ARC: The Buried Life

by Carrie Patel

  “If you continue to visit my clients while I’m making rounds, then I suppose we will.”

  “If you continue to eavesdrop during said rounds, I’m certain we will.”

  Jane started, taken by surprise and wondering if she should also feel frightened. So this was why he had accompanied her. “I wasn’t…”

  “Of course you were, I can see it in your face. Don’t look so upset. In your place, I would have done the same.”

  She did not find this reassuring, but it seemed pointless to argue. “How could you tell?”

  The look on his face, and the memory of her blush, suggested that this was a silly question. “By your expression, Jane. When you rounded the corner.”

  “I almost ran into you.”

  “It wasn’t the surprise, it was the recognition. And the guilt. You gave yourself away,” he said, smiling faintly.

  “I was waiting for Lena to return with my next commission. I couldn’t help overhearing you in the next room.”

  “Then you heard what we said?”

  “Some of it.”

  “I would advise you not to repeat any of it. There are more dangerous ears than mine.”

  A chill tickled her spine. “I promise, I’m always discreet with my–”

  He laughed. “Don’t worry, Jane, that wasn’t a threat. An inquisitive little laundress is no concern of mine.”

  “Not your dirty laundry, you mean.”

  Roman looked into the street. “It’s late, Miss Lin. Perhaps you should finish your errands tomorrow.”

  The only thing worse than continuing to Director Fitzhugh’s house would be delaying the errand any longer. “A gentleman needs his clothes. I doubt the hour will excuse me from deliveries if I want to keep my commissions.”

  “Surely it would if your client is indeed a gentleman.”

  Hearing such solicitousness from a man who had walked a fine line between threatening and warning her moments ago prickled. “I do this almost every evening, Mr Arnault. Tonight is no different.”

  “I don’t doubt your ability, I only refer to the unfortunate events of last night. With a murderer on the streets, you might be safer inside at this hour.”

  “As I recall,” she said, angling her head up at Roman, “the victim died in his own house. In that case, I’m much better off out here.”

  “Perhaps so. Take care of yourself, though. Yes?”

  Jane answered with a civil bow. Roman elbowed the gate open for her, and she found herself once more in the streets and a little relieved to escape his commanding nonchalance. Her face burned at the idea that he was possibly still watching her, but she suppressed the urge to look back until she reached the intersection. When she did, she saw only Councilor Hollens’s garden, still but for the twinkling of tiny lights.

  Despite her unease, Jane found herself hoping that he was right, that they would meet again.

  Not that it was likely after her next stop. She continued through the underground streets. The merry flocks and tender pairs of earlier had vanished, leaving the only movement to the lamps which now burned a deeper, pensive blue.

  Director Fitzhugh’s street was, if possible, even quieter than the others at this hour. She approached his door and tapped. Mr Fitzhugh lived alone, his scant domestic help boarding elsewhere. Unless Mrs Lefevre, the housekeeper, had stayed behind to witness her humiliation and pass final judgment on her plain shoes, Jane would have to face Mr Fitzhugh himself.

  In the silence that followed, she decided. She would tell Mr Fitzhugh about the missing button. Someone would eventually notice the absence, and better to explain herself now than live in apprehension.

  And yet no one came to the door. Returning home now was out of the question. Jane knocked again, harder, and the door groaned open.

  No one was on the other side. A chill rippled through her, and she nudged the door open further. Mr Fitzhugh or a guest must have accidentally left it ajar. She ventured inside, calling softly, “Mr Fitzhugh? Are you there, sir?”

  Something tinkled across the floor as she crossed the threshold. She followed the sound and picked up something small and cold, holding it near the door. A cuff link. Real gold. Valuable enough that it might make up for the missing button. Jane advanced into the blackness.

  The darkness in the hall sucked up the faint blue glow from the street. She remembered his residence well enough to navigate through the pitch black, so she tiptoed through the entry hall and into the parlor, feeling more and more like an intruder. Patting the walls for a gaslight control, her fingers came to rest on a switch. She thumbed it several times without igniting even a flicker. Above her head she heard the sound of a faint creaking, like a tread on the ancient, wooden floors. She whispered again in the darkness, searching for Mr Fitzhugh.

  Jane considered the awkwardness of her position. Suppose he was sleeping and awoke to find her rummaging around in the dark, uninvited. How would that look? Yet suppose he had had an accident and needed help. Maybe, she thought, he had left the door open for her. How then could she explain herself if she left? She pressed on, realizing that, more than anything, she simply wasn’t willing to turn back now that she’d made up her mind about the button. Somewhere above and closer now, the rhythmic creaking continued.

  Stretching out her hands and feeling her way through a doorframe, she crossed into another indiscernible room. Unexpectedly, her foot caught on something on the floor and she stumbled, falling to the ground with a gasp. She twisted off of her stomach and felt for the lump that had caused her fall. Her fingers alighted on something big: a bulky cloth bundle that yielded to her touch. Grasping blindly at its extremities and beginning to appreciate the length of the pile, she had a capricious fancy, which started, unwelcome, to materialize into something more concrete.

