“This guy?” Mrs. Presley paused. “You’re sure it’s this guy you’re looking for?”
“Yes.” My answer came out with more exasperation than I intended to show. My finger pressed into the first photo of Ned Weatherby—outside his house, picking a rose from the garden.
When I’d first walked into the Underhill Motel, Mrs. Presley had been anxious to see my pics, and just as anxious to offer me a commentary of her thoughts on all of them. “Oh this guy looks angry. Look at the legs on that one, will you. I’ve seen chickens with more meat on their bones. Why the hell don’t men wear hats anymore? Hats are classy, don’t you think, Dix?”
“Excellent questions, Mrs. P, but right now, I just need to know if you’ve seen this guy.”
“Ned Weatherby.”
Great! She recognized him! I knew it. “Yes, Ned Weatherby!”
She pushed the photos back across the counter. “Never been here.”
My jubilance evaporated. Of course. Mrs. P knew him from the local rag, the front page of which he made every other month in recent years. She didn’t need my private eye pics to ID him. “You’re sure about that?” I asked, maybe a little too pleadingly.
“Positive. Ned Weatherby has never been to the Underhill.”
I’d been so sure she’d tell me Ned and his blonde bimbo had been frequent guests. Damn.
“Could you please go over the photos just once more?”
“Don’t see what good it’ll do,” she grumbled, but she pulled the photographs closer and studied them again.
“Ma,” the distinctively male voice rose from the back room. “Ma, you got any of that spicy pepperoni left?”
“Don’t you dare, Cal,” she called back over her shoulder. “You know damn well that’ll give you the heartburn.”
“Ah, ma. Come on!”
“Forget it. I’m not going to be up rubbing your back again tonight, young man.” She looked up at me. “Kids.”
“How old are your sons?” I asked. “They’re twins aren’t they?”
“Yes, they’re twins,” Mrs. P answered. “And they’ll be twenty-eight in November.”
“Really?”
“Just babies, eh, Dix?”
Babies? Those hulking creatures? “Full grown, I’d say.” I pushed towards Mrs. Presley the pictures from Ned’s choir practice—the one of him sitting with the other choir members, the one of him talking to the serious-looking Pastor Ravenspire. They were deep in conversation in this one, and I had the feeling they were discussing more than Amazing Grace. The pastor looked concerned; Ned looked tired.
Mrs. Presley looked over the pictures quickly. No matter. I knew she wasn’t missing a thing. She glanced up at me. “How old is that young fellow you got working for you, Dix? That good-looking one you had with you that time when you followed that deadbeat who was cheating on his pregnant wife.”
I cleared my throat. “Twenty-eight.”
“Yep, full grown man. But I don’t have to tell you that.” She winked.
Damn her and her sideways-glancing intuition!
I felt the color rising in my cheeks. “Mrs. Presley, if we could go back to the pictures. Let’s go through them one at a time.”
She slung out a dramatic sigh to emphasize what I already knew—she was losing patience. But I wasn’t ready to give up yet. My intuition told me I was missing something. Something vital. Something I’d find here.
The picture I pointed to now was one of Ned and his lawyer leaving the gym. An easy, casual picture. Both held racquetball rackets held loosely at their sides. But that’s where the similarity ended. Ned was tall, while Jeremy was shorter than average. Their legs stuck out under the white of their gym shorts, but while Ned’s legs were hairy and dark, Jeremy’s were nearly as white and smooth as his shorts. In the photo, he bent to scratch his ankle, his finger digging into the socks as he walked. He looked more like the bell-ringing Hunchback of Notre Dame than one of Marport City’s finest young lawyers.
I directed Mrs. Presley’s attention to the picture of Ned and a red-faced Billy Star angrily exchanging words in the parking lot, tapping my finger on Ned’s image.
Mrs. Presley shook her head. She handed the pictures back to me and I let my breath out slowly.
“Ned Weatherby has never been here, Dix.”
I resigned myself to defeat on this point. The motel was a dead end. Damn! I’d been so sure. “Thanks anyway, Mrs. Presley.”
“You didn’t have to bring the pics in, Dix. You could have just asked me if I’d seen that guy who’s been all over the news.”
I cringed. Ned Weatherby was indeed all over the news. And no staid head-and-shoulders file shots needed—every camera had flashed towards the house when he’d stood in the open doorway.
“It’s on every channel. Here, I’ll find it for you.” Mrs. Presley picked up the remote control and aimed it at the small television that sat high and muted in the corner. No sound came over the speakers as the thin-faced, big-haired weather girl in the corner mouthed the latest weather report, while the caption gave all the information anyway.
“That’s okay, Mrs. Presley,” I said. “I’ll catch the news later.”
And I certainly would. I sighed. And I just hoped later in the day I wouldn’t be the news. God, I hoped Dylan had had better luck. As it stood now, Detective Richard Head would be having me for breakfast.
“Dix, you look like hell all of a sudden. What’s up?”
“It’s nothing,” I said. “I was just so sure that you’d recognize Ned from visiting the motel. But I’ve got other leads.” I gathered the photos up again and tucked them back into the folio. “Thanks for the help.”
“Any time.”
I turned and headed towards the door.
“And Dix,” Mrs. Presley called to my retreating form. “If you want me to tell you about the other person in those pictures—the one that used to come here all the time, just let me know.”
“Other person?” I turned to face Mrs. Presley again. “What other person?”
“That one you didn’t ask about. But you’re the detective, Dix Dodd. I’m just the lady at the desk. You go on now. Have a nice day.”
I’m an idiot. “I’m an idiot.”
I should have just handed Mrs. Presley the pictures and let her fill in the blanks—all the blanks, any of the blanks. Instead, I’d told her what blank I wanted filled in and with whom. My intuition was right on track; my brain had simply derailed.
“What did I miss, Mrs. P?”
“Sit down, honey.” She nodded towards the small sofa and coffee table in the small lounge. “I’ll ask Cal to make us some lunch. We’re gonna be here awhile.”
My face dropped.
Mrs. P looked at me and grinned. “Ah, come on, don’t look so sad. This isn’t some kind of Heartbreak Hotel, you know.”