Lies We Bury

by Elle Marr

  My phone vibrates in my back pocket. An unknown number. I raise it to my ear. “Hello?”

  “Claire Lou? This is Juan Montoya from the Portland Gazette. Are you the one who took photos recently for the Post? At Four Alarm Brewery.”

  “Yes, that was me.”

  “Excellent. Do you have any others of that crime scene? I’d like to feature some of them in the Gazette’s online channel.”

  “I can’t.” I shake my head, ruing the one-page contract I had to sign before Pauline handed me a check. The exclusivity clause said I couldn’t supply photos to any of the Post’s competitors for six months. “I wish you would have called me sooner.”

  There’s a sigh on the other end of the phone. “I thought as much. Pauline and her damn lawyers.” The line clicks dead.

  I stare at the phone until noise carries from farther down the narrow road, from past the storefront signs displaying Chinese characters in neon lettering. Music. Laughter. Glasses clinking. I follow the sound around a corner and find a door propped open. Hanging in the front window, a sign in English with characters beneath reads BEIJING SUZY’S.

  Framed war-propaganda posters decorate the interior walls, evoking another time and place. As I step into the bar, I recognize a photograph of a student facing down a military tank in Tiananmen Square. Beside it hangs a frame of Bruce Lee from the movie Enter the Dragon, while a photo of a bowl of egg flower soup hangs above a trio of arcade machines.

  “What’ll it be?” A woman with electric-blue hair leans over the counter in a lace tank top. Behind her, a sign on the wall advertises Tsingtao beer, the green color clashing with her hair.

  “I’m good. Thanks.”

  “You here for the Shanghai Tunnels? The entry is in the hotel across the street. Group tour is about to leave.”

  “Wasn’t planning on it.” But this isn’t the first time they’ve come up. “What’s so special about them?”

  She snaps a bubble of pink gum. Heavy eyeliner emphasizes deep-set features. “They’re Chinatown’s claim to fame. But you don’t have to wait to get a peek in, if you want. We got our own tourist attraction.” She lifts both eyebrows and nods toward the wall.

  “The dartboard?”

  “What? No. Look down.”

  I follow her gaze to the floorboards. A square is cut into the wood directly beneath the bull’s-eye. “Is that a trapdoor?”

  She grins. “You betcha. Anyone tells you basements around here were only for rationing dry staples, they’re either lying or they’ve never gone looking for the facts. Used to be there was a table and chairs over there, around the 1910s, 1920s, when this was a speakeasy. A man would get drunk enough, and the owner would hit a lever, having made a deal with some ship captain earlier in the day.”

  “A deal to what?”

  “Hoodwink a drunk fool into working aboard a ship to China. But the man had to be drunk enough that he was about to pass out and wouldn’t fight down below. He’d wake up a few hours later and try to leave—only to find he was barefoot and surrounded by broken glass.” Purple lips pucker to the side. “Pretty sad, but pretty neat that the evidence still lives today.”

  “I thought that was all urban legend in Portland. That the practice was more in San Francisco or Seattle?”

  She shrugs. “Depends who you ask.”

  I bend down over the square and touch the outline of the box shape. The edges of the door are worn, with several coats of paint, probably meant to match the rest of the black floors, becoming thick and uneven in the splintered cracks. My stomach tightens, touching a tool used to inflict such unusual punishment, imagining what it must have been like—plunging into the darkness and for a brief moment having no idea where it ended.

  Beside me, a man plays the pinball machine in the corner, but we’re the only ones in the bar on a Wednesday afternoon. I straighten, then turn to the bartender. “These aren’t still used . . . are they?”

  “Honey.” She slides a hand onto a sharp hip. “Do I look like I need to trap a man?”

  I thank her for the history lesson and promise to be in for a drink soon.

  Back at my car, I step into the street. I lift my camera and angle upward. Framing the shot to capture both dragons’ gaping mouths, I imagine hot breath upon my face, the sharpness of their teeth, before jaws snap shut around my neck.

