by Audrey Keown
Taking something from Clyde’s room while he slept felt a lot like stealing. On the other hand, he was an admitted thief himself, and I had my orders.
I found Renee’s bag in the bedroom and exited the dark cottage into the even darker night, removed as we were from the city lights.
Leaning against the hood of his Highlander, George looked up at the sound of the door, dropped his phone into his pocket, and said, “One more minute and I was coming in there after you.”
“Pssh. It’s not like he’s a murderer-er.”
I knew George was watching me make my crooked way down the crooked path, and I told myself to straighten up. I pretty much had it together by the time I reached the car.
“Uh-oh,” George said.
“I’m fine.” I opened the door to the back seat, threw Renee’s bag in, and fell in after it. But I made a quick recovery and deposited myself in the front seat.
George got in beside me and waved a hand in front of his nose. “Whew. I’m glad I decided to drive you, Captain Morgan.”
“That’s Captain Woodford Reserve, for your information.” I strapped on my seat belt but didn’t quite complete the connection, and the buckle went flying up in front of my face.
George reached across the console with a chastising look, grabbed the shoulder strap, and pulled it across me. His hand nudged my thigh as he clicked it into place.
He paused, looking at me thoughtfully, then turned back to his side of the car and cracked the windows.
“Guess we can’t get the Volvo now,” I said.
“Nope.”
Somewhere in the back of my head was a concern about that, but it didn’t push forward into my thoughts.
I inhaled the crisp mountain air and tried to put together what Clyde had said with the rest of the clues I’d gathered.
George was taking it easy on the winding road down the mountain. He obviously thought I was in a position to be easily made sick.
It was so nice of him to drive me up here and back home again. We never got to hang out anymore, and my mind was craving the easy days when we’d been in school. We hadn’t had to carve out time together when we could catch up walking home every day.
My thoughts kept wandering away from Clyde. He had flat-out refused to tell me any more about the friend he’d stolen from. Was he afraid of me tracking them down and finding out what he’d done that was so bad? A classmate, he’d said. That reminded me of something, but I couldn’t remember what in my present state.
If I’d deciphered Clyde’s mumble right, Leonard Chaves had booked the rooms. I wished I had been the clerk to take that call. Had Leonard specifically requested the Achilles for Clyde and Renee? He must have.
But how could he have known that was the right room to put them in, the one that could be accessed by the dumbwaiter? A simple visit to the hotel at some point in the past wouldn’t have told Leonard that. He would had to have worked for the Morrow family or stayed with them at some point.
Or maybe I was thinking too much inside the box. Leonard had an obvious grudge against Clyde. Had that developed over their working history at the university, or had Leonard brought that grudge with him from having known Clyde before? Perhaps he was the classmate Clyde had stolen from.
If, as Clyde had told Selena, Leonard was after his job, it would explain why someone involved in Clyde’s life so long ago would decide to take revenge now.
It was unlikely that Leonard would have been at the same dinner at the house, but I took out the newspaper clipping and checked the names in the caption. Each student’s name was accompanied by the name of the maid who sat in his lap. Naomi and Clyde, Dana and Joey, et cetera. But no Leonard.
Headlights blinded me from the side mirror. A car had slid up close behind us. There was no place to pass on this road.
I closed my eyes to block out the brightness.
I woke up to find George putting the car in park.
“Oh, are we here?” I smiled sleepily. “Thanks again for driving me back to the hotel.”
“We’re not at the hotel, Captain.”
“What? I have to take Renee’s bag back. Clarista’s expecting it.”
“Yeah, but it’s nine thirty,” he said. “Clarista’s long gone. And you can take it when you go in in the morning.”
“In the morning?”
“To work.”
“Work! I forgot.” I smacked myself in the head, harder than I meant to. “Darn it.”
George came around to my side of the car and opened the door. “That’s why you have to get some sleep now.”
“But I’m hungry.” I wobbled up to standing.
George took my arm. “Okay. A quick snack, and then I’m putting you straight to bed.”
“Tyrant.” I looked around the parking lot and realized we weren’t at my apartment either. “George. What are we doing at your building?”
“Listen. You’re drunk, Ivy. And I’m not taking you to your dad in this shape.”
“Whatevvv.” I blew a raspberry. “He’s not going to judge you.”
“Well, I can’t stomach the possibility of it.”
I giggled as we entered the posh lobby. “Stomach.”
“What?”
“Stomach is a funny word.”
“Ohhkay.” He led me into the elevator, and I leaned against the wall.
Inside his condo, I sat on the couch, and he went into the kitchen.
“You can text your dad while I heat this up.”
“Oh, yeah.” It took me three tries to unlock my phone, but I did as he suggested, telling Dad I was staying with George but not the reason why.
Then I got the idea to make a call.
Until his voice mail picked up, it didn’t occur to me that Sunday night would be outside Dr. Larsson’s office hours. But I landed on my feet and came up with a clever message, “Hi, uh, Dr. Larsson, this is Ivy Nichols. I called you yesterday about the newspaper article on Clyde Borough. I had one final question for you. Please call me back when you can.”
Totally coherent. Good job, Ivy.
