Lies in White Dresses

by Sofia Grant

  “Let’s not waste another minute thinking about him,” Vi said decisively. “It’s too lovely a night. Do you see that moon? Let’s go down to the water and watch it float. Better yet—let’s throw pennies and make wishes. Maybe if they land in the moon’s reflection they’ll be more likely to come true.”

  She led Francie down the footpath to a stone outcropping that jutted from the bank, smoothed by centuries of people sitting there to enjoy the view. The smell of the river, briny and sweet and grassy, rose up to meet them to the tune of a hermit thrush’s song.

  “I’ve only got two,” Vi said, pressing a coin into Francie’s hand. “So you’ve got to use it for your very best wish.”

  She cupped her hands together and closed her eyes, a little smile playing at the edge of her lips. Then she opened her eyes and tossed the penny high in the air, moonlight winking off its surface as it spun before landing with a quiet splash.

  “What did you wish for?” Francie asked. A strange feeling had overtaken her—her heart was heavy and light at the same time, the things she didn’t dare say fluttering in her mouth like the wings of a moth.

  “You know I can’t tell, or it won’t come true! Now you do yours.”

  So Francie did. She squeezed the coin, then wound up and threw it as if she were fifteen and pitching against the team from Anna Head, and the penny arced through the air trailing her wish behind it like a comet’s tail:

  Let Vi be happy now.

  Chapter 11

  June

  Patty stirred, making sweet snuffling sounds and pressing closer against June’s side, her little forehead damp with sweat. June waited until her big blue eyes finally popped open to push the hair off her face.

  “I’m hungry, Mama. Can I have ham again?”

  “We’ll see.”

  June dressed herself and Patty as quietly as she could. The wall between the bedrooms was thin; June remembered how her own mother had struggled to sleep once the change began, and she didn’t want to disturb Vi. She dabbed on a bit of powder and swiped on the lipstick that was worn down to next to nothing; then she took the key from the top of the dresser, and they left.

  Only one other woman was sitting at a table in the dining room. The clock on the wall said it was almost six.

  “Good morning,” June said shyly, but the woman barely looked up from her coffee. Her eyes were rimmed with red and her hand trembled on the handle of her cup. Heartbroken, June thought.

  “I’m hungry,” Patty repeated, her eyes on the sideboard, which was covered in a white cloth and laden with silver chafing dishes, a toaster, and a basket of bread. There were dishes of butter and a jug of cream, pitchers of orange juice and milk, a jar of raspberry preserves and another of honey.

  “All right, darling.”

  Suddenly she heard men’s rough voices, the tread of boots in the hall. June cringed, trying to make out their words.

  “. . . a fisherman setting his lines down near Lockwood.”

  An answering woman’s voice, the words muffled.

  “We’re not asking you to wake the whole damn place, ma’am.”

  A moment later Mrs. Swanson hurried down the hall but stopped short when she spotted June. In the second that it took to press her thin lips into a strained smile, June grew very afraid. She’d seen that look before, on nurses who’d seen the injuries from her latest “fall down the stairs,” on the neighbor whose bedroom window was only a few yards from theirs.

  “Mrs. Samples,” Mrs. Swanson said. “I wonder—that is, the police have come . . . This is Officer Crandall and Officer Franklin. Mrs. Samples shares a suite with Mrs. Carothers.”

  Officer Crandall, a portly gentleman with a hopeful little moustache, took off his cap, but Officer Franklin—who had a bit of blood-dotted toilet paper stuck to his neck where he’d cut himself—merely stared at her, causing June to pull her cardigan tighter across her chest.

  “Would you mind fetching Mrs. Carothers, ma’am?” Officer Crandall asked.

  Another woman might have demanded to know why. June nodded dumbly.

  “Leave the little one with me,” Mrs. Swanson said. “I’ll fix her something to eat. Is that all right?”

  “It’s fine,” June said, finding her voice. “I’ll be right back.”

  Then she was rushing back up the stairs, away from the policemen, who, in her experience, never understood what was right in front of them and left things worse in their wake.

