The Best American Mystery Stories 2006

Sue Pike A Temporary Grown

From Murder in Vegas

Dolores shuffled into the Solarium looking for the paper cups the nurses used to distribute the meds. It was a hobby of hers, collecting the tiny, fluted cups. She liked to put treasures in them and line them up on the windowsill of her hospital room.

Leonard was slouched on the sofa watching TV and scratching his head. Leonard was always scratching his head. It was sort of a hobby of his, Dolores thought. She spotted four abandoned cups on the card table, but just as she was gathering them up her attention was caught by an image on the TV. She sucked in her breath as Bryce and a young woman drove onto the screen riding a huge black motorcycle, the pink sand of the Nevada desert glowing behind them in the evening sun. They skidded to a stop, pulled off their helmets, and waved at the camera. The woman shook her head, catching Bryce full across the face with a sheet of long blond hair. Bryce brushed the hair away, threw his arm around the blond girl’s shoulder, and laughed. Then Leonard started laughing and Dolores had to flap her hands to shush him so she could hear the commentary.

“Bryce Campion, best known for his role in Worlds Apart, and Marie-France Lapin, of Jazz Hot, the all-girl band from Paris that’s been making waves all over the country, announced their upcoming nuptials today in Las Vegas. Bryce is currently headlining a brand-new show at the Three Crowns...”

Her knees wobbled and she dropped into a chair, sending the paper cups skittering to the floor. That made Leonard laugh some more, but when she started to shush him again she caught herself. His eyes had that glittery look that meant something crazy was going on in his head and she’d better watch out.

She leaned closer to the screen. “The wedding will take place next week in the Little White Wedding Chapel, a Las Vegas landmark.”

Dolores began to hum two notes over and over. It was something she did when she could feel her heart beating too fast. She was going to have to decide what to do but she couldn’t think in here with the TV and Leonard scratching his head and laughing too loud in all the wrong places. She grunted as she leaned over and picked up the cups from the floor and then she pulled herself to her feet and shuffled away as fast as her swollen legs would carry her.

Back in her room, she tore a sheet from the steno pad Dr. Bradford gave her at their first session. She was supposed to be using it for a journal, writing about all the times she felt angry and all the times she felt sad. But the pages were mostly empty and every time he asked her about it she just hummed a bit and stared at the floor while he gripped the desk so hard his fingers went white.

She reached between the mattress and the box spring and fished out a silver pen she’d found on Dr. Bradford’s desk one day when he was looking at something in her file. After scribbling a few words on the paper, she reached into the crevice under the radiator where she’d hidden the blank stamped envelope she’d found a few weeks ago at the nursing station when the matron had gone to the bathroom. She addressed it to Bryce Campion, Three Crowns Hotel, Las Vegas, Nevada, and then tucked it into the zippered compartment of her bag. They were releasing her to the group home tomorrow and she’d be able to slip out and mail it once the social worker was through talking to her. She sat on the edge of the bed for a minute or two and then reached behind the radiator again to check the money hidden in there. She liked to think of it as her nest egg. That’s what her grandmother had called the money in the cookie tin she kept high up on the shelf over the icebox. Dolores had stood on a chair and reached for the tin one day when she thought her grandmother was lying down in the next room. It slipped out of her fingers, and the coins had clattered to the floor. Her grandmother had shot into the room and yanked the chair right out from under Dolores, making her crack her head on the table as she fell. The social worker had asked how she’d hurt herself, but she never said. Not that time. Not ever.

Dolores stepped out of the cool of the Greyhound Bus Terminal onto South Main and caught her breath. The noise and heat and brilliant sunshine jumbled together inside her head and made it hard to think clearly. She shuffled a few blocks before she dropped her pack onto the sidewalk and leaned against the wall of an office building. She put both hands behind her and pushed hard against the wall, feeling the stucco bite into her fingers, trying to read the bumps as if they were Braille. She took a deep breath and tried to think about the mantra Dr. Bradford had taught her, but sounds and images were jittering around in her mind so fast she couldn’t remember how it began. After a while she rummaged in her bag for a jam jar of water and with a few sips she felt strong enough to push away from the wall and pick up her pack again. She stood for a moment and tried to get her bearings. In her letter she’d described the doughnut shop where he should meet her. It was one she’d discovered last year when she’d come here to be with him. But she didn’t want to think about that time and had to hum very loud to keep it out of her head, only the trouble with that was it kept the location of the doughnut shop out of her head as well. But it was on the Strip, that much she could remember, so she set off again humming even louder to take her mind off her heartbeat and her sore ankles.

