The Lady in Residence

by Allison Pittman

  “Back up.” He leaned in closer. “Cruises? Like Love Boat?”

  She clutched the llama pillow in front of her, both to defend herself and to create a barrier to remind her not to launch across the distance between them. “Yes, Quin. Exactly like Love Boat.”

  “Did you—did you mend marriages through magic? Ever help a guy out by pulling an engagement ring out of your hat so he could propose in Puerto Vallarta?”

  “Oh my gosh. How do you know so much about Love Boat?”

  He shrugged, uncrossed his leg, and turned his body fully toward her. “I dated a girl who was obsessed with classic TV.”

  “Tell me, Quin Carmichael. How many of your stories begin with ‘I dated a girl…’?”

  “Oh, I don’t know, Dini Houdini. How many of your stories begin with, ‘That summer I traveled with the carnies’?”

  “I only spent two summers with carnies.” This was true. “And they are lovely people.” This, unfortunately, was not.

  They’d been inching closer to each other throughout the banter. In a single move, Quin grabbed the llama pillow, tossed it behind her, and closed the gap, wrapping his arm around her waist, sending his glasses clattering to the table, and bringing her into a kiss that both took her by surprise and made her think, Finally.

  Her sweater was bulky and she wore her cami beneath it, but the combined powers of both garments could not camouflage the feel of his hand splayed across her back. She felt the pressure of all five fingers plus his palm, while his other hand wound itself in her curls, holding her face close to his, as if she would ever consider pulling away. She ran her hand the length of his sleeve, then snuck beneath it, her other braced against his chest, feeling the pounding of his heart matched to her own. She wondered if he knew how her body roiled within, like one of those wind sock men you see at car dealerships, bowing and rising within her. His hand moved, his fingers grazing her calf, and the jolt that ran through her explained why those Victorians kept their legs hidden beneath miles and miles of fabric. She pulled away and touched his face, feeling the lingering ghost of his beard on her skin. His eyes were closed but fluttered open. He looked down to where his thumb stroked the knot of her scar.

  “This looks painful.”

  “It was,” she said, pulling herself away from his reach.

  “I think we need to talk about important stuff, Dini.”

  She ran her hand through her curls, tugging them to bring her senses back in line. “I think you need to tell me why you texted me ninety-seven times this morning.”

  “Ninety-seven might be an exaggeration, but okay.” He took a deep breath. “I think you have something that belonged to Hedda.”

  “A few things, actually. My mother was always on the lookout. I have a rhinestone brooch.”

  “I don’t mean that.” He took her hand—gently, with no expectations—and ran his thumb across her knuckles, stopping to rest on the silver spoon handle ring on her first finger. “I spent all day yesterday looking at your hands. While you were driving, eating a burger, during your show. The way they move when you talk. And that ring—”

  “My witch’s heart ring—”

  “And thinking about that story. The girl at the inn…I remembered—” He reached for the book and flipped immediately to the back, reading: “ ‘Not that I would have turned him away, had I kept my power to bewitch him back to my side. Since the night all was taken from me, I wore only the ring given to me by my late husband, letting myself be haunted by the ghost of respectability.’” He looked up. “That’s the legend of the ring, right?”

  “But surely she was just speaking in general terms. Bewitching with her body, or her—I don’t know—magnetism.”

  “In the next sentence she talks about a ring. I know it’s a stretch, but she’s often pretty cagey with details, right? The way these three pieces just fell together in my head. I think there’s something there.”

  “That ring was a gift from my grandfather. How would it have come into his possession?”

  “Hasn’t your family been here forever? She—whoever the robber might have been—could have pawned it anywhere. Trust me—the coincidence factor here is high, but I don’t believe in coincidences. Sometimes God just opens our eyes at the right time—”

  “Stop.” She took her hands away and covered her eyes, appalled at the sting of tears. “I’ve read this book a million times. A million and one counting last night. I’ve never seen that connection.” She moved her hands away and noticed he’d put on his glasses again.

