The Lady in Residence

by Allison Pittman

  In the brief moment the closet door was open, Dini noticed a heather-gray suit—the jacket sharing a hanger with a pale blue shirt and tie—a pair of soft leather dress shoes, two other shirts, and a hard-sided carry-on suitcase, a metallic-looking copper color. Quin reached to the upper shelf from which, next to the extra pillow, blanket, and iron, he took down a nondescript-looking black duffel bag.

  “I’ve got the original box in here.” He set the bag on top of the small table in front of the window. “I thought if I found anybody to show it to, they might want to see how everything’s been kept.” He unzipped the bag and gingerly lifted out an ancient, fragile-looking cardboard box. A shoebox, most likely its original purpose, tied with a length of loosely knotted string. “And I had to kind of stretch the string off, because that knot wasn’t budging.”

  Dini’s fingers itched in anticipation. “I think I should wash my hands. They’re…sticky?” She winced at the immaturity of the word. “And really, before handling anything …”

  “Sure. Of course, right through there.” He pointed to the open door to the bathroom. “Watch your step.” He indicated a six-inch difference in the bathroom’s floor level. “It’s a doozy.”

  Dini shrugged out of her backpack and dropped it next to his bag on the floor. Once inside the bathroom, she shut the door. The idea of sharing the moment of handwashing seemed far too intimate for strangers. The bathroom was kind of like a time machine in its own décor—sea-green tile, chipped sink, separate handles for the hot and cold water. She unwrapped the tiny bar of hotel soap and started the tap. Quin’s open shaving kit was on the sink. No razor, obviously, as he wore a beard, but a small electric trimmer. A blue toothbrush stood, sharing a glass with a small tube of Crest. She picked up a black tube of Neutrogena for Men, flipped open the top, and inhaled.

  That’s him. She locked the scent into her memory.

  Finally, she held her hands under the warm running water and lathered them with the soap, softly singing the chorus to “Mandy,” turning off the water at the third repetition of the name.

  “Manilow fan?” Quin was sitting on the edge of the bed, not jumping up immediately when she opened the door.

  “You know how they say to sing ‘Happy Birthday’ to time twenty seconds for handwashing? I hate that song.”

  Quin stood and crossed past her. At the sink, he turned the water to its highest pressure and, not bothering to shut the door, launched into the opening verse of “Copacabana.” He turned off the water and dried his hands on the same towel she’d used, saying, “See? If you tried that with jazz, you’d be washing all day.”

  Dini’s laugh was somewhat obligatory, as the box and its mysterious contents occupied the best of her mind. Without waiting another second, she sat down and pulled it toward her, rewarded immediately by the scent of old. Although the string could have easily been pulled from around the cardboard corners, she went to work on the knot, spying its pattern straightaway. It wasn’t anything complicated, just a basic square tying, but years had solidified the strength. She picked at it with her short, sparkly nails, thinking, He tied this. My fingers are touching what he touched. Not Quin’s, of course, but his great-great-grandfather’s. What secrets did he bind with this cord?

  The knot finally loosed.

  “Shall we?” Quin placed two fingers gingerly along one side of the lid, inviting her to join in the endeavor. She took a deep breath and complied, lifting it—weightlessly—off the box.

  Inside were an assortment of papers, photos, and magazines. She almost wished Quin would go away. Maybe she should send him on an errand to fetch up an ice cream or coffee so she could sort and absorb at her own leisure. But then, wasn’t it something to share this with another person?

  “Where should we start?” That pronoun again. We.

  “The Christmas picture,” she said, eager to see the one thing she knew to be inside.

  Quin pulled the box closer to him and rummaged gently through the contents, finally pulling out a piece of card stock, roughly five inches by seven. He held it gingerly by its edge, the image facing him. “Are you ready?”

  Dini nodded.

  “Close your eyes.”

  She did, and felt him shift slightly.

  “Open them.”

  She hadn’t bowed her head, so the first thing she saw was his eyes fixed on hers, his expression one of studied anticipation. He gave a slight inclination, and she followed.

