Lies We Bury

by Elle Marr

  Suddenly, I’m conscious of how blithely I walked through a crowd of people today, then left without once checking over my shoulder to see if someone was taking an interest in me—simply because it was Sunday morning.

  Sunshine doesn’t mean protection. The worst crimes can happen in the daylight.

  I remove the paper from beneath the wiper. With shaky hands, I unfold it. The sirens are louder now, a tense soundtrack. A dog barks nearby. Sweat gathers beneath my arms as I hold the page at eye level.

  Four alarms have been shot.

  Twenty years. Twenty beers. All named for leaders.

  Find the name I most admire and you’ll find the next one first.

  SEE YOU SOON, MISSY.

  My hand claps to my mouth, a strangled cry muffled against my palm. I snap my gaze to the bus stop across the way, but it’s empty of anyone watching, threatening me. The words—typed out on computer paper—sink through my skin and root around my guts. The burn scars on my inner elbow tingle.

  I scan the page for any markings, smudges that might contain fingerprints, a signature to tell me who this note is from. My first initial—my real first initial, M—glares from the reverse side.

  Someone knows who I am. Where to find me.

  They know the twentieth anniversary of our escape is this year.

  My eyes skitter away. Fear licks down my calves. Portland was supposed to be a fresh start. A place where I could stay awhile—remain hidden in the biggest city in Oregon.

  Opening my backpack, I fumble until my fingers grasp the plastic wrap of the emergency cigarettes. I get in the car, then jam the key in the ignition. With a jerk of my thumb, the round lighter in the center console engages.

  I push my sleeve up to my bicep and wait for the coil to glow red.

  Two

  Outside the Portland Post, I park my car and look across the street to the food trucks. The windows of both vehicles are still dark. I head inside the building. My inner elbow throbs from the cigarette burn, but it restored my sense of reality and control in a way I used to seek out regularly, and which I’ve managed to cling to for a year or so now. Well, managed. Past tense.

  As I walk through the first floor of the office, a radio on a desk sputters with the garbled jargon of police dispatchers. Pauline’s door swings open. She throws me a smile before her brown eyes widen. “Everything all right, Claire?”

  No, nothing is all right. Nothing is fair or makes sense, and I have no good response to give. “Yes, fine,” I manage to say, willing my face into a neutral expression. I withdraw my camera from its case, and the strap trembles against the shaking of my hand.

  Pauline watches it, then raises an eyebrow. “Well, let’s see what you got,” she says and steps back inside her office. I take a seat as she rounds the square table to a mesh chair. She holds out a palm.

  I stare at her—not only because residual shock is slowing every movement I make but because when I was first beginning photography, I might have simply ejected the camera’s memory card and dropped it into her hand. Eager to please, I wouldn’t have realized that she could copy all its contents to her desktop in three clicks.

  Instead, I remove my laptop from my messenger bag. It’s even older than my car, with scratches along the gray shell, stickers from an attempt to blend into a college town, and a chipped corner where hardware is visible. I pop the memory card into the slot. A grid of excited faces appears on the screen.

  “These are great,” Pauline says. “May I?” She lifts a finger to the touch pad, and I nod. She scrolls through, making little affirming noises. Mm-hmm. Mm. “I’ll take the first fifty. Nice work.”

  “Only fifty? I took over three hundred. You don’t want to see the rest?”

  She shakes her head. “I only need a handful for the Local Happenings section. Fifty photos means fifty dollars—per our conversation yesterday,” she adds when I balk.

  “Okay.” Not seeing another way, I try to get a grip, to resume an impassive face. I want to escape, to run screaming from this town, but I also need the Post as a client.

  “Okay,” I repeat, focusing on Pauline’s white nail polish. “Thanks for your time. Where do I pick up the check?”

  Pauline doesn’t say anything. She looks at my laptop, pausing on the chipped corner, before heavily mascaraed eyes flit to my face. “What else do you have?”

  I hesitate, knowing that the rest of my Recents folder contains senior portraits from high school students. Navigating to a different folder, I double-click and pull up the brewery and Petey photos—images that, in hindsight, given the note I found on my windshield, might be more than my PTSD fixating on a stuffed toy.

