We Lie Here: A Thriller, page 21
I close my eyes and focus on breathing . . . In through my nose . . . slowly . . . out through my lips . . . like blowing out a candle . . . in through my nose . . . slowly . . . In . . . out . . .
Tuesday greets me with a kick and a snap as sunshine bangs across my face. The intense light makes me blink and turn over in bed. The DVD/VCR clock says that it’s ten after ten.
With the help of Pfizer, sleep came. But my stomach is now wobbly, and my limbs feel like slabs of concrete.
But!
Five uninterrupted hours of sleep.
On a Tuesday morning, the house should be empty.
Mom has a track meet down in Los Angeles today.
Dad’s at school watching high school boys run with tires.
Dominique is allegedly taking notes in her Introduction to Feminism lecture.
I grab my glasses from the nightstand and roll out of bed. I can hear my breathing, but I won’t use my inhaler. Today’s first line of defense: yoga. I go through the motions. The bridge: on my back, knees bent, pelvis up, deep breath, pelvis down. Then the cobra: on my stomach, legs behind me, upper body up, roll shoulders back, hold lower upper body . . . hold . . . hold . . .
As my chest muscles expand, blood rushes through my veins like smooth water. The scratchiness eases some until I remember: I lost Beloved, and last night, my parents reminded me of my forgotten history of lying. According to that pink note, I sold my inhaler for book fair money. I don’t remember this, but it’s definitely on-brand.
I pop down the stairs. The cushions are perfect, the area rugs straight, the aromas of toast, bacon, and coffee mixing with the fleshy odor of Dad’s football duffel bags. On the fireplace mantel, there’s a new, framed picture of our family. A group selfie taken moments before ziplining in Kauai. All of this is so normal looking that I can almost forget that someone wearing a black hoodie broke into our house last night. I shiver just thinking about that flashlight beam reflecting off the front door.
Now, though, I pad to the kitchen. On the breakfast counter, there’s a foil-covered plate and a yellow rosebud in a slender vase. A note written on a napkin sits atop the plate.
Eat, take your meds, BREATHE!!! You will be okay.
Best Friend Bee has made my favorite breakfast: a bacon, egg, and cheese sandwich.
I slip the plate into the microwave and pour coffee into a mug. I return to peek once more beneath the chaise, coffee table, and couch. No Beloved.
At the front door, the mail slot creaks, and envelopes and magazines scatter to the floor.
I’ll eat breakfast outside—there’s no wind, no dust—and then I’ll write. I shuffle to the foyer, scoop the mail from the tile, and sift through . . .
Catalog from Cheryl’s Gifts, statement from Chase Bank, direct mail from Smile Train . . .
The label on the envelope from State Farm Insurance is addressed to E. M. Gibson.
Who’s E. M. Gibson?
Someone knocks on the door.
I peek into the peephole—Kayla—and open the door.
My friend smiles and says, “Morning!” Her auburn hair glows. She’s wearing khakis and an LASD polo shirt. A sheriff’s duffel bag is slung across her shoulder.
“You’re still asleep?” She closes the door behind her and follows me back to the kitchen.
“Just got up,” I say. “About to eat breakfast. Coffee?” I ask.
“Yes, thank you.” She settles on a stool and sets her binder on the counter. “You doing okay? For real: you’re hogging up all the crazies.”
“AV has enough crazy for all of Southern California.” I set coffee, cream, and sugar at her hands, then catch her up about the driver who tried to follow me home and the intruder who escaped to the desert. As I talk, she scribbles into her notepad.
“Maybe—” I gasp. “Maybe the intruder was the guy following me in the Silverado.”
“I’ll check with the deputy who took your statement this morning. Until then . . .” Kayla pulls a stack of pictures snapped in someone’s home from her binder, then lays each shot in front of me.
A sapphire brooch. A gold Tiffany pocket watch. An etching of dancers signed by Marc Chagall. A multicolored glass vase . . .
I tap the Chagall print. “Is that real?”
She points at the pictures. “Have you seen any of these things around the house?”