When she’d gone to the group home the social worker had watched her unpack her bag and fold things into the dresser drawer. Dolores smiled, remembering how easy it had been to push everything back in the bag and drop it from the window the next day. When she walked out the front door she’d called to Stella, who was in the kitchen making lunch, and told her she was just going for a walk and then she’d gone around back, picked up her pack, and walked to the bus terminal. It took most of her nest egg to buy the one-way ticket.

Dolores walked on, stumbling a bit every once in a while, holding onto the walls of buildings when she was afraid she might fall. She thought about Dr. Bradford and how he made everything he said sound like he was talking to a child. “Doris,” he’d said, always calling her Doris even though she’d corrected him so many times.

“Doris, sometimes people think they have a connection to people they’ve never met. Especially celebrities. Some even believe they’re married to well-known men like Bryce Campion.” He’d looked sad when he said it, like it was one of the big tragedies of the world. “You understand you’re not married to him, don’t you?” He’d twisted his pencil between his lips, making it squeak and then he’d pulled it out with a wet popping sound and leaned forward, trying to catch her eye. “You can get rid of this obsession, Doris. You have the power to make yourself better.” She’d had to hum hard into her pillow that night, remembering the little frown between his eyebrows that made an upside-down V like the pitched roof on her grandmother’s hen house. But she didn’t really blame Dr. Bradford. He didn’t know any better. He hadn’t seen the look Bryce had given her that night in the movie theater. He hadn’t been there the night Bryce had asked her to marry him. She could still remember it as clear as day. She was sitting in the second row and he was looking down at her from the shiny, pebbly screen. There was a hurt look on his face, as though afraid she’d refuse. “Dolores,” he’d said, “Marry me, Dolores. Please.” She’d said yes right there, out loud. Some people in the audience laughed, but she didn’t care. He’d said the words she’d been waiting to hear all her adult life. After that she’d watched every movie he ever made. And she’d gone to the library and looked through all the movie and entertainment magazines in hopes of finding a photo of him. When they stopped making musical films he’d taken a job in Las Vegas, singing in one of the smaller hotels. And she’d gone along last year to be with him. But it hurt to think about that right now.

She’d managed to make her way to the area known as the Strip with its confusing jumble of moving lights and jangly music that hurt her head. The pack was scraping against her so she put it down on the sidewalk and slumped onto it, splaying out her legs.

“Hey, watch it.” A young girl veered around her, her roller blades screeching on the sidewalk just inches from Dolores’s worn plastic thongs. The girl flipped her hair and a barrette dropped to the sidewalk.

“Watch it yourself,” she shouted back, scooping up the barrette and running her fingers along its surface. It was just the right size to fit into one of the fluted paper cups she had stacked in her bag. She shoved it into a side pocket and struggled to her feet again. She had to find the doughnut shop fast in case Bryce was waiting for her. She stared along the Strip, humming to keep her heart from pounding. It was packed with people looking in shops and restaurants, but they weren’t looking at her so that was okay. She walked on, stumbling a bit with fatigue and confusion and then she spotted it, just a little way down a little side street, nestled between an adult video store and a newspaper shop.

It was wonderfully cool inside. She dropped her bag into a booth and peeled a couple of dollars from what was left of the nest egg in her pocket. A young man with acne and a tattoo of an alligator on his left arm took her order for three chocolate glazed and a large coffee and then, balancing her meal in both hands, she squeezed between the molded chair and table and began the serious business of eating. Dr. Bradford would have a fit if he saw her. He’d handed her some diet sheets at one of their last sessions and made her promise to read them. Easy for him to eat all those fruits and vegetables, half of which she’d never even heard of. He didn’t have to live on the little bit of money she got from welfare.

“Mind if I share your table?” A young woman with black hair swept back into a wide red ribbon made Dolores jump. She looked around the restaurant but almost all the other tables were empty.

She shrugged and chocolate crumbs cascaded to the white plastic table.

“Man,” the woman giggled. “Is it ever hot today.” She tossed a couple of parcels onto the bench beside Dolores’s pack and threw her cotton jacket on top.

“Looks like you could use another coffee.” The woman was still standing, the smell of perfume wafting about her. “Can I get you anything else?”

Dolores shrugged again without looking up and the woman strode away leaving her jacket and parcels behind. Dolores sneaked a peek at the top one. Neiman Marcus, it said. Well, well. All right for some, she thought, resentment pinching her lips together.

“Here you go. I picked up a couple more doughnuts as well.” She giggled again. “I’m Jennifer, by the way. What’s your name?”

