Motel Of Bad Decisions

I had inherited the motel that morning from my aunt Celia, along with a handwritten note that said, Maribel, don’t sell it until you’ve checked the basement.

Naturally, I had not checked the basement.

I had checked the bank account. That was how I knew I needed to get the motel running long enough to collect rent before the property taxes ate what remained of my inheritance.

“Where’s the staff?” I asked.

Baggage glanced toward the back office. “One is asleep in the linen closet. One is pretending to be asleep in the linen closet. The third has gone to buy a wrench and may return with a tattoo.”

“Names?”

“Depends who is asking.”

I opened the ledger. “I’m asking.”

“That’s your first mistake.”

The office phone rang.

I answered it. “I-16 Motor Lodge.”

A man’s voice said, “Room seventeen is leaking.”

“From where?”

“The ceiling.”

I looked up. A brown water stain spread above the desk in the shape of Florida.

“Are you sure it’s the ceiling?”

“No, I’m calling about the floor. Of course it’s the ceiling.”

“Please put a bucket under it.”

“There’s already a bucket.”

“Then put another bucket under the first bucket.”

He hung up.

Baggage sighed. “You’ll fit right in.”

I ignored him and began sorting the keys. My plan was simple: open the office, assign rooms, collect money, avoid lawsuits. It was not an ambitious plan. It had the dignity of a shopping list.

The keys were labeled with fading plastic tags. Room 4. Room 4 again. Laundry. Pool gate. Something marked DO NOT USE, which made it the most honest label in the entire building.

I picked up a brass key stamped 12.

“Room twelve,” I said.

Baggage’s ears lifted. “That one sticks.”

“I can handle a sticky lock.”

“It doesn’t stick because of the lock.”

Before I could ask what that meant, a red convertible screeched into the parking lot and stopped sideways across two spaces. A woman in silver boots climbed out, followed by a man wearing a bathrobe, sunglasses, and the expression of someone who had recently lost an argument with a casino.

The woman marched into the office.

“I need a room,” she announced.

“That’s what we provide.”

“Tonight.”

“I assumed.”

“Private entrance?”

“All entrances are technically private if nobody else is using them.”

She leaned over the counter. Her perfume smelled like hot fruit and poor decisions.

“We’re not here for anything weird,” she said.

The man in the bathrobe looked at her.

She looked at him.

“Fine,” she said. “We’re here for something moderately weird.”

Baggage rose from beneath the desk. “Room twelve.”

I frowned. “I haven’t assigned - ”

“Room twelve,” he repeated. “It has the right atmosphere.”

The man in the bathrobe pointed at him. “That dog talks.”

“Only when he’s bored,” I said.

“I’m never bored,” Baggage said. “I’m disappointed.”

The woman slapped cash on the counter. “One night.”

I counted it. It was enough to cover the room and possibly the emotional damage.

“Name?”

“Darla.”

“And his?”

The man lifted two fingers. “Todd.”

“Occupation?”

Darla snatched the registration card. “None of your business.”

“Actually, it’s the state’s business.”

She wrote something, folded the card in half, and pushed it back.

I did not look. I had inherited enough problems without learning Todd’s legal name.

I handed her the brass key.

“Room twelve is at the end of the walkway. If the lock sticks, jiggle it.”

Baggage made a low sound in his throat.

“What?” I said.

He looked at the key. “Not that way.”

Darla and Todd left. The moment they reached the walkway, Todd tried the key. The lock clicked. The door opened.

Then every other door on the east wing clicked too.

One after another, locks snapped open down the building with the cheerful rhythm of a machine shop.

The doors swung outward.

Room 9 opened first. A naked man wearing only a cowboy hat stepped into the corridor holding a hair dryer.

Room 10 opened next. A woman in a wedding veil emerged carrying a live chicken.

Room 11 opened with a violent bang, releasing a cloud of cigarette smoke and a man who shouted, “I knew it!”

Room 12 remained closed.

Room 13 opened by itself.

A little boy’s voice yelled, “Mom, the bathroom is full of shrimp!”

The parking lot went silent except for the sign buzzing overhead.

Then the naked cowboy looked toward the office. “New management?”

I closed my eyes for one second. That was all the time I could spare.

“Everyone back in their rooms,” I called.

The woman with the chicken pointed at me. “He said the room was empty!”

The man from room eleven shouted, “It was supposed to be!”

Darla pounded on the door of room twelve. “The key doesn’t work!”

“Try turning it the other way,” I said.

“I did!”

“Try lifting the handle.”

“I did!”

“Try not screaming.”

She screamed.

Baggage trotted past me and sat in the middle of the walkway. “The door is locked from the inside.”

Todd appeared behind Darla. “That’s impossible. We’re outside.”

“Not for long,” Baggage said.

The room twelve door shuddered. Something heavy thumped against it from within.

Everyone stopped moving.

The chicken clucked.

A faucet began running somewhere upstairs.

“What is in that room?” I asked.

Baggage glanced at me. “Depends when you last checked.”

“I’ve never checked.”

“Then it could be anything.”

The door burst open.

A wave of warm, greasy water rolled across the walkway, carrying three oranges, a plastic sandal, and what appeared to be a decorative goldfish bowl. The water hit Todd’s bare feet. He yelped and leapt backward, landing on the hood of Darla’s convertible.

