“Who are you two again?” New Hampshire state trooper Lawrence Pines said as he stood outside the North Star Motor Court and rubbed a thumb absently over a nasty mark on the back of his hand. The ragged flesh a livid pink against his dark skin. It’s not a scar, Test thought, it’s too fresh. A wound.
“Detectives Test and Rath,” Test said. “Canaan Police.”
The trooper stared at them. Test and Rath showed their IDs.
“What are you doing here, is probably the better question,” Pines said.
Test explained the previous interview. Sheldon’s connection to Preacher and thus perhaps to the hanged girls and possibly to Dana Clark’s disappearance. “We left feeling squared with him. But came back based on an interview that revealed Sheldon had lied to us.”
“Will wonders never cease,” Pine said. “You should have been in touch with us the first time.”
“It was an informal inquiry, being right across the river,” Test said.
“Save it. Law enforcement needs to work together.”
“We are. Now,” Test said. “If we’d looped you in the first time, you’d probably have bitched we were wasting your resources.”
“We’ll never know.”
“Let me show you what we have,” Test said.
Upon being shown the blood, Pines said, “So?”
“We need forensics here,” Test said.
“It’s a bathroom. Looks like someone got cut shaving.”
“You shave in the shower much?” Rath said.
“Could have nicked himself and kept bleeding. You know how a nicked chin bleeds like a sliced artery.” He considered Rath’s unshaven face. “Maybe not. More likely a woman friend cut herself in the shower, shaving her legs, kept bleeding at the sink.” He scratched at the ruin of flesh that was the back of his hand.
“The door was open,” Test said. “The coffee burned to a black crust. His clothes are still here but he’s gone.”
“Let’s speak with the manager,” Pines said.
The manager, a middle-aged woman wrapped in a sari the color of a plum, told them Sheldon had paid for the two weeks, in advance. “He not trouble. Quiet like the mouse.”
“Have you seen him today?” Test asked.
“Not for couple days. But that does not mean he is not round. I don’t see everything. I am busy. I guess he is inside because he asked the maid not come.”
Rath looked at Test.
“This is not unusual,” the manager said. “Many who lives in efficiency do not have maid each day. It is extra cost.”
“Do you have CCTV?”
“I do not know this.”
“Video cameras. Security?” Test said, looking around at the ceiling corners of the lobby.
“Too much of the money. Is broken. My husband, he has a gun instead.”
“Where is your husband?” Test said.
“Maine. We have other motel. That one it has the cameras,” she said. “They not break.”
“Can we see Sheldon’s registration card?” Test said.
The manager gave a wary look, but dug around in a tin box of index cards. “Here.” She handed the card to Test.
Test looked at it. “Did you see him driving the car listed on here? A black Civic?”
The woman nodded. “Is something happening?”
“We will need to take a closer look in the unit. If that’s OK.”
“If it is a must. I hope nothing happens to him.”
Test thanked the woman and turned to leave.
“His poor wife,” the manager said.
Test turned back. “He’s not married,” she said.
“Girlfriend she is maybe then.”
“Who?” Test said.
“The woman who is crying.”
“When was this?” Test said.
Rath and the state trooper exchanged looks with Test.
“She was here,” the manager said, “the night we got all the first fogs and rains. She was, it’s not my ways to gossip. But she was very drunks. I saw him helping her from car, holding her upright, I heard her making sobs.”
“What did she look like?” Test said.
“I do not knows. It is dark and all the fogs.”
“But it was a woman?” Rath said.
“I see this, yes. I am going from a room to office, a family need a crib. I brings it to them. I am coming back when I sees him pulling her from backseat of car. She could not stand on her owns, and was, she was getting sick. I said something but he had car parked right in front and was inside quick like cat.”
“And you didn’t ask what was going on?” Test said.
“I see many much worst things here, a motel, many, many things worst than a drunks wife.”
“Why do you think it was his wife?” Rath asked.
“I sees him next day. He is getting ice from machine.”
The trooper scratched at the back of his wounded hand, but his focus was on the manager.
The manager bowed her head slightly, looked up from under her eyelids as if she’d talked too much and feared repercussions.
“I ask if his wife is OK, and he say fine. Fine.”
“Did you see her again, the wife?” Test said.
The manager shook her head. “I heard car late at that night. Woke me in office, the engine and headlights.”
“Did you see her get in?”
“I see only the car drive away.”
“What time?”
“Late. Next morning. Three in morning or more.”
“And when did it come back?”
“I don’t knows. I sees the car is back sometime, but not sure when it got back. I am busy.”
“Have you seen her, the wife, since?” Test said.
“Not ever since.”