Throughout, his message never rose above a hiss, and had I turned to look at him, I am sure I would have seen a forked tongue darting from between his thin, shiny lips.
I went straight to bed without so much as washing my face or cleaning my teeth. When the sun rose, I willed myself to sleep until midmorning. Then I clutched my pillow and wept into it. Such plans I had here. Such hope I’d brought along with all I needed to begin life anew. I pictured Carmichael’s face. “An ugly mug,” he called it as I dotted it with kisses. “God, help me,” he’d said, wishing he didn’t love me. “God, forgive me,” he’d said when he hurt me. Now I too wished I didn’t love him. I wished I hadn’t hurt him, but my soul was too empty to call on God to forgive me. Surely these were the least of my sins.
I took a long bath, punishingly hot, and spent the next several days in seclusion. Mr. Dickens’s work was my sole companion, and I found true kinship with Mrs. Havisham, deserted by her lover and left to rot alone. Is that why Carmichael gave me this book? Because he knew my fate?
Nearly a week had passed when, willing myself invisible to the other guests, I crept down to the bar, relieved to find it empty except for Bert, as ever, in attendance.
“Mrs. Krause.” He was shocked at my appearance. The secret to my beauty has always been a healthy confidence and constitution, and at the moment I had neither.
I took myself to what I had begun to consider our booth, and in a short time Bert was there with both a cup of tea and a whiskey, not knowing which would better suit my mood.
I drank both.
“She’s ruined me, Bert. That cursed ghost. Do you know what I’ve a mind to do?”
He’d been standing in attendance at my table, then reluctantly sat at my invitation.
“I’ve a mind to have a séance. Right upstairs at the landing.”
“Oh no, Mrs. Krause. You can’t go dabblin’ in that kind of nonsense.”
“Nonsense? I haven’t heard her or seen her since that night. And I need to know why she hates me. Why she would go to such pains to ruin my life.”
“You can’t blame the ruin of your life on some poor dead woman. What do you have that she needs? It’s someone else that robbed you. Someone with flesh as warm as yours but with a darker heart.”
“Who could hate me that much?”
“There’s some people who don’t know better than to grab on to hate and hold it. But it don’t have to be someone who hates you. Could be just someone who wants what you have.”
“But I saw her,” I whispered, though we were still alone.
“I know.”
“You believe me?”
He heaved a sigh from someplace deeper than I could fathom. “I been in this hotel longer than anybody else here. Nobody knows better what’s lurkin’. Could be that your heart and your mind just conjured her better than any séance ever could. But that kind of conjurin’”—he pointed and waggled his finger, drawing an invisible bridge between those two forces of my body—“that’s good and safe. You got a smart head and a good heart. They just got messed up with a little bit of fear. God Almighty can work with that. But that other? You start summoning from darkness? You invite in some forces that don’t have no place here. And I’ll stop you myself if I have to.”
I felt small and thoroughly chastised. “Don’t be angry with me, Bert. You’re the only friend I’ve got.”
I hadn’t been serious about the séance, not really. My late husband and I attended one, a silly man wanting to summon his dead wife to reveal where she’d hidden his pipe. It was a sham and a show led by a con artist who had a fine wire threaded through a tambourine. Still, I felt every bit as unsettled as Sallie. Roaming and empty. Listless, bored. I knew she’d never visit again. We had wreaked havoc on each other, and I remained here to live with the consequences.
My sleep had been deep and dreamless from the first night Carmichael kissed me. His kisses were the sheep I counted, reliving every one until the dark of the room and the weight of the quilts cocooned me for the night. Even with the memories turned bittersweet, they lulled me. I was on the edge of sleep, remembering a stolen kiss behind a particularly camouflaging corner in the lobby, when I heard it.
Not a knock.
Not a scraaaatch.
But something soft. Small. Like the tapping of a fingertip against my door. And then, “Hedda.” This too, soft. Like a purr.
