Suede to Rest (6 page)

“Give it at least five minutes to steep. More if you're looking for a caffeine boost.”

“What was that?”

“Those are my special blends. I like to experiment. Tell me what you think.”

I raised the cup to my nose. “If the smell is any indication, I'm hooked.”

“It's a nice complement to the blondies. There's a hint of dried sour cherry in there. Anything else I can help you with today?”

“Only one. Can you give me directions to the closest shopping center?”

I jugged the box and the tea cup on my way to the car and ate one blondie before I pulled away from the curb. I followed Genevieve's directions down Bonita Avenue until I passed two miles of small ranch houses and a senior center, and came to a strip mall anchored with a drugstore. I picked up two plastic bowls for the cats, eyeliner, mascara, underwear, and a strawberry-scented lip gloss for me, and left.

I moved on to a clothing store called Secrets in the Closet. They stocked both new and secondhand clothing, and after a quick scan of the interior to determine the layout, I assembled a makeshift wardrobe of black clothes and checked out. I finished at the grocery store, where I picked up several gallons of water, bowls, cat food, and a litter box.

I drove back to the fabric store and set up food, water, and litter box stations next to the dividing wall. The kittens followed their noses to the corner where I stood with a can of Fancy Feast half-opened. I pulled the metal lid off and forked the wet cat food into a bowl. They bumped shoulders and heads trying to get at the food, until I picked one up and moved him to the opposite side of the bowl. For the next couple of minutes, all I could hear was the sound of them snorting and lapping at the food, until the tabby looked up and licked his mouth. The bowl was empty. I ran my hand over each of their heads, and left.

It was over an hour before I returned the Camaro to Charlie. I found her sitting at a desk, studying a handwritten register of business.

“Does your offer of a shower still stand?” I asked.

“Sort of. I have an unexpected meeting tonight and I can't have you showing up with me. If you're adventurous, you can use the shower here. Sometimes I get caught late and can't make it home, so I installed it. It's pretty bare-bones for the high-maintenance salon crowd around San Ladrón, but it works for me.”

I followed her through the garage to a door in the back corner. How bad could it be? I wondered to myself. She led me to a small room, about eight feet square. After I followed her through she kicked a rubber stopper out from under the door. Wedged into the corner was a shower unit shaped like a hexagon. The back three walls were molded out of white laminate; the front were panels of textured Lucite. Someone—presumably Charlie—had lined the Lucite with sheets of contact paper so the unit wasn't see-through.

“Like I said, it's pretty bare-bones. I got the shower unit on clearance. The quality is questionable, but I reinforced all the joints with caulk. The drain's so-so, so don't worry if it backs up a little. There's shampoo and conditioner and soap in the caddy. Your biggest problem is going to be the hot water. It runs out after four minutes. After that you're auditioning for a spot in the polar bear club. The door sometimes sticks, too, but if you put your weight into it, it'll pop right open. Clean towels on the bench. Dirty towels go in the basket underneath it. There are two doors, but I'm locking the one that leads to the shop. You can leave out the door over there.” She pointed to a door that separated us from outside. “Got it?”

I scanned the small room. The interior walls of the shed had been whitewashed. Framed pages from a vintage calendar, featuring watercolors of women posing behind robes, blankets, and nightgowns, hung on three of the walls. The ground had been covered with a grid of gray plastic squares that snapped together. I'd seen them advertised somewhere—Sears, Home Depot, Lowe's—for use inside a garage. Along one wall was a white picnic bench with a round wicker basket underneath. A terry-cloth robe hung from a hook next to the bench.

“Who assembled this place?” I asked her.

“Who do you think?” she answered, hands on her hips.

“I like it.” From the look on her face, an angry twist that softened into a smile, I realized she thought I was judging her. “You don't let a lot of people back here, do you?”

“I keep this place secret. People think they've figured me out, but that's because they don't want to look past the obvious things they already know. My business is my business. Professional
and
personal.”

“So why are you letting me back here?”

“You're different from the people around here.” She pulled the door open and turned back around. “Have fun tonight, Polyester,” she called, then left.

I threw the flimsy interior lock—a metal hook that fed into a loop—on the inside of the door, because it was the only privacy measure available. I stripped down and turned on the water. Four minutes, I thought to myself. I hoped it was long enough to rid myself of the motor oil and grime I'd picked up in the past twenty-four hours.

