16

WHEN HE SPOKE HIS VOICE WAS LIKE A STRANGER’S, the voice he had used for many years as a homicide investigator, flat and crisp. “Don’t come in. Go back to the car and wait inside. Give me five minutes, then call Chief Engleman.” He pulled the chief’s card from his pocket and handed it to her. “After him, call Tricia and let her know Pamela’s been killed. Tell her to call the others.”

She brought her gaze from Pamela’s body to him, nodded, and walked back to the car. He took another step into the room, closed the door without latching it, and retrieved the gloves from his pocket and put them on. Moving swiftly he moved to the side of Pamela’s body and examined the blood for a moment. It was congealing around the edges of the pool at her head. He walked on to the bathroom and glanced inside. Back in the bedroom he looked around for Pamela’s purse, found it in a heap of bedding and looked through it, pulled out a notebook and made a note of two telephone numbers, returned it to the purse. Without moving, he made a rapid examination of the room. Dingy, small and cramped, a worn, hard-surface carpeting that didn’t show footprints, a few clothes heaped on a chair, telephone with a notepad. A bottle of bourbon on the bureau, two glasses. He went to the notepad and held it under the table lamp, tilted it, and made another note of numbers indented on the top sheet. The numbers had not all been written hard enough to leave a mark. A cell phone was on the table and he quickly scanned the numbers in her address book, made another few notes. There was little else to see in the room, and he went to the door and looked at the lock. It had to be locked from the inside after closing the door, and with a key from outside. He removed and pocketed the gloves and stood leaning against the wall by the door and brooded.

He was still standing there when Chief Engleman arrived ten minutes later. He heard him approach and opened the door with his foot. Engleman did what Charlie had done. He stepped into the room and came to a stop.

“Jesus Christ!” he muttered. “Why the hell didn’t you call the sheriff? Why me?”

“Didn’t have his number, Chief, had yours. Did you call him yet?”

“Christ yes! He’s on the way. What’s the story? Have you touched anything?”

“Nope. The doorknob, nothing else. She invited us and we came. Never did find out what was on her mind. She’s been dead at least an hour, maybe a little longer, looks like.”

“Where’s your wife?”

“I told her to lock herself in the car and wait for me after calling you. She never came in here.” He shrugged. “Let me tell you, and then I want to go back to the bed-and-breakfast and go to bed. We were up at the Bainbridge house talking to the attorney, Mr. Paley. Paley and the night watchman will vouch for that. We came straight over here to see what was on Pamela’s mind, and we found her like this. I moved in close enough to make sure she was dead, and I looked in the bathroom, just in case someone was hanging around. Constance called you immediately and I’ve been waiting to tell our story. Now I want to go to bed.”

“You know you have to wait for the sheriff,” Engleman said, his gaze on Pamela’s body. “Who is she?”

“Pamela Bainbridge, married to William Bainbridge, who is bedridden in Orlando, Florida. His son is Stuart Bainbridge, her stepson, and he’s camping out at the state park.”

Engleman’s eyes narrowed. “Bainbridge again.”

“Just one big happy family,” Charlie said. “Chief, you and I both know that this is going to be close to an all-nighter here with forensics, the doctor on call, your sheriff and his boys, the whole shebang. There’s no place in here for me to hang out while they go about their business, and I don’t intend to leave my wife sitting in that car for the next six hours while I’m being grilled. You know where to find us if the sheriff wants to hear firsthand what I just told you. Innocent bystander role for me—just happened to be the one to find a body. You know how that goes.”

Chief Engleman spoke to someone outside the door, then motioned to Charlie to come with him. “I want a word with your wife,” he said.

A uniformed officer moved aside for them and took the chief’s place at the door, and they walked to where Constance was sitting in the passenger seat of the car. She rolled down the window as they approached.

“Charlie, what in heaven’s name is going on? I called the police and they came. Now let’s go. I want to get out of here. Now. A killer might be lurking about watching my every move.”

“My wife,” Charlie said to Engleman. “Honey, this is Chief Engleman.”

“I don’t care if he’s Santa Claus! I want to get out of here.”

“Mrs. Meiklejohn,” the chief said, “I just want to ask you a couple of questions. If you don’t mind.”

“I do mind! She asked us to come and we did, and she was dead. My God! She was dead and he told me to sit in the car by myself. Who knows where the killer is? He could be watching us right now.” She was looking at the used car lot adjacent to the motel parking area. “He could be lurking in a car over there.”

“Please, Mrs. Meiklejohn, calm down. Where were you before you came here?”

“Talking to that lawyer, and the guard up there let us out, and we came here, and before that we were at some miserable hole-in-the-wall restaurant, and then we came here and she was dead. She told us to come. Twice. So we did.”

“Honey, pull yourself together,” Charlie said. “You’re safe now. Just don’t start crying, okay?”

“I might start screaming if we don’t get out of here!” she cried in a loud voice.

A couple had pulled in at the motel and stood outside the door of another unit, staring.

Charlie looked at the chief helplessly and spread his hands apart. “Maybe we can give a statement tomorrow.”

“Yeah, tomorrow’s time enough. Plenty to do here tonight. You’re up at Millie’s bed-and-breakfast, aren’t you? I have your telephone number. We’ll give you a call tomorrow.”

Charlie slid in behind the wheel.

“Lock your door!” Constance cried. “For God’s sake, lock your door!”

He locked his door and turned on the engine. “Tomorrow, Chief,” he said. The chief turned and walked back to Pamela’s room and Charlie backed out of the parking slot.

“I think you have a point about the used-car lot,” he said as he drove out to the highway. “Bet that’s where the murderer parked and waited for the right time to make a call.”

“Now I know why you wanted to call the chief of police and not the sheriff.”

“I’ll always wonder why you didn’t take up acting in the theater,” he said and gave her thigh a little squeeze.