I’m not entirely sure what a kiss-a-gram is. “I’m not a kiss—”
“There was a time when all I had to do was smile.…” He smiles now, flashing a pair of fake teeth that don’t fit quite right.
“Sir, I’m not here to kiss you.”
He adjusts his direction at the sound of my voice, pivoting in his chair until he’s nearly facing me, and lifts his chin. “Then what are you knocking on my door for, little lady?”
“My family is renovating the coffee shop downstairs, and I wanted to introduce myself.”
He gestures to his wheelchair. “I can’t exactly go downstairs,” he says. “Have everything brought up.”
“There’s…an elevator.”
He has a sandpaper laugh. “I’ve survived this long. I’ve no plans to perish in one of those metal death traps.” I decide I like him. His hand drifts shakily up to his mouth, removes the stub of his cigarette. “Bishop. Bishop. Betty brought in a muffin that was sitting in the hall. Suppose you’re to blame for that.”
“Yes, sir.”
“More of a cookie person, myself. No offense to the other baked goods. I just like cookies. Well, suppose you want to come in.”
He slides the wheelchair back several feet into the room, and it catches the edge of the carpet. “Blasted device,” he growls.
“Would you like a hand?”
He throws both of his up. “I’ve got two of those. Need some new eyes, though. Betty’s my eyes, and she’s not here.”
I wonder when Betty will be back.
“Here,” I say, crossing the threshold. “Let me.”
I guide the chair through the apartment to a table. “Mr. Nix,” I say, sitting down beside him. I set the copy of the Inferno on the worn table.
“No Mr. Just Nix.”
“Okay…Nix, I’m hoping you can help me. I’m trying to find out more about a series of”—I try to think of how to put this politely, but can’t—“a series of deaths that happened here a very long time ago.”
“What would you want to know about that for?” he asks. But the question lacks Angelli’s defensiveness, and he doesn’t feign ignorance.
“Curiosity, mostly,” I say. “And the fact that no one seems to want to talk about it.”
“That’s because most people don’t know about it. Not these days. Strange things, those deaths.”
“How so?”
“Well, that many deaths so close together. No foul play, they said, but it makes you wonder. Weren’t even in the paper. It was news around here, of course. For a while it looked like the Coronado wouldn’t make it. No one would move in.” I remember the string of vacancy listings in the directories. “Everyone thought it was cursed.”
“You didn’t, obviously,” I say.
“Says who?”
“Well, you’re still here.”
“I may be stubborn. Doesn’t mean I have the faintest idea what happened that year. String of bad luck, or something worse. Still, it’s strange, how badly people wanted to forget about it.”
Or how badly the Archive wanted them to.
“All started with that poor girl,” says Nix. “Regina. Pretty thing. So cheerful. And then someone went and killed her. So sad, when people die so young.”
Someone? Doesn’t he know it was Robert?
“Did they catch the killer?” I ask.
Nix shakes his head sadly. “Never did. People thought it was her boyfriend, but they never found him.”
Anger coils inside me at the image of Robert trying to wipe the blood off his hands, pulling on one of Regina’s coats, and running.
“She had a brother, didn’t she? What happened to him?”
“Strange boy.” Nix reaches out to the table, fingers dancing until they find a pack of cigarettes. I take up a box of matches and light one for him. “The parents moved out right after Regina’s death, but the boy stayed. Couldn’t let go. Blamed himself, I think.”
“Poor Owen,” I whisper.
Nix frowns, blind eyes narrowing on me. “How did you know his name?”
“You told me,” I say steadily, shaking out the match.
Nix blinks a few times, then taps the space between his eyes. “Sorry. I swear it must be going. Slowly, thanks be to God, but going all the same.”
I set the spent match on the table. “The brother, Owen. How did he die?”
“I’m getting there,” says Nix, taking a drag. “After Regina, well, things started to settle at the Coronado. We held our breaths. April passed. May passed. June passed. July passed. And then, just when we were starting to let out our air…” He claps his hands together, showering his lap with ash. “Marcus died. Hung himself, they said, but his knuckles were cut up and his wrists were bruised. I know because I helped cut the body down. Not a week later, Eileen goes down the south stairs. Broke her neck. Then, oh, what was his name, Lionel? Anyway, young man.” His hand falls back into his lap.
“How did he die?”
“He was stabbed. Repeatedly. Found his body in the elevator. Not much use calling that one an accident. No motive, though, no weapon, no killer. No one knew what to make of it. And then Owen…”
“What happened?” I ask, gripping my chair.
Nix shrugs. “No one knows—well, I’m all that’s left, so I guess I should say no one knew—but he’d been having a hard time.” His milky eyes find my face and he points a bony finger up at the ceiling. “He went off the roof.”
I look up and feel sick. “He jumped?”
Nix lets out a long breath of smoke. “Maybe. Maybe not. Depends on how you want to spin things. Did he jump or was he pushed? Did Marcus hang himself? Did Eileen trip? Did Lionel…well, there ain’t much doubt about what happened to Lionel, but you see my point. Things stopped after that summer, though, and never started up again. No one could make sense of it, and it don’t do any good to be thinking morbid thoughts, so the people here did the one thing they could do. They forgot. They let the past rest. You probably should too.”
“You’re right,” I say softly, but I’m still looking up, thinking about the roof, about Owen.
I used to go up on the roof and imagine I was back on the cliffs, looking out. It was a sea of brick below me.…
My stomach twists as I picture his body going over the edge, blue eyes widening the instant before the pavement hits.
“I’d better be going.” I push myself to my feet. “Thank you for talking to me about this.”
Nix nods absently. I head for the door, but stop, turn back to see him still hunched over his cigarette, dangerously close to setting his scarf on fire.
“What kind of cookies?” I ask.
His head lifts, and he smiles. “Oatmeal raisin. The chewy kind.”
I smile even though he can’t see. “I’ll see what I can do,” I say, closing the door behind me. And then I head for the stairs.
Owen was the last to die, and one way or another, he went off the roof.
So maybe the roof has answers.
NINETEEN
I TAKE THE STAIRWELL up to the roof access door, which looks rusted shut, but it’s not. The metal grinds against the concrete frame, and I step through a doorway of dust and cobwebs, past a crumbling overhang, and out into a sea of stone bodies. I had seen the statues from the street, gargoyles perched around the perimeter of the roof. What I couldn’t see from there is that they cover the entire surface. Hunching, winged, sharp-toothed, they huddle here and there like crows, and glare at me with broken faces. Half of their limbs are missing, the rock eaten away by time and rain and ice and sun.
So this is Owen’s roof.
I try to picture him leaning against a gargoyle, head tipped back against a stone mouth. And I can see it. I can see him in this place.
But I can’t see him jumping.
There is something undeniably sad about Owen, something lost, but it wouldn’t take this shape. Sadness can sometimes sap the fight from a person’s features, but his are sharp. Daring. Almost defiant.
I trail my hand along a demon’s wing, then make my way to the edge of the roof.
It was a sea of brick below me. But if I looked up instead of down, I could have been anywhere.