“So far nothing,” the tech says.
Mal drops to her haunches, captures a photo, then studies the shoe. “A practical, midrange women’s sneaker. Designed for comfort.” She picks it up, peers inside. “Size seven.”
Benoit says, “You’d expect to find a super-high-end exercise shoe in a place like this, not a middle-of-the-road sneaker like that.”
Mal chews the side of her cheek. “It definitely looks like the odd thing out here. Could’ve been yanked off the victim’s foot, the sock coming off with the shoe, perhaps when she was dragged. We’ll get DNA off that sock, see if it matches the rest of this blood.” She regards the king-size bed. The rumpled linen. Another framed photograph of the couple stands on the dresser. They’re in formal wear, dressed for some kind of gala occasion. Very handsome. Very smooth. She thinks of the drinks glasses downstairs. The pie and flowers outside. No body. House owners gone. Luxury vehicles still in the garage. She gets to her feet and goes to the walk-in closet. She opens the doors, flicks on the lights. The closet is as large as Mal’s husband’s home office. She and Benoit enter. Female clothing lines the right side of the closet, male apparel on the left. Everything is impeccably pressed, neatly hung, evenly spaced. The wall at the rear has been given over to shoes. Racks of them. Luxury designer brands for both sexes. She picks up a stiletto, turns it over.
“Size eight and a half,” she says quietly.
Benoit checks another. Then another. “All the female shoes are either a women’s eight and a half or nine,” he says. “The male shoes are a men’s ten.”
“The woman in the photo downstairs—she looks tall,” Mal says. “She’d easily be a nine. The man with her, easily a men’s ten.”
“Yet the bloody sneaker by the bed is a women’s seven,” notes Benoit.
“That sneaker definitely does not fit this picture,” Mal says quietly, scanning the obviously outrageously expensive designer contents of the closet.
“If the sneaker does not belong to Mrs. North of the photo, maybe it’s our victim’s,” Benoit says.
“So where is she?” Mal meets Benoit’s gaze. “Where is her body? Where are the owners?”
“And who in the hell is ‘Daisy’？” he adds.
A yell comes from downstairs. “Sergeant, we’ve found the knife!”
THE MAID’S DIARY
While my snooping addiction might be my “presenting” problem, the reasons behind my addiction are what my therapist seeks to uncover. Through journaling, I’ve realized two key events have recently triggered me, thus exacerbating my addiction and taking my behavior into risky—dangerous—territory. In fact, these two triggers coalesced in one day, which amplified them both tenfold. It’s funny how we can’t see these things ourselves sometimes, even when they’re screaming in our face.
I’ll tell you about this day now. I’m just going to write it down, Dear Diary, as the day played out, blow by blow, in real time:
Boon and I get up very early on this morning to go to Lighthouse Park before work.
The day has dawned bleak, cold. Rain falls in a gentle veil as we trudge along a shadowed trail of black mud and gnarled roots. Huge dripping conifers tower around us, and fog sifts like specters between the ancient trunks. It creates a sense of brooding, as though the trees are sentient, watching over us. Sheltering us, protecting us. Provided we stay on the trail.
In a small pack on my back, I carry a cylindrical biodegradable bamboo urn that contains my mother’s ashes. They’re surprisingly heavy, a human’s ashes.
My mother died twelve months ago today. The whole process leading up to her death has messed me up, and it’s not done messing yet. My mother’s voice curls through my mind as I seek for the right place to scatter what remains of her.
“You had such promise, Katarina. You were top of your class in mathematics, in chemistry, physics. You won the English essay contest. You were on the honor roll. You could have been anything you wanted, but now you are a maid, cleaning up after other people.”
“You also cleaned houses, Mom. I take after you.”
“Your father and I, we immigrated, Katarina, so you wouldn’t grow up like us. We did it for you. We struggled for you. I cleaned houses and hotel rooms for you. All for you. Everything. And look at what you have done to us.”
Then my mother got sick.
Really sick.
I tried to help. I tried to stop it from getting worse. I drove her to all her doctor appointments and scans and blood tests. We spent whole days at the cancer center for chemo. Nothing stopped it.
She went into hospice. She died. All within eight months from diagnosis. I didn’t think it would be such a shock, or that I would actually miss her moaning and chastising so much. Maybe she’s scolding my father in heaven right now, wagging her rough, chapped cleaner’s hands at him. I can almost hear her voice in that Ukrainian accent that never left her: “Oh, Pavlo, just look at our daughter we have left behind on this earth. She is in her thirties, Pavlo, and still she cleans other people’s houses—”
“How about here?” Boon asks, interrupting my mother inside my head.
I turn to see where he’s pointing. Rain drips from the bill of my cap. It drips from the sad, heavy branches of the deep-green forest. It feels as though it drips from my heart.
“Bit of a steep drop,” I say, peering cautiously over the edge of the cliff as I hold on to Boon’s sleeve. “Those rocks along the ledge down there look slippery. I don’t want to go over the cliff and into the water with her ashes. ’Cause that would really make her day.”
He laughs. Boon has this really strange, distinctive laugh. Once you hear it, you’ll recognize it anywhere. It reminds me of a whooping crane when he gets wound up. Or nervous. I don’t often see Boon nervous, but when he is, he laughs and cranks up into the high whooping sound. It always makes me smile, although I know others find it intensely annoying.
“You talk like she’s still watching you,” he says.
“She’s always watching me. She’s inside my head.”
“See?” Boon says. “It’s you—you are the problem. Not her. It’s never been about her. She’s just the internalized voice of your own conscience, and you have named your conscience, your inner judge, ‘Mom.’”
“Oh, don’t you start, too, Boon.” I’m getting enough of this stuff from my therapist. I start to walk away, but stop and abruptly spin around to face him. I lean forward and lock my gaze onto his. He takes a slight step back in surprise. I narrow my eyes and glower into his. I make my expression—my whole body posture—intense, aggressive. His smile fades. He takes another small step backward, closer to the slick rock edge.
“What are you doing, Kit?”
“Is she inside you now, Boon?” I point at his nose. “Is that you in there, Mom?” I step closer to him. “Have you possessed Boon—are you inhabiting Boon’s body, Mamma?”
“Cut that out.”
“Ha—you’re spooked!” I slap my thigh.
“I am not. And you need to grow up.”