The Dead Key

by D. M. Pulley

  “Iris?” he called from the other side. “Ah, what the hell. You know where to find me if you want to talk.”

  She dropped her purse and put her head in her hands until she was sure he was gone. Mr. Wheeler was asking questions. There had been layoffs. She hadn’t spoken to anyone else from the office since last week. She rushed to the phone and called Brad.

  “Hi, Brad? It’s Iris.”

  “Iris, hi! How are you holding up, sport?” There was an audible note of concern, which reminded her that she hadn’t talked to him since she’d found the body.

  “Oh, I’m still a little shaken up, but I’ll live.” She tried to sound casual. “I’m getting sort of anxious to get back to work. What’s happening with the project?”

  “Not much, unfortunately. The police have it barricaded. I’m hearing the county is getting cold feet on the deal, and the renovation plans have been put on hold. If the media gets wind of the story, this thing could drag on for months.” He lowered his voice. “Things are getting pretty tense around here. Mr. Wheeler wants you to come in Friday to talk about some things.”

  It could only mean one thing. “I’m getting laid off.”

  “I can’t say for certain, but they’ve already let two people go.” He hesitated and added, “I put in a good word for you.”

  “Thanks. If the police release the building soon, is there a chance I can get back to work?”

  “If we can get the building back on Monday, yeah. I’d say there’s a good chance they’ll put you back to finish the job, but Iris, I wouldn’t count on it. If this ends up on the evening news, the county will probably wash their hands of the whole thing.”

  Her fresh Berber carpeting, new appliances, and track lighting mocked her as she listened. She wondered how long she could hold on to her new place once she was fired. She had $2,000 in the bank and a big fat student loan.

  “Thanks for the heads-up. I’ll see you Friday.”

  Iris hung up the phone with a stifled sob choking her throat. She was getting fired. The fact that she hated the job didn’t really matter as she contemplated what it all meant. She wasn’t exceptional, or smart, or special, or invaluable. She was expendable. Five years of engineering school and four months of endless grunt work had amounted to exactly nothing. Fired. Failed. Failure. She could already hear her mother’s cloying voice trying to make the best of it. Her father wouldn’t say anything, but she knew he’d be disappointed. She’d once shown so much promise.

  She sank onto her filthy couch and lit a cigarette. All those late hours, all those shop drawings—she sucked on the filter until it burned her lips. Her life wasn’t supposed to turn out this way. She’d graduated summa cum laude. She’d perfected her résumé. She’d worn ugly, ill-fitting business casual clothes. She’d learned to give the perfect strong-but-not-bitchy woman handshake. She was supposed to be this “successful engineer,” even though she wasn’t even sure what that meant anymore. Money? Security? Responsibility? Prestige? All she’d wanted was to make a difference in the world. Now she’d be lucky to stay out of jail. A twenty-year-old pile of dead bugs was going to ruin her life. She stubbed out her cigarette and stormed over to her purse. She dumped its contents onto the counter and searched until she found what she was looking for—Detective Anthony McDonnell’s card.

  The phone rang and rang. Iris tapped her foot as she waited. She had to get back in the building Monday morning. She’d put all the keys back and act like none of this happened.

  He finally picked up: “Detective McDonnell.”

  “Hello, Detective? This is Iris Latch. I’m the engineer who found the body.”

  “Iris, how are you?” His voiced warmed on the other end of the line.

  “I’m okay. I was just wondering when I could get back to work in the old bank building.”

  “It’s still a crime scene, Iris. The coroner and the forensics team are working hard, but it takes time.”

  “I don’t understand. Isn’t this just a suicide case? I mean . . .” Hundreds of hungry flies began to circle. She squeezed her eyes shut. “There was a noose, right?”

  “Well, it’s a little more complicated than that.”

  “It is?”

  “Well, for one thing the deceased didn’t shove a bookcase in front of the bathroom door and change the lock. Someone was trying to hide what happened.”

  “But hundreds of people worked there, and this happened, like, twenty years ago, right?” She felt herself beginning to whine but couldn’t stop. “Isn’t there a statute of limitations or something?”