  Feeling from a firm, tapered section a few feet in length, she grabbed an odd shape that felt like polished leather. She pictured the object in her mind’s eye and envisioned its liquid shine. Jane reached further and felt a hard surface beneath it and, pulling back, touched strings. Laces. A shoe. Which meant…

  Still brushing her fingers cautiously along the pile, she touched what was, unmistakably, a human hand. Running her hands further, she came to the neck and gingerly felt the bald pate, hooked nose, and long face of what she had every reason to believe was Lanning Fitzhugh. No pulse, but the body was still warm. He could not have died long ago.

  Several things occurred to Jane at once.

  The first was that the footsteps above had stopped. Through her mind ran belated admonitions for not having some inkling of the situation sooner, for having so rudely entered uninvited in the first place, for not listening to Roman Arnault, and, most of all, for not knowing what to do next. Mercifully, these thoughts were soon stifled by instinct.

  In the split seconds of silence as she knelt, listening, she wondered if perhaps the intruder above her had already left through the surface exit. Maybe he had never noticed her. Her gut gave a sickening twist as she decided that this was unlikely. If he had not heard her knock, he would have heard her call. If he had not heard her call, he would have heard her tumble. Or would he? The merest glimmer of relief appeared as she reasoned that she might even have scared him away.

  These feeble hopes crumbled when she heard the footsteps resume overhead.

  With mounting horror, Jane realized that the footsteps were moving toward the stairs. As their doomful cadence drew closer, her ability to run was sapped. The adrenaline pumping through her system buzzed and prickled her nerves, but her legs felt weak and shaky. Besides, she was not even certain that she could make it to the door in time, assuming that she could navigate the halls again in the dark and then outrun the other visitor in the streets.

  Shuffling on carpet: the intruder was halfway down the stairs. Thinking back to the dim avenues, she did not remember seeing anyone out after leaving Hollens’s residence. Even if she made it out the door, what then?

  Silent te
ars blurred her eyes as she groped at the mantel beside her, searching for some form of aid. The tread was just outside the room. Her fingers closed around a heavy candlestick, which she brought close to her chest, clutching it in her nearest imitation of a defensive posture. Backing away from the body, she tiptoed to a corner.

  At that moment, a hand wrapped around her neck and something sharp pierced her skin. Mental blackness advanced seamlessly from the dark and overcame her.

  Chapter 5

  Indefinitely

  When Jane opened her eyes again, it was heavily and with abstract confusion. A spot on the back of her head throbbed and, as she moved her arm to touch it, she felt the fresh softness of new bed sheets. The movement left her head reeling, and she squinted and grasped the sheets to steady herself. Opening her eyes more widely and looking around, she saw much that she did not recognize, but, fortunately, one thing she did.

  Fredrick stood in the corner of a clean, bright hospital room, watching Jane. As her gaze lighted on him, he smiled and approached the side of her bed.

  “You’re awake. You’ve been in and out since you got here, but you hadn’t so much as batted an eyelash for an hour. You had me worried.”

  “Where am I?” The words felt thick and cottony in her mouth.

  “You’re in the hospital. They brought you in late last night.”

  “Last night? What time is it now?”

  “It’s Saturday morning. You’ve been here for almost seven hours, Jane, but that wouldn’t surprise you if you could see the knock on the back of your head. You should be just fine, but the doctors wanted to keep an eye on you, not to mention keep you away from further harm.” He broke off and regarded her. “Do you remember anything?”

  A jumble of images and sensations rushed through her mind as she tried to recall the events of the previous night. “The Vineyard. A laundry run. But you’re looking at me like there was something else. What happened?”

  Fredrick looked grave and completely unlike himself. “I’d better let them talk to you about it. You stumbled upon a murder, Jane. And by the bruises on your hands and knees, quite literally.”

  At that statement, the disorganized thoughts tangled in Jane’s subconscious rose to her waking mind and arranged themselves in disturbing rank and file. She pushed herself upright in her bed as Fredrick disappeared and returned with two unfamiliar visitors.

  The first was a woman with short, platinum hair and an androgynous face that looked like it had been hewn from marble. She took a seat next to the bedside while the other – a handsome young man with friendly, graceful features – stood a short distance away with Fredrick. Both wore black overcoats with silver badges.

  Even sitting, the lady inspector seemed tall. What struck Jane most, though, were her pale blue eyes. In a dark room, Jane would have expected them to glow. Her voice was only a little softer than her gaze. “Miss Lin, I’m Inspector Malone, and this is my partner, Inspector Sundar. How’s the head?”

  “Alright, I guess.” Jane could feel the distant echo of an oncoming headache, but she estimated that she had a few hours before it hit in earnest.

  “I’d like to ask you about last night,” Inspector Malone said, watching Jane.

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “You went to the Vineyard.”

  “Yes,” Jane said.

  “Your purpose?”

  “My work.”

  “As a laundress.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” Jane expected Malone to pull out a pen and notepad at any moment to record her answers, but doing so would have required the inspector to break her frozen stare, and that did not appear forthcoming.

  “How often do you go to the Vineyard?”

  “Four or five days a week, sometimes more.”

