The Lady in Residence

by Allison Pittman

  Through it all, she was tethered to her phone. As busy as Quin must have been with his meetings and pitches and presentations, he found time to send her message after message. Monday evening he texted twenty times, practically offering a play-by-play of his reading.

  Q: HEY! JUST READ THE PART YOU WERE QUOTING.

  Q: THERE’S THE HAND.

  Q: HEDDA KRAUSE. GHOST SUMMONER.

  Q: A POLTERGEIST GIF.

  Q: BERT’S A GOOD GUY.

  Q: NOW I WANT A SPOTTED DOG.

  Q: GIF OF SPOTTED DOG.

  Dini’s responses were brief. One form or another of KEEP READING, until he texted nothing but a full box of ghost emojis.

  Then his name and number appeared. She answered the call, and his face filled the screen, exactly as she’d been seeing in her mind’s eye behind each text. He wasn’t wearing his glasses, and for the first time she noticed that his lashes were a dense fringe, two ginger shades darker than his brows. It occurred to her that she would never be able to look at him so comfortably and for so long if he were here in the flesh beside her. The device turned him into an artifact. She could let her gaze linger on the dark freckle above the peak of his brow, wonder if the narrowness of his nose came from his maternal line, and note how certain vowel sounds (particularly the long a) brought his lips to open more widely on one side of his mouth than another. And somehow, it didn’t bother her in the least that he might be doing the same thing. In fact, she hoped he was. Seeing her image in the corner, she angled her face, having learned from Arya that nothing is less flattering than looking at a camera head-on.

  “This is nuts.” That’s how he started the conversation. No “Hello” or “How’s it going?” or any of the acceptable small talk that Dini despised.

  “Some people thought so.”

  “Can you imagine? Being there that night, and this woman comes screaming into the bar?” He rolled his eyes upward in silent laughter. “Hey, are those stars behind you?”

  “Twinkle lights.” Dini was in her bedroom, all dark save for the pattern of small white lights tacked in a webbing along one wall. She panned the phone, giving him a better view of the design, then returned. “I’m not a huge fan of the dark. Too much time folded up in a box waiting for my dad to cut me into pieces.”

  “You sleep with those on?”

  “I fall asleep, yeah. They’re on a timer.”

  “I could not sleep with those on. I need one hundred percent blackout darkness.”

  “Then it’s a good thing we don’t sleep together.” The minute the words were out of her mouth, she heard their implication and held the phone away while she buried her face in her pillow.

  Quin’s laughter came through. “That, and the fact that we don’t know each other.”

  At least it was dark enough that he couldn’t see her blushing when she faced the screen again. “Back to Hedda. Do you believe her?”

  His angle shifted, and she heard every creak of the antique bed. “Honestly? I don’t know. Do I believe something frightened her? Absolutely.”

  “But you don’t think it was the ghost of Sallie White.”

  He closed his eyes. Tightly. “No.”

  “Because you don’t believe in ghosts.”

  “Right.” He opened his eyes. “And c’mon, Dini. You don’t either.”

  Dini stretched out on her bed, propping the phone on the pillow beside her. “Why do you say that?”

  “Because of what you said on the tour. That a haunting is just something that stays with you. So, a ghost is just a memory. A person you can’t leave behind.”

  “Hedda was haunted by Sallie. Her story and her tragedy. That could have been Hedda’s life too.”

  Quin said nothing, allowing Dini to trail out her reasoning. She remembered the passage in the book when Hedda tore the picture until there was nothing left but her face and Sallie’s. In the darkness now, despite the twinkle lights, that was all that existed of Dini and Quin. His face filling the screen, hers tucked in the corner above it. She knew in that moment she would be haunted by him forever.

  “So,” she said, welcoming him back to the conversation. “What’s your reason?”

  “My reason?”

  “Why don’t you believe? Is it a religious thing?”