I rose and pressed my ear to the door. Looking down, I saw his shoes—wide and sturdy—tied with the laces uniform and neat.
Tap. Tap. “Hedda, darling. It’s me.”
It took an hour for me to turn the knob, a lifetime to open the door, and there he was.
“Irv—” And he was inside, the door recklessly closed behind him, my body in his arms, his lips on mine. All the kisses from all the drifting darkness brought to life in that moment. He kissed me like a man chased by a demon. He kissed me as if he never had before and never would again. He buried his face in the soft warm space of my neck, and when I opened my eyes, I saw the faint bits of coal dust on his collar. My toe nudged the train case at our feet.
I pulled away and saw the tears pooled in his eyes. And I knew.
I stepped away, staggering back until my knees hit the bed, and I sat down upon it. He loomed over me, this mountain of a good man, his face twisted in pain.
“You’ve done it, haven’t you,” I said, staring at the carpet between my toes. “You’ve been to Denver.”
Chapter 17
For most of the drive home, Dini explained her illusions.
“The Flighty Aces?” Quin asked.
“Trick deck.”
“And the Reverso?”
“Palm the reveal card.” Dini knew she was merely placating him, as the majority of the explanations came down to memorizing the bottom card and holding it in place, something he surely could figure out for himself. Some, though, required decks that were already sorted (hence the multiple themed decks to toss out as door prizes). She had her own machine that resealed them, strip and all.
“Isn’t that cheating?” Quin asked, steering them deftly through I-35 traffic.
“It’s illusion,” Dini said. “When I open the first deck, I say, ‘Now, this is a brand-new deck of cards, never opened until this moment in time.’ But I don’t say that again. The audience assumes that the next deck is brand-new too. And the next, just like they assume that shuffling the cards creates some random, chaotic disorder, when really, I know exactly where every pertinent card will land.”
They were early enough to miss most of the evening traffic, only coming into true congestion when they edged into downtown, where the final stretch to the Menger was harrowing enough to make Dini wince as she gripped the edge of her seat. Quin grew quiet, more for her sake, she suspected, than for his. He pulled into a lot across the street and, before she could get herself out of the car, was swiping his credit card to pay for the parking.
To her surprise, he took her hand, and to her greater surprise, she let him keep it as they stepped off the curb and crossed the street. They entered through the bar and greeted Gil—Quin doing so in a way that made Dini think the two had banked hours of conversation since that first night.
“They delivered the package to my room,” Quin said, leading her straight through. “Come up with me? Show me how that ghost thing would have worked.”
“Pepper’s Ghost,” Gil said as they walked by. “That’s still your theory, Dini?”
“Until I find another one.”
It was a conversation the two had rehashed over and over. Gil was always quick to defend Hedda, calling her “the Old Girl” with unusual affection. He often took a Socratic tone, leading Dini through with questions. Was Hedda delusional? Or deceptive? Did she make the whole thing up for attention? Or, and this was always the late night talking, was that Sallie White herself floating in that dark hallway? Did she wreak her havoc and disappear?
This time when Dini and Quin walked through the lobby, it was more of a stro
ll, making comments on the décor, the statues, the pianos. When they got to the stairs, Dini surrendered to discomfort and took off her shoes before climbing them. Quin’s room was to the left of the staircase, overlooking the second-floor balcony.
“Hedda’s room was opposite,” Dini said. “This way.” Hand in hand, they looked down the empty hallway, which gave off an optical illusion of growing narrower toward the end. “Come on.”
They walked, passing door after door after door. “It was either here,” Dini said, indicating an offshoot hallway, “or here,” she repeated when they came to the end. “All they would have to do is position a pane of glass—mirrored glass—and project the image onto it. So if Hedda’s room was all the way at the end of the hall, given the low light, she wouldn’t have seen it.”
“And you really think that’s it?” Quin asked.
“It’s relatively simple technology. Totally available at the time—they used it in theaters regularly. Think ghost of Marley in early stage productions of A Christmas Carol. People in my neighborhood do this in their entryway for trick-or-treaters.”
