by Audrey Keown
A sneaking hope had followed me since Mr. Fig brought me out here—a wish, really, that Hortensius and Mary Morrow might not be found in any grave anywhere. I decided to look for my grandparents’ obituaries as soon as I got the chance. Knowing one way or another would be better than this.
My usual dressing room operations took longer with my arm smarting from the burn, and since I had ruined my uniform dress, I’d been forced to replace it with one that was too big for me and unpleasantly bulky around my shoulders.
I met Bea as I entered the hall. Leaning her elbows on the desk, she squinted her sky-blue eyes at a paper in her hand and turned it toward me. “Any idea whose masterpiece this is?”
It was a simplistic drawing, like the one I’d found the day before, but the subject matter was different and so were the colors.
I shook my head. “I hoped it wouldn’t come to this, but I’ll talk to the guest in the Byzantine Room. I think it’s his son, Parker. I put the last one in the lost-and-found, but no one’s come to claim it that I know of.”
“I guess it’s just a week for weird stuff.” Bea tugged on the crisp white collar of her maid uniform. “I found a wig in the trash can of the men’s room.”
“What, like a toupee?”
“No, like … long, wavy hair,” she said.
That really was strange. I wondered for a second if it had anything to do with the murder last night. Maybe the killer had worn it as a disguise? But that seemed farfetched.
A much funnier idea elbowed into mind. “Think it was Wollstone’s?”
“ ’S’possible.” She wrinkled her nose and grinned.
I tightened my lips. I was still ruffled about how she’d flirted with George, and I didn’t want to make nice. I didn’t want to laugh.
But I couldn’t help it. The mental picture of the old grouch’s scowling face framed by flowing locks was just too much.
A silent laugh shook me, and Bea joined in with her own mischievous chuckle.
I burned through the last of my breath and supported myself on the crooked marble arm of Hestia, who guarded the entry hall, spear in hand.
She was not amused.
Bea straightened up and looked at me thoughtfully. “Hey, this might seem … no, I’ll just …”
“What’s up?”
“You’re good friends with George …” She looked at me sideways.
Fuzz. Please no. Nuh-uh.
“I wondered if he had said anything about me.”
Be kind. Be honest. Definitely don’t lie. “Yeah, sure. He said, uh, that you’ve started hanging out some, which is cool.”
“George is cool. You know, he didn’t—I didn’t think he was that attractive until I got to know him.”
Attractive? My arms and legs stiffened like someone had dipped me in concrete. I liked Bea, but dammit, this was not a conversation I wanted to have with her. Then again, she had asked me last year if anything was happening between George and me, and I’d basically given her the go-ahead. And we were friends.
Her eyes focused on the entrance behind me. “Oh, who’s that?”
I glanced back, and my blood froze.
“A plumber,” I answered.
Middle-aged and silver-headed, the man wore coveralls and carried a toolbox at his side. He stopped in the entryway by the bust of David and surveyed the room, his mouth set with determination and his eyes pained.
Not just any plumber.
My dad.
“Gotta go,” I whispered to Bea and ducked into the office.
It took me a second to understand why he was here.
I’d known Mr. Fig had called a plumber about the leak, but there must have been a hundred of them in the city. How in the name of Zeus was my dad the one who had taken the call? And why would he have taken it, when this hotel was a place he tried so hard to avoid?
I couldn’t go out and greet him. That would be the worst way for him to find out I was working here. It was always better to confess a lie in person than to be caught in one. Dad and I hadn’t even finished dealing with the girlfriend-in-the-parking-lot situation, and we sure didn’t need this conflict piled on top.
It was probably past the shift changeover now, but I didn’t think Doyle was gone yet. I could still smell him, like old popcorn and Pepto-Bismol. I popped my head into the kitchen. “Hey. Is Doyle in here?”
“Hey. He was a second ago,” George said from the walk-in freezer.
I checked the hall outside the kitchen. Doyle’s stout back was disappearing down the stairs.
