Little Pretty Things (6 page)

Lu shuffled me around the building, grabbing a hand towel from the cleaning cart as we passed it. In the lobby, she forced me into the seat behind the desk and disappeared. When she came back, the towel was wet and wrapped around some ice from the machine. She pressed it to my face. “Oh, poor sweet lady.”

A few minutes passed, the only sound my ragged breath. Then sirens, at first distant, then close and wailing. Tires skidding on loose gravel.

“Lu—” I couldn’t think of anything to say. I’d had plenty to say the night before, though, hadn’t I, and where had that left Maddy? She was the one, the woman we all should
poor lady
for. Poor Maddy. Why had I said those horrible things to her? “Oh, God.”

Lu patted my hand, and then went to the windows to see what was happening. “Two fire trucks and two—three cop cars. Four, now. I didn’t know we had so many.”

What had I said to Maddy? That the true friendship she believed in had been a myth.

Which was a lie.

Because I’d been mad at her? After ten years?

Because she’d suggested she might have thrown a race my way. Because she felt sorry for me. She saw me rotting here behind the Mid-Night’s front desk, still fretting over a few long-distance high-school track races from ten years ago, and she pitied me.

But I couldn’t let her have even that, could I? I’d stripped her of her compassion until she’d felt naked and exposed. Until she’d felt alone and abandoned enough to—

I remembered all the expectancy and good feeling I’d had all morning. I’d been thinking I’d found the cusp of a new beginning, because Maddy had made me think I could live a larger life, be a different person. And all the while I’d been looking forward to the apology I owed her. The apology that might open up my future, always selfish to the last. But Maddy had needed much more than I’d been willing to give. She’d needed a friend. The real kind.

This was my fault.

“Here they come,” Lu said. She came to my side and gave my arm a quick squeeze.

The door chimes sounded. Two of them, dark uniforms, entered. Billy trailed behind, came to the counter, and leaned against it, shaking his head.

“Well, she’s dead.”

“We know that,
Billy
,” Lu said.

“Sergeant Jim Loughton,” said the uniformed guy. I looked up, recognized them both. Sometimes we got a patrol out to the Mid-Night, the bar, when somebody had too much to drink, or if a fight broke out. Loughton was big, round-bellied, and looking around in distaste as though he feared touching anything. He took off his cap, revealing salt-and-pepper hair, and gestured to the other cop. “Patrol Officer Howard.”

The other cop gave me an awkward wave from her hip. “Hi, Juliet.”

I struggled for the right thing to say. There was nothing. “Courtney.”

“Weird about Maddy,” she said.

I nodded.

Loughton took a second to glance between us, settling his gaze at last on his partner.

“Juliet and I graduated from Midway High together,” Courtney said. She took off her cap, too, and tucked it under her arm. Courtney Howard was small—not just for a cop, but for a human—with a cropped barbershop haircut that showed off her sharp cheekbones and sharper eyes. She had a little lisp that was hard to pinpoint, but that made her sound younger than she was. In her uniform, she seemed like a little girl playing dress up.

Loughton cleared his throat with a rumble. “Who checked in the deceased?”

The deceased. I swallowed hard. “I did.” My voice was small in the still room.

“When was this?”

I couldn’t think. Lu nudged me away from the computer to look it up. “She checked in at nine twenty-six last night,” she said.

Loughton gave Courtney a loaded look. She reached for her notepad and flipped it open. “How did she pay?” she said.

“Credit card. Do you need the number?”

“Not yet,” Courtney said. “Was she alone?”

They all turned to me. “Yes.”

“The hell she was,” Billy said.

“She checked in alone,” I said. “She said ‘just me.’ But—”

“But there was a heckuva racket in there last night about two a.m.,” Billy said. He ran his hand through his hair five or six times while we all watched. Tic number three. “Her room was right above mine, so I heard it well enough.”

I cleared my throat. “What I was going to say was that she left last night—”

“Oh, that’s right,” Lu said. “We saw her leave right after you came back from the bar.”

“Who went to the bar, now?” Courtney said.