  “Maybe it’s like when officers have cold cases, and it takes a new detective to look at the evidence to put things together. Please, indulge me for a minute. Your ring? Go get it.”

  “It’s too random.”

  “Please?”

  She complied, needing a moment to catch her breath, to come to her senses and clear her mind already too clouded with his kisses to be of any reliable use. The ring waited in its case in the top drawer of a tall bachelor dresser, the furniture piece itself on casters so she could easily roll it into the locked room when the house was rented. She slipped it on her third finger, and in doing so, realized a flaw in Quin’s logic.

  “One thing,” she said, walking back into the living room and being struck—again—by the comforting feel of having him waiting there, “this wasn’t always a ring. It was a brooch. The clasp was broken, so I had it turned into a ring because, I mean, when would I ever wear a brooch?”

  “Interesting,” he said, sounding preoccupied as he scanned the detective’s collection of bits and pieces of a case.

  “Plus, Carmichael made a list of everything that was stolen, remember? To take to pawn shops and the like. I think I would have remembered if he listed a witch’s heart ring.”

  “Maybe …” Quin picked up the notebook and turned to the back. This time he did pat the cushion next to him. Close. She sat, and he held the notebook between them. Carmichael’s meticulous list took up half the page. Pearl earrings, drops. Jade bracelet. Silver hammered cuff.

  “Wait.” Dini brought her finger to touch the page. “Green stone amulet. This could be it. Maybe she didn’t know it was a peridot?”

  “Or my great-great-grandpa didn’t know how to spell it.”

  “And it might have been worn on a string at one time.” She held her hand up close between them. “Or a thin chain. See? Between the little prongs in the crown. It could easily have been turned into a brooch the same as I turned it into a ring.”

  “And she wouldn’t have called it a ‘witch’s heart,’ right? Not that evening, when she was already trying to explain how she was blaming the whole thing on a ghost.”

  “Weird enough to use the term amulet.”

  “I dunno.” Quin took her hand and studied the ring. “Rattled as she was, she was still in full-on flirt mode. Amulet sounds interesting—more interesting than …”

  “Pendant,” Dini said, finding his lost word. “And it makes sense that the Sallie White thief would have kept it, especially if she knew its legend. Even today as an antique, the jeweler I took it to valued it at around two hundred dollars. It’s a cool piece to keep, not an advantageous sale.”

  “One of your ancestors might have bought it in some pawn shop.”

  “I don’t think so.” She couldn’t explain it, the way this newly opened door seemed to corral the story into closer confines.

  “Do you ever wonder who she was?”

  He was looking off and away, maybe studying the series of vintage River Walk photographs on the wall behind her, which was a good thing, because that meant he didn’t see Dini roll her eyes. A sarcastic remark sat on the tip of her tongue. Nope. Never even crossed my mind. But she knew Quin was musing out loud, his question purely rhetorical, so she came back to it from another angle.

  “There’s never been any way to know.”

  “Why do you think she didn’t just come out and say it? Give up the woman’s name and clear her own? All those people who thought she
was crazy or that she lied.”

  “All those people?”

  He sighed. “You think she was writing to an audience of one? He died before the book came out.”

  “But he was still known to be connected to the case. The Christmas picture was mailed to him from someone who didn’t know he’d left the city.”

  “She might have obtained a second copy and mailed it to the police station, knowing they would forward it. The message written on the back is pretty much what she says to Sallie when she confronts her.”

  “No, the message is what Sallie says to her.” Dini was already reaching for the envelope and tipping it to drop the photograph into her hand. She studied it, feeling the same chill as she did every time she read about it in the book—a chill that ran deeper and colder than seeing the photo itself, because she felt its impact through Hedda’s eyes. She turned it over and read the faded note.

  This night began my ruin.

  Something—some new, explosive knowledge—began to crackle at the base of Dini’s brain. “Hedda didn’t write this.”

