Catacombs

by Mary Anna Evans

  My mothers had spent the winter petrified of leaving The Sanctuary without Lonnie’s permission. His was a great talent for mind control. I give him that much credit. Even when he left to get groceries and paint—lots of paint that consumed money he could have used for jars of peanut butter and bags of bread—my mothers stayed underground voluntarily, buried until he decided it was time for our resurrection.

  My second mother, already heavily pregnant with Zeb, spent that winter begging little Gabe to live. The baby’s illness hardly registered with Lonnie, busily daubing the walls with his hallucinations. He only put down his paintbrush to sleep and to dole out stingy portions of food.

  “When we run out of money, it will be a sign that it’s time to rise to the surface again.” Lonnie said this on a daily basis, while opening a single can of beans to feed a man, a child, a toddler, and two women, one of them a nursing mother, but he had lied. Lonnie never opened his mouth without a lie coming out. We weren’t waiting underground until God gave us a sign to leave by cutting off our food. We were waiting for Lonnie’s father to finish dying so that we could have his house and his thirty acres.

  Fortunately, my grandfather died early in the spring. Otherwise, we would never have gotten the garden planted, and this might well have killed us all. Our money was nearly gone, and Lonnie would have let us starve before he accepted help from the government. I was an adult before I escaped him. Only then did I learn that the government he hated so much might have given my brothers the medical care they needed to stay alive.

  On the day I learned that my brothers didn’t have to die, I became a ticking time bomb. Lonnie deserved to be caught in my blast radius. Stacy Wong did not.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Lunch was awkward. This made Carson antsy.

  Ordinarily, a room full of people eating tasty food had a happy, collegial feel, but this room felt a little off. It felt awkward. If Carson listened closely, he could hear certain words pop out of the buzz of voices.

  Stacy.

  Bomber.

  Afraid.

  All around him, people were saying “What happened to Stacy?” and “Where’s Stacy?” and “They’re saying that the bomber acted alone. What do you think?” and “Are you afraid?”

  Knowing that there was nothing he could do about this, Carson stepped up to the podium and tried anyway. Unfortunately, he was too honest to pretend there was nothing wrong, so he only made it worse.

  “I’m so glad you’re all still here. There are about a million FBI agents crawling around this place, so if you have any dark secrets, you should keep them to yourself.” In response he got a communal chuckle that felt cautious and stressed. He plunged on. “I feel strongly that we’re safe. The FBI’s Assistant Special Agent in Charge has told me that he will be in touch immediately if that should change, but he doesn’t expect it to.”

  A hand shot up. “What’s going on with Dr. Wong? We’re worried about her here at Table E. It’s not like her to skip out on an important talk.”

  “I’m worried about her, too. The most important thing for you all to know is that there is no sign of foul play. We believe that Dr. Wong left the hotel of her own accord early this morning, and this is something that adults are allowed to do. Nevertheless, law enforcement is concerned that she isn’t back, so I am in touch with them about Dr. Wong’s whereabouts at all times.”

  Just inside his peripheral vision, he saw a woman in a hotel uniform stop what she was doing. In the middle of replenishing trays of leftover sandwich meat, she paused, hands still in the air, and looked at him. He didn’t blame anyone for being jumpy, not after recent events. The hotel staff had to be wondering whether it was even safe to come to work.

  The woman pulled an old clamshell phone out of her pocket. Speaking quickly into it, she backed out the door, talking all the while.

  Carson was sorry that he’d paused in the middle of an announcement that was supposed to be reassuring. Now he was hearing other words in the ambient buzz, words like “not safe” and “go home.” Well, there was nothing he could do about that, other than remind them of what they were leaving.

  “We have some new events for you. Mark your programs so you don’t miss them. Joe Wolf Mantooth will be giving a free hands-on flintknapping workshop tonight at 7:30. He has rock for you, but if you have material you want to use, bring it. You can bring a project that’s not going well, too, and Joe will help you make it into something beautiful.”

  He saw Faye give him a big thumbs-up for promoting Joe’s work. The woman could be completely single-minded, but he found it rather sweet that she used that determination to help her husband shine.

  Carson had known Joe since they were boys, and he fully believed that Faye was the best thing that had ever happened to him. Carson’s own mother had hoped that Faye would be the best thing that ever happened to him, until she spied the gold band on Faye’s left ring finger. Since his mother had always had a soft spot for Joe, she couldn’t wish him ill, so praying for Faye to divorce him wasn’t an option. Carson’s mom had been forced to settle for adding Faye to her list of grown-ups that she thought needed mothering. Faye didn’t seem to mind.

  Thanks to the great news about Joe’s flintknapping workshop, the room’s conversational buzz was distinctly changed for the better. Even the group’s body language changed, as people sat up straighter or leaned over to a neighbor and said things like, “I’d pay a lot of money for that, but he’s offering it for free,” or simply, “I’m in!”

  “Tomorrow evening’s new activity is going to be just as artistic but a lot more relaxing. And with less chance of leaving here with a black-and-blue fingernail.”

  He was rewarded with a few laughs. Some of his listeners held out their hands, displaying their flintknapping wounds for their neighbors to admire.

