Dreams of the Dead

by Perri O'shaughnessy

  Then came her hair extensions. Yes, hard to believe how cute they made her feel. She had never expected to watch her hair thin, but that it had done. One morning, she had followed her brow to her hairline and discovered—a bald spot! Up the street, right off Highway 50, was a hair/nails place where a Vietnamese lady, singing to herself in her own language the whole time, carefully wove strands of someone else’s lovely thick hair into Brenda’s own, until you couldn’t see where the other person’s hair ended and hers began.

  Worth every penny, especially the previous week when Ronnie took her out to Harrah’s to a live show, and she curled her new hair and looked fantastic and sexy.

  How else could a girl compete in this culture of ski bunnies and entertainers who looked twenty when they were thirty, and twenty when they were forty, the dyed-blond boob-babies?

  Wiping the dressing from her lips, she rose, then climbed downstairs and down a long hallway, where she picked up her cleaning cart. An extension of Prize’s Casino-Hotel, the two-story motel part of the complex had some cheap rooms that opened directly on the parking lot.

  Pushing the loaded cart seemed hard today, even though a thin springtime sun warmed her. Her partner, Rosalinda, was home sick, so, doing double duty, she was running late. A few of the rooms she should have finished in the morning she hadn’t yet done. Oh, well. She’d skimp on the bathrooms. You could run a dry cloth quickly over water drips and toothpaste blow, fold down the ends of the toilet paper rolls, and keep the customers happy.

  She rolled up to Room 102, where the guests had checked out according to her schedule, and saw that the door was ajar. A DO NOT DISTURB sign dangled from the knob.

  Ah, jeez, they hadn’t left yet after all.

  Once, a bad thing had happened—she had busted in on a couple making love on the bed. Brenda had backed out again, and nobody had ever said anything about it to her.

  She put her hand on the door, ready to give a swift knock and push it open.

  Then hesitated. Something was making her nervous. It was—boy, was she ridiculous—it was as if she could feel that someone was in there, and listening for her. She looked down. Someone had blocked the door with a pillow. Odd, a pillow of all things. It would be hard to step over that with a suitcase.

  Not a sound within. It looked dark in there, though it might only have been the sunlight she stood in, contrasting with the interior light.

  Fucking Tahoe. All this beauty, but you couldn’t ever forget the Donner Party, the starvation, the cannibalism—fucking place, mysterious always.

  One thing she believed: when you felt something wrong, something was wrong. How many movies had she seen where the heroine walked right into a situation, a dark alley, toward a couple of lurkers with hoods, when any sane person would turn right around and head for the lighted, busy street? Also, Rosalinda was an astrologist and had been talking about Saturn being ascendant, which meant strange things, occult things, afoot.

  She slid back into the hall, skittered under an outside staircase at the end of the block of rooms, and waited.

  And waited.

  The door opened all the way and she caught a glimpse of someone stepping over the pillow and coming out. A man’s leg, that was all. But then the leg was pulled back in and the door softly shut.

  Huh? The whole thing was giving her prickles. How could a hotel ground-floor corridor feel so spooky and lonely? Where was everybody?

  What was wrong with people? You’re in a hotel. Every day, someone comes to clean the room. Where’s the surprise in that? Unless you’re up to something. Another time she had found a little baggie of white powder on the sink. She and Ronnie had been dating at the time, and she had given it to him. He never mentioned what he did with it, but he took her to a nice place in Carson City the next night.

  Now the door opened again. A figure stepped outside the room, peering up and down the shade of the hallway as if looking for her. She shrank back, though she was a long way away.

  He seemed to look right at her, but that was impossible. She could barely see him. Although Brenda squinted, she couldn’t make out features, except for his build—tall. She stepped back behind the building.

  Now she watched passively, hidden, as the man slipped out of Room 102 into the parking lot and disappeared behind a line of hulking SUVs. He wasn’t carrying anything.

  Okay. Fine. She had let her imagination go wild.

