After we had left the Black Angus restaurant, at close to 11:00 p.m., Foos continued to talk while driving us back to the Manor House. He mentioned that a very attractive young couple had been staying at the motel for the last few days, and perhaps we would get a look at them tonight. They were from Chicago and had come to Colorado on a skiing vacation and also to visit friends in the Denver area. It was Donna who had greeted them on their arrival and registered them in Room 6. Foos said that whenever Donna was filling in for Viola at the desk, which Donna usually did in the early afternoons before going to work, she would register the more youthful and attractive guests in one of the “viewing rooms,” in deference to him. Room 6 was one such room, while the nine others, lacking facilities for people watching, were issued to couples or individuals who were old or less physically appealing.
Foos also mentioned that he and Donna were currently building a two-story ranch house with a four-car garage within the grounds of the Aurora country club on East Cedar Avenue. He identified himself as an avid golfer regularly shooting in the low 80s, while his teenage son, Mark, was much better and potentially a top intercollegiate player.
As we approached the motel, I began to feel uneasy. I noticed that its large advertising sign near the entranceway at Colfax Avenue displayed a “No Vacancy” notice.
“That’s good for us,” Foos said, turning his car into the motel’s driveway. “It means we can lock up for the night and not be bothered by late arrivals looking for rooms—and, for our registered guests, there’s a bell and also a buzzer at the front desk that they can use if they need anything.” The buzzer was also equipped to relay muted sounds into the attic, he said, and so at his own discretion he could return to the office promptly and conveniently. He could climb down from the ladder in the utility room, walk across the parking lot, and arrive at the office desk in the smaller building in less than three minutes.
After he had parked the car next to the office, we were greeted at the door by Viola, who had been on duty all evening. She handed him a pack of mail, credit card receipts, and a few phone messages, and then began briefing him on routine matters, including the maids’ schedules for the rest of the week. They stood talking in front of the counter for several minutes while I sat waiting on a corner sofa. Behind me was a wall covered with framed posters of the Rocky Mountains and downtown Denver, maps of the city and state, and a couple of AAA plaques affirming the cleanliness and comfort of the Manor House Motel.
Finally, after saying goodnight to his mother-in-law, Foos turned off one of the desk lights and, after beckoning that I follow, he locked the front door. We then crossed the concrete lot, edged between some parked cars, and walked in the direction of the utility room, which was located in the center of the motel’s main building.
Curtains were drawn across the large windows that fronted each of the twenty-one guest rooms at street level, and the lights glowed behind the curtains of only four or five of these rooms. I could hear the sounds of television coming from some of them, which I assumed did not bode well, knowing the preferred expectations of my host.
With the aid of his pass key, he gently nudged open the door of the utility room, which on all sides had shelves that were stacked with folded blankets, towels, and linen; while on the floor, next to a washing machine and dryer, were boxes containing bars of soap, bottles of detergent, and furniture polish. Deeper in the room, riveted into a wall, was a wooden ladder painted blue with ten parallel rounded rungs.
At his direction, after acknowledging his finger-to-lip warning that we maintain silence, I climbed the ladder behind him and paused momentarily at the landing while he went up a few feet farther to unlock the door leading into the attic. After I had followed him inside, and he had locked the door behind me, I saw in the dim light, to my left and right, sloping wooden beams that supported both sides of the motel’s pitched roof; and in the middle of the attic’s narrow floor, which was flanked by horizontal beams, was a carpeted catwalk about three feet wide that ran the full length of the building, extending over the ceilings of the twenty-one guest rooms.
Walking on the catwalk a few paces behind Foos, and moving in a crouched position so as to avoid hitting my head against one of the crossbeams, I then paused as Foos pointed down toward the light reflecting up from one of the viewing vents lodged within the floor a few feet ahead of us, on the right side of the catwalk. There was also light coming from a few other vents located farther away, but from these I could hear noise coming up from television sets, whereas the vent nearest us was almost soundless—except for the soft murmuring of human voices amid the vibrato of bedsprings.
I noticed what Foos was doing, and I did the same: I lowered myself to my knees and began to crawl toward the nearby lighted area, and then I stretched my neck to the maximum in order to see as much as I could while peeking down through the vent (nearly butting heads with Foos as I did so)—and finally what I saw was an attractive nude couple spread out on the bed engaged in oral sex.