So, great, I’ve got a new piece of the puzzle. Problem is I have no idea what to do with it.
Ruby floats stupidly in my field of vision. This thing, full of computers and processors and information. This thing I hacked specifically so it would keep my secrets.
Isn’t that a little like trust?
Maybe it’s time to open the circle a bit.
* * *
—
I knock on the door of 526 and there’s no answer. I swipe into the room, and if whoever is staying here is on the can or in the shower, I do not sufficiently care. But the lights are off. There’s some luggage in the corner, a laptop on the corner of the bed, and a few wads of tissue on the bedside table next to the moisturizer, which, gross.
The body, though, that’s here. Same condition, like it was killed moments ago. Blood still seeping down the bedspread.
“There’s a body over there,” I tell Ruby.
It beeps. “No there isn’t.”
“Well, I can see it. Clear as day.”
“John Westin?”
“Bingo.”
Ruby floats to the bed and hovers. A little red dot appears on the bedspread, expanding out until a frame of flashing red light covers the mattress. “I detect nothing. But I suppose this is why you’ve been having me search for him.”
“Correct. Add that to the frames of video that are missing, and you can see why I’ve been a bit more tense than usual.”
Ruby floats for a moment. “To be honest it didn’t initially register as any different from your usual level of acerbic and antisocial behavior.”
“Thanks.” I move toward the bed. Touch the body again, my hand sliding through and meeting the mattress. “The crazy thing is it looks exactly the same. The blood is still red. It’s been hours now. It should be showing signs of rigor. The blood should be drying. But no.”
“How did he die?”
“Exsanguination,” I say. “Throat cut. Left to right. Sharp blade. No defensive wounds on the hands, so whoever did it snuck up on him. Or maybe it was someone he knew, so he dropped his guard.” I shrug. “I’m not a forensic expert and I can’t even examine the body, so that’s really the best I got.”
“We know he was a criminal, with a tenuous connection to Teller,” Ruby says. “He’s dead and whoever killed him likely tampered with our video. I haven’t been able to find any record of him being here on the remaining feeds.”
“This sucks,” I tell Ruby.
“Are you open to suggestions?”
“At this point?” I wave my hand, welcoming it to proceed.
“Have you considered examining the crime scene?”
“You mean the crime scene that, when I first found it, was being cleaned by housekeeping?” I ask. “The crime scene where I can’t touch the body, and no one else can see it?”
“I guess you could just sit there and do nothing then. Would you like me to set the mood?”
Ruby launches into a recording of the chorus of “All by Myself” by Céline Dion.
“I wish you were a real person so I could murder you,” I tell it.
Not that it’s wrong.
I stand up. Survey the room. Wonder how much longer I have before the occupant comes back. The room looks like just about every other room in this place. Granted, they’re of different sizes and shapes, but the general design scheme is the same. Lots of bronze fixtures and brushed wood. Gleaming black surfaces. Blue carpet. The closets are small, because no one’s coming to stay here for more than a few days.
The bathrooms are simple: subway tile and Hollywood lighting around the vanity, with more gleaming black surfaces—the sink, the toilet—to offset all that white.
I drop to the floor and check under the bed and the desk. Nothing. The dresser is flush to the floor. Run my hand behind the TV, then pick up the lamps. Next I check the drawers, pulling them out to see if anything is written underneath.
Which is one of the fun secrets of hotel rooms. People leave odd messages in unseen places, for someone else to stumble upon. The inside of my toilet tank, someone wrote in black permanent marker: This hotel wasn’t half bad. It was all bad!
How droll.
In the bottom drawer of the desk, I find a name carved into the wood. Sam Seidlinger.
“Ruby, did a Sam or Samuel Seidlinger ever stay in this room?” I ask.
“Three years ago.”
Probably just someone marking their territory. I slide the drawer back into place. Check the toilet tank and find nothing there.
Last place to look. The painting over the bed. Every room in here has a different one. They’re all stock bullshit, all of them having something to do with clocks. Too on the nose for my taste. The one above my bed is a series of watch faces that melt until the last one is a puddle. Obvious Dalí rip-off. This one is an hourglass, perched on the sand of an expansive desert, the sky blue behind it. But the hourglass is empty. Someone smarter than me could probably interpret it. I grip the painting by the sides and tug. It’s stuck to the wall. I stand on the bed, look down, and realize John Westin’s dead body is now staring at my crotch. I try to not think about that. I run my fingers underneath the painting, manage to get it loosened a bit, then pull it down.
It’s written in thick black marker, in beautiful swooping text:
In the garden of memory
In the palace of dreams
That is where you and I
Shall meet
“Ruby? What do you make of that?”
The drone hovers over my shoulder and scans the back of the painting.
“Make of what?”
“This right here,” I say, pointing. “The text.”
“There is no text.”
Well, I’d call that a clue. A corpse only I can see, text only I can see. I read it off and Ruby says, “That’s a quote from the Mad Hatter in the film Alice Through the Looking-Glass, based on the book by Lewis Carroll.”
“Didn’t see it, never read it,” I say. “What’s the gist?”
“Alice steps through a mirror and ends up in a world where up is down, backwards is forwards, and the future is remembered,” it says. “That’s from the description I found online. Would you like me to download the movie and order you a copy of the book, in case they contain anything relevant?”
“Why not. Haven’t read a book in ages.”
“You haven’t read a book in the entire time I’ve known you,” Ruby says.
“Shut your vents.”
I put the painting back and I’m just getting it into place when I hear, “What the hell are you doing?”
I turn to find a young, handsome guy in a sweater and a pair of slacks. He’s standing at the door, a small bag in his hand, slightly agog at me on his bed and messing with the painting. Oh, how much more entertaining this would be if he could actually see the corpse between my legs.
“Security check?” I say. I drop my voice and say to Ruby, “Couldn’t have warned me?”
“I was running a scan,” it says, making no attempt to be quiet.
As I’m hopping off the bed, the man crosses to the desk, puts down the bag, and picks up the phone. “Security.”