“She wouldn’t have heard the projector?”
“There was a full orchestra in the ballroom, plus the sound of all the people downstairs. And the shock of the moment, the fear. Have you ever been really scared before? Your ears fill up.”
“It’s your blood pressure,” he said. “Heart rate and pulse going nuts.”
“Yep.” Dini was experiencing that now somewhat, although she couldn’t say if it was the fact that they were strolling toward Quin’s room or the anticipation of seeing Carmichael’s notebook waiting within.
“Tell you what,” Quin said, taking the keycard from his pocket. “Why don’t I run in, grab the notebook, and let’s take it downstairs? We can sit in their booth and have a coffee.”
“Sounds good.” Something inside her had changed—something between them had changed—since the last time they were in this room together. Alone. True to his word, he was back in less than two minutes, carrying a FedEx envelope and assuring Dini that he’d washed his hands.
She washed hers too, stopping in the lobby’s restroom while he went on to the bar, and by the time she got to the booth, Gil was setting down two heavy mugs of steaming coffee, her own the perfect shade of creamy brown. Quin stood, allowing her to slide in (never an easy task in a narrow skirt), then sat next to her. How different from that first night, when they studied and circled each other so warily from across the table. This was just as Hedda described the night she met Detective Carmichael, only Quin didn’t smell of cigarettes.
“Guess what we have here?” Dini said as Quin handed Gil back a sharp knife he’d used to open the envelope.
“The notebook of Detective Irvin Carmichael?”
Dini frowned. “How did you know?”
“Quin told me about it the other night. Can I get y’all anything else?”
“Sit with us,” Dini said, indicating the empty seat. “Aren’t you dying to see it?”
“Well, I’m working right now, so I can’t just sit with you, but I’ll stay here for the grand opening.”
Quin, taking his cue, opened the envelope and drew out a mass of Bubble Wrap. This he unfolded, revealing a narrow black book bound with a faded red elastic. “You do the honors, Dini,” he said, handing it over.
She noted at once its cheap cardboard cover. This was not a high-quality journal. It was utilitarian, meant for lists and notes, not deep thoughts and musings. Age made it fragile, and she feared the elastic might snap as she stretched it around the edge of the pages. The cover made a cracking sound, and she gasped when a fluttering of photographs fell to the table.
Quin picked one up, scrutinized it, then passed it over. “Is that her?”
It was. Hedda, dressed in a dark skirt and close-fitting car coat. She was outside in a field, leaning against an antique automobile—though to her it wasn’t antique at all. She looked relaxed, happy, her posture slack and her smile genuine. Wind had whipped her hair away from perfection; wisps of it blew across her brow and cheek. She looked at the camera—more specifically, at the man behind the camera—as if confirming this to be a perfect moment in time.
“Look.” She handed the photograph to Gil. Rather, held it as he bent to inspect it.
“Ah, Hedda,” he said with the affection of a longtime friend.
Tears pooled in Dini’s eyes. “Can you believe it?”
“That’s her,” Gil said, standing straight again. “That’s the real Hedda.”
Quin studied the picture now, holding it at an angle as if that would explain their emotional reaction. “What do you mean the real Hedda?”
“Just how she was—how I’d picture her in real life,” Gil said. “Not so formal.”
“And here’s your great-great-grandfather,” Dini said, sharing a second picture over to Quin. In it Detective Carmichael struck a pose against the same car. He wore a plaid jacket, unbelted slacks and suspenders, his head bare, revealing the short-cropped hair Hedda described. The quality of the photo was pretty much what one would expect from a 1916 Brownie, but the image was clear enough to record his most prominent feature. Freckles. Hedda had not exaggerated their scope.
Gil gave a cursory look and said, “Yep, that’s him,” before leaving to tend to another patron.
“He’s handsome,” Dini said, then caught the implication. “He looks like Brian Keith.”