I snort. “Why would a Chagall be in . . . ?” I wave my hands at the nothing-special fridge and range, those bug-filled kitchen lights, the Formica countertops you’d find in any suburban tract home built in the late eighties. “This is not a destination for a Chagall.”
The glass vase looks familiar, though, because there’s a similar vase in a box up in my room. The vase in this picture, though, is wider, with thicker colored bands.
“Have you heard Dom talking to Ransom about any of these things?” Kayla asks.
Her questions dig at me, mosquito bites leaving a red-hot trail along my arms.
Kayla taps my hand and smiles. “I’m not trying to insult you or your family. I’m asking a bunch of people strange-ass questions. So?”
“Nope, I haven’t heard her talking about any of this.” I take a big bite of breakfast sandwich. “Ransom into some hood shit?”
Kayla laughs. “Ransom is the chairman of hood shit. She really needs to stop hanging around with him. Nothing good comes from that guy.”
Except for the case files on Felicia and his intervening last night with the rednecks who followed me. Remembering this—Ransom helping me—adds to my fizzy stomach.
“Do these pictures have anything to do with Felicia’s death?” I ask. “Or is this related to some other scheme?”
Kayla bites her bottom lip. “Can’t really say.”
“You talk with Will Harraway yet?” I ask. “He’s stopped DMing me.”
“I have talked to Will Harraway, which is probably why he’s stopped DMing you.”
“And?”
She clicks her teeth. “Can’t really share.”
“You’ve looked at the recording from Park N Ride?”
She smiles, says nothing.
“You zoom in yet? You see the hand of the driver in the light-colored car?”
Kayla raises an eyebrow.
“Maybe you should.”
“What would I see?”
I sip from my cup of coffee, then ask, “Why are you keeping our family in the dark?”
Kayla cants her head. “You consider Felicia Campbell family now?”
I nibble on a piece of bacon. “Always have, since the beginning of this thing.”
“We’re communicating with her mother, Cecilia, as much as we can.”
“According to my mother,” I say, “Aunt Cece strongly disagrees. She doesn’t think that you’re communicating with her at all.”
“Of course, I can’t share everything with her right now. It’s not the easiest case, either. On that note . . .” She rummages around in her bag and finds a slender box. She opens the box and pulls out a packet of swabs, purple latex gloves, and an evidence envelope.
“A DNA kit,” I say.
“Ah. So you recognize this. Interesting.”
I point a strip of bacon at her. “I write for a crime show, remember? So not so interesting. Why is it in my kitchen, though?”
“The DNA taken from Felicia’s body came in, and we need comparisons.”
A fuse heats my chest. “You think that I—”
She holds up a hand. “Remember, you did physically interact with her on Friday.”
That’s right—Felicia grabbed my lightning bolt pendant that day and scratched my neck. Yeah, my DNA would be beneath her fingernails.
Wait. Where is my pendant? Dominique was supposed to fix it. Totally slipped my mind.
“Will you consent?” Kayla asks, pulling on the purple gloves.
I study my friend and then study the kit. Finally, I open my mouth wide enough for the Spruce Goose to fly through. Because I have nothing to hide.
I didn’t kill Felicia Campbell . . .
Unless I’ve forgotten that, too.
40.
I try to remember Friday night.
I read the note slipped beneath my hotel room door. Popped Benadryl. The Iron Chef . . . Slept . . . From what time to what time, though? If I’d left the hotel in a daze, the security cameras would’ve caught that just like the cameras caught the confrontation between Dominique, Felicia, and me in the parking lot.
Once I can no longer see Kayla’s car, I turn to the foothills that surround the neighborhood. With all the gorges, jutting rocks, and brush the same color as dirt, the mountains hide all the life they sustain. Someone could be watching me right now.
Like the person who killed Felicia Campbell.
Because I didn’t do it. I would’ve remembered that. Not that I have any reason to kill someone I didn’t even know until Friday.