  Never could she explain the small, strangled noise that seeped from the back of her throat, but she immediately brought her hand to her mouth to catch it. There, in the beautiful pastels of antique tinted photography, stood Hedda. It was just as she described in her book. The tree, the dress. She held her hands in front of her as if clutching an invisible bouquet. Even without the future advantage of digital detail, the emerald of her wedding band shone. Her expression was one of peace—maybe not happiness, but a settled contentment, as if all was well in her chosen home. The tree, one of those so fashionable in the day, with its sparse, tinsel-draped branches, stood resplendent behind her.

  And, really, a passing glance—if this were displayed on a mantel shelf, perhaps—might have yielded no reaction whatsoever. That is, if you could ignore that niggling feeling that something was off. Something was wrong.

  Dini didn’t need a second glance. She’d held this picture in her mind since the first time she’d read of its existence. She’d spent years filling in the details Hedda left out. The drape of the garland on the tree; the drape of the beads around Hedda’s neck. And then, just behind her, over Hedda’s shoulder in a gap between the branches, a pale, transparent presence. Not transparent per se, but translucent, because Dini could see the tree behind it. Behind her. A shank of dark hair covered her face, leaving the shadow of a single eye to stare from the softly blurred flesh. A cap. A coarse shoulder poking out from behind Hedda’s soft, creamy arm.

  And, on the back, a detail she had no reason to anticipate. A note, probably written in pencil given it was so faded as to be nearly missed:

  This night began my ruin.

  “There’s something wrong,” Dini said, holding the photograph closer to her face.

  “I don’t know. Looks like someone did a pretty good job—”

  “This isn’t how Hedda described it. She said Sallie’s hand was on her shoulder. Like touching her. Here it isn’t. And this one is tinted.”

  Quin got up from his chair, came around, and touched Dini’s shoulder as he leaned in for a closer look. Though she was aware of the movement, the touch took her by surprise, and she jumped, knocking his chin with the top of her head. Not hard, though, because they both laughed and let out a perfectly simultaneous apology.

  “I didn’t think,” he said. “I really wasn’t trying to scare you.”

  “It’s all right.” She put the photograph on the table, and he returned to his seat, scooting it closer to hers. “But that’s weird, isn’t it? That she would add that detail when—” She stopped, got up, and began pacing the room, suddenly reminded of something even more disturbing. “How does this even exist? She says—you’ll see in a few pages—that she destroyed the picture. Tore it up.”

  “The photographer obviously made two prints.”

  Dini went on as if he hadn’t spoken. “I’ve always thought that was wrong of her—it could have helped later. Helped prove—”

  “Prove what? This isn’t real. It’s a simple double exposure. Two images printed onto the same glass. Surely you can see that. I mean, it’s pretty well done by 1920s standards, but looking at it now …”

  “But why would she lie?” She began pacing again. “Because she’s either lying about seeing Sallie’s hand on her shoulder, or she’s lying about destroying the photograph, because clearly, here it is.” She reached the end of the room, turned, and walked right into Quin, who stood in her path.

  “Why do you care so much about this, Dini?”

  If she couldn’t settle one incongruity, she’d
attack another. “Why are you here?”

  He shook his head, as if struck by the sudden shift in topic.

  “I know you’re not just playing history mystery tourist. You have a suit. And a beard trimmer.”

  “What are you, now? Spying on me, Nancy Drew?”

  Dini pointed. “You have a suit hanging in your closet, and your beard trimmer is poking out of your kit bag.” She stepped back because he was so close she had to tilt her head to look up at him. Also because he was so close she almost touched him when she pointed to his suit. Also simply because he was so close.

  His posture deflated somewhat. “Okay. Here’s the deal. I’m not just a high school math teacher.”

  She allowed herself that split second to entertain the next possible sentence. Private investigator, research historian, museum curator …

  “I also teach a few classes at a community college, and I developed a program that would seek out nontraditional students within a connected community and group them nonhomogeneously into study and support groups.”