The convertible’s alarm began shrieking.

The naked cowboy raised his hair dryer like a weapon.

The bride released the chicken.

The chicken flew directly into my face.

For several seconds, I stood blind beneath a furious bird while the motel performed its opening-night number around me. The alarm screamed. Water slapped against the concrete. Someone in room nine shouted that the chicken was theirs. Someone in room thirteen yelled that the shrimp were escaping. Baggage barked once, sharply.

“Maribel,” he said, “the office is flooding.”

I pulled the chicken off my head.

“Why?”

“Because you gave them room twelve.”

“I didn’t know the lock opened every door!”

“That’s why the old manager labeled the key.”

“The key says twelve!”

“It used to say twelve.”

The water reached the office threshold.

I grabbed the mop from behind the desk. The mop head fell off before it touched the floor.

“Of course,” I said.

Darla climbed down from the convertible hood, leaving two muddy footprints on the windshield. “You said this place was respectable.”

“I said no such thing.”

“You implied it by having a sign.”

“That sign currently spells meth.”

Todd pointed at the water. “There’s a fish in my shoe.”

“It’s not a fish,” Baggage said. “It’s a shrimp.”

The shrimp wriggled free and vanished beneath the vending machine.

I found the shutoff valve behind the desk, turned it, and received a blast of rusty water directly in the chest. My blouse darkened. My hair began dripping onto the registration forms.

The leak stopped.

The alarm did not.

Neither did the chicken.

The bride chased it through the lobby, veil trailing behind her like a surrender flag. The naked cowboy followed, still holding the hair dryer. The man from room eleven tried to help by throwing a towel. It landed on the chandelier, which immediately dropped three feet and shed a rain of dead moths.

Baggage watched the proceedings with professional interest.

“Do something,” I said.

“I am.”

“You’re sitting.”

“I’m supervising.”

The front door slammed open. A tall man in a pale blue inspection shirt stepped inside, carrying a clipboard and wearing the clean, tired expression of someone who had seen the inside of too many refrigerators.

He looked at me. He looked at the water. He looked at the chicken circling the lobby.

Then he looked at Baggage.

“Is that dog licensed?”

“He is,” I said.

“I’m not,” Baggage said.

The man’s gaze returned to me. “Maribel Hart?”

I straightened, which made water pour from my sleeves onto the floor.

“Yes.”

“Evan Pike. County health inspection.”

The chicken landed on the front desk.

Evan slowly lowered his clipboard.

“I’ve been here eleven minutes,” I said. “This is not representative.”

A ceiling tile fell behind him.

It struck the floor with a wet slap.

Evan wrote something down.

“Do not write that.”

“I’m writing it.”

The alarm finally stopped. The silence afterward was so complete I could hear the shrimp tapping against the vending machine’s plastic base.

Evan stepped around a puddle and crouched near the lobby drain. He lifted a clogged grate with the end of his pen. A gray wad of hair, candy wrappers, and one small plastic dinosaur emerged.

He looked at me.

“Was the drain recently cleaned?”

“Define recently.”

“Within this calendar year.”

“Then no.”

He wrote again.

Baggage wandered over and sniffed the inspection clipboard. “He’s going to shut you down.”

“I can hear him,” I muttered.

Evan glanced at the dog. “Did he just speak?”

“He does that.”

“Does he have a rabies certificate?”

Baggage sat. “Does he have a personality certificate?”

Evan’s mouth twitched.

It was almost a smile. A very small one, quickly strangled, but I saw it.

That was inconvenient.

He walked through the office, examining the walls, the sink, the coffee machine, and the bucket collecting water from the Florida-shaped stain. Each time he wrote, my bank account made a tiny dying noise.

“I’m issuing a temporary closure notice for the east wing,” he said.

“The whole wing?”

“Unless you’d like to keep renting rooms with doors that open themselves.”

“Not particularly.”

“And the office until the standing water is removed, the drain cleared, and the electrical panel is inspected.”

“The office too?”

“You’re standing in wastewater.”

I looked down.

A shrimp brushed my ankle.

“I had noticed.”

Evan handed me a card. His fingers were dry, cool, and annoyingly competent.

“Call when the immediate hazards are corrected.”

“You’ll come back?”

“It’s my job.”

“Right. Of course.”

Baggage nudged my knee. “He likes you.”

Evan looked at him. “I heard that.”

“Good,” Baggage said.

By dusk, the guests had retreated to the west wing, the chicken had been returned to its owner, and Todd had accepted that his shoe was not salvageable. Darla demanded a refund, a different room, and an apology from the shrimp.

I gave her the refund.

She took the different room.

The apology remained pending.

With Evan’s notice taped to the front door, I dragged the key box into the back office and locked the door behind me. The lock held. I tried it twice, then leaned my forehead against the peeling wood.

The motel was technically secure.

It was also closed, wet, under inspection, and already costing me money I did not have.

Baggage settled beneath the desk.

“Good first day,” he said.

I looked at the ruined lobby, the chicken feather stuck to my blouse, and the health-code notice fluttering in the warm night air.

“Tomorrow,” I said, “we fix the locks.”

From somewhere in the east wing came the unmistakable sound of another door clicking open.

Baggage lifted his head.

“Tomorrow,” he corrected, “we find out who changed them.”

End of chapter one. 29 more chapters in the full book.