The Orchid Sister

by LeClaire, Anne D.

  That matched what she had learned earlier at two salons.

  “You’re Kat’s sister?”

  She nodded, waited for the inevitable reaction. You don’t look alike. I would never have guessed you were related. But he surprised her by saying, “I can see that. There’s something about you that reminds me of her. You see her, tell her if she wants to keep those killer abs, she’d better get back here.”

  “Okay. I’ll pass the message on.”

  She was at the door when he called out. “Tell her I miss her. Tell her to come back.”

  There was a break in the rain, and she decided to walk back to the house. She took her time, realizing she was avoiding the empty rooms that awaited her. As she approached the building, she noticed the shades were still drawn on Izzy’s windows. She checked her watch. It was nearly noon. She hesitated and then rang the bell, holding it in place for several long moments before turning away. Maybe they were both in there, lying inside the apartment. Dead. A flicker of hysteria caught in her chest, and she willed it away. She heard the echo of Kat’s voice, remembered how her sister always had the ability to allay her fears and soothe away her worries. Stay calm. Stay reasonable. She stepped back on the sidewalk. A growing pressure behind her eyes signaled the beginning of a headache. She had eaten little since grabbing a coffee and cellophane-wrapped pastry when she’d stopped for gas on the trip down the day before. And the stale half bagel earlier that morning. The idea of food wasn’t appealing, but fasting was giving her a headache. She’d passed a café a few blocks back. She reversed course and headed there.

  They were in the middle of the late-morning rush, and there was a fifteen-minute wait before she could be seated. While she waited, she surveyed the menu board. All the breakfast sandwiches were made with croissants filled with a number of choices. Scrambled eggs with ham or prosciutto, or salmon. Or sautéed veggies. Even the French toast was made with croissants. The idea that appealed to Maddie most was coffee. She ordered a cup and a simple scrambled egg. But once she was served, she was so jumpy she could barely manage a mouthful. She tried to formulate a plan for the rest of the day, but could think of nothing. She had informed the police and followed up on the only leads she had. The idea of Kat’s empty rooms came close to triggering panic. She had nowhere to go. Knew no one else in the city. She considered finding a cinema in the area. A film would occupy at least a couple of hours. Anything, even staring sightlessly at a screen, was better than the echoing silence of Kat’s place. The waitress gave her directions to a two-screen theater not too far away. The walk took her back by Picasso’s. She paused beneath the black awning and, on impulse—perhaps there was one thing Kat had said that Lucille had remembered after she’d left—she opened the door. It was even possible that Malcolm or one of the others might have overheard her talking to another client.

  He smiled when he saw her. “Changed your mind about that haircut, I see,” he said.

  MADISON

  Almost to the minute that the twenty-four-hour window elapsed, Maddie called the precinct. She was handed off from person to person and put on hold three times before reaching the detective.

  “Are you at the address you gave Officer Segerman?” John Miller asked after he’d identified himself. “Yes? Give me twenty minutes and I’ll be there.”

  Miller was a black man with powerful features, a face that in another time and place she would have wanted to sketch. He wore a well-tailored sports coat and carried himself with a confidence that was more reassuring than off-putting. He began by taking the same information she had covered with Segerman. Her sister’s full name. Employment. Friends.

  “I’ve been through this with the other officer,” she said, struggling to conceal her impatience.

  “Bear with me.” He continued with the routine questions, but listened with an intensity and attention that suggested he was hearing more than simple answers and that nothing would escape his intelligence. Her hopes rose.

  He motioned for her to take a chair and then sat opposite her, leaning forward, his voice calm, low.

  “Do you remember the date that you last spoke with your sister?”

  “Not exactly,” she said. “It was in the middle of April.”

  “Did she sound upset? Depressed?”

  “No. Not at all.”

  “What did you talk about?”

  “Mostly we talked about what was going on in my life.” She hesitated and tugged at a wispy strand of hair that circled her chin. Elfin. That’s how Malcolm said the new style made her look. It had been a mistake. She missed her long hair. Missed the concealment it had afforded her, felt naked in her exposure. And all for naught. Malcolm had been unable to offer anything more about Kat. “She was asking about a new relationship I was in.”