I’m shaken by Kayla’s visit, her DNA swab, and the words she didn’t say. Of course I don’t think you killed that lady. And why is Kayla searching the cabin at Lake Paz? Who owns that Chagall and the Tiffany watch? Knowing what I know now about my cousin—her marriages and her antipathy toward my mother—I want to look at the cabin with new eyes. There’s nothing much for me to do today except pick up the anniversary party programs from the printer.
After picking up the anniversary programs, I find myself on Lake Paz Road.
The highway is wide open, and the sky above me is the bluest blue. The air coming through the windows feels thin as I drive higher, but my lungs feel looser. The drive calms me some, and the farther Palmdale is behind me, the more my heart beats at a regular pace.
There is a keyhole on the cabin’s garage door handle, and on the off chance that it may work, I slip the cabin’s key into that lock.
Click.
I roll up the door.
The lights automatically pop on. No cars are parked, but the walls are lined with shovels, bags of salt, a child’s pink mountain bike, and an adult’s blue mountain bike.
Not trusting chance, I park the Jeep in the garage.
Inside the cabin, nothing’s changed. The fireplace is there. The piano is there.
No. That isn’t true. There has been a change.
Black fingerprinting dust dirties the light switch plates, doorknobs, and fridge handle.
What do investigators think happened here?
Kayla told me that they’d found my fingerprints on a lamp, a jewelry box, and a Lego block. I don’t remember touching any of that, but in the last three minutes, I’ve touched a fireplace poker, a ceramic duck, and back in the garage, the doorknobs and the handlebars of the girl’s bike.
I wander from the living room to the kitchen, scouting for something that would spark a memory of a tossed-off comment from Mom about her time here. This cabin, though, is like all cabins except for the piano and that spectacular view of the twinkling lake.
I tap a piano key. The tone from the middle C key is still off. The piano still needs tuning. In both bedrooms, faded quilts remain tucked and neat. The mattresses have probably become home to fleas and ticks.
A slate-gray runner in the hallway. Unremarkable. The brass fixture beneath it, though . . .
I roll away the carpet. A thick rectangular seam cut into the hardwood floor. And that brass fixture is actually a brass handle.
A hatch?
I pull the handle.
The hinges of the door creak, and cool air washes up from the square in the ground.
I shine my phone’s flashlight to see a ladder descending into the gloom.
“Hello?” I shout.
No answer, thank goodness. Just dark, thick nothing.
Did Kayla discover this basement?
With the flashlight still on, I descend the stairs. The air becomes colder with each step.
Smells like old paper, cinnamon, and stale breath.
A light panel glows on the wall. I flip the switch, and round in-ceiling lights pop on.
There are wood walls, a slate floor, suede couches, and a television. There’s a wine rack and a short beverage fridge beneath the stairs. It’s posher down here than upstairs. In the far corner, a pair of french doors. Past those doors, an office with a desk covered in boxes and walls covered with photographs and area maps of Palmdale and Lake Paz.
What is this place?
A secret room. A quiet place where a frazzled mother can retreat after learning that her husband cheated with some woman named Irina.
The boxes in the office are a mix of new and saggy. The plastic tubs on top of the boxes are new—I purchased similar ones at Target last month.
Dread buzzes beneath my skin. I’m trespassing and shouldn’t be here, except that I’m not trespassing. I have a key. Still, if this were an Airbnb home, I wouldn’t be pawing through the hosts’ personal boxes.
But this isn’t a rental. This is my mother’s quiet place.
The Martinelli’s apple cider box closest to the door is filled with blank music composition pages, a box of guitar picks, wires . . . half-melted candles . . . Another box holds pictures of Lake Paz, rubber-banded insurance statements, rubber-banded savings pass books, quilts, videocassettes labeled E’S A.A. AUDITIONS . . . A postcard of a rainbow sent to Felicia.
They want me gone. I’ll go. Stop looking for me.
No signer.
A sheath of documents—Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department property receipt. The “physical evidence box” is checked: a Gucci handbag and a map of the US Virgin Islands.