  In a wide shot at the beginning of the series, the brewery’s name, Four Alarm, is clearly stamped on the glass door. The note’s typed phrase surges to mind: four alarms have been shot.

  I bite my cheek, watching Pauline as she scrolls through the exterior, then interior galleries. Landing a consistent client would allow me to save up another nest egg. Get enough money to start over. Just go. Move up to Seattle or maybe Vancouver. Canadians are supposed to be nice.

  “Those are from yesterday, that brewery on Fourth,” I say. “I don’t know what you could use these photos for, but if you’re doing a feature on local businesses, they might—”

  Pauline holds up a hand. “Hey, Elliot, get in here!” she shouts out the door.

  A man runs in, older, midfifties, svelte around the middle of his blue cotton shirt and jeans. He pushes wire-framed glasses higher onto a prominent nose.

  “Four Alarm Brewery is the one you just heard about on the radio, right?” she asks.

  As a child, I was surrounded by women who all shrank before the single man I encountered—they never gave orders, only accepted Chet’s with downcast gazes. My mother whispered into my ear on a daily basis, Good little girls do as they’re told by the man. They stay alive.

  Elliot nods. “Yeah. You hear anything else?”

  Pauline licks her lips. “This photographer—Claire—was there yesterday. She took photos of the entryway, inside the foyer, and all the patrons having their afternoon stout.”

  Elliot’s mouth falls open. He turns to me. “The police called in cars to that address about ten minutes ago. A body was found there. Probable homicide last night or late afternoon.”

  Pauline leans in, a wild sparkle in her eye. “I’ll buy all the images you took at this location.”

  “All of them? That’s around one hundred.”

  “You got it. We’ll use some in tomorrow’s physical publication and our online channel. I’ll contact you if we need extra photographers again.”

  “I . . . okay.” As we both stand, I nod again because I’m stifling a happy scream.

  Outside the building, a freshly written check from the Post in hand, I withdraw the anonymous windshield note from my pocket. Petey the Penguin, a well-known part of my childhood, was sitting out front of a brewery where a murder was committed. The note mentioned that four alarms had been shot. “Shot” could be a reference to my photos, but maybe it means “shot with a gun.” Was Petey meant to grab my attention, to draw me to that building?

  My eyes catch on the second-to-last line: Find the name I most admire and you’ll find the next one first. Phrasing that I thought was nonsensical gains context to become coherent instructions and stops my breath.

  Find the next one first.

  This note’s author wanted me to take photos of that crime scene. Then provided a clue to the next location. Was I just handed a riddle to a murder?

  “Claire? Everything okay?” Pauline pauses beside the solid double doors.

  My heart is clanging against my bones. Claire would nod. Claire would smile and thank this woman again for buying her photos, not start babbling that a killer might be following her, laying a twisted scavenger hunt at her sandaled feet. And this isn’t my first stalker.

  I slip the folded square into my back pocket. “Everything’s fine,” I say. “Is ther
e a place I can grab a croissant nearby?”

  Pauline directs me to a bakery around the corner, where a line stretches ten feet down the sidewalk across the street. I sigh, letting my shoulders drop. I really wanted a place to sit a moment, eat something buttery, to still the ping-ponging of my thoughts. Maybe spend more than a dollar on breakfast, knowing I can cash the Post check tomorrow.

  “Hey.”

  I turn toward the assertive voice. A young woman leans against the wall of an adjacent clothing consignment shop. Farther down the block, teenagers are seated against the brick, wrapped in dirty blankets and ponchos. Plastic bags cover shopping carts beside them. One of the boys hunches over a stout camping grill, plumes of smoke curling skyward.

  “You looking for something?” the woman asks. She eyes the still-fresh burn on my inner elbow, and I wonder whether Pauline noticed, too. Brittle, white-blonde hair with dark roots touches her shoulders. Her round face appears flushed and clear of makeup. The only details that suggest she’s homeless are the numerous holes in her sneakers. Red socks poke through in a macabre pattern.

