Act of God

Just real friendly. The boyfriend, though, he didn’t seem ticked off only when she did that. He seemed more ticked off in general, like he wasn’t real pleased to be here or like my motel didn’t suit his standards.”
    Having seen Teagle’s apartment, I found that hard to understand. “Go on.”
    “Where was—oh, right. So I’m pounding on the door, and he finally comes to answer it.”
    “What did he say?”
    “Well, I told him we’d had some complaints about the noise, and he said he was real sorry.”
    “Sarcastic?”
    “No. No, just straight, like he really was.”
    “Not nervous, then?”
    “No. Really polite, nice as a six-year-old at Sunday School.”
    “What did Darbra say?”
    “Didn’t see her. She was taking a shower.”
    “How do you know?”
    “The douchebag told me, but I could hear the water running, too.”
    “Over the noise?”
    “What noise?”
    “From the VCR?”
    “Oh, no. No, her boyfriend turned it down before he answered the door.”
    “Before?”
    “Yeah. I tell you, it was kind of weird, like him and me were talking by the door to a church, except for all the beers by the television there.”
    “So you didn’t come in the room.”
    “Of course not. She was in the shower.”
    “And you didn’t see her then?”
    Utt gave me an offended look. “She was a real foxy lady, hut I’m no peeper.”
    “Then what?”
    “Then I went back to the office. I got my place behind it.”
    “No more complaints?”
    “No.”
    “And they checked out the next morning.”
    “Early.”
    “Early?”
    “Yeah. They could’ve stayed till eleven, like I said. And since they’d checked in late the Saturday before, just finding me by luck and all, I might’ve let them stay a couple hours into the afternoon. But it wasn’t even nine in the a.m. when Douchebag dropped off the key and bolted out of here.”
    “Bolted?”
    “Yeah. They were gone out the parking lot before I ever got to the door. Bastards.”
    “How do you know?”
    “What?”
    “How do you know they both left?”
    Utt looked at me, then looked at the floor, then back up at me. “Well, I guess I don’t. I saw the back of long-hair— I thought of him as that, too, you don’t see so many hippie types the way you used to—as he dropped off the keys, but I was on the phone, and by the time I hung up, they— the car, I mean, was going out the back of the lot onto 35 north.”
    “Could you see if both were in the car?”
    Utt looked at me, then the floor some more. “Top was up, so no. And I was disappointed, like I said.”
    “Disappointed?”
    “Yeah, at your Darbra girl. Her not coming by to apologize for the noise or at least say good-bye or something.”
    I let my eyes go around the room again. “When you came in here after they left, was anything unusual?”
    “Unusual?”
    “Out of order, messed up?”
    “No more than you’d expect. Except for the sink, which I figured was the reason they took off like that, afraid I’d charge them for it.”
    “But the rest of the place?”
    The chin routine. “Bedclothes kind of pulled this way and that, like they’d had a real active night.” Utt winked at me, man to man.
    “No signs of... a struggle?”
    He darkened. “Struggle? Hell, no. What are you getting at?”
    I looked at him. “I wish I knew how to tell you.”

20

    I checked out of my motel an hour later, William Proft getting charged for the extra night. The traffic wasn’t so bad, Sunday being the middle day of the long weekend, but driving from New Jersey back to Boston I still had more than a few hours to think things through again.
    Six years ago, Barbra Proft dies in a fall that her sister Darlene, and a pretty good cop in Angelo Folino, think was caused by either Darbra or William for the insurance. Darbra’s share is just about exhausted when she starts an affair a year ago with Roger Houle and moves into the Commonwealth Avenue building with Traci Wickmire. Three and a half months ago, Darbra makes a not-so-subtle call to her aunt to see if Darlene hast kept up the premiums on the remainng policies. A couple weeks later, at the end of March, Darbra starts working at Value Furniture thanks to what William thinks of as a prank on his part. Maybe Darbra starts an affair with Abraham Rivkind, too, and maybe she doesn’t. A month later, Rivkind and Joel Bernstein decide they need a security guard and hire Finian Quill. A few weeks after that, Wickmire overhears Darbra’s “sugar