“What can I say? I’m an old man. My memory ain’t so good these days. I guess my brain filters out the stuff it don’t need no more and holds on to what’s worth remembering.” He grinned, winked at her. “And that cute little outfit was definitely worth remembering.”

Jessica stared at him. Here was a man who seemed to think it was completely normal to be fantasizing over a dead woman, a murder victim, as though she was this month’s Playboy centerfold. She found it pretty fucking weird—and more than a little creepy—that Ace Freeman was still getting a hard-on over Eleanor Lavelle after all these years, but she didn’t say so.

“Could this have been late 1987?” Jessica asked. “Or early 1988?”

“Yeah, maybe.” He snapped his fingers suddenly. “Thanksgiving! She showed up just before Thanksgiving. I remember asking her if she wanted to join me and the wife for dinner. Figured she wouldn’t know anyone else in Eagle Rock, would be spending the day on her own otherwise.” He tapped the side of his head and laughed. “See, the old gray cells are still working after all.”

“And did she?”

“Did she what?”

Jessica suppressed a sigh. “Join you for Thanksgiving dinner?”

“Nah, she said she was eating with Hopper. The dirty old dog.”

Jessica’s eyebrows arched in surprise. “Jeff Hopper? The motel owner?”

“The very same.”

“Why would Eleanor be spending Thanksgiving with Hopper?”

“She was staying at the motel.”

“Hopper didn’t tell me she was one of his guests when I asked him about her.”

“You staying at the Blue Moon Inn?”

Jessica nodded. “Yeah.”

“Well, just you watch yourself with old Hopper. He’s got an eye for pretty young things. And he’s never been married. Says it all.” Freeman twisted his own wedding ring and shook his head in apparent disgust at Hopper’s bachelor status.

“He would’ve known Eleanor pretty well?” Jessica asked.

Freeman smirked. “I’d say so. Let’s just say I don’t think turkey and trimmings was all he was giving her.”

“What do you mean?”

“When I said she was staying at the motel, I didn’t mean she was there for a week or two. She was living there the whole time she worked in the bar. We’re talking two, maybe three, months. Now, I like to think I pay my staff competitive wages and all, and she did well in tips for obvious reasons, but I don’t see how she could have afforded a motel room for all that time. Not on top of food and clothes and all those fancy cosmetics and fragrances you women like to buy.”

“What are you saying?”

“I’m saying maybe she was paying him some other way.”

“You think they were in a sexual relationship? Do you have anything to back that up?”

“Nah, it was just a theory I had at the time.”