The Dead Key Part 9

"Of course not." Max patted her hand. She finished her drink and waved Carmichael over with another round. "So did you find anything interesting in it?"

"In what?"

"The purse." Max grinned.

Beatrice stared at her incredulously. It was a wholly inappropriate question, wicked even, but that seemed to be the point. After an hour of weeping, the shot of humor made Beatrice smile just a little.

"You know, I did find something sort of interesting." She pulled her aunt's key chain out of her handbag and set it on the table. "There's a really weird key here."

"It's a safe deposit box key."

"How do you know?" Beatrice picked it up and studied it again.

"Well, it has a number for the box, and it's from our bank. See, it says 'First Bank of Cleveland.'"

"I wonder why Aunt Doris has a safe deposit box." Beatrice squinted and reread the tiny engraving. What she really wanted to know was whether the key had anything to do with the strange letters she had found in her aunt's bottom dresser drawer.

"Oh, you'd be surprised. People put all sorts of things in them. Money, jewelry, legal stuff, you name it."

"What sort of legal stuff?" Beatrice was fairly certain her aunt did not have money or jewelry.

"I don't know. Wills. Birth certificates. Deeds. Hospital records. That kind of thing." Max shrugged. "That's what I've been working on with Bill, you know."

Beatrice shook her head. There were so many things she didn't know.

Max lit another cigarette. "Safe deposit boxes. People stop paying for them. They forget about them, or they get sick or die, and the bank is stuck holding their stuff."

"So what does the bank do with the stuff?"

"Well, they have to keep it for five years by law, but then if no one comes to claim the contents, the bank is supposed to turn everything over to the state."

"What does the state do with it?"

"They sell off the stuff and keep the cash. They supposedly keep a record in case the next of kin comes forward, but they hardly ever do. It's a racket!"

"That's horrible!" Beatrice wiped her nose with a bar napkin. "What if the people realize what happened and want their stuff back?"

"That's what happened a few years back!" Max said with big eyes. "It must have been about four years ago. This little old lady called up my line and wanted to know what had happened to her son's baby shoes and a bunch of other stuff. It took me forever to get a straight answer out of Bill. When I finally told the lady that the state probably threw it all away, she lost it. She came to the bank a few weeks later and threatened to shut the place down. She claimed the State of Ohio had never heard of her or her box. She wanted to go to the newspapers. You should have seen it! You could hear her screaming in Bill's office plain as day!"

"What happened?"

"Nothin'," Max said, stirring her drink with a little red straw. "We never saw the lady again. I got curious, you know? I decided to go look for her."

Beatrice sat waiting. Finally, she asked, "Did you find her?"

"She had died. Car accident." Max puffed on her cigarette. "You know, it didn't feel right. It happened like two days after she came into the bank. It just seemed, you know, strange. I talked to Tony about it. I tried to make him open an investigation. He thought I was nuts. Of course, he wasn't a full detective yet."

"What? You think the bank had something to do with the car accident?" Her voice had dropped to almost a whisper even though the bar was empty. Max shrugged and tugged at one of her bra.s.sy curls.

"I'd never seen the office so quiet after that lady left. There were all sorts of meetings. The vice presidents came down and spent hours in Bill's office. He looked like he'd seen a ghost at the end of the day. Tony thinks I'm just imagining things."

"Did you ever tell Bill what you thought?"

"G.o.d, no! I did ask a lot of questions. He said I showed 'initiative.' He decided to put me on a new project the next day. I've been auditing the safe deposit boxes ever since." When Beatrice looked at her blankly, she added, "You know, calling the owners, checking the records, that kind of thing."

"Why is it such a secret? That doesn't sound so unusual."

"Well, Bill says he wants to keep it under wraps so that the Deposits Office doesn't get wise they're being audited." Max paused and said in a lower voice, "Besides, every once in a while I find out that some record's gone missing."

Beatrice nodded. Max's mother had mentioned missing records at Thanksgiving. She couldn't shake the feeling that Doris was involved in all of this somehow. The letter she had found was about a safe deposit box. Then she remembered something Max's brother had said. Max should have been the detective. "Would it be possible for me to find out what's inside my aunt's deposit box?" Beatrice realized how it sounded and added, "I'd never steal anything from it, but maybe there's a will . . . or something she needs."

"No. Not legally. Not while she's still alive." Max paused and slowly grinned. "But rules sometimes get broken."

