“She and Mr. Black tipped me well,” I answer. I won’t go into further details about the countless times Giselle placed brand-new $100 bills into the palm of my hand to thank me for keeping the suite clean. And I won’t mention her visit to my home nor the charitable monetary gift she left me last night. It’s no one’s business except mine.
“Did Giselle ever give you anything besides money?”
Kindness. Friendship. Help. Trust. “Nothing out of the ordinary,” I say.
“Nothing at all?”
Detective Stark digs in her pocket and takes out a small key. She opens a drawer in the table between us. She takes out the timer, Giselle’s timer, her golden gift to me. The detective places it on the table.
I feel a surge of heat rise to my face. “Cheryl let you into my locker. That’s my locker, it’s my personal space. That’s not right, invading someone’s privacy, touching their things without permission.”
“Those lockers are hotel property, Molly. Please remember you’re just an employee, not the owner of the hotel. Now, tell me: are you ready to confess the truth about you and Giselle?”
The truth about Giselle and me is something I barely understand. It’s as strange as a baby rhino being adopted by a tortoise. How am I supposed to explain such a thing? “I don’t know what to tell you,” I say.
“Then let me tell you something,” Detective Stark replies as her elbows reclaim the table. “You’re rapidly becoming a person of interest to us. Do you understand what that means?”
I’m detecting an air of condescension. I’ve encountered this before—people who assume that I’m a complete idiot just because I don’t grasp things that come easily to them.
“You’re becoming a VIP, Molly,” Detective Stark adds. “And not the good kind. You’ve proven that you’re capable of leaving out important details, of bending the truth to suit you. I’m going to ask you one more time: are you in contact with Giselle Black?”
I deliberate once more and find I’m able to answer this with 100 percent honesty. “I am not currently in contact with Giselle, though as I understand it, she remains a guest at the hotel.”
“Let’s hope for your sake that’s the truth. And let’s hope the autopsy report shows a natural cause of death. Until then, you’re not to leave the country or attempt to hide from us in any way. You’re not under arrest.”
“I most certainly hope not. I’ve done nothing wrong!”
“Do you have a valid passport?”
“No.”
She cocks her head to one side. “If you’re lying, I’ll find out. I can look you up, you know.”
“And when you do,” I say, “you’ll find that I do not have a passport because I’ve never left the country in my life. You’ll also find I’m a model citizen and that I have a completely clean record.”
“Don’t go anywhere, you understand?”
It’s precisely this kind of language that always trips me up. “May I go to my home? May I go to the store? To the restroom? And what about work?”
She sighs. “Yes, of course you can go home and to all the places you’d usually go. And yes, you can go to work. What I’m saying is we’ll be watching you.”
Here we go again. “Watching me do what?” I ask.
Her eyes drill into mine. “Whatever it is you’re hiding, whoever you’re trying to protect, we’ll find out. One thing I’ve learned in my business is that you can hide dirt for a while, but at some point, it all comes to the surface. Do you understand?”
“You’re asking me if I understand dirt?”
Smudges on doorknobs. Shoe prints on floors. Dust rings on tabletops. Mr. Black dead in his bed.
“Yes, Detective. I understand dirt better than most.”
It is three-thirty when Detective Stark dismisses me from the white room. I walk myself out the station door. No courtesy ride home this time. I haven’t eaten since the morning, and I haven’t had so much as a cup of tea to tide me over.
My stomach roils. The dragon awakes. I have to pause a moment on the sidewalk in front of my building just to keep from fainting.
It’s my deception, not hunger, that’s having a deleterious effect on my nerves. It’s the fact that I haven’t disclosed fully about Giselle nor about what I currently have hidden over my heart. That’s what has me in such a state.
Honesty is the only policy.