Dust to Dust

by Audrey Keown

  But before I reached the bed, I could see that it was undisturbed, as if I had turned it down only a minute before. The covers were flat and smooth. Even the mints sat primly on the pillows.

  In fact, there was little out of place on this side of the room. The roses on both nightstands were as they should be, and the velvet bed-curtains hung neatly to the floor.

  A sofa and two chairs gathered in front of the fireplace. I walked over, and the soles of my Chuck Taylors ground in soot on the hearth. Either Bea had done a poor job cleaning the room after the last guests (a filmmaker and a location scout who liked the look of the area) checked out, or a fire had been lit the day Renee died.

  I sat down on the settee and imagined Renee here beside me, her coffee-brown hair shining in the firelight. Perhaps she’d be reading. No, she’d had a headache. Maybe she had curled up on the settee and thrown an arm over her eyes.

  There would be a knock. She’d sit up, perturbed, open the door, and smile with recognition.

  Would she fight back? No one around here had visible scratches from what I’d seen, and the room didn’t show signs of a conflict.

  Maybe Renee had turned her back on the visitor and from behind they’d wrapped something—a scarf, as I imagined it—around her throat. She would’ve yanked at the fabric, but if it was long, maybe she couldn’t have reached her attacker’s hands or face.

  Of course, a lot of different scenarios were possible.

  I lifted my arm to knead the tension from my neck, and some kind of filament caught the light against the burgundy velvet of the settee. A strand of hair, pale and about two feet long.

  I searched over the brocade and found several more, some much longer than the first. Could it mean anything? Bea’s hair was blond, but chin length and curly, while these strands were straight.

  None of the guests had hair both long enough and blond enough to match these. Definitely not Renee, with her shoulder-length mahogany tresses.

  I slipped the loose strands into a pocket of my dress and stood to check the armchairs for clues.

  A metallic click sounded from the door. The lock.

  Caesar’s leaves! Who had a key to the room? Clyde had returned his to the desk when he checked out. And who but the killer would sneak in at this hour?

  I had to hide.

  The armoire seemed to me an ideal spot, but fear had rooted me in place.

  I took a breath, peeled my feet from the floor, and absconded to the cupboard’s dark depths, leaving the door cracked behind me, since, as everyone knows, it’s foolish to shut yourself in a wardrobe.

  In my haste, I knocked the empty hangers, and they scratched against the back of the furniture. I caught my breath and reached up a hand to still them.

  The floorboards squeaked near the door.

  Had the intruder heard me?

  I hoped I might glimpse them through the sliver of the armoire opening.

  Alas, they also kept the lights off, which both confirmed that their intentions were nefarious and meant I could see only hints and shadows in the moonlight.

  I couldn’t think for the life of me why anyone, even Renee’s killer, would need to be here, but that old adage popped into my head about murderers always returning to the scene of the crime.

  Footsteps sounded on the wood floor.

  I could barely hear over the whooshing of blood in my ears. I held my breath and kept my eyes on the blue darkness beyond the crack.

  A streak of light zipped around the slice of room I could see.

  I leaned into the gap.

  The armoire door flew open. Brightness blinded me.

  I let slip a frightened warble and covered my face with my hands.

  It was too late. I’d been seen.

  My hands shook as I lowered them and opened my eyes warily into the darkness that had returned. There was a white overlay on my vision.

  The intruder’s footsteps retreated, and the door closed behind them.

  Whoever it was didn’t want to be seen here.

  But had now seen me.

  My poor heart blipped and blinked and launched into a quiet tattoo against my rib cage. Doom clawed at me.

  I felt the familiar chill in my legs. My hands froze into numbness.

  Deep breaths would have been calming if my chest weren’t a block of cement. I was paralyzed in the dark.

  I employed the grounding technique from my therapist, squeezing my eyes shut and concentrating on the feel of my feet on the wardrobe floor, the sharp scent of cedar, and somewhere in the distance, the haunting call of a bird.

