All the Whys of Delilah's Demise

by Neve Maslakovic

  “What, a Ben the Birdman skit?”

  Sue holds a finger to Rick’s lips. “Shh, not so loud. We don’t want him to overhear.”

  The tailor is nearby, partaking in his turn with the ceremonial watering can.

  “I’ll pass. Things to do—I’m celebrating. Conception day and all that.” Before Rick disappears into the crowd to receive more sympathy hugs and handshakes, I catch sight of a hint of a smile at the corners of his mouth. Cece, quick, take a snapshot.

  I stare at the snapshot, Rick having moved on. Well, really. Rick’s grinning behind the fake display of grief, McKinsey was pragmatic about Delilah’s death, and Samm and Sue don’t seem torn up about it in the least. Poulsbo is the only Tenner who seems to be genuinely mourning. All other eyes in the Tenner circle were dry.

  “So you messed up Delilah’s in-queue and got fired,” someone behind me says.

  Vicky. Her face is blotchy, but she sounds cheery enough. This, at least, is not a surprise. “Don’t feel bad,” she adds. “It could have been me. It just so happened that it was you.”

  “I’m never going to shake off the Incompetent Intern brand, am I?” I say. “People won’t forgive me for what happened.”

  Only two onyxes may have been lobbed my way, hers and Evan’s, but I know that doors will always stay shut in my face. I’m walking the plank, a slow march out of town.

  Vicky takes a step back as if to distance herself. “No, they won’t.”

  At Housing One, the area is no longer cordoned off and normal foot traffic has resumed. I follow a woman I remember from the seeding into the building—she’s walking with a limp and must not have stuck around for the ceremonial watering of the soil to get here ahead of me. We both exit the elevator on the top floor and I watch her slide a key into the door marked Suite Two.

  Down the hallway, Suite One has a Danger, Do Not Enter sign; flowers, notes, and other tokens of remembrance line the wall on either side. I try the handle but the door is locked.

  The woman pokes her head back out. “They must be on a break. The Maintenance people. They were working all day yesterday, fixing the balcony—a little too late, if you ask me.” She sounds tipsy, as if her morning started with a glass of wine. “You were at the seeding, weren’t you? Come inside. I’m Lucille.”

  Leaving my sandals by the door, I introduce myself warily but Lucille says nothing about my incompetence. She’s in the Top Hundred, a hair stylist in her mid-forties. The spacious living room holds white carpet and elegant furniture, though not particularly comfy-looking. Chair-backs are straight, the couch creaseless and lacking cushions, the side tables more decorative than practical. Double doors open onto a balcony. Doors lead to further rooms—four, I count. Lucille gives a snort at my gaping jaw. “Never been to a Top Hundred suite?” At my shake of the head, she adds, “Are you wondering how I got here?”

  “Is that very rude? Sorry.”

  “There’s no mystery—the Agency gets the credit. McKinsey, to be more precise.” She steps out of her shoes unsteadily and I decide against mentioning that McKinsey used to be my boss. “I spent years treading water as the other stylists—Fred, Dakota, Alki—shot up past me. I agonized. Was my work subpar? Did I have bad breath and no one wanted to tell me? Then I hired McKinsey. She came into the salon and watched me work. She took me out to lunch the next day and said that the problem was that I was trying to chat up the customers, believing they’d like me better that way. She said, ‘They don’t want to hear your problems, they yearn to air their own.’ So that’s what I did—I listened instead of jabbering away. Turns out I’m a good listener. Customers started coming back, and the rubies followed.” She gives a wave around the luxurious but curiously cold-feeling space. “This is where every bit of my salary goes. I don’t care about expensive meals or the latest clothing styles.”

  “Was Delilah a customer?” I ask, though I know the answer already. Evan took care of all of Delilah’s hair needs.

  “They have a stylist at the theater.” She follows that up with a frank glance at my hair. “But you should come into the salon—I see all ranks. We could shape it, maybe do highlights.”

  Stylists are expensive and Lu, who has a knack for these things, trims my hair. “Thanks, but I can’t afford it.”

  “Well, perhaps in the future.”