I laid my phone down, saw George’s white tennis shoes on the rug beside me, and followed the line of his frame upward to a steaming plate of brown meat in a shiny glaze and some kind of golden mash.
“Mmm. What’s this?” I reached out to take the dish from him. We had done this so many times before. I would show up empty-handed, and George would feed me.
He drew the plate back. “Who was that?”
“A professor.”
“Of yours?” he asked.
“No, no, no.” I reached for the plate again. “Of Selena’s.”
He kept it out of my reach.
I grunted.
“Selena, Clyde’s daughter?” he said. “You drunk-dialed a professor you don’t even know?”
“Um … well.” I squinted one eye and turned my hands palms up.
He shook his head and finally handed me the food. “It’s leftovers. Red-wine-braised short ribs and grits.”
“I’m starting not to mind so much that you brought me here.” I dug in, paying little attention to anything else. (It was one of the best meals of my life, by the way, with meaty, buttery umami in spades.) When I finished, I lay back on the arm of the couch and closed my eyes.
I felt George take the empty plate from my lap. “All right, guest bedroom’s all set.”
“No. Too tired. Staying here,” I said with my eyelids tightly shut.
“C’mon, you’ll sleep better in a bed.” He laughed at me and took my arm to pry me off the furniture.
I stumbled down the hall on my own, and as I sat down on the comforter in the guest bedroom, I felt his eyes on me.
He had followed me into the room and stood only inches from me, his eyebrows lifted expectantly.
Expecting what?
I realized I was holding on to him, my fingers warmed by the solid arm under his fine-textured shirt sleeve.
My eyes stuck there a second, and the same little trem
or I’d discovered when Mr. Wollstone confronted us this afternoon rattled my middle again.
I had just enough inhibition left to drop my hand before it got awkward.
George jerked up to standing.
Or maybe it was awkward. I couldn’t tell in my current state. I didn’t know if my feelings meant anything right now. “Thanks for letting me sleep over.”
“Sure,” he said, backing up a step and straightening his shirt without looking toward the bed.
I kicked off one shoe, then the other, and let my head fall against the fluffed pillow.
George stared at the floor, pursing his lips crookedly. He flicked his eyes at me and then kept them on the door.
That was his thoughtful face. What was he considering?
My hands tingled. For a moment I thought he would stay, hoped he would stay.
He went back to the door and put a finger on the light switch. “Okay, sleep well.”
“Good night,” I said.
He waited for me to pull the covers up before turning off the light.
XVIII
Our Earth Is a Tomb
Monday morning should have been one of the worst of my life. I hadn’t slept well, despite the comfortable bed. I’d gone to sleep earlier than I was used to and had woken up much too early so I could work day shift. (George had set an alarm for me.) Now my body clock was all turned around.
The gravestone stans were going home today, leaving me with nothing except theories, ponderings about my own mortality, and a wicked rope burn on the business side of one foot.
And above all that, pressing down on me like a guilty secret, was the knowledge that while I had slept at George’s, Mr. Fig had spent his third night in jail.
It should’ve been a terrible morning.
But George was there.
He whistled in the kitchen while he made me some kind of fancy French egg dish (oeufs coquette?) and sent me off with his car key and a travel mug full of hot Earl Grey.
He wasn’t due at the hotel for several hours and said he’d get a ride in with tonight’s sous-chef, which I knew was a sacrifice ’cause making conversation with that guy was like rafting without a current.
The seriousness of the day didn’t stay buried for long, though.
Details of the night before began flashing into my mind as I drove George’s car through the early-morning streets to the hotel. Crossing the bridge over the oil-black river, I blushed thinking of how I’d clung to George in the bedroom the night before.
Surely we both knew I hadn’t meant anything by it. I was simply worn out and drunk. I climbed the hill of Third Street past the Art District and had another flash of memory.
Had I made a phone call?
Son of a witch. I jerked the steering wheel and nearly hit a speed limit sign.
I’d called Dr. Larsson back. I’d left him my real name. He’d been so suspicious at the end of our last call. And now he had my number.
My stomach somersaulted as I reached the hotel. I parked, grabbed Renee’s bag from the Highlander’s back hatch, and ran inside to change into my uniform.
Well, run would be an overstatement. I was limping from the burn on my foot, and I only had one good arm. I felt like sticking a patch over one eye and greeting everyone I passed with a hearty, “Argh!”
But at six in the morning, I didn’t pass anyone. The servants’ hall was as quiet as if the house stood empty.
After dressing, I crept upstairs while the guests were still in bed, somehow more wary and lonely than during my usual shift. I’d grown used to one AM.
I changed the newspaper on the desk, switched around the signage, and checked for any office business to attend to. I had at least an hour to myself before anyone would be up and about, an hour in which to dwell on the fact that the gravestone group was checking out soon, and along with them my chances of naming a killer.
Sure, there was that bit of cloth I’d found in the dumbwaiter, but there was only a chance labs would reveal DNA, and even then, I’d have to make Detective Bennett believe the killer had used the dumbwaiter to access the room.