  “Kind of? I really did give this some thought after you left last night and…Hold on.” He was shifting as he spoke. She heard a rustling of turning pages, and when his image was clear and still again, he was wearing his glasses and reading from a Bible. Not a hotel Bible, but something small and soft with gilded pages. His own. “So, I had to do some googling, because I knew there was something like this in here, but I couldn’t remember exactly where. So I marked it. It says here about the dead”—he began reading—” ‘When they breathe their last, they return to the earth, and all their plans die with them.’”

  “And that’s it?”

  He took off his glasses again and looked straight at her. Straight into her. “For their plans, their consciousness, their spirit, yes. But we have memories and stories. Sallie’s story keeps her alive. I know I’ll never forget her. I’ll never forget Hedda.”

  “You haven’t even finished the book.”

  “I don’t need to. But I will. It’s late, though. And I have an eight o’clock meeting tomorrow morning in Universal City? Is it far?”

  “Not really. About fifteen minutes.”

  “They’re sending a car at seven fifteen. Then I’m meeting with teachers at a dual-credit high school housed on the campus. Then dinner with reps from all the colleges.”

  “Okay, okay…I get it. I won’t bug you with Hedda updates.”

  “No! Please do. I mean, you don’t bug me. I love this all, really. Being a part of this story—”

  “You haven’t even gotten to your part yet.”

  “I will. By the time I see you again.” Then something happened—a nanosecond of a change in his face, like a hot bit of realization flitting across his features. Had they been just talking on the phone, if Dini had nothing but the stars on the walls in her eyes, she might have missed it. She would have heard the catch in his voice, maybe, or wondered about the deeper, huskier tone of the words that followed, but she saw it. That unguarded moment before he said, “I actually can’t wait to see you again.”

  Those were the words, and that was the face that drifted through Dini’s stars long after her phone screen went black. The silence of her room settled around her, and where she might have turned on some music or a podcast to help her busy mind settle as well, tonight she didn’t want any kind of barrier between her memory and his voice. She was just plugging the phone into its charger for the night when it buzzed—another text from Quin.

  Q: ARE YOU SITTING DOWN?

  Dini ignored the absurdity of the question and watched the dots on the screen as Quin was typing.

  Q: SO I’VE BEEN MESSAGING WITH MY SISTER AND …

  Below it, a photograph, and she sat straight up, heart thudding, hands shaking, her entire body in such a tremble that she didn’t trust her ability to successfully send a reply.

  Q: DINI??? I’M CALLING YOU.

  Her phone buzzed and she took the call, not knowing if her power of speech would be any better than her power to type.

  “Dini?” Everything about him exhibited concern. “Are you okay? You look …”

  “Is that what I think it is?”

  “Yes.”

  “That is Detective Irvin Carmichael’s notebook?”

  “It is.”

  “Why didn’t you bring it?”

  “Honestly—it wasn’t with the rest of the stuff I took. My sister has it. She has a thing for notebooks, journals. This was in the top drawer of his bureau—up in the attic along with more personal things, I think. I called her a while ago to catch her up on…everything. Anyway, long story short, she’s Fed-Ex-ing this to me tomorrow. You’ll be reading it Wednesday evening.”

  “You could just ask her to send pics of the pages.” Ev
en as she said it, she prayed he wouldn’t.

  “Are you kidding? And miss a chance to see it with you? No way.”

  “Now you have to finish reading so you’ll know the guy before it gets here. I’ve had a crush on him forever, you know.”

  “So, I’m in competition with my great-great-grandfather? That’s not creepy at all.”

  “Not so much competition as—”

  “Fulfillment?” He waggled his eyebrows.

  Dini laughed, letting them both off the hook. “Tell your sister thank you.”