  It was two thirty AM.

  The panic that had come for me in the armoire had sucked away all my energy. On the way to up to Dad’s and my apartment, I paused to catch a breath outside our neighbor Ms. Franklin’s door. She’d put out a spring wreath, a circle of green grass with carbuncles of chicks and bunnies.

  I was tired of climbing these stairs every time I came home, but I still had to save money for my own place, which was slow going while working only part-time and keeping up with school.

  I hoped Dad would be asleep, honestly. At some point we’d have to talk about the hotel and the lies I’d told him, but I had more urgent matters to handle now, so I had to set everything aside and get some sleep myself.

  Before the murder at the hotel last October that had sent me reeling into snake pits of anxiety, I’d thought I’d outwitted my disorder by using positive thinking.

  Now I understood that the beast only responded to a multipronged attack. I’d been taking better care of myself lately—sleeping enough, exercising, journaling, going to counseling, even eating better. It seemed like I should have reserves to offset this crisis.

  I thought back to the moments before the panic had set in, in the darkness of the armoire. I hadn’t seen the intruder, but what about my other senses? Had I smelled or heard anything helpful?

  Mudderpucker. I couldn’t stop these ruminating thoughts.

  I dug through my bag for my keys, but as soon as I laid my hand on them, the door swung open.

  I looked up at Dad’s blue eyes, visible in the sallow light from the apartment stairs. Behind their usual kindness was an aching question—why had I lied to him?

  “Hi,” he said flatly. One hand throttled the doorframe. The opposite arm stood tense at his side.

  Was it a good sign or a bad one that he’d met me at the door? At least he hadn’t thrown a suitcase at me and told me to go find someone else to take me in. Not that I would expect such. He didn’t lord it over me that he paid most of the rent here or bought most of the groceries. He never treated me like a charity case, and only now and then like I was still a child.

  I took a breath as if it were my last before a forty-fathom plunge to the ocean floor and exhaled it all out again before stepping over the threshold.

  I was afraid that the day’s events and my reactions to them had robbed me of the patience to have a good talk now, but this was the way life happened. For months at a time, it was all smooth sailing, and then in the course of a few hours, the skies would darken, the crew mutiny, and the sharks begin to circle.

  Dad turned his back to me as he stepped into the little linoleum kitchen.

  I tensed at the hint of rejection implicit in his body language. “I guess you want to talk about the hotel.”

  It was the first time I’d said those last two words to him, and I gave them the full weight of all they contained. The mansion was the childhood home of the wife who had left him and the font of her mental illness, which had been the ultimate cause of her leaving. Those were the reasons both for my working there and for my keeping it secret from him, but now my lies had added insult to injury.

  “We have to talk about it.” He turned toward me again with a steaming mug in each hand. A peace offering of tea, perhaps?

  I hoped he knew that the hotel brought me pain too, that I hadn’t taken the job lightly, that every time I glimpsed those golden walls, I had to steer my thoughts quite p
urposefully away from my mother.

  “I’ve been working there for nine months,” I blurted, and took a mug from him. It had been nine months exactly on the night the gravestoners checked in.

  He flinched slightly.

  I almost didn’t see it. A person who knew him less wouldn’t have.

  We both sat down, me on the couch, him in the adopted but well-loved corduroy recliner facing me. I felt the same cold sweat under my arms that I had during my interview with Clarista for the hotel job.

  “Nine months. Congratulations.”

  I frowned. “Sarcasm. Great.”

  “No, I mean that,” he said, reaching a hand out, even though he was too far away to touch me. “I know the anxiety makes it hard to stick too long to anything.”

  “Yeah.” I tucked a piece of hair behind my ear, a gesture that wasn’t even my own. I thought of a friend from school who did it constantly. “It helps that George is there.”

  I spoke slowly, as if every word was a pin in his flesh, as if slowing them down would give him time to process. But I couldn’t have predicted what he said next.

