"It's me it's me," he repeated. "Ya got me again."
Lynn turned to Nelson and said, "This is Carlton. Everybody knows Carlton."
"Yeah I done it," Carlton the Confessor said. "I done it. I'm ready to go back. I'm ready to go. They never shoulda let me out. I warned em I warned em."
Nelson Hareem stared slack-jawed as Carlton the Confessor began nervously and compulsively pulling at his right eyebrow and eyelashes, where there weren't any left!
"I was tryin to go straight, that's why I took this job, but it ain't no use, is it?"
"Wait a minute, Carlton," Lynn Cutter said. "We just wanna ask a few questions."
"You a captain, sergeant, lieutenant, what? I forget."
"Detective," Lynn said.
"Robbery, burglary, auto theft, what?"
"I used to work CAPS. Crimes against persons."
"What department, I forget."
"Palm Springs," Lynn said.
"Oh yeah, I can clear a lotta old DR's for ya. Oh yeah, I can," said Carlton the Confessor. "Strong-arms, I did lotsa strong-arms nobody knows about."
Nelson Hareem could see that Carlton the Confessor couldn't strong-arm a sand flea, so he thought he better let Lynn handle this guy.
"We'll talk about clearing up our DR's later, Carlton," Lynn said. "First I wanna know if you checked in a guy on Tuesday. A husky dark guy, maybe Mexican or maybe even an Arab. Bald, maybe wore a baseball cap. Coulda carried a red bag."
"What'd he do, burglaries? I done burglaries too. I can tell ya about lotsa burglaries. You show me the reports, gimme the addresses, I'll tell ya if I done em. Prob'ly I done em."
"Wait a minute, Carlton, you can confess later," Lynn said. "First, the dark bald guy. Did you see him?"
"Ain't seen him," Carlton the Confessor said. "Bald? Naw, I checked in six people during the last few days. Four women, two men. Everybody had hair and was very well groomed. No nubs under their arms. I think all a them was gay. I ain't gay. God created Adam 'n Eve, not Adam 'n Steve."
"Scratch this one from your list," Lynn said to Nelson, who sighed and took out of the motel listings from the pocket of his jeans. Nelson spread the page on the formica counter, but it was face down. He'd left his ballpoint pen in the Jeep so he couldn't draw a line through the listing.
"What else can I tell ya?" Carlton the Confessor wanted to know. "Auto thefts? I done em. Hundreds."
"Yeah, well, I'll come back when I got a whole burglary series I'd like to clear up," Lynn said. "You got a nice job here."
"Yeah I know I know. Lucky to have it, recession and all,"
Carlton the Confessor said. Then he looked down at of the Palm Springs yellow pages, and said, "What's this? Ya checking out modeling agencies or money order services or monuments and memorials? I done em all. Burglaries were they?"
"Sure," Lynn said. "I hope the monuments and memorials weren't too heavy to carry."
When they were leaving, Carlton the Confessor yelled, "Don't forget to come back when ya need me!" Then he found one eyelash left and plucked it out.
After they were back in the Wrangler heading for the last three motels, Lynn said, "In the old days of questionable statistics I've been told that detectives'd come from miles around to clear up their stats. Carlton'd confess to anything for a ride in a police car and some Famous Amos cookies. Mighta been all that sugar wrecked his brain, I dunno."
Chapter 13
The penultimate mote! on their list was several cuts above The Cactus View Motel. It was just off Date Palm Drive, in a more recently developed part of Cathedral City. On the way there, Nelson Hareem finally found a country song with which Lynn Cutter could identify. It was Patty Loveless singing "The Night's Too Long."
Nelson said to him, "This one's about a waitress in Beaumont, Lynn."
"I used to date a waitress from Beaumont!" Lynn said. "I've dated a waitress from every town around here, come to think of it. That might be what killed my sex life, all that greasy food and caffeine."
Nelson was disappointed when he saw the Blue Moon Motel. It had a sign done in pencil-thin pink neon, and the building was peach, pseudo Southwest, with faux-adobe walls, a flat roof, and even two imported saguaro cactus sentinels on each side of the driveway. It was too trendy for a terrorist, Nelson thought.
This time there was a pair of young men at reception. One of them, a big guy with a small head and a fifties flattop, looked at Lynn Cutter's I. D. and said, "How can I help?"
And before Lynn had completed two sentences, the young guy said, "I think that man was here. I remember the hat and mustache and the red flight bag. He was in room D, Tuesday night.