Loughton held out his hands, traffic-cop style. “Whoa. One at a time. You,” he said, pointing at me. Billy had done the same thing just a few hours ago. I wished it were still then, before I knew what I knew and had seen what I’d seen.

“Maddy checked in, and then she wanted a drink.” I thought for a second, and everyone let me. My legs felt shaky. “Except she didn’t seem to want the drink, really. We sat in the Mid-Night—the bar—until my break was over, and then I pointed out her room. But Maddy didn’t go to her room. We both saw her drive away. This morning—” I remembered finding the silver car parked in the lot and felt again the rising hopes of catching her before it was too late. It was too late. “This morning, her car was here when we came in.”

“‘We’ refers to you and Ms.—” Courtney nodded toward Lu.

“Mendoza,” Lu said. “Luisa. Juliet drives me when we have the same shift.” Her eyes shifted between Loughton, Courtney, then Billy. “Most days, I mean, she drives me.” I could feel her trembling beside me.

Loughton grunted. “And the victim’s name?”

“Madeleine Bell,” Courtney and I said, together.

“Well,” he said, looking between us again. “Now that everyone’s properly introduced.”

Loughton went out to see to Maddy, leaving Courtney to take our statements. She looked between the three of us, meeting my eyes and looking away. “Ms. Mendoza?”

After a brief negotiation, Billy led them to the doors between the lobby and the bar, unlocked, and flipped the lights for them.

Back at the counter, Billy leaned toward me. “What do you think they want us to say?” he said.

I didn’t know. There was a knot in my stomach. “They’ll ask questions.”

His eye twitched, twitched. “Jesus, what kind of questions?”

“About Maddy, you idiot.”

“I don’t know anything about her.”

“What you—heard, you know. Her and her—”

The guy.

“Oh my God,” I said.

“What?” Billy said.

Maddy, hanging from the belt of her own coat, surely a suicide. But what did it mean if she’d had a late-night guest?

“Tell them everything you can about the noises you heard,” I said. “Billy, if someone was with her, maybe she didn’t kill herself.”

He whistled. “What difference does it make? You think they’ll let us keep a half star if some bitch gets herself murdered here?”

“Billy, she—”

The bar door opened, and Lu emerged. She seemed stunned.

Courtney stood in the doorway. “Mr. Batts? Billy, was it?”

He smiled wide enough to show the black socket of a missing molar. “Yes, ma’am.”

“Ms. Mendoza,” Courtney said. “You can go.”

“Juliet is my ride.”

“Call for another one. We’re going to need to talk to Ms. Townsend at length.”

They all looked at me.

“Take my car, Lu,” I said. “I’ll get a ride over to your house later.”

“Someone better be cleaning some rooms, is all I want to say.”

“Billy,
shut up
,” Lu said. “We still have lots of rooms clean and ready—”

“If the premises aren’t completely shut down,” Courtney said.

“The
premises
is where I live, lady,” Billy said. His fingers raked through his hair three, four times. We all waited.

“Well, you must be devastated to have this happen on your doorstep,” Courtney said, her lisp menacing in its cuteness. She waved him into the bar. The doors swung closed behind them.

Lu looked at me, shook her head, and pulled me farther from the door. “This is very bad stuff, here.”

“Lu, the noises Billy said he heard in her room—you know what that means, right?”

“Oh,” she breathed. “Oh, that’s why all the bad cop, bad cop. I thought she—”

“So did I.”

Lu tilted her head at me. “Don’t look so relieved. Your friend got murdered last night.”

“I had this bad feeling that she’d—that I’d—” I couldn’t bring myself to admit how badly I’d treated Maddy. “I felt bad I hadn’t seen the signs, you know?”

She nodded uncertainly. “Instead, we only have a madman stalking the place we work,” she said. “That is not a comfort to me.”

Or to me. My head swam. I folded my arms on the counter and rested my face in the dark circle they created. I wanted to be at home, in bed, ignoring the alarm clock, or I wanted it to be three days ago, totally unaware that Maddy Bell even remembered my name. Or I wanted it to be three decades from now, when this all might be a dull memory.

