“Probably you’re right on that,” Friedrich admitted, giving me a pleasant surprise in return for the one I’d given him, “and I’m looking into it. So you’re checking out the closet to see if that’s where he was stowed?”
I blinked at the change of subject. Friedrich was touchy about my reference to the poor security at the police department, as well he might be.
“Yes.” I explained how I came to have the key.
“Well, let’s look,” Friedrich suggested, with a geniality I distrusted.
“You’ve already looked,” I said.
“Actually, no. Pardon’s key ring hasn’t turned up. We didn’t want to break down the door. A locksmith was coming this morning to open it up, but now you’ve saved the city of Shakespeare a little money. I never thought of asking you if you had a key.”
It didn’t seem a good time to tell him that I had keys to the front and back doors of the building, too.
“Why didn’t you ask Norvel Whitbread?” I asked. “He was supposed to be working for Pardon one morning a week.”
“He said he didn’t have a key. And it seemed likely to me that Pardon wouldn’t trust him enough to give him one, that Pardon would unlock the closet for him if Norvel needed to get in.”
I tucked the puzzle of Pardon’s missing key ring in with all the other elements involved in the strange death of the landlord.
Friedrich stepped past me, reached up to pull the string, and scanned the closet when the light flooded into every corner. Pardon, whatever his faults, had not been stingy with wattage.
“Does it look like it always does, as far as you can tell?” Friedrich asked after we’d both taken a good look.
“Yes,” I said, a little disappointed. The shelves to the rear and left side of the closet were neatly lined with necessities-garbage bags, lightbulbs, cleaning materials-and odds and ends that Pardon had thought might be useful someday-mousetraps, vases, a doorknob, the big doorstop Pardon used to hold the front door when he got the hall carpet cleaned, and it was still damp. The big vacuum cleaner took up the right side of the closet. It was ancient, huge, and parked neatly, with its cord wrapped in a precise coil. That proved Norvel hadn’t vacuumed last; Norvel would never wind a cord that pretty, I thought admiringly.
But Norvel was supposed to be doing the janitorial work.
Friedrich was looking over the shelves carefully and thoughtfully, apparently doing an item-by-item inventory.
I reached over to touch his sleeve, then thought the better of it. “Excuse me,” I said.
“Yes’m?” Friedrich said abstractedly.
“Look at the cord on the vacuum.” I waited till he’d taken a good look. “Someone other than Norvel Whitbread put that vacuum in here, and Norvel was supposed to do it.” I explained why I thought so.
Friedrich looked mildly amused. “You got any idea who might have put the vacuum in here, based on the way the cord is coiled?” he asked, and I realized he was gently pulling my leg.
Ho-ho. “Yes, I have. I’ve seen the way Pardon put things away. That’s the way Pardon did it. Every Monday morning, before he went to church, Norvel was supposed to vacuum and clean the glass in the doors, sweep the front walkway, and pick up trash in the parking area in the back. It doesn’t seem he did that on Monday.”
“That’s a lot to infer from a vacuum cleaner.”
It was an effort to shrug indifferently.
I took the key to the closet off my ring and handed it to Friedrich. Before he could say anything, I hoisted my caddy and strode out the front door, evicting Friedrich from my thoughts. I cast around in my mind for any reason I needed to go in my house; all of a sudden, I wasn’t hungry anymore. Maybe I should jump right in the car to go to the Winthrops’ house.
But there was yet another bump in my path-a car parked, blocking mine, in my driveway, and someone standing in my carport, leaning against my Skylark. My heart lurched when I recognized Marshall. I stood there awkwardly, not knowing what to do or say, feeling my cheeks get hot.
He took the caddy from me and put it on the ground. He drew me farther up under the carport and put his arms around me. After a moment, my arms went around his neck.
“I couldn’t call you,” he said in my ear. “I didn’t know what to say over the telephone. I don’t know what to say now.”
If he didn’t, I sure wasn’t going to venture anything. I was managing to enjoy being held, but I didn’t like being in the carport; I didn’t want to be seen. But the intoxication of Marshall’s nearness, his remembered smell and touch, began to chip away at my anxiety. I felt a little dizzy. His tongue touched my lips.
“Marshall, I have to work,” I managed to say.
He held me a little away, looked at me sharply.
“Lily, are you putting me off because you don’t want to be with me? Are you sorry about last night?”
“No.” I shook my head to reinforce it. “No.”
“Are you having trouble, remembering what happened to you?”
“No…” I hesitated. “But you know, having had sex once successfully doesn’t mean I’m never going to live in the shadow of the rape again. The rest of my life, I’ll have to deal with it.”
I am not a trouble-free woman. I am not always user-friendly. He had to have that brought to his attention, if he was trying to ignore it.
“But really, and I regret this, I’m late to my next cleaning job,” I finished prosaically.
“Lily,” he said again, as if he enjoyed saying it. I’d been looking down at the spot where our chests were touching. Now I met his eyes. His mouth came toward mine, and I could feel he was ready.
“We can’t now,” I whispered apologetically.
“Tonight, after class?”
“Okay.”
“Don’t eat first; we’ll fix something at my place.”
I never ate before calisthenics, anyway. I nodded, and smiled at him. A red car going by in the street alerted me to the passage of time. I looked at my watch over his shoulder, wishing I could afford to call the Winthrops and tell them I was sick. But Marshall was an anomaly, and my work was the norm.
I was beginning to hope that with Marshall I could be exactly who I felt like being. The Memphis Lily, the Lily with long brown hair, who puffed and panted after twenty minutes on the treadmill, would never have done what blond strong Lily did to Marshall next. My caress made him shiver all over.
“You don’t know what it’s been like,” he said when he could speak. I realized that Marshall had a story to tell, too.
“If you’re sure you don’t have ten extra minutes now,” he went on breathlessly, “I guess I’ll have to wait until tonight. We better not spar together in class!”
I found myself smiling at the thought of Marshall seething with desire while blocking my kicks, and seeing me smile made him laugh out loud.
“See you then,” I said, with a sudden resurgence of shyness. I gently extricated myself from his arms and went to my car. As he passed me to go to his Toyota, I had a back view of broad shoulders and tight butt to admire.
It had been so long since my plans had extended beyond my latest batch of library books or a movie I’d rented that I hardly knew what to think of as I drove the familiar route to my next job. I would be sweaty after class. Could I shower at his house? Would he expect me to stay the night, or would I come home to sleep? Where would I park my car? It was nobody’s business that I would be visiting Marshall’s rental house. I liked my life private.