“That the same guy murdered Cheryl Herrera and Diane Howard Murray?” Elsie hates the weakness in her own voice, but something about Patti pulls her vocal cords taut.
“Bit of a stretch.” Patti tilts her head. “Same logo on Diane’s overalls and the van at the vigil, and we’ve got our guy?”
“I know. I’m sorry,” Elsie groans. “I just thought…”
Patti’s smiling now, calmly watching her stutter. Elsie feels her ears grow hot. There’s something about Patti that makes Elsie feel ridiculous—that strength of mind, that cool confidence that keeps her unruffled when others might stumble and overspeak—but Elsie alsoknows there’s something emboldening about being with Patti, and she has recently found herself acting in ways she almost doesn’t recognize.
“No, don’t apologize. Pause,” Patti encourages. “Slow down.” Patti reaches for the pack of cigarettes on her desk. “I’m trying to get you to work it through.” She taps one from the box. “Tell me what you know. Tell me the facts.”
Elsie takes a deep breath, recounts everything she discussed with Beverley and Margot at the hotel the day before. “We’ve got to find out who owns this company,” she concludes.
“Agreed.” Patti nods. “So I think we need to pay my old friends Greaves and Bale a visit.”
“Greaves and Bale?”
“Tweedledum and Tweedledee, I like to call them.” Patti reclines, crosses her legs. “They’re the detectives assigned to the homicides.” She pauses, lights up. “You’ve got a real interest in this case,” she says, cigarette clasped between her lips. It’s not a question. Patti doesn’t ask questions.
Elsie pauses. It’s unfamiliar territory, a conversation like this, after hours at the office, with someone who has chosen to spend time with her.
“It’s sort of something I’m familiar with.” The words just come out.
Patti doesn’t respond. Her eyes stay with Elsie’s.
“Something happened, in my past, something bad—someonebad.”
It was just a whiff at first, of something stale and animal, a smell like meat gone bad in the house. Things had been a little rocky with Albert back then. She had been trying to meet his needs ever since they married, ever since he’d suffered the ignominy of being dismissed from his teaching position at the high school. She was the reason he’d lost his job; therefore, it was her duty to give him what he wanted, whenever he wanted it, to be a good wife. But she was stymied by a constant feeling of failure.
In bed, Albert had assumed the mantle of teacher from the start. Elsie followed his instructions dutifully. She had never been with a man before, and she found Albert’s soft flesh and wiry body hair off-putting at first. He didn’t look like the boys she’d seen in magazines, with smooth skin and taut muscles. But she wasn’t supposed to enjoy it. She was a wife. This was her job now, after all.
Albert got frustrated when his body didn’t do what it was supposed to do. That was when Elsie saw him truly angry. Something would harden in his eyes and he’d push her off him, sometimes so forcefully that she’d end up out of the bed and on the floor. There was one occasion when she fell and hit her head on the wall. It left a bloody mark, in the shape of a tennis ball, that they’d never painted over. She knew she had failed when those moments came. That she wasn’t enough for him. That she didn’t look right. That she was doingsomethingwrong.
So she tried to improve herself in other areas. She was accustomed to being a star pupil. It felt disorienting and confusing to underperform. She started cooking—properly cooking. If she could become accomplished in the kitchen, perhaps Albert would see her as appealing in the bedroom and his body would work. She began with stews and casseroles, the meat sweaty, the sauces rich. Then she moved on to pies, remembering how her mother used to make them every Sunday. She worked her way throughMcCall’s, arranging pastry like fretwork, pricking the top of it with a fork, letting the heat rush out to fill their tiny kitchen.
She was a couple of months into her routine when the strange smell arrived.
She checked inside the fridge and behind the oven. Perhaps she’d missed something while cleaning. Maybe a mouse had died under the floorboards. It would go away eventually, she reasoned. She’d keep cooking to try to mask the stink until then.
But each morning when she awoke, the smell was worse. She tried everything: air freshener, potpourri, endless bottles of perfume. When she asked Albert if he could smell it, he frowned and sniffed, shook his head.
Then, one day, as she returned from the store, bags bulging, something brought her to a halt at the doorstep. The smell. It was out here, so pungent that it could not be missed.Howcould Albert claim that he didn’t notice it? Unless there was something wrong with her, with her brain. Her father smelled strange smells occasionally, gas and burned flesh. At least he did when he was having one of his moments.
She sniffed again. It seemed to intensify by the entrance to the crawl space under the house. The dirt had been disturbed. A raccoon must have got in and succumbed. That would explain the god-awful stink.
Elsie glanced down the street. Albert had always told her not to go anywhere near the crawl space. There were strong chemicals down there, he’d said. She might get sick.
Regardless, she knelt in the dirt and placed the groceries beside her. She’d bought oranges and a pineapple for a fruit salad, wanted to be careful that they didn’t roll out and get ruined. She removed her heels, the ones Albert liked her to wear, and placed them beside the paper bag. Then she bent to remove the access panel. The smell was something solid down there. There was very little light, and she wished she’d brought a flashlight, but she wasn’t going to back her way out now and risk the chance of someone seeing her like this. She didn’t want Albert to know she’d been poking around the house, either. She’d have to be quick, cover her tracks. So she crawled in farther, battling disgust as the stench flattened against her skin, crept into the folds of her clothing. She knew her skirt was getting stained at the knees, but something undefinable compelled her to keep going, to pull herself onward.
Then, there it was.
Something built of flesh, yet indiscernible, piled stiffly in a corner of the space, lit strangely, beautifully, by the light that bled in through the access panel. Elsie’s breath faltered. A raccoon. It had to be. Just a dead raccoon.
But it looked too large for that.
She steeled herself and dragged her body closer, fingernails blackening with dirt. She just had to confirm that it was an animal. Then she could send Albert down here later, shove a spade into his hands. But as she moved even closer, veins slushy with dread, horrifying details began to narrow into sharpness. There was hair. Elsie inhaled quickly. Not fur, but black human hair. It was unmistakable. Then: skin—pale skin turned blue like a bruise, mottled. She saw the fabric of a dress, printed with oranges, just like the fruit in the paper bag lying only yards away. A boiling wash of horror flooded everything. Elsie’s scream sent the birds in the trees shooting up into the sky.
—
“I know that, Elsie,”Patti responds calmly.
