The Last Innocent Man

Merton Grimes was an old man, stooped and slow to move. The cold weather was still holding off, but Grimes had on a heavy plaid shirt, buttoned to the neck, and a pair of soiled gray slacks. He was standing over a pot of coffee when David entered, and David had to cough to get his attention. Grimes looked put out and took his time shuffling across the room. David could see a section of the back room through a half-open door. There was a small couch covered by an antimacassar. A lamp rested on a low end table casting a dim light on the green-and-white fabric. David could hear the muffled sound of a TV whose volume had been turned low, but he could not see the screen.

“Mr. Grimes?” David asked. The old man looked immediately suspicious. “My name is David Nash. This is Terry Conklin. I’d like to talk to you about the murder that occurred here a few months ago.”

“You reporters?” Grimes asked in a tone suggesting that he would not be upset if they were.

“No. I’m a lawyer. I represent the man who’s been charged with the crime.”

“Oh,” Grimes said, disappointed.

“I’d like to see the room if I could and talk about anything you might know.”

“I already told what I know to the police. Damn place was like a circus for a week,” he said, nodding at the memory. “Reporters and cops. Didn’t do business no harm, though.”

He laughed and it came out more of a snort. The old man wiped his nose with the back of his hand and turned to a pegboard on the wall behind the desk counter. It took him a moment, but he found the key he was looking for. He started to reach for it, then stopped and turned back. He had a crafty look on his face, and David knew exactly what was coming next.

“You know, I ain’t sure I should be doin’ this. You representing a criminal and all. I don’t know if the cops would like it. I could get in trouble.”

“I can assure you this is perfectly legal…”

“All the same…”

“And, of course, we would pay you for your time.”

“Oh, say, that’s mighty nice of you,” Grimes said with a smirk. David wondered how much dough he’d pulled in from the press for exclusive tours. He laid a twenty-dollar bill on the countertop. Grimes looked at it for a moment, probably figuring if there was any way to get more; then his fingers made the fastest move David would see all evening, and the bill was gobbled up and stuffed into his trouser pocket.

“We can talk while we walk,” Grimes said, taking the key off the peg and shuffling toward the door. Conklin held it open, and he and David followed Grimes across the parking lot toward the motel rooms.

“She sure was a nice-lookin’ gal,” Grimes said as they started up the metal stairs to the second landing. “Didn’t look like no hooker to me. I got suspicious right off.”

“You get plenty of hookers here?” Terry asked with a straight face.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

Terry shrugged.

“You said she didn’t look like one. I just supposed…”

The old man weighed his answer for a second, then snickered.

“Yeah, we get our share. I don’t take no cut, you understand. But there’s a few that likes our accommodations. Cops don’t care, so why should I?”

“Did you ever see the fella who was with the dead girl before that night?”

“Like I told the cops, he was out in the car and I didn’t pay no attention to him. She come in and I was readin’. Then she took up most of my attention, if you know what I mean. Nice tits, as much of ’em as I could see. I just didn’t have no interest in the john.”

“So you didn’t get a good look at him at all?”

“I didn’t say that. I seen him, but he didn’t make no impression. And it was only a little look, when he come tearin’ out of here after he killed her.”

“What do you remember seeing?”

“Nothin’ much. A man in a car. I already been through this with the cops.”

“I know,” David said, “and I appreciate your taking the time to talk to us now.”

They were on the landing and Grimes was leading the way toward a room at the end. Terry looked around, filing the layout away in his mind for future use. Grimes stopped and inserted his key in the door of the next-to-last room. The door opened. A large globe light to the right of the door hung above David’s head and cast a pale-yellow glow over the door. Grimes put his key in the lock and pushed the door open.

“There she is. Course it’s cleaned up now. It was some mess then, I can tell you.”

Grimes stepped aside, and David entered the unlit room. He turned and saw the neon signs on the boulevard. A reminder of the life outside. Here, in the sterile, plastic room, there was no sign of life or death. Just a twentieth-century motel limbo devoid of feeling. The shadowy figures of Grimes and Conklin wavered in the doorway like spirits of the dead. Grimes reached around the wall and found the light switch.

“There isn’t much we can learn here,” Terry said when he had toured the bedroom and bathroom. “The DA will have pictures of the scene.”

David nodded.

“The papers say it was some young lawyer,” Grimes said.

“That’s right.”