Marcus waited inside my foyer while I dithered over coats and purses, feeling more like a girl-girl than I had for a while. Once upon a time, I had cared about things like makeup and matching purses with shoes, but I had lost that at nineteen when I'd come home from college to find my mother dead of a stroke on the kitchen floor.
She had been there for a week. My parents were divorced—my father lived in another state—and I was an only child. I had come home to surprise my mother, and instead, she had surprised me.
Marcus had a 1960s Mustang that he took out for special occasions, and apparently this ranked as one of those. He drove to the Moorhead house in silence. Normally, we would have chattered the entire way—Marcus and I share the same taste in movies, books, and politics—but those subjects paled in comparison to the house.
The Mustang rode lower than my van, so the view of the Moorhead house as we turned onto the street below seemed even more impressive than usual. This close to Christmas, you'd think other homes on the block would have decorations on the windows or lights strung outside, but the Moorhead house seemed to be the only one with Christmas spirit.
I looked up at the place as we started toward the drive, and those icicle lights still sent a chill through me. I almost told Marcus to turn around and I'd buy him dinner at a nearby steakhouse so we wouldn't waste the dress-up clothes, but I didn't. I knew better than to seem weak in front of one of my employees.
I'd learned that lesson as a female firefighter. Even when you felt uncomfortable, you took a deep breath and went into the smoke. To do anything less meant you couldn't perform your duties.
And somehow, this party had become one of my duties.
* * * *
We were arriving deliberately late. I hated showing up early to any party. Marcus pulled the Mustang into the circular drive, and my breath caught.
Some things were different: The hedges had been clipped to the bone and did not have lights hanging from them as they had that murderous Christmas season. Signs had been planted in what had been the yard but was now obviously going to be a garden, warning guests to stay on the paths. The signs had been hand-calligraphed, and looked expensive. They even had little drawings of holly around the edges.
I hated them.
Marcus looked at me as he got out of the Mustang, and then he grinned like a little boy who was about to do something wrong.
"Ready, boss?” he asked.
I'd never be ready, but I smiled gamely and put my hand on his massive arm. He helped me pick my way across the path. The air was cold and damp, but the pine boughs near the house gave off a Christmasy scent that I hadn't expected.
Suddenly I felt younger than I had in years, almost like that girl I'd left in my mother's kitchen, and my heart lifted. A party was just what I needed. If I could forget the house, or at least look on its new role as host as a personal victory, I might be able to have a good time.
We stepped onto the porch together. Inside the frosted glass windows, we could see shapes moving against yellow light.
My stomach clenched, and I swallowed convulsively.
I wasn't sure I could do this.
Marcus gave me a sideways glance. “You okay?"
I nodded because I couldn't answer. He knocked on the door.
Someone pulled it open and the smells of burning wood and baking cookies filled the air. Laughter came along with Mel Tormé's voice, singing about Jack Frost nipping at noses. The man who opened the door had a Santa hat over graying hair. The hat didn't go with his exquisitely tailored suit.
He held a glass clearly filled with eggnog in one hand. With the other, he gestured toward the interior. “Merry, merry!"
"Happy, happy,” Marcus said, making fun of him.
But the man didn't seem to notice. He clapped Marcus on the back as we walked inside.
The place was transformed. If I hadn't known it was the house in which I'd spent a week cleaning, I wouldn't have recognized it. To my right, the curved staircase was once again the center of the house. Someone had wrapped garlands of holly around the mahogany banister, probably with no thought for how old, how rare, or how valuable the wood was.
People stood on the stairs, holding drinks, talking, some looking at the portraits hung over the stairs, others heading up to see what else the house had in store.
Coats were piled on top of the telephone seat built against the wall. The carpets were gone, revealing wood floors that matched the wood trim throughout the house.
I couldn't imagine what it had cost to clean the floors. I had cleaned the carpets and recommended their removal, but no one had done that—at least not for the first family who bought the place. I had warned the realtors that if anyone took up the carpets, they might find horrible stains beneath. I had removed the rugs myself in the upstairs bedroom where two of the family members had bled to death (there was no saving those rugs, and no attempt to), but the ones down here had had bloody footprints and drag marks, and other stains that I never could quite identify.
"You're staring,” Marcus whispered.
At least, I thought he whispered it, although he might have spoken in a normal tone. The party noises going on around us made it hard to hear much more than the rumble of conversation. The music was classy and so were the people around me. Hard to believe most of them spent their days in jeans and overalls or uniforms paid for by the city.
"Sorry,” I whispered.
"Is it different?” he asked.
"Yeah."
I led Marcus into what had once been the front parlor. The pocket doors were gone, along with most of the walls that contained them, so now the front and back parlors were one room (with an arch) that modern people would call the living room.
The furniture was fake period, with a fainting couch, a regular couch, and overstuffed armchairs. Too many tables crowded the bay window, and on those tables stood food of all sorts, from cookies and sliced pies to small unidentifiable appetizers and toothpicked bits of fruit and cheese.
Marcus grabbed a small plate, shaking it with surprise. “China."
"Nothing but the best,” I muttered, and doubted he could hear me.
