Chapter 22

I find Mr. Snow in his office doing paperwork. I march right in and say, “Mr. Snow, your presence is required at the Social posthaste. While this is not a life-or-death emergency, it is, nonetheless, a situation requiring your immediate attention.”

“What kind of a situation?” he asks.

It takes a moment to find the words, but then I say, “Pest control. There’s a rat in our hotel. And not your garden variety either.”

This gets his attention. He closes the file folder he’s working on, stands, and readjusts his glasses, which have, as per usual, gone off-kilter on his face. I lead the way out of his office, and he follows at a clipped pace as we make our way through the labyrinthine corridors to the Social.

He spots the anomaly as soon as he walks in. Cheryl is sitting on a barstool flanked by Mr. Preston on one side and Lily on the other. Angela is behind the bar.

“Doesn’t anyone in this hotel actually work anymore?” Mr. Snow asks. “This better be good.”

“I realize we look like the beginning of a bad joke,” Angela replies. “A doorman and two maids walk into a bar.”

Mr. Snow sighs. “Molly said something about vermin. What exactly are we dealing with this time?” he asks.

“Her,” I say, pointing a finger at Cheryl, etiquette be damned.

Mr. Snow’s brow wrinkles in confusion.

Angela opens her laptop and proceeds to walk him through each of Cheryl’s items on KultureVulture.com. As Mr. Snow’s eyes grow wider and wider behind his tortoiseshell glasses, Cheryl remains as impassive as a lump in a gravy boat, her arms crossed against her chest, her mouth a defiant pout.

When Angela’s show-and-tell is done, Mr. Snow turns to Cheryl. “You had Lily pull the fire alarm? And you took the items in that banker’s box meant for Serena? Are you really this”—he waves a hand at the laptop screen—“this Grim Reaper?”

She shrugs. “I see myself as more of a recycling entrepreneur. By the way, what you pay maids sucks. You know that, right? And when you demoted me from Head Maid, my pay got worse. What did you expect?”

“What I expect,” says Mr. Snow, “is that you do not cheat, pillage, or steal, especially from your own colleagues.”

“You forced Lily to aid and abet you,” I say. “How could you do such a thing?”

“Oh, that’s rich,” says Cheryl. “How many times have I seen you stealing tiny jam jars off discarded guest trays in the corridors? Or pocketing turn-down chocolates guests leave behind in their rooms?”

“That’s not theft,” I say. “Those items were destined for the trash bin, and I merely liberated them from waste. There’s a provision for this in A Maid’s Guide & Handbook,” I say.

“You and your goddamn handbook. Admit it. You’re as much of a trash panda as I am.”

My backbone goes rigid. My blood pulses in my temples. I’ve been called many things over my life span, but never before has a name felt more offensive than this.

“Why do you call yourself the Grim Reaper?” Angela asks Cheryl. “Why that name in particular?”

“Because it sounds good. It’s called marketing.”

“Perhaps it’s more suggestive than you ever intended,” Mr. Preston says.

“Suggestive of what?” Cheryl asks.

“Of murder,” Lily says, her voice strong and clear, the furthest thing from a whisper.

Cheryl guffaws and slaps her thighs. “Those cleaning chemicals you two love so much must be frying your brains. I may take the odd thing here and there, but I’m no killer.”

“Glad to hear it,” says Mr. Snow. “Please, enjoy another muffin, Cheryl, courtesy of the Regency Grand.” He stands abruptly, removes his cellphone from his pocket, and dials a contact. “You can explain everything yourself,” he says.

“Explain? What do you mean? I just did,” Cheryl says.

“I’m phoning the lead investigator. I’m calling in Detective Stark.”

---

—Twenty minutes later, a detective walks into a bar. She heads straight for the source of commotion, where three maids, a bartender, a doorman, and a hotel manager are arguing about a first-edition book put up for sale in a local pawnshop.

“I sold my very own property, but you sold ill-gotten goods! Can you not see the difference?” Mr. Preston asks Cheryl.