  “Can you remember if she mentioned anything about going away? A trip or vacation she was thinking about?”

  “No.” Then she reconsidered. “She might have said something about an assignment. I’m not sure.”

  “And that’s the last time you spoke? Roughly a month ago.”

  “Yes.”

  “Since that time have you tried to contact her? Email? Text?”

  “I’ve tried calling. We don’t text. I don’t have a cell phone.”

  He smiled. “Well, that’s a sentence you don’t hear much these days.”

  “That’s what people tell me.” When she told people she didn’t have a cell, they always made her feel like the last holdout from the ice age.

  “To get back to your sister, you did try to call her.”

  “Yes.”

  “Okay,” he said. “Tell me everything. Anything. Even if you don’t think it’s relevant.”

  She explained how she had tried to get hold of Kat in recent weeks but that her calls had gone unanswered. She told him of her brief conversation with Carl and his unwillingness to check on Kat.

  “What’s their history?”

  “They’re divorced.”

  “Was he abusive? Did your sister have any reason to fear him?”

  “They’ve both moved on. He’s remarried. She’s—” Maddie paused. She’s what? she wondered. As content as she professes? She recalled the way Kat now described herself, and she parroted her words to Miller. “She’s happily divorced.” But was she? Really?

  He asked for Carl’s name and telephone number, made a note of it. “Go on,” he said.

  Maddie told him how her worry had grown, her sense that something was wrong, that Kat would never just fall off the face of the planet without checking in with her. She led him through the previous day, her futile attempt to learn anything from the neighbor, her visits to the hair and nail salons and the gym where Kat had worked out.

  He scribbled notes while she talked. When she was finished, he walked through the rooms, taking longer than Segerman had. Again, she sensed that he was missing nothing. In the bathroom, he opened the bottles of supplements, checked the capsules and tablets in each. “Is your sister a health nut?”

  “No. Not really.” She hated feeling that she had to defend Kat against unspoken assumptions.

  “What about drugs? Or alcohol? Any problems or history there?”

  “No. No. Never.”

  He took in the bedroom from the doorway and then crossed to the closet and opened the door, pulled out a few garments. She saw him check the labels. “Do you know if any of her clothes are missing?”

  “I did look, but I wouldn’t really know if anything was gone.”

  He stared at the clothes, crowded hanger to hanger. “I can see why.” In the hall, he stopped and studied the mask that Kat had hung there. It was one of the Benda copies, a depiction of perfect, porcelain beauty, expressionless, the mystery of the unknown. Or the hidden. Over the years Maddie had given several of her sculptures to Kat, but this was the only one that her sister had chosen to display.

  “Interesting,” he said.

  She did not tell him that she had created it.

  They returned to t
he living room. “Can I get you something? Coffee?”

  “You read my mind.”

  “There isn’t any cream.”

  “Black is fine.”

  He followed her to the kitchen and watched while she got out mugs, pulled out two K-cups. She was aware of his gaze, searching the room, studying her, assessing. His silence was unnerving. She wished he would tell her what he was thinking. She wondered if he was taking Kat’s absence seriously. While he was thorough, he certainly wasn’t acting with any urgency. “What are you going to do now?” she asked. “Yesterday the other officer mentioned putting out an”—she struggled to remember the acronym—“an ATL.”

  “Yes. We’ll do that. And tomorrow, if you still haven’t heard from her, we’ll put out a missing persons, but to be honest with you, at this point, with the information we have, there’s not cause for a fuller investigation.”

  “Why?”

  “For starters, there’s no sign of a struggle here. Nothing out of place. Earlier, before I left the station, I checked the log, and there’s no record of any calls from your sister reporting prowlers or stalkers. And you yourself said she might have said she was going off on an assignment.”

  “Something is wrong.” Her voice was shrill with frustration. “I’m telling you, something is really wrong.” She handed him the coffee.

  He set his notebook down and took the cup. “Thanks.” He maintained his measured, soothing tone. “Ms. DiMarco, here’s what we can do. I’ll have someone run a check on the DC hospitals. We’ll speak to your sister’s friends if you’ll give us names and contacts, although I suspect you’ve already done this. Have you been in touch with her physician?”

