The Dead Key

by D. M. Pulley

  Sunday afternoon she awoke to an older man with a white coat tapping her on the shoulder. “Miss? Miss? Are you okay?”

  “Hmm?” Beatrice replied sleepily.

  “I’m Dr. McCafferty. I’ve been attending to your aunt. Some of the staff are concerned that you’ve been . . . spending so much time here. Do you have any other family?”

  “Family?” Beatrice straightened in her seat. The nurse’s comment about contacting Child Services rang in her ears. “Uh, yes. My uncle. I believe you met him?”

  “Yes, but is he here with you now?”

  “No. He . . . he works weekends sometimes. He asked me to keep Doris company.”

  “I see,” the doctor said, nodding. He checked the chart at the end of Doris’s bed and then turned to leave. Beatrice was grateful the two questions were the extent of the doctor’s concerns. She decided to risk a question of her own.

  “Is she . . . is she going to be all right?”

  “We’re doing all we can. I suggest you speak with your uncle about that, miss.”

  Once the doctor left, she leapt to her feet and grabbed the chart from the end of the bed. She scanned the sheet, desperate for some clue of her aunt’s condition. She couldn’t make sense of all of the numbers and initials and check marks. Only one thing stood out. Big letters were scrawled across the bottom of the page in angry red ink. They read “DNR.” She read the letters again and again, not knowing what they might mean.

  CHAPTER 31

  Monday, August 17, 1998

  Iris barely made her Monday deadline. Brad showed up in the loading dock at 8:00 a.m. sharp, expecting a full set of drawings for the first seven floors. She had yanked herself out of bed at 4:00 a.m. to put the finishing touches on her survey. Her roll around the bathroom floor with Nick the Tuesday before had cost her a couple of precious hours and most of her dignity, but she’d be damned if it cost her her job too.

  She met Brad at the dock and slapped the fully annotated plans into his hands. He looked them over and put them into a manila folder. “These look pretty good. There’s been a slight change of plans. We need someone here for a few weeks drafting the plans directly.”

  “Drafting directly,” she repeated, trying to keep the question mark floating in her head out of her voice. She had no idea what he was talking about but nodded in total agreement.

  “They’ll be bringing over a workstation for you to use. Do you feel comfortable working in AutoCAD?”

  “Yeah.” Iris had used the drafting software in school.

  “I brought a copy of the style manual,” he said, producing a binder from his bag. “The most important thing is that you draw to scale and use the proper layers.”

  It was beginning to make sense to Iris. They wanted her to draft the plans on a computer at the building rather than making hand drawings for another person to transcribe.

  “Are my sketches too messy for them to follow?”

  Brad chuckled. “No, it’s not that. The scope just expanded, and the schedule’s tight. Mr. Wheeler doesn’t want us wasting any time running back and forth from the office.”

  “The scope expanded?”

  “Yep, we’re going whole hog on this one. It seems as though someone down at the county is determined to buy this old pile of bricks. We’ve made the short list. It’s between 1010 Euclid and the old Higbee Building. They want full floor plans with structural, mechanical, electrical, plumbing, you name it. I think they’re crazy!”

  They were going to save the building and its marble stairs and cathedral ceilings after all. More importantly, she would be working far away from the office doldrums for weeks, maybe even months. Iris couldn’t help but smile. Mr. Wheeler and Brad were trusting her with a really big job.

  “You’ll be the primary drafter for the structure,” Brad continued. “We’ll bring in the mech-Es and double-Es next week.”

  “Will you be here too?” She tried not to visibly cringe at the thought. That would be the end to her freewheeling jeans and T-shirt workdays—let alone her hours fornicating with coworkers on bathroom floors. Brad was all business, from his parted brown hair to his polished leather toes.

  “Nope.” He was obviously a little disappointed. “I’m too expensive to be on-site full-time drafting. There are perks to being young and cheap.”

  She forced a small smile and tried to tell herself it wasn’t an insult or any sort of reference to her personal life.