Dolores pulled the new bag of chocolate glazed toward her and counted four. They would have cost a fortune, she thought, toting up the total in her head. “Dolores.”

“Well, bon appetit, Dolores!” Jennifer smiled brightly while she dusted the bench and perched gingerly on the edge. She stacked a pile of napkins onto the table and placed a carrot raisin muffin in the exact center. She turned the napkin pile around a couple of times before breaking off a tiny portion from the top and popping it into her mouth. A couple of miniscule crumbs dropped onto the table. “Mm-mm,” she said, and giggled again while she touched the corners of her mouth with the longest, pinkest nails Dolores had ever seen. She pushed her own hands with their gnawed nails into her lap while she examined the woman across from her. Jennifer had one of those smiles that made her nose scrunch up, the kind the girls in high school used to try on in front of the restroom mirror until they caught her watching and made her leave. It was definitely the kind of smile for girls who giggled a lot.

“So,” Jennifer studied her largely undamaged muffin and then looked up. “Where are you from?”

Dolores hesitated wondering if this was a trap. “Why? What makes you think I’m not from here?”

“Oh, I don’t know. Nobody you meet around here is actually from Las Vegas. Most people are tourists.” Jennifer leaned toward her conspiratorially. “I’ll bet you flew here, right?”

Oh sure. On her budget. “Huh-uh. Bus from Chicago.”

Jennifer flapped her hand with its pink nails in front of her mouth indicating it was full, but the muffin sitting on the tidy pile of napkins appeared almost whole. “Chicago?” she said after she swallowed. “I love Chicago!”

“Um...” Dolores looked into the doughnut bag and selected another chocolate glazed. She didn’t want to talk about Chicago. It made her think of Dr. Bradford and the little roof-shaped frown.

“What did your mother call you, Doris?” he’d asked at their last session.

“I told you, I don’t have a mother. “

“Grandmother, then. What did she call you?”

“You know,” she’d mumbled. She wished she’d never told him about the Doris Doolittle rhyme.

“Huh?” she looked up at Jennifer, realizing she’d missed a question.

“I asked if you had a place to stay.”

Dolores shrugged.

“I could help you find a nice motel room and give you a lift, if you’d like.”

Dolores scanned the seats in the doughnut shop again. “No, thanks. I’m meeting someone.”

“Oh!” Jennifer beamed at her. “A boyfriend, I’ll bet.” She looked around herself at the mostly empty tables. “Is it a boyfriend, Doris?”

“My name’s Dolores.” The familiar anger bubbled up, pricking her eyes with tears.

“Oops. Sorry.” Jennifer grinned. “I’ll bet he’s gorgeous. Is he gorgeous?”

Dolores shrugged. “He’s not all that young any more.”

“A sophisticated older man. They’re the best kind. I’ll bet he’s nice. Is he nice?”

Dolores thought about the last time she saw him. She remembered the restraining orders and the policeman who’d yanked her arms behind her back and bent her over the hood of the squad car. “I dunno. Not nice exactly.”

“Men, huh?” Her frown looked a lot like Dr. Bradford’s. “Well, he should be here to meet you. That’s for sure.” She rummaged in her purse and produced a cell phone. “Why don’t we call him and tell him to get on over here.” The long pink nails hovered over the keypad like butterflies waiting to land. “What’s the number?”

“I... I don’t know the number. It’s probably unlisted.” Dolores could feel her breathing getting fast again. She wanted to hum but thought she’d better not. “Anyway, he’s probably just busy.” She wanted to tell Jennifer about Bryce’s act at the Three Crowns and that he couldn’t just drop everything at a moment’s notice but she was afraid, afraid she’d get that look on her face like Dr. Bradford’s. She was afraid Jennifer would talk about obsessions and stalking and all those things people said when they didn’t understand about Bryce and her.

But Jennifer wasn’t even looking at her. She seemed to be looking at something inside her own head and her eyes had gone all glittery, like Leonard’s did when he had his scary thoughts. “Men need to be taken down a peg, don’t you agree? Think they can walk all over us.” Her laugh was a little bit like Leonard’s, too. “My own so-called boyfriend tells me the other day he’s going to marry someone else. Didn’t want me to see it first on TV, can you believe it?” The pink fingernails were drumming the table so hard the tip of the middle one snapped off, but Jennifer didn’t seem to notice. “I’ve been his secretary, his lover, even his laundress.” She made a disgusted snort. “I’ve answered thousands of letters from his retarded fans. And now he tells me he’s knocked up some blond bimbo and he’s going to marry her. Can you believe it?”

