The thin, reedy overhead light cast a pale gray glow over a bed of rumpled stained sheets and a dark comforter. Empty pizza boxes and beer cans littered the floor next to a pile of soiled laundry.
Rick moved toward the bathroom and paused to open the folding doors of a closet. The instant he glanced inside he froze. The walls of the closet were papered with pictures of Diane. Diane at the grocery store. At work. Coming from the gym. Laughing with girlfriends in a café. “Have a look.”
Bishop turned from a dresser drawer and crossed to the closet. He shook his head. “Well, if that isn’t an open-and-shut case.”
Good fortune rarely was so generous. “I don’t usually get so lucky.”
Bishop rolled his head from side to side as if working out the tightness brought on by fatigue. “I suppose it happens once every so often.”
Rick studied the images so carefully cut into neat squares and so carefully glued to the wall. All the images were straight. “Guy’s a pig and he takes the time to create a neat collage of Diane?”
“This little space gave him a sense of control over Diane. He knew so much about her and she knew nothing about him. Control like that must’ve given him one hell of a thrill.”
“Judging by the images, he’s been taking pictures of her for months. Planning to kill her all along?”
Rick studied the images, which seemed to be arranged seasonally. On the far left, backgrounds featured snow and barren trees; then came trees with green buds, and then full leaves. “He started taking pictures in the winter and he’s followed her all the way through spring and half of summer. The winter pictures are distant. He didn’t have the nerve to get too close. It’s almost as if he was afraid to take the first pictures.”
Bishop nodded. “But he got progressively closer and closer. By spring he’s within feet of her.”
Rick moved to the dresser drawers and dug through them until he found several very small cameras. He held them up. “You don’t find these at the local store.”
Bishop took one of the small cameras in his hands. “They’re also expensive.”
“Say he crosses paths with Diane at the grocery store where he worked. She passed through his line. Or smiled or glanced his way while he was unloading a truck or ringing a register. He decided she’s really into him. He starts paying more and more attention to her when she comes into the store. Can’t stop thinking about her. He begins stalking. Realizes he doesn’t have the means to get a woman like her, and he gets angry over his lack of control.”
Bishop looked at the pictures, his gaze burning. “He gets closer and closer to her, gets bolder and bolder and then decides to take ultimate control when he kills her.”
“Finds a house that’s for sale, lures her there or takes her there and kills her. Sets the house on fire.”
“That’s a lot of planning.”
Rick glanced around the chaotic, stinking mess of his room. “Jonas Tuttle doesn’t strike me as a guy who could plan. Judging by his room it looks like he can barely take care of himself.”
“This might’ve been the only place in his life he was organized.” Bishop checked his watch. “It’s two A.M. The grocery opens at six.”
“Let’s have a chat with the motel clerk. He might have information about Jonas.”
They found the clerk, a very large man with a bulging belly and thick stubble over wagging jowls. He sat in a worn and tattered plaid recliner in front of a television tucked behind the counter and was watching a rerun of Gunsmoke.
Rick let the front door close hard and when the man didn’t turn as they approached, he smacked his hand on the rusted silver bell on the counter.
Ding. Ding. Ding.
The clerk hunched closer to the television. “Leave your money on the table.”
“This isn’t about money,” Rick said.
Shoving out a breath, the clerk groaned. “Then I don’t care.”
“You can care right now or you can care when I’ve a half-dozen cop cars here in ten minutes searching your rooms.”
The clerk turned, his narrowed gaze reflecting mild interest. “Cops. Just what I need. Which room fucked up?”
Clearly this was not his first conversation with the cops. “What can you tell me about Jonas Tuttle? Room Seven.”
He glanced back at the television, cursing when he realized the show had gone to commercial break. He didn’t bother to look back at them. “Nothing.”
Rick drummed his fingers on the counter, fatigue and stiffness in his leg straining his patience to breaking. “Turn around. Now.” His sharp, crisp tone cracked like the snap of a whip.
The clerk, cursing more, turned and faced the detectives, his brow arched. “I don’t know shit about the guy in that room or any other damn room. All I care about him is that I get paid on time.”
“Dig deep. Think real hard. Jonas Tuttle,” Rick said. “What do you know about him?”
The guy swiveled his easy chair until he faced them. He leaned back in his chair and scratched his belly through a stained T-shirt. “Room Number Seven? Always late on the rent and when he paid it was short. Money’s due tomorrow as a matter of fact. Never had money to pay me but plenty of money for beer, pizza, and whores.”
Rick shifted his stance, glancing at the cubbies behind the clerk. Number Seven was filled with envelopes.
“How long has he been here?”
“Two months. Maybe nine weeks.”
Many of the photos Jonas had taken of Diane had been taken months and months ago, suggesting he’d brought at least half the images with him. “Where’d he come from?”
He plucked at a loose thread on the arm of the recliner that had been patched once with duct tape. “How the hell would I know? I put up a sign saying I got a room and within a day he was here with the first week’s rent in cash.”
“Did he have any visitors?” Bishop asked.