35

Rose

“There’s been an accident at Metropolis,” Zach tells Rose over the phone.

“What kind of accident?” She’s been up all night planning what to say, and she’s worried she’s not going to be able to pull off pretending that she has no idea what happened. It’s seven in the morning and she’s trying to get the girls fed and out the door without waking Vince, who’s sleeping in his chair in the living room. It’s easy for her to sound distracted and like it’s just an ordinary day. “Hold on a sec.”

She presses the phone to her chest. “Emma, leave your sister alone! If she doesn’t want to eat her toast, that’s her business. Finish up, both of you. Now. Get your backpacks ready and your coats and boots on. We’re leaving in ten.” She raises the phone to her ear, swallows hard. “Is everything okay?”

“No.”

“What is it? What kind of accident?”

“Can you get over here as soon as possible? We can talk then.”

Get over here. Talk. “Is, is the building okay?” she asks because she’s figured this would probably be the first thing she would think. Not a person but a fire or a flood or something like that.

“It’s standing,” he says. “If that’s what you mean.”

“Zach, please, what’s going on?” She wants him to tell her as much as possible over the phone. That way when she sees him she won’t have to look him in the eye and ask questions that she already knows the answers to.

“A man fell down the elevator shaft last night.”

“A man fell? What does that mean? A renter?”

“I don