“Um...” Dolores wanted to tell her about the fingernail but Jennifer suddenly sniffed and then giggled again. “Well, enough about me. I’m just a teensy bit angry.” She crumbled a corner off her muffin, popped it into her mouth, and bit down hard on it. Suddenly her eyes widened and she grabbed her jaw. “Oh shit.” She fished around inside her mouth with the thumb and forefinger of her left hand, withdrawing something white.

Dolores was alarmed. It looked like a tooth. She’d had enough teeth yanked out of her head to know how painful it was, but when she looked at Jennifer’s face the woman seemed more furious than wounded. She sucked the thing once and then dropped it into the ashtray and got to her feet. Dolores stared at it.

“Is that your tooth?”

“That piece of shit is a temporary crown. I’m not getting the real thing installed until tomorrow.” She rolled her tongue around inside her mouth and then turned away. “I’m going to the washroom in rinse out my mouth.”

Dolores stared at the thing, tipping it this way and that in the ashtray, amazed at the contours, trying to imagine where it had come from and if this one was temporary what the real crown would look like.

Jennifer reappeared and gathered up her parcels from the bench. The muffin lay abandoned on the table. “Okay. I think we need to take you to your boyfriend’s place.”

“Um. That’s okay. I’ll wait here awhile.”

“He’s never going to come.” The giggle and the scrunched-up smile had vanished but the eyes were still glittering. “You need to have it out with him, Doris. Once and for all.” She grabbed her parcels and the duffle bag and headed for the door. Dolores sat for a moment, humming softly, and when she looked over and saw the woman and her bag disappearing out the door she scooped the temporary crown into a napkin and shoved it in her pants pocket. The tip of the pink nail was harder to find. It had slipped under the pile of napkins holding the scarcely touched muffin. Dolores gathered the whole thing together and put it in the pocket of her shirt.

She pushed through to the heat and confusion of the street and found Jennifer standing beside a black convertible, holding the passenger door open. Dolores sank with difficulty into the seat and then had to pull her swollen legs in after her.

She peered at the console once they were moving. “What is this thing?”

“You’re kidding, right?” Jennifer frowned at her. “You’ve never seen a Jaguar before?”

“Um...” Dolores found she could hum under her breath and the sound of the motor masked it.

Within minutes they were pulling up to the shipping entrance to Three Crowns. The woman reached across Dolores’s stomach and pushed the passenger door open. “Out you get. I’ll go and park this thing and then I’ll get the key for you from the front desk.” She checked over her shoulder watching for an opportunity to pull out, but then she appeared to change her mind and reached across again, this time to open the glove compartment. Dolores was stunned. Inside was the biggest pile of quarters she’d ever seen. Jennifer scooped up two handfuls and thrust them into her lap.

“You can play the slot machines while you wait.” She gave Dolores a little shove. “Off you go. But stay in the lobby, okay? That way I can find you again.”

Dolores stumbled out of the car, shoving coins into her pants pockets. Several quarters dropped to the sidewalk and she had to stoop down to retrieve them. When she looked up again the car and the woman and all Dolores’s possessions had disappeared.

She stood still for a full minute, trying to make sense of what had happened, feeling the pockets of her yellow knit pants stretch under the weight of the coins. She wanted to sag against the wall and close her eyes but she hadn’t liked that glittery look in Jennifer’s eyes so she pulled herself together and shuffled around to the front entrance of the hotel.

She gasped. A big poster advertising Bryce’s show took up most of the front of the building. He seemed to be looking right into her eyes and she ran her fingers through her hair trying to tidy it. She didn’t want him to see her looking like she’d just stepped off the bus. There were little trees in cement boxes lining the drive and she stood behind one for a moment watching the doorman in his red and black uniform. A limousine pulled up to the curved driveway and the man tugged at his tunic and ran over to open the driver’s door. Dolores could hardly believe it. Jonathan Finn from Las Vegas Nights stepped from the car and handed the doorman the keys. He took the stairs to the entrance two at a time and just before he pushed through he turned and smiled at Dolores. She thought she saw his lips move, saying, “I love you, Dolores.” She had to hang onto one of the little trees for a minute and take a deep breath. What would Leonard say about this? It was his favorite TV show. She waited another minute until the doorman got into the limousine and began to drive it off, and then she sidled through the revolving doors and into the lobby of the Three Crowns. Jonathan Finn was nowhere in sight, but she knew what she’d seen. He loved her. She hummed to herself, hugging this new knowledge to her heart.