  “Ah, yeah. Do you know where I can find a bakery not packed with people—”

  “Not food, darling. Something else,” she interrupts with a smirk. She glances at my elbow again, then flicks dark-blue eyes to mine. Across the street, people stare into their phones or talk in pairs, oblivious to any drug deals occurring opposite.

  “Oh. No. Thanks.”

  She shrugs. Slender hands dip into the pockets of her cargo pants. “Suit yourself. You change your mind, ask around for Gia.”

  Without any comfort food or comfort beyond the residual sting of air against my wounded flesh, I scurry back to my car. As I slide into the driver’s seat, the windshield, empty of additional threats or riddles, feels like a middle finger to my initial hopes upon moving here—a sure sign that just when I think life might be going my way, the past isn’t through with me yet.

  Three

  THEN

  Sisters are the absolute worst. They take your favorite book, wear your good pair of shorts, and sit in your corner of the basement, which has been your corner since forever—since way before Mama Nora left and before Mama Bethel left the earth. Mama Rosemary always says Mama Bethel went to heaven where the rooms have no walls and the ceilings are see-through and the air-conditioning is called “wind” instead. Mama Nora went outside a few years ago. Maybe outside and heaven are the same?

  I told Twin this and she said There is no outside, duh. Mama Rosemary smiled then and explained what a metaphor is. She was pretty smart before the man took her.

  Sisters are supposed to be my friends and be everything to each other and supposed to tell each other secrets—but we don’t have any secrets. Not in a two-room basement. I remember once when I was six I tried to save an extra piece of toast for myself behind the tub in a washcloth and Sweet Lily found it in minutes and almost choked on it. I got yelled at.

  Sisters are supposed to keep our secrets but Sweet Lily was too little to realize. I don’t know what Twin’s excuse is.

  Sometimes sisters aren’t so bad. The three of us like to play castle together and war battles. I always want to be the king but Twin won’t let me—she’s always King and I have to be Queen or Knight. I like those pretend roles fine but just once I’d like to be King. When I say this to Mama Rosemary she says, Wouldn’t we all? I don’t know what she means by that.

  Once I asked her if we could have a brother and Mama Rosemary got angry. She shouted, Don’t even think such a thing! Then burst into tears. I felt really bad after and remorse filled me from head to toe just like in Anne of Green Gables when Anne accidentally got her friend Diana drunk off wine instead of raspberry cordial.

  So no brothers for now. Only sisters—two of them. The basement didn’t feel so cramped when we were all little. But now I can’t step sideways without bumping one of them.

  “You’re in my seat.” I stand with my hands on my hips the way Mama Nora used to do and point at Twin. In the first room we have plastic bins for storage and a table with four chairs and a bathtub and a frigerator and the Murphy bed in the wall. The potty sits in the corner. The walls are decorated with drawings that Sweet Lily and me made. Mama Rosemary always says we are packed to the gills in here so there’s not enough room to start taking people’s seats. “Move,” I say again to Twin.

  She looks up from the Game Boy game she’s playing. Mario is jumping from pipe to pipe and she’s hunched over it like it’s one of our birthdays and she’s guarding her slice of cake. Her pink tongue pokes from the corner of her mouth. “What?”

  “You’re in my seat.”

  She’s not really my twin but that’s what all the mamas call us since we were born in the same year. Irish twins they said. “Irish” describes people from Ireland which is another part of the world that exists in books. Mama Rosemary has black hair and she would be from China in one of our books if she weren’t from a place called Boys-y. Me and Twin look alike since Mama Nora has black hair, too. Mama Nora would be from a place called India and that’s where Mowgli is from. Mama Bethel had yellow hair and yellowy skin and no one knows where she’d be from. Me and Twin were the same height before she grew two inches.

  Twin juts out a foot and kicks at my shin but she misses. “Don’t gotta.” She reaches out and pinches my knee.

  “Ow! Mama Rosemary!”

  “Girls, don’t fight, please. I’m working on something, and I need you to be very good while I am. Okay?”

  “Yes, Mama Rosemary,” we say together.