  “You—what?”

  “See, nontraditional students, meaning those students who aren’t enrolling straight from high school, sometimes struggle. Especially with math. There can be a gap in skills, or—if they’ve dropped out of high school entirely and are enrolled with a GED—or …” Now he was pacing, and Dini stood rock-still as he cut a path around her. “Even older students, because let’s face it, we don’t teach math the way we used to. Like maybe not the way they learned it back then. So this program lets them—or their academic counselor—plug in some info and help them meet other students to form study groups that fit with their schedule and ability. They don’t always know how to seek help.”

  “Stop.” He was speaking like one of those voices at the end of a pharmaceutical commercial. Dini held out a hand that would have caught his arm if she’d let it. “Why did you make me think that you were here just for …” She made a vague gesture around the room. “This.”

  He put his hands in his pockets, instantly transforming into something like an awkward teenager in front of her. “Because I followed you around for two hours listening to your ghost talk, and I thought you were so”—he looked away and back—“pretty. And then you were so cool with your hair and your card magic, and I thought if I told you I was here to pitch my software for creating algorithms to create nonhomogenous groupings of nontraditional community college students, you’d think I was some kind of tech nerd.”

  She looked meaningfully at his shoes. “Aren’t you?”

  He laughed, a literal ha-ha. “I suppose I am. Some people from Alamo Community Colleges reached out to me. I met today with one of the counselors who’s helping me with the pitch. Look, this picture creeped me out, but I never considered actually coming here until this opportunity.”

  Truthfully, Dini hadn’t heard much since Quin said she was pretty, but her ears locked this in. A business meeting. Not a date, not a girlfriend. Probably not. Most likely not. Not that it mattered, because Quin wasn’t here to search out his roots or finish an old family story. Still…She kept her reaction hidden under the face she’d perfected. Already she’d been caught snooping in his closet, no need to add phone spying to her crimes.

  “Some coincidence, getting a call from the same city where your great-great-grandfather lived.”

  “I don’t believe in coincidence.”

  “Fate, then?”

  He shook his head. “I believe that God has a plan, and that He brought me here. Put me in your ghost tour group.”

  “Isn’t that the same thing?”

  “Not at all. Coincidence and fate are random. I’m a math person. I don’t do random. God is purposeful. We live in an equation of His design.”

  “Like an algorithm that brings nonhomogenous people together in a study group.”

  Quin looked pleased—no other word for it—like Bea whenever Dini could correctly identify the elements of one of her crayon-scrawled pictures. “I’d never thought of it like that before, but sure.”

  “Or like a card trick.”

  “Maybe?” He looked a bit more skeptical.

  “The mark thinks I’ve magically made his card appear, when it was counted and hidden from the beginning.”

  “Exactly.”

  She wanted to answer back that her life had been nothing but chaos for as long as she could remember. Living on buses and trains, falling asleep in theaters and waking up in motel rooms. Her caregivers an unreliable parade of performers—singers, jugglers, dancers, dog trainers. Orphaned at sixteen, never having been a child. Having a foster mother for a best friend. Only friend, really, over the last five years spent springing between seasons of sleeplessness and scraping gigs. If her life was an equation, it was one of those crazy wall-sized ones. But she said none of this. Mostly because that very moment—isolated in time—seemed so settled. Balanced.

  “What if they hadn’t?” She wandered back over to the table and ran a thoughtful finger around the soft edges of the box. “If ACC hadn’t called you. What was your plan for all of this?”

  “I don’t know, really. I didn’t have a lot of time to think about it. I got pretty busy finishing the details on the software, meeting with coders, and working out glitches. All of it didn’t click together until I was booking my flight and choosing a hotel.”

  “If all this fell in my lap, I’d cancel my life for a week and just stare at it.” She reached in and gingerly lifted a large envelope. It was addressed to Irvin Carmichael, care of the San Antonio Police Station, but that address had been forwarded to an address in Virginia. A memory clicked. “You said this was a good photography trick for the 1920s.”

