“I heard what sounded like a gunshot.” Benjamin said. “When I stuck my head out the door, I saw some people across the parking lot. When I asked if there was a problem, one of them said that everything was fine and that their car had just backfired. At the moment I excused it, but something started nagging at me.”
“Why was that?” Karl asked.
“The car had been setting in the same place for at least an hour, so it didn’t make sense that it just now backfired. Once everyone went back in this room,” he pointed through the open door, “I investigated. That’s when I found the—.”
“Investigated?”
“Yeah, I felt the hood, deputies. It was cool to the touch. If they had just come back, it would have been warm. That’s when I noticed the blood.”
“Blood? Where did you find this blood?”
“In the parking lot,” Benjamin answered and pointed toward the other side, “by that tree over there.”
“Benjamin,” Amos said, “why don’t you accompany Deputy Krusher and show him where this shooting may have taken place?”
He turned toward Bob and continued, “Mr. Johnson, I’ll take a look inside the room. Would you mind waiting out here?”
“It’s fine with me,” Bob said, “but I want to know who is going to pay for the damage.”
The two deputies passed a look of amusement between them.
“Damage?” Amos asked.
“There’s blood all over the place, Deputy,” Bob said.
“Well …, recovering damages is really not something we have any control over, sir,” Amos said and then disappeared into the room.
Karl led Benjamin toward the large tree and pulled a small flashlight from a holster on his belt. “Tell me what you saw.”
“The Impala was parked here under this tree. It was backed in just a few feet from the fence. While I was out here, a man came from that room,” he pointed again to the open door, “and drove off. After that, I found this pool of blood.”
Deputy Krusher knelt beside the dark stain. In the time it had taken him to arrive on scene, the blood had soaked through the cracks in the asphalt, but enough residue of the thick liquid remained to either confirm or refute Benjamin’s story.
“Wait here, please,” Karl said and stood.
He walked to his car, opened the trunk and took some tools from his investigative kit. Once he made his way back to where Benjamin waited, he stooped down and placed an evidence marker next to the nearly congealed pool. With a digital camera, he snapped several photos from different angles. When he finished, he let the camera dangle from his neck, slipped a pair of latex gloves over his hands, and, with a swab, swiped into one of the crevasses. He held it up and examined the deep red stain on the cotton tip with the flashlight.
“It does look like blood,” Karl said. “The lab will tell us if it’s human or animal. So someone left. Did he or she come back?”
“Yes, but I didn’t hear it. I had the television on and it wasn’t until I heard the door shut next door maybe twenty or thirty minutes later that I knew they had returned. I checked out the window and could see the car was parked in about same spot as before.”
“So what happened next?”
“Well, it wasn’t long before they all left,” Benjamin said, “and that wasn’t more than ten minutes ago. Are you going after them?”
“In due time, just a few more questions. Which way did they go?”
“They headed south, back the way you just came. You probably passed them.”
“And they were driving what type of vehicle?”
“A 1965 Chevy Impala!”
“Are you sure?”
“Very sure. I’m somewhat of an aficionado of that era GM cars.”
“Could you tell how many people there were?”
“Yes, four. Three men and a woman.”
“Deputy, may I see you a moment?” Amos’s call from across the parking lot turned Karl away from Benjamin.
“Excuse me, Benjamin,” Karl said. He set a brisk pace to where Amos stood in the doorway, the sound of crumbling pavement and dried oak leaves crackled under his feet into the night air.
“What is it?” Karl asked, as they stepped into the room.
“As the owner said, someone has lost a lot of blood.”
“There’s blood in the parking lot as well,” Karl interrupted.
“There’s blood on the bed, bloody towels on the floor and this torn wrapper of disposable diapers. I also found empty beer and soda cans on the floor and table, and between the beds there’s an empty plastic grocery bag.”
“The witness claims a subject drove away and then came back.”
“Maybe the perp was going for medical supplies and all they could find were diapers.”
“Makes sense.”
“Well, that’s not all,” Amos said. He motioned toward the bathroom. “Step in here.”
Karl followed Amos as he walked through the bathroom doorway. Amos used the arm of his jacket to pull back the shower curtain. There propped up in the soap dispenser a note rested. The paper had been taken from a notepad with the name of the motel, Pair-A-Dice, inscribed across the top. Karl stepped close enough to read it.
“That’s a Los Angeles area code,” Karl said. “I think we have an abduction gone wrong. Someone’s obviously hurt and bad, but it looks like it’s not the girl. Let’s seal the room and get out of here. I have an idea.”
_____
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Jearl Rugh 2012
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