That got her attention. There’d been no sign of one when she’d worked through the room, so, unless it was stuffed into a dresser drawer, it was unaccounted for. She pulled out her cell phone, and, after trying to balance it and her coffee, surrendered the cup to the counter. She tapped duffel bag into the app.
“He paid cash, in advance,” Flynn volunteered.
That wasn’t unusual if Palmer had wanted to stay under the radar, but he’d provided his name so that didn’t jibe. It also begged an answer for where Palmer had gotten the cash. It was entirely possibly he’d had some when he was booked, but this tidbit seemed worthy of note enough for Flynn to mention it. “For the night or was he planning to stay longer?”
“It’s in the book.” Trent traced a fingertip across the page. “Until the end of the month.”
Palmer must not have had a place to call home to wind up here. It also seemed he’d had immediate plans to stick around Dumfries, so that was a point against suicide. That manner of death also didn’t fit a man who’d just regained his freedom, though some ex-cons had a terrible time adapting to life on the outside again. So, really, it was too soon to conclude anything. She keyed into her app Suicide? then looked up at Flynn. “How much money are we talking here?”
“Fifteen hundred.”
She whistled. “Never would have expected that.”
Flynn glared. “I know it’s not the Ritz, but we’ve got bills to pay.”
She held up a hand in surrender to calm Flynn, but she was more interested in how Palmer had that much cash. It was more walking-around money than most people had, but Palmer had been a part-owner of a pawnshop, so maybe it wasn’t outside the realm of possibility. Still, she added Source of cash? into her app.
“And he, what, had this cash in his jacket pocket or…?” she asked.
“His bag.”
With that admission, something flicked across Flynn’s eyes and his mouth twitched like he couldn’t quite settle on an expression. The topic of the bag made him uncomfortable, possibly fearful. A weapon inside it, perhaps?
“Did he make you feel threatened?”
His gaze snapped to hers. “No.”
A bald-faced lie. “No weapon in his bag then, or anything else that had you spooked?”
“I didn’t really get a good look,” he rushed out.
“Okay,” she said, backing off just a tad, but his lack of a denial confirmed that Palmer’s presence had caused him anxiety. “You do realize, though, that we’re trained to read people and tell when they’re lying to us?”
Flynn worried his bottom lip.
“You’re not going to tell us,” she concluded. “But it’s not like he can hurt you.”
Flynn’s gaze hardened and he ground his teeth. “There was nothing else in the bag, okay. Just the cash he paid with.”
“You’re sure about that?” Amanda pressed, curious why he was getting defensive.
“Yes,” he seethed.
“Besides the bag, did he have anything else with him?” Trent interjected, and she could have smacked her new partner upside the head. He’d given Flynn exactly what he’d wanted: a shift in direction.
“Not that I recall.”
Amanda glared at Trent. “You’re doing good; this is very helpful,” she praised Flynn, certainly undeserved, but she had to do something to salvage the situation and get Flynn talking. “What you probably didn’t know is Mr. Palmer just finished serving time in prison.” She was trying to feel out Flynn and get a sense of what had him clamming up about the bag.
Flynn swallowed roughly. “I didn’t know that.”
“And if he had a weapon on his person, it would be helpful to know that.” She tossed this out nonchalantly, trying to gauge what could have been in the bag that had him so worked up.
Flynn held up his hands. “None that I saw.”
She nodded, finally assuaged that it wasn’t Palmer himself or the contents of the bag that had Flynn worked up. That left one other possibility she could think of. Maybe the fear originated from someone Palmer had been with or who had visited him. “When Mr. Palmer checked in, was he alone?”
“Yes.”
“Did you happen to see if Mr. Palmer had any visitors or left with anyone between his checking in and last night?” She resisted the urge to say checking out even if it was accurate.
“No, I didn’t.”
Again, she got the sense Flynn was withholding, but there was only so much she could do. The military would waterboard people to extract information, but that method was a little extreme for this situation. “Does that mean you didn’t see anyone or you’re just not saying?”
“I don’t know when the guy died, but I’m not the only one who works here,” Flynn huffed out.
“Fair enough,” she said, though she felt there wasn’t anything fair about the way he was shifting the onus to his employees. “Who else worked between Friday night and last night?”
“Lorraine covered Saturday and Sunday during the day, clocked out at six in the evening each of those days, and David worked Saturday night. I finally had a night off.”
“Their last names?” she asked.
“Lorraine Nash and David Morgan, though I’m not sure I should be telling you all that.”
“Let me assure you that you should,” she said, making a note of the names in her phone. “And when are they expected for their next shifts?”
“Lorraine at nine this morning, and David later at six.”
“Thank you. Now, I noticed a camera on the way in here. Does it work?”
“Nah. It’s just there to keep the clients in line. The boss is too cheap to get a working one.”
That answer didn’t entirely surprise her, though it was disappointing. This area of town and this dump specifically would attract shady people. She went to fish one of her cards from a back pocket of her jeans and remembered that she didn’t have any on her person.
She gestured toward Trent. “Detective Stenson, if you could give Mr. Flynn one of your cards.” That’s if he had any yet…
“Ah, sure.” Trent pulled one from his jacket and handed it to Flynn.
Huh. Malone must have known about his transfer into the department for a while.
She drew her gaze to Flynn. “If anything else comes to your attention or your memory, call Detective Stenson day or night.”
Flynn pocketed the card but made no promises.
“There’s one more thing we’ll need before we leave.” She looked at the pegboard and the hooks. Six keys were missing. One was room ten where Palmer was, and the others were numbers two, three, seven, twelve, and fifteen. She gestured toward them and said, “Those the rooms currently rented out?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Thanks.” She put her phone back in her pocket, grabbed her cup and left. Outside, she gulped back the rest of her coffee, not bothered by the fact it was now tepid. She’d drink the stuff cold. She just about tossed the cup in a garbage can next to the office door but stopped herself. It was possible that something in there pertained to Palmer’s death. She’d make sure the CSIs collected the bag.