  He straightened up. “I wondered when you were going to tell me.”

  I blinked twice.

  “Yes, I knew. Your old dad managed to piece it together.” He tapped the side of his forehead.

  My mouth crinkled with sadness. “I’m sorry.”

  “Ivy, I have tried to cultivate a relationship between us where we can both be honest and vulnerable. I know I don’t talk about the hard stuff very often, but it doesn’t mean that I don’t want you to.”

  “No, you’re right. I know. You’ve been great at that.”

  “Do you? Do you really know?” He shook his head. “ ’Cause it feels like you’re holding back, like you think I can’t handle it.”

  Oh, he was right. That’s exactly how I’d behaved. As if it was my job to protect him from the hard feelings, as if I could. I looked at my left Converse where a worn place was starting near my big toe. “I guess, yeah. I have assumed that any talk of the hotel, of the house, would just be so painful for you.”

  “Of course. I have a lot of negative associations with it. But like I said, I can take it.”

  “Okay.”

  “I know why you lied.” He waited until I made eye contact. “But don’t do it again.”

  I nodded. “I won’t. I’m sorry.”

  He wasn’t finished. “Whatever happens to you, anything that’s part of your life, matters to me. I wanna hear about it.”

  When you feel bad about your behavior, turning the tables on your accuser is a natural reaction, so of course the desire to bring his new girlfriend into the conversation surfaced, but I checked myself.

  His mind must have gone there too, though. “And in the same vein, I have held things back from you. The fact that you’re the child and I’m the parent works in my favor, but still, you are an adult now, and I have to learn to trust you too.”

  “So I get to hear all about your girlfriend?” I cuddled my mug and settled back into the couch. My curiosity was genuine. I felt more open to the situation now than I had a few nights ago. Was it the life-and-death nature of the past two days’ events that put everything in perspective? Or maybe the way Dad was loving me well by opening this conversation, by being so vulnerable, by forgiving me already? I hadn’t even said sorry yet, I realized.

  “She’s not my girlfriend.”

  “Yet?”

  He jiggled his head. “Yet.”

  We spent a few minutes talking about Kimberly, but I started to yawn.

  “All right. That’s enough for now. We’re both tired,” he said.

  “I’m glad we talked.”

  “So’m I. Now we just have to follow the talk with action.” He stood up. “Hey, one more thing. That leak at the hotel?”

  “Yeah?”

  “It wasn’t just worn parts. It looked like the supply line was probably cut.”

  “Cut? Like intentionally?”

  He raised his eyebrows and nodded.

  “Wow. Okay. Thanks.”

  “Hey, stand up, will you?”

  I set down my tea and did as requested.

  He put both arms around me and hugged me tightly. “I will always have room for you.”

  After a moment, he released me.

  I turned toward the hallway. “Okay, so I promise to share everything with you. If I get a paper cut, I’ll tell you. If I have tuna instead of egg salad for lunch, you’re gonna hear about it.”

  “Watch it.”

  I laughed. “But in general we’ll be less protective of each other and more communicative, right?”

  “Sounds like a plan.”

  VII

  First Fig

  I followed the guard down a narrow, peeling gray hallway as a fluorescent light flickered overhead. Rust stains dripped down the wall under a vent. I was not in Kansas anymore.

  Outside, a ceiling of clouds hung over the city so it was barely light out, but from inside the county jail, you wouldn’t know there was a sun.

  I’d woken up as early as I could to see Mr. Fig before my appointment with my therapist. I couldn’t cancel it now because the late notice meant she’d charge me anyway. And maybe I had things I needed to say to someone.

  The guard stopped in front of a holding cell full of men lying on benches or on the floor or else pacing, leaning, sitting. There were a couple dozen of them in this cell that was maybe twenty-five feet long.

  I could describe the smell as that of a kennel for incontinent dogs, one that was never cleaned. But that wouldn’t quite do it justice.

