The Boy in the Red Dress

by Kristin Lambert

  I shuffled over and held the receiver between our ears. I was distracted by her arm curving around my back, her cheek so close to mine, but then the person on the telephone spoke.

  “Miss Coleman? This is Harvey at the Lafayette Cemetery. You told me to call if I saw anyone at that tomb.”

  “Yes.” My heart beat faster and not just from Olive being beside me. “Did you see anything?”

  “Well, I sorta did. But I don’t know if it’s anything.”

  “Just tell me, and we’ll see.”

  “Okay.” Mr. Harvey hiccuped. “There was a girl this afternoon, right before five. I know because it was almost time to close the gates. I’d about forgotten what you said about watching that tomb, but then I noticed that’s where that girl was heading. She was about the only one left in the cemetery.”

  “What did she look like?”

  “Reddish hair. Young, maybe eighteen or twenty?”

  I glanced at Olive out of the corner of my eye. She squeezed my arm just below the elbow. Symphony.

  “And what did she do, Mr. Harvey?

  “Wasn’t nothing too unusual at first. Just crouched down there in front of the tomb and put some flowers in the vase. I figured she was just a girl, just a friend, and not the sort you were looking for, so I was going to leave her to mourn in peace, but then she started talking. I guess she thought nobody was around.”

  My breath caught in my throat. “What did she say?”

  “It wasn’t like she said anything bad, it just gave me a funny feeling I ought to call you.”

  “What was it, Mr. Harvey?” I asked again.

  “Okay, well, she said something like, ‘It was his fault, all of it. I know you could’ve loved me if you weren’t so consumed with him. The police won’t seem to do their job. That leaves only me.’”

  “Did she say who she meant?”

  “Somebody named Mary, I think? Which didn’t make no sense with what she was saying, talking about a man and all.”

  I was suddenly itching to hang up, itching to go home. A bad feeling was creeping up my chest and down my limbs to my very fingertips.

  “Did she say or do anything else, Mr. Harvey?”

  “Not as I can recall. She just stood up and kissed her fingers and touched that girl’s name on the marble tablet and left. I ducked back between the tombs and watched her go. She was the last one out, and I locked up the gates after her. I had to finish my rounds and all, and then I had a drink down at the . . .” He coughed. “I mean, I . . . just had a little break after work with some friends . . . and I kept remembering that red-haired girl and thinking maybe I ought to call you, and so now here I am.”

  That explained the hiccups. “Thank you, Mr. Harvey. You did the right thing.”

  “I don’t know if—”

  But I hung up the receiver before he could finish. I looked around at Olive and Lewis, their eyes wide.

  “What is it?” Lewis said.

  “Marion.” The breath caught in my chest. “I think she’s after Marion.”

  That’s when the emergency bell rang overhead, loud and shrill as a scream.

  CHAPTER

  31

  NIGHT HAD FALLEN, and a bright moon hung low over the buildings. Olive and I ran across the courtyard, Lewis trailing not far behind. Even from a few feet away, I saw that the back door of my apartment building had been tampered with. We always kept it shut tight and locked. Now it was open a few inches, and neither Cal nor our neighbors would ever leave it like that.

  Up close, it was clear from the splintered wood that the door had been jimmied open. Olive and I looked at each other in escalated alarm. Behind us, Lewis’s breaths came fast and shallow.

  I took out my switchblade, and Olive reached into her dress pocket and produced one of her own. We pressed the levers at the same time, and our two blades popped out with a pleasing double snick.

  “I knew I liked you,” I whispered.

  “You did?” Olive said, but I was already pushing the door open and creeping into the small, empty hallway, lit only by the orange light leaking out of the foyer up ahead. We hurried down the hallway into the foyer, and my gaze followed the staircase upward to our apartment, where Marion had rung the alarm.

  I waved for Olive and Lewis to follow me up the stairs, and we crept upward slowly in single file. I skipped the third stair from the bottom, which always creaked, and held out an arm to stop Olive beside me on the landing, my favorite eavesdropping spot. Lewis stopped one step down from us. I pointed up to the transom window over our door. It was open an inch.

