Jonathan Kellerman - Blood Test

There was a dusty brown Chevy station wagon parked in front of Room 15. Except for a sweater on the front seat and an empty cardboard box in the rear deck, the car was empty.

“That’s theirs,” said Beverly. “They used to leave it parked illegally by the front entrance. One time when the security guard put a warning sticker on the windshield, Emma ran out crying about her sick child and he tore it up.”

I knocked on the door. No answer. Knocked again harder. Still no response. The room had a single grimy window, but the view within was blocked by oilcloth curtains. I knocked one more time, and when the silence was unbroken, we returned to the office.

“Excuse me,” I said, “do you know if the Swopes are in their room?”

A lethargic shake of the head.

“Do you have a switchboard?” Beverly asked him.

The Iranian raised his eyes from his reading and blinked.

“Who are you? What do you want?” His English was heavily accented, his manner surly.

“We’re from Western Pediatric Hospital. The Swopes’ child is being treated there. It’s important that we speak to them.”

“I don’t know anything.” He shifted his glance back to the vehicle code.

“Do you have a switchboard?” she repeated.

A barely visible nod.

“Then please ring the room.”

With a theatrical sigh, he dragged himself up and walked through a door at the rear. A minute later he reappeared.

“Nobody there.”

“But their car’s there.”

“Listen, lady, I don’t know cars. You want a room, okay. Otherwise, leave alone.”

“Call the police, Bev,” I said.

Somehow he must have sneaked in a hit of amphetamine because his face came alive suddenly and he spoke and gesticulated with renewed vigor.

“What for police? What for you cause trouble?”

“No trouble,” I said. “We just need to talk to the Swopes.”

He threw up his hands.

“They take walk — I see them. Walking that way.” He pointed east.

“Unlikely. They’ve got a sick child with them.” To Bev: “I saw a phone at the gas station on the corner. Call it in as a suspicious disappearance.”

She moved toward the door.

The Iranian lifted the hinged counter and came around to our side.

“What do you want? Why you make trouble?”

“Listen,” I told him, “I don’t care what kind of nasty little games you’ve got going on in the other rooms. We need to talk to the family in fifteen.”

He pulled a ring of keys out of his pocket. “Come, I show you, they not here. Then you leave me alone, okay?”

“It’s a deal.”

His pants were baggy and they flapped as he strode across the asphalt, muttering and jingling the keys.

A quick turn of the wrist and the lock released. The door groaned as it opened. We stepped inside. The desk clerk blanched, Beverly whispered Ohmigod, and I fought down a rising feeling of dread.

The room was small and dark and it had been savaged.

The earthly belongings of the family Swope had been removed from three cardboard suitcases, which lay crushed on one of the twin beds. Clothing and personal articles were strewn about: lotion, shampoo, and detergent leaked from broken bottles in viscous trails across the threadbare carpeting. Female undergarments hung limply over the chain of the plastic swag lamp. Paperback books and newspapers had been shredded and scattered like confetti. Open cans and boxes of food were everywhere, the contents oozing out in congealing mounds. The room reeked of rot and dead air.

Next to the bed was a patch of carpet that was clear of litter, but far from empty. It was filled with a dark brown amoebalike stain half a foot across.

“Oh no,” said Beverly. She staggered, lost her balance, and I caught her.

You don’t have to spend much time in a hospital to know the sight of dried blood.

The Iranian’s face was waxen. His jaws worked soundlessly.

“Come on,” I took hold of his bony shoulders and guided him out, “we have to call the police now.”

It’s nice to know someone on the force. Especially when that someone is your best friend and won’t assume you’re a suspect when you call in a crime. I bypassed 911 and called Milo’s extension directly. He was in a meeting but I pushed a bit and they called him out.

“Detective Sturgis.”

“Milo, it’s Alex.”

“Hello, pal. You pulled me out of a fascinating lecture. It seems the west side has become the latest hot spot for PCP labs — they rent glitzy houses and park Mercedes in the driveway. Why I need to know all about it is beyond me but tell that to the brass. Anyway, what’s up?”

I told him and he turned businesslike immediately.

“All right. Stay there. Don’t let anyone touch anything. I’ll get everything moving. There’s gonna be a lot of people converging so don’t let the girl get spooked. I’ll crap out of this meeting and be there as soon as I can but I may not be the first, so if someone gives you a hard time, drop my name and hope they don’t give you a harder time because you did. Bye.”

I hung up and went to Beverly. She had the drained, lost look of a stranded traveler. I put my arm around her and sat her down next to the clerk, who’d progressed to muttering to himself in Farsi, no doubt reminiscing about the good old days with the Ayatollah.

There was a coffee machine on the other side of the counter and I went through and poured three cups. The Iranian took his gratefully, held it with both hands, and gulped noisily. Beverly put hers down on the table, and I sipped as we waited.

Five minutes later we saw the first flashing lights.

The two uniformed policemen were muscular giants, one white and blond, the other coal-black, his partner’s photographic negative. They questioned us briefly, spending most of their time with the Iranian desk clerk. They didn’t like him instinctively, and showed it in the way L.A.P. D. cops do — by being overly polite.

Most of their interrogation had to do with when he’d last seen the Swopes, what cars had come in and out, how the family had been behaving, who had called them. If you believed him, the motel was an oasis of innocence and he was the original see-no-evil, hear-no-evil kid.

The patrolmen cordoned off the area around room fifteen. The sight of their squad car in the center of the motor court must have ruffled some feathers — I saw fingers drawing back corners of curtains in several of the rooms. The policemen noticed, too, and joked about calling Vice.

Two additional black and whites pulled into the lot and parked haphazardly. Out of them stepped four more uniforms, who joined the first two for a smoke and a huddle. They were followed by a crime scene technical van and an unmarked bronze Matador.

The man who got out of the Matador was in his midthirties, big and heavily built, with a loose, ungainly walk. His face was broad and surprisingly unlined, but bore the stigmata of severe acne. Thick drooping brows shadowed tired eyes of a startling bright green hue. His black hair was cut short around the back and sides but worn full on top in defiance of any known style. A thick shock fell across his forehead like a frontal cowlick. Similarly unchic were the sideburns that reached to the bottom of his soft-lobed ears and his attire — a rumpled checked madras sportcoat with too much turquoise in it, a navy shirt, gray-and-blue striped tie, and light blue slacks that hung over the tops of suede desert boots.

“That one’s got to be a cop,” said Beverly.

“That’s Milo.”

“Your friend — oh.” She was embarrassed.

“It’s okay, that’s what he is.”

Milo conferred with the patrolmen then took out a pad and pencil, stepped over the tape strung across the doorway to room fifteen, and went inside. He stayed in there awhile and came out taking notes.