The jet blast of water was strong, pounding against my shoulders, head, and body. It felt good against my sore, tired muscles, and I was tempted to test Charlie's four-minute estimation. It was around seven o'clock when I'd gotten back to the auto shop and that left only half an hour for me to get ready and get to the Waverly House for my dinner meeting with Vaughn. I had no intention of being late.

I washed and conditioned my hair and lathered up my body with the lemon-scented bar of soap in the caddy. The scent was invigorating. Water swirled around my feet, backing up by the drain like Charlie had predicted. It, too, felt good, soaking my feet like a pedicure bath might have done. Charlie had a good thing back here in her private quarters. No wonder she didn't tell people about it.

As I rinsed the lather from my torso, a pulse of cold water alerted me that my four minutes were almost up. I tipped my head back and pushed my hair away from my face one last time, then tried to turn off the water.

The knob came off in my hand. Cold water replaced hot and pelted me. I pushed against the door. It didn't budge. I put more of my weight into it and pushed as hard as I could against it. Again, no luck.

That's when I realized the water pooling at my feet was halfway up my calves.

The spray of
water turned cold against my skin, making it harder and harder to move. I grabbed the interior handle on the shower and shook it, trying to loosen it up. Nothing worked.

The water level rose to my hips. I turned around and pressed my back against the door, leveraging my foot under the place where the water knob had been. With all my might, I pushed. Nothing.

I didn't know much about the chemical principles of caulk, but I was starting to think something more threatening was at play. I screamed for help and slapped my palms against the interior of the shower unit.

As the water climbed past my midsection, I gave up my efforts to open the door and looked for a new way out. There was no top on the shower unit. I stood on my tiptoes, thankful for my five-foot-nine height, and peeked over the top of the door. Steam interfered with my line of vision, but not enough to see that the door to the shed was now open.

I was running out of options. As I repositioned my feet in the water, now up to my chest, I realized the buildup of water pressure might be my answer. The makeshift shower rocked slightly and I knew the only way out was to try to climb out the top. I moved my body from one wall to another, grabbed ahold of the top of the unit, and pulled myself up, seeking traction with my bare feet on the walls. The unit tipped precariously and crashed to the ground.

A seal of caulk broke open on impact and water gushed out across the gray plastic flooring. I crawled out of the top of the unit, shivering from the now-icy-cold water. My ribs hurt from slamming into the ground. I gasped for breath. My air had never been cut off, but the fear of drowning in a two-foot-square shower had been enough to start me hyperventilating.

I pulled a plush white towel from the folding chair and covered with it, unable to do much more than that in my cold state. It wasn't enough. I reached into the basket where the dirty towels were and pulled out two more, wedging them around my feet. My teeth chattered like a windup set of teeth from a gag store. When I pressed them together to make them stop, my jaw jumped with the same movement.

A male voice sounded from the doorway. “What's going on in there? Charlie, is that you?”

“N-n-n-n-no. It's P-p-p-p-poly M-m-m-m-monroe.”

I curled myself into a ball and wrapped my arms around my legs. The towels, sizeable bath sheets, only slightly helped. Water from the broken spout sprayed the interior of the shed, dousing everything. I crawled to the wall where a spigot was hidden under a bench. With a cold, shaking hand, I grabbed the knob and turned it several times to the left. The spray of water transitioned to a trickle, and then nothing.

I leaned against the bench and stuck my legs out in front of me. The calendar pages on the walls were tipped at angles and spotted with drops. The plastic walls of the shower lay in a pile on the floor, bent and cracked. I spied something under the wreckage. It was the triangle-shaped rubber door stopper that Charlie had moved away from the front door before she'd left. What was it doing by the busted shower unit? I tried to stand, but fell down, tripping over my own feet. At least this time I had more than a lack of coordination to blame.

I wrapped a towel around my torso and tucked the edge under my arm, then wrapped a second one around my waist and a third around my shoulders.

Vic McMichael entered the room. He was dressed formally in a tuxedo and bow tie with a black topcoat over it. A white scarf, almost the same shade as his hair, was draped around his neck. Even though my towels were fancy Egyptian cotton, I was painfully underdressed.

“H-h-h-how d-d-d-d-did you know I was in h-h-h-h-here?” I asked.

“Someone heard you scream. Do you need an ambulance?”

“No, I'm okay. Just c-c-c-c-cold.”