But it would never dull. I remembered this roaring ocean of feelings from when my dad had died: confusion, horror. Anger. What was the point of living, really, when it was so easily gone, and left so much disaster behind? My mom standing at my dad’s gravesite, head bowed. Then again, just the night before, head bowed over the empty sink. I couldn’t quite remember the sound of his voice or his laugh. These things faded, but the pain hadn’t.

The bar doors opened, and Billy scuttled into the lobby like a cockroach trying to find the dark. “We’re going to go no-vacancy for a few nights, girls,” he said, looking at me. I usually scolded him for calling us that, at our age, but I let it go. “Just ’til things die down. I mean. You know what I mean.”

“Ms. Mendoza, I believe you were dismissed,” Courtney said from the doorway. “Juliet. It’s time.”

Billy came behind the desk. He nudged me out of the way and clicked through some screens on the computer. With the flick of a wrist, he swiped a room card. Maddy’s room. They would have to search it. Billy grabbed under the counter for the switch for the no-vacancy neon we hardly ever had a chance to put into service. I reached into the pocket of my uniform and slid my car keys across the counter to Lu.

Billy held the door for her. “Lock up tight, Juliet,” he said, fidgeting with the room key in his hand. “Might be a couple of days.” He looked at Courtney. “Or longer.” He let the door sail closed behind them.

It was time.

CHAPTER SIX

I’d been in the closed bar before, but it had never seemed as ominous. The daylight pouring in from the outside door seemed strange—was it still only the morning? Courtney waved me toward the same table I’d sat at with Maddy the night before. Casual, as though we’d be catching up over coffee. “So, what did you think, when Maddy walked in the front door?”

“I thought, ‘We sure are busy for an off-season night.’”

Courtney sat across from me and gave me a long, level stare. “All of this is on the record.”

“OK,” I said.

“Which means no bullshit.”

Courtney and I hadn’t been friends at Midway High, or enemies. The hostility seemed earned, though. I searched my memory for what I’d missed. I barely remembered Courtney from high school, couldn’t place her among the cliques and groups of girls formed there. Maybe not remembering was the problem. “Sure,” I said.

“Were you in touch with Maddy before she arrived last night?”

“I hadn’t seen or talked to her since graduation day,” I said.

“Your best friend from forever ago arrives unannounced at your workplace one night, and all you can think is how busy you are?” Courtney’s sharp cheekbones looked sharper in her disgust.

“I did wonder why she’d stay here instead of at home—at her old home, I mean. But I guess she and her stepmother still don’t get along.”

“Did you and Maddy get along?”

“I told you, we weren’t in touch.”

“Not at all?” she said.

I’d seen enough cop shows to know what she was doing. “
Like I said
, not until last night. I heard she lived in Chicago—”

Courtney leaned forward. “Who told you that?”

“Shelly. The reunion’s coming up.” Shelly, our class president, used her bank window as a throne from which to maintain control of her subjects. If I didn’t RSVP to the reunion soon, I wouldn’t be able to deposit my paycheck without getting a lot of attitude. Of course, with the Mid-Night closed, maybe the greater concern was when I’d ever see a paycheck again.

Courtney fell back against her seat, less rigid through the shoulders. “Shelly. Right. Are you going to the reunion?”

“I wasn’t planning to. What about you?”

She reached for a paper coaster on the table and worried it between her fingers. “I don’t have much to say to those people.”

“Those people?”

“My high-school years don’t need to be revisited,” she said.

“Your high-school years and mine were the same years.”

“Not by a long shot.”

“Come on,” I said. “It wasn’t that bad.”

Her glare cut through me. “For you, it wasn’t that bad. For Maddy. You were too busy being track superstars to notice anyone else. The rest of us were just blurs.”

Now I remembered.

The headline had read something like
And Everyone Else Is a Blur
. It was something dumb Maddy used to say. I’d never given it much thought until she’d said it during an interview with the school paper. In big, black print, it sounded ugly and stuck-up. And people had taken it seriously. Even a few of the other runners had given us a pass after that. Maddy and I laughed it off, but we knew damage had been done. We couldn’t really blame the newspaper—nothing in the article had been wrong or misquoted.