“Doyle!” I called. “There’s someone at the desk. Can you—”
“Nope. My shift ends at four, Ivy.” He didn’t even turn around.
“Please, will you? Two minutes. I’m begging you.” I couldn’t see him anymore, just the dim staircase down to the basement level. “I’ll get here early tomorrow. I’ll take your shift next weekend.” Anything beat facing my dad at the moment.
“No can do.” His voice echoed from the lower hall. “Got a big show at the library.”
“Please,” I yelled with my last measure of hope.
No reply.
“Yeah, have fun at toddler hour then!” I bellowed and skulked back to the kitchen. Sometimes I wished he’d go from hobby magician to David Blaine overnight so he could finally leave us in peace.
The bell rang again. Dad wasn’t going to go away no matter how much I wished for it. “George.”
He stuck his head out of the walk-in cooler. “Yeah?”
“Hello?” Dad called politely.
George’s eyes widened. “Is that your dad’s voice?”
I grimaced and nodded.
“No answer?” Clarista’s smooth voice said from the lobby.
Nooooo. I couldn’t just ignore him anymore, and I couldn’t send George out in his chef’s coat. She’d kill me.
“Ivy?” Clarista called.
Fear and shame stabbed me like a hot poker to the gut.
“Ivy!” More insistent this time.
It was over. Even if I didn’t come out, he would be onto me now. Curse my adorable, uncommon name!
I pushed through the part in the curtain and lifted my eyes to the firing squad. Clarista and my dad both stood there frowning at me, albeit for different reasons.
Dad’s eyes squinted as if caught in a permanent wince. He scanned my hair, my collar, my sleeves, like he was putting it all together—the trouble George had been in last year, my lies about working at a bar, about sharing the hotel’s parking lot. He scrubbed the back of his neck with one hand the way he did when he was most upset.
Shame reared up inside me, and I turned subtly away from Dad’s gaze, feeling worse than I had that night in middle school when he’d caught me lying about joining the basketball team to cover for having a boyfriend.
“Ivy, the leak … you know, don’t you?” Clarista flapped her hand like an injured wing.
“In the men’s room.” I pointed lamely and checked Dad’s face.
But he picked up his toolbox wordlessly and disappeared into the men’s room.
Some once-healthy limb of my pride shriveled and fell off. I had lied to my own father, my only family, and I couldn’t hide from the fact a second longer.
“It took you much too long to answer that bell,” Clarista started.
I prepared myself for a good talking-to.
But Clarista didn’t have time to finish lecturing me. The front doors banged open again, and a trench-coated Detective Bennett took two steps inside and planted his feet. One arm guarded his side while the other brought a fat cigar to his mouth.
A smoking cigar.
Mr. Fig was going to flip out.
Two uniformed officers stepped in behind Bennett. The handcuffs on one’s utility belt flashed in the sun glaring in from the window.
“Detective.” Clarista glided over to greet him. Her fingers fidgeted nervously at the pocket of her wool skirt. “How can I help you?” (Read: How can I get you out of my hotel before you�
��re seen by a guest?)
Bennett lowered his cigar and exhaled a cloud of smog that obscured his face. “Here to see Ralph Fig.”
All I could think was, Ralph?
“I can help you with anything you need,” Clarista said.
The detective exhaled a thunderhead. “Where’s Fig?”
Clarista shifted her feet. “He’s in the basement. He’s …”
Her eyes darted from side to side, like she might do a runner.
“Doing the wine inventory.” My voice cracked as I finished Clarista’s sentence. I didn’t want to connect the dots here.
Bennett nodded at his officers. Clarista, wide-eyed, led them into the elevator, and he shoved in behind them.
I didn’t want to jump to the wrong conclusion. Maybe Bennett needed more information about the hotel on the night of the murder. Maybe he knew Mr. Fig could answer his questions best. But a sharp finger of dread picked its way under my skin.
I took the stairs down to meet them, leaving the desk unattended again, but I couldn’t worry about that at the moment.