  Iris and Brad discussed the logistics of her assignment for the rest of the morning as she gave him a guided tour of the floor plans she’d drawn. He took a few measurements at random to verify her work. They paused in Linda’s HR office, and Iris stood in front of the smashed bookcase to block the view. Fortunately, Brad was less concerned about the furniture and more interested in the space hidden behind the locked door.

  “Did you confirm this space here marked ‘bathroom,’ ‘cold-air return,’ and ‘mechanicals’?”

  “Well, I couldn’t get any access,” she said apologetically. “The door is locked, and Ramone doesn’t have the key.”

  “But how did you determine what the spaces are?”

  “Ramone told me . . . and they match the fourth floor.”

  “We’ll need to remove the door and probe some of the walls to confirm it,” Brad said, making notes on the plan. He looked up at her scowling face and added, “Don’t worry. You couldn’t have done more without some equipment. In two weeks we’ll have a contractor cut some holes.”

  Iris nodded, but the perfectionist straight-A student inside her deflated a bit. Brad’s review was the closest thing to an evaluation she’d received since starting the job, and she’d just been given a B. She tried not to sulk as she followed him back down the stairs to the loading dock.

  “All right. I guess I’ll leave you to it. I’ll check in Friday on your progress. They’ll deliver the workstation at the end of the week.”

  Brad walked out the overhead door, and she was alone again in the dock. Ramone was nowhere to be seen as usual. She paused, looking around the dimly lit cavern, and shivered in the dank, putrid air. Suzanne’s words echoed in her mind. “There’s a reason that building hasn’t been bothered all these years.”

  The reason the building hadn’t been bothered was that nobody wanted to buy it until now, she argued. Downtown was full of vacant buildings. A real estate investment firm bought it as a tax write-off. They bought it to just let it sit—that was the point. If they were planning to sell it to the county, there couldn’t be some deep, dark secret buried inside. She had to stop running around talking to crazy old women.

  Iris climbed the dock stairs up to the service elevator door just beyond the loading platform. She was hoping the elevator still worked but hadn’t tried it yet. She pressed the button and was surprised when it actually opened. Inside, she hit the button for the sixth floor and stood there waiting. She hit it again. Nothing happened. Shit. She had to find Ramone.

  Ramone’s office couldn’t be far, but she hadn’t seen any sign of it yet. Her first day in the building with Brad, they had been down in the basement vaults when Ramone had appeared out of nowhere. Maybe it was down there.

  Iris walked the long service corridor to the third set of stairs, hidden in the back of the building. She flipped on her Magnum flashlight and pulled the heavy door to the basement stairwell open. The white beam poured down the dark well. The sound of water dripping echoed up from the cold stone floor. She gripped the flashlight like a weapon as she crept down the concrete steps toward the basement.

  At the bottom of the stairs, the clang of something metal hitting the ground on the other side of the door stopped her in her tracks. She recognized the muffled sound of Ramone’s gravelly voice. He was cursing. She eased the door open a crack and caught a glimpse of Ramone. His back was to the door, and he was crouching inside the vault. Steel tools glinted in the ligh
t on the floor next to him.

  He threw one to the ground with a loud “Fuck!” He turned toward her and leaned his head back against the wall of safe deposit doors. He might have been trying to pick a lock, she realized.

  He lit a cigarette and studied a long, thin awl with disgust. Then he lifted his eyes in her direction. She ducked behind the door and it slammed shut. Shit.

  Thinking fast, she began twisting and pulling at the handle and kicking the door, making a terrible racket. “Damn door!” she shouted, pounding on the steel. “Ramone? Ramone, are you in there? I need help with this stupid thing.”

  She slammed her shoulder against it and nearly fell to the ground when Ramone swung the door open.

  “What the hell you doin’?” he barked. A flicker of rage lit his bloodshot eyes.

  She decided to go with her act and prayed he bought it. “That damned door nearly slammed on my hand! This place is a death trap, I swear!”

  Ramone shook his head. His expression softened to mere annoyance. “This isn’t a good time. I can’t show you the tunnels today.”