  “Good girls. Now, what did we talk about earlier? What is today?”

  “Escape day,” we answer eyes wide, still not really sure what that means. Mama Rosemary has been distracted for days talking to herself, writing stuff down then ripping it up and flushing the pieces in the toilet. After, she goes to the bed room and gets real quiet. She stares at the wall with tears on her face but she won’t talk if I talk to her. That’s how I know she’s in the Dark Place and I should leave her alone. Sometimes Twin goes and sits with her and doesn’t talk. I think Mama likes that.

  “Mama Rose?” Sweet Lily pipes up. She’s three years old and not much bigger than a baby. Mama Rosemary still treats her like one anyway. “What is escape?”

  “What does escape mean. It means we’re going to get out of here, sweetheart.” Mama Rosemary picks up our youngest in her thin arms and twirls her around until Sweet Lily’s face breaks into the smile we love. It doesn’t happen so often but when it does it makes all of us stop what we’re doing and be happy together. My sisters and me and Mama Rosemary.

  Mama Rosemary puts Sweet Lily back on the ground then touches her finger to Sweet Lily’s nose. “Escape, my love, means we’re going to be free.”

  Four

  As I pull into the boxy parking lot of my apartment complex, a car zips past me to exit, narrowly missing my side-view mirror. When I lock eyes with the driver, he gives me a dirty look like I’ve done something wrong.

  I park in one of the uncovered—free of charge—spots, then watch the entrance for any other aggressive drivers barreling through the narrow opening. Someone else might be in a hurry to take out the plot of peonies growing on the corner, or someone may be more focused on slipping unseen into my neighborhood. Watching. Waiting for me to feel comfortable and safe again. Before they note exactly where I live and how to get inside while I’m sleeping.

  Stop it. No one is coming to get you. The note suggested a location in Portland, and no one is driving out to the ’burbs to give me a scare.

  Paranoia has been a constant since my twentieth birthday, when I turned the same age as Rosemary when she was abducted. But while Rosemary was carefree before that day in 1989, I had my first stalker at age fifteen. Someone keen on revisiting Chet’s legacy, according to the notes they tucked into my school locker.

  Grabbing my backpack, laptop bag, and camera case, I shimmy out of my car, being careful not to ding the sleek, freshly washed se
dan beside it. As I near my first-floor apartment, footsteps approach from behind, and I whirl to face my attacker.

  “Claire. So glad I could catch you.” The property manager, Derry Landry, stares at me with a self-satisfied grin. His blond buzz cut gives him the illusion of a halo against the morning sun. “You left in such a hurry yesterday, I couldn’t ask you about the final deposit amount.”

  “Yeah, sorry about that.” I sling the camera strap around my neck. “Once I cash a check tomorrow, I’ll have a hundred and fifty. I should have the last fifty dollars soon.”

  If the Portland Post sends more work my way, I won’t have to borrow money from Jenessa.

  “Hundred dollars. The corporate office tacked on a fifty-dollar late fee,” he says.

  “Wow. That’s, like . . . a thirty-three percent increase.”

  Derry maintains a stoic mien, as if I withheld the cash from his grandmother. “Not my problem.”

  He steps toward me, and his hand grazes my elbow. “You know, I was excited when you moved in, Claire. Thought it would be nice to inject some young blood into the neighborhood.” Gray eyes the shade of the community garbage bin seem to drink me in. He leans forward, using the extra six inches he has on me to block out the sun. The shadow on his face makes him appear more aggressive, and I briefly wonder whether he has the spare key to my apartment or the corporate office does.

  I step away into the carpeted hallway. “I’ll make sure I get that hundred dollars to you.”

  “When?” he asks, closing the distance between us again. His breath smells of milk, like he just finished eating cereal. I turn away and grapple for my key.

  “Very soon. Thanks for the heads-up on the late fee.” After closing the door behind me and locking the dead bolt, I watch him through the peephole. He lingers a moment longer, swearing something inaudible. He runs a hand over his head, hesitates, and actually lifts his fist to knock on my door. Then he walks toward the parking lot, out of sight.