  Chapter 12

  Virgie

  Virgie stood on her bed, looking up into the window well, even though all she could see was the dark rubber tires of the police car. She had been carrying a pail filled with coffee grounds and eggshells, sent by her mother to work them into the soil around the rosebushes, when they pulled into the drive. When Virgie saw the car coming she dropped the bucket at the edge of the garden and sprinted around the side of the main house to the back door, down the stairs to her room, where she closed and locked the door behind her. Then she went to the cigar box where she kept her smallest treasures and took out the thing she had taken and searched the room for a better hiding place.

  Owing to its past as the cold storage for the hotel, Virgie’s room was fitted with shelves and hooks that had once held cured hams and salted fish, onions and potatoes, and cheeses. Most of the shelves were filled now with books and interesting rocks and scavenged parts of radios and things left behind by guests, but one narrow cubby held a coffee can filled with hair ribbons. This was a trick, because anyone who checked the contents of the can would consider the twelve-year-old girl who lived there and move on. (With the exception, perhaps, of a girl who actually wore ribbons in her hair, but the would-be thieves Virgie worried about weren’t girls but thugs and crooks like the ones Nancy Drew dealt with all the time.)

  She took out the can and reached into the back of the cubby, slipping her fingertips into a gap between the shelf and the rough painted boards, which allowed her to nudge a loose board up. Behind was a narrow space with a horizontal framing board forming a shelf, on which sat a leatherette case that had once held a necklace a hotel guest had received from her lover. When the guest checked out, she left the case in the trash can, and Virgie had taken it to store the most precious things she’d found—a single gold hoop earring, a stick pin missing a jet bead, a Canadian dime.

  She dropped her new treasure inside the case and gazed at it, the tiny diamonds surrounding the huge red stone sparkling brilliantly against the black velvet. She snapped the lid shut and returned the case, the board, and the coffee can, then climbed up on her bed to keep an eye out, praying that the police would get back in the car and leave. Instead, they seemed to have begun a search, because there were more voices now, some of them distraught.

  She never should have taken it! Only, she’d been so shocked to come across it among the belongings of someone who was not the rightful owner. Who had, she was certain, stolen it. Virgie was only keeping it safe until she could find a way to return it, but what a mess she had made—the owner obviously discovered it missing and called the police, and now if they searched the thief’s room it wouldn’t be there, and justice would be delayed. And how could Virgie even give it back now without attracting attention to herself?

  Adults never believed her—not the ones she knew, at any rate. Though to be fair she had given them reasons to doubt her. Virgie rarely got caught anymore, but when she’d been younger and dumber she’d been caught in lies often enough to get a reputation. Her mother and even the staff suspected her whenever things were broken or missing.

  Upstairs, people rushed around, their footsteps muffled. She heard her mother’s voice, arguing with someone. Were the police demanding to come down and search the cellar? Would her mother be able to stop them?

  Trepidation was instantly replaced by guilt, because Virgie knew that her mother lacked guile. The coppers would see right through her lies; they might consider her an accomplice. And while Virgie had accepted that her life in the shadows migh
t lead to danger and even imprisonment, her mother wouldn’t be able to bear life in prison, with no emery boards or hot tea or visits to the salon.

  Virgie had to do something to save her. She squared her shoulders and headed up the stairs, with her fingers crossed for luck.

  Chapter 13

  June

  June burst through the door and was met by silence. The suite was as empty as Jesus’s tomb, and even though Vi’s pocketbook was resting on the coffee table, her sweater still draped over the chair, June knew even before she turned the knob on the door of Vi’s room that she was gone.

  That was why, when her eyes fell upon the neatly made bed, the clothes undisturbed in the closet, the suitcases lined up in the corner, it wasn’t shock she felt in her heart but grim fear. Vi was missing and the police were downstairs, and why hadn’t June known something was wrong? There had been a kinship between the two women, an unspoken recognition of the melancholy and perpetual watchfulness of those who’d endured their husband’s abuse for many years, whether it took the form of physical scars or the ones on the inside.