  Brenda dragged the Dyson vacuum cleaner, purple and red, something new and expensive the hotel liked because the cleaners were bagless and cheaper in the long run, from under the stairway, edging toward the door. She frowned. He had left the pillow blocking it.

  She got closer to the door and could peek inside a little. Heavy drapes held tight, closed against the daylight. The furniture all appeared gray and gloomy. Brenda listened.

  To nothing.

  A slight breeze rustled the curtains.

  “Housekeeping!”

  Nobody came. No sound came out of the room. She turned the knob to push the door open wider.

  Curious and bolder now, she stepped inside. For a few moments, her eyes needed to adjust. The furniture turned itself from shadows into innocuous things, the usual TV, desk, chair.

  She flicked the light switch.

  On the bed the body of a woman lay, arranged with her hands folded on her stomach. She wore a blue bra. Brenda came close, breathing fast, and looked into open eyes, a slack mouth. She grabbed the woman’s hand. It felt too cool but not cold.

  Brenda knew her. “Cyndi! Cyndi, wake up!” It was one of the receptionists for Prize’s, Cyndi Backus.

  Cyndi didn’t move. Something had fled from her. A chill swept over Brenda.

  Brenda had seen Cyndi the day before, such a pretty girl with a husband and babies and—

  Brenda stood there, overwhelmed for a second. More clothes lay on the floor . . .

  He might come back!

  She ran screaming out the door.

  Nearby guests came out of their rooms blinking, tucking in shirts, pushing back scraggly hair, and made a bunch of cell phone calls. To her surprise, her boss’s wife, Michelle Rossmoor, appeared out of nowhere, put her arm around Brenda, and tried to settle her down. Pretty fast, three guys from Security cordoned off the room.

  The El Dorado County Sheriffs arrived within five minutes. Brenda sat on a chair in the hallway with a bottle of water, sick in her gut, Michelle by her side murmuring quietly. They closed down the whole hallway and made Brenda stay and Michelle go. She got hungry, but knew she couldn’t eat. There were sirens and detectives arrived, then technicians, a woman doctor she had never before seen, and finally a couple of men who looked like lawyers. No one talked to her. Inside that room, she heard them scurrying around, important, taking calls, making them, coughing, speaking, moving furniture.

  Her boss, Stephen Rossmoor, arrived to talk to her and the police. He had a long face above the sport coat he always wore when she saw him.

  “The police need to talk with you, but then you need to take the rest of today off,” he advised her, looking at her badge. “You recognized her, Brenda?”

  Brenda nodded. “Cyndi Backus. I saw her yesterday!”

  He looked down and shook his head. “She’s worked here for what, five years? Who did this, Brenda?”

  “How should I know! I only found her! I saw the man, but I didn’t recognize him, nothing like that. Why kill her?”

  “You saw him? Have you told the police?”

  “I will, but it won’t do much good. Do you think other employees are in danger, Steve?”

  Rossmoor bit his lip. “I don’t know anything yet. Take some time off, Brenda, as much time as you need, okay?” He and Michelle had two young children to worry about and a big business to run. They always looked so happy together, so solid, but right now, he looked as shell-shocked as Brenda felt.

  “Can I borrow your cell phone?” Brenda said. “I want to call my husband.”

  After about forty-five minutes,
they put her into a police car and took her to the police department building in Al Tahoe to be interviewed and make a statement. At least ten law enforcement people were swarming about the motel room when she left, like on a TV show. Raised not to trust cops, Brenda kept a little secret as she told her story into the tape recorder in a room where a female officer sat with her at the conference table and questioned her.

  The secret was that she had seen the Housekeeping tip lying on the table in the room and put it into her pocket before she ran out of the room. Twenty dollars wasn’t much for what she had gone through. She really needed the money after Christmas and deserved it. She knew she’d keep it.

  Brenda arrived at her home, the knotty-pine cabin, in the winter dusk. Walking up to the cabin, she noted that the kitchen window had a steady bulb burning, the one above the sink. She could almost smell the gray woodsmoke the fire was shooting out the chimney that rose above the living room, where orange light flicked against the window like fireflies trying to get out.