  Chapter 13

  Excerpt from

  My Spectral Accuser: The Haunted Life of Hedda Krause

  Published by the Author Herself

  Had it only been a robbery of all my worldly goods, I don’t know that Mr. Sylvan would have brought the police in so quickly or given them full authority to assemble and question every guest on the property. But there had been some destruction in the room—at the very least, a mess created—and that sort of disrespect for the Menger in all of her majesty would not be tolerated. Doors were knocked upon, robes and slippers donned, and erstwhile sleeping (or otherwise engaged) room occupants were herded to the lobby to be gathered among the settees and questioned by a fleet of uniformed officers.

  What did you hear?

  What did you see?

  What do you know?

  I deemed the entire operation ridiculous, for why would a skilled thief hide within the scene of the crime when a dark city and a myriad of escape routes waited right outside the door? I voiced as much to Mr. Sylvan, who countered with an argument that sometimes the best place to hide is within plain sight.

  The entire evening’s activities were helmed by Detective Irvin Carmichael. I knew he was in charge long before our introduction. He stood at the apex of the second-floor balcony, stoic and still. Still, rather, with the exception of the almost imperceptible movement of his head and the constant scribbling in his notebook.

  I was the last person Detective Carmichael—hereby known as Carmichael, as his title always made me uncomfortable, and his Christian name a least favorite—to be interviewed. He told me he wanted a “clean” view of the scene and circumstances, not one tainted by what I, the victim, would want him to find. He told me too later, in private conversations that will remain so, that I appeared quite fetching with my hair tumbled loose around my shoulders and eyes a-sparkle with agitation.

  I insisted we not conduct our interview in the middle of the lobby where, whether from the landing or through the windows, the thieves themselves might be watching. Instead, we went into the Menger bar, to one of the booths along the back wall, with Bert given charge to keep away any prying eyes.

  We sat on the same side of the booth, his body shielding mine like a wall. He was not a particularly tall man, but he was solidly built. Stripped of his overcoat, it was clear he didn’t have a soft bit of flesh to him. Everything about him reminded me of a bulldog—his build, his stance, the set of his jaw, his fixed attention. His hair was a coppery red, worn straight and short, brushed dry without a hint of cream, and every exposed bit of his flesh riddled with freckles. Face, brow, hands—up past his wrists. I’d never known a grown man to be so featured, and it served to tamper what might otherwise have been a severe persona.

  After one small brandy to settle my nerves, Bert kept us warm with tea (for me) and coffee (for him) while we talked. As Carmichael was left-handed, I could not see all that he wrote in his little notebook. His massive freckled hand shielded the words, but I assumed he was merely recording my responses.

  “You saw no one?” he asked, his moss-green eyes focused steadily on mine.

  “I saw Sallie White,” I replied calmly.

  “Sally White has been dead nearly forty years.”

  “I can only tell you what I saw, Mr. Carmichael.”

  Then, after an exhalation that carried evidence of a cigarette habit, he scratched a line in his notebook. If he objected to my calling him Mister as opposed to Detective he gave no indication, only telling me later that it was the first sign of my indelibly stubborn spirit.

  “And you heard nothing, Mrs. Krause?”

  “I heard my name.”

  “Can you describe the voice?”

  “Like that of a woman who had her throat crushed by a jealous husband.”

  More notes.

  “And I can tell you,” I continued, “this was not an isolated incident.”

  “You’ve seen her before?”

  “This is the first I’ve seen her. But I’ve heard her many times. She’s made it a habit to call to me. To say my name out in the darkness.”

  The tip of his pen scratched against the paper, reminding me of the scratch, scratch on my door. Without looking up, he asked, “Does this interrupt your sleep?”

  “It sometimes prevents my sleep.”

  He made an affirmative noise, turned the page, and wrote something worthy of three bold underscores. “Do you find a glass of brandy to be helpful on most occasions?”

  His question pinned me as much as his body and the booth. “No more than any other person. No more than is healthy or acceptable.”

  He held up a hand in defense. He had two freckles on his palm, and in that moment I wanted very much to kiss them. I told him as much one night, as we sat in the dark, his notebook between us, and he laughed, saying that any woman who took on the task of kissing all of his freckles would be lipless in the end.