  “Not for murder.”

  Iris felt her stomach tighten. “Now you’re saying the man was murdered?”

  “I’m not saying anything.” He cleared his throat. “It’s important to keep the details confidential in an ongoing investigation. We don’t want anything leaking to the press. If this is indeed a homicide, the murderer may still be out there.”

  A blue shirt ran through her thoughts. She swallowed hard. “Is there any chance I’ll be able to get back to work by Monday?”

  “I’m sorry, but I sincerely doubt it. There are mountains of evidence to collect in that building. The clue to whoever may have done this could still be hiding inside. It might be months before we’re done cataloging it all.”

  “You sound thrilled.” Iris sighed heavily into the phone. Fear gripped her stomach. She still had the keys.

  “I’ve been wanting to get my hands on this building for years,” he admitted. “We may finally have the political will to complete investigations we began decades ago. You can’t just brush a homicide under the carpet, you know.”

  “Well, then it looks like I’m out of a job.” Her voice cracked.

  “Iris, I’m sorry to hear that, I really am.”

  She had to find a way to put the keys back in the building. Her palms began to sweat. She should tell him. She should tell the detective what she’d found. The headline “Disgruntled Engineer Caught Red-Handed” flashed in her head again. She couldn’t tell him. She’d just admitted she was getting fired. Nothing filled the void in conversation as she debated with herself.

  “Iris, is there anything else I can help you with?”

  “What? Um . . . no . . . I just,” she stammered. “Maybe I should tell you more about the building. Would that help?”

  “Sure. What do you got?”

  “Well, let’s see . . .” She stalled for time. She should tell him something. She should let him know she was on his side.

  “Check John Smith’s office on the fourth floor. It’s filled with strange files. There’s some weird notes in Joseph Rothstein’s office on the ninth floor. I think he may have called the FBI about some things. The personnel files on the third floor are still full of information. I found this suitcase up in a broom closet on the eleventh floor. It belonged to . . . a woman.” She almost said “Beatrice,” but she didn’t know that for sure. Besides, it would raise other questions. “Oh, and the tunnels. Don’t forget to look into the tunnels and . . .”

  The keys. She should tell him about the keys too. This was the moment, but a voice in her head reasoned it away. He was a police officer. He didn’t need keys. He had battering rams and lock picks and drills. The police would find another way into the vault. She should just get rid of them and never speak of them again. She could throw them in the river or something. Beatrice would be found without them. The police would find her. Like the detective said, the building was full of evidence.

  “Tunnels?” he said, interrupting her scrambling thoughts.

  “Yeah. Old steam tunnels. The entrance is under the stairs in the lower lobby.”

  “Iris, this is very helpful. I may call you again to ask a few more questions. Is that all right?”

  “Sure.” She still had a chance to confess. “Detective?”

  “Yes, Iris.”

&nbs
p; Silence vibrated across the line. She wanted to tell him but couldn’t do it. She pictured herself being taken into the station for further questioning. No. She would get rid of the keys on her own. “Um, do you know who I found in that bathroom?”

  “According to his wallet, it was a man named William Thompson. Now that’s confidential. I need you to keep that between us.”

  The name rang a distant bell in Iris’s head. She strained to hear it for several moments before it came to her. “ ‘Best Dad on Earth’ coffee mug! I’ve seen his office! He was up on the ninth floor. His office was trashed.”

  “What do you mean trashed?”

  “Like someone had torn it apart.” She breathed out the air she’d been holding in her chest. Maybe she’d helped the detective enough to make up for what she didn’t say.

  “Iris, if you can’t find another engineering job, you call me, okay?” he said with a laugh. “I might have work for you.”

  CHAPTER 58

  Wednesday, December 13, 1978

  Get out. Tony’s words repeated in her head as the cab drove Beatrice around the city. She didn’t give the driver a destination when she climbed in after her meeting with the detective. She didn’t know where she was going. The thought of braving the tunnels and the long, dark walk to the eleventh floor was too much to bear. “Get out,” he’d said, but all she had were dead ends. Someone had ransacked her aunt’s apartment, and they could be sitting at the kitchen table at that very moment waiting for her. She couldn’t go back to the hospital. According to Max, the room was being watched.