  Iris blinked. She’d forgotten all about the tunnels. “Actually, I need your help with the elevators. I can’t get them to work.” She held up her hands like a helpless girl.

  “You need a key,” he grumbled, not amused by her act. He pulled out his large ring of keys and handed one to her. It was marked “E.”

  His set of tools was gone from the vault floor. From his tired eyes, it didn’t look like he’d ever had any luck with them, but it did explain why he might be willing to live in the dusty tomb of a building. Maybe he figured he was sleeping next to his retirement fund.

  “Thanks!” Iris turned to go back up the stairs.

  “The elevator’s over there.” Ramone pointed her around the corner, past the vaults.

  “Oh! Thanks! I guess that would be faster. I hate those stairs!” she yammered as she skirted past him and out of sight.

  Once she was around the corner, she breathed easier. She found the elevator and pressed the call button. An unmarked door stood open just a few feet away from where she was waiting. She glanced over her shoulder and then tiptoed over to it.

  The room was no bigger than a closet. Wedged inside there was an army cot, a chair, a small TV, and a TV tray table. It couldn’t be more dreary, with its beige walls and a bare lightbulb. So this is where Ramone lives, she thought. No one should have to live this way. She found herself sort of hoping he would succeed in opening a box or two. Time was running out.

  There was a framed black-and-white photograph of a beautiful dark-skinned woman in a white hat on the TV tray next to his cot. His mother? Tucked in the corner of the frame was a more recent color photograph. It was a small headshot of a beautiful blond young woman. Staring at it, she felt someone’s eyes watching behind her. She snapped her head around, but no one was there.

  She turned back and studied the color photo one more time. The girl wore a high-collared blouse and bright red lipstick. Her hair was up in a twist. Iris couldn’t linger in the room. Ramone wasn’t far. She tore her eyes away and hurried to the elevator.

  CHAPTER 32

  Inside the elevator, Iris stared at the numbered buttons. She was pretty sure she was supposed to draw up the eighth floor next, but she had to get her clipboard out of her bag to check. As she fumbled through it, three files fell out, scattering papers all over the elevator floor.

  “Damn it.”

  The elevator doors slid shut. She shoved the papers three at a time back in her files, until something caught her eye. It was a sheet full of hand-drawn swirls and tick marks. Iris picked it up and studied the odd markings again. They’d come from Beatrice’s personnel file. She picked them up one by one, skimming through the nonsense until a number jumped off one of the pages—547.

  It was the same number as Suzanne’s key. She rifled through more pages and saw it again. Then again. “547” was written all over the notes left by Beatrice Baker. It couldn’t just be a coincidence, she thought. Beatrice had called Suzanne about a deposit box. Key 547 was in Suzanne’s desk, and now the number was all over the strange notes hidden in a personnel file. Maybe the key really did belong to Beatrice.

  Iris stood up and lifted her finger to push the button marked “8,” and hesitated. Beatrice Baker had worked on the ninth floor—that’s what Suzanne had said. There wouldn’t be any harm in taking a look. Besides, there was no rule that said she had to survey the floors in order. She pressed “9,” and the elevator car carried her up the tower.

  A long, narrow hallway led from the service elevator to the northwest corner of the ninth floor, where a set of double doors were wedged open. The gold letters on the wood read, “Auditing Department.” This is it, Iris thought, as she pushed her way in.

  Through the doors was a large room with eight typing stations packed tightly together. A ring of office doors surrounded the typewriters on three sides. Iris walked the perimeter of the work area, reading the nameplates next to the doors. The third was marked “Randall Halloran.” Iris paused. Suzanne had said the Hallorans went bankrupt after the bank closed. Iris swung the door open to Mr. Halloran’s office. It looked similar to the others she’d seen already. The wood was a little darker. The desk was a little bigger. There was a tufted chair with a tall back pushed behind it.