  I ask if I can see the view and she opens the balcony doors—the hum of the town is more muted than out the window of my room. Lucille trails me out, her limp less noticeable without shoes. Seeing me glance back, she explains, “Someone stepped on my foot at the market. It’ll heal.”

  Lucille’s balcony looks out onto Founders Square and the view is grand. I’ve never been this high up. Housing Two, across the square, is one story shorter, as is Work One to its right. From there the buildings step down in all directions, the rooftop-gardens and the scale playing with my mind to give the illusion of a grass-covered staircase descending all around toward the Edge Garden. Above, the panels of the Dome seem reachable with the throw of a stone, if I had one. Below, nameless figures are crossing the square under trees that look short.

  I glance over to the left, but exhaust vents block the line of sight to Delilah’s balcony. The railing under my fingers, wood fortified with steel segments, seems sturdy enough. It’s a long way down.

  “Don’t worry, you won’t fall.” Despite her words, the hand Lucille rests on the railing is light. “I was the one who found her, you know. She must not have called out as she fell—I’m a light sleeper. When I came out here to do my morning stretches, I saw… She looked so small from up here—broken. I sent an emergency message and hurried down to the street. There was nothing anyone could do. When they carried her down from the roof of Jada’s eatery, she was barefoot and in her nightgown. Her face had been…”

  I glance over. “What happened to her face?”

  “The vent grille on which she’d landed had sliced deep into her flesh. Her whole body was broken.”

  The image is ghastly and it strikes again, that odd feeling… I picture hands shoving from behind, the railing breaking with an audible groan, the sensation of tumbling into nothingness, it all happening so fast there’s no time to call out or to send a last thought…

  “Whoa, you’re looking pale. Want a drink? Lemonade? Or something stronger?”

  Somewhat unsteadily, I follow Lucille back inside and to a bright corner of the room where a glass table and four white-leather chairs sit next to a fridge. I’ve never seen a personal fridge before. I accept lemonade and a chair, and the cool drink and the firmness of the seat settle my nerves. “The Tenners were all here that evening, weren’t they?” I say.

  “For cocktails and card games.” There’s a note of resentment in the way she says it, that Delilah had not thought to include her neighbor. She continues. “I passed Rick in the hallway on his way in and he sent that deliciously sensual grin in my direction. Jada was with him. Oh, and also Ben the Birdman.”

  This strikes me as interesting. “Delilah invited Ben even though he’s not a Tenner yet?”

  “I think she wanted to size him up.”

  My mind racing, I sip the lemonade. Cocktails and card games…and an opportunity for someone—Rick, say—to stage a suicide timed to coincide with the town anniversary. Lucille striking me as the type to listen through the walls, I ask, “Did the guests stick around for long?”

  “Things quieted down by midnight or so,” she supplies.

  “Is it certain she was alone? Maybe one of them stayed the night.”

  An inappropriate question, but Lucille is ready to gossip. “Delilah kept to herself these days. No night visitors.” She takes a lengthy sip of the wine. “It goes to show that these things can happen to anyone. The cocktails—all for nothing.”

  As I know Delilah herself didn’t consume alcohol, I’m puzzled until it dawns that Lucille is talking not about drinks but the weekly dose of Eternal Life. “I’m the intern,” I blurt out. “The one being accused of incompeten
ce. It was my fault—I should have made sure she saw the alerts, knocked on the door to tell her about them.”

  I should have warned her to be careful.

  Lucille shrugs. “Plenty of blame to go around. If you ask me, Maintenance must not have realized how bad the problem was or they would have fixed it that very day.” She sets the wine bottle down after refilling her glass and returns to the subject of her success. “Truth be told, I was only able to go to the Agency and hire McKinsey because of Delilah. I was commiserating with a friend one evening in the Dragon and the Drumstick”—the tavern is a popular evening destination—“and she overheard. She said she’d pay for it. I was ecstatic. In exchange I gave her a ruby and from that point on talked her up to customers so they’d give her rubies, too. Once in a while refused service to a client if she asked. That kind of thing… And before you say anything, I know the way it went down is against the Code but it’s been so long and she’s gone now. And I’ve paid my price. I was beholden to her all that time… I thought she wanted to be friends, moved in next door. But once she gave me what I wanted, it was as if she’d secured a servant.”