  “I didn’t mean any offense.”

  “She didn’t take this picture in the 1920s. It was Christmas 1916.”

  Quin raised his eyebrows. “Really? That’s even more impressive.”

  Dini showed him the envelope. “This was mailed to Irvin Carmichael in 1925. Years later. Years after …” She studied the envelope again. “No return address.”

  “She mailed it to him?”

  “She didn’t mail it to him.”

  “How can you be so certain?”

  “She said she destroyed it.” Dini felt her skin flush, her throat growing tight as her voice turned reed thin. “She said there was a hand. On her shoulder.”

  “Hey—” He was stepping toward her, and she put her arms out like an invisible force field. It worked. He stopped. But then, perhaps sensing a weak spot, he reached for her hand and held it, his thumb pressing into her palm with just enough pressure to keep them connected.

  “You have to understand.” Her voice was controlled now. “I love this woman. I love her legend. My mother met her once, when she was a little girl, and she told me how she was like something out of a history lesson. I’ve read her book a thousand times. I can quote it to you.” Dini closed her eyes and felt only the floor beneath her feet, the envelope in her hand, and Quin’s pulse in her palm. The page appeared in her darkness. “I thought myself quite beautiful. My gown was new, purchased on a whim only days before, its neckline broad and sleeves capped. I stared at the dark hand outlined on my white skin. How could I not have felt that? How did I not sense her behind me?”

  “Dini.”

  She felt the envelope slip from her fingers. Both of her hands were gripped now, and she was being led. She sat, as directed, on the bed, and opened her eyes only when she felt a weight beside her. His face was close—closer than it needed to be. He’d taken his glasses off and was looking into her eyes in a way that was far more clinical than romantic. Also, he was no longer holding her hand. Not really. He was taking her pulse. “Are you all right?”

  “I’m fine.” She bristled away. “I’m just feeling a little, I don’t know. Angry right now. Betrayed.”

  His brow wrinkled in compassion where she’d feared mocking. “Hedda can’t betray you, Dini. She doesn’t know you. She’s dead.”

  “But she lied
.”

  “Maybe.” The bed emitted an antique squeak as he stood. He walked over to the table, picked up the photograph, and brought it back. This time sitting a meaningful distance away. “But maybe she didn’t. Do you know what this photo says to me?”

  Dini held it, looked at it, looked at him, and shook her head. “What?”

  “It means someone went to an awful lot of work to put the fear of Sallie White into Hedda Krause.”

  Chapter 11

  Excerpt from

  My Spectral Accuser: The Haunted Life of Hedda Krause

  Published by the Author Herself

  As I waged a private war against Sallie White in the dark confines of my room, the world, it seemed, stood on the threshold of a much larger conflict. Daily the newspaper told of battles fought in foreign trenches and German submarines attacking whom they wished at sea. More and more, as I introduced myself, my name would draw a leery look. Krause. German? And I was always quick to say that Krause was my late husband’s name, hoping sympathy would overrule suspicion.

  If I were to claim a sprig of hope, it came from the fact that I received no fewer than three Valentine cards from gentlemen I’d met over the course of my stay: two from local suitors, and one from a state senator addressed to Hedda Krause, in Residence of the Menger Hotel, with hopes that he would have the opportunity to take me to supper in the spring.

  The previous year, before the first signs of his lingering illness, my late husband had lavished me with three dozen red roses (one dozen for each of our years of happiness), a box of French chocolates, and the amethyst earrings that the proprietor of Paragon Treasures most certainly had appraised on sight. This year I was content with my small tokens of admiration.

  Despite being midweek, Wednesday, the bar was a bustling place, so after an early supper (alone), I took a slice of chocolate cake and a carafe of tea to my room and prepared for an evening with my novel Tempest and Sunshine. The first sentence, “It was the afternoon of a bright October day,” transported me back to the October day when I boarded a train bound for Texas.