He looked at the shower unit, lying on its side, and scanned the walls of the shed.

“Get dressed. I'm calling the police,” he said, and left.

The clothes that I'd laid out were too wet to wear. Reluctantly I redressed in the dirty clothes I'd arrived in. They were stained and scented with motor oil, but they were dry, and that was all that mattered. I pulled the terry-cloth robe over my black turtleneck and jeans and knotted the belt around at my waist. After running fingers through my hair, I put everything I had brought with me into a plastic shopping bag and stumbled out of the shower/shed.

For the second time that day I was greeted with the red and blue pulse of police lights. A row of senior citizens stood by the sidewalk, staring at me. I wondered if one of them had overheard my scream and called Mr. McMichael?

“Ms. Monroe, do you want to tell me what happened here?” asked Officer Clark, who I'd met that morning. The polite note to his voice suggested we were still on good terms.

“Charlie said I could use her shower. She said the door sometimes stuck but I couldn't get it open. The knob came off in my hand when I tried to turn off the water and the water started backing up in the drain. I didn't know what else to do to get out of there except to tip the unit.”

“Sounds a little far-fetched,” said one of the seniors. I scanned the row of faces but couldn't identify the speaker. I wasn't sure it mattered much. I turned my attention back to the deputy sheriff.

“Can we talk somewhere more private?” I asked. “Like maybe downtown?”

“We are downtown,” he said.

“No, I mean your headquarters. The police station.”

“We don't have a police station. We have a mobile sheriff's unit. I'm the sheriff.”

“Okay, can we go to the sheriff's office?”

He looked at the crowd and back at me. “You'll have to ride in the back of the car.”

“Does the car have a heater?”

“Yes.”

“Then I'm okay with that.”

I didn't bother making conversation from the backseat. It was a short ride, a couple of blocks, from Charlie's Automotive to the sheriff's mobile unit. It was across the street from the Waverly House, where I had been expected for dinner. Maybe when I was done, I'd go across the street and see if Vaughn was still there. I caught my reflection in the back windows of the police cruiser and decided maybe I wouldn't.

Officer Clark led the way to a small office with a worn wooden desk and a gray filing cabinet. A second chair with a torn black leather cushion faced the desk. Clark took the chair behind the desk, leaving me one option. Before I sat down, I asked, “Is there a restroom I can use?”

“Sure. Through this door, down the hall, on the right.”

“Thank you.”

I followed his directions. The police station was the last place I'd expected to spend my evening, but at the moment I welcomed the facilities and the sink. The mirrors, not so much. I saw the complete picture that had only been hinted on in the car windows. My face was pale, my lips so faint they were borderline blue. I bit down on the lower lip while I ran hot water over my hands. After turning off the faucet, I finger-combed my hair into a side part and tucked the sides behind my ears. Attempts at vanity were worthless. I looked as exhausted as I felt. No way was I was going to the Waverly House after this.

I retraced my steps back to Officer Clark's desk. “Deputy sheriff, I don't know if this is allowed or not, but can I make a phone call?”

“You're not under arrest.”

“I didn't mean ‘one phone call' like that. I mean, can I use a phone here to make a call? My cell phone is dead.”

“What kind of cell do you have?”

“iPhone.”

He pulled a wooden drawer filled with power cords out of the desk and set it in front of me, then turned the phone around so it faced me, too. “We probably have a charger in here for your phone. In the meantime, dial nine first, and then dial your number.”

I rooted through the drawer for the right charger, and then found an outlet to the right of me. After plugging it in, I dialed information from the desk phone. The call was answered after five rings. “Waverly House, how may I help you?”

“Do you have a Mr. Vaughn McMichael dining with you tonight?” I asked.

“Yes, we do.”

“Would it be possible to give him a message?”

“I can get him if you'd like. He's waiting for the other half of his party.”

“I'm the other half of his party and I'm not going to make it. Something came up.”

“I see. Would you like to speak to him yourself?”

“No, thank you. Please tell him I apologized and said it couldn't be helped.”

“Your name, miss?”

“Poly Monroe,” I said.

“I'll give him the message.”

She wished me a nice evening and hung up first. I placed the black receiver back on the cradle and wondered if I should have given more details or spoken to Vaughn.

Deputy Sheriff Clark stood in the doorway with two chipped white mugs. Steam rolled from the tops of them. “Coffee or hot chocolate?”

