“Whosendsroses?” Indira corrected softly.
A man, I thought. And then: more clearly, the other man. Because if nothing else, the motel room was evidence that therewasanother man.
In the wake of the question, the stillness of the motel bore down on me.
“Let’s be quick,” I said.
We resumed our inspection of the room. While Indira examined the overturned vanity, I moved over to the suitcases. As I began to pick through the clothes strewn across the floor, another thought occurred to me.
“Fingerprints,” I whispered to Indira.
She gave me a look that could politely be translated asDon’t teach your grandmother to suck eggs. (Fox had said it to me once, and it stuck.) And then she went back to work.
I was picking through more of the clothes when something rustled. I plucked away a couple more sweaters—cashmere, by the feel of them—and saw what had been hidden underneath: paperwork. Pages and pages of paperwork lay on the floor, fanned out across the teal carpet as though someone had thrown them down. Whoever it was must not have thought the paperswere important—or must not have found whatever they’d been looking for—because when they’d turned their attention to the suitcases, they’d thrown the clothes on top of the paperwork.
In the mess of clothes, I found a pair of stretchy fabric gloves and pulled them on. I did a quick wipe-down of everything we’d already touched, and then I started going through the papers.
They appeared to be paperwork for the RV park. A lot of utility bills, which were all up to date. And then account statements for the park’s various tenants. A few of these were marked overdue. Channelle only appeared to have brought the most recent ones—a quick scan showed me they only went back to August.
It was easy to tell right away that something was wrong. The statements were covered with writing in pen: blocky letters that—to me, anyway—suggested a man. There were dates and dollar signs and numbers, and on the printed statements, several of the balances were crossed out and rewritten. I wasn’t a financial genius, but it wasn’t hard to see that someone, most likely JT, had discovered discrepancies in the accounts—and equally obvious that Channelle hadn’t wanted anyone else to see the evidence of JT’s attempt to unravel the mess.
Then an Idea (yes, capital I) occurred to me, and I began flipping through the statements.
In August, the statement for September Collson showed she’d been overdue by almost six months’ rent. And the September statement (that’s kind of confusing—the statement for the month of September) had a red stamp on it that said EVICTED and below it, the words ACCOUNT CLOSED.
I called Indira over and showed her.
“But she’s still living there,” Indira said. “You went into the camper.”
“Yeah, but maybe she’s notsupposedto be living there. I saw something taped to the door when I got there. It was just a signthat said Collson, but now that I think about it, it might have been tapedoversomething, you know? Like maybe she taped over the eviction notice.”
“To what end? Mr. Haskins would have called the deputies, and the deputies would have removed them.”
“I don’t know,” I said. “Maybe they were planning a legal battle. But there’s no way this isn’t connected to Keme talking to his mom, getting—” I almost saidgetting in a fight with Foster, but since I technically didn’t have any proof of that, I settled for: “—getting upset, and then arguing with JT.”
Indira’s face was unreadable in the weak light. She reached out to point to a paperclip and said, “What’s this?”
A second page was clipped to the back of the statement. It looked like some sort of record JT must have used at the park to track the eviction process. A quick glance showed me that JT had posted the eviction notice in September. The next entry showed that JT had moved the tenant’s possessions into storage and had the camper cleaned for a new renter.
“He skipped several steps,” Indira said.
“What?”
“Well, if September was going to stay and fight the eviction—which it seems like she wants to, since she’s still staying in the camper—then he should have filed a complaint with the court. Legally, JT couldn’t take their belongings until the court had issued a writ allowing him to evict them, and even then they would have had time to take their belongings with them. Something about this doesn’t make sense.”
“How do you know so much about evictions?”
Indira’s slight hesitation, and an unfamiliar note in her voice, surprised me. “I wasn’t sure what you’d do after you became owner of Hemlock House.”
“Indira, by that point, I’d already tasted your chocolate cake. I’m notthatstupid.” I gave the paper another glance. And then—yep, you guessed it: an Idea sprang out at me. “If JT put all of September’s belongings in storage, could that have included some of Keme’s stuff too?”
“It would have been everything inside the camper,” Indira said slowly.
“Like a T-shirt and shorts and slides.”
“Oh my God,” Indira said. Her hand fastened on my arm. “You have to tell Bobby.”
“Uh, well, yes, I should, but maybe with certain, um, details omitted? Not that I want tolieto Bobby because trust is the bedrock of a good relationship, but I’m not sure he’d be thrilled to know I was, um—”
