The Dead Key Part 30

"Well, then it looks like I'm out of a job." Her voice cracked.

"Iris, I'm sorry to hear that, I really am."

She had to find a way to put the keys back in the building. Her palms began to sweat. She should tell him. She should tell the detective what she'd found. The headline "Disgruntled Engineer Caught Red-Handed" flashed in her head again. She couldn't tell him. She'd just admitted she was getting fired. Nothing filled the void in conversation as she debated with herself.

"Iris, is there anything else I can help you with?"

"What? Um . . . no . . . I just," she stammered. "Maybe I should tell you more about the building. Would that help?"

"Sure. What do you got?"

"Well, let's see . . ." She stalled for time. She should tell him something. She should let him know she was on his side.

"Check John Smith's office on the fourth floor. It's filled with strange files. There's some weird notes in Joseph Rothstein's office on the ninth floor. I think he may have called the FBI about some things. The personnel files on the third floor are still full of information. I found this suitcase up in a broom closet on the eleventh floor. It belonged to . . . a woman." She almost said "Beatrice," but she didn't know that for sure. Besides, it would raise other questions. "Oh, and the tunnels. Don't forget to look into the tunnels and . . ."

The keys. She should tell him about the keys too. This was the moment, but a voice in her head reasoned it away. He was a police officer. He didn't need keys. He had battering rams and lock picks and drills. The police would find another way into the vault. She should just get rid of them and never speak of them again. She could throw them in the river or something. Beatrice would be found without them. The police would find her. Like the detective said, the building was full of evidence.

"Tunnels?" he said, interrupting her scrambling thoughts.

"Yeah. Old steam tunnels. The entrance is under the stairs in the lower lobby."

"Iris, this is very helpful. I may call you again to ask a few more questions. Is that all right?"

"Sure." She still had a chance to confess. "Detective?"

"Yes, Iris."

Silence vibrated across the line. She wanted to tell him but couldn't do it. She pictured herself being taken into the station for further questioning. No. She would get rid of the keys on her own. "Um, do you know who I found in that bathroom?"

"According to his wallet, it was a man named William Thompson. Now that's confidential. I need you to keep that between us."

The name rang a distant bell in Iris's head. She strained to hear it for several moments before it came to her. "'Best Dad on Earth' coffee mug! I've seen his office! He was up on the ninth floor. His office was trashed."

"What do you mean trashed?"

"Like someone had torn it apart." She breathed out the air she'd been holding in her chest. Maybe she'd helped the detective enough to make up for what she didn't say.

"Iris, if you can't find another engineering job, you call me, okay?" he said with a laugh. "I might have work for you."

CHAPTER 58.

Wednesday, December 13, 1978 Get out. Tony's words repeated in her head as the cab drove Beatrice around the city. She didn't give the driver a destination when she climbed in after her meeting with the detective. She didn't know where she was going. The thought of braving the tunnels and the long, dark walk to the eleventh floor was too much to bear. "Get out," he'd said, but all she had were dead ends. Someone had ransacked her aunt's apartment, and they could be sitting at the kitchen table at that very moment waiting for her. She couldn't go back to the hospital. According to Max, the room was being watched.

The cabdriver pa.s.sed the First Bank of Cleveland as they cruised down the dark, empty street. She gazed up at the tower looming over her head. Lights were glowing in two windows on the top floor. Whoever it was up in those offices didn't sleep.

Who was it? she wondered. Who turned her aunt's apartment upside down? Who was watching her aunt's hospital room? Bill Thompson was a liar, a womanizer, and a robber of widows. He may have even visited Aunt Doris in the hospital, parading as her uncle. But he didn't work on the top floor. Max had told her the trouble at the bank was bigger than Bill.

Then there was Randy Halloran. He'd been at the hospital-she felt sure of it now. He had signed the visitor's book. Remembering his wild eyes that morning made her shudder all over again. She could still feel his hand squeezing her wrist.

It didn't matter. She should just forget the whole sordid business and leave town tonight. Her aunt would never recover; she knew in her heart there was no point in waiting. Beatrice could just disappear. They probably wouldn't even bother to look for her. She would be just another girl who up and vanished in the night. Max's haunted eyes and faded smile swam back into focus at the thought. She'd made Max a promise. She needed to find her before she left.

The Gothic terminal building pierced the sky up ahead. The front of the building was a fairy-tale castle, but she'd seen the ugly back of the tower in the loading dock alley, where a blank door led underground. Thinking of the tunnels gave her an idea.