There’s a funeral bulletin with the cover picture of a smiling, beautiful Black couple cutting their wedding cake. A CELEBRATION OF LIFE: MARYAM AND SHELDON MARSH. The Dorothy Dandridge doppelganger looks elegant in her lace gown. The groom reminds me of Sidney Poitier in professor glasses. It’s the same couple from the photograph atop the piano.
I read the obituary. “. . . car crash in Lake Paz on July 4, 1989.”
Maryam and Sheldon died together on a road somewhere around here.
I’m looking through dead people’s things.
I continue reading. “. . . session musician for Warner Brothers . . .”
That explains the piano. The lady next door mentioned Sheldon’s beautiful playing.
“. . . a dancer, and her credits include Stormy Weather, Carmen Jones, and Cabin in the Sky. They are survived by their only daughter, Elizabeth.”
A manila folder holds batches of photographs and a binder clip of papers. The title of each document: Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department Statement.
I quickly flip through the bundle and stop at:
INTERVIEW WITH MAGGIE DOUGLAS AND DETECTIVE STALL
DS: Can you describe what you saw?
MD: Lots of fog and endless trees. You could barely see the islet off the lake cuz of all that fog and all those trees.
DS: So what made you go in that direction?
MD: The singing.
DS: Singing?
MD: “Jesus loves me this I know . . .” [pause] I’m sorry.
DS: Take your time . . . Tissue . . .
MD: Thank you. I just get worked up . . . The singing . . . I still hear it. I still hear her.
I sift through photographs.
A close-up shot of a woman’s hand—she’s wearing an emerald-and-diamond ring. Looks like Mom’s ring. A picture of a small red jewelry box with a lightning bolt pendant nestled in red velvet—looks just like mine. A picture of the chaise longue on the deck and a red-cover edition of Beloved by Toni Morrison left on the cushions. Just like my . . .
I step back from the box.
Who are Sheldon and Maryam Marsh?
And how does my mother know them?
The snapshots capture the lake and the cabin as well as the islet off the banks of the lake.
Did Felicia tape these maps to the wall?
What would she have done to me if I’d come here to see her?
Upstairs, someone knocks on the front door.
I hop away from the desk.
Upstairs, whoever it is knocks again.
Who knows that I’m here?
After I place everything back in the box, I hustle up the stairs. My sweaty underarms stick to my T-shirt.
Birdie, the woman from the cabin next door, is standing on the porch. She spins around, startled by the opening door. She pats her heart and turns as pink as the blouse she’s wearing. “There you are. I was hoping you hadn’t left yet.”
I step out into the sunshine and nod to the garage. “I parked in there this time. Didn’t want them breaking my windows.”
“That’s why I’m here.” Birdie holds up her phone. “Got something for you. You can’t see ’em, but we have security cameras posted all around our cabin. I looked for the video after you drove off on those four new tires.” She taps play on a video.
The recording is low quality and hard to make out, but it shows a person wearing a dark hoodie stealing past Birdie’s place and headed to this cabin. The person stops at my Jeep. Kneels and slashes my left back tire, then the right back tire, then the passenger front tire, and finally, the driver’s side. The figure backs away and hustles back the way they came, head down. The person looks back at the Marsh cabin, and for a moment, the hoodie slips back, and I see . . .
41.
Nothing.
The video stops, and static fills Birdie’s phone screen.
“It cuts off,” the old woman says. “I thought maybe you recognized this creep?”
I shake my head, thank her for trying, and return to the basement. I take pictures of the maps on the wall, then glance at the clock on my phone. It’s almost two o’clock. I should head back soon. Birdie’s husband, Bud, is barely tolerating my presence at this very moment. Who’s to say that he wasn’t the one who slashed my tires?
Police reports I’ve found in this tub tell me that Bud Sumner has a history of terrorizing Black folks, specifically Sheldon and Maryam Marsh, wealthy movie people with enough money to buy a nicer cabin than the Sumners.
In this report taken by Deputy Angus Wagner, Sheldon Marsh had called the sheriff’s department because Bud had thrown dead squirrels on their porch and rocks at their windows.
