The novel proved to be a perfect companion for the evening. I’d lived a long life without love, a short life with it, and faced an uncertain future with only one constant: myself. I curled up in bed, heedless of the crumbs. Outside the night was biting cold, but I’d cocooned myself in warmth, wearing my nightgown and robe beneath my pile of soft quilts.
This sense of contentment and satisfaction lulled me as much as did the tea and cake, and I fell into the sweetest sleep. Heavy and deep—aware of being overtaken, and quite happy to have been so.
Not so deep, though, that I didn’t hear it. Hear her.
Faint and familiar. The scratching. Like whispers on wood, inviting me to wakefulness.
Tendrils of sleep tied me to my bed. Fear ripped my warmth away, even as I lay beneath the weight of comfort.
Scraaaaatch. Scraaaaatch. Scraaaaatch.
All of my bravado, my boldness, my challenge, lodged at the base of my throat like ice. But then I opened my eyes.
Most often, Sallie would come to me in darkness. Midnight hours and after when it was too dark for shadows. This night, though the hour was late, my room was fully lit, and while the scratching on the other side of my door held its same menacing quality, on my side, I saw home. My empty teacup in the folds of my bedding. My wash-stand with its collection of perfumes and creams and scented soap. My desk with its modest collection of books. Dresses draped across the furniture, stockings drying over the grate. My trunk with its lid gaping open, all of my worldly possessions within.
This was my room. My home. My territory to defend. Courage my only weapon.
I flung off the covers, sending a clattering of plate and fork and cup to the floor. In less than a breath, I was at the door, my hands steady as, in one fluid motion, I removed the chain and twisted the knob. I felt a whoosh of air as I opened it, heard my voice screaming curses to the wretched phantom, damning her to a hell of my choosing.
But again I was too late, moved too slowly. Hesitated too long. As before—as always—the hallway was dark and empty.
“No, no, no, no, no …” My protests grew in volume with each repetition. My mind swirled with madness, and I cursed her again in a stream of vulgarities I’d thought long buried. Strips of light appeared beneath two of the doors across the hall, and I clamped my hand over my mouth to bid silence.
And in that silence, my name.
“Hedda Krause. Hedda Krause.”
The same broken-throated cry coming from the end of the passageway. The darkest corner, where it turned.
“Hedda Krause.” Spoken from a deep, black place. The place where I’d cursed her spirit. Was she there? Calling out to me?
“Hedda Krause.”
I stepped out of my room completely. The chill of the hall iced the back of my neck despite the weight of my loosely braided hair.
“Sallie.” The whisper barely more than a hiss against my clenched teeth. Then again. “Sallie.”
And there she was. Gruesome and gray, her work dress lank on a thin frame. I saw her first in profile, head bent down, towel draped over her arm as if ready to knock on a door in delivery. I might have thought it merely a maid, summoned by one of my fellow residents, but for the fact that I could see the darkness through her. Subtract her flickering transparency; I simply knew. How long had I called her name? How long had she called mine? And here we were, face-to-face. Almost.
Then, she turned.
We think we scream in our nightmares, and I suppose some do. Things I’ve suffered in my waking life pale in comparison to the most terrifying of gothic novels, and too often those memories roar to life in sleep. My late husband would often wake me, roused to find me shaking, my mouth open in a silent scream. Real screams, those loud shrieks women are supposed to emit, come out at the most nonsensical times. A mouse in the corner, a slip of a knife leaving blood droplets on the bread. True terror grabs at the throat, crushes it from within. And when Sallie White turned to me, I felt myself paralyzed in Henry’s grip.
Slowly, how slowly she revealed herself, like a spinning dancer in a music box at the moment the tune disintegrates into elongated, discordant notes. Her cap askew, a shank of dark hair obscuring her face, revealing one staring eye and a mouth gone slack. But it was the angle—Lord help me, I can see it now—the unnatural way she held her head. Her neck twisted, so that even turned toward me, her face turned away as if weighted by one shoulder held lower than the other where the arm hung useless at her side. Now I could see the bundle of towels she held were pressed to her stomach, the corners stained dark. The center of her dress a translucent, amorphous shadow. Her feet, bare and pale, hovered above the floor.