  Most of the men glanced up when we appeared. One yelled something profane at the guard. Several stared outright at me.

  I felt the oppression of the place like something crawling on my skin.

  One man, in a nice but wrinkled suit, stood from a bench near the sole toilet and threaded his way toward us. Platinum stubble dusted his jaw, but his ginger hair had been patted down neatly.

  I flinched and my throat spasmed as if someone had punched it. My dear Mr. Fig.

  A thin man in the corner whistled at me and oozed a few foul words.

  “Some decorum, please, Mr. Jones.” Mr. Fig frowned.

  “Sorry,” the thin man muttered and sat up a little straighter against the concrete block wall.

  So Mr. Fig earned respect wherever he went. I’d have expected no less, even here. He stopped on the other side of the bars from me and ran his hands down the front of his jacket.

  The lines on his face were creases he couldn’t smooth. Normally they inspired admiration in me, but now they stood out like scars. For the first time, he looked haggard.

  “Miss Nichols? What is it?” he said.

  “Mr. Fig.” I couldn’t just jump into my questions. I couldn’t even form a sentence. “Mr. Fig.”

  He looked down, as if taking in the condition of his appearance through my eyes.

  I followed his line of sight and realized he was in his sock feet.

  When his eyes lifted, there was shame in them like there had been in the back of Bennett’s car, only clearer now.

  I shouldn’t have come. It would have been better to let him be lonely here than to shame him by my presence.

  “I’m sorry.” My throat burned. “I’m just really sorry that you’re here and that I’m here, and I … I wanted to talk to you.”

  “It’s all right,” he said gently.

  Great. He was the one in jail, and I was the one being comforted. I wanted to rip my hair out.

  “Can we talk?” I said instead.

  “Of course. How is the hotel?”

  “Oh, fine.” I glossed over things so as not to alarm him. I didn’t mention Deena’s skinny-dipping, but I did tell him about the strange drawings Bea and I had found—in case he could explain them. He couldn’t.

  “So … have they set bail?” I asked.

  “Monday.” He frowned.

  “Monday?”

 
“The first available arraignment and bail hearing when one is arrested on a Friday afternoon.”

  “Oh. I’m sorry.” That timing felt purposeful on Bennett’s part. All I wanted was to pull Mr. Fig out of here, legal or not. “But why? I mean, do you know why they arrested you?”

  His square shoulders rose and fell. “I told Detective Bennett that while everyone was out taking the tour—except Mr. Wollstone, who was in the theater, and Deena, who came inside to use the restroom—I was at the desk alone. I didn’t see anyone use the stairs or elevator.”

  “You were at the desk the entire time?”

  “The entire time.”

  “Well …” Well what, Ivy? “Well, couldn’t Clyde—or anyone, really—have killed her and then joined the tour?”

  “Apparently not.”

  “How do you know?” I said.

  “I took her a bottle of wine while the others were out. And she was perfectly alive.”

  No. That looked really bad. “You told the police that?”

  “Oh yes,” he said. “Several times.”

  How long had they questioned him?

  “Ms. Reed and Ms. Nixon don’t think he had time when he came back from the tour and found her,” I said.

  “I’m inclined to agree.”

  “Maybe …”

  “Miss Nichols.” He smiled at me.

  He seemed to emphasize my last name in a way that had become familiar to me.

  “It’s terribly kind of you to show such interest,” he said.

  “Of course I’m interested.”

  “However, I must ask you to stop. You have your studies to focus on, your shifts at the hotel, and I know there must be other responsibilities on your shoulders.”

  “I can do this.” The skin around my mouth tightened involuntarily.

  He leaned forward and lowered his voice. “You are entirely capable. You’ve proven that by now, but I cannot have you jeopardizing your health for mine.”

  If only it were just his health and not his freedom and reputation. “Just tell me this. Is there any other way upstairs? Anything the police are overlooking?”