They were alone in the room, but Irving leaned forward to whisper. “Mrs. K’s bed.”
Irving gave her pragmatism, and with coffee she found equilibrium: she’d been drinking. She wasn’t worth finding, and the state teemed with six-foot Scandinavians. The house was worth the risk—there’d been no recognition in the man’s eyes last night, and even if this really was one of Henning’s brothers, there were a hundred reasons for him to be traveling through town. She was a paranoid mess. She needed to leave this hotel, but not this town.
She was forever padding down these stairs to ask misleading questions, and she paused on the mezzanine to study the battlefield. In the cold, hard morning light of the lobby—every fray showing on the upholstery, Eugenia’s cheeks looking like crepe paper balloons—this man seemed less like Henning. He wasn’t either of the brothers she’d seen close up, the brothers who had followed her in Seattle, Martin and Ansel. Still, seeing this man again gave her spine a jolt, and she was flushed as she took the fern chair. He kept his blank blue eyes (light blue, not dark and grayish like Henning’s) trained on the sidewalk outside the plate glass, and barely noticed the way Irina gave extra twirls as she poured coffee. Surely an attention to females was a family trait, along with a tendency to carefully observe, but this man had no regard for drab women or the men at neighboring tables, who simmered in curiosity at the natty gray wool suit, the fine shoes.
On the other hand, this not-Henning ate a vast, Henning-style plate of food, half a chicken with spinach and fried potatoes. He dropped money on the table and walked past Dulcy to peer through the lobby windows of the newspaper, then paced while she pretended to read. When she looked back up he was staring directly at her but didn’t flinch away, and she realized he was actually looking past her at Miss Randall, intent upon her customary dessert of tapioca pudding.
Dulcy looked down at her newspaper, the crisp letters telling her about mendacity and murder and the promise of another snowstorm, and felt a gust: Samuel and Rex and Lewis had surged into the lobby. They greeted the mystery man as Eugenia swooped down on them.
“You’ll be trying the new chef tonight,” she said to Samuel.
“I will not,” he said. “I have too much to worry about.”
“What would that be?”
“Dead girls on ice blocks, while Lewis asks horrible questions,” said Samuel, moving around her for the door. “My poor mess of a cousin and his rotten investments.”
Rex blushed. “Such a nice boy, when his mind is quiet,” said Eugenia.
Dulcy guessed she didn’t mean Lewis, who’d belatedly noticed her, and tapped his hat with his bad hand. Eugenia was given a mock bow. “Your guests look tired, Mrs. Knox. What was that noise about last night?”
“I didn’t realize you spent time in your room, Mr. Braudel.”
He grinned, and they were gone, crossing the street to a waiting Durr, and the group started south down Second Street, arguing. Rex kept a sidelong eye on the others, trying to fall into a step that had no collective rhythm whatsoever—these men were all in their own world, like competitors in an odd race, contestants in a strange beauty contest. Rex was so pretty, and so frayed, with loops of artful hair; Samuel had a nice profile, but his skin was gray, and his parts didn’t quite fit. Durr limped with fine posture and looked annoyed with all of them. The new man, out in the light, looked harsh-featured and brutally pale, with none of Henning’s weird angelic glide. He looked like he wanted to be sick to his stomach; he looked miserable and afraid.
Dulcy’s eyes skittered over Lewis, who flexed his maimed hand while he listened to something Durr said, something private while Samuel gestured at Rex and the new man.
They are in league, thought Dulcy, dizzy from mapping out eye directions. She made for the Enterprise door. The secretary looked down and up again in surprise, because Dulcy had been distracted enough that morning to come down in her eyeglasses, but she claimed she had no idea where the men had gone. Dulcy sensed a territorial interest, and back in the lobby she tacked toward the front desk, where Irina fiddled with a new compact of rouge, flipped through a catalogue of bows and combs and barrettes. She had to know.
“I don’t know if there’s room for improvement in your appearance,” said Dulcy.
“Hah,” said Irina. But she smiled.
“I have a question,” said Dulcy. “Who is that new guest?”
“Mr. Braudel?” Irina rolled her eyes. “He is not new. He is simply strange.”
“No, the other. Tall, reddish hair. Is he a cattleman?”
The girl snorted. “No, a businessman. He is not one of those cowboys, or trading Jews, or sheepherding Catholic faggots.”
When Irina kept her mouth shut, she managed to look grave and thoughtful and lovely. Speech ruined the effect. “Ah,” said Dulcy. “He does have pretty blue eyes.”
Irina turned another page in her catalogue, but she smiled again. Dulcy’s view of the hotel log was blocked by Sears’s shirtwaists, and she drummed her fingers, one eye on the other door. “Are you waiting for the wind to stop, for your usual walk?”
“Silly, aren’t I?” said Dulcy. She made out an F in the signature in the register.
Irina leaned closer, her voice dropping. “But listen, I have a question. Do you know something much about Miss Randall?”
Leonora Randall was still in the dimmest corner of the lobby, finished with tapioca and back to her scrapbook. Dulcy avoided thinking of her own lists. “Beyond the fact that she likes the boiler on high?” asked Dulcy. “Not a thing. Has she been asking about arrivals, too? I’ve always gotten the sense she’s waiting for someone.” Eternally.
“No. She’s even quieter than you are.” Irina’s forehead wrinkled, as if she belatedly wondered if this last comment was true. “Do you really think she’s from Ohio? Someone asked if she might have a New York sort of voice. A city-like voice. And my ear is not so good, and I thought you’d know, because Mrs. Knox said you’ve been there.”
Dulcy tried to think; she bought time. “I’d have to hear her again. She always sounds so heartbroken, it’s hard to recall an accent.”
Irina leaned forward. “A guest thought she might have a different name. The man you just asked about, from Seattle. Mr. Falk, Lennart Falk. He is here to see the body of the suicided girl they keep bringing back and forth. That is why he is out with Mr. Peake and Mr. Braudel, waiting for the body to come. I think he must be not family, but some sort of detective.”