And every single time, there was a sixty-seven-year-old woman in the room who had been standing in that hallway, and every single time, she said: “I was there.”

Part Four: Room 207

The Blue Orchid Motor Inn is a two-story L on Route 9 with parking outside the doors and a sign from 1974 that still says COLOR TV.

The cab took nineteen minutes.

Neither of us said anything for the first fifteen.

What I did in those fifteen minutes was inventory.

I couldn’t help it.

It’s what my brain does — it’s why I’m good at my job.