  “I’m also honored to announce that Cully Mantooth will give a concert of traditional Muscogee Creek songs, playing flutes that he made himself. He says that he learned the songs from his father and that his father learned them from his father at about the time of the First World War. The flutes, too, adhere to traditions established many years ago. To the best of his knowledge, the music and the flutes’ design date to a lot earlier than World War I, going back to the Creek’s ancestral homelands southeast of here, but he wanted you to know that they have a long heritage right here in Oklahoma.”

  The crowd was making an unmistakably happy buzz now. Carson looked around for Cully with no luck. It would have been far better for attendance at his concert if he’d been here to meet and greet his fans, but he supposed Cully knew his business. And perhaps Cully knew that he could fill a modest-sized convention venue without lifting a finger to promote it.

  “Mr. Mantooth will do a Q&A after the concert. He says that he’ll answer questions about any part of his career, from what it was like to work as an extra in John Wayne films to how he composes his soundtracks. I think you’ll all want to stick around for that.”

  He overheard somebody saying, “Even if the FBI wasn’t saying that we’re perfectly safe, I’d stay to see that man play the flute.”

  Carson said, “You people go back to your food, but remember. We have a lot of excitement in store for you.”

  Then he dropped into his chair, exhausted from nerves but fairly sure that there would be butts in the chairs for the duration of his conference. This gathering of artists, would-be artists, and people who appreciated indigenous art had been Carson’s brain-child. He felt very strongly that indigenous art should be valued and that the techniques should be preserved. This conference was a way he could use his abilities and his connections to do something that needed doing. He was not in the mood to let the bomber or the protesters outside stop him. Maybe the protesters were working against themselves, calling attention to the art of people they did not respect. Carson liked that idea.

  He scanned the room for his facu
lty. Stacy was missing, obviously, but almost everybody else was there. Dr. Dell was missing, too, but he had called to check on her barely five minutes after lunch started. According to her, she was nursing a stomach virus. Carson thought it was probably a hangover, but it wasn’t his job to police the behavior of his faculty.

  As the host, it worried him that the ham and turkey were getting low, but the woman who left never returned and the remaining workers seemed way more focused on refilling water glasses than on keeping the sandwich bar stocked. Carson kept an eye on the cold cuts, and when he saw that they were nearly gone, he called out, “Don’t forget! We have an ice-cream sundae bar!”

  His guests shifted their attention from sandwiches to dessert, and all was well, except for the uneaten slices of ham and turkey that grew less attractive with every minute they approached room temperature. The missing worker never returned, but the ones who had stayed behind cheerfully scooped everybody’s ice cream into individual blue china bowls, and ice cream has the power to make people focus on the lusciousness in front of them.

  Nobody seemed to notice the unappetizing leftover cold cuts. Except, of course for Carson.

  * * *

  Faye had just filled her mouth with a big spoonful of chocolate ice cream when Sadie Raincrow elbowed her.

  “Have you been keeping an eye on the internet?” she asked, placing her phone on the crisp, smooth tablecloth and pulling up The Oklahoman’s website. The lead story’s headline was printed in huge type.

  NO SUSPECT YET IN DOWNTOWN BOMBING

  “Not that one,” Sadie said. “There’s nothing new in that story. But take a look at this one.” She scrolled down to the next headline.

  Legendary Underground Chinese City Uncovered by Bomb

  Faye picked up the phone and read the story, which began with a rehash of the 1969 newspaper article detailing the last time the underground chambers had been uncovered. When she reached the third paragraph, she reached into her purse and scrabbled around for her reading glasses. With her readers perched firmly on her nose, she read the part of the story that was news to Sadie but not to her, then she read it again.

  The doors at the bottom of the staircase conform closely to the description of a heavy wooden door seen in 1969. Behind one of the doors is a modest-sized room with all surfaces—door, walls, and ceiling—covered with colorful paintings, and in that room were the bodies of three little boys.

  Faye’s eyebrows climbed to her hairline. Somebody had leaked a description of the painted room to the media.

  “Three children. Can you imagine? And did you know about that room?” Sadie asked. “I thought I’d heard all the rumors about underground Chinese that there was to hear.”

  Faye shook her head, which was a lie. Yes, she knew about the room, but she doubted that Ahua had mentioned it to the press yet. He seemed like a man who kept his cards very close to the vest. But if he didn’t tell anyone and she didn’t tell anyone, then the investigation had a leak.

  Who talked?

  Goldsby? The engineer, Patricia Kura? It was possible, but Faye would need to know a lot more about them before she could think of a reason they might leak information from a critical investigation. Her money was on Liu. She would do whatever it took to find Stacy Wong.

  She kept reading.

  The paintings and an unusual metal door high on one wall set this room apart from surviving descriptions of the underground community’s living space. Recorded eyewitness accounts from the 1920s do not mention this room, nor does the 1969 newspaper article, although oral history does describe a wall decorated by an artist who used a sharp implement to draw a landscape scene on an earthen wall.

  Faye shoveled the last few bites of her ice cream into her mouth. She needed to find Ahua.

  “I’m worried about Stacy,” Sadie said.