“If the book in that box was so valuable, it should have been locked in a safe,” Cheryl replies. “You can’t be too careful these days.”

“Holy forking shirtballs, Cheryl. Are you for real?” Angela says.

Some familiar-looking special agents enter the Social behind Detective Stark. They stand at the entrance, guarding it, while Stark stops in front of all of us gathered at the bar. Lily, Mr. Snow, and Mr. Preston stand up from their barstools immediately.

“Thank you for coming so quickly, Detective,” Mr. Snow says.

“Is this really necessary?” Cheryl asks. “Shouldn’t I get back to work?”

“You’re not going anywhere,” Mr. Preston replies.

“Does someone here care to explain what the hell is going on?” Stark asks.

Angela wastes no time. She places her laptop in front of the detective and guides her through the evidence as Cheryl sneers on the stool right beside her, her arms crossed against her chest.

“All of the items on the site are related to Grimthorpe, minus one,” Angela notes. “The minibar bottles of scotch. Cheryl admits she’s the Grim Reaper. She sold nearly the whole lot of stolen Grimthorpe goods to a single vendor.”

Stark turns to Cheryl, staring at her for a moment. “Exactly how long have you been selling items on this website?” she asks.

“For as long as she’s worked here,” Angela answers. “Or so it seems.”

“The minibar bottles of scotch,” Stark says. “You say they’re the last thing Mr. Black drank before he died.”

“They were,” Cheryl replies. “I liberated them from Molly’s maid trolley. But that was years ago.”

“Who else are you working with in the hotel? The kitchen staff? Or maybe some other maids?” Stark looks at me and Lily, and though I want to scream, I have, for once, the good sense to keep quiet.

“Are you kidding me?” Cheryl says as she points to me and Lily. “This lot wouldn’t know a gold nugget if it hit them on the forehead.”

“She forced Lily to be an accessory to her crimes,” I say.

“I didn’t want to help her, Detective,” Lily says. “But…but…” The words catch in her throat.

“Go on,” I say. “Speak up.”

“It’s just that I need this job so badly,” Lily continues. “And I didn’t think anyone would believe me over her.”

Cheryl is about to say something but then thinks better of it. Her lips are so pursed they call to mind the puckered orifice of a cat’s hind end.

“Those blurry cue cards,” Stark says. “What was written on them, Cheryl?”

“How should I know? I never read them closely. Looked boring,” she replies.

“Who bought them?” Stark demands.

“No idea,” Cheryl says. “I couriered everything to some PO box right here in this city. My customers demand anonymity. I don’t even know their real names.”

“Don’t you keep the buyers’ addresses?”

“Yeah, but they’re useless. Can’t sell them.”

“Lower than a squirrel’s behind,” Mr. Preston mutters under his breath.

“Cheryl, you’ll get me the details of that PO box,” Stark demands. “I’ll run the address at the station.”

Cheryl shrugs. “Sure,” she says.

“What about this love note?” Detective Stark asks. “It’s blurred out, too. I suppose you didn’t read it either?”

“Actually, that one was juicier, so I did read it,” Cheryl admits. “But it was sentimental hogwash. Sounded like a Hallmark card from the nineteen hundreds. It was signed Your Chiefest Admirer. Old Man Grimthorpe was obviously getting it on with his personal secretary. Same old story. Ancient geezer, young mistress. Kinda like the Blacks.”

“She’s wrong,” I say. “That note was not written by Mr. Grimthorpe.” I watch as Mr. Snow’s face turns crimson.

“It was written by me,” Mr. Snow confirms. “I’ve held a certain…affection for Ms. Sharpe—for Serena—ever since she approached us several weeks ago about holding a press conference in our tearoom. That note, the one I put in the banker’s box…well…I admit it was a declaration of my romantic intentions.”

“You left a love note in her room as well, didn’t you, Mr. Snow?” I say.

“Along with twelve long-stem roses,” Detective Stark adds.

