No, I thought. I’d meant what I said to Tamara, never mind her too-wise smile. If a private investigator doesn’t have a paying client, he can’t legally conduct an investigation — and that goes double in a police matter involving a fatality. I’d be inviting any number of hassles if I tried to stick my nose into what would almost surely go down as an accidental shooting, even if it wasn’t.
Airtight alibis and a man shot to death in a closed-up motel room... how could it be homicide? How and who? Tough nut, and plenty of activity needed in trying to crack it. Something to do, whether or not I got anywhere.
Mistake. Potentially a big one.
Sure.
Out of it and staying out.
Sure.
I thought I had myself convinced by the time I left the flat. Three and a half hours later I was on my way across the Golden Gate Bridge, headed for Sonoma County.
15
The Pinecrest Lodge was on the northern outskirts of Healdsburg, along a frontage road that paralleled Highway 101 and clearly visible from the freeway. Not large and not small — some sixty units in a pair of two-story wings that extended out from a central lobby, restaurant, and lounge. All the room entrances appeared to face the highway; close behind the complex were stands of trees and a couple of low hills that folded in against each other. On the thirty-foot-tall sign above the entrance drive, the word “Vacancy” burned palely in red neon.
The next exit was a short distance ahead; I took it and came back on the frontage road. This early on a Friday afternoon, only a few cars were parked in the lot. I added mine to the total and entered a lobby that looked and felt and smelled like every motel lobby from California to Maine; the only difference was that they had the heat turned up too high. Nothing at all special about the Pinecrest that I could see. Quite a comedown from the St. Francis for a man like Erskine, but then he hadn’t been interested in comfort or anything else except his ex-wife when he came up here from the city. He’d picked the motel for its location, no other reason. And it would’ve been his last stopping place, I thought, even if he hadn’t died here. He’d been ready to die somewhere in Sonoma County, but not alone: I had little doubt that he would have killed Sondra Nelson and then himself if he’d had the chance.
Behind the desk, a young woman wearing a green blazer with a gold pocket crest of three pines was busy on both the phone and a computer keyboard. She and I were alone in the lobby. I smiled at her; she smiled back, miming the words “I’ll be with you in a moment, sir.” The other party kept her on the line longer than she anticipated, though. She raised her eyebrows and shook her head as if she were mildly exasperated, then smiled at me again. In response I told her silently that it was all right, I was in no hurry. So we had already established a rapport when the conversation finally ended.
“Sorry about that,” she said as if she meant it. “Would you like a room, sir?”
“Well, I’m not sure.” The apologetic note I squeezed into my voice sounded genuine enough. “You do have more than one vacancy?”
“Yes we do. Our rates—”
“Oh, the rate doesn’t matter. What matters is the room.”
“Sir?”
“Not to me, you understand. Any room is fine with me, all I care about is that it has a bed in it. But my wife... well, she’s picky.” I manufactured a sigh. “Very picky.”
The young woman nodded and smiled and said, “Picky in what way?”
“The size of the room, for one thing. Do you have any suites or large rooms with fireplaces?”
“No, I’m sorry, we don’t.”
“So all of your accommodations are the same? I mean, I understand some rooms are singles and some doubles, but the size and general floor plan are identical in each?”
“That’s right. A few do have connecting doors that you can leave open to make up a suite—”
“Not an option, I’m afraid. I wonder... I know this is an imposition, but would it be all right if I looked at one of your ground-floor rooms? My wife insists on the ground floor, and the size and layout really are very important to her.”
“Well...”
“Just a brief look. I’m sure it’ll be suitable, but if it isn’t and I’ve already checked in... I’m being a pest, aren’t I?”
“No, no, not at all. I’d take you out and show you one of the vacancies but I’m here alone right now... Would you mind if I gave you a key and let you go look by yourself?”
“That’s very kind of you. Five minutes or so is all I need.”
“Take as much time as you like, sir.”
We traded smiles again, and I went on my way with a key. Simple as that. I hoped the next person who took advantage of the nice young woman’s trust had motives as relatively benign as mine.
The number on the key was 116, a room more or less in the middle of the south wing. Average-size rectangle, only slightly deeper than it was wide, with a half wall separating the bed and sitting area from a bathroom cubicle and an adjoining space containing a countertop with two sinks, a mirror, and an open closet. Double bed, round table and two uncomfortable cane-backed chairs, dresser, writing desk, TV set on a stand. Blue-and-green decor, blue-and-green seascapes that nobody in his right mind would want to steal screwed tight to the walls. If the room were to survive intact into the twenty-second century, anthropologists of that time could stick it into a museum as a perfect example of Standard American Motel Room, Late Twentieth Century.
I stepped inside, leaving the door partway open, and took a long look at it, the jamb, and the locking mechanisms. The knob lock was a deadbolt and so was the security lock above it. There was also a chain fastener of the sort that makes some people feel safe in strange surroundings, as well as in their own home, but that in reality provides little protection; a hefty twelve-year-old can kick or shoulder through ninety-eight percent of them. The deadbolts were of decent manufacture and durable enough, and the door here fit snugly in the jamb, which indicated that the same would be true in the other units. Battle had told me both deadbolts had been set in Erskine’s room; the chain lock must’ve been off for the cleaning woman to passkey her way in. There were methods an expert locksmith could use to gimmick a couple of dead-bolts like these, but the average person working without foreknowledge and the proper tools couldn’t hope to manage it. Besides, the cleaning woman and the two guests had been close enough to hear the shots and to get out to where they could see Erskine’s door in a hurry. There would not have been time for anyone in the room to either gimmick the locks or get out through the door unseen.
The same went for the curtained window next to it. Two overlapping halves, one of which you could slide open to let in air; that half was screened. The latch was a simple snap type, but the sliding half was fitted with one of those security bolts that you can screw down to prevent the window from opening even when the latch is released. Forget this window as an exit, too.
That left the bathroom. It wasn’t much larger than an upended packing crate, with just enough space for a toilet and a compact tub and shower; put three people in it and you’d be inviting an orgy. The only window in there was above the tub — an oblong, overlapping-halves job similar to the one out front, except that it was much smaller and the glass was opaque and unscreened. Three feet long, not much more than eighteen inches high. I swung over into the tub, leaned up to look more closely at the window. Same kind of snap catch as the other but without the screw-down bolt. I slid the one half open. No outside screen or bars. I stuck my head through the opening. Trees, hillsides, not much else to see.
Somebody could have gotten out this way without being seen, all right, but it would’ve had to have been a slender and agile somebody to squeeze through such a small opening. I couldn’t have done it if my life depended on it. Gail Kendall couldn’t have, and I doubted Woolfox would’ve fit, either. Sondra Nelson... maybe. But she was the one with the tightest alibi of alclass="underline" jury duty fifteen miles away.