“Hedda Krause.” My name projected from the dangling phantom, but her lips did not move. Instead, there was a twitch to her shoulder before, as if with great effort, she raised her hand and presented it to me, fingers bent to a claw. Her listless legs bent into a crouch, and with an unholy sound like the call of death itself, she lunged. Her mouth stretched wide, but it was my scream that filled the hall. I’d found my voice at last, and it emitted a sound I’d never made before or since.
I’d felt her touch before and bore the remnants of it for days. I would not suffer it again. I know it seems, in the reading of these pages, as if our encounter lasted long enough for me to get my bearings and formulate a plan, but understand that it took place in less than a second. Stop now, in the midst of this page, and bring your hand before your eyes. Snap your fingers. In just that short amount of time, I saw her, heard her, turned away, and ran.
Incoherent babbles poured from my lips, leaving a trail of sound behind my steps. Heedless that I was in my dressing robe, hair loose, feet bare, I tore down the hallway and fled headlong down the stairs, my shoulder slamming against the wall at the turn. I didn’t care. Blind memory guided me, fear of falling kept my balance. The shining bare floor was like ice to the soles of my feet, but I could not slip. I’ve learned since that the blurry forms at the edge of my vision were, indeed, fellow guests, but I had no notion of how they stared, snickered, and gossiped both that night and long after. One sharp corner, then another, and I threw myself against the heavy wooden doors.
Breathless, I panted his name. “Bert,” and the man himself came out from behind the bar. In the moment, I cared nothing for decorum, propriety—whether of age or station or race. I too lunged—just as she had, but my target did not flinch. I ran into Bert’s arms the way a child is said to run into its father’s. I felt them wrap around me like strong cords, holding me against him. My face, now wet with unchecked tears, pressed into his clean white shirt. He smelled of soap and the linseed oil he used to clean the bar. His body was a solid mass, his voice low and smooth. Comforting. Lulling.
“Hush there, Miss Hedda.” Miss Hedda. He’d never called me such a thing before, and I know it was in deference to those patrons scattered about. Had we been alone, he would have kissed the top of my head rather than simply cup his hand around it. “It’s all right, people.” He spoke over me, assuming a self-granted authority. “I think she’s had a fright is all.”
I clawed my hands to his collar, brought his head low until my lips nearly touched his ear. “She came to me.”
He pushed me to arm’s length. My arms, not his. “Perhaps a brandy to soothe your nerves?”
“No.” I kept my eyes fixed on his face so there was nothing beyond it. “Do you understand? I saw her. I saw—” And he looked away, behind me.
“Sir. I’m sorry. She just—”
I gave myself over to Bert’s grip and allowed him to turn me, slowly—just as she turned—to see a scowling Mr. Sylvan.
“What is the meaning of this?” He directed his question to Bert, not me. “I heard her screaming from my office. The guests are horrified.”
“She had a fright is all,” Bert said, dropping his touch. “Heard one too many stories about Sallie, I suppose.”
“Nonsense.” Mr. Sylvan turned to address the room in general. “My apologies, ladies and
gentlemen. The lady is unwell, but let’s not allow her to spoil your evening. Please, Bert here would love for you each to have a glass of champagne. On the house.” His small hand surreptitiously gripped my upper arm, and he gave me the slightest yank as he hissed into my ear, “I will see you up to your room.”
“No.” I hated the whimper of that word. “I can’t. I won’t go up there.”
“To the street then.” His voice too soft to be heard beyond my shoulder. “Because in this state, there is no other place for you.”
“I can’t—” As if to prove my unwilling spirit, my body gave way, my legs liquefying beneath me, causing Mr. Sylvan to hold me up—a task for which he was ill-equipped.
“Please,” Bert interrupted, having made no move to distribute the free champagne. “Let me take her.”
“Take her?” Mr. Sylvan said, trying not to struggle beneath my weight.
“To her room. With you. She looks faint, sir.”
At that, accompanied by a gasp from the crowd, I felt the entirety of my weight fall against Mr. Sylvan, who grunted as if handed a log.