  “How can you be sure?”

  “First, Hedda wasn’t ruined from the picture. If we believe what she wrote, and there’s no reason not to, nobody even knew about the photo for sure except for the photographer and the woman posing as Sallie.”

  “Maybe Sylvan?”

  “Maybe, but he didn’t send it either, and we couldn’t have been completely sure without this.” She traded the photograph for the detective’s notebook and turned to the page with the three questions. “It’s not her handwriting. Look at the T in This and Tennessee. Not even close.”

  “So,” Quin said, “this tells us, maybe, that the Sallie actress sent the picture—”

  “—or, the photographer.”

  “Yes, but I lean toward Sallie, since this is marked”—he held the envelope close—“January…something…1925.”

  “A month before that final meeting between she and Hedda.” Dini stood and began pacing the limited length of her living room, hoping the action might mitigate the near explosive pressure in her head. All of this now felt like a giant, fuzzy knot, and she need only find the perfect place to pick it all apart. “And both of these—mailing the photo and the meeting—are like confessions of sort. To the investigator and the victim. Almost, but not quite, turning herself in.”

  “Yes. More like a show of remorse.”

  “A confession to the universe.”

  “Or,” Quin said, “to God. We can’t always go back and undo our sins, but we can restart. Maybe she was trying to start over.”

  “A kindness. Trying to put their minds at ease and give back what she could.”

  “Right. But it still does nothing to tell us who took on the role of Sallie White.”

  Dini stopped in her steps. Her back to Quin, she twisted, moving as spontaneously as her Ugg boots would allow. The electricity in her head was nearly unbearable; her own pulse rang in her ears. The knot brazenly displayed its first vulnerable loop. “You keep saying that. Things like that.”

  He dropped the Christmas ghost photo casually on the table. “Things like what?”

  “The role of Sallie White. The actress who played the part.”

  “Well, it’s obvious somebody did. Posing for the double-exposure plate. Filmed for that Haunted Mansion trick.”

  “Pepper’s Ghost,” she corrected automatically. “It was an actress.”

  “That’s what I’ve been saying!”

  “No. She was an actress-actress.” Dini ran (shuffled, really) around the table and stopped in front of him, taking his face in her hands and planting an enthusiastic kiss on his lips while the rest of her filled with unfurling ribbons of delight. “And you know what?” she said, pulling away and jumping out of his range of recapture, “my great-great-grandfather is in this story too. At least, I think so. I might be a descendant of none other than J. P. Haley.”

  “Wait. What?” He looked so confused, so adorably confused, that every moment he’d spent nine steps ahead of her vanished in a whoosh of affection. His claim that her witch’s heart once belonged to Hedda still stung a little, but that was a matter of fresh eyes. This—this—was a detonation that could only happen with the right flame touched to the right wick. This was the final three cards in a game of Clue—only instead of the weapon and the killer and the room, the three elements needed here were the book, the notebook, and the contents of the box.

  She picked up the book and held it to her heart. “Just like Hedda wrote: the only true answers are the ones you find for yourself. So, I tell you today, that if we were casting the role of the spectral Sallie White for the film adaptation of My Spectral Accuser, she would be played by”—she paused to build anticipation and smiled as he scooted closer to the edge of the sofa—“Thalia Jean Powers.”

  The sound of a tenor sax, recorded half a century ago, filled the silence as Quin remained—somewhat deflated—sitting. “Who?”

  Not exactly the burst of enthusiasm she’d expected, but the overwhelming relief of finding the final piece of a puzzle that had been sitting—unfinished—at the edge of her consciousness for most of her adult life would not be tainted just because she had to lead Quin a little further. After all, this was relatively new to him.

  She handed him the book. “Turn to chapter 3. When Hedda goes to the theater and has her first photograph taken by J. P. Haley. See the name of the actress starring in the play?” She watched his eyes skim the pages and wanted to rip the book away to find it for herself, but patience…patience.

