Read Hit List for Free Online Page B

stretcher, and it was zipped up tight.
    Keller, suitcase in hand, went to the office to check out. “What a horrible thing!” the girl at the desk said, clearly loving every minute of it. “The maid, the Mexican girl? No doughnut on the door, so she knocked, and—“
    “No doughnut?”
    “Like the sign? Do Not Disturb, only my boyfriend calls it Doughnut Disturb, on account of there’s a hole where you slip it over the doorknob? Anyway, where was I?”
    “No doughnut.”
    “Right, so she knocked, and when nobody answered she used her key. And she saw they were in bed, and when this happens you’re supposed to just leave and close the door without saying anything? So you won’t disturb them more than you already did?”
    Why did she make an ordinary statement of fact come out sounding like a question? She paused, too, as if waiting for an answer. Keller nodded, which seemed to be what was required to get her going again.
    “But she must have noticed something. Maybe the smell? Anyway, she went in, and when she got a good look she started screaming. Both of them shot dead in their bed, and blood on the bed linen, and . . .”
    He let her go on for a while. Then he said, “Say, my car’s back there. Are the cops letting people drive their cars out?”
    “Oh, sure. It’s been like hours since Rosalita found the bodies. Hasn’t she got a pretty name?”
    “Very pretty.”
    “It means Little Rose, which is kind of sweet, but imagine naming someone Little Rose in English. It would sound like she was an Indian. Or like her mother’s name was Rose, too. Big Rose and Little Rose?”
    Jesus, Keller thought.
    “Anyway, the police have been here for hours, and they’ve been letting people come and go. Just so you don’t need to go in the room where it happened.”
    But he’d already been there. Why would he want to go back?

Four
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    “Room One forty-seven,” he told Dot. “My original room. I moved out in the morning, and that night a man and woman checked in.”
    “They checked in but they never checked out,” she said. “Where were you staying, Keller? The Roach Motel?”
    They were in the kitchen of the big house on Taunton Place. There was a pitcher of iced tea on the table between them, and Dot helped herself to a second glass. Keller’s was still more than half full.
    He said, “I got the hell out of there. I was driving to the airport, and don’t ask me why, but I turned around and got on I-71 and drove straight to Cincinnati.” He frowned. “Well, Cincinnati Airport. It’s actually across the river in Kentucky.”
    “I’ll be glad you told me that,” she said, “one of these nights when it comes up on Jeopardy! You didn’t want to fly out of Louisville?”
    “I figured it would probably be all right, but what if it wasn’t? I didn’t really know what to think. All I knew was I took care of Hirschhorn and a couple of hours later somebody took care of the people in my old room.”
    “Took good care of them, it sounds like. And if they realized their mistake, maybe they’re waiting at the airport.”
    “That was my thinking. Plus the drive to Cincinnati would give me time to think things out, and maybe listen to the news.”
    “And make sure that wasn’t you in the body bag after all. Just a little surrealism, Keller. Don’t look so confused.”
    “I’ve been confused a lot,” he said.
    “Ever since you got off the plane in Louisville, I seem to recall your saying.”
    “Ever since then. Here’s how it evidently went down, Dot. I did Hirschhorn around nine and went straight to the motel, and—“
    “First you called me.”
    “Called you en route, and then went back to my room—“
    “Your new room.”
    “My new room, and I was in bed by midnight, and around the time I was putting in ear plugs, somebody was killing the lovely couple in One forty-seven. What’s the first thought comes to mind?”
    “The client.”
    “Right, the client.”
    “Tying off loose ends. You