  The cabdriver passed the First Bank of Cleveland as they cruised down the dark, empty street. She gazed up at the tower looming over her head. Lights were glowing in two windows on the top floor. Whoever it was up in those offices didn’t sleep.

  Who was it? she wondered. Who turned her aunt’s apartment upside down? Who was watching her aunt’s hospital room? Bill Thompson was a liar, a womanizer, and a robber of widows. He may have even visited Aunt Doris in the hospital, parading as her uncle. But he didn’t work on the top floor. Max had told her the trouble at the bank was bigger than Bill.

  Then there was Randy Halloran. He’d been at the hospital—she felt sure of it now. He had signed the visitor’s book. Remembering his wild eyes that morning made her shudder all over again. She could still feel his hand squeezing her wrist.

  It didn’t matter. She should just forget the whole sordid business and leave town tonight. Her aunt would never recover; she knew in her heart there was no point in waiting. Beatrice could just disappear. They probably wouldn’t even bother to look for her. She would be just another girl who up and vanished in the night. Max’s haunted eyes and faded smile swam back into focus at the thought. She’d made Max a promise. She needed to find her before she left.

  The Gothic terminal building pierced the sky up ahead. The front of the building was a fairy-tale castle, but she’d seen the ugly back of the tower in the loading dock alley, where a blank door led underground. Thinking of the tunnels gave her an idea.

  “Stouffer’s Inn,” she called to the cabbie. It was the hotel next to the tower. She counted the cash in her purse and crossed her fingers it would be enough.

  The taxi dropped her off under the heat lamps of the hotel awning. A bellman in a gold-studded uniform tipped his hat and opened the door. Inside the vestibule a winding stone staircase led up to the lobby. Its plush red carpet was worn thin at the treads. Dusty crystal chandeliers hung over her head as she climbed the monumental stairs up to the check-in desk. A marble fountain was spraying dyed-blue water at the far end of the giant corridor. Beatrice stepped to the counter and asked for a room.

  The tall, thin brunette behind the counter handed Beatrice a card. “These are the rates.”

  She scanned the list and her heart sank. She was ten dollars short.

  “Um, you don’t have anything more affordable, do you?” Beatrice remembered the ugly view from the back of the hotel. “Is there anything facing the alley?”

  Before the receptionist could answer, the doors to the smoky hotel bar opened across the lobby, and a rather drunk couple stumbled up to the reception desk.

  “We need a room pronto!” the man bellowed, slamming his palm on the counter.

  Iris glanced over at them and immediately shielded her face with her hand. She recognized the man. She’d seen him before at the bank.

  “Get me my usual suite.”

  “Yes, Mr. Halloran.” The receptionist nodded and shot Beatrice an apologetic smile. “Just sign here.”

  Beatrice kept her hand at her face to hide her stunned expression at the name “Halloran.” She snuck a glance at him through her fingertips. His hand was fondling the backside of his companion. She immediately looked away, but not before she caught sight of a shiny, gold hem.

  “Teddy Bear, you’re insatiable.” The woman chuckled in a low, husky voice.

  Beatrice was certain she’d heard it before. It was the woman who had a warning for Max. The familiar voice drew Beatrice’s eyes back across the floor to where the couple was standing. The woman was wearing six-inch platform heels that laced up her bare, dark legs to her thighs. Her lamé dress barely covered her bottom, and Mr. Halloran’s hand had slithered under the fabric.

  “There you are, sir. Enjoy your stay,” the receptionist said brightly.

  With that, Mr. Halloran and the woman in gold stumbled toward the elevators. Beatrice lowered her hand from her temple to her lips when they stepped out of the lobby. The man’s familiar steely-gray hair and suit left no doubt. He was the one who had yelled at Randy in his office. He was Randy’s father. Teddy Halloran had been standing three feet away with a woman who knew Max.