  Seventeen

  THEN

  An hour later they’re still sleeping. I couldn’t take lying there any longer, trying not to move, so I got up and went into the kitchen and tried to be helpful quiet as possible. Quiet like a mouse or a cockroach which Mama Rosemary says aren’t my friends.

  Mama Rosemary is upset again. On TV we see mamas who hug their babies and say everything will be okay. That they shouldn’t worry and she’ll fix whatever is the problem. Mama Rosemary can’t do that sometimes because she’s too sad. I tried telling her those things while she was sleeping but she didn’t wake up. Only cried more in her sleep.

  I sat still and wondered what happened to Twin’s arm. Did she knock into the sink? Or did Mama Rosemary grab her when she was asking another question? I poked Twin again in her bruise. She woke up and hit me with her good arm but now she’s back asleep.

  First I sewed up the hole in my T-shirt under the sleeve. Then I closed up the rip in Sweet Lily’s underpants. I even managed to get Twin’s sock to close up at the toe so she doesn’t have to go around with cold air getting in and biting her feet. All in all I only poked my fingers with the needle twice—once on my pointer finger and once on my tummy when the needle slipped.

  “Sweetheart.” Mama Rosemary stands in the doorway. “What have you been up to? I thought you were napping with us.”

  I show her everything I did and she’s not sad anymore.

  Sisters wake up and start moving around. Sweet Lily sits up in bed while Twin brings Sweet Lily water in a sippy cup. Mama Rosemary says that’s okay because then water won’t spill on the mattress.

  Twin and me turn on the television and sit real close to watch cartoons. Mama Rosemary only lets us watch one hour per day and we already got our hour in the morning but she’s sitting at the table writing something. She doesn’t say anything when we turn the volume up. A dog runs around a glacier and says Awesome-sauce! Me and Twin start laughing every time.

  “Awesome-sauce,” I whisper. Emmy and Max walk in a green place. A forest. Then they’re trapped with their dragon friends in a mountain house. A cave. They talk about escape to get back home to their beds. Max ties a rope around the rock blocking the exit then ties the other end around him. He pulls real real hard and everyone helps and then the rock moves and Emmy and Max and the dragon friends get out.

  Twin wraps her hand over and under my hair and yanks. “Ow!” I say.

  “Move over, you’re too close.”

  I don’t move because I’m mad and Twin pulls my hair again harder. “Ow!”

  “Hey, you two, knock it off. I’m trying to think.” Mama Rosemary looks at the paper still.

  “Mama?” I ask her and rub my head. My hair still hurts so I pinch Twin’s leg. She makes a face and I think maybe I gave her the bruise on her arm. “Are we still doing escape today?”

  Twin hits me again then looks at her, too.

  Mama Rosemary takes a second to reply. I think maybe she’s forgotten my question. “Are we still doing escape—”

  “We have to. There’s no other way around it.” Mama’s voice is low and she stares at the table in front of her. “We can’t stay here, and we can’t risk him changing the code again.”

  “What code?” Twin asks. Mama Rosemary looks at me and doesn’t talk.

  Twin was asleep the last time when the Murphy was done squeaking but I was awake. The man went up the stairs like always only this time he needed help because he was too drunk. He’s drunk a lot when he comes to visit. Mama had to help him and I could hear the stairs extra loud then and thought they might break. The man entered the code—beep beep beep beep beep-beep—then he wa
s gone. I came out to say hi and good night to Mama and she was writing on a paper. When she saw me she said Go to bed! and looked all scared and scary. She said not to tell my sisters what I saw or heard. I did not.

  “Never mind, sweetheart. We just have to leave.”

  “What code, Mama? What code? Tell us what code!”

  Sweet Lily moans from the next room. Twin’s mouth sours like that time she ate a rotted apple.

  “But Sweet Lily is sick again and she can’t ever move when she gets like that. We have to wait for her. We can’t leave her!” Twin’s voice gets high and I look to Mama’s face to make sure Twin is wrong, that we would never leave Sweet Lily.

