“Yes ma’am, I sure did.”
Like him, what he has captured on film is emphatic and to the point: the motel door with the number 14 on it, the view of the room through the open doorway, the scorched bed, the smoke damage to the curtains and walls. There is a single chest of drawers and an area to hang clothes that is nothing more than a rod in a recessed area just inside the door. I note that the mattress on the bed has remnants of a cover and white sheets but nothing else. I ask Stanfield if perhaps he submitted the bedcovers to the labs to test for accelerants. He replies that there was nothing on the bed, nothing to submit except burned areas of the mattress, which he placed inside a tightly sealed aluminum paint can”according to procedure” are his exact words, the words of someone very new at detective work. But he does agree it is odd that the bedcovers were missing.
“They were on the bed when he checked in?” I ask.
“Mrs. Kiffin says she didn’t accompany him to the room, but is sure the bed was properly made because she cleaned it up herself after the last guest checked out several days ago,” he replies, so that is good. At least he thought to ask her about it.
“What about luggage?” I ask next. “Did the victim have luggage?”
“Didn’t find any luggage.”
“And the fire department got there when?”
“They were called at five-twenty-two P.M.”
“Who called?” I am making notes.
“Someone anonymous driving by. Saw smoke and called from his car phone. This time of year, the motel doesn’t do a lot of business, according to Mrs. Kiffin. She says about three fourths of the rooms was empty yesterday, being as how it’s almost Christmas and the weather and all the rest. You can see by looking at the bed, the fire wasn’t going nowhere.” He touches several of the photographs with a thick, rough finger. “It pretty much had put itself out by the time the fire trucks got there. All they needed was fire extinguishers, didn’t need to hose things down, which is a good thing for us. This here’s his clothes.”
He shows me a photograph of a dark pile of clothing on the floor just beyond the open bathroom door. I make out pants, a T-shirt, a jacket and shoes. Next I look at photographs taken inside the bathroom. On the sink is a coppertone plastic ice bucket, plastic glasses covered with cellophane and a small bar of soap still in its wrapper. Stanfield fishes in a pocket for a small knife, opens a blade and slits the evidence tape sealing the paper bag he brought with him. “His clothes,” he explains. “Or at least I assume they’re his.”
“Hold on,” I tell him. I get up and cover a gurney with a clean sheet, and put on fresh gloves and ask him if a wallet or any other personal effects were recovered. He tells me no. I smell urine as I pull out clothing from the bag, careful that if any trace evidence is dislodged, it will fall on the sheet. I examine black bikini briefs and black Giorgio Armani cashmere trousers, both soaked with urine.
“He wet his pants,” I tell Stanfield.
He just shakes his head and shrugs, and doubt crosses his eyesmaybe doubt tainted by fear. None of this is making much sense, but the feeling I have is clear. This man may have checked in alone, but at some point, another person entered the picture, and I am wondering if the victim lost control of his bladder because he was terrified. “Does the lady in the office, Mrs. Kiffin, remember him dressed like this when he checked in?” I ask as I pull pockets inside out to see if there is anything in them. There isn’t.
“Didn’t ask her that,” Stanfield responds. “So he’s got nothing in his pockets. That’s kind of unusual.”
“No one checked them at the scene?”
“Well, I didn’t bag the clothes, to tell you the truth. Another officer did that, but I’m sure nobody dug in the pockets, or at least no personal effects was found or I would know and have them with me,” he says.