“Martinez? We've got a woman, obviously dead. I've secured the scene. Paramedics have been turned away. Requesting assistance.”
An hour later, the crime scene tech was snapping pictures, police were canvasing the area, questioning every guest, every nearby business, every employee. Detective Andy Martinez, Officer Moody's supervisor, had commandeered the surveillance camera. Miracle of miracles, there actually was one at the Stowaway. The coroner had been called and was en route.
When questioned, the desk clerk claimed they had not been renting out the room because the air conditioner was broken. Nobody had been in or out of the room for more than two days. A repairman had been scheduled, but fixing the air conditioner had not been a huge priority. Nobody knew how the woman had gotten into the hotel room, but she definitely hadn't signed in and used something as helpful as a credit card to pay for her stay. And she didn't have any ID on her. Unfortunately for the investigation, the woman had been dead for two days or longer, and the hotel wasn't one that attracted long stays. The Stowaway sat just off the freeway on the outskirts of town and whoever may have seen or heard anything from the night she had died was no longer at the motel.
When Officer Moody finally made it home at eight o'clock that night, he felt no better than he had earlier, and they still hadn't made an identification of the woman found dead with nothing with the clothes on her back to guide the investigation. Moody had a bad feeling about the whole thing, and he didn't think it had anything to do with the burritos.
AUGUST 6, 1993
“Any luck making an ID?” Officer Moody hadn't been able to get the woman out of his head. It bothered him all night. It wasn't his case. Patrolmen didn't head investigations. But Martinez was his supervisor and was willing to share, especially when the case seemed to be coming to a rapid close.
“Coroner rolled her prints,” Detective Martinez offered.
“Oh, yeah? Any luck?”
“Yep. She's got a few priors, mostly drug related. Got a name, an old address. Just turned nineteen. August 3 was her birthday, actually.” Detective Martinez winced.
“You mean she died on her birthday?”
“That's what the coroner says, yeah.”
“Drug overdose?” Officer Moody didn't know if he'd get an answer on this one. Detective Martinez could be pretty close-mouthed.
“That's what we thought. But when the coroner rolled her, the back of her head was bashed in.”
“Ah, hell,” Officer Moody groaned. Now they were looking for a murderer, too.
“We don't know if it was the drugs or the head wound that finished her off, but someone tried to do the job. It looked like she'd taken a little bit of everything from some of the paraphernalia at the scene. She probably had enough crap in her system to down an entire cheer leading squad,” Martinez was forthcoming.
“Cheerleading squad?” Moody laughed a little.
“Yeah. She was a cheerleader at a little school in Southern Utah . It was in the police report. She apparently shared some Ecstasy with her teammates and was caught and charged with possession. Only reason she wasn't locked up was because she was a minor and it was her first offense. And she was sharing, not selling. We've touched base with local authorities there. They're going to notify the family.”
“You get anything off the surveillance tape?”
“Yep. Just as plain as can be. We have her walking into the lobby about midnight and climbing through the reception window, over the front desk, right into the office area. Desk clerk claims she usually locks everything up when she has to step away from the desk, but she had the stomach flu and rushed to the bathroom without buttoning things up.” Officer Moody thought briefly of his bout with the burritos as Martinez continued.
“Camera shows the girl rifling around and grabbing a key. They still use the actual keys, you know. No modern key cards for the Stowaway. Desk clerk says the key had been pulled and set aside because of the air conditioning problems. There was a work order with the key. Girl wasn't a dummy. She took the key knowing she could probably hang out in the room for the night and nobody would know. And that's not all. The camera shows her car coming into the motel with her in it and leaving an hour later with a man at the wheel. We've got an APB out on that car.”
“That's great. Looks like you got it just about locked down then,” Moody sighed, relieved.
“Yep. Looks like we'll be able to put this one to bed pretty soon,” Detective Martinez agreed.
AUGUST 7, 1993