“You actually have hot chocolate?”

“Mrs. Pickers gave us a jar every year for Christmas. Never knew anybody to buy cocoa in a ten-gallon drum before.”

“There's a
Mrs.
Pickers?” I asked.

“There was. She passed away a few years ago. Funny old couple, the Pickers. They were always arguing. I think he started the Senior Patrol to get a break from her.”

He smiled to himself, obviously touched by a memory he chose not to share. He looked back at me and held out the mug. “Give me a sec to get another cocoa. I was sure you were going to take the coffee.”

I curled my fingers around the hot mug and breathed in the comforting scent of the cocoa before taking a sip. It almost didn't seem real that an hour ago I was in the middle of a near-death experience in a two-foot-square shower behind an auto shop and now I was sipping hot chocolate with a cop.

Deputy Sheriff Clark returned with his own mug of steaming hot chocolate. His had tiny marshmallows on top. “Do you want to tell me what happened back there?” he asked, leaning back in his chair.

I took another sip and set the mug on the edge of the desk. “Charlie said I could use her shower. She said the door sticks sometimes, and it did. The water backed up. It was waist-high when I tipped it over to get out.”

“You could have hurt yourself with a stunt like that.”

“It wasn't a stunt.” I studied the sheriff's face. I wasn't sure what to make of his choice of words. “The shower was next to the bench. I knew if I could tip the unit into the bench, it would soften the fall to the ground. Plus, I had all of that water in there to cushion me. And I held on to the edge of the box so my body didn't hit the ground when the unit did.”

He leaned back in the chair, testing the springs. His chocolate sat on the desk in front of him, untouched, his marshmallows melting and pooling into a foamy layer of white across the top of the mug.

“So, Charlie told you the shower door sticks sometimes. And it did.”

“Yes, but I think it was more than stuck. I think someone trapped me. It should have opened when I pushed on it, and when I looked over the top of it, the door was open.”

“I thought you said it stuck?”

“The door to the gardening shed. The front door.”

“Maybe it blew open?”

“No. I locked it before I got undressed.”

“Locked it how?”

“It had one of those flimsy metal hook-and-circle latches.” I put the index finger and thumb of my left hand together in an “okay” sign and hooked my right index finger into it to demonstrate the mechanism. “It would be easy enough to open if someone wanted to get in. I think someone came in and jammed the doorstop under the shower unit door so it wouldn't open.”

“Did you look at the shower after you tipped it?”

“No. I was freezing. The water turned cold after about four minutes and I was in there for more than that.”

“How do you know about the cold water?”

“Charlie told me that, too.”

“So by your account you were stuck in the shower, the water turned ice-cold, and you figured the only way out was to tip it and climb out the top?”

“You don't believe me?”

He continued. “Who else knew you were in that shower besides Charlie?”

“Nobody.”

“Do you think she did this?”

“No. Why would she do that kind of damage to her own property?”

“Then explain why you think someone was out to get you instead of her.”

“You think someone thought I was her?”

“You seem pretty convinced that this was about you.”

“Aren't you?”

“I'm convinced that the situation makes you look like a victim, much like the vandalism to your car that kept you in our town. Tell me this, Ms. Monroe, why would somebody do these things to you?”

“Maybe someone wanted to send me a message saying I'm not welcome here.” I was getting angry. The jovial Deputy Sheriff Clark had faked me out with a complimentary phone charger and a mug of hot chocolate and now he was making me feel foolish. “I didn't make this up. What would have happened if nobody came along?”

“Ms. Monroe, even if the drain was clogged, it's not possible that the unit would have filled with water. There are breakaway seals at the corners that would have burst under the pressure. The door would have fallen off, probably in a matter of seconds from when you decided to tip the thing. You probably hurt yourself more by what you did than if you'd stayed calm. And if anyone's to blame for the damage to Charlie's property, it's you.”

I didn't like what Officer Clark was insinuating. “I didn't make this up,” I maintained.

“It's understandable that you're under a lot of stress. A death in the family can do that. We didn't make things easier when we showed up at the fabric store this morning, and the discovery of a body on your property, well, those are circumstances anybody would find hard to take.” He tapped the recorder sitting by his desk. “I have your statement from tonight and I'll type it up and start a file on it. In the meantime, I suggest you get a hot meal and a good night's sleep.”