  “Thalia Jean Powers.” He looked up over the rim of his glasses. “But—”

  “And Hedda mentions mingling with the crowd after the show. The two might have met each other. I can imagine Hedda angling for an introduction, can’t you?”

  “Hedda doesn’t mention meeting her.”

  “Plus, I’ll bet the thin assistant helping Haley with the Christmas pictures was Thalia too.”

  “With a beard?”

  “Fake beard and tiger eyes. By the time Hedda writes her book, she knows it was Thalia Powers. And she chose not to disclose her identity.”

  “And why do you think that is?”

  “Because, no matter what her past, at her heart Hedda was a good and kind woman. Thalia suffered enough.” She looked at the assembly of items from Detective Carmichael’s box and saw each in a whole new light. “Of course,” she said, coming around and sitting down with the movie magazine in her hand. “She must be in here.” For all she knew the next few minutes, Quin might have dissolved into the carpet, or disappeared behind the paint. Her full attention was given to every page of the magazine. Every advertisement for hair crème and perfume. Every story of Hollywood scandal and gossip. Every profile of new starlets—and there she was. Her hair a mass of pinned curls, her eyes heavy with kohl. She was posed on a chaise lounge—not seductively, but definitely inviting, in a seamless sheath dress that fell to reveal all the peaks and valleys of her body. The text around her told the tale of this “exotic beauty” with “dark eyes that reached past the screen into the very soul of those poor suckers in the seats just waiting to fall in love.” She was “a chameleon.” A “goddess from ancient time.”

  What Dini hadn’t noticed the first (or tenth) time she thumbed through this magazine the other night—because she hadn’t thought to look for it—was the way this particular page was bent along the spine’s margin. This magazine had been folded to stay open to this page. And the bottom corner had been ripped away. Neatly. Like it was a page in a detective’s notebook.

  She handed the magazine gently over to Quin. “There she is.”

  He looked, and a low, appreciative whistle came through his lips. “She is gorgeous.” He looked up. “Look, I don’t want to slow your mojo here, but wasn’t Sallie White African American?”

  Dini nodded. “So is, was, Thalia Powers.”

  One eyebrow arched over the top of Quin’s glasses. “I don’t mean to be…but she doesn’t
look—”

  “Technically she was biracial. Which, being born around 1890, meant black. But she wanted to be an actress, and so she took advantage of her skin tone. She…passed, is the word. And while she wasn’t successful on stage, she starred in a few motion pictures. Until somebody—probably some actress who lost a part to her—blabbed to the studio executives. She was set to star in a romance. A black woman and a white man—they wouldn’t be able to get it into theaters. But she was still under contract with the studio, so after a couple of good roles, she was bumped to playing housekeepers and slaves.” A new thought took root. “Hold on,” she said, jumping off the couch.

  “How do you know all of this?” Her house was small enough for the question to carry. She was still in her bedroom, unplugging her laptop when she answered.

  “Once, my mother and I watched this movie, Imitation of Life. Have you seen it? It’s about a young black woman who passes as white, much to the heartbreak of her mother. I loved that movie, and Mom told me about Thalia Jean Powers. And she knew about Thalia Jean Powers because her great-grandfather was in love with her. I think her great-grandfather was J. P. Haley.”

  “You think? You’ve never heard his name?”

  She held a finger to her lips, shushing him, then kept it aloft as a reminder for as long as it took to open her laptop and click on the YouTube icon. She typed “Thalia Jean Powers” in the search bar and scrolled down to what looked like a period piece: The Rebel Was a Maiden, a Civil War film. “Come watch.” She brought her feet up and angled her body so he could see the screen. He draped an arm along the back of the couch and moved in close enough that she felt him braced against the length of her back. She tapped the arrow to play the video and paused it on the third title card. “There: ‘Photographed by J. Preston Hale.’” She twisted to face him. “That’s my great-great-grandfather. His real name. We’ve always been a show business family.”