It’s a relief to hear this. Given the current state of my finances, I simply can’t afford to lose wages.
“That’s very good of you, Mr. Snow,” I say. Then another thought occurs to me. “So I’m not in any trouble, is that correct?”
“No,” says Mr. Snow. “Isn’t that right, Detective?”
“No, not at all. We just need to know what you saw today, what you noticed, especially at the scene.”
“You mean in Mr. Black’s suite?”
“Yes.”
“When I found him dead.”
“Uh, yes.”
“I see. Where shall I take my soiled teacup, Mr. Snow? I’m happy to return it to the kitchen. ‘Never leave a mess to be discovered by a guest.’ ”
I’m quoting from Mr. Snow’s most recent professional-development seminar, but alas, he doesn’t acknowledge my witty rejoinder.
“Don’t worry about the cup. I’ll take care of it,” he says.
And with that, the detective leads the way, ushering me out of Mr. Snow’s office, through the illustrious front lobby of the Regency Grand Hotel and out the service door.
Chapter 4
I am in the police station. It feels odd not to be either at the Regency Grand or at home in Gran’s apartment. I have trouble calling it “my apartment,” but I suppose it’s mine now. Mine and mine alone for as long as I can manage to pay the rent.
Now here I am in a place I’ve never been before, a place I certainly never expected to be in today—a small, white, cinder-block room with only two chairs, a table, and a camera in the upper-left corner, blinking a red light at me. The fluorescent illumination in here is too sharp and blinding. While I have a great appreciation of bright white in décor and clothing, this style choice is definitely not working. White only works when a room is clean. And make no mistake: this room is far from clean.
Perhaps it’s an occupational hazard: I see dirt where others don’t. The stains on the wall where a black briefcase likely grazed it, the coffee rings on the white table in front of me, two round, brown o’s. The gray thumbprints smeared around the doorknob, the geometric treads left on the floor from an officer’s wet boots.
Detective Stark left me here just a few moments ago. Our car ride over was pleasant enough. She let me sit in the front of the car, which I appreciated. I’m no criminal, thank you very much, so there’s no need to treat me like one. She tried to make small talk during the drive. I’m not good at small talk.
“So how long have you worked at the Regency Grand?” she asked.
“It’s now approximately four years, thirteen weeks, and five days. I may be off by a day, but no more. I could tell you exactly if you have a calendar.”
“Not necessary.” She shook her head slowly for a few seconds, which I took to mean I’d offered too much information. Mr. Snow taught me “KISS,” which isn’t what you think. It stands for Keep It Simple, Stupid. To be clear, he wasn’t calling me stupid. He was suggesting that sometimes I overexplain, which I’ve learned can be annoying to others.
When we reached the station, Detective Stark greeted the receptionist, which was rather good of her. I do appreciate when so-called superiors properly greet their employees—No one is too high or too low for common courtesy, Gran would say.
Once we were in the station, the detective led me to this small room at the back.
“Can I get you anything before we begin our chat? How about a cup of coffee?”
“Tea?” I asked.
“I’ll see what I can do.”
Now she’s back with a Styrofoam cup in her hand. “Sorry, there’s no tea to be had in this cop shop. I brought you some water instead.”
A Styrofoam cup. I detest Styrofoam. The way it squeaks. The way dirt clings to it. The way even the slightest nick with a fingernail leaves a permanent scar, but I know to be polite. I won’t make a fuss.
“Thank you,” I say.
She clears her throat and sits in the chair across from mine. She has a yellow note pad and a Bic pen, the top chewed. I will my mind not to think about the universe of bacteria dwelling on the top of that pen. She puts her pad down on the table, the pen beside it. She leans back and looks at me in that penetrating way of hers.
“You’re not in any trouble, Molly,” she says. “I just want you to know that.”
“I’m well aware,” I say.
The yellow pad is askew, approximately forty-seven degrees off from being square with the corner of the table. Before I can stop them, my hands move to rectify this untidiness, shifting the pad so it’s parallel with the table. The pen is also askew, but there is no power on Earth great enough to make me touch it.
Detective Stark watches me, her head cocked to one side. This may be uncharitable, but she looks like a large dog listening for sounds in the forest. Eventually, she speaks.
“It seems to me that Mr. Snow might be right about you, that you’re in shock. It’s common for people in shock to have trouble expressing their emotions. I’ve seen it before.”
Detective Stark does not know me at all. I suppose Mr. Snow didn’t tell her much about me either. She thinks my behavior is peculiar, that I’m out of sorts because I found Mr. Black dead in his bed. And while it was shocking and I am out of sorts, I’m feeling much better now than I was a few hours ago, and I’m most certain that I’m behaving quite normally indeed.
What I really want is to go home, to make myself a proper cup of tea, and perhaps text Rodney about the day’s events in the hopes that he might console me in some way or offer himself for a date. If that doesn’t transpire, not all is lost. I might take a nice bath and read an Agatha Christie novel—Gran has so many of them, all of which I’ve read more than once.
I decide not to share any of these thoughts. Instead, I agree with Detective Stark insofar as I can without complete deception. “Detective,” I say, “you may be right that I am in shock, and I’m sorry if you think I’m not quite myself.”
“It’s perfectly understandable,” she says, and her lips lift into a smile—at least, I think it’s a smile? I can rarely be certain.
“I’d like to ask you what you saw when you entered the Blacks’ suite this afternoon. Did you see anything out of place or unusual?”
During each and every shift, I encounter a panoply of things that are “out of place” or “unusual”—and not just in the Black suite. Today, I found a curtain rod ripped from its hinges in a room on the third floor, a contraband hot plate left in plain sight on a bathroom counter on the fourth floor, and six very giggly ladies trying to hide air mattresses under a bed in a room meant for two guests only. I did my due diligence and reported all of these infractions—and more—to Mr. Snow.
“Your devotion to the high standards of the Regency Grand knows no bounds,” Mr. Snow said, but he did not smile. His lips remained a perfect horizontal line.
“Thank you,” I replied, feeling quite good about my report.
I consider what it is the detective really wants to know and what I’m prepared to divulge.
“Detective,” I say, “the Black suite was in its usual state of disarray when I entered this afternoon. There wasn’t much out of the ordinary, except the pills on the bedside table.”
I offer this up on purpose, because it’s a detail that even the most nitwitted investigator would have noticed at the scene. What I don’t want to discuss are the other things—the robe on the floor, the safe being open, the missing money, the flight itinerary, Giselle’s purse being gone the second time I went into the room. And what I saw in that mirror in Mr. Black’s bedroom.