"Stouffer's Inn," she called to the cabbie. It was the hotel next to the tower. She counted the cash in her purse and crossed her fingers it would be enough.

The taxi dropped her off under the heat lamps of the hotel awning. A bellman in a gold-studded uniform tipped his hat and opened the door. Inside the vestibule a winding stone staircase led up to the lobby. Its plush red carpet was worn thin at the treads. Dusty crystal chandeliers hung over her head as she climbed the monumental stairs up to the check-in desk. A marble fountain was spraying dyed-blue water at the far end of the giant corridor. Beatrice stepped to the counter and asked for a room.

The tall, thin brunette behind the counter handed Beatrice a card. "These are the rates."

She scanned the list and her heart sank. She was ten dollars short.

"Um, you don't have anything more affordable, do you?" Beatrice remembered the ugly view from the back of the hotel. "Is there anything facing the alley?"

Before the receptionist could answer, the doors to the smoky hotel bar opened across the lobby, and a rather drunk couple stumbled up to the reception desk.

"We need a room p.r.o.nto!" the man bellowed, slamming his palm on the counter.

Iris glanced over at them and immediately s.h.i.+elded her face with her hand. She recognized the man. She'd seen him before at the bank.

"Get me my usual suite."

"Yes, Mr. Halloran." The receptionist nodded and shot Beatrice an apologetic smile. "Just sign here."

Beatrice kept her hand at her face to hide her stunned expression at the name "Halloran." She snuck a glance at him through her fingertips. His hand was fondling the backside of his companion. She immediately looked away, but not before she caught sight of a s.h.i.+ny, gold hem.

"Teddy Bear, you're insatiable." The woman chuckled in a low, husky voice.

Beatrice was certain she'd heard it before. It was the woman who had a warning for Max. The familiar voice drew Beatrice's eyes back across the floor to where the couple was standing. The woman was wearing six-inch platform heels that laced up her bare, dark legs to her thighs. Her lame dress barely covered her bottom, and Mr. Halloran's hand had slithered under the fabric.

"There you are, sir. Enjoy your stay," the receptionist said brightly.

With that, Mr. Halloran and the woman in gold stumbled toward the elevators. Beatrice lowered her hand from her temple to her lips when they stepped out of the lobby. The man's familiar steely-gray hair and suit left no doubt. He was the one who had yelled at Randy in his office. He was Randy's father. Teddy Halloran had been standing three feet away with a woman who knew Max.

"I'm so sorry about that. Some of our guests . . ." The pretty receptionist waved toward the elevators with her hand, at a loss for an explanation. "Well, I'm not supposed to do this, but it's late. That'll be thirty-five dollars. Okay?" The woman winked at Beatrice and handed her a key.

"Oh gosh. Thanks." Beatrice clutched it in her palm as relief washed over her. "I . . . I can't tell you what this means to me."

Head bowed, Beatrice rushed into the elevator. Three floors up, she scurried down the hallway until she reached the room. She threw the dead bolt and pressed her forehead to the door. The economy room was hardly bigger than a closet and featured a view of a trash bin, but there was a bed. Beatrice fell onto it and shut her eyes. It had been months since she'd slept on an actual bed. The soft sheets and the plump pillows cradled her. As she sank deeper and deeper into the tufted mattress, she felt the strangling tension in her neck and shoulders recede bit by bit. The tight knots in her stomach loosened one by one as her body slowly went limp.

Inexplicably, her eyes began to water. She blinked furiously, but there was no stopping the tears. She'd spent too many nights lying scared and alone on a cold, hard floor. She finally gave in and just let herself cry. She cried for her aunt, betrayed by the man she loved. She cried for Max and her lost baby. She cried for Tony and his defeated scowl. But mostly she cried for herself. She'd been searching for a new home and a new life, and it almost happened for her. She had teetered on the brink of happiness, until it all went wrong.

Beatrice sobbed until she was wrung dry and her mind was blissfully empty. With swollen eyes, she watched the long, flowing shadows from the window sheers wave across the ceiling for what could have been hours. Her hair, her skin, her bones were worn thin from the grating stress of sneaking around, trying to find answers to impossible questions. She was finally safe, if only for one night, in a place where no one could find her. She'd left her mother's name with the woman at the desk. For one peaceful moment, she dreamt of never leaving the room and staying hidden forever. The thought made her smile. She stretched and sat up in the bed. She would leave town, she decided; as soon as she found Max and returned the key, she would leave.