I followed Bennett’s cigar exhaust and caught up to the group as they filed into the wine cellar.
Mr. Fig, who had been kneeling by an open shipping crate, stood slowly, dusting off his pants. He faced Bennett and locked eyes with the man as if he’d already prepared himself for this moment.
“Ralph Fig, you are under arrest for the murder of Renee Gallagher. You have the right to remain silent.” Bennett drummed the Miranda speech like he was on Law and Order.
But I didn’t hear the rest of it. I couldn’t hear or think or feel anything besides the shouting in my brain. Not Mr. Fig. Not Mr. Fig. Not Mr. Fig!
One officer pulled his handcuffs from his belt.
A groan escaped my lips, and a wave of nausea flipped my insides.
Clarista gasped and covered her mouth. Her face, normally bronzed like the underside of magnolia leaves, lost its warmth.
“You don’t have to do that,” Mr. Fig said calmly. No one had more respect for law, or order, than he did.
“ ’Fraid we must.” Bennett said.
Mr. Fig turned around and put his hands behind his back.
I’d never seen anyone so vulnerable and brave at once.
The officer with the cuffs snapped the steel against Mr. Fig’s wrists where his skin was thinned with age.
I couldn’t feel my own body, just a weightless chill where my skin used to be.
The police walked Mr. Fig back out the way they had come. I rushed up the stairs, racking my brain for something I could do.
“George!” I yelled as I raced past the kitchen door.
Clarista caught me by the arm at the top of the stairs, her face crumpled with fear and disbelief. “It’s better if you …”
I pulled away from her, gathered my thick skirts in my hands, and ran through the entry hall toward the door.
By the time I got out to the front steps, an officer was already shoving Mr. Fig into the back of Bennett’s unmarked car. Mr. Fig’s white bow tie was crooked, and one lapel was flipped up.
He was an old man, for pity’s sake, and an innocent one.
I needed to stop this, but I felt as frozen and powerless as if I were handcuffed too.
“No,” I yelled feebly.
Mr. Fig paused, raised his eyes, and locked them on mine.
I ran down the steps. “No.”
In my mind I rushed Bennett and knocked him to the ground.
In reality, I stopped just short of contact, my hands taut and hovering in the space between us. “What’s wrong with you? Are you just screwing with us? We cooperated. We’ve told you everything we know!”
He hadn’t flinched or shifted from where he stood. “Get control of yourself, or I’ll take you to the station with him.”
I did as he said and lowered my hands.
But I raised my voice. “That wouldn’t surprise me. Evidently you’re used to arresting people without just cause.”
He ducked his head so he could sneer at me. “I’m warning you. Shut your mouth, and keep out of this. If not for your sake, then for his.”
I gritted my teeth. My breath came in short huffs. I needed to do something.
Bennett tossed his cigar onto the drive and ground it out with a foot, leaving an ashy smear on the brick. He glanced at Mr. Fig, already his prisoner in the back seat, then at me, as he got behind the wheel and slammed the door.
Mr. Fig blinked hard. He was trying so hard to fend off his emotions—whether for our benefit or his pride’s, I didn’t know.
I stared into his face.
He looked right back at me for several seconds, his hardened mouth holding the rest of his face in check. In his eyes, there was something like concession, and as he lowered his head, I wondered if it was shame.
Bennett started up the car and pulled away.
I couldn’t pull my attention from the sight of Mr. Fig’s bowed head.
George put an arm around my shoulder.
I jumped a hair. I hadn’t realized he was outside, much less next to me.
His face, above mine, displayed the rage and confusion I felt.
Together we watched the black car slice down the drive, taking away someone we couldn’t do without.
V
Hints and Shadows
It wasn’t until after they’d taken Mr. Fig away that I noticed everyone else standing with us under the porte cochere. Bea, Mr. Zhang, and even a few guests had come out to watch the ordeal. Clarista clenched a tissue in her hand and cried silently.