“I did,” Mr. Snow replies. He removes his pocket square from his breast pocket and wipes the dewy beads that have proliferated on his forehead. “Serena’s an enchanting young woman—intelligent, enterprising, and elegant. How you could ever think she’d be Mr. Grimthorpe’s mistress is beyond me, Cheryl. She’s a paragon of beauty.”

“Oh dear,” Mr. Preston says. “Love is blind.”

“Were you romantically involved with Ms. Sharpe?” Detective Stark asks.

“Goodness, no!” Mr. Snow replies.

“Not for want of trying,” Angela adds under her breath.

Stark turns to Lily. “Did you give Cheryl your signed copy of Mr. Grimthorpe’s latest book?”

“Give?” Lily says with her chin held high. “She took it. She said I could have it back when I proved myself to be a good maid by cleaning all her rooms and mine in a single shift.”

“That’s impossible,” I say. “No maid could ever do that.”

“Exactly,” says Mr. Preston.

“The first edition that was in the banker’s box. Why isn’t it listed on your site? And where is it now, Cheryl?” Stark asks.

“Sold,” she says. “I pawned it to the guy in the shop down the street. He gets top dollar for old books, even better than on the website.”

A thought occurs to me then. I suddenly see it with clarity. Cheryl took everything she could get her grubby hands on. She even took the cue cards off the podium. So, what if she took other items, too? “The honey pot and spoon,” I say. “The ones that were on Mr. Grimthorpe’s tea cart the day he died. Did you take them, Cheryl? That spoon was the last thing to touch Mr. Grimthorpe’s lips.”

“A honey pot and spoon?” Cheryl asks. “I don’t know anything about that.”

“Lying will get you into even more trouble than the considerable amount you’re already in,” Stark warns. “Admit it. You took them.”

“I didn’t,” Cheryl replies. “But that spoon is really good thinking—‘the last thing to touch the lips of the famous writer!’ The copy writes itself. The Vultures love that crap. ‘Unique ephemera,’ they call it.”

“The Moleskine notebook,” Stark continues. “You blurred out photos of many of the other written items. Why didn’t you blur out that one as well?”

“Because there was nothing to see,” Cheryl replies. “It was filled with doodles and gobbledygook. For a big-time writer, it’s kinda weird there wasn’t even a single legible word on the pages.”

During this entire exchange, I’ve remained steady and calm, but now, a hairline crack threatens my composure. How is it possible I never realized before? Deep in my being, a fracture splits and vertigo sets in. The revelation I experience is so seismic it takes effort to remain upright.

I feel a hand on my arm—not Mr. Preston’s, not Mr. Snow’s. Lily is holding me steady, pulling me close to her side.

“Molly!” I hear Mr. Preston shout.

“What the hell is wrong with her?” Detective Stark asks.

The x in the equation, the missing key—it’s been there all along, right in front of my eyes!

“Detective Stark,” I say. “I have a confession to make. There’s something you need to know. I knew Mr. Grimthorpe when I was a child.”

The detective shakes her head. “So? What does that have to do with anything?”

All eyes are on me. Cheryl’s face is filled with predatory glee.

“Mr. Grimthorpe suffered from writer’s block,” I explain. “The evidence is right there in that black Moleskine notebook. He was perfectly literate, but he couldn’t write a single word. I remember it so clearly—on his desk at the mansion were stacks of Moleskines he claimed were his first drafts. They were just like the one Cheryl stole from that box—monogrammed and filled with doodles and indecipherable scrawls. When I was a child, I thought it was code or a secret language. But it wasn’t. I see that now.”

“As usual, Molly, you’re making no sense,” Stark says.

“Can’t you see? The black Moleskine is proof of a motive,” I say. “There was a good reason why someone wanted Mr. Grimthorpe dead.”

“Even I don’t know what you’re getting at,” Angela says.

“Nor do I,” Mr. Preston adds.

“For god’s sake, Molly,” Stark says. “Spell it out for us, will you?”

“Motive,” I say. “M-O-T-I-V-E. Meaning: a reason to kill. Mr. Grimthorpe didn’t write his books, not a single one of them. Someone else did.”