CHAPTER 18.

Monday, August 10, 1998 Iris closed her apartment door behind her and rested her head on the wall. What a long friggin' day. She dropped her bag in the hall and shuffled into her kitchen to hunt for something to eat. It wasn't until she'd torn through a carton of leftover Chinese food that she could bring herself to look at the answering machine. She rolled her eyes and pressed the b.u.t.ton, muttering, "What now, Mom?"

"Iris? Iris, are you feeling any better, honey? Give me a call. I'm worried about you."

Erase.

Iris sighed and pulled off her dust-covered clothes and heard something clank to the floor. It was the key she'd taken from a secretary's abandoned desk. It wasn't abandoned, she corrected herself. Suzanne Peplinski and all of her coworkers had been locked out of the building without any warning.

She picked the key up and bounced it in her hand. The long vault with over a thousand little doors flashed in her head. They were all locked. Ramone had said many of the boxes were still full because the bank had lost the master keys in the sale twenty years ago. But how? How do you lose keys to an entire vault? Why didn't the public demand that the boxes be drilled open? She turned the key over and over and sank back onto the couch in her underwear. Whoever owned the key might have lost something precious inside Box 547, some little piece of themselves forever locked away and forgotten.

Maybe no one even remembered what was lost. A key is worthless unless you know what it's for, she thought, running a finger over its teeth. It reminded her of a time years ago she'd gone snooping through her father's top drawer and found an old leather wallet filled with keys. Iris spent months trying to decipher them. None of them went to the house or either car. Her father never took them to work. Even when he spent weeks away from home on business, the keys never left the drawer. At eight years old she'd invented a hundred twisted scenarios filled with secret rooms and buried treasure chests to explain them. But no matter how hard she looked, she never found one lock the keys opened. She never had the guts to admit to snooping and ask about them. Eventually, she gave up and moved on to something else, but she never quite looked at her father the same way again. He had locked something away. Something she could never see or touch no matter how hard she tried.

Iris spun Key 547 between her fingers. The key had a secret. No one would just throw a safe deposit key in a drawer and forget it. If the key wasn't important, its owner wouldn't have opened a safe deposit box in the first place. It wasn't supposed to be left buried in the building. In a graveyard, she corrected herself. According to Carmichael, the building was a graveyard.

Thoughts of the wandering flashlight in the building made her slap the key down on the coffee table and light another cigarette. It was really none of her business anyway. She blew a wisp of hair off her cheek. Her eye wandered from the dusty TV screen to the blank canvas in the corner and then back to the key on the table.

"Do what you want." That was Ellie's advice.

f.u.c.k it. She picked it back up and stomped into the kitchen to find her phone book. It was buried in the back of a cabinet under the soup pot she never used. She wrestled the tome out of the cupboard and to the ground with a thump. Suzanne Peplinski was not a ghost.

There were three Peplinskis listed-Michael, Robert, and S. She glanced at the stove clock and saw that it was almost 10:00 p.m. Her mother would be outraged, but she decided to try calling anyway.

She picked up the phone and dialed S. Peplinski first. The phone rang three times and a young woman answered.

"h.e.l.lo?"

Iris cleared her throat, realizing that she hadn't planned anything to say. "Um, h.e.l.lo . . . Uh, you don't know me, but I'm looking for Suzanne. Suzanne Peplinski. Do you know her?"

"Yes, she's my aunt."

"Do you think you could tell me how I might reach her?" Iris asked sweetly. Her heart was racing. She had actually tracked Suzanne down. Take that, Carmichael, she thought. There were no ghosts.

"What is this all about?" The woman sounded annoyed.

"I think I found something of hers," Iris said, and realized she'd have to give more. "I think I found her wallet." She hated to lie, but for some reason she didn't want to divulge anything about the key to anyone but Suzanne. Perhaps because she had stolen it, she reprimanded herself. How was she going to explain that?

"Just a second." The woman set the phone down, and Iris could hear her shouting. "Aunt Susie! Did you lose your wallet? Your wallet? . . . Your wallet!" Apparently, Susie was hard of hearing. A moment later the exasperated voice returned. "Here, why don't you talk to her, okay?"

An older, raspy voice crackled on the line. "h.e.l.lo?"

"Suzanne? Is this Suzanne Peplinski?" Iris shouted into the phone.