  I held a finger over my lips. A female voice floated over the transom, and it wasn’t Mama’s or Cal’s.

  Symphony, I mouthed, and Olive adjusted her grip on her knife. Lewis’s brown eyes were wide with terror and worry. I was scared and worried, too, somewhere deep in my mind, but I couldn’t let those feelings rise to the surface. Not now.

  We crept up the last six steps and listened again. Symphony was speaking.

  “Now write this: ‘I deeply regret my actions and can no longer live with the guilt. I must face the consequences.’”

  There was a long pause, as I guessed Marion was obeying. Then he spoke, sounding defiant, angry. “Are you the one who vandalized the Cloak and Dagger?”

  Symphony sneered. “I don’t care about that club. I care about Arimentha. I’m the only one who really did.”

  “If that’s true, why don’t you want to find out who really killed her? Why do you want them to arrest an innocent man?”

  “Because you’re not innocent. Maybe you didn’t push her off that balcony, but your actions led her there. You made her—”

  “Made her what? How did I make her do anything?”

  Paper rattled. Feet tapped across the floor. “Because she loved you. Because you’re the only one she loved. She refused to move on with her life until she found you and fixed whatever was between you. I told her not to bother, I told her you were the one who left. To let you go. But she wouldn’t listen.”

  I crept up the last few steps, with Olive and Lewis close behind me. I tested the doorknob. Symphony hadn’t locked it behind her. Slowly, I turned the knob, eased the door open a crack, and peeked through it.

  “Did she tell you why I left?” Marion said. I could see a sliver of him now, sitting at Cal’s desk in the far corner of the living room.

  “She said you two had a falling out.” Symphony appeared in front of him and disappeared again. She was pacing. I saw the metallic flash of a gun in her hand under the single light bulb. “Arimentha was so intent on making up with you. It was ridiculous. And you made it happen. You’re the reason we were even at that club. If you’d never—”

  “Can I show you something?” Marion’s chair scraped against the floor as he pushed it back. “I have it in my pocket. The note she wrote to me that night.”

  Symphony stopped pacing in front of him, hesitated. She was curious. So was I. Marion had never shown it to me, had hardly mentioned it since. “Read it to me.”

  Marion half stood and slid the note out of his back trousers pocket. He unfolded it on the desk, on top of the confession he was supposed to be writing, which no doubt would smear the fresh ink. Was this strategic on his part? He cleared his throat and started reading.

  Dear Marion,

  I address this to the name you’ve chosen, rather than the name I knew you by. I believe perhaps you are no longer the person I knew at all, but this new being I failed to know.

  I wish you could’ve told me long ago the truth of who you are. I wish I knew for sure I would’ve accepted it and loved you anyway. I wish you’d had nothing to fear from me. But we saw that wasn’t true.

  I swear I didn’t know what your brother would do to you. I didn’t know he was so cruel. And when I found out about the asylum, much later, I stopped spe
aking with him.

  Tonight, when I stood there staring at you on that stage, I knew I’d been a fool to ever try and make you into someone else, just for my own benefit. You looked beautiful up there, darling. I mean it, you did.

  I love you still, my dear friend. I was a selfish fool, and I hope you can forgive me one day.

  Much love,

  Arimentha

  There were tears in his voice by the end, and tears in my eyes, too. If she’d gotten the chance to give him this note, would he have forgiven her? Or would it still have been too late? She’d changed, she’d apologized, but sometimes it still wasn’t enough to erase the damage done. And now she’d paid for her mistakes in spades.

  “Let me see that,” Symphony said, snatching up the note from the table.

  “Do you honestly believe that after I read that note,” Marion said quietly, “I would’ve thrown her off a balcony?”

  “Maybe you didn’t read it first.” Her hand holding the note trembled. “Maybe”—she shook her head fiercely—“no, it doesn’t matter anyway. She’s dead, and it’s your fault. Write it. Write that it’s your fault.”

