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Astro Motel

The glass double doors that separated the Astro Motel’s pocket-sized lobby from the bar were almost always kept open, so from her vantage point behind the registration desk, Kelly Eamons could see who was coming and going easily enough. Especially who’s going, she giggled to herself: the restrooms were on the far side of the lobby.

April Simmonds had pulled a few strings and gotten the motel’s manager to hire Eamons as their registration clerk for the night shift: four to midnight. The manager, an overweight son of the family that nominally ran the motel, took one look at Eamons and saw a cute redhead with a glad smile that filled his mind with visions of sugarplums. He himself had been manning the registration desk for the midnight-to-eight A.M. stint, so he moved his night clerk to the graveyard shift and retired to the manager’s office to spend his evenings watching television and trying to get Eamons to have dinner with him. The former night clerk quit, though, and the poor man had to go back to his former duties until he could hire a replacement.

He didn’t mind it too much. Most of the time there was nothing to do but watch the TV in the lobby, and he got to see Eamons every night when her shift was finished and his just beginning. Many nights, alone behind the desk except for the late-night movies and news broadcasts, he thought about making it with Kelly right there on the big leather couch in front of the TV. Neither he nor anyone on Matagorda Island except April and Dan knew that this attractive, sunshiny redhead was an agent of the FBI.

Eamons smiled and jollied him along while she kept tabs on the patrons at the bar. Almost all of them were Astro employees; April knew most of them and gave Eamons access to the company’s personnel files.

April was doing more than that, though. With Eamons watching from the registration desk, April became a regular at the bar. She would come in at the end of the working day for the happy hour two-for-one drinks and stay until the crowd thinned out for dinner. Often she returned later at night, chatting with the Astro technicians and engineers she knew, allowing some of the men she didn’t know to buy her a drink or simply sit beside her at the bar and talk.

April always went home alone, as far as Eamons could see. She’s smart enough to handle these geek boys, Kelly told herself. Besides, she’s in love with Randolph. She’s not interested in any of these guys. Eamons had assured April that she could protect her. “I’m just a phone call away,” she said, brandishing her cell phone like a miniature club.

Eamons was living with April in the tidy one-bedroom apartment April rented in Lamar. She slept on the pull-out sofa in the living room and shared the tiny bathroom. They always drove to Matagorda separately, of course: April first thing in the morning, Eamons late in the afternoon. They didn’t want anyone to know they were working together.

Mornings, over breakfast, they would compare notes, exchange information. The trouble was, Eamons soon realized, that there was precious little information to exchange. April was getting earfuls about who was unhappy with his wife, who was looking for a new job, who was chasing whom. Nothing substantial, though. Nothing that would help with the investigation. Eamons carefully refrained from telling April that Nacho Chavez, back in Houston, was warning her that the Bureau’s higher-ups were talking about terminating the investigation for lack of results.

She found that she enjoyed being out of the office, in the field, even if the work was boring and unproductive. She enjoyed living with April and found herself wondering what it would be like to sleep in the same bed with her.

Dan Randolph had returned from Venezuela, full of mysterious smiles, and the engineers were checking out the rocket plane in preparation for its mating to a booster rocket.

Most mornings Eamons made breakfast for the two of them while April dressed for the office.

“Are we getting anywhere?” April asked from the bedroom while Eamons gingerly pulled slices of toast from the pop-up toaster. They never pop the slices high enough, she thought, snatching at the crumbly bread and trying to drop it in the plate before she burned her fingertips.

April stepped through the bedroom doorway, wearing a scooped-neck lilac blouse and a straight-line knee-length skirt of slightly darker hue, tall and sleek and every inch the modern, capable woman. Kelly felt distinctly short and shabby in her shapeless bathrobe.

Eamons thought, That man Randolph is a damned fool. She’s really beautiful and he doesn’t pay any attention to her. Is it because she’s black? Aw hell, men are all crazy, anyway.

“Are we getting anywhere?” April repeated as she pulled up one of the stools before the kitchenette’s breakfast bar.

Eamons shrugged and put the toast down on the counter. “You’ve checked out all of Larsen’s friends. He definitely wasn’t a gambler.”

April nodded glumly. “We knew that the morning after he was murdered.”

“My office has sent the recording on Larsen’s answering machine to Washington for voice analysis. If the man speaking has ever been arrested on a federal charge, we might have a voice match somewhere in the files.”

“That would be something.” April picked at her scrambled eggs. Eamons was not much of a cook; try as she might, her attempts at sunny-side up always came out scrambled.

Trying to cheer April, Eamons said, “My grandfather was a stonemason back in Cass County. He used to say to me, sometimes you chip and chip and chip away at the stone but it doesn’t crack. Just sits there, stubborn, no matter how hard you’ve sweated over it. And then, all of a sudden, you hit it one more time and it splits open for you.”

“I wish,” April said glumly. “I mean, I’ve talked with just about everybody Pete knew. I’ve sat at that bar and listened and asked questions until I’m ready to puke. And we don’t know anything now that we didn’t know the morning after he was killed.”

Eamons was tempted to contradict her, but she kept silent. What April said was true enough. But what April didn’t know was that her asking questions, her insistent poking around among all those who knew Pete Larsen, might be bothering whoever it was who murdered the man. The people who destroyed the spaceplane and killed Tenny also murdered Larsen. They must have other informants inside Astro Corporation, Eamons thought. They must have eyes watching and ears listening. If April asks enough questions, maybe they’ll get worried enough to do something about it.

Or maybe they won’t, Eamons had to admit to herself. Their smartest move would be to do nothing. They’ve done their damage, why stick around? Just get out and stay out and nobody will ever figure out who they are.

On the other hand, Randolph is pushing ahead, struggling to keep his company going. Maybe they’ll figure they have to strike again to stop him once and for all.

“I’m off to work.” April pushed her unfinished eggs away and got up from the stool.

Eamons walked with her to the apartment’s front door. “See you tonight at the motel,” she said.

“Right,” said April.

Eamons closed the door and leaned against it. It’s a helluva plan you’re working, she groused to herself. The best thing that can happen is they try to kill her. Some helluva plan, all right.