“Here.” In a moment unprecedented in my life, I was swept off my feet, Bert cradling me against himself as if I weighed no more than the phantom who chased me here. There were women in the bar that night sharing a Valentine’s Day drink with their beaux, and I could hear the falsetto of their approval of the gesture. Bert’s voice rumbled against me as he instructed one of the waiters, off duty after a long night, to get behind the bar and pour the drinks. Then it rumbled again, saying, “Just this one time, and never again,” before assuming final authority to bid Mr. Sylvan to follow him upstairs.
I kept my eyes closed, my face pressed into his neck. My body recognized every step. I knew when we were in the lobby, passing the desk, the clock. I felt the lift of his legs as he took one stairstep after another. My corridor and, finally, my door, where I felt a hitch in Bert’s breath and his whispered, “God above, what happened here?”
Mr. Sylvan uttered the same words, but with a distinctly different tone, and I lifted my head.
“Can you stand?” Bert asked.
I nodded, and he lowered me but stayed close enough to catch me if I were to fall. The three of us crowded in the doorway, surveying what had been my sweet, cozy room. All that I loved was obscured by a swath of disaster, as if a wind had blown through to destroy my peace. My plate and cup were broken on the ground, the carafe knocked over on my bedside table. The curtains were half tugged from their rings, the bedclothes tossed into a pile. My books—my precious little library—had been knocked from their stack, torn pages strewn around the room. I realized the scent of my perfume was so strong because the bottle had been opened and left on its side, the pricey amber contents dripping on the carpet.
“Oh, Hedda,” Bert said, forgetting decorum. Even Mr. Sylvan cleared his throat in sympathy.
I took it all in with a single, sweeping glance. Strength restored, I carefully picked my steps across the room, mindful of the broken dishes, and crept up to my trunk. Lid open, as I’d left it, but the contents pulled and tossed with frantic abandon. Gowns, undergarments, hats. I dug through layers of silk and cotton, my mind fixated on a single target: the little brown box kept safely at the bottom, my entire past and future within. A great relief washed over me when I saw the intricately carved piece, but when I lifted it, I knew.
“No.” Again, that word. As if it could reverse the events of the evening.
I set the box upon the bed and said something close to a prayer before lifting its lid. The sweet smell of cedar, the tufting of velvet, and nothing else. All of my treasure, every gift and token, every bit of gold, every gem, anything that would adorn my neck, my wrist, my breast, my hand—gone. Only the ring on my left hand spoke of the woman I’d been, the man I’d married.
“She took everything,” I said, clutching my bedsheets, imagining her throat in my hands.
Chapter 12
Shrine seemed too strong a word. Dini preferred to think of it as a display. Her Hedda memorabilia—clippings and photographs, even a few personal items found on eBay fan sites. A rhinestone brooch, a monogrammed handkerchief, and most treasured, a fading snapshot of Dini’s own mother, all strawberry blond and freckled, standing beside the elegant old woman. Dini knew exactly the spot where the picture had been taken, and sometimes when a long, empty afternoon stretched ahead, she’d go into the Menger lobby and plant herself for a few hours with a book, imagining what it would be like if she never had to leave.
She kept her treasures in a glass-topped table; adding the items from Quin’s tattered box seemed presumptuous. He hadn’t explicitly said she could keep everything she brought home, so they were laid out carefully on the glass. Besides the Christmas picture, there were articles from the San Antonio Express about the theft, sensationalizing Hedda’s widowhood and calling on the scoundrels to turn themselves in to face justice. Dini had seen these articles before, but to hold the paper in her hand rather than squint at it on a screen was almost intoxicating. Odd how the newspaper accounts never mentioned the role of Sallie White’s ghost. Notably, the only quoted sources were Mr. Sylvan, the property desk manager, and Irvin Carmichael, the detective investigating the case. This had always bothered Dini, the idea of the victim herself being silenced in the story, but she supposed the journalist’s objective was to minimize the sensationalism of the crime. Too much focus on the ghost and nobody would try to look for the thieves. She chalked it up to the integrity of the paper, as most would have relished a good ghost story. Later, of course, when Hedda herself became somewhat of a specter on the property, articles would surface about the woman who came to the Menger Hotel and never, ever left. She even turned up in the occasional Reddit thread about little-known persons of the Alamo City or as a feature on MrsHavisham.com, a blog devoted to the true stories of eccentric women, alongside the Teddy Bear Lady at the Grand Floridian Resort. But those stories were about after, when Hedda became the “lady in residence” at the Menger Hotel.