  Mama inhales a deep breath. She stares at one of Sweet Lily’s drawings on the wall. “It’s been done before. And sometimes, it’s the right call. To leave someone behind while the rest of us try and get help, to make it possible for everyone to get out, not just one or two of us. We could go fast. Have the police back here in twenty minutes.”

  Mama’s words leave me feeling cold. Sweaty like I’m the one with a fever. Leave someone behind. Her voice is the same warm but her words make me feel sick. Worse than when I wake up screaming thinking someone is touching me.

  “We can’t do that to Sweet Lily,” I whisper. Not sure whether the littlest of us can hear. “Not gonna do it.”

  “But I don’t wanna stay either,” Twin says. Her eyes go big and round.

  “Baby, look at me. Look at me, both of you,” she says again when I won’t. Slowly I raise my head to her neck. “No one wants to leave Sweet Lily alone, but think of each other. What about your Twin, hmm? We need to leave.”

  Twin makes a squishy sound. “But . . . Sweet Lily.”

  Mama Rosemary thinks for a second. “It’s not going to be easy, darling,” she says to her. “And you’ll need to be brave.”

  The way Mama Rosemary looks at Twin makes me nervous. Like Mama wants something from Twin. Just like everyone else. I start to get angry. Frustrated that Twin is the center of attention again. But then I see Twin’s face. It’s pale. Empty like she’s already reading Mama’s mind. And knows exactly what Mama is going to ask.

  Eighteen

  It’s not exactly who you know—more like how you make people feel.

  How can you know where you’re going unless you examine where you’ve been?

  Create a new identity.

  Snippets of conversations from yesterday reverberate in my head. A deep need swells within me to be done with this and to put our never-ending saga to bed. To move on. The well-meaning words of advice I’ve been given fail to consider that I’ve already tried normal methods of coping—being a considerate person, doing self-reflection and therapy, and trying to leave the stigma behind haven’t worked. I’m still here, trudging through life with this target on my back, courtesy of Chet.

  In order to figure out the murderer’s identity before Chet is released in four days, I need to be more intentional with my sources. Neither of my sisters is going to pluck the exact memory from their childhoods and adulthoods to point the finger at the asshole harassing me. The police have released only the bare-minimum details on the dead dancer and the insurance salesman, not mentioning at all his side hustle of selling his artwork.

  No. If I still have a chance in hell of figuring out what’s going on before someone else is hurt, it’s going to be by asking the hard questions face-to-face.

  From where I stand outside the chain-link fence topped with barbed wire, the state prison is already crowded with visitors. I get in line behind a woman with a wide-brimmed turquoise hat, bearing an actual plume along the band. Words are hushed except for one family in the front, who whoops and squeals that today has finally arrived; their person is being released. Their glee continues as guards inspect identification, then wave each person through a gate in the fence and past an armed guard brandishing an automatic rifle.

  The signs that pointed to the visitors’ parking lot a half mile down also directed me to a shuttle waiting to ferry passengers to the main security gate. Thursday afternoon—apparently the perfect time to engage with your incarcerated loved one. I stepped off the yellow school bus to anxious memories of arriving at elementary school as a child. A similar taut feeling coils in my belly now, like a garden hose ready to burst.

  Ten minutes pass in line before I’m admitted into a stuffy waiting room. I take a seat and try to blend in. A soap opera plays on a boxy television mounted on the wall.

  After another half hour, my name is called, and I’m ushered into a rectangular room with four people who all seem to be visiting the same inmate. We step through a metal detector, then into a long hallway with flickering lighting panels overhead that give off the ambience of a psych hospital in a horror movie just before the power goes out in a thunderstorm and all the patients run loose to exact their revenge. The air is dense with body odor.

  We turn left into a shallow hallway. Another armed guard grants us entry into a room where a wall of Plexiglas bisects ten visitor booths. Each cubby comes complete with a landline phone. Beige is the central theme, accenting the walls and the chair I lower myself into. Inmates enter the other side of the room and spot their visitors with a grateful smile, a laugh, or a somber meeting of the eyes.

