LITMIR.BIZ

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go home—theirs had been her last appointment of the day. But she didn’t want to leave her office. She never did.

      For three years now, since her separation and divorce, she’d been alone, and she still couldn’t get used to facing an empty apartment at the end of each day. Not that it had been any better than the last year of her marriage. Neither counseling nor time seemed to lessen the pain of her losses, the memories hanging like dark storm clouds on the horizon of her mind. The past. Her present. The eternity of a future that stretched unendingly before her.

      When she concentrated on the problems of others, her malaise lifted. Her work, in this way, had become her salvation.

      After work—that was the problem.

      Expelling a breath, Trista stood up from behind her desk and walked over to the window. Her office building was located just south of King Street, and her suite on the south side of the top floor had a nice view of Lake Ontario. Usually the sky was hazy, and the lake broody and gray.

      But today the spring sun shone, and the water sparkled, blue and inviting. A deceptive appearance, for in fact Lake Ontario was so polluted that swimming was considered dangerous.

      “GOOD GOD.” Detective Morgan Forester considered himself a hardened cop, but he wasn’t prepared for the sight that met his eyes as he stepped inside the motel room at five-thirty Tuesday afternoon.

      The deceased, a large man in his late forties, sat on the kitchen floor by the front of the stove. Thick lumps of meat and tomato sauce covered his head, and had dripped down over his shirt, merging with the dark red stain marking the bullet wound in his chest. The sauce and the clotting blood had congealed into a thick red pool around the body.

      Adding to the scene’s repugnance was the smell. Although the body had only been there for about twenty-four hours, the scent of death in the room was unmistakable. That, combined with the cloying odor of the day-old tomato sauce, was lethal. Morgan shook his head, feeling damn weary of his job.

      “Any fingerprints?” He turned away from the body and walked over to the table where Kendal, one of the I-dent officers, was finishing up his work.

      “Some. But they’re probably the maid’s and the deceased’s. I wouldn’t get my hopes up.”

      Morgan raised his eyebrows. “I never get my hopes up. I suppose you guys have already talked to the desk clerk who was on duty?”

      “We have. A Mr. Kyle Litherman. He says that at about twenty past one yesterday afternoon, a woman wearing a tan trench coat, leather gloves, hat and sunglasses walked into his office. He didn’t notice a car, figures she probably took a cab. They usually do. Who wants to risk having their vehicle identified in a motel parking lot in the middle of the day?

      “Anyway, the woman told him she and her husband were locked out of room 14. He gave her the key and says he didn’t notice anything unusual after that. Which isn’t surprising, given how far this room is from the office and the proximity of the expressway.”

      He rolled his eyes, indicating the traffic noise which was clearly audible even with the exterior door closed.

      “You questioned the other motel occupants?”

      “Yup. No one heard a thing.”

      “Of course not.” Even if they had, Morgan doubted they’d be willing to cooperate, on the same principle Kendal had just stated. Who’d want to admit to being in this motel on a weekday afternoon? “So, are you guys finished here?”

      “Just about. We’ve taken the photos. We just need to bag the rest of this stuff and send off the body, but we knew you’d want to see everything first.”

      Morgan gave a short nod of approval. “What about time of death? Does the coroner’s estimate coincide with the timing of the woman asking for the room key?”

      “Yes.”

      “She sounds like the one we want, all right. Now tell me about the deceased.”

      The officer flipped open a notepad and began reading from his notes. “The guy’s name was Jerry Walker, although he booked into the room as John Doe. He runs a chain of five hardware stores, with a main office on Queen Street. We talked to his wife this morning.”

      Morgan shook his head. Arriving late on the scene like this—it was far from ideal. He’d received the call from Inspector Zarowin around eleven, but he’d been out of town tying up loose ends from a previous case. Fortunately the crew on the Identification Unit knew what they were doing.

      “Who found the body?” He stretched his shoulders, fighting the ache from his six-hour drive. No sense thinking about how tired he was. The day that had begun at six that morning would doubtlessly be continuing far into the night as well.

      “The maid. She was doing her rounds and reached this room at about 10:00 a.m.”

      “And how did Mrs. Walker take the news?”

      “She broke down. We couldn’t get much out of her, but she did say her husband wasn’t in the habit of spending nights away from home, and she’d been worried sick.”

      Morgan looked around the motel room as he listened, rubbing his hand over the stubble on his chin, wishing he’d had time to shave that morning. As he scanned the room, he took in details without conscious effort.

      The table was set with flowers and candles. A bottle of red wine sat open beside two clean wineglasses. He picked up one of the white plates from the table and fingered a chip, barely visible to the human eye.

      “The dishes are from the kitchenette,” the I-dent officer told him. “Walker must have brought the candles, flowers and wineglasses himself.”

      Morgan’s eyes settled on a rose that had been placed on the untouched bed. “He went to a lot of trouble here. What did you find in his pockets?”

      “Wallet, with a hundred and sixty dollars, and identification. Some matches, a couple of condoms—pretty optimistic for an older guy.” He pointed to the items, already packed away in a plastic bag on the table.

      Morgan ignored the attempt at humor. He wondered about the woman this guy had been waiting for. She must have been something special to warrant all this effort.

      “Well, pack it up. I’ve seen enough.” He nodded to the other officers, then turned on his heel and left the room. Back outdoors, he took a deep, reviving breath of fresh air. He hadn’t eaten in over eight hours, but he no longer felt hungry. And it would be a long time before he’d be able to face a dish of spaghetti again.

      TRISTA’S FINGERS paused over her computer keyboard, the phrase she’d been about to write slipping out of her mind.

      She’d heard something. Hadn’t she? She listened for several seconds, but all was silent. Her gaze slid to the clock on the edge of her desk and she was surprised to see that it was already past nine.

      The building was probably all but deserted by now. Maybe she’d heard the security guard making his rounds.

      She finished her sentence then saved the document. That was enough for one day. If she went home now she’d have just enough time to eat dinner and watch a program on television before going to bed.

      Scooping up the day’s tapes from her desk, she headed for the reception area out front where she dumped them into Brenda’s in box to be transcribed tomorrow. She was about to return to her office for her jacket and briefcase when she heard something that sounded like a chair leg scraping against the floor. The sound had come from the direction of the file room.

      Trista stared at the closed door. Was someone in there? The idea of an intruder was ludicrous—the only money in the place was a fifty-dollar petty cash fund that Brenda kept locked in her top drawer—but she was reluctant to open the door and check.

      If someone was there, the last thing she wanted to do was surprise him. Trista backtracked to her office and shut the door with a loud bang, and locked it behind her.

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