It wasn’t until Quin’s treasure trove that she saw the ghost and Hedda linked in print in a June 1932 issue of Spicy Detective Stories magazine. The events were highly fictionalized, including a lurid illustration featuring a curvaceous Hedda, obviously nude but for the bed-sheet barely clinging to decency, draped in the arms of a man who was a conglomeration of Bert and Mr. Sylvan—a white barkeep with a trim, dark moustache.
She read the story that Sunday night when she got home from her—visit? Date? Encounter?—with Quin. By the time she’d left, evening was falling, turning the room into shadows and prompting a decision: turn on lights and stay or let darkness fall.
“The Haunting of Helen Kroft,” as Hedda’s story was titled, started on page thirteen of the magazine and continued for five pages with columns interrupted by ads for dental paste and other men’s grooming products. The sight of them called to mind Quin’s shaving kit, the lingering clean man smell of his bathroom. Dini read while eating a supper of banana oatmeal, the bowl stationed a good six inches away from the antique pages. Not exactly a faithful retelling—this story took place in an unidentified city where the “Merchants” Hotel was haunted by the ghost of a murdered debutante—but there were too many details for it to have been authored by anyone other than someone with firsthand knowledge of the events. A Google search of the author’s name, Herb Trellis, proved that “The Haunting of Helen Kroft” was either his only, or most successful, literary enterprise. It was published fifteen years after the event, thirty years before Hedda would pen her autobiography.
She texted Quin the minute she read the last line, just before 10:30 p.m.
D: MAYBE HT WAS ONE OF THE GUESTS? AT THE BAR?
Q: HT?????
D: SPICY DETECTIVE AUTHOR
Q: ARE YOU CALLING MY GGGRANDFATHER A SPICY DETECTIVE?
Dini smiled at the phone screen, picturing exactly what he would look like if he were speaking straight to her. Of course, he hadn’t read the detective magaz
ine.
Or the old Photoplay magazine, either, though she wasn’t sure why it was included with the other pieces at all. She spent Monday morning poring through it, looking for any article or sidebar that might relate back to Hedda, but found nothing. It was dated 1918, so maybe Carmichael was just a fan? But why hide it?
D: WHEN DID GGG CARMICHAEL GET MARRIED?
Q: WAITING TO DO PRESENTATION.
D: WILL ONE OF YOUR SISTERS KNOW?
Q: I’LL ASK.
D: THNX.
Because maybe this was just something old Irvin Carmichael stashed away from his wife, along with all that old business about Hedda. All those old feelings.
D: HAVE YOU MET GGG CARMICHAEL YET?
Q: HE DIED BEFORE I WAS BORN.
D: I MEANT IN THE BOOK.
Q: NO.
D: NO???
Q: BEEN BUSY BUT I WILL. I PROMISE.
Thirty minutes later, Quin forwarded a picture of the front page of what was obviously a family Bible. The first name listed was Irvin Carmichael, followed by the date of his marriage, the birth of his children, the date of his wife’s death, and—shortly after the marriage of his oldest son—his own death, followed years later by the birth of a grandson, etc. Dini zoomed in, looking at all of the careful detail, feeling a pang of longing. No such record existed of her own family, only boxes stuffed with old show bills and reviews. She zoomed back out to see Quin’s birthday—October 15, snapping perfectly into place with his license. Something else, though, nagged at her, and she went back to the top. She looked at the first entry on the Bible page then took out the photograph of Hedda that Quin had given her over empty breakfast dishes at Mi Tierra.
The handwriting was a perfect match.
Detective Carmichael wrote the verse on the back of the photo. It was a sentiment he and Hedda shared.
She picked up her ghost tour costume at the dry cleaners, cleaned out her car for Wednesday’s drive, treated herself to a fresh manicure, and packed her smaller case for the gig. This was no children’s birthday party, so no balloons, rings, scarves, or flash paper were needed. This was all cards, so nothing but a green felt table topper and a few fresh decks.
The Lady in Residence Page 12