  Emotions churn in my belly, a cesspool of hate mixed with terror, but I sit still. I jam my hands under my thighs and, for some reason, feel relieved I chose a high-neck dress.

  He can’t hurt you.

  You’re not a child anymore.

  You can leave now, and no one will know you were here aside from the lobby clerk.

  I clutch the strap of my shoulder bag and rise to exit the way that I entered when a man walks to the chair opposite my own. Handcuffed, knobby knuckles curl over the metal seat back. The top two buttons of an orange jumpsuit are undone, revealing a white shirt underneath. Scraggly beard hairs punctuate a pudgy face. Deep lines mark the skin around tired brown eyes. Chet takes a seat, then slowly lifts the telephone from its cradle. Hesitation gives way to curiosity, and I see his gaze take in my face, my neck, my chest, and my hands, before flicking back up to my eyes. It registers that he’s never seen me before; he doesn’t recognize me. Rosemary, I know, has never come to see her former captor, and I know my sisters wouldn’t dream of it; I don’t know if Nora has been here.

  Strange feeling, given that I memorized photos of him when he was somewhere around the age at which he abducted my mothers. I had just turned ten years old and gained more understanding of what had happened to us, and I wanted to know what he looked like. The occasional tabloid cover story over the years featured photos of him in prison looking depressed and disheveled.

  He can’t hurt you. Mustering every ounce of strength I have to not run away, to not run screaming from the past as I have done my whole life, I imitate his movement until I have the receiver to my ear. “Hello, Chet.”

  He hesitates at my voice. Then a smile lifts his cheeks. “Marissa. Nice of you to come all this way.”

  A shudder ripples across the thin fabric of my dress. “You know who I am?”

  He nods, pleased that I wasn’t expecting this. “I’ve tried to keep up with you online. There was a snapshot of you a few years back that I think still looks like you.”

  Nausea boils in my stomach, realizing that all these years I was worried someone was watching me, maintaining a record of my mistakes and self-involved loathing, it was Chet. I grip the leather of my bag, digging my nails into the thick material.

  “Chet, I came to ask you a few questions. Not for some kind of reunion.” My tone is gruff, loud, but people beside us continue their conversations, untroubled; witnessing someone yell in this room is probably a square on the prison-visit bingo card.

  Chet leans in closer, pressing the phone to his face. “What kind of questions?”

  I inhale a deep breath. Try to wrap my head around this moment and that it’s actually happening. That through the coiled wire of the phone, winding along the plastic r
ings through the glass barrier to Chet’s receiver, we are physically connected. The thought makes me gag.

  “I’m working on . . . a photography project.”

  He sits up straight, his thin eyebrows lifting into his hairline. Something like excitement passes across the gray stubble around his mouth. A new wave of revulsion coats my body; that’s the same way Lily reacts when she’s intrigued by something.

  “How can I help?”

  I pause, savoring withholding something from him for once. His face is open and eager from behind the glass, and the urge to rise up and leave without another word, just to make him wonder and wait and wait and wait, returns to contract the muscles in my toes.

  “There’s a killer committing murders underground, or transferring the bodies underground afterward. I’m taking photos of the crime scenes.”

  According to the Post update I read in line outside, the body in the cooler at The Stakehouse, Gavin Nilsson, was restrained in the adjacent tunnels before being moved behind the kegs. After his throat was slit. When I read that, my gasp drew concerned looks from the strangers beside me. It’s probably for the best that I didn’t examine the body more closely on-site.

  “How many?”

  “Two. So far.”

  He shifts the receiver to his other ear, his handcuffs knocking together. “What else?”

  “The victims are an exotic dancer and an insurance salesman.”

  “Interesting pairing. What links the victims together?”

  “The police don’t know yet.”

  “Ah. They’re working on that part while you’re profiling the killer?” A smile forms on Chet’s mouth—hinting at pride or mocking me, I can’t tell.

  I purse my lips and glance at the guard behind Chet. He’s preoccupied with another inmate who’s getting riled up at the far end of the room. “That’s all you’ve got? Nothing about you sharing obvious psychology with this killer, since you both kept your victims underground?”