George hugged me, but all I could feel was the angry flow of lava in my veins and embarrassment for Mr. Fig, for having been made a spectacle. I pulled away, and we stood there staring at the empty drive until the others went inside.
George seemed to be concentrating on something far away and painful. “I wanna lock Bennett up for a crime he didn’t commit. See how he likes it.”
His indignance comforted me.
I dropped down to sit on the step, and George took off his chef’s coat and lowered himself down beside me. I stared at the brick pavement, but his long leg filled up the periphery of my vision.
It was like we hoped that if we sat there a little longer, we could find a way to undo what had just happened. After a few silent minutes, we forced ourselves to go back into the house.
There was no sign of my dad in the hall or the men’s room. He must have repaired the leaky line and slipped out while all my attention was on Mr. Fig. All this time, I’d thought he was avoiding this place, avoiding talking about it, avoiding thinking about it. So why had he taken that call? He had enough seniority to turn it down, give it to someone else.
I was a walking fireball of frustration, so this wouldn’t have been the best time to talk to him anyway.
When I reached the desk, I heard Clarista at the computer behind the black curtain, but I was sure she wouldn’t really be working yet. She wouldn’t have the presence of mind.
George opened the door to the basement, and there was a flash of green baize behind him. The felt fabric—like my dress, like Mr. Fig’s suit, like the period language we often employed around here—had always been purely ornamental, but in the face of the disaster we’d just witnessed, it seemed a silly relic.
Green baize was another symbol of division between upstairs and down, a way to muffle the noise of the long-ago staff, to remove their concerns from the world of the family. But just like the servant rooms in the basement had disappeared to make way for a modern garage, the hard division between employer and employee had faded in this house. Although Clarista owned the place, she and Mr. Fig held each other in high regard, and she would be worried for him.
I returned to my post, completely unbothered for once by her rule against sitting down in a guest’s presence. The gravestone people were away at their convention anyway. I paced in the five-foot space, stewing over Mr. Fig.
I pictured his face. What was the look he’d passed me at the en
d? It was impossible for me to believe it was guilt.
But you’ve known him less than a year, said a small voice of doubt. You know nothing of his past.
It didn’t matter. He wasn’t capable of murder, especially not strangulation. It was a cruel and inefficient way to kill.
But it was a clean method, said the small voice. Strangulation spills no blood. Mr. Fig likes things clean.
Like my mother’s life, Mr. Fig’s story was unknown to me. While I avoided thinking about what she’d experienced after leaving me, when it came to Mr. Fig, I simply painted in the blank bits with a wash of optimism.
A picture of him—his hands clenched around Renee’s neck, her fingers prying at his—encroached on my consciousness.
I forced out a breath and wiped my hand across my face. No. Not Mr. Fig.
What would a psychologist say about these intruding dark thoughts? Was there some part of me that wanted Mr. Fig to be guilty?
Well, I would banish that part of me, if it existed at all.
As far as I knew, Mr. Fig had only met Renee after she checked into the hotel. Even if he had the capacity to kill someone, how in Hades would he have come up with a motive in a single day?
I needed to talk to him. As impossible as it seemed, Bennett must have had some evidence in order to arrest him.
George came up from the basement and stood by the desk.
“Where were you?” My words came out accusingly, but I didn’t mean them that way.
He still had a dinner to finish preparing, I realized. How could we all be expected to go back to work like it was a normal day?
“Just walked Bea out to the parking lot.” He was patient, not defensive.
“Oh. Sorry.” I couldn’t escape the raw feeling when I thought about them walking out together.
“You gonna be okay?”
“Yeah. It’s just … this is so crazy. They can’t possibly hold him, right?”
He cocked his head. “Well, they have enough to make the arrest, so—”
“But what could they have when he didn’t do anything?”
“You know more than I do about what’s happened. But I wonder if it’s about opportunity. Sounds like everyone else was on the grave tour when Renee was murdered.”