Iris heard a high-pitched squeal on the other end of the line. "d.a.m.n hearing aid," the woman muttered, her voice far from the receiver. Then she said, "Yes, this is Suzanne. What is this all about? You know you're calling awfully late!"

"Sorry, ma'am. I know it's late, but I think I found something of yours." She paused, searching for the words, and finally settled on, "Did you by chance used to work at the First Bank of Cleveland?"

There was a pause. "Yes . . . but how do you know that?"

"I'm sorry. I know it's none of my business, but I've been working in the old building-you know, the one at 1010 Euclid Avenue-and I found something odd." Iris stopped herself before saying, "in your desk." She guessed the woman wouldn't take too kindly to a perfect stranger going through her things.

"Something odd?" the woman said, and coughed a little. "What are you talking about?"

"I found a key, and I think it might belong to you. Did you ever rent a safe deposit box at the bank?"

"A safe deposit box? Are you kidding? I didn't even have a bank account back then. What in the world would I do with a safe deposit box?" There was a long pause, and then she muttered, "Listen, I don't know what that girl told you, but I've never had a deposit box."

Iris's eyes bulged. "Excuse me? What girl?"

"I'll tell you the same thing I told her. I would never trust my money to those crooks!" The sound of smoke blew into the phone. "And I was right, you know. Those b.a.s.t.a.r.ds chained the doors up tight in the middle of the night. People had to pet.i.tion the feds just to get their personal things out of their desks! I say that Alistair and those crooks got what was coming to 'em!"

Iris grabbed a pen from the junk drawer and started scribbling on an expired pizza coupon: "What girl? / Alistair got what was coming / Pet.i.tion feds."

"Did you go back for your things too?" Iris asked, chewing on her pen.

"What for? I told you, I didn't keep anything at the bank."

So maybe the key wasn't Suzanne's after all.

"I'm sorry. Did you say you were telling someone else about this?"

"I'm not saying anything. That girl was crazy. Calling me in the middle of the night like that."

A voice was talking impatiently in the background. Iris didn't have much more time.

"Who called you in the middle of the night? Do you remember?"

"Of course I remember. I'm not crazy, you know." More smoke blew against the receiver.

"Of course not. Who was she? Did she work at the bank too?" Iris pressed.

"It was that itty-bitty thing up in the Auditing Department. Beatrice. Beatrice Baker. Don't believe a thing she says, by the way. She's a liar."

CHAPTER 19.

Suzanne's voice rasped in the back of her ears all night. Maybe Suzanne didn't know anything about the key. Then again, she sounded like a paranoid nutcase the minute Iris had asked about it. Iris tossed and turned in her bed, mulling it all over in her head, until only one thought was left-who was Beatrice Baker?

Iris arrived at the back door of 1010 Euclid Avenue almost on time the next day. She pressed the b.u.t.ton and rested her sleep-deprived head against the stone wall. In the morning light, all of the midnight drama over flashlights, keys, and lockboxes seemed ridiculous. The door, the sidewalk, the street-everything looked completely ordinary.

As usual, Ramone opened the door without showing his face. Iris parked and sat with her cigarette, debating what to do first. She wanted to run up to the fifteenth floor and see where the flashlight had been darting around the night before, but she wasn't sure she had the guts. Then there was the missing bay on the third floor. She tried to focus on that, but Ramone's comment about the bas.e.m.e.nt tunnels was more intriguing. Ramone was more intriguing for that matter. She still didn't know where the security guard spent his days and nights in the empty building.

It was the voice of her father in her head that made the decision for her. No matter how interesting Ramone and the building might be, she still had a job to do. With a defeated sigh, she fished out the third-floor plan from the old gym bag she'd been using for her pathetic collection of tools and set it on her clipboard. Brad needed the schematics for the first seven floors by Monday. She marched up the loading dock stairs and down the service corridor.

Iris yanked open the door to the third floor and retraced her steps. She slowly counted the columns, starting at the east wall and working her way west. The columns matched. The window count matched.

Everything fell apart in the library. The long and narrow library that ran the length of the third floor on the west side of the building was only twenty-five feet wide. She measured the room again. To match the floor below, it should really be thirty-five feet wide. The library didn't have any windows, because the bank tower ab.u.t.ted the old Cleveland rotunda building to the west; it was a party wall. Iris rifled through her purse to find the second-floor plan. According to her sketch, the exterior wall for the floor below was ten feet farther west than the wall she was leaning on.