  June had been so worried that Stan would somehow track her down despite the precautions she had taken, and she’d been right—somehow, he’d shown up last night in the very restaurant where she was eating dinner. Luckily, he hadn’t seen her before he was thrown out, and now all she could do was pray he didn’t know where she was staying, though it was probably only a matter of time.

  Maybe Vi hadn’t been careful enough either.

  June turned on her heel and dashed back downstairs.

  “She’s gone,” she reported breathlessly to the police and Mrs. Swanson and the handful of curious guests who’d joined them in the hall—and Francie, whose fingers worried a linen napkin she didn’t seem to know she was holding.

  “But I saw her go in!” Francie looked wildly from one policeman to the other. “I was with her. We said good night in the hall and then she . . . Why are you here? Why?”

  Officer Crandall shared a look with Mrs. Swanson, who made the sign of the cross.

  “Mrs. Samples,” she said gravely. “Mrs. Meeker. You’ll need to go with the officers now. I’ll follow in my car and I can bring you back after.”

  “We can drive them, ma’am,” Officer Crandall said.

  “I’d rather you didn’t. I’m sure you can understand that I don’t need police cars in my drive any more than necessary.”

  Officer Franklin gestured impatiently toward the door. “Ladies?”

  “But where are you taking us?”

  The policemen looked at each other, while all around them the assembled guests—in robes and housedresses, curlers and head rags and papers—watched with silent pity.

  “I’ll explain on the way,” Officer Crandall said, while Franklin signaled for the other guests to stand back.

  “Let them pass,” he said. “Let the ladies pass.”

  Chapter 14

  Francie

  They rode in silence, Francie in front with Officer Crandall and June in back with Franklin. Francie cradled her pocketbook in her lap and worried her teeth with her tongue, a nervous habit that hadn’t plagued her in years. She had never ridden in a police car before, had never had any dealings with the police at all aside from the San Francisco sergeant who had brought his squad car to the school playground every year. She stared straight ahead, wondering what strangers must think of her, if they would assume she’d been arrested.

  She noticed the smell of tobacco, a torn scrap of paper that had fallen to the floor, the way the young police officer in the back kept clearing his throat. It wasn’t until they’d driven through town and turned onto the bridge at Sutro Street that Officer Crandall finally spoke. “A body fitting Mrs. Carothers’s description was discovered early this morning about three miles downriver,” he said. “She had a Holiday Ranch key in her pocket.”

  The breath left Francie. “Body?”

  “She was, er, drowned. She was wearing a blue dress and she had dark hair and gray eyes, five foot seven, pearl earrings and necklace, and a gold wedding ring. Mrs. Swanson remembered what Mrs. Carothers was wearing on account of she saw you leaving for dinner.”

  “But you’ve never seen her before,” Francie protested. “Mrs. Swanson doesn’t even know her.”

  Officer Franklin spoke up from the backseat. “That doesn’t stop us from making her ID from—”

  “All right, that’s enough, Franklin.” The older officer didn’t take his eyes from the road, but his partner shut up.

  “But why would Vi—why would anyone be in the river?” Francie pressed, her heart chasing its tail in her chest. Vi—oh, Vi. Please, please don’t let it be you.

  “River’s running high this year,” Crandall said as he pulled into the parking lot of a new brick-and-steel building. “Lot of rain. People don’t realize how quick it can pull you under.”

  “But Vi didn’t swim. She never would have risked standing too close to the edge, she wouldn’t take the chance.” But that wasn’t true—it was Vi who suggested going down to the bank last night, who sat down on the flat rock to watch the moon’s reflection shimmering on the water.

  “Be that as it may, ma’am,” Officer Crandall said. “The body wasn’t in the water long, which is . . . well, it will make it easier to identify.”

  He pulled into a space at the back of the building, turned off the engine, and shifted in his seat to face her. His eyes held sympathy.

  “There will be a sheet,” he went on. “They won’t pull it down until you’re ready.”

  A car pulled into the next space over. Mrs. Swanson got out and stood with her arms crossed, waiting with the air of someone who’d seen all this before.

