Sonia said, “Who did this? What were they looking for? I don’t understand.”
“Does Renée have a room here?” I asked.
“Yes. At the other end of the corridor. You don’t think…？”
“I don’t know. But we should find out.”
Sonia closed Michael’s door and led the way to room 201. She tried the handle and shook her head.
She said, “It’s locked. Wait here. I’ll go down to reception. Borrow a passkey.”
I shook my head. “No. I don’t want to involve anyone else. Have you got a knife in your bag? Or tweezers?”
Sonia rummaged in her purse and pulled out a little knurled black case. She opened it and revealed a whole array of small shiny tools. I guessed they had something to do with nails, but I had no idea what most of them did. She held out the set. “Take your pick.”
I selected a pair of needle nose tweezers and a thin wooden rod. It was like a lollipop stick with a chamfered end. I bent the bottom of one leg of the tweezers to ninety degrees then crouched down and went to work on the lock. It was old and plain. But solid. From the days when things were built to last. It probably rolled off the line in a big, dirty factory in Birmingham, Alabama. One of thousands used all across America. Probably millions. Probably used all over the world. It was a quality item, but not overcomplicated.
I felt for the tumblers and found them right away. Easing them aside was another story. I figured the lock hadn’t seen a great deal of maintenance over the course of its life. It was stiff. It took more than a minute to force it to turn. Then I stood, opened the door, and looked inside. The scene was almost identical to the one in Michael’s room. But nothing like what Fenton said she had seen there.
The bed and the wardrobe and the chair and the curtains had been tipped over and ripped open. The only real difference was that the heap of ruined clothes on the floor were women’s, not men’s. The find was no big surprise. It wasn’t conclusive. But it was consistent with the theory that Renée was suspected of smuggling Fenton’s note to Michael. You could understand Dendoncker wanting to have both their rooms searched. He’d have wanted to see if there was any other illicit communication between them. Or anyone else.
There was nothing to suggest I needed to change tack. But nor was there anything to help figure out where Fenton was. Maybe if I had access to a forensic lab I could have found something. Some microscopic trace of rare dirt or sand. Some telltale fibers. DNA, even. But with the resources available, which basically meant my eyes and my nose, there was no point wasting effort sifting through the wreckage. It was frustrating, but those were the facts. Time was passing and I was running out of places to look.
I turned to leave and almost knocked Sonia down. She had crept up close behind me and was standing stock-still. Her eyes were wide and her mouth was hanging open.
“I don’t understand.” She stepped around me. “It looks like the same people did this. But why? What are they looking for? And where are Michael and Renée?”
I said nothing.
“Are they involved in something together? Wait. Are they…？ No. They can’t be. They better not be.” Sonia strode farther into the room and kicked Renée’s ransacked heap of clothes up into the air.
I said, “You and Michael? Were you…more than friends? Is that why you have a key to his room?”
Sonia turned to look at me. Her face was drained and raw. “It’s nothing official. We aren’t married or engaged or anything like that. We haven’t told many people. But, yes. We found each other in that hospital. We saved each other. He’s everything to me. I can’t even think about someone stealing him away…”
This was not the scenario I had expected to walk into. I imagined I’d be dealing with a bunch of worthless, conscience-free mercenaries. The kind of people I’d happily pump for information then leave to rot when their half-assed scheme crashed down around their heads. Instead I found myself feeling sorry for this woman. Maybe she was na?ve. But that isn’t a crime. I guess she’d been duped by a guy who came into her life at a vulnerable moment. He must have been pretty persuasive. Even when he was off the rails.
I figured under the circumstances I should level with Sonia. There was no way to avoid it. Not without being unnecessarily cruel. But there was a problem. My death message skills were universally considered to be subpar. They were so bad the army had sent me for special remedial training. Years ago. It hadn’t helped very much. Since then my preference had been to break bad news in public places. People are less likely to break down or freak out in front of an audience. I found bars and restaurants and cafés are the best. The whole process of ordering food and having it delivered and cleared away provides natural punctuation. It helps reality to sink in. I thought about the Red Roan. I thought about taking Sonia back there. It was very tempting. But I decided not to. It would take time to get there. Just then time was not my friend. And it certainly wasn’t Fenton’s.