  “She was really busy all the time,” I point out gently. Surely Delilah’s offer of financial help was not contingent on a ruby plus loyalty, at least not in a straight-out exchange like Lucille made it sound. “With the theater and the governing and all the social events.”

  “Right…” Lucille is staring into the glass and I get the hint that it’s time to leave. As I step back into my sandals, Lucille calls over a final complaint. “I would have appreciated a keepsake.”

  To my perplexed look, she explains, “Only the Tenners and other high-profile friends of the Duchess were allowed into the suite. Jet-Set Jada was the first to come—left with a small box of some kind. Whatever’s left over will go to the Jobs and Housing warehouse… Don’t forget to visit the salon when you can afford it,” she reminds me, and I know that she asked me into her living space not to be hospitable or because funerals make people chatty. I’m to be one more ruby in her halo.

  Maintenance must be back—the door to Suite One is now ajar, security tape stretched across it. I reach over and push it open all the way. Delilah’s living room is larger than Lucille’s—a warmer, more lived-in space. Cushions and throws layer sofas, mismatched rugs span the floors, comfy armchairs sit next to eclectic side tables and polished brass lamps, eye-catching artwork covers the walls. There’s a piano. Five doors, all open, lead to other rooms, one of them holding a grand, one-of-a-kind, stained oak four-poster bed.

  The line of sight leads to the balcony, where the doors and curtains are open. Cece, snapshot, I instruct, but it’s pointless. A couple of personnel are at work on the new railing. If there was any evidence of foul play, it’s now gone.

  1:45 p.m.

  My first vacuuming assignment is in Work One. I’m part of the afternoon cleaning crew, my job to deal with the hallway carpets while the others attend to individual offices.

  I’ve run into Wayne. The Agency provides the catering for the Tenner meeting each Friday, where the business of the town is discussed. The meeting, Wayne tells me after I turn off the vacuum, is on schedule at two o’clock. I trail Wayne and his staff as they maneuver a cart stacked high with covered trays from the back hallway into a small utility room—it holds a sink for washing up and extra silverware and such—and into the conference room. The others in the cleaning crew readied it first thing and I haven’t seen it yet, nor did I ever help out with the catering as an intern.

  It’s just a regular conference room, if on the large side. Well-worn carpet, an oval table, and ten leather chairs. The frosted glass doors, the formal entrance to the room, are closed. The standout element is an enormous window overlooking Founders Square. The chair at the head of the table faces it, its leather soft and creamy under my fingers, like room-temperature cheese. A long, elbow-height table stands along one wall and it’s where Wayne and his staff arrange the food. My stomach, unsatisfied after a meager lunch, growls at the sight. It’s just about enough to feed all of Housing Thirty-Three for the day.

  Wayne gives everything a final look and adjusts a plate holding a creamy dip and cucumber slices. “Right. We’d better get going.”

  This makes me stop staring at the offerings. “You don’t stick around to serve the food?”

  He unlocks the frosted glass doors but leaves them closed. “They like their privacy. We leave them to it and come back in a couple of hours to clean up. Scottie…”

  “Don’t say it’ll pass.”

  “Sorry you’ve been demoted. It will pass—something else will come along and squirrel away everyone’s attention. And look on the bright side. At least the Jobs and Housing Office didn’t assign you to bird-poop cleanup.”

  I appreciate the attempt to cheer me up.

  We can hear voices nearing in the main hallway. Having stuffed the cart into the utility room, Wayne and his staff leave via the back hallway. I reach for the vacuum but only get as far as pressing the switch, then turn it right back off. It’s no accident that I’ve run into Wayne. I timed it so I’d be on the top floor just before two o’clock.

  Time for a final gut check. Am I, in fact, imagining that something sinister is going on? No, I decide, and open the utility room door as quietly as I can. Cece, remember that skit from school? I was Sherlock and Dax was Watson and you fed me the lines. That’s who we have to be—detectives. No offense, but you’re good at saying the obvious, so you can be Watson and I’ll be Sherlock. ‘Course, the real-life Sherlock didn’t risk being kicked out of London if he failed to catch his prey—and I might be, if I don’t manage to clear my name.