And those strange drawings. No one had stepped forward to threaten me or claim them. Had Mr. Fig been wrong about Bob the thief having returned?
Acting as opening clerk, I preheated the oven and put in the croissants George had proofed overnight. A server would get here later to ready the rest of the breakfast and put it all out in the morning room.
The fragrances of those pastries plus coffee, eggs, and bacon drifted toward me at the desk over the next hour, and guests crisscrossed the entry hall on their way in and out of breakfast, including Autumn and Tom at about eight fifteen.
In all the hubbub yesterday, I’d forgotten to Google those pills in Tom’s suitcase. I took a second to do that now. They were diazepam, generic Valium. I searched for side effects, too, and it looked like his fatigue and increased appetite could be some of them.
Autumn had said he’d been tired since giving up drinking, and Valium, as it turned out, could be prescribed for alcohol withdrawal. It looked like Tom and Selena were both taking prescription pills without prescriptions, and that was too coincidental to not mean something.
I heard Clarista’s high heels approaching.
My stomach braced for confrontation.
But she slipped through the door from the servant hall and directly into the morning room.
I needed to tell her I’d brought back Renee’s things, but I’d let her get a cup of coffee first.
After a few minutes, I popped my head into the morning room. Clarista was in the middle of a conversation with Furnell and Parker at one of the tables, her face bright and smiling as if someone had just told a joke.
“Well, so the rest of the evening …” She watched their faces expectantly.
“Oh,” said Furnell. “Nothing special, really.”
“We were supposed to see the graves again,” Parker said.
Furnell smiled. “Bud, I think we saw all the graves here. Twice.”
“But remember? We were walking that gravel path by the Aeneas statue. It was five o’clock on Saturday. I said, ‘Dad can we come back to the graves again?’ You said, ‘Sure, bud. How about on our last night?’ I said, ‘Yes, please.’ ”
Furnell rocked his shapely head back and trumpeted a hearty laugh that filled the room. “This kid, aw, this kid is gonna do me in.”
Parker didn’t laugh with him.
“Okay, buddy, we’ll do that before we leave this morning.”
“His memory is practically photographic,” Clarista said.
“Echoic,” said Parker.
His father bobbed his head. “A lot of people think all kids on the spectrum have some kind of savant capabilities. They don’t usually. Parker’s memory isn’t perfect, but it’s really very good, better when it’s something that he’s really into.”
Furnell chuckled again, and Clarista laughed with him.
I wondered how much Parker knew that I didn’t. He had witnessed all the gravestone club’s meetings, where all the arrangements for this trip had probably been made.
Leonard had called to make the bookings, but I didn’t know who had decided that Clyde and Renee should stay in the Achilles Room. Had Parker witnessed that discussion at a meeting?
Clarista wouldn’t want me interrupting their conversation or their breakfast. I’d catch them on their way out of the morning room.
Bea was dusting the hall furniture when I got back to the desk.
“Any word on Mr. Fig?” she asked.
“Not yet.”
“I hope bond will be set at some kind of reasonable level.” She picked up a vase on the front desk and swished her feather duster under it.
“I do too.”
She stopped cleaning for a second and leaned toward me, her eyes on my face. “Getting up early really took its toll on you.”
“Um, yeah, it’s just that I’m not wearing any makeup ’cause I got ready at George’s, so …”
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“Oh.” She drew her eyebrows together, then relaxed them with effort. “Okay.”
I probably should have corrected the assumption she was making, but I didn’t want to.
Her lips buttoned together as if she needed to stop them from betraying any emotion.
“I better get to work.” She held her head up as she started toward the stairs.
“Yeah, see you later—oh, hey,” I said. “This is going to come across as weird, but have you seen anything plaid in the trash around here?”
She shrugged. “Nope.”
“And that wig you found thrown away. Was it blond?”
She narrowed her eyes. “How did you—”
My cell phone rang.
I looked at the screen. Dr. Larsson.
“Sorry, I’ve gotta take this,” I said to Bea. “Hello?” I answered.
“Is this Ivy Nichols?”
“Yes.”
“Hello, Ivy. Dr. Larsson here. You called me last night.”
I watched Bea climb the stairs and felt a little guilty. “Oh, yep, yeah, I was—”
“You had another question for me?”
Furnell and Parker left the morning room and headed up the stairs. I was missing my chance to question them about the Achilles Room booking.
“I—I have to be honest with you, Professor.” It was time to let it all out. “I’m not writing for a student paper. I’ve been trying to figure out who killed Dr. Borough’s girlfriend. An innocent man has been arrested. I wondered if you would tell me about the classmate that you said called about him.”
He paused, and all was silent on his end of the line. “Oh, well, all right. She was a good friend of Clyde’s back in grad school.”
“She? What was her name?”
“Uh, Naomi … I can’t remember the last name. Started with an R, I believe.”
Naomi. Naomi was one of the maids in the newspaper photograph. The maid sitting with Clyde, actually.
“And what did she want when she called?”
“Uh, well, I don’t know that she wanted anything in particular, really,” he said. “She just seemed to want to know about him, about what he had been up to. I told her to send him a request on Facebook. That was six months ago.”