  “Her physician?”

  “To see if she’s had a recent physical, received a test result that would upset her. Something that might have made her want to be alone.”

  “Yes. I checked,” she lied. “Kat is perfectly healthy.” She didn’t want Miller to delay his investigation while he waited for her to chase after Kat’s doctor. If anything was wrong, Kat would have told her. She was certain of that. Well, almost certain. She recalled Lucille saying Kat had looked tired. Drawn.

  “We can check her car registration and driver’s license,” Miller continued, “see if either of them were due to expire and have been renewed in the past months.”

  “Kat doesn’t own a car.” Her sister’s laughter slipped into the room. Forget cars. That’s why God invented taxis. The memory was cut abruptly by the sound of Miller slapping his palm on the table.

  “I knew there was something I was missing.”

  “What?”

  “Her mail. Where is your sister’s mail?”

  Maddie was a step behind. “I don’t understand.”

  “There’s a mail slot in the front door. Does she have it delivered here, or does she pick it up at the post office?”

  “Here.”

  “Did you see it when you came in yesterday? Pick it up and put it somewhere?”

  “No.”

  “Well, where is it? If she’s like most people, the catalogs and junk mail alone should be piled ankle deep. Unless she had it held for her at the post office. Which would mean she made plans to be away for a while.”

  “But she didn’t,” Maddie said. “She didn’t make plans to be away.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “Well, when I arrived yesterday, there was a pint of cream in the refrigerator, and it had turned sour. If Kat had planned to be away, she would have dumped it before she left. And then there’s her orchids.”

  “Her orchids?”

  “Yes.” She pointed to the alcove in the dining room, the three plants in the bay window. “When I got here, they were completely dry. There were dead blossoms on the floor. If Kat was going to be away for more than a week or ten days, she would have asked Izzy—Mrs. Duncan—to water them. She was quite precise about their care. A quarter cup of cold water every week. She was exact about that. Too little and they dried out, too much and the roots rotted.”

  “This Mrs. Duncan?” Miller checked his notes. “That would be the neighbor?”

  “Yes.”

  He rose, crossed to the dining alcove, returning a moment later. “They’re not dry now.”

  “I watered them. Yesterday. When I arrived.”

  He fixed her with a steady gaze, then flipped back several pages in his notebooks and scanned the scribbles. “In your initial report, you told Officer Segerman you didn’t touch anything but the bed where you said you slept that night, the phone, the answering machine, and—” He checked the notes again. “And some things in the kitchen when you made coffee. You didn’t mention the orchids.”

  “I guess I just forgot. What does it matter?”

  “Was there anything else you forgot to mention?” His voice was even, no unpleasant emphasis, but she felt accused.

  “No.” Then she remembered the panties. “Well, there is one other thing.”

  He raised an eyebrow, waited.

  “Only one thing. There was a pair of panties on the bathroom floor. I put them in the hamper.”

  “Why?”

  “Why?” She parroted the word dumbly.

  “Why did you do that?”

  Why had she? Because Kat would have wanted her to? Because looking at the bikini bottoms—such an intimate thing—had made her want to protect Kat, especially from the eyes of strangers? “It seemed like a violation to think of anyone else seeing them.”

  “Anything else you can remember?” His tone had cooled.

  “No.”

  He let his gaze survey the room. “Is your sister wealthy? I mean, this is a good address, a nice place, a closet filled with good clothes.”

  “The house was part of her divorce settlement. Kat’s not rich, but I don’t think she has a lot of financial worries, if that’s what you’re asking. She’s comfortable. We were both left money when our parents died.”

  “Does she have a will?”

  “Yes.” Where was this heading? Surely he couldn’t possibly think she had anything to do with Kat’s absence. The idea was beyond insane.

  “Do you know who her beneficiaries might be?”

  Beneficiaries? Jesus, did he think Kat was dead? “No. I mean, I guess I would be. There’s no other family.”

  Abruptly, he changed topics. “Has she ever, even just once, gone off without telling you?”