  Francie took June’s arm when they got out of the car; she needed something to hold on to. Officer Crandall held the door while Mrs. Swanson and Officer Franklin took up the rear. They filed silently through the halls and down the stairs to the basement, to a door marked “Washoe County Regional Medical Examiner.” Inside was a cramped waiting room with a few chairs against the wall, an empty desk, and another door with a square of opaque glass.

  Officer Crandall rapped on the glass, and a man in a white gown and gloves opened it, a paper mask pulled down around his neck.

  “Hello, Joe. This is Mrs. Meeker and Mrs. Samples, and Mrs. Swanson from the hotel.”

  “I’ll wait outside,” Mrs. Swanson said.

  They followed the pathologist in, Francie holding June’s arm more tightly, and June covering Francie’s hand with her own. Only one of the steel tables held a body, draped with a sheet.

  “Are you ready?” the pathologist asked, and though Francie wasn’t—she would never be—she gave a tiny, stiff nod and he picked up the corner of the sheet almost reverently and slowly pulled it down.

  It was Vi, her hair coiled thinly at her nape, her lips and eyelids pale as paper, purple smudges under her eyes. She could have been sleeping.

  “No,” Francie whispered. “No, no, don’t . . .”

  “Is it Mrs. Carothers, ma’am?” Officer Crandall prompted gently. “Just say yes or no.”

  But Francie couldn’t, because then it would be true. Instead she collapsed against June, who held her and murmured, “There, there, there,” like a woman who’s only ever given comfort, never expecting any for herself.

  Chapter 15

  Virgie

  Flossie was cleaning down the hall, but Virgie took a chance and slipped into the room next to Mrs. Meeker’s after knocking first to make sure the guest was out. If she’d answered, Virgie planned to say that she’d come to collect the soiled linens, but it was a fine spring day and most of the guests had joined a group going to Pyramid Lake for a picnic. By now all of them had probably heard that a guest had drowned last night, and human nature being what it was, they probably hoped Mrs. Swanson would share the details. If so, they were in for a disappointment—her mother had gathered the staff to remind them that no one was to discuss the tragedy and any inquiries sh
ould be directed only to her.

  Virgie glanced quickly around the room—this guest was one of the neat ones, who seemed to take comfort in keeping things spotless and orderly. The rooms were cleaned once a week, but Flossie and Ruth would have an easy job with this one.

  She pressed her ear to the wall and heard Mrs. Meeker crying—great, gusty sobs. Mrs. Meeker had returned only an hour earlier, supported by both Mrs. Samples and Virgie’s mother, who practically carried her up the stairs to the suite Mrs. Carothers had been sharing with Mrs. Samples, the police officers trailing behind. Virgie’s mother came downstairs moments later and sent Virgie up with hot tea and a plate of ginger cookies, despite the rule about no food in the rooms.

  Virgie knocked softly and the door swung open. She could hear the police officers talking in low voices in Mrs. Carothers’s bedroom, but Mrs. Meeker was slumped in one of the upholstered chairs with her eyes closed while Mrs. Samples sat silently watching her.

  “There’s milk, and sugar if you want it,” Virgie had said as she set the tray down on the coffee table, but Mrs. Meeker didn’t move.

  When Mrs. Samples thanked her in a voice barely above a whisper, Virgie glared at her and said, “I’m sure Mrs. Meeker would like some time to herself,” just as firmly as her mother would have. June swallowed and looked over her shoulder, but didn’t budge, so it was left to Virgie to march into the bedroom, where the older policeman was on all fours peering under the bed while the younger one pawed through a dresser drawer, a white silk slip in his hand.

  Positively indecent—that’s what her mother would have said if she were here. Virgie cleared her throat. “Mrs. Meeker needs to lie down,” she said with as much authority as she could muster. “Can she go to her own room now?”

  “Sure, kid,” the young cop said, earning a glare from the older one.

  “In a few minutes,” Crandall said. “We’re almost done here, but I may have a question or two for her. There’s no need for you to stay, young lady. It’s nice of you to be concerned, but we’ll make sure she gets to her room.”