  I’ve squeezed my way around the cart and over to the closed door separating me from the meeting space. Cece corrects me mildly. According to the Knowledge Repository, Sherlock Holmes and Dr. John Watson are fictional characters.

  They are? No matter, we can still be like them.

  Is that a brand, Scott?

  Sherlock Scottie? It can be, I suppose. Our own private brand. It’ll be a promise of justice for Delilah—with Eternal Life, she had years left. And I’ll be damned if I’ll let myself be quietly kicked out of town.

  Muffled voices seep under the door. Ruling out opening it a crack, I crouch and put my ear to the wood. If anyone happens to look at this segment of the map, they’ll see my black dot and I’ll get in trouble, but there’s no way around that.

  A voice on the other side says, “How’s the spread today, Sue?” It’s Samm.

  “Nothing special,” Sue answers churlishly. “Why is there never wine at these things?”

  “Because they’re under the mistaken impression that sober governing is better than the other kind.”

  “I should hope so,” a third voice breaks in. I can’t place it. “We’re here to get work done, not drink too much and overeat.”

  “Speak for yourself, Jada. I’m always ready to drink and eat too much, especially after a seeding.” Samm again. A heavy object plops down on the floor by the wall, followed by a second plop. It seems that Samm and Sue have no intention of leaving the refreshments table.

  Open a corkboard, Cece. Title it, WHO KILLED DELILAH? And tack this on: They were all in Delilah’s suite that night.

  I shift so my ear is directly on the crack between the door and the frame.

  8

  The Tenner Meeting Room

  The others are loading up plates but Jada’s strategy is to stay hungry at these meetings in more ways than one. Resisting the urge to stare at the vacant armchair at the head of the table, she takes a seat. It’s as if Delilah is still here, conspicuous by her absence. It was Delilah who dispensed with the title that originally went along with the number one chair—mayor—and picked Duchess, as if she were royalty. It was Delilah who moved the meeting from a windowless room in the Town Offices complex to the top floor of Work One, with the big window overlooking the square.

  It was Delilah who wanted her, Jada, to stay at n
umber seven. And what Delilah wanted, Delilah got.

  The small talk flying back and forth as the seats fill up is awkward, what with everyone in mourning attire and specks of what’s left of the Duchess on their shoes. McKinsey asks Rick how rehearsals are coming along. He answers that Vicky is no Delilah and asks in return, “Any new hobbies this week, McKinsey?”

  “Sculpting.”

  “How many does that make?”

  “Let’s see, ten… No, eleven.”

  Jada can sense the undercurrents in the room, alliances shifting. Hers was with Delilah herself, though calling it an alliance is misleading. Jada was the underling. It’ll be different now. Jada acted quickly as the shocked whisper travelled through the crowd gathered outside her eatery: “It’s Delilah the Duchess… Delilah… Hurt badly… Gone…” As soon as she could, she took the elevator up to the eighth floor. She wanted a keepsake, she told the nosy janitor who unlocked Delilah’s suite for her. There was a metal strongbox under the bed. Jada spent some time searching for the key but in the end carried just the strongbox out under one arm, stashed it in her office at the eatery, and took it home at the end of the day. She broke the lock with a hammer and spent the rest of the evening perusing what was inside: town secrets. Delilah hoarded them the way some people collect trinkets salvaged from Old Seattle. Having read everything twice, Jada stacked the notes back inside and hid the box under her own bed.

  Franz, as always, is running late and while they wait, Jada takes a look around the table. Going forward, she’ll need someone to shoulder the risk while she stays in the shadows. Rick proved himself quite pliable the night of the town party. Still, she does the calculation again, just to be sure.

  Not Everyone’s Friend Bonnie, to her right. The tavern manager, her hair wound into the usual neat bun, likes a good meal, her frame filling the armchair as she leans forward to talk to McKinsey across a generously loaded plate. The number three is too fond of being liked. She might balk at the idea of putting the secrets to work.