  “Because of this article?” Faye handed Sadie’s phone back to her.

  “No. Well, yes, it worries me. If Stacy weren’t already missing, she would have read this article and found a way to get down there, even if it meant hijacking an oil rig and drilling herself a hole.”

  “I’m not sure that’s how oil rigs work.”

  Sadie waved a dismissive hand. “It was just a metaphor. An Oklahoma metaphor. I’m just saying that, with every second that passes without Stacy in this room, I’m more sure that she’s down there under our feet.”

  Sadie didn’t say whether she thought Stacy was alive down there under their feet, and Faye didn’t ask her. She didn’t want to know.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Faye, intent on getting to Ahua, wouldn’t have noticed the scene in Kaayla’s office, if it hadn’t been for the sound of a woman weeping. The hotel manager’s temporary office was near the elevator bank, so it was impossible to miss the quiet sobs.

  As she neared Kaayla’s office, she saw the door swinging shut. Nothing of Kaayla was visible but her hand, pale against the rubbed bronze doorknob. She was silent, but Faye heard voices coming from further inside the room. One of the speakers was weeping.

  Faye got a single glance through the closing door, but she only saw one of Kaayla’s guests, a woman who sat in a chair opposite her desk. It was Lucia.

  Faye had noticed Lucia’s quick exit from the lunch buffet, right after a quick phone conversation. She hoped the young woman hadn’t gotten bad news. At least Kaayla’s personal kindness made Faye feel like this incident wasn’t going to be a mark against Lucia with the boss. Faye admired the way that Kaayla interacted with her staff. Her demeanor was unfailingly professional, but still very warm. People who worked in jobs like hotel housekeeping and maintenance had to put up with a lot of dehumanizing treatment from the people they served. At least the employees of the Gershwin Hotel didn’t have to take that kind of treatment.

  As she power walked out of the South Tower, Faye tried to focus on the question of where the reporter learned about the painted chamber, but the scene in Kaayla’s office kept popping back into her head. Lucia’s tears could stem from something unrelated to the bombing or her job, and they probably did, but seeing her with Kaayla reminded Faye that the hotel staff had access to parts of the Gershwin Hotel that most people wouldn’t even know existed. Was it possible that someone associated with the hotel had been down the hidden stairs into the underground network of rooms?

  If anybody was likely to stumble onto the hidden door and get a look at the painted room, it would be someone like Lucia who could have dusted the right panel in the right way and accidentally opened the door. Or perhaps a handyman. Or perhaps Kaayla had stumbled on it somehow during her work as the hotel’s assistant manager.

  But why would they pretend ignorance? The FBI had surely interviewed everybody associated with the hotel, and they would have asked questions designed to find out who knew about the secret door. It made no sense not to tell the FBI if they’d been down the hidden staircase. Exploring a strange place was no crime and Faye had no inkling that they were suspects.

  Deep down, Faye could not make herself suspect any hotel employee she’d met, especially not the devastated Lucia. She suspected that Lucia’s breakdown didn’t come from a dark, secretive place. Anybody could fall apart after a trauma like the explosion and delayed responses were perfectly normal.

  When Faye reached the sidewalk, she saw that the protesters and counterprotesters had all gone home. The world outside the towers looked completely normal. Nothing stood between her and the site of the bombing but a few hundred feet of sidewalk and the FBI’s barricades, but it somehow seemed very far away.

  As she entered the mobile command center, Ahua met her eyes with a cold stare, prompting her to say “It wasn’t me!” in her best imitation of a guilty person.

  He didn’t say anything, so she tried to channel innocence as she said, “Seriously. I didn’t tell a soul. Who do you think spilled the beans about the painted room? Is it the same person
who talked about the children’s bodies?”

  “Could’ve been you both times, but it wasn’t. It was me. Why do you think I trusted you so easily last time?”

  “But why?”

  “I thought surely somebody would remember three missing children. And I thought that spilling the beans about the painted room might stir up some people who’ve been listening to family stories about the Chinese underground for their whole lives.”

  “Did it work?”

  “So far, no.”

  “Remind me never to believe anything you say.”

  “I have a lot of FBI mind tricks up my sleeve.”

  Now Faye felt like she was face-to-face with a master manipulator, and she very probably was. This made her unaccountably eager to talk.

  “I’ve been thinking that it’s possible that someone in the hotel knew about those stairs. They may even have been down them, although I guess it’s been years, considering the dust. Are Kaayla, Grace, and Lucia old enough to have gone down there in the nineties? I’m not sure about the redheaded desk clerk, but the gray-haired woman who works with him is certainly old enough. They’re the only hotel employees I know on sight, but I’ve seen plenty of others because it’s a big hotel and Kaayla’s got them all on overtime. Frankly, they all need to go home and sleep before one of them cracks.”

  “We’ve spoken with Kaayla and all of her employees, so their ages are on file, but the ones you mentioned by name look thirty-ish. Maybe a little older, maybe a little younger. So does the redhead. The gray-haired woman? I’d say fifties, don’t you think?”

  Faye, who was terrible at guessing ages, nodded like she agreed with him when she, in fact, had no clue.