“Lily,” I say. “If you’re worried about a murderer in this hotel, I can tell you with complete sincerity there’s no reason to believe there is one.” My stomach does a flip-flop, because what I’m saying is not an irrefutable fact.
Lily turns and stares at me, her eyes expressionless and dull. “The maid is always to blame,” she says, then returns to cleaning without another word.
I can’t help it. I’m feeling quite exasperated by this conversation, and I sigh out loud. Honest to goodness, I am trying my best, but I don’t know how to help this girl. It occurs to me that perhaps the best way is without words, by working with her side by side.
I tackle the bed in silence, removing the dirty sheets and putting on new ones. A tidy bed calms the head, I think to myself. But it’s not working. My head is nowhere near calm, and it’s clear that Lily is in her own state of dishevelment.
I take the soiled sheets over to her trolley and am about to bag them when I notice something in her recycling bin—a folded banker’s box with the name Serena written clearly in black marker on the lid. It’s the box that disappeared during the fire alarm yesterday.
“Lily,” I say.
She turns to face me.
“Did you put this box in your trolley?” I ask.
She shakes her head.
“Do you know who did?”
She shakes her head again, then stares at me with those dark, glassy eyes.
“Tell me, Lily. I implore you.”
She has only one thing to say: “Loose lips sink ships.”
My nerves are frayed. As I help Lily clean Room 429, I feel desperately unsettled. I know the true source of my malaise. It is not really Lily, though of course I’m concerned about her. It’s not even Mr. Grimthorpe’s death or the strange occurrences in the hotel. It’s the fact that I’ve become embroiled in a lie, and the very notion shakes me to the core of my being.
Tell a lie once and your truth becomes questionable. Gran’s voice keeps echoing in my head, and I can’t make it stop.
“Lily,” I say. “It’s lunch hour. Time for a break.”
She nods, puts down her spray bottle, and quickly leaves the room.
I suddenly know what I have to do, and there’s not a moment to lose.
I leave the room in a state of imperfection and hurry down to the lobby. I exit the hotel, making my way to the bottom of the plush, red-carpeted stairs. Mr. Preston spots me and stops me.
“Molly,” he says. “Where are you off to in such a rush?”
“An errand,” I explain. “I’ll be back later.”
“I’ve got one to run myself,” he says. “Now, Molly, about that dinner we were going to have this Sunday, I was thinking—”
“Mr. Preston,” I say, interrupting. “Can our dinner please wait until Juan Manuel returns? I’m barely managing as it is, and I just don’t think I can handle anything more right now.”
Mr. Preston’s face falls like a cake taken out of the oven too soon, but before he can say anything else, some businessmen with luggage in tow wave him down. He jumps to their service while I make my hasty retreat.
I head toward the next street over. I walk briskly, turning left, then right, then left again. I arrive at the police station in exactly fifteen minutes. I take a moment to survey the building from across the street—a gray, brutalist block with tinted windows.
I cross the busy street and enter through the main doors into the police reception area.
A blond woman with long purple nails greets me. “Yes?” she says.
“I’m here to see a detective,” I explain, trying to keep my voice steady.
“Complaint? Tip-off? Or are you turning yourself in?” the woman asks.
“The latter,” I say.
She pauses. “You know ‘the latter’ means the last thing I said, right?”
“Yes,” I reply. “I have a flair for vocabulary.”
She of the Purple Talons stares at me with strange, unreadable eyes.
“It’s Detective Stark I must speak with,” I say. “She knows me. I’m a maid at the hotel where Mr. Grimthorpe dropped dead.”
The woman stands then, very slowly. Still facing me, she opens a door behind her and yells down the corridor in a tremulous voice, “Detective Stark! Come quickly! Please?!”
She doesn’t go back to her desk as I expect her to do. Rather, she just stands there, pressed up against the wall, eyeing me like I might steal something or pull a gun.
Heavy boots trudge down the hall, and then Stark, wearing all black as usual, is standing in the doorway. “Molly?” she says. “What the hell are you doing here?”
“She’s turning herself in,” Ms. Purple Talons whispers.
Detective Stark’s eyebrows jolt up. “Come with me,” she says.
I thank Ms. Talons, then follow the detective down a corridor to a room I’ve visited once before under circumstances I don’t care to think about. The room is exactly as I remember it—with offensively bright fluorescent lights and covered in a layer of criminal filth and grime.
“Have a seat,” Stark says, pointing to a dirty black chair in front of a smudged white table. I sit in the revolting chair. The detective takes a seat across from me.
I’m not exactly sure how to begin, since I’ve never confessed to a crime before, so I wait silently for some sort of cue. A red light flashes in the corner of the window behind the detective.
“Did you want a coffee?” Stark asks. “Would that make this easier?”
“It would not,” I reply. Last time I was here, she brought me water, not tea, as I’d requested, and she delivered it to me in a squeaky, ear-offending Styrofoam cup. If that happens again, I don’t think I’ll be able to get my words out.
The detective stares at me. “Well,” she says, “you said why you’re here, so you might as well have out with it. You’ll feel better after, I promise.”
I take a deep breath, then exhale. “I couldn’t live with the deception,” I say. “I feel sick. It’s eating me alive. I’ve been thinking about my gran and how disappointed she’d be if she knew what I’d done. Which she doesn’t know. Because she’s dead.”
“You’re doing the right thing now, Molly. And I’m ready for your confession,” Stark replies.
“I’ve committed a crime,” I say.
“Yes. I know. But you need to be more specific. You need to say out loud that you killed Mr. Grimthorpe, that you poisoned him.”
“What?” I exclaim. I cannot believe my ears. “I did no such thing! What do you take me for, a murderer?”
“You said you’re here to confess.”
“To fraud, not murder!” I reply. “I impersonated an officer of the law, and I’m deeply remorseful. I tried to tell the truth about who I am, but the LAMBS wouldn’t listen. Don’t you see?”
“No, I don’t, Molly,” Stark says. “Because as usual you’re not making sense. I don’t know why that even surprises me anymore.”
I take a moment to collect myself, then start from the beginning, explaining to Stark in minute detail how the LAMBS mistook me for a detective working incognito at the hotel and how despite my protests, they refused to believe the truth—that I’m really just a maid.
“So you see,” I say as I come to my conclusion, “I committed identity fraud. And perhaps obstruction of justice, too. You can charge me now. I deserve it.”
“Charge you?” the detective says. “Because a bunch of middle-aged book freaks mistook you for a detective?”
It’s only then that what Detective Stark said earlier sinks in. “Wait,” I say. “Was Mr. Grimthorpe poisoned?”
Detective Stark sighs. “We got the autopsy and the toxicology report. Ethylene glycol. In his tea. This isn’t public knowledge yet, but you’d have found out soon enough since we’re holding a press conference in an hour. Any idea how ethylene glycol got in his teacup, Molly?” Stark asks as she leans forward in a way that most certainly feels like a space invasion.