She wanted to stop and stare at the colors in the carpet and the impossibly soft sofas and chairs but she knew from last year that if the management noticed her they’d ask her to leave. She spotted hanks and banks of slot machines lining the walls and found an unoccupied one tucked away behind a huge potted plant. She watched a man put his quarters into the machine next to hers and listened to the jangly sounds. She was astounded. They sounded a lot like the notes she hummed when she tried to get calm.

Dolores had no idea how long she’d been standing there sometimes shoving quarters into the machine and sometimes staring at the flashing lights. Once she was surprised by a shower of coins but was afraid of the noise the machine made when she won, fearing people would be drawn to it and ask her what she thought she was doing in such a fancy place. Hunger pangs and worry about Jennifer and her duffle bag made her eat the muffin in her pocket and now she was hungry again.

Suddenly Jennifer was there, standing beside her, just as she had been in the doughnut shop. Only this time she was wearing a scarf, dark glasses, and black leather gloves, and she was holding out a plastic card with a strip on one side.

“Here’s the key to your boyfriend’s suite.” She pushed her sunglasses onto her head for a moment and her eyes were glittering even more than Leonard’s when he was about to do something crazy. “I think you’d better get right up there. Tell him how you feel about things.”

Dolores took the card and ran her finger over the surface. It wouldn’t fit in the little paper cups but she’d keep it anyway. “My bag...?”

“It’s still in the car. I’ll go and get it while you’re going to the room.”

“Where do I go?” Dolores was confused about so many things; all she really wanted to do was lean against the wall and close her eyes.

“He’s on the top floor where the big suites are. The elevators are over here.” She put the sunglasses on and took Dolores’s elbow, pushing her across the thick carpet, past the gorgeous sofas and into a marble foyer with elevators along both walls. “It’s straight ahead when you get out of the elevator.” She seemed to remember something. “You know how to use this key?”

Dolores stared at the floor.

“Okay, you shove it into the slot above the handle with the strip away from you. Bring it out again and when the little light turns green, you can open the door.”

“But my bag? Where’d you say my bag was?”

“I’ll be waiting right here with your bag.” Jennifer was talking very softly now, almost whispering. “When you’ve told him... well, whatever you want to tell him, come back here and I’ll give you your bag.” She pushed something with her gloved finger and the elevator door slid open.

Dolores hesitated but Jennifer pushed her in and reached behind her to push a button inside the elevator.

When the elevator stopped, Dolores peered out, making sure there was no one in the hall. She held the card that Jennifer had called a key but the door across from the elevator was already ajar. She pushed it farther open and stuck her head in, humming the two notes as loud as she could. When no one stopped her she stepped into a light green vestibule with a huge painting of cactus and desert sand on the right wall. She hesitated and then called out softly, “Bryce?” She wished she’d rehearsed what she’d say to him but there was no answer. She walked into a living room, with another of the scrumptious sofas on a pale beige carpet. Two glasses half full of some kind of liquid and melting ice cubes sat on the coffee table. She glanced at the kitchen but it was empty. There was another half-open door leading off the living room. She walked over and pushed it fully open.

At first she thought they were sleeping, Bryce on his back, his naked torso partly covered by a sheet and the girl with her long blond hair spread out on the pillowcase. But then she saw the blood and the hole in Bryce’s forehead where no one should have a hole. And when she leaned over to get a better look, she noticed the girl’s hair was covering a section of her cheek that was red and pulpy and leaking blood.

A gun lay on the pillow. She thought for a second about picking it up, but it was much too big for her treasure collection so she left it where it was. She felt sad about Bryce and about the pretty girl too. But she knew in her heart that what Dr. Bradford had said was true. She and Bryce weren’t really engaged. It was just a kind of dream of hers.

She heard a siren and then another and when she looked out the window she saw several police cars pulling up to the hotel’s entrance. The doorman was tugging on his tunic and flapping his arms around.

Dolores decided to take the stairs down. She could stop at each floor and see if there was any sign of Jonathan Finn. He might be wondering where she’d got to and she didn’t like to keep him waiting.

Before she left she looked again at the couple on the bed. She’d like to leave a gift for them, some sort of memorial like people left her when her grandmother died, but all of her treasures were in Jennifer’s car. Then she remembered the temporary crown in its little bed of napkins in her pants pocket. She pulled it out and dropped it near Bryce’s hand. She noticed the little pink fingernail was caught in the folds, but it looked so pretty against the white sheet she decided to leave that as well.