The Dead Key Part 31

"Well, as I say, we have evidence she's been in the building. We believe she's involved in a crime ring to defraud the bank. Now, we've notified the police and the FBI, and we'd like your cooperation in their investigation."

Beatrice nodded. Tony had said the FBI was already investigating the bank but had only found dead ends. Now the feds had Max to blame. Mr. Thompson was going to frame her for the robberies. Max had the keys at one time. Max had been in the vault. Max had been investigating abandoned safe deposit boxes. It would be easy.

"I just can't believe what you're saying!" Beatrice let her eyes water for effect. She'd wanted to cry all morning anyway. "Max doesn't seem like a thief."

"Oh, you'd be surprised what people are capable of." He looked deep into her eyes, and she fought the urge to shiver with revulsion.

She lowered her gaze as if saddened and nodded. Mr. Thompson was capable of terrible things. The words "Rhonda Whitmore!" were scrawled in red ink across her mind. Was he capable of murder? Had he already found Max?

"Have . . . the police found her yet?"

"Not yet, but don't worry, Beatrice. We will."

Hours after her interview with Mr. Thompson, the words "we will" repeated in her head. She sat at her desk under the watchful eyes of the entire office and tried to look as shocked as everyone else. Mr. Thompson had set the scene perfectly. All of the employees were on high alert, anxious to find Max and save the bank. She looked down at the flip calendar on the edge of her desk. The next day was Friday-the day the bank was going to let the City of Cleveland default.

After the other women had seemed to tire of sneaking glances at her, Beatrice carried her purse to the bathroom and locked herself in a stall. She put her head to her knees and rocked for a little while, tracing the floor tiles with vacant eyes. Tony wouldn't let them arrest Max, she told herself, but she didn't believe it. If Tony had enough clout to save her, Max would have given him the key. But Max had given it to her instead.

She finally left the bathroom and took the elevator down to the main lobby and the pay phone in the corner. She deposited her money and dialed. She listened to the hypnotic ring of the telephone and squeezed her eyes shut.

"h.e.l.lo?" said a voice on the other end of the phone.

"Mother? This is Beatrice," she said. "Don't hang up."

After a long silence, the voice said, "You've got a lot of nerve calling me up like this. After all this time . . . What the h.e.l.l do you want?"

Beatrice tried to picture the black-and-white photograph of her mother and aunt arm in arm when they were young, before they hated each other. "It's Doris. She's in the hospital."

"So that's where you've been all this time. I guess that figures, don't it?" Ilene breathed cigarette smoke into the receiver.

"What figures?"

"Huh." Her mother chuckled. "I guess Doris never told you why she left town all those years ago."

Doris hadn't told her a thing. Beatrice had been too afraid to pry. None of it mattered now. "She's dying, Mom. I just thought you should know. She's at University Hospitals in Cleveland."

Beatrice hung up the phone before her mother could say another acidic word. There was no tenderness, no concern, no relief her daughter was still alive. She never should have called. Ilene would never come for Doris.

When she returned to her desk, she began to methodically remove every last trace of Beatrice Baker from the Auditing Department. She tried to make it seem as if it were business as usual. Drawer by drawer, she picked her station clean of anything personal. There wasn't much. Several folders were packed in the last drawer. They were her filing a.s.signments for Randy. He had said the files were sensitive, and that he would only trust them to her. She decided to decipher why.

She pulled them out as if to sort them and studied the pages more closely. Each file contained a list of transactions. The only thing that made any of them different from the other accounting records Beatrice had filed was the labeling system. Instead of a client name and account number, there were a bunch of symbols, "$#$," and a jumble of letters, "LRHW." The symbols and letters varied, but none of them made much sense.

"What are you reading, dear?" Ms. Cunningham's voice boomed behind her. Beatrice jumped.

"N-nothing," she stammered, and shoved the sheet in her hand into the nearest folder. "It's some filing for Mr. Halloran. I . . . wanted to make sure I sorted it correctly."