  She came in through the side door, throwing all her stuff on the bench beside it. Ronnie, making a pizza without salt, his latest food fad, saw her and came toward her, saying, “Aw, poor baby, what a mess, are you okay?” He took her into his arms and they both sighed and relaxed. Feeling his heart beat next to hers, she felt able to let go and cry a little.

  “Why didn’t you let me come get you?”

  “I didn’t know when they’d finish with me.”

  “I woulda waited.”

  “It was awful,” she sobbed. “I never saw a dead body before.” Outside, snow drifted into the window mullions. His hand roamed to her breast. She liked him comforting her like this. She turned a little so her mouth could meet his. “I should have let you pick me up.”

  “You should have.”

  “I feel like shit.”

  “Let’s have a drink.”

  “I told you not to take that job,” Ronnie said later, after they’d wolfed down the pizza and drunk a bottle of red wine, his favorite, a sweet one, disgusting, gave her headaches, but she never said no to wine.

  They went straight to bed after that, and Ronnie got up on his elbow and started asking her questions. “Those big Tahoe hotels—anybody can rent a room. People go to casino-hotels to get wasted and do stuff they wouldn’t dare do at home. Crime, drugs, prostitution—”

  “We need the money.” Lying in the warm bed next to her husband, Brenda felt guilty about keeping the latest windfall from him. Twenty dollars sat in an envelope in her purse, and she had already decided to give it to her ex for Isaiah, for school supplies.

  “You’re not going back there.”

  “We need that job.” Brenda shivered, pulling the red plaid flannel comforter up over the sheet to cover her shoulders. “We need the income, and we need the health benefits. Honey, we’ve discussed this before.”

  “What’d the big man say?”

  “You mean Steve? Mr. Rossmoor?”

  “Yeah, him, the owner. What did he say? Come back tomorrow, work your ass off like you saw nothing, heard nothing, and didn’t get totally unhinged by finding your friend murdered on a bed?”

  “Correction. I hardly knew her. And why the attitude about Steve? He’s good to us. Good benefits. Supports the union. Mostly. He told me to take as much paid time as I needed to recover from the shock.”

  “Huh.”

  “If I didn’t know you know you’re my handsome lover, the only man I adore”—she gave his goatee a gentle pull—“I might just imagine you were jealous.”

  “He’s rich. And young. He’s got you all day. I’d rather you stayed home.”

  “Yeah, but you’re bigger. And don’t ask me how I know that, okay?” She punched him on the arm.

  He ran his hand along her hip. “You say that to all your guys.”

  She laughed. “As if you leave me energy for anybody but you.”

  Ronnie kissed her for a long time, but to her surprise and disappointment pulled away before the part where she went nuts, moaned, and forgot about everything except for where he was touching her, and how awesome it felt.

  “Really, now. What did Rossmoor say?”

  “He said for me to take my time.”

  “Easy for him.”

  “He told me he would pay me lost wages.”

  “Dude! Now’s the time for that vacation in Rio, expenses paid, courtesy of a freak who killed his girlfriend.”

  “As if we’d take advantage of him like that.”

  “You think he cares about you?”

  “I do. He cares about his employees.”

  “I’m the one that cares about you.” In a swift change of mood, now that he’d cooled her down, he got hotter. “Put your hand on me, babe. Come on.”

  “We’re talking!”

  “That’s why I said use your hand. Do you think it’s a sex crime? Any signs of—violation?”

  “No!”

  “No?” His fingers, usually so welcome, suddenly felt like bugs crawling along her thigh.

  She batted him away. “Shut up, pervert.”

  “Tell me what you saw one more time.” When she said nothing, he said, “Brenny, I want to understand.”

  “Fair enough.” She sighed. “I was cleaning per usual, but this one room, well, I got a bad feeling.”

  “I don’t get the whole psychic thing. So many shows about it now. Never met one I could trust.”