Quin took the photo gingerly. “Who?”
“Uncle Bill, on that old TV show Family Affair.” While Quin studied the picture, she googled an image on her phone. “We stayed a whole summer in Chicago once, and reruns of this show came on at six in the morning. I was obsessed. Begged my mother to let me wear my hair in little pigtails like Buffy’s.” Dini knew she was babbling, and she knew Quin wasn’t hearing a word. So she stopped, scooted closer, and shifted her gaze from the photo to him and back, looking for a resemblance. “I can see him in you. Narrow nose. Not the freckles, though.”
“I had them when I was a kid,” he said, not taking his eyes off the image. “And I’m careful in the sun.”
She recalled the Neutrogena in his hotel bathroom. SPF 20. “But surely you’ve seen pictures of him before? He’s family.”
“Nothing like this. I’ve only seen him as an old man. This guy—come on. Look at him.” He turned toward her, holding the photograph next to his face. “Just a couple of lady-killers, am I right?”
Dini laughed because she knew he wanted her to. There were more. Hedda sitting in the car, head resting on her folded arms as she looked out the window. Hedda sitting on what looked like an overturned barrel, posed like a queen. Hedda, hands up to her mouth, her eyes betraying a laugh trapped behind them. Hedda leaning against the rough side of a barn, looking dreamily disheveled.
“None of the two of them together,” Dini muttered. She’d laid them out in a grid on the table.
“They were alone,” Quin said, stating the obvious. “And those cameras back then weren’t great for close-ups. No selfies.”
Dini’s mind went to those moments earlier in the phone booth. “And no instant images.”
“Nope.”
“By the way,” she said, not looking at him, “you didn’t tag me in your Instagram post.” There, he knew she’d seen it.
“Sorry, I always forget. Look at this.” He picked up the photo of Detective Carmichael again. “You can tell he’s not comfortable. It’s the only picture of him in the entire lot.”
“Maybe Hedda had the others?”
“No, I don’t think so. Remember that movie, the Christmas one, in England, and that Mr. Darcy guy is writing a novel?”
“Love Actually.”
“Yeah. And remember that scene when Natalie Portman—”
“—Keira Knightley—”
“—is watching the video footage of her wedding and realizes it’s all just a bunch of close-ups of her, and that’s when she realizes that the guy from Walking Dead—”
> “—that he loves her.”
Quin remained focused on the photos and adjusted his glasses in a manner she’d never seen before. It was a nervous gesture, a distraction. A tell. “He loved her.”
“And look at this one.” Dini picked up the image of Hedda standing beside the barn. Her clothes rumpled, her hair nearly tumbled down. There were, as far as Dini had ever been able to find, so few pictures of Hedda Krause. Her mind’s eye conjured the image of Hedda in front of the Christmas tree, haughty and defiant in her finery. Or the photo portrait at the front of her book, the one she’d given to Irvin at some point. Or Hedda in a San Antonio Express-News special feature, aged, elegant, and wistful. In none of those did she look this beautiful. This natural and content, like she’d just exhaled and could easily do so again.
“She loved him too.”
They sat next to each other, just breathing, the series of black-and-white photographs displayed like a timeline of romance. A man and a woman living a lifetime together, isolated, over the course of a single perfect day. Suddenly she felt the distinct guilt of a voyeur. She picked the photographs up one by one—gently, like she was gathering cards from a card trick.
“One thing,” she said, jarring them both back into the moment, “these are in incredibly good shape, given they weren’t preserved in an album or anything.”
“They’ve been hidden in here all these years,” Quin said, scooting the notebook across the table.
“Hidden?”
“Think about it. He married my great-great-grandmother just a few years after he arrived in Washington. He couldn’t exactly have these framed and out on the bureau.”
Dini set them aside and ventured a sip of her coffee. Bolstered, she took the notebook back from Quin and began its examination again with the first page.
“You don’t want to start at the back?”
The Lady in Residence Page 18