Leaving town would mean leaving her dying aunt behind. The thought of Doris being lowered into the ground without a witness, without a tear, hollowed out her heart. Doris had no one else. Before Beatrice came along, her aunt's days were consumed by the diner and memories of Bill-that and weekly trips to the bank's vault to deposit her tips into Box 547.

Beatrice eyed her purse. She had taken only one thing from the box. It was the one thing that didn't belong. She pulled it out and looked at it again. It was a book. Back at the bank in the velvet booth, she'd struggled to make sense of the markings before giving up and putting it in her purse. She cracked open the leather binding again and studied the first page.

It was a list with dates and strange symbols and numbers. The first date was September 5, 1962. Two numbers were written next to the date: 545 and 10,000. Beatrice skimmed the rows of figures. The dates ticked by one after the other. At first the entries were sporadic and spa.r.s.e, as 1962 turned into 1963, then 1964. On the next page something new caught her eye. It was a note that read "15 diamonds." More objects followed-"gold necklace, Tiffany watch, diamond ring." Beatrice flipped faster, looking for something else, something to explain the ledger. As the dates grew more recent, Beatrice noticed the entries were more frequent.

Then something odd in the margins caught her eye. It was a note and a large star in red ink. It was written in a different hand. The note read "Rhonda Whitmore!" The writing looked familiar.

Beatrice scanned across to the date-May 22, 1974-and realized she knew the name. It belonged to the woman who had filed a complaint with the bank over a lost safe deposit box. It was the woman Max demanded her brother Tony investigate. It was the woman who'd been hit by a car days after confronting Bill Thompson. She read the line again.

"5/22/74, 855, 50,000 (b)."

Mrs. Whitmore had lost $50,000 in bond certificates, according to the detective.

Beatrice slammed the book closed and threw it across the bed. Her hands covered her mouth. She'd just been reading a complete record of the safe deposit box robberies. The journal belonged to the thief. It belonged to Bill.

Max had told Tony she'd found some new evidence. It must be the journal. Max had found this book detailing the safe deposit box robberies. Beatrice looked at the note in the margin again. The red ink looked like Max's handwriting. Beatrice had seen it plenty of times, transcribing handwritten notes. Max must have taken the book from Bill somehow. Then she deposited it in Doris's box. Why? It was a risk. What if Bill had checked there? He knew Doris.

Max's voice came back to her: "Doris was different. She had her key."

Bill didn't have the key to Box 547. Max asked Tony to return the key to Beatrice. It could only mean one thing-Max had wanted her to find the book.

Beatrice paced the room, trying to make sense of it all. Max had put all of the incriminating evidence in Beatrice's hands. Then there was the blank key. Why would Max trust her and not her own brother? Surely Tony would know better what to do with it. Her only instructions were to keep the key hidden and safe, and that Max would find her when it was all over. But it would never be over. Tony made that clear. No one was going to believe Max, and no one was going to allow the bank to be searched. It was a dead end.

Beatrice flopped onto the bed and stared at the closed book.

CHAPTER 59.

The sun streamed into the room the next morning, waking Beatrice from a dead sleep. Her fitful nights in the building had taken their toll. She could barely pick her head off of the pillow. She blinked at the blinding sun and then sat up with a jolt. She was late for work. Her clothes were slept in, and she didn't have so much as a toothbrush with her. She ran to the bathroom to rinse her mouth and smooth down her hair. She looked like she'd slept under a bridge, but it would have to do. Running out of the room in her half-b.u.t.toned coat, she nearly forgot the incriminating journal hiding under her pillow. She threw it back in her purse and rushed out into the crisp morning.

There were eleven days until Christmas. The streets were decked in red and green, and the sidewalks were filled with smiling, chatting people on their merry walks to work. Beatrice barreled past them, pus.h.i.+ng her way through the gray snow. When she finally reached 1010 Euclid Avenue, she was twenty minutes late. She hurried to the elevators, cursing the clocks. She didn't want to draw any attention in the Auditing Department, at least not until she had left for good.

When Beatrice stepped off the elevator, she realized drawing attention to herself was the least of her worries. No one was at their desk. All of the secretaries were standing in a clump in the corner, talking in hushed voices. Beatrice stood nailed to the ground in the office entrance, gaping at the commotion. Something had happened-something big. Her first instinct was to turn around and run out of the building. Get out. But she couldn't leave yet. All of her possessions were still up on the eleventh floor. She just had to make it through one more day. She inched her way toward the clutch of women.