  She nodded and shrugged her shoulders. “I can’t explain it. I just felt nervous. The door was open a little—but I couldn’t go inside. So I went around the corner of the walkway—you remember how the walkway’s kind of L-shaped?”

  He nodded. “And then?”

  “And then—I hid under the stairs.”

  “What?”

  “That’s right. Ducked away like a kid scared of a bad dad.”

  “Jesus, Brenda. Sometimes I don’t get you. Your father was the nicest guy—”

  “I’d say maybe five minutes passed. Then—a man came out.”

  “What man? Someone you know? What did he look like?”

  “I was hiding, not looking. But I did not, repeat not, know this guy. What I saw was standard Tahoe, a man in a parka, jeans, and a baseball cap like every other guy up here. He seemed tall. Athletic.”

  “He could have come after you.” Ronnie looked distressed, and Brenda loved that. She let herself melt a little more into his body.

  “I was really scared he’d spot me, but I think he didn’t because he moved at a regular pace, never paused. But for sure he didn’t want nobody to see him, okay?”

  “Okay.”

  “So I wait until I’m sure he’s gone. And then, I go inside the room. I mean, it’s my job. I can’t exactly say, ‘I did floors one, two, and three, except for Room 102,’ can I?”

  “Someone else would show up in the morning and make you look bad.”

  “Right,” Brenda said. “So I went inside. One side of the bed had been turned down. On the other side was this woman. There was no blood, but she was dead. I realized right away it was Cyndi Backus. Our chief receptionist. She looked awful.”

  “Wow. Was she nude?”

  “There you go again! I don’t want to think about it! No, she was not nude! She was wearing her underwear.”

  Ronnie nibbled her neck. “You’re disgusting,” she said, but not so he’d really think she meant it.

  God, men, smells, sex, incorrigibility. She sat up so that he had to stop what he was doing and she could think. “Honey, the body lay there like someone paid attention to how it looked. I think he must have been sorry for what he did. He had folded her hands and made her look peaceful.”

  Turning the edge of his hand absentmindedly along the curves of her body, Ronnie said nothing.

  “Here’s a weird thought. What if he had got rid of it and I hadn’t known and I went in to change the sheets and just thought they were extra dirty or something—where Cyndi was killed?” Brenda thought back over all the iffy towels on the fl
oors of all the bathrooms, wishing she had worn gloves the whole time. Ronnie was right. She should get a less nasty job.

  “If you saw him again, would you know him?”

  “No, like I told the cops.”

  “You didn’t say that to protect yourself? Not that I would blame you a bit. Hell, if he saw you—”

  “I guess there’s that chance. I’m blanking him out, okay? I don’t want to see his face. If I ever did.”

  “You’re shaking. You’re fine, babe. You’re with me.”

  “I’m cold.” She snuggled closer. It was midnight, but she was too messed up to sleep yet.

  “Do you believe he saw you? Do you?”

  “I don’t know.”

  He pushed his body so that every inch could match up to hers. “I’ll keep you warm. You’ve got Ronnie watching out now. I know you’re upset, but don’t worry. We’re in this together forever.”

  Oh, she had waited her entire life for Ronnie! When she considered all the losers and abusers, well, she was glad she had made it this far, to a man who appreciated her as much as she appreciated him. She smelled him, the mix of sweat, wine, and cologne, and tried to fit her curves to his hard edges.

  Squeezing in close, he pressed against her, this time not to fit, but to intrude. Brenda realized they were going to have sex again if the hints from his body told her anything, and she felt happy about it.

  “Say it. ‘Ronnie, you’re the best,’” Ronnie demanded, pushing from the rear, harder, and she knew what would happen next, knew it with a mix of shame, terror, and desire.

  “You’re the best!”

  “Damn straight! Is this okay?”

  “Yes! No! Stop that! I have to tell you something!”

  “Sure, babe, tell, can’t wait to hear, c’mon—”

  “He left money!”

  “Huh? Who!”

  “Him! On the bureau. Twenty dollars! In the tip envelope!”

  “Hallelujah!” Ronnie said, not a bit put off.