"Of course. Keep up the good work." She then raised her voice to the entire room of women. "Filing is an important responsibility that shouldn't be taken lightly. A bank is only as good as its records."

Then Ms. Cunningham waddled away. It was the closest thing to a secretarial staff meeting Beatrice had ever witnessed at the bank. Maybe her supervisor was trying to calm everyone's nerves, but she also seemed to be pointing her comments directly at Beatrice.

Once she was certain no one else was looking over her shoulder, Beatrice cracked the folder where she had buried the page she'd been holding. The sheet didn't belong there, she realized, checking the label. Beatrice started to refile it correctly but stopped herself. She stared at the accounting record in her hand and silently repeated what old Cunny had said. A bank is only as good as its records.

Beatrice squeezed the paper between her fingers. No one was going to believe a thing she had to say about the bank, Bill Thompson, or the money men, but no one would ever be able to piece together what had happened to the accounting record in her hand either. Her mind made up, she proceeded to shuffle pages randomly into the wrong folders, scattering the data across thirteen files. She walked them over to Mr. Halloran's mailbox and shoved the files inside before she changed her mind. It might not make any difference, but it was something.

When the clock struck five, Beatrice Baker left the bank for the last time.

CHAPTER 60.

Beatrice didn't realize where she was heading until she got there. She stepped off the bus in Little Italy and walked the three blocks up Murray Hill to her aunt's apartment, looking over her shoulder the whole way. She stood at the bottom of the dark, covered steps that led up to her aunt's door. The lights were out. There weren't any suspicious cars parked along the curb. It all looked exactly the way she'd left it thirteen days earlier.

She climbed the stairs holding her breath and listened again for footsteps. Nothing. She swung the door open and tentatively stepped inside the cold, dark room. With the flick of the wall switch, light poured down the stairwell. The apartment was just as she'd left it-a wreck. The furniture was still strewn about. Loose papers and kitchen utensils were still scattered across the floor. She stepped over the ravaged pieces of Doris's life and headed to the bedroom. She searched the rubble until she found the photograph of her mother and aunt together. She picked it up and slid it into her purse. Someday she would visit Doris's grave, she promised herself.

Her eyes circled the room, looking for anything else she should take with her on her way out of town. The mink coat was in a pile next to the bed. She shook off her own wool coat and slid the mink onto her shoulders. She was amazed the knee-length fur almost fit. She tightened the belt. Her aunt was overweight from years of greasy diner food, but the young woman in the photograph was different. She had been small like Beatrice once. She hugged the soft coat to her chest as if it were Doris herself.

"I wish I didn't have to go," she whispered.

The clock inside her head ticked loudly, reminding her to hurry. She ran to the hall closet and grabbed a small suitcase. She needed more clothes. Her stash of belongings had been discovered deep in the bank while she was hiding in the hotel. The thought of what might have happened if she had returned to the eleventh floor the night before made her shudder.

Beatrice grabbed the few items she'd left at the foot of the radiator. She ran to the bathroom and threw a spare toothbrush and other essentials into the bag. She glanced up at the mirror and shrieked.

There was writing on the gla.s.s. At first she thought it was blood, but she looked closer and realized it was lipstick. It looked like nonsense before she realized it was shorthand. It was Max. She must have been there sometime in the last twelve days. Beatrice scanned the smeared, greasy marks slowly, her heart rate speeding up as she read.

"Get out. They know."

There was more, but the markings blurred together. They'd been written quickly. The only other words she could pick out in Max's shorthand looked like "Lancer Motel."

Beatrice backed away from the mirror. She switched off the light and grabbed her bag from the floor. She rushed out of the house without bothering to lock the door behind her. She peeked down the driveway from the shadow of the stair shed, then slipped behind the building. Running between the boarding houses, she avoided the street. When she hit the sidewalk a block down the road, she slowed to a walk to avoid drawing attention. The engine of a car started up several houses back. It was heading her way. She broke into a run toward the shops and restaurants on Mayfield Road.