  Iris sat down behind an enormous desk blotter. She pulled open the center drawer. It was empty. She opened another drawer and another, trying to find some clue as to who Mr. Halloran was and why he went bankrupt. A silver letter opener and a dried-up fountain pen were the only items left behind. Like Linda in Human Resources, Mr. Halloran had cleaned out his desk. Behind her, the bookshelves were also bare. She peeked into the washroom, trying not to think of Nick. An old bottle of aftershave sat next to the gilded mirror. It smelled terrible.

  Beatrice was probably a secretary, Iris thought as she exited Mr. Halloran’s office. Suzanne had called her a “young girl,” and something told her that a receptionist like Suzanne wouldn’t just casually go looking for someone with an office and a door. Iris certainly wouldn’t. She didn’t feel comfortable speaking to any of the bigwigs at WRE. They would pass her in the hall and nod, but she was fairly certain none of them even knew her name. Except maybe Mr. Wheeler.

  None of the eight secretarial stations in the center of the room had nameplates. They were anonymous. “Where are you, Beatrice?” she whispered.

  Iris plopped down at the closest desk. She thumbed through random files in the largest drawer. Scraps of paper, typewriter ribbon, binder clips—she found nothing of interest in the drawers and nothing that said “Beatrice.”

  There was a clank as she pushed the drawer shut. Iris raised her eyebrows and opened it again. A glass pint bottle under the files was sloshing about. The label read “Old Grand-Dad.” She glanced around the empty room, then cracked it open. It just smelled like whiskey. Whiskey didn’t go bad, did it? She took a tiny sip. It was sour and burned holes in her throat all the way down.

  “Ugh! You do not improve with age, Grand-Dad,” she said, grimacing.

  There was nothing but office supplies and congealed cough drops in the next several desks. Iris plopped herself down at the last dusty workstation.

  The view from the typewriter was oppressive. A drop ceiling hung low overhead. It was probably some 1960s renovation to cover up the gorgeous hand-painted ceiling and keep the ladies’ eyes on their work. The school clock hanging on the far wall had burned out years ago, but sitting there Iris could almost hear it ticking. Some poor woman had spent eight long hours a day in that chair facing that clock. She knew exactly how it felt. The desk wasn’t that different from Iris’s tiny workstation at WRE. No windows and surrounded by the watchful eyes of men. It was depressing how similar her working conditions really were to that of a secretary, despite her fancy degree.

  Iris pulled open each drawer, finding noth
ing until she reached the last one. Inside, rows of green card-stock folders hung empty from little metal hooks. She ran a fingernail over them as if ruffling a deck of cards. As she closed the drawer, something in the bottom caught her eye. She shoved the hanging files aside. It was a small book with a gray binding. Iris picked it up and read the cover: A Guide to Simplified Gregg Shorthand. She opened to the middle and immediately recognized the strange writing. It looked exactly like the notes she’d found in Beatrice’s personnel file.

  An inscription on the first page read, “Dear Beatrice, Practice makes perfect. Love, Aunt Doris.” This was Beatrice’s desk. Iris turned the pages of the manual one by one as if they might contain the answers to all of her questions about the bank. She found nothing but instructions on how to write in shorthand. On the last page she found another note. It read, “Practice on your own time, kid. Love, Max.”

  Iris read the words “Love, Max” again and gazed up at the circle of offices. There wasn’t a Max on any of the doorplates. Were they lovers? she wondered, turning the book over. Maybe Max was one of Beatrice’s bosses. Sexual harassment wasn’t even a crime back then. She could picture the young secretary sitting there, keeping her head down at her desk. Trying not to be noticed. It struck Iris as incredibly odd that a secretary without a nameplate on her desk would disappear when the bank closed. Beatrice was a nameless, faceless employee. Why her?

  Iris flipped the handbook closed. After a moment’s hesitation, she put it in her field bag. It wouldn’t be missed, she told herself. Besides, deciphering the bizarre notes Beatrice had left in her personnel file would be far more entertaining than watching TV reruns that night. More importantly, it might help her figure out what the hell to do with Key 547.

  It was almost noon. She had wasted over an hour looking for Beatrice. With only five days to sketch eight more floors, she had to get to work. She pulled her tape measure and clipboard out of her bag and set them on Beatrice’s desk.