"What's going on?" she whispered to Francine.

The woman looked out of place standing on her feet instead of hunching over her typewriter. "You don't know?" Francine asked, looking down her pointed nose at Beatrice.

Beatrice felt her heart skip a beat. "No."

"It seems that your little friend Maxine has been up to something more sinister than any of us imagined."

The words "guilty by a.s.sociation" were written all over the woman's hard, lined face. Beatrice opened her mouth to protest and ask more questions, but before she could make a squeak, Ms. Cunningham came thundering up to the crowd.

"Ladies! Ladies, please!" the rotund woman bellowed. "Get back to your desks. This is the First Bank of Cleveland, not a sewing circle. I'm going to dock ten minutes from each of your time cards."

"I . . . I don't understand," Beatrice said out loud, feeling more and more hysterical.

"Mr. Thompson will be meeting with each of you individually this morning to discuss the events of the last twenty-four hours." Ms. Cunningham pointed her dagger eyes directly at Beatrice. "The authorities have also been notified, so I suggest you cooperate."

The blood drained from Beatrice's face. She bit her lower lip hard enough to keep her composure. Her meeting with Tony, the book she'd found, the keys in her pocket, her promise to Max-it all amounted to nothing. She was too late. Max had been found out.

Beatrice spent the next agonizing hour waiting to be called into Mr. Thompson's office. One by one the other secretaries' names were announced from the back. They each walked solemnly to his desk to be interviewed. They each returned looking bewildered. They didn't dare talk to each other, but Beatrice caught ladies giving each other knowing looks. One of the Sisters Grim even turned in her seat to steal a glance at Beatrice, then quickly turned away, shaking her head.

She wanted to run, but her instincts told her if she made one move to the door she'd be stopped by armed guards. If they wanted to arrest her, she argued with herself, they could have done it the minute she walked into the building.

Still, she stayed in her seat until Ms. Cunningham called her name. The other secretaries couldn't restrain themselves from turning to look as she stood up numbly and walked to Mr. Thompson's office. She clenched her hands into fists to keep them from trembling. She might as well have been marching to the executioner.

Mr. Thompson was seated at his desk when she approached the door. He looked up at her and smiled warmly. She was amazed that even after everything she'd learned about him-his thieving, his lechery-she had to fight the compulsion to smile back at him.

"Please close the door," he said pleasantly, without a trace of an accusation.

She obeyed.

"Come sit down." He motioned to the chair. "I know this morning has been a bit unusual, but I want to a.s.sure you that we still consider you a part of the First Bank of Cleveland family. We simply need your help."

"What is this all about?" She tentatively approached the desk.

"I was hoping you could tell me." His face showed no trace of guilt or regret for the affairs or the robberies or anything he had done.

She had to play along. She lowered herself onto the edge of the seat and folded her hands in her lap, one tightly gripping the other. "I'm sorry, sir, but I have no idea what is going on."

He studied her carefully as if she were the one with something to hide. He had no idea how much she knew. He seemed satisfied that she was thoroughly confused.

"Perhaps you don't. It seems as though your friend Maxine has been breaking into the building at night." He paused to gauge her reaction.

Beatrice gaped at him with shock scribbled over her face while her heart palpitated in her chest.

"We've also found evidence that she's been sleeping here."

"I don't understand. Sleeping here?" Beatrice squeezed her hands together and fought to not look away. Judging from his expression, he was mistaking her panic for shock.

"Yes, in an abandoned office. Have you seen Max lately?" He leaned forward.

"No, sir. I haven't seen her since she left her job. Her brother said she was on a long vacation."

Someone had found her hiding place. Every morning she hid her suitcase in the broom closet. Did a janitor stumble upon it somehow? She searched her mind, cataloging all of the things she might have left on the eleventh floor. She decided it was safe to look down without drawing suspicion. There was nothing in her suitcase that had her name on it. She had made sure of that. The only things in there besides clothes were the files from Max's desk. Her shorthand notes for her meeting with Tony and Max's personnel file were safe in her purse, and so were the keys. Her heart rate slowed slightly when she realized Max's key was still safe.

She looked up at him with the desperation of a deer on a highway. He smiled kindly again, and she knew she'd escaped detection.