Chapter 29
I awoke to someone pounding on my room door and a raspy female voice shouting, “Housekeeping.”
An instant later, the door was unlocked and propelled inward. The security chain prevented it from opening.
“Damn!” she uttered. Then the door slammed shut. It must be the so-happy-to-be-here sister-in-law, still stuck with the cleaning job she so despised. That meant Cortina Perez had not reappeared.
It was Friday, eight o’clock. I had slept remarkably well, considering my reckless behavior last night, or more correctly early this morning. I had assaulted an armed guard, a military man, in the dark. His fellow guard had called him Mason. He also said something about running into a tree. So perhaps Mason did not even know he had been assaulted. Perhaps he thought he had run into a tree again. That would be convenient. Alternatively, since no one had burst through the door to roust me out of bed to be arrested, I was at least an unknown assailant.
My first priority was to call Ed. I pulled out the confiscated dog tag. Jeremy Mason was the name imprinted on it. It also listed his middle initial, social security number, blood type, and religion. The information was minimal. But it would be more than enough for Ed to run it down, if he was willing.
My call to his cell phone was answered on the fourth ring, but it wasn’t him. It was his wife Samantha.
“Hello?” she said with a rising tone at the end of that word, as if it were a question.
“Hey, Sam. How are you?”
“Nathan! It’s good to hear your voice. Are you OK?” She had always been a worrier and often asked that question, as if any phone call meant I was ill or in trouble. Maybe it was being a cop’s wife that made her nervous, wondering when that call would come in that there had been a shooting involving someone she really cared about. I wasn’t shot, I wasn’t ill, though I might soon be in trouble out here with my increasingly reckless behavior.
“Everything’s fine, Sam.” With her, I couldn’t just ask for what I wanted. There always had to be the introductory chitchat before getting to the main point. That had always been fine with me in the past, but right now I just wanted to talk to Ed. Things were rolling, and I didn’t want to lose momentum. But I also had to meet her expectations.
“How are the kids?” I asked, trying not to sound robotic about it. I cared about the kids, of course, but really just wanted to talk to Ed.
“They’re great. We’re on our way to a soccer game with them right now.” Then she got to her business. “I’ve been worried about you, traveling all alone across the country. When are you coming back?” I knew she cared, cared a lot. She had sort of treated me like an adopted son. One of her missions in life was to match me up, get me married and settled down, regardless of my employment situation. I suspected that was a primary motive for wanting me back in Ohio so she could hook me up with another female from her stable of available women.
“Maybe I’ll come back for the holidays. Right now I’m exploring opportunities in Montana.” She, of course, already knew about that since surely she would have picked Ed’s brain clean of any gossip about me. Samantha Garvey would fit well in the grape vine out here. Her ear was always tuned to new news.
“That would be so nice. I’ll make up a bed in the basement for you,” she said gleefully.
It was time to make the switch in subject. “Sam, can I talk to Ed for a minute?”
“He’s driving, so can’t talk right now.” She had a strict rule about cell phone use while behind the wheel. She intended it to be a clear signal to her children that it just was not done, not in her car, not by her family. It was probably a wise position to take, though I knew that Ed violated that whenever she wasn’t there to monitor him.
“Then just have him call me when he can talk, OK? It’s important.”
“He can call as soon as we get to the game.”
“Thanks, Sam. I have to go now.”
There was a moment of silence as if she was put off by the shortness of the call, but she finally answered. “You be careful, Nathan.”
“Thanks. I will.”
I disconnected the call. While it was nice to talk with her, I really had wanted to speak with Ed. I had a hot item of interest in my hand, the dog tag. Now it was going to sit idle for too long. That bothered me. Opportunity right in front of me, but nothing I could really do with it.
I quickly showered, shaved, and dressed. It bothered me that I still had not heard from Joseph Custer. He had suggested setting up meetings with Brenda White and Ronald Barnes for today. Perhaps there was a message waiting for me stuck in my door.
There was none, but maybe at the front desk. As I walked down the sidewalk toward the office, I saw the angry sister-in-law noisily doing her cleaning chores, occasionally uttering some profanity. Again I did not see Cortina, unfortunate confirmation that she was probably gone for good.
In the office, I saw that it was too late for the continental breakfast. All that remained were sugar crumbs and grease stains in the otherwise empty donut box. And the juice pitcher was drained. No coffee was brewing in there either. My stomach grumbled from lack of attention, but it would have to wait a bit longer.
“Good morning,” I said trying to sound cheery.
The guy behind the desk didn’t even look up from his newspaper. He just grumbled, “I suppose so.” He must still be enamored with having to endure his sister-in-law’s lack of cleaning capabilities.
“Are there any messages for me? Room 17?”
Again without looking up or checking who was asking, he said, “Nope.” Well, it was a small motel. I guess he would know if there were messages.
Then I realized I hadn’t checked my cell phone for messages that might have come in last night. I had left it off all night. I had just turned it back on this morning and failed to check. Sure enough, there was a message from Joseph Custer just before midnight. I connected to my voice-mail to listen.
“Mr. Parker. Joseph Custer. I did some checking after our discussion. Found something very interesting. Stop by the office.”
He found something interesting so quickly. I wondered what it might be and where he found it. Even though I wanted to eat now, I had to go find him first.