  “No.” Then she remembered.

  He read her face. “What?”

  “Well, once, right after Kat got divorced from Carl, she went away for a couple of weeks.”

  “Where?”

  “I don’t remember. A country inn somewhere. Or maybe a spa. I think it was somewhere in Virginia.” Instinctively she decided not to tell him about the other time Kat had disappeared for a week shortly after her divorce from Carl. To have work done, she’d said. You got a facelift? Maddie had said. God, no, Kat had replied. Don’t make it sound so dramatic. Just a couple of nips and tucks, that’s all. No big deal. Maddie didn’t tell this to Miller. She wanted him to care about Kat, not see her as a woman who could afford to fight the ravages of growing older.

  “Here’s what I think,” he was saying. “I think your sister has gone on a vacation. A trip. Maybe alone. Maybe with someone else. Or maybe she’s working. I think you should go home. In a day or two, maybe a week, you’ll probably hear from her. A call. A postcard from Vermont. Or Paris. Or I don’t know the hell where.”

  For a minute, Maddie allowed herself to believe what he was saying. An assignment. Or a man. After all, hadn’t she been swept away with Jack? It hurt to remember how swept away she had been during those weeks. But wasn’t it possible something like that could have happened with Kat?

  Miller rose, slipped his notebook into the inside pocket of his sports jacket. “In the meantime, like I said, I’ll make a few inquiries. I’ll inquire at the post office and ask about her mail. I’ll check out her bank, see if any large deposits have been withdrawn. I’l
l try to reach her neighbor. You go home. We’ll keep you informed.” He took a billfold from his hip pocket, opened it and handed her a card. “If you think of anything, let us know.”

  “Right.” She tried to find his promise reassuring, but she was frustrated. She wanted action. Not words.

  “If I’m not in, they’ll take a message at the precinct, or you can leave it in my box.”

  “Okay.”

  “One last thing. It would help if you’d give us a recent photo of your sister.”

  Maddie had been right that he would want a photo. She went to Kat’s office and got the picture of Kat with the violinist. She looked into her sister’s smiling face. Where are you? What’s happened to you? “Will this do?” she asked as she handed it to Miller.

  He looked at the photo. “Yes. We can crop the guy out and enlarge it. I’ll get the original back to you.”

  She saw him out. When she picked up his cup, the coffee was cold. He hadn’t taken a swallow. Go home, he’d advised. Back to Massachusetts. She supposed she should. There was little more she could do here. And she hadn’t arranged for cat care when she left, and Winks would be needing food and fresh water. Still, leaving felt like giving up. She didn’t know what to do. In another weak moment, she considered calling Jack and asking for his advice. She hated to admit to herself how seductive the idea was, and that made it easier to push it away. She was on her own here. She switched on automatic pilot.

  She straightened up the bedroom, found fresh linens and remade the bed, gathered the few things she had brought with her. Before she left, she did the one last chore she could do for Kat. She carried each of the three orchids into the kitchen and set them in the sink. Adjusting the faucet so the water flow was gentle, she sprayed the leaves, rinsing off dust. That would keep them for another week or two. She was picking up one of the pots to return to the windowsill when she caught her finger on the rim. Her fingernail bent back, tore. All the frustration, anger, and fear she had managed to hold back during Miller’s visit erupted and tears spilled. “Shit,” she whispered. Then: “Damn you, Kat. Where are you?”

  She left the pots in the sink. In the bathroom, she combed through Kat’s cosmetics, checked the medicine cabinet. This was Kat’s place. There had to be at least one emery board somewhere. She opened the top drawer of the vanity, pawed through the collection of brushes, combs, and hair clips. In the second drawer she found a bag of cotton squares Kat used to remove makeup and two green washcloths. She was pushing the cloths aside when something jabbed her finger. She cried out and pulled her hand back. A drop of blood welled up on the pad of her index finger, and she watched it fall on the slab of marble vanity. As she stared, a shiver ran through her. She reached carefully back into the drawer and removed the green cloths, placed them on the counter, unfolded them. She stared at the object, dumbstruck.