I couldn't eat, even if I'd wanted to. I left him there, debating whether to have strawberries dipped in chocolate or chocolate-covered cherry trifles. From a passing waiter carrying a tray of beverages on his outstretched palm, I snatched a flute of champagne, carrying it with me as I went from room to room.
The place had clearly been professionally decorated. From the furniture to the draped pine boughs and hanging mistletoe, the interior looked like something out of House Beautiful.
The Christmas tree, at the far wall of what had been the back parlor, took up so much space that it seemed to be growing out of the floor. It was decorated in silver bows, tinsel, and little silver lights that blinked on and off. An embarrassing display of packages hid the lower branches.
I knew from previous parties that the packages would be gone by the night's end, a mound of paper left for someone else to clean up, and the gifts would seem less impressive unwrapped than they did at this moment.
A Do-Not-Enter sign had been taped to the swinging kitchen door, the only infelicity in the entire place. I ignored it, and went inside anyway, drawn by the smell of baking cookies. Small women in rented tuxedos, and looking hot, wiped hair away from their faces. Two coaxed a stainless-steel dishwasher to take more dishes. Another woman bent over the stove, and yet another was placing crudités on a silver tray.
Men as tall as the women were small picked up the trays. The men also wore tuxes, but on them, the tuxes looked natural. Maybe because they were in traditional serving roles, where the women, stuck in the kitchen, should have been in simple black dresses with aprons to complete the servant illusion.
"You're not supposed to be here,” said the woman filling the trays.
"That's all right,” I said. “I used to work here."
One of the men looked at me sharply. He frowned a little, as if wondering
how anyone could have worked here, given the history of the house. Or maybe I was reading too much into a slight reaction. Maybe he thought my lame excuse for being in the kitchen was just that. I smiled at him, and slipped out of the way.
The kitchen was dramatically different, remodeled about the time of the bones discovered in the sewer drain. The stove was restaurant quality, the refrigerator one of those stainless-steel sub-zero monstrosities that looked like it could eat an entire room.
Everything was different, and somehow I found that more disconcerting than the Christmas decorations around front. When I had cleaned this place, the kitchen had been my haven—the only room without much blood in the entire house, and that blood only came from the detectives and crime-scene techs. Harmless, innocuous drops, left by people who were trying to solve the crime, not the people who had done it.
My stomach was churning. The smell of food was making me ill. I pushed open the swinging door and stepped back into the living room.
Marcus was talking to a pretty woman in a slinky blue dress. Louise was standing near the tree, gesturing at the presents. She looked even thinner than usual, her face bony, her black hair pulled into a tight bun.
Her gaze caught mine, flat and challenging. I lifted my still-full glass in a silent toast. She smiled—a real and warm smile, something I had never seen from her before—and raised her glass as well. We drank in concert from separate parts of the room as if we were old friends.
"I see you've kissed and made up.” Greg Raabe, the deputy mayor who had told me about this debacle, had sidled up beside me. He knew how much I disliked Louise, and how that feeling seemed to be mutual.
I turned to him and smiled. He no longer looked like the boy I'd dated in school. That boy had been reedy slender and blond, with no muscles at all. His bright blue eyes had dominated his face.
The eyes remained the same, dominating and filled with personality, but the rest of him had changed. He was as heavy as he had once been slight, and in place of those visible ribs were rock-hard abs from all the weights he lifted. He ate to compensate for the tension, I think, because he didn't drink or smoke, and to compensate for the eating, he exercised.
"There was no kissing,” I said to him, happier than I wanted to be to see him. “I just saluted her, that's all. This is quite the party."
"This is quite the expense,” he said. “Imagine what the council will say when they see this on the city budget."
I grinned. “Fortunately, that's not my job."
"But it could be mine,” he said, looking at Louise talking to the man near the presents. “I was kind of hoping that once she had her stepping-stone to the governorship, I could become mayor."
"One party won't get in the way,” I said.
"You're assuming that this party is the only budget item that'll bother them.” He sighed and grabbed his own champagne flute from a passing waiter.
I looked up at the waiter as he went by. It was the man who had frowned in the kitchen. He looked familiar. His skin was a ruddy color that wasn't common in the Pacific Northwest, except among people who worked on the ocean. He had a square jaw, and hard cheekbones, the kind I always associated with those 1930s pictures of Aryan youth.
"Know him?” Greg asked.
"He looks familiar,” I said as he went into the kitchen. “Does he to you?"
"In a generic waiterly way.” Greg smiled. “I told Louise we should have dancing, but she didn't listen to me."
"There's no room,” I said. Besides, Greg wouldn't have been able to dance with me even if there had been music. His wife Emma pretended that the fact that we'd dated didn't bother her, when, in fact, it was very clear that it did.
I scanned the room, but didn't see her. “Is Emma upstairs?"
The smile left his face. “She wouldn't come."
"Because of the house?” I asked.
"Because of the separation.” His voice was low. “She doesn't like my ambitions."
Emma had always wanted Greg to settle down and make money. He had always been more interested in public service than in making monetary use of his expensive law degree. Apparently the fights had come to a head.
"When did you separate?” I asked.
