“Dermot Carine is dead.” Bechdel didn’t shift a muscle.
Trina swallowed. Guilt rolled over her like a mist. She remembered thinking of him as desperate. His blubbery mouth and sweaty underarms.
“What does this have to do with me?”
“We think you might have been one of the last people to see Dermot alive.” Kirkpatrick took a swig of his coffee. “You went to his hotel room with him, after leaving the wedding together. Witnesses state that the two of you kissed outside the banquet hall entrance.”
A pounding started in Trina’s neck and worked its way up to her temples. “What are you asking me?”
“When was the last time you saw Dermot Carine?”
Trina pictured Dermot spread out on the hotel bed, naked, his one leg askew in a way that looked uncomfortable. She’d cut herself on the edge of the broken champagne glass. Just a scratch, really, but had they found traces of her blood in the room? There were already traces of her all over him.
“In his hotel room. We’d… been together. We’d both been drinking. He passed out, and I gathered up my things and went home. He was asleep on the bed when I left.”
“You had a good time together?” Bechdel leaned back.
“That’s a strange question.”
“Let me rephrase it. You and Dermot enjoyed each other’s company? You didn’t get into a disagreement at some point. You know, sometimes, when people have been drinking, a situation can turn very quickly from good to bad.”
Trina felt like she was getting the elementary school public service announcement about the dangers of one-night stands.
“No, there was no arguing. We drank some more champagne, we had sex, and then I left. That was it.”
“The champagne bottle wasn’t broken, perhaps during a fight?”
“No.”
“So, he was alive when you left?”
Trina nodded. “Yes.”
The two detectives stood up, surprising Trina. “Thank you, Professor Dell. We’ll be in touch if we need anything further.”
They headed towards the door, Trina trailing behind them with a sense of whiplash. Something wasn’t right about their coming here. This was too easy.
“Just one other thing.” Bechdel paused at the threshold to the outer hallway. Trina caught sight of her neighbor, Darlene, walking by with her son’s arm crooked through hers. They averted their eyes, but Trina was certain they knew her visitors weren’t there on a social visit.
“Would you like us to tell you how Dermot died?”
“What?” Trina wasn’t sure how to respond.
“Most people, they have us come by to talk with them about a murder, and the first piece of information they need to know is how it happened. ‘How did he die?’”
“You didn’t say anything about a murder before.” The word slid off Trina’s tongue like a slug. Murder.
“I suppose I didn’t.” Bechdel tipped her chin in a quick nod. “We’ll be in touch.”
The two detectives walked their way down the hallway, two black smudges against the beige anonymity of the apartment building.
Trina closed the door, counting the lies she’d told in her head.
Two. No, three.
It was getting hard to keep track.
CHAPTER TEN LAURA
Laura cleaned the cheap fake wood of the dresser with a half-hearted swipe of her rag. The family who stayed in the room left her a heartfelt note, written in a child’s makeshift handwriting, thanking her for cleaning their room and being such a special person to choose a career in cleaning up the messes of others, but then had forgotten to leave any sort of tip. The card was signed, “Love, The Peterson family”, and Laura gave it only a brief glance before adding it to her accumulating bin of trash.
She couldn’t afford the cost for a coffin and a burial plot. It was going to cost her two hundred and fifty dollars to cremate Dermot, and then another one hundred dollars for the cheapest urn they had available. A cardboard box was another option, but Laura felt like that wasn’t fair to Dermot. He’d spent his life helping other people, especially kids who were struggling, and he deserved better than to end up in a thin paper box.
She hadn’t decided where to bury him yet—or his ashes, rather. There was the creek by her trailer, where they’d liked to stand and talk about the future. The large oak tree buried deep on one of their favorite trails with their initials carved into the side, now stretched slightly as the tree had grown. Or maybe she’d just hang on to them for a while, although she’d have to keep it a secret from Terry. He’d be even nastier once he knew Dermot was inside their trailer, if only in carbon form.
She’d learned that from Mr. Kimble, before he’d died. All living organisms are made of carbon. It is the building block of life.
Laura scrubbed the toilet and folded the toilet paper into a tight triangle at the end. She wondered if some carbon was better than others. If what you learned in life was true in science.
Her boss, balding and pudgy-faced Joe, had told everyone at the morning meeting that Room 207 was still off-limits.
“The police haven’t released it yet. It’s still a…” He’d paused, wiping his forehead with one of the cheap tissues the hotel issued, leaving little bits of paper stuck to his skin. “It’s still a scene of interest and we’re not allowed in there. Do your normal routes, but leave that one alone.”
“Who’s going to clean it up eventually?” one of the new girls asked.
Laura shouldn’t call her a girl, because she had the drawn face of a teen mom in middle-age and a barb-wire tattoo around her neck. Laura was a girl, or should have still been. Dead parents had a way of aging a person. Dermot liked to call her his “Girl Friday.” She looked up the reference at the school library one day during lunch. It hadn’t been quite what she’d hoped, but she still liked it.
She was always happy to help him with anything he needed. It’s when he stopped needing her that things got tricky.
