if you had a Jim Brown or a Stan Greeley registered.”
“Maybe.”
“And you told my officer that you did not have a Jim Brown or a Stan Greeley here at the Wagon Wheel.”
“Maybe.”
Thumps held out his phone. “Does this man look familiar?”
Eleanor squinted at the photo. “Maybe.”
Thumps turned to Cooley. “Maybe we’ll search the motel, room by room, check all the guests, maybe fingerprint everyone.”
“That ain’t Brown or Greeley,” said Eleanor. “That’s George Banks.”
“George Banks?”
“The man who rented the room.”
Thumps put the phone back in his pocket. “The man who was staying here was Stan Greeley.”
Eleanor put her hands on her hips, widened her stance, as though she were going to take a run at a brick wall. “Name on the reservation was George Banks.”
Thumps made a small, pained noise in his throat. “Room?”
ROOM 8 WAS a close cousin to the office. Dark and depressing. Thumps tried to remember whether this was the same room where James Lester had been killed.
Eleanor read his mind. “It was number 10,” she said. “Room’s never been the same. Don’t believe in ghosts, but 10’s been unlucky. Air conditioner breaks down, it’s number 10. Television won’t work. Number 10. Toilet overflows. You get the idea.”
Cooley went to the bed, patted the mattress. “This thing work?”
Eleanor took a quarter out of her pocket, put it in the slot, turned the knob. “Knock yourself out.”
Cooley lay down on the bed as it hummed and shook. “Really cool.”
“If this was number 10,” said Eleanor, “the bed wouldn’t work.”
Thumps walked the room. There was a table at the far end. On the table was a set of car keys, a motel key, and a cellphone, neatly arranged in a line.
“Hey, boss,” Cooley called out, “you should give this a try.”
Thumps checked the closet. There were two shirts on hangers along with a sports coat and a pair of slacks. The dresser next to the bed had four pairs of underwear and three pairs of socks.
Greeley had planned to stay a while.
The bathroom was home to the man’s toothbrush, toothpaste for sensitive teeth, floss, a deodorant stick that was supposed to smell like Tuscan leather, and an electric razor.
Thumps checked under the sink, opened all the drawers, removed the cushions from the chair, looked in the refrigerator.
The bed stopped shaking. Cooley rolled off.
“You find anything?”
Thumps gestured to the table. “Missing car keys. Motel key and cellphone.”
“All laid out nice and neat.” Cooley stretched, rolled his shoulders. “Like someone wanted to make sure we found them.”
“I suppose you’re going to lock down my room,” said Eleanor. “I suppose you’re going to tell me that I can’t rent it ’cause it’s a crime scene.”
“The room was prepaid. Correct?”
“So?”
Getting answers from Eleanor Lake was like pulling a cranky badger out of a hole.
“How long?”
“None of your business.”
“A week? Two?”
“Maybe.”
“Deputy Small Elk.” Thumps stood up straight, so the sheriff’s star on his chest flashed in the light. “Let’s lock down this room and the rooms on either side. We’ll get a full forensics team in from Helena. Shouldn’t take much more than—”
“End of the month,” said Eleanor. “Room was paid to the end of the month.”
“Then if we hold on to it for a few days,” said Thumps, “you won’t lose any money.”
“This Greeley guy dead?”
“Ongoing investigation.”
“So, when you’re all done, I can rent it again?”
“As in double rent it?”
“I tell you how to play sheriff ?”
COOLEY GOT A couple of crime-scene stickers from the car, stuck one on the door, the other across the door and the frame.
“You think there’s anything left to find?”
“Doubt it,” said Thumps. “Whoever searched the room was thorough.”
“So you’re just doing this to annoy Eleanor.”
Thumps handed Cooley the evidence bag. “Check the phone. See whom Greeley called. See who called him.”
“I’ll swing by the airport,” said Cooley. “Check on the rental.”
“Cisco Cruz, Nora Gage, Stan Greeley.” Thumps closed and locked the door, just as a wave of weariness broke over him. “Next thing you know, we’ll have a partridge in a pear tree.”