  “Writing it doesn’t make it true, you know,” Marion said. “Writing it doesn’t erase what really happened.”

  “Do it,” Symphony said, her voice wavering but her gun arm steady.

  “What do you plan to do with me afterward?” Marion said. “Kill me and make it look like a suicide?”

  “If need be.”

  That was it. I couldn’t wait anymore. I slammed the door open, not caring that I was bringing a literal knife to a gunfight.

  “I’m sorry, Symphony. You’re not killing anybody today.”

  Marion’s mouth dropped open and eyes widened. Symphony swung halfway toward me, raising her gun, then seemed to realize she shouldn’t turn her back on Marion. She retreated a step, keeping her eyes on us both, fingers fumbling to steady the gun.

  Olive entered the room and stood just behind me to my right. Lewis didn’t appear, but I couldn’t spare a glance to see where he’d gone. I evaluated our situation. Two switchblades were no match for a gun, if Symphony knew how to shoot straight. And we had no way of knowing if she could until she shot at us and either hit or missed.

  “Stop right where you are!” Symphony flung Minty’s note back on the table and steadied her gun with her other hand. We stopped, our knife arms outstretched, and a frantic expression flashed in Symphony’s eyes.

  “Go away,” she said. “This has to be done.”

  “I’m afraid we can’t let you hurt Marion.”

  “I—I’m not going to hurt him. I want to see justice done. That’s all.”

  “Justice? Oh, Symphony.” I shook my head. “You know he didn’t kill her. You know who did.”

  “I—I don’t—” she spluttered. “It’s his fault.”

  “His fault blah, blah, blah. You just want to find someone to blame, so you don’t have to blame yourself. So you don’t have to face what you did.”

  “No.” She shook her head. “That isn’t true. I loved Arimentha.”

  “Oh, we know you did. You really loved her, Juliette.”

  Symphony’s shoulders twitched, wobbling the gun. “How?” She shook her head again. “No. I—I’m not—”

  Marion’s hand crept toward Cal’s notoriously sharp letter opener. If he got it, we’d have three knives versus one wobbly gun. I liked those odds a little better.

  I had to keep Symphony talking, distracted. “How did it happen? That night? You must’ve been angry, but why?”

  “I don’t know what you mean.”

  Marion’s fingers closed over the letter opener. His eyes flicked up and met mine.

  I took a step closer and slightly to the left.

  Symphony stared at me, wild-eyed. “Stop there. Stop. I will shoot.”

  “Wouldn’t be the first girl you killed, would it?”

  Symphony blinked. “I didn’t—it was . . .” She trailed off.

  “An accident?”

  She stiffened her shoulders, squared her jaw. Didn’t answer.

  “Was that it?” I said, gentling my voice as I eased another step closer. “You didn’t mean to do it? Maybe you argued, and things got out of hand?”

  “We . . .” The gun shook in her hand.

  “Why were you on that balcony, Symphony? Did you take her there?”

  “Stop.”

  “You’d been at the club before that night, hadn’t you? You’d been there loads of times.”

  She looked at me, surprised. “How do you kn—” But she stopped herself from finishing the sentence.

  “I know because you seemed to figure out right away the night of the murder that Marion was my friend. You’d seen us together before, hadn’t you? And that made you suspect I was trying to protect him.”

  “That means nothing. You were behaving suspiciously. Anyone could see that.”

  “And our bartender saw someone who looks like you trying to pick up Minty that night. You knew just where to take her, too, once you persuaded her.”

  “I . . . I don’t know what you mean.”

  “Sure you do. It must’ve been a while since you came there, since Olive didn’t recognize you.”

  “Maybe not since before she started her fling with Minty,” Marion suggested.

  Symphony turned a sharp glare on him. “It wasn’t a ‘fling.’ I loved her. And she . . . she would’ve loved me, but you ruined her. She couldn’t think about anything else. All she wanted to do was go back and give you that stupid note. It was like she couldn’t be whole again until she patched things up with you. She didn’t have room in her heart for me.”

