The Price of Justice Read Online Free PDF Page B

search of that name and had come up with a motel on Belvedere Road, just off Interstate 95 and south of Palm Beach. He figured it had to be the right one, if Sanders had been truthful.
    Thirty minutes after his plane landed, he pulled up to the motel. Sanders was right about one thing—it was as run-down a place as he’d described. The paint was peeling from the one-story row of rooms, three lights were out on its sign, and the parking lot was full of potholes. Tommy entered the office. An emaciated man, no more than thirty, with sallow skin and stringy hair that flopped over his dark-brown eyeglasses, sat behind the desk. Tommy caught a glance of the girlie magazine he’d been perusing before he quickly stashed it under the counter.
    “Need a room?”
    “Nope. Just some answers. Have a minute?”
    The man looked at him warily, pushed back the glasses that had slipped lower on his nose, and said, “I have a room. I don’t ask questions, and I don’t give answers.”
    Tommy sized him up. He guessed the man tried to be a big shot but probably went through life scared. Scared of the guests, of his neighbors, of the people he worked for. Maybe his parents owned this fleabag, or maybe he took the job because he could escape the rest of the world holed up inside the grubby office. Either way, Tommy knew he would crumble.
    “What’s your name?”
    “Billy.”
    “Well, Billy, I’m afraid you’re going to have to give me some answers. We can do it here, or I can drag you down to the FBI’s office. Which will it be?”
    Billy shrugged and just stared at him. Tommy took out his cell phone, flipped through the pictures, and came to one he’d taken earlier that day of Earl Sanders. “Do you recognize this man?”
    Barely looking, Billy shook his head.
    “Look again.”
    “Hey, I don’t pay attention to faces. They pay their bill and go on their way, and I never think about them again. Unless they’re regulars. And he wasn’t.”
    “Okay. You keep a record of your guests?”
    “Sure. It goes into the computer.”
    “How far back?”
    “Ever since we put in the computers. ’Bout ten, maybe twelve years ago.”
    “I want you to look up the name Earl Sanders.” Tommy spelled it for him.
    The man sighed deeply, as though he’d been asked to undertake a Herculean task. He turned to the computer and punched in several keys. After a few minutes, he turned back to Tommy. “Yeah. He was here. You happy now?”
    “Exactly when?”
    “Checked in December 9, 2007, and left seven days later.”
    Tommy held back a smile. The dates lined up with Carly’s murder. This was just the first step. They still had a long way to go. “Okay, Billy. Print it out for me, and I’ll be out of your hair.”
    With the confirmation in hand, Tommy headed north on Interstate 95. He wanted to take a look at the woods behind Palm Beach High School, where the body of Carly Sobol had been found. By the time he arrived, classes had long since let out, and he was able to walk behind the school without attracting any attention. The trees began about two hundred feet from the back of the high school. He scanned the building and noted floodlights at each corner and two more in the center. Enough to illuminate a path to the woods and provide a dim light, even when inside the forested area.
    He walked deeper into the woods, along a pebbled trail flanked by shrubbery, looking for a specific tree described by Sanders. Within five minutes, he spotted it—a Southern live oak. Of course, Sanders hadn’t known the type of tree. But Tommy could name most trees, plants, and flowers. Instead, Sanders had described something tall, with a stout, twisted trunk and large, low-hanging branches. Carved into the trunk of the tree were the initials “ES + PG.” It was the tree where he claimed he had raped and murdered Carly Sobol. Tommy whipped out his cell phone and took several pictures.
    When finished, he walked back to his car and dialed Dani’s cell