“Anyhow,” Detective Stark says, “It wasn’t the pills that killed him. He had a lot in his system, but not enough to kill him.”
“What do you believe killed him then?” I ask.
“We don’t know yet. But I assure you, we’ll get to the bottom of it,” she says. “The full autopsy report will determine if the petechial hemorrhaging was due to a cardiac arrest or if something more sinister happened.”
It comes back to me in a flash. The room starts to spin. I see Mr. Black, his skin gray and taut, the little pinprick bruises around his eyes, his body stiff and lifeless. After I made the call to the front desk, I looked up. I caught my reflection in the mirror on the wall in front of the bed.
Suddenly, I feel clammy and cold, like I’m about to faint.
Detective Stark purses her lips, bides her time. Eventually, she says, “If you know something, now’s your chance to be on the side of good. You do understand that Mr. Black was a very important man? A VIP?”
“No,” I say.
“Excuse me?” Detective Stark replies.
“I don’t believe that some people are more important than other people. We’re all very important in our own way, Detective. For instance, I’m sitting here with you—a lowly hotel maid—and yet clearly there is something very important about me. Otherwise, you wouldn’t have brought me here today.”
Detective Stark is listening carefully. She zeroes in on my every word.
“Let me ask you something,” she says. “Does it ever make you angry? Being a maid, I mean? Cleaning up after rich people? Taking care of their messes?”
I’m impressed by this line of questioning. This is not what I was expecting at all when I was escorted here.
“Yes,” I answer truthfully. “I do sometimes feel angry. Especially when guests are careless. When they forget that their actions have an impact on others, when I’m treated like I don’t matter.”
Detective Stark says nothing. Her elbows remain on the table, which continues to grate on my nerves even though it’s only officially a breach of etiquette when there’s a meal being served.
“Now let me ask you a question,” I say. “Does it ever bother you?”
“Does what ever bother me?”
“Cleaning up after rich people. Taking care of their messes,” I say.
The detective pulls back as though I’ve sprouted the head of Hydra and one hundred serpents are hissing in her face. What pleases me, though, is that her elbows are no longer on the table.
“Is that how you see this? That my job as a detective is to clean up after a man has died?”
“What I’m saying is that we’re not so different, when it comes down to it.”
“Is that so?”
“You want this mess cleaned up, and so do I. We both seek a tidy closure to this unfortunate situation. A return to normalcy.”
“What I’m seeking is the truth, Molly. About how Mr. Black died. And right now, I also want to know the truth about you. We’ve uncovered some interesting information in the last forty-eight hours. When we spoke the other day, you said you didn’t know Giselle Black particularly well. But as it turns out, that’s not true.”
I won’t give her the satisfaction of flinching. Giselle is my friend. I’ve never had a friend like her before, and I’m acutely aware of how easy it would be to lose her. I consider how to protect her and tell the truth at the same time.
“Giselle has confided in me in the past. That doesn’t mean I know her as well as I’d like. Mr. Black definitely had a temper. It was hard not to notice Giselle’s bruises. She confessed he was the cause of them.”
“You do realize we’ve been talking to other employees at the hotel, right?”
“I would have expected as much, yes. I’m sure you’ll find them very helpful to your investigation,” I say.
“They’ve told us a lot. Not only about Giselle and Mr. Black. But about you.”
I feel my stomach twist. Surely whoever spoke to Detective Stark would have been fair in their commentary, even if I’m not their cup of tea? And if the detective consulted Mr. Snow, Mr. Preston, or Rodney, she would have received a glowing report on my employee conduct and general reliability.
A thought occurs to me. Cheryl. She was “sick” yesterday—though probably not so sick that she couldn’t make her way down to this very station.
As if reading my mind, the detective says, “Molly, we’ve been talking to Cheryl, your supervisor.”
“I do hope she was helpful,” I reply, though I highly doubt she was.
“We asked Cheryl if she ever cleaned the Blacks’ suite when they stayed at the hotel. She said that for a while she did clean their suite alongside you. It was her way of maintaining quality control and keeping her maids sharp.”
The acid builds in my stomach. “It was her way of siphoning off tips that were meant for those who do the work rather than for those who stand around watching,” I say.
The detective ignores my words entirely. “Cheryl said that she observed a friendly relationship between you and Giselle, a kind of special kinship that was unusual between a guest and a maid, especially for you, since you don’t really have friends, so I’m told.”
I knew Cheryl was watching me, but I never realized just how much. I take a moment to collect my thoughts before I respond. “Giselle was grateful for my services,” I say. “That was the basis for our relationship.”
“Tell me, did you ever receive tips from Giselle? Or large sums of money?” she asks.
“She and Mr. Black tipped me well,” I answer. I won’t go into further details about the countless times Giselle placed brand-new $100 bills into the palm of my hand to thank me for keeping the suite clean. And I won’t mention her visit to my home nor the charitable monetary gift she left me last night. It’s no one’s business except mine.
“Did Giselle ever give you anything besides money?”
Kindness. Friendship. Help. Trust. “Nothing out of the ordinary,” I say.
“Nothing at all?”
Detective Stark digs in her pocket and takes out a small key. She opens a drawer in the table between us. She takes out the timer, Giselle’s timer, her golden gift to me. The detective places it on the table.
I feel a surge of heat rise to my face. “Cheryl let you into my locker. That’s my locker, it’s my personal space. That’s not right, invading someone’s privacy, touching their things without permission.”
“Those lockers are hotel property, Molly. Please remember you’re just an employee, not the owner of the hotel. Now, tell me: are you ready to confess the truth about you and Giselle?”
The truth about Giselle and me is something I barely understand. It’s as strange as a baby rhino being adopted by a tortoise. How am I supposed to explain such a thing? “I don’t know what to tell you,” I say.
“Then let me tell you something,” Detective Stark replies as her elbows reclaim the table. “You’re rapidly becoming a person of interest to us. Do you understand what that means?”
I’m detecting an air of condescension. I’ve encountered this before—people who assume that I’m a complete idiot just because I don’t grasp things that come easily to them.
“You’re becoming a VIP, Molly,” Detective Stark adds. “And not the good kind. You’ve proven that you’re capable of leaving out important details, of bending the truth to suit you. I’m going to ask you one more time: are you in contact with Giselle Black?”
I deliberate once more and find I’m able to answer this with 100 percent honesty. “I am not currently in contact with Giselle, though as I understand it, she remains a guest at the hotel.”