He shushed me and whispered, “Not everyone knows."
"Sorry,” I said.
"It happened last week. I have an apartment near City Hall, which I'd had anyway. I guess I knew this was coming."
Everyone had known this was coming, maybe even from the moment the vows were taken. But Greg seemed quietly devastated.
I put my hand on his shoulder, startled to feel the same kind of muscles I had felt on Marcus. “I'm really sorry,” I said again.
Greg grinned. The look didn't quite meet his eyes. “No, you're not. You never liked Emma."
Not many of his friends had, and I always figured the ones who had liked her just pretended for Greg's sake.
"I am sorry,” I said. “For you. This is hard."
"Yeah,” he said, and then sighed. “Duty beckons."
Duty didn't, but Louise did. She was waving him over with a hand so manicured I could see the shine of the nail polish from here. Time for the packages. I hoped they got to my name quickly. I was ready to leave.
Marcus had left his new conquest and came over beside me. “Did you check the upstairs?"
I shook my head. I hadn't forgotten the upstairs, but I didn't see the need to torture myself. “I ducked into the kitchen for a while."
Which reminded me of the waiter, whom I no longer saw. “Did you notice that waiter, the one who looked like he'd been a member of the Hitler Youth?"
"No,” Marcus said. “Why?"
Greg had clapped his hands for quiet. I sighed. I knew this drill. First they'd demand silence, then they'd hand out gifts. Louise worked off a list. I had noted last year that the city contractors like me got one of two things: an espresso maker (if the city had spent a lot of money on you) or a care basket filled with all kinds of city products, like salmon and some of our famous cheese and locally grown filberts.
I, of course, had gotten a care basket, even though the city spent a lot of money on our services. I thought that it was merely an oversight, then Greg had reminded me that we weren't listed in the budget. We were buried in other line items. So no one really knew how much money we made cleaning up local property except maybe Debbie and me.
Greg started calling out names. The man beside Louise handed out the packages, and Louise kept charge of the list. People walked up, got large gaudily wrapped gifts, and then walked away, grinning.
Marcus rolled his eyes. “How long is this going to take?"
"Usually about an hour,” I said. “You want to go back and make goo-goo eyes at that sweet young thing?"
"She's hard to talk to,” he said.
"Because?” I asked.
His face shut down. “Because I told her what I do."
That was one of the major drawbacks to our business. People thought we were on the level of gravediggers and morticians. Even the popularity of programs like CSI, which made one small aspect of death work glamorous, didn't spill over to us.
"Tough break,” I said.
He shrugged. “Anyone with reactions like that's too shallow for me."
But he didn't sound sincere. And then he took my champagne and finished it for me. I watched him drink another, and decided that at some point in the evening I'd have to wrestle the Mustang's keys from him and get us home.
* * * *
It took two more hours before we could leave. I never did see the waiter again, but I got absorbed in my present—a small wireless weather-forecasting kit, with barometer and thermometer, something that actually appealed to my scientific sensibilities. Marcus slowed on the drinks—he'd found another pretty woman to chat up, and apparently this time he didn't make the mistake of telling her what he did—and I didn't want to interrupt his rhythm.
I looked at the stairs twice, but I didn't go up them. I searched for Greg, and found
Louise instead. She was leaning against a side of the arch, holding but not drinking a glass of champagne. She watched the proceedings with tired eyes.
When she saw me, she smiled again.
I wasn't sure I liked that. Two real smiles from Louise in one evening. Something had to be wrong.
"It's going well, isn't it?” she asked.
"Better than I would have thought,” I said.
She sipped the champagne—or pretended to. Maybe that was one of her secrets. Pretending to drink when everyone around her got blotto.
"It's a tribute to you people,” she said.
At first, I thought she meant the little people, the non-politicos, and then I realized she actually meant us, Dusty's Cleaning.
"Thanks,” I said, glancing at those stairs.
"I mean it,” she said. “This place is cheerful. Who would have thought?"
I looked at her. Her entire face looked tired, and she was too thin. Maybe it was the strain of the party, or maybe something else had gone wrong in her life. I wasn't sure, and I wasn't about to ask.
"It's what we do,” I said.
"Exorcise the ghosts,” she said, as if in agreement.
But the ghosts weren't exorcised for me. They still lurked beneath the party favors and the seasonal joy. When this crowd left, and the caterers finished, when the last staff member shut off the lights, the house would revert to its post-murder self. The high-velocity spatter would paint itself on the walls, the cries would echo in the upstairs bedroom, and the blood would seep into the rugs.
I shuddered. I couldn't help it.
Of course, Louise noticed. “Does it still bother you?"
"Sometimes,” I said before I could stop myself, “I think places like this should be burned."
Louise frowned at me. “That's an odd sentiment, coming from you."
I shrugged. “There are some places,” I said, “that never get entirely clean."
* * * *
The dream came as it often did. It started with my mother. She was on the floor of our kitchen, the smell of Lemon Pledge filling the air. When she saw me, she stood, apologized, and offered to cook. I thought it inappropriate to have the newly dead make the meal, and I told her so, even though I knew I was disappointing her.
EQMM, January 2008 Page 14