The sign for her aunt's old diner was the first light she saw. She dashed inside, letting the door slam behind her. She only dared to look back once she was safely behind the gla.s.s doors. A black car with tinted windows slowly pa.s.sed outside the diner. She was hyperventilating.

A voice behind her said, "Beatrice? Is that you?" She spun around and saw Gladys walking toward her, holding her coffeepot. "Are you all right, honey?"

"I'm fine." She forced an awkward smile while gasping for air. "I was just . . . I was running."

"Isn't it a little cold out for that?" The old waitress scowled and looked down at her bag. "You goin' somewhere, hon?"

"Me? Uh, no . . . These are some of Doris's things. I thought she might like them." Beatrice's breathing was almost back to normal.

"Why are you in such a rush?"

"There was a car out there . . . Some guys shouted something. I guess I got scared."

"Can't say I blame you. You shouldn't be wandering around by yourself at night."

"I know. I just wanted to get to the hospital before visiting hours are over." Beatrice glanced back toward the street. She could no longer see the car. "I should really be going."

Gladys looked down at Beatrice's suitcase again. "You know, that reminds me. I hate to bother you, honey, but Mick asked me to clean out Doris's locker a few days ago on account of the fact that-bless her heart-she's probably not coming back to work. Do you have a second?"

Beatrice nodded reflexively and followed Gladys back to the service area, where Doris must have clocked in every day.

"I know this is terribly awkward, but can I give you her things?"

"Uh, sure. Of course. I'll make sure Doris gets them." Beatrice hadn't planned on ever going back to the hospital, but there was nothing else she could say.

"There wasn't much. She just kept a few emergency items." She handed Beatrice a zippered bag the size of a medium purse. She patted Beatrice's gaunt cheek gently. "If I don't see you again, good luck to you, honey."

CHAPTER 61.

Friday, August 28, 1998 "Iris."

She was hiding in the bathroom on the fifteenth floor. The handle of a brown leather suitcase was heavy in her hand. The lights were out, and all she could hear was her own breathing.

Until the voice whispered again, "Iris!"

"What!" Iris hissed back.

The voice was coming from the air shaft. Iris reached out and touched the iron grate. It was loose and it teetered a bit. She jerked her hand back, but it was too late. The metal fell from the wall with a crash that seemed to echo forever. Flashlights slashed through the dark. She could hear hard footsteps in the hall. Iris had no choice. She dropped the suitcase and reached inside the black cavern, feeling blindly until her hand fell on the rung of a ladder. She gripped it hard and pulled her torso and legs into the duct. Voices were coming from the office next door. She began climbing up the ladder one iron rung at a time.

A flashlight bounced off the sheet-metal walls of the mechanical chase. She hugged the ladder and tried to disappear in a shadow. There was a slatted louver overhead. Thin slices of the muted night sky floated just beyond her reach. Something tickled her neck. It was buzzing. She brushed it off. Then there was another and another, until hundreds of flies were crawling up her neck and in her ears. Screaming and clawing at herself, she let go of the ladder. She fell into the blackness.

Iris screamed herself awake. She sat up, clutching her sheets until the falling feeling in her stomach had pa.s.sed. She shuddered and buried her face in her hands. She could still see slats of night sky racing away from her as she plummeted down the air shaft.

The clock on the floor read "5:30" and the a.m. b.u.t.ton was lit. Perfect. She was up before dawn on the day she was getting fired. She considered going back to sleep, but thoughts of flies forced her out of bed and into the kitchen.

A cigarette and cup of day-old coffee later, it was still only 6:00 a.m. She curled up on the couch and watched the sky grow paler, until the sodium streetlights flickered and then went dead. She was getting fired in two hours and had no idea what she would do with herself. Maybe she would just disappear. No one would care if she did-not really. Nick and Ellie might feel a slight twinge, but their lives would go on without their missing so much as a beer. There was only one person who would really give a s.h.i.t.

Iris lit another cigarette and picked up the phone.

Her mother answered on the first ring. "h.e.l.lo?"

"Hi, Mom, it's Iris." Tears flooded her eyes at the sound of her mother's voice.