She tapped the wall with her pencil as she read the drawings; it sounded hollow. She pounded it hard with her fist. It was definitely not old lath and plaster. It sounded like drywall on studs. Her eyes traced the wall up and down the room. It was seamless. The wall was painted tan and lined with large portraits of old white men. Mr. Wackerly, Mr. Brodinger, Mr. Mathias-every ten feet there was a portrait with a name on a little gold plaque. Their eyes followed her as she went up and down the west wall. Aisle after aisle of books, and she still could not find a door, a window, or an access panel.

Iris gave up on the library and headed to the northwest corner office at the front of the building, where Linda Halloran's desk sat empty. She counted the windows and checked her plans. One window was missing. She counted again to be sure. She walked to the west wall of the office and pounded it. It sounded just like the wall in the library. It was covered in ugly wood panels, but there were no seams. There was a large bookcase in the corner. It was eight feet tall and four feet wide.

Iris walked over to it and nudged it with her foot. It barely shuddered. Solid oak, she thought. She peeked into the tiny gap between the bookcase and the wall panel and saw nothing but a shadow. Iris looked down at the green s.h.a.g carpeting and then back up at the bookshelf. There was no way she'd be able to slide it. She inspected the empty wood shelves and did some quick mental calculations. There was the heavy wood desk and a couple leather chairs in front of the bookcase. They all looked pretty expensive. She hesitated, then walked around the desk and slid the chairs out of the way.

The huge bookcase stood bare and defenseless against the wall. No one will miss you, she thought. With her eyes squinted nearly shut, she reached up as high as she could reach, put one foot on the wall, and pulled. The hulking wood creaked off its bearings and began to tip. It teetered on its edge, then the monstrous piece of furniture came cras.h.i.+ng down. Wood splintered and cracked. Iris felt the floor vibrate as the bookcase crashed into the corner of the desk and careened to the floor. She stayed crouched with her arms up in front of her face to block shrapnel. She half expected Ramone to burst in with his gun drawn. When nothing happened, she let out a nervous giggle and brushed the dust off her clothes.

She turned and saw exactly what she had hoped to find behind the bookcase. It was a door. Its dark wood matched the surrounding paneling. She tried the small bronze handle, but it was locked. She fished the skeleton key Brad had given her a few days earlier out of her pocket and slid it into the lock. It wouldn't budge. She tried again to be sure.

There had to be a key somewhere. She decided to try Linda's drawers one more time. She felt inside each drawer, corner to corner, for the key. All she found were two paper clips and a thumbtack. She slammed the drawers closed and sat back in Linda's chair, dejected. She glared at the broken shelves, then back at the desk. The wood top was scarred where the bookcase had crashed, but something else about it bothered her. It looked just like it did the day before-big, heavy, and empty. She ran her hand across the writing surface and froze as she realized what was wrong. There wasn't a speck of dust. She stared at the spot where she had written "Wash me." Her words had been completely erased. The wood was pristine. Her eyes darted around the room. The desk was the only thing in the room not caked with grime.

She jumped out of the chair. Someone else had been there. Someone had seen her words in the dust. She ran out of the office into the hallway as if the perpetrator might still be standing there with a dust rag. She stood still and listened carefully to the quiet. The wandering flashlight up on fifteen taunted her.

It was probably just Ramone, she told herself. She forced herself to inhale and exhale slowly three times. It was his job to wander around the building, and if he wanted to clean random things, it was his prerogative. Maybe he was obsessive-compulsive. Maybe he was crazy.

"h.e.l.lo?" she called out into the hall. "Ramone?"

There was no response. She listened hard again for footsteps or the panting of a madman. If anyone was on the floor with her, she would hear them. The thick silence blanketed everything.

Iris turned back toward Linda's office and the hidden door. At least she'd found the missing s.p.a.ce. She drew a blank room ten feet wide and fifty feet long on the third-floor plan and marked the location of the door and missing window behind Linda's bookcase. The room ran the length of the library and backed up to the emergency stairs. She stared at the plan. The bookcase hiding the door made no sense. It weighed a ton even empty. She wondered if Linda had even known the door was there at all. Iris narrowed her eyes and focused on the place the secret room met up with the stairs. Maybe she'd missed something.