  “Or for Bennie either,” I said.

  “Bennie?” Marion said, looking up in surprise.

  “Bennie?” Symphony said coldly, her expression turning haughty. “Is he the one she met at the Felicity all those times?”

  “You’re jealous of Marion but not him? Why?”

  “I knew she didn’t care about that boy at the Felicity. She was just having fun with him. Marion she loved. And yet he rejected her.”

  “How do you know she wasn’t just having fun with you?”

  “I—I—” Symphony faltered. “I just know.”

  “I know what that’s like,” Olive said, edging closer, too. “I know it’s hard to find someone who seems perfect to you, who seems to like you, too, but they’re always just out of reach. It can make you frustrated. Angry sometimes.”

  Marion eased himself out of his chair while Symphony’s eyes were on Olive. I inched farther left.

  “Maybe,” Olive continued, “when she invited you to the club that night, and you knew what kind of club it was, you hoped this was a sign she was really ready to be with you. You took her upstairs, anticipating your Juliet and Juliette moment. But she was distracted, worried about giving that note to Marion. You kept going with the speech you’d planned anyway, hoping. But then she shot you down. Said she wasn’t ready to love anyone. That she wasn’t a whole person anymore and wouldn’t be until she resolved this thing with Marion. And you got angry. Angry at yourself as much as at her. And you pushed.”

  Symphony’s eyes brimmed with tears. I expected her to deny it again, but her shoulders sagged, the gun sagging, too, aiming more at my calves than my chest. “I . . . I was angry, but I didn’t mean . . . it was only a little push, I swear it! But she tripped on the hem of her dress. She stumbled . . . I tried to grab her, but the momentum took her over, and all I had in my hands were the beads from her dress.” Tears leaked down Symphony’s cheeks. “I didn’t want her to die. I . . . loved her. I . . .”

  “Why didn’t you tell that to the cops then?” Olive said, attracting her focus again so I could slip a little closer and switch my knife to my left hand. I clenched it tightly, ignoring the pain
in my palm. “You’re a rich white girl—they would’ve believed you.”

  “Because . . . because I was angry. Angry she was dead. And I wished it was him that went over that balcony instead of her.” Her eyes went hot and swung to Marion again. “So I decided. I knew she had that note to him in her hand. I knew his dressing room was right down the hall. They’d blame him for her murder. And I’d let them. Then he’d get the punishment he deserved for ruining her life. And mine.”

  “You read Minty’s letter, Symphony,” Marion said. “I didn’t ruin anything for her. She made a mistake that ruined mine. Or would have if I’d let it. But I left my old life behind and made a new one. Now you’re trying to take it away because of your mistake. But I won’t let you.”

  “Neither will I,” Olive said.

  I spoke with my knife. I lunged at Symphony and jabbed with my left hand under her ribs while I shoved up on her arms with my right. The gun went off, and Marion and Olive ducked. A bullet hole appeared in the ceiling, and plaster sprinkled down on Olive’s hair like powdered sugar on a beignet.

  The knife had been stopped by Symphony’s sturdy wool jacket, but I’d knocked her off balance, and I tackled her to the ground. Instead of fighting me off, she hung on to the gun with both hands.

  “Stay back!” I yelled to Marion and Olive. Symphony had already shown she wasn’t afraid to pull the trigger. I jabbed the point of my knife hard into her side so she could feel it even through the layers of wool. “Let go of the gun.”

  “No!” she grunted. “Get off me!”

  She released her grip on the gun with one hand and used the other to bash me in the side of the head with it.

  “Ow!” I yelled, and loosened my hold on her enough that she scrambled backward across the floor.

  Symphony’s arm swung from me to Marion and back. Her perfectly coiffed auburn hair was mussed now, and there was a gash in her wool jacket.

  “Stop! I will shoot! I will shoot you all!”

  “All?” I said. “Maybe you’ll get one of us before we get you. But only one, and the rest of us will come for you, so you’d better choose wisely. Who do you think can do you the most damage?”