The Big Gamble - Michael Mcgarrity [82]
He wondered if Sara would reinvent herself once the baby came and the house was finished. Could she give up her career and be satisfied with the role of wife and mother? It was all still undecided.
He called the architect, said he was on the way, and pressed the accelerator.
There had been something not quite right about Clayton’s meeting with Detective Brewer. After a few worthless hours of trying to get a handle on Harry Staggs, Clayton ate a quick meal at a family-style diner and tried to sort it out. For starters, Brewer hadn’t shown any interest in Clayton’s investigation, hadn’t asked any questions about what a deputy sheriff from Lincoln County was doing down in El Paso seeking information about local prostitutes.
Was that because he simply didn’t care, or because he already knew about it? If he knew, how did he know? Had the El Paso police captain who’d given Rojas a clean bill of health passed the word to the troops about him nosing around?
Brewer had held on to the paperwork, showing Clayton none of it, instead reading little excerpts. Was there something he didn’t want Clayton to see? Clayton doubted that offense reports of solicitation for the purposes of engaging in prostitution held much in the way of sensitive or confidential information a brother officer would be reluctant to share. Or maybe they did.
Clayton had two bits of information, the names and photographs of the prostitutes. He looked at the women’s pictures. Both were young and very attractive. Not what Clayton considered to be typical street-walkers, although he’d only actually met one: Sparkle, the hooker who’d fingered Ulibarri in Albuquerque.
He decided to spend some time visiting the best El Paso had to offer in the way of expensive hotels. There were only a few, if the yellow pages were anything to go by. Maybe he could find out if Brewer had been holding something back.
After three stops with no results, he made his way downtown, which had one nice hotel near the plaza. The area looked like an urban redevelopment project that had gone down the tubes when the money ran out. Around the spruced-up plaza were old commercial and retail buildings in need of attention. One, which had obviously been a flagship department store, sat empty. Two public works buildings, a public library, and an art museum were nearby. Behind the plaza several Victorian homes sat forlornly on a small hill surrounded by vacant lots. There was no life to the place, few people, and Clayton didn’t see many customers inside an eatery steps away from the hotel.
Modern in design, the hotel towered over the district in startling contrast to the bleak, shabby-looking street that cut a straight line to the Rio Grande and the Mexican border.
Inside, the lobby was empty. At the reception desk, Clayton asked for the hotel security chief, and was soon greeted by a slender man in a suit and tie who introduced himself as Bob Rigby.
“Yeah, I know these two,” Rigby said as he looked at the photos of Victoria and Sandy, the two hookers.
“Have you seen them lately?”
“Yeah, a couple of weeks ago they were here in the restaurant dining with two of our guests. Then they went up to their rooms.”
“You’re sure of that?”
Rigby nodded. “I’m sure. Those two are in the hotel three, maybe four times a month, sometimes more. I know why they’re here, but I’m not a cop. Whatever guests do in their rooms doesn’t matter to me, as long as they don’t cause a commotion, trash the place, skip out on their bill, or steal the towels.”
“What about the cops?” Clayton asked.
“They don’t care either, unless they get a complaint. We try to avoid that, if possible.”
“Bad for business, I suppose,” Clayton said, wondering what else Detective Brewer might have lied about. He handed Rigby the rest of the photographs of the women he’d collected at the motor vehicle office.
“All of them have been here at one time or another,