My attention strayed to a small kink in the hem of the drape. There was a trace of wet sand adjacent to the metal track in which the door rode. I peered at it, uncomprehending. I set my wineglass aside and went down on my hands and knees to inspect the spot. The minute I saw what it was, I got up and backed away from the door, whipping my head around so I could scan the room. There was no place anyone could hide. The closet consisted of an alcove without a door. The bed was bolted to the wall and quite low, framed in at the bottom with wood strips mounted flush with the carpeting. I’d just come out of the bathroom, but I checked it again, moving automatically. The frosted-glass shower door was open, the stall empty. I knew I was alone, but the sense of that other presence was so vivid that it made my hair stand on my arms. I was seized by an involuntary tremor of fear so acute that it generated a low sound in my throat, like a growl reflex.
I surveyed my personal belongings. My duffel seemed untouched, though it was perfectly possible that someone had eased a sly hand among the contents. I went back to the kitchen table and checked my papers. My portable Smith-Corona was sitting open as it had been, my notes in a folder to the left. Nothing was missing as far as I could tell. I couldn’t tell if the papers had been disturbed because I hadn’t paid any particular attention to them when I tucked them away. That had been before supper, six hours ago.
I checked the lock on the sliding glass door. Now that I knew what I was looking for, the tool marks were unmistakable and I could see where the aluminum frame had been forced out around the bolt. The lock was a simple device in any event, and hardly designed to withstand brute force. The thumb bolt still turned, but the mechanism had been damaged. Now the latch lever didn’t fully meet the strike plate, so that any locking capacity was strictly illusory. The intruder must have left the bolt in its locked position and used the corridor door for egress. I got the penlight out of my handbag and checked the balcony with care. There were additional traces of sand near the railing. I peered the one floor down, trying to figure out how someone could have gotten up here-possibly through one of the rooms on the same floor, climbing from balcony to balcony. The motel driveway ran right under my room and led to covered parking along the perimeter of the courtyard formed by the four sides of the building. Someone could have parked in the driveway, then climbed up on the car roof, and from there swung up onto the balcony. It wouldn’t have taken long. The driveway might have been blocked temporarily, but at this hour there was little or no traffic. The town was shut down and the tenants of the motel were probably in for the night.
I called down to the desk, told Bert what had happened, and asked him to move me to another room. I could hear him scratch his chin. His voice, when it came, was papery and frail.
“Gee, Miss Millhone. I don’t know what to tell you this time of night. I could move you first thing tomorrow morning.”
“Bert,” I said, “someone broke into my room! There’s no way I’m going to stay here.”
“Well. Even so. I’m not sure what we can do at this hour.”
“Don’t tell me you don’t have another room somewhere. I can see the Vacancy’ sign from here.”
There was a pause. “I suppose we could move you,” he said skeptically. “It’s awful late, but I’m not saying we can’t. When do you think it might have happened, this breakin you’re referring to?”
“What difference does it make? The lock on the sliding glass door’s been jimmied. I can’t even get it to shut properly, let alone lock.”
“Oh. Well, even so. Things can fool you sometimes. You know some of those fittings have warped over the years. Doors down here, some of them at any rate, you have to-”
“Could you connect me with Ann Fowler, please?”
“I believe she’s asleep. I’d be happy to come up myself and take a look. I don’t believe you’re in danger. I can understand your concern, but you’re up on the second floor there and I don’t see how anyone could get up on that balcony.”
“Probably the same way they got up here in the first place,” I said snappishly.
“Unh-hunh. Well, why don’t I come up there and take a look? I guess I can leave the desk for a minute. Maybe we can figure something out.”
“Bert. Goddamn it, I want another room!”
“Well, I can see your point. But now there’s the question of liability, too, you know. I don’t know if you’ve considered it in that light. Truth is, we’ve never had any kind of breakin all the years I’ve been here, which is, oh … nearly eighteen years now. Over at the Tides, it’s different of course …”
“I … want … another … room,” I said, giving full measure to each syllable.
“Oh. Well.” A pause here. “Let me check and see what I can do. Hang on and I’ll pull the registration.”
He put me on hold, giving me a restful few minutes in which to get my temper under control. In some ways it felt better to be irritated than unnerved.
He cut back into the line. I could hear him flipping through registration cards in the background, probably licking his thumb for traction. He cleared his throat. “You can try the room next door,” he said. “That’s number twenty-four. I can bring you up a key. Connecting door might be open if you want to give it a try. Unless, of course, you got some notion that’s been tampered with, too. …”
I hung up on him, which seemed preferable to going mad.
I hadn’t paid much attention to the fact that my room connected to the one next door to it. Access to room 24 was actually effected through two doors with a kind of air space between. I unlocked the door on my side. The second door was ajar, the room in shadow. I flashed my penlight around. The room was empty, orderly, with the slightly musty smell of carpeting that’s been dampened too often by the trampling of summer feet. I found the switch and turned the light on, then checked the sliding door that opened out onto the balcony adjacent to mine.
Once I determined the room could be secured, I tossed my few loose personal items into my duffel and moved it next door. I gathered up my typewriter, papers, wine bottle. Within minutes, I was settled. I pulled some clothes on, took my keys and went down to the car. My gun was still locked in my briefcase in the backseat. I stopped in at the office and picked up the new room key, curtly refusing to engage with Bert in any more of his rambling dialogues. He didn’t seem to mind. His manner was tolerant. Some women just seem to worry more than others, he remarked.
I took the briefcase up to my room, where I locked the door and chained it. Then I sat at the kitchen table, loaded seven cartridges in the clip, and smacked it home. This was my new handgun. A Davis .32, chrome and walnut, with a five-and-a-quarter-inch barrel. My old gun had gotten blown to kingdom come when the bomb went off in my apartment. This one weighed a tidy twenty-two ounces and already felt like an old friend, with the added virtue that the sights were accurate. It was 1:00 A.M. I was feeling a deadly rage by then and I didn’t really expect to sleep. I turned the light out and pulled the fishnet drapes across the glass doors, which I felt compelled to keep locked. I peered out at the empty street. The surf was pounding monotonously, the sound reduced to a mild rumble through the glass. The muffled foghorn intoned its hollow warning to any boats at sea. The sky was dense with clouds, moon and stars blanked out. Without fresh air coming in, the room felt like a prison cell, stuffy and dank. I left my clothes on and got in bed, sitting bolt upright, my gaze pinned on the sliding glass doors, half expecting to see a shadowy figure slip over the railing from below. The sodium-vapor streetlights washed the balcony with a tawny glow. The incoming light was filtered by the curtains. The neon “vacancy” sign had begun to sputter off and on, causing the room to pulsate with red. Someone knew where I was. I’d told a lot of people I was staying at the Ocean Street, but not which room. I got up again and padded over to the table, where I picked up my file notes and tucked them in my briefcase. From now on, I’d take them with me. From now on, I’d tote the gun with me, too. I got back in bed.