He switched it off. It seemed unlikely that theyd have discovered Remsens body. The sign hed left would explain the mans absence, and theyd need a compelling reason to break down his door and look around inside. The man lived alone, and if he had a friend in the world, Keller hadnt seen any evidence of it.
He glanced over at the squat brick building that housed the restrooms and vending machines. Alongside the entrance hed noticed a coin box with copies of USA Today , but hadnt thought to pick one up. It struck him now that it might not be a bad idea to find out what was happening in the world, especially since the radio wasnt going to do much for him for the next few hours. He opened the door and got out of the car, and a big SUV picked that moment to pull into the rest area and park right in front of the little brick building, and its doors opened to let out two adults and four small children, all in a hurry to use the john.
Far too many people all at once. He got back in his car. The paper could wait.
He got on the road again and thought about the man hed killed in Indiana. There might be another crusty old
fart who went hunting and fishing with Remsen, or came over and played gin rummy with him, and sooner or later somebody would pop the door and find the body, but by then hed have long since ditched the mans credit card and the Sentra as well, as far as that was concerned, because hed be back in New York, where you didnt need a car and had to be crazy to own one.
Whether he made it in one day or two, whether he drove straight through or found a place to sleep, hed be back in New York in a matter of hours. Out of harms way, and safe at home.
A sign advertised a restaurant at the next exit, boasting that the place offered Pennsylvania Dutch home cooking. Keller found the prospect irresistible, although he wasnt quite sure what the Pennsylvania Dutch cooked at home. Nowadays, he thought, they probably brought something home from the Grand Union and popped it in the microwave just like everybody else, but he guessed the restaurant harkened back to a simpler era. He took the exit, found the restaurant, pulled into the parking lot, and wondered what the hell he thought he was doing.
Because it was a regular walk-in-and-sit-down restaurant, where you sat at a table and ordered from a menu, and the waitress brought your food to you. And she got a look at you, and so did the other customers, and that was precisely what hed gone to great lengths to avoid, ever since his face first turned up on the television screen in the Days Inn back in Des Moines. True, he had a baseball cap now, but it wasnt as though he was hiding behind an Ann Coulter mask. His face was still out there for all the world to see.
He put the car in gear, backed out of the lot, and found a Hardees with a drive-up window. He picked up his food, parked a dozen yards away, ate it, dropped his trash in the can, and found his way to the entrance ramp and back onto the interstate.
Now what was all that about? The mouthwatering prospect of shoofly pie and apple pandowdy? Had his appetite somehow taken over for his brain?
He thought about it, and figured out what it was.
He was in Pennsylvania, and a lot nearer to home than to Iowa. And the closer he got to New York, the safer he felt. Add in the sense of security that came with having money in his pocket, and the way his baseball cap had smoothed the way for him the last time he filled the gas tank, and he had evidently come to believe he had nothing to worry about.
Soon, he thought. Soon hed be home. But he wasnt there yet.
A couple of hours later, he managed to convince himself that the motel wasnt nearly as risky as the Pennsylvania Dutch restaurant.
There would be no other patrons involved, for one thing. The only person hed see would be whoever checked him in. And hed be wearing the baseball cap with the brim down over his forehead, and hed have his head lowered while he filled out the registration card. And the motel was an independent, not affiliated with a national chain, and that increased the odds that the owner-operator would be an immigrant from the Indian subcontinent. In fact, hed probably be from Gujarat, and the odds were good that his surname would be Patel.
For years now, people from the Indian state of Gujarat, most of them named Patel, had been buying American motels all over the country. It seemed likely to Keller that there was at least one training academy in Gujarats main city, whatever they called it, devoted to schooling ambitious locals in motel management. Our topic today, good students, concerns the proper placement of the mint upon the pillow. Tomorrow we will discuss the paper band proclaiming the toilet to be sanitized for your protection.
If Kellers face was an unremarkable one, rarely warranting a second glance, wouldnt it be even less remarkable to someone from a significantly different ethnic background? Keller wasnt overly given to racial or ethnic stereotypes, and had never been one to say that all Asians or Africans looked alike, but there was no dodging the fact that, when he got an initial look at someone racially different from himself, what he saw first and foremost was that difference. He saw a black man, or a Korean woman, or a Pakistani; later, through familiarity, he was better able to make out the individual.