  “I’m so sorry about that. Some of our guests . . .” The pretty receptionist waved toward the elevators with her hand, at a loss for an explanation. “Well, I’m not supposed to do this, but it’s late. That’ll be thirty-five dollars. Okay?” The woman winked at Beatrice and handed her a key.

  “Oh gosh. Thanks.” Beatrice clutched it in her palm as relief washed over her. “I . . . I can’t tell you what this means to me.”

  Head bowed, Beatrice rushed into the elevator. Three floors up, she scurried down the hallway until she reached the room. She threw the dead bolt and pressed her forehead to the door. The economy room was hardly bigger than a closet and featured a view of a trash bin, but there was a bed. Beatrice fell onto it and shut her eyes. It had been months since she’d slept on an actual bed. The soft sheets and the plump pillows cradled her. As she sank deeper and deeper into the tufted mattress, she felt the strangling tension in her neck and shoulders recede bit by bit. The tight knots in her stomach loosened one by one as her body slowly went limp.

  Inexplicably, her eyes began to water. She blinked furiously, but there was no stopping the tears. She’d spent too many nights lying scared and alone on a cold, hard floor. She finally gave in and just let herself cry. She cried for her aunt, betrayed by the man she loved. She cried for Max and her lost baby. She cried for Tony and his defeated scowl. But mostly she cried for herself. She’d been searching for a new home and a new life, and it almost happened for her. She had teetered on the brink of happiness, until it all went wrong.

  Beatrice sobbed until she was wrung dry and her mind was blissfully empty. With swollen eyes, she watched the long, flowing shadows from the window sheers wave across the ceiling for what could have been hours. Her hair, her skin, her bones were worn thin from the grating stress of sneaking around, trying to find answers to impossible questions. She was finally safe, if only for one night, in a place where no one could find her. She’d left her mother’s name with the woman at the desk. For one peaceful moment, she dreamt of never leaving the room and staying hidden forever. The thought made her smile. She stretched and sat up in the bed. She would leave town, she decided; as soon as she found Max and returned the key, she w
ould leave.

  Leaving town would mean leaving her dying aunt behind. The thought of Doris being lowered into the ground without a witness, without a tear, hollowed out her heart. Doris had no one else. Before Beatrice came along, her aunt’s days were consumed by the diner and memories of Bill—that and weekly trips to the bank’s vault to deposit her tips into Box 547.

  Beatrice eyed her purse. She had taken only one thing from the box. It was the one thing that didn’t belong. She pulled it out and looked at it again. It was a book. Back at the bank in the velvet booth, she’d struggled to make sense of the markings before giving up and putting it in her purse. She cracked open the leather binding again and studied the first page.

  It was a list with dates and strange symbols and numbers. The first date was September 5, 1962. Two numbers were written next to the date: 545 and 10,000. Beatrice skimmed the rows of figures. The dates ticked by one after the other. At first the entries were sporadic and sparse, as 1962 turned into 1963, then 1964. On the next page something new caught her eye. It was a note that read “15 diamonds.” More objects followed—“gold necklace, Tiffany watch, diamond ring.” Beatrice flipped faster, looking for something else, something to explain the ledger. As the dates grew more recent, Beatrice noticed the entries were more frequent.

  Then something odd in the margins caught her eye. It was a note and a large star in red ink. It was written in a different hand. The note read “Rhonda Whitmore!” The writing looked familiar.

  Beatrice scanned across to the date—May 22, 1974—and realized she knew the name. It belonged to the woman who had filed a complaint with the bank over a lost safe deposit box. It was the woman Max demanded her brother Tony investigate. It was the woman who’d been hit by a car days after confronting Bill Thompson. She read the line again.

  “5/22/74, 855, 50,000 (b).”

  Mrs. Whitmore had lost $50,000 in bond certificates, according to the detective.

  Beatrice slammed the book closed and threw it across the bed. Her hands covered her mouth. She’d just been reading a complete record of the safe deposit box robberies. The journal belonged to the thief. It belonged to Bill.