  “Easy, Mrs. Krause. I’m just trying to determine your habits. Your pattern, because the thief might have been doing the same thing. For example, are you a frequent visitor here in the bar?”

  I glanced at Bert, who was on his way with a fresh pot of coffee. “I am not.”

  “Do you often drink in your room?”

  “I do not. And furthermore, I’d had just one glass of wine with my dinner this evening, so if you want to pursue a theory that my visit from Sallie White was nothing more than an apparition brought on by alcohol, you are pursuing logic’s folly.”

  He grinned. Not so much with his lips, which remained thin and set, but a spray of fine wrinkles unfurled from the corners of his green eyes.

  “Logic’s folly. I’ve never heard that before.”

  “I think you will find with me, Mr. Carmichael, quite a few things you have never heard before.”

  “Then let’s take it a bit further.” He gave a twist of his thick neck, assuring Bert was out of earshot, I presume, and turned his body, laying one arm across the back of the booth like a fallen branch. “Why don’t you try telling me something no person here has heard before?”

  I held myself straight, keeping my breath even. “What do you mean?”

  “Tell me three things, Mrs. Krause. Three truthful things that nobody here knows.”

  “I assure you, Mr. Carmichael, everybody here knows exactly what I intend for them to know.”

  “And I assure you, Mrs. Krause, that unless necessary, I will keep your information known only to myself. First, how much cash would you estimate was stolen from you?”

  I named a figure with such immediacy, his brows (freckled between the fine ginger hair), shot up in surprise before he wrote it down. “That took very little calculation, Mrs. Krause. Are you always so good with figures?”

  “When one envelope contains all the money a person has in the world, that person knows the total to the dime, Mr. Carmichael.”

  “And so you are destitute?”

  “Quite.”

  “No family?”

  “None.”

  He leaned back a bit and somehow became more imposing. “Mr. Sylvan said you were a widow.”

  “I am.”

  “Then you have family?”

  “My husband had family. I do not.”

  Carmichael later told of wanting both to throttle and embrace me after that remark. Throttle, because my evasiveness was not helpful. Embrace, because he thought in the moment that I was the loneliest woman he had ever met. He turned to yet a
nother clean page in his notebook, wrote a bit, and slid it over to me.

  “Answer these three questions, Mrs. Krause. And to make it easier for you, I’ll only require one to be truthful.”

  “Why do I feel as if I am a suspect rather than a victim of a heinous crime?”

  He said nothing, only held my gaze and pushed the notebook nearer to me. His handwriting was that of an educated man, neat and even, with a uniformly sharp angle to the left. I could detect a slight smearing of the ink and registered a light stain along the side of his smallest finger.

  He’d written:

  What is your name?

  In which city is your husband’s death certificate filed?

  In what state were you married?

  I read the first question aloud. “You know my name.”

  “If so, then I have your truthful answer. I’m going to step outside.”

  He left, taking a silver cigarette holder from his breast pocket and a match from the shot glass on the bar. He had the cigarette lit and between his lips before opening the door, leaving me to worry that he didn’t take his heavy overcoat with him. I could hear sleet hitting the window.

  He’d left his pen, still warm from his grip, and I held it over the page. Such questions. Such easy questions for any other woman. One truthful answer seemed a fair request. I wrote, my hand trembling equally with both the fact and the fiction.

  The door opened, and Carmichael came back in, his face flushed between its freckles. At the same moment, Mr. Sylvan walked in through the hotel entrance and Bert stepped out from behind the bar. Carmichael acknowledged both men with a nod of his head, then made his way straight toward me. I could smell the cigarette and damp of the night. He didn’t wear a wedding ring—few men did in those days—and I wondered if there was a woman in his house who would press her face into his broad shoulder and breathe him in. I had to grip the table to keep from doing so.

  He reached down for the notebook. “Are we done here?”