Scarlet Fever: A Crime Thriller by David Stever

Author:David Stever [Stever, David]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fans of Sunburn by Laura Lippman, Mr. Mercedes by Stephen King, The Woman in the Window by A.J. Finn, and The Big Sleep by Raymond Chandler are sure to love this book. This book is for anyone who likes reading about: - Crime fiction - Hard-boiled detectives - Femme fatales - Gangsters and mob bosses - Mysteries and thrillers
Publisher: TCK Publishing
Published: 2019-03-04T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter

25

It was time to visit my new favorite stake-out location: the Harbor Court Motel. Katie was eager to ride along. She couldn’t get enough of the work—and working with her, having to explain procedures and techniques, sharpened my mind like nothing else. I used to have to pace my apartment late at night to get my brain moving on a case. No more: Katie asked questions I would never have thought of, and she answered mine in ways I never could have imagined. We were becoming a good team—and that scared the hell out of me.

The night was warm; the boulevard pulsed with heavy traffic. Street creatures slithered along the sidewalks looking for business or a bite. Pinky worked her corner, wearing a long, white, skin-tight dress that went to the ground. It had a split on the left side that came up to her hip, revealing her entire leg, and a plunging V-shaped neckline down the front that revealed everything else.

The McDonald’s lot was packed. I parked near my usual spot, not an ideal vantage point, but I had a view of Claire’s room and the motel office. But we were in my Z4, sticking out like the proverbial sore thumb. I glanced at Katie: her eyes kept going from Pinky to the fun in the lot. She checked the door to make sure it was locked.

“I take it you don’t visit this part of town very much,” I said.

“Uh. No. Not very much.”

“Interesting, huh?”

“That hooker’s been picked up three times since we’ve been here.”

“Uh-huh.”

The black guy from my botched surveillance night manned the front office desk. I pointed him out to Katie. “There’s another guy who works the day shift,” I told her. “Some dude with a gray ponytail—I saw him going into Claire’s room the first day I staked this place out. I need his name.”

I got out my camera while Katie kept an eye on the office. “Why can’t you go in as a private detective and just ask for his name?”

“He’d get suspicious. Plus, he might blab—to the guy with the ponytail, or to Claire herself.”

“So we need another plan, huh?”

“And there’s the security guy who chased me the other night. Yes, we need another plan.”

She used the zoom lens on the camera to scan the front of the motel. “No sign of the guard. So you think the day guy knows Claire?”

“He knows something. He spent twenty minutes in her room.”

“Hmmm…interesting,” she said. “Maybe he’s the one who did the paint job on your car? Or threw the fire-bomb? Sounds like a job for Investigator Pitts.”

“I don’t think so.”

“I’ll get his name.”

“How?”

“The same way I got into every bar in Florida before I was twenty-one. Open the trunk.”

I popped it, and she got out and rummaged around and got back in the car with one of my old dress shirts. She began unbuttoning her blouse.

“What are you doing?”

“My job,” she said. I sort of turned my head, but it was hard to not peek. She stripped off her slacks and blouse and put on my shirt, leaving most of it unbuttoned.

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