"Iris? Honey, are you all right? It's so early."

"I knew you'd be up. I had a bad dream."

"Oh, sweetie. No. I wish I could give you a big hug. What's wrong?"

"I . . ." Iris wanted to confess it all-the dead body, the keys, the voices, getting fired, her bad drinking habits, her pathetic love life, her loneliness. She wanted to climb onto her mother's lap and be rocked and held like when she was a girl. Her mother would hold her until she felt better. But Iris knew that woman had her own loneliness and would never let go. She would insist Iris come back home, where her life would be filled up with her mother's nagging complaints about her father, gossip about the neighbors, thoughts on the latest TV show, overbearing advice, and endless chatter, chatter, chatter about nothing. Iris couldn't breathe. She swallowed a sob.

"I don't know. Just nerves, I guess. Is Dad around?"

"I think he's asleep." Her mother's voice fell with disappointment. "I'll go check."

One minute later she heard another receiver get picked up. It was still her mother. "Can he call you back, honey?"

"Uh, sure."

Iris knew he wasn't calling back. He never did. He expected her to stand on her own two feet and didn't want to hear her sniveling on the phone. She knew what he would say anyway. He would tell her to come clean and go to the police. There would be other jobs. She should call the detective once her last day at work was done. Iris stiffened her chin, mind made up.

"That's fine. Everything's fine, Mom. Don't worry about me. Love you."

"I love you too, honey. Call anytime."

Iris climbed into the shower and let the hot water run down her face. When she closed her eyes, she was back in the air shaft. She pressed her forehead against the shower wall. The nightmares had to stop. She had to get rid of those keys.

"Never steal from a graveyard. You might disturb the ghosts," the old man had said.

Iris walked naked and dripping from the bathroom toward her closet. The blinking light of her answering machine stopped her in her tracks. Someone must have called while she was in the shower. She hit the b.u.t.ton.

"Iris, this is Detective McDonnell. I'm afraid I'm going to need to ask you a few more questions. Meet me at the bank this afternoon at 2:00 p.m." There was a long pause, and he added, "Don't mention anything about the investigation or the bank to anyone-not even your employer. And Iris, I'm sorry to remind you that withholding evidence from a police officer is a felony."

The detective's last words were like bullets. She stood frozen, listening to the dead air of her machine until it beeped off. He knew she was hiding something. Her eyes darted around her apartment. The police could break in while she was at work if they had a warrant. There was evidence of her thieving everywhere. Scrambling, she gathered up all the artifacts from the bank she'd brought into her home. The keys, her notes from talking with Suzanne, the article about the city's default, her field sketches, Beatrice's file, the files from the suitcase, even the shorthand book. She threw them all into her field bag and zipped it shut.

CHAPTER 62.

Iris was going to throw up. Withholding evidence was a felony. She lit a cigarette with shaking hands and told herself that the detective was giving her another chance.

A car horn beeped behind her and she stepped on the gas.

Somehow she was supposed to meet the detective in the middle of a workday without discussing it with anyone. How would she manage that? Maybe she wouldn't have to manage s.h.i.t. Maybe she would just get fired and walk out. Maybe it wasn't such a big deal. Or maybe the whole meeting was just the detective's way to get her alone and arrest her privately. She pressed her forehead to the steering wheel and waited for a light to turn green.

When she skulked into the office fifteen minutes early, it was as if nothing had changed. The bank and the dead body were all just a bad dream. She found her way back to her cubicle and wished to be a nameless, faceless engineer again. The desk was barren. The computer was turned off. It was as if she had never existed. She settled into her chair and stared at the keyboard, wondering whether she should even bother to turn the machine on. She had no work to do.

She peered out at the sea of desks, searching for a friendly face. Nick was nowhere in sight. She scanned the windows into the offices surrounding her. Mr. Wheeler was lecturing someone seated in front of his desk. It was a female. She was waving her hands. Iris's eyes widened a little when she saw Amanda spring up from the chair and storm out of the office. The rest of the doors were closed.