  “How many clients do you have there?”

  “Twenty-three households.” Jane hesitated. “Twenty-two now. I can give you the names.”

  “Later. You work for an exclusive lot. How did you get those jobs?”

  Jane shrugged. The motion was strangely painful. “You start with one or two and get a reputation.”

  Malone blinked for what seemed like the first time. “Most of them keep domestics.”

  Jane was having a little trouble distinguishing Malone’s questions from statements of fact. “Not everyone keeps a full staff – some like their privacy even more than service. Some won’t spare the rooms. Besides, I’m a specialist. Houses with full-time domestics don’t send me the everyday things, like towels or unstained clothes, but whatever requires finesse goes to me.”

  “What kind of laundry requires finesse?” the young inspector, Sundar, asked from the door.

  “Delicates, Inspector. Whitenails like a lot of fine materials – chiffon, lace, and the like – and those don’t do well in your standard wash. Beyond that, I can remove stains, fix tears, and resize garments. Most importantly, though, the whitenails trust me.”

  Malone nodded, signaling for Jane to explain.

  “As you can imagine, they don’t allow just anyone into their homes, and they’re picky about who goes through their dirty laundry… if you know what I mean. They pay well for discretion.” Out of the corner of her eye, Jane saw Inspector Sundar perk up at the word, like a terrier scenting a rat, but Inspector Malone remained cool.

  “Do you know something dangerous about these people?” Inspector Malone said.

  Jane shook her head. “No, nothing like that. But you can tell a lot about a person by their dirty clothes. I have several clients with some, ah, unusual hobbies.”

  “Please elaborate.”

  “It’s nothing illegal, of course, just things they wouldn’t want the neighbors to know about.” These were secrets that a less scrupulous employee might sell for a handsome price. But not a price that would make up for the loss of business. “I can’t tell you who, but I have a few who are pretty active in their evenings, if you catch my meaning. I also serve a couple that goes walking in the wilderness on the weekends. Spending that much time outdoors and away from the city would be scandalous enough for you or me, but can you imagine as a whitenail? You can’t explain grass stains to the neighbors.”

  From his spot near the door, Inspector Sundar smirked.

  “You don’t understand,” Jane said to him. “Some in that crowd are so traditional that they never even use the surface streets, no matter what the underground traffic’s like. I’ve met a lady who keeps her nails six inches long. Silly, I know, but that’s the world my clients live in.”

  “Understood, Miss Lin,” Malone said, giving her partner a brief, steadying glance. “Now, it’s time to discuss the attack.” She looked at Jane as if this were an invitation rather than an imperative.

  “OK.” Jane took a deep breath, the air cold in her lungs.

  “Very good. Sundar,” Malone said, and the young man began to escort Fredrick out of the room.

  “Wait,” Jane said, “I’d like him to stay. It’ll help me,” she added, searching the inspectors’ expressions. Sundar looked at Malone and nodded.

  Malone seemed to repress a sigh. “Whatever makes you comfortable,” said she. “Tell us what happened, beginning with the moment you left home last night.”

  Jane took another steadying breath and began her story. She described everything in as much detail as she could remember, taking the detectives with her from house to house along her route, through the railcar tunnels, and to the Vineyard.

  Inspector Malone looked on, her expression unchanged. “At Fitzhugh’s, how many sets of footsteps did you hear?”

  “Just one.”

  “When did you first hear it?”

  “Hard to say, but not long after I entered the house. Maybe half a minute. I didn’t think much of it at the time.” Jane imagined Inspector Malone chiding her about her imprecision.

  “And when did you hear the footsteps stop?”

  “Well, after I saw the body,” she said, “I panicked, and whoever else was t
here must have heard me. That’s when I stopped to listen. I thought for a moment that the stranger had gone, but that quickly changed.” Jane shuddered at the memory.

  Malone leaned in, homing in on the details. “Did you hear the footsteps enter the room where you were hiding, Miss Lin?”

  Jane’s brow furrowed. She didn’t remember that, but after a while it had been difficult to hear over the pounding of blood in her ears. “I don’t think so.”

  The inspector’s eyes shone with mysterious significance. “What happened to the footsteps?”

  The closer things got to her moment of unconsciousness, the more jumbled and mangled the memories seemed, like a crashed railcar accordioning at the point of impact. “I can’t remember. After a point, I lost track of everything. The footsteps got to the stairs. Then I heard them outside the room. After that, I just remember waiting in the darkness.”

  Malone nodded and relaxed her focus. “You said the door was open when you arrived.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Why did you leave it open?”

  “I didn’t.”

  “Are you certain?” asked Malone, showing the first sign of misgiving.

  “Yes,” Jane said. “I know I shut that door behind me. It was what caught my attention in the first place.”

  Malone shifted in her chair. The lack of clarity seemed to unsettle her. “The domicile was dark. You would have seen better with the door open.”

  Jane shook her head. “Not really. The light from the streetlamps didn’t make a real difference a few feet into the hall. It seems foolish now, but, at the time, I was more worried about someone else following me in.” She looked from Malone to Sundar. “Is this important?”