Page 16 of Soft Flannel Hank

Esther said goodnight and hung up.

No, I’m not.

* * *

Hank woke up early,shampooed his beard, put on his best flannel shirt, and stopped by the gas station. Esther deserved florist flowers, not tiny, $15 roses that came from a stand next to a hot dog turner. But the florist had been his mom’s good friend, and buying flowers would raise approximately nine thousand questions from Mrs. Johannson—exactly zero of which he was prepared to answer.

He drove to the motel and parked in front of room number ten. In the daylight, Hank noticed the chipped green paint around the knob, the mossy brick above the walkway in desperate need of power washing.You should have done that instead of the flowers,he thought as he pictured Esther coming out of her room, sleep-rumpled and confused.

“I was gonna buy you flowers, but instead I’m gonna power wash the brick outside of your motel room because you deserve the best and I want to give it to you,” he would say.

But he didn’t have a power washer. He had gas station roses, which he clutched in his fist as he knocked on the door. The door opened, and Hank saw a teenager with yellow rubber gloves that swallowed her skinny forearms. She held a bottle of blue glass cleaner in one hand. Looking past her, he saw that the bed was stripped and the white bath towels piled on top of the sheets.

“I’m sorry,” he mumbled. “Wrong room.”

It wasn’t, though. But Hank knew better than to jump to hasty conclusions. It’s what once made him a good cop. He gathered evidence before he gathered opinions.

He walked down the cracked, L-shaped sidewalk to the office. Opening the door, he saw Alice Kim sitting behind the reception desk. She was the motel’s ancient proprietor, and Hank had known her for his entire life. She looked at him with sharp eyes over the rims of her rhinestone, cat-eye glasses. Her gaze snapped from his face to the flowers and back again, raising a black, drawn-on eyebrow.

“Officer Dove. To what do I owe the pleasure?”

“It’s just Hank now, Alice.”

“What can I help you with, Hank?”

“When did room number ten check out? Her name was Esther.”

Alice set herOprah Magazineaside and peered at him closer. Hank couldn’t help but feel like a specimen under a microscope.

“She checked out early this morning.”

“Did she leave a note?”

Alice narrowed her eyes. “Should she have?”

Hank shifted from one foot to the other. “I guess not. Did she say where she was going? Or why she was checking out?”

Alice sighed. “Hank, honey, she blew in here before I even had the coffee on, said that something came up last night, paid in cash, and then ran out of here like her ass was on fire. Speaking of, do you want coffee?”

Hank had looked over at the Mr. Coffee that was very likely original to the motel. The stack of Styrofoam cups, powdered creamer, and red stirring sticks. He could taste the burnt brew in his mouth without sampling it. Ass on fire was right.

“No, thanks.”

“Was she someone special to you or something?”

Hank closed his eyes for a moment, a heartbeat. “I guess not.”

The plastic wrapping around the bouquet crinkled, and he looked down at the pink roses clutched in his fist. He held them out to Alice.

“These are for you.”

“No, they aren’t,” Alice said with a laugh, her voice crackling.

“They are now. Here.”

Alice smiled and took them. Her bottle-black hair was a stark contrast to the tissue-thin skin of her face. “We all have our vanities,” his mom used to say.

Alice dipped her head and smelled the roses, as if she didn’t know that gas station roses never smelled like anything but the plastic they come wrapped in. But as she closed her eyes and inhaled, Hank remembered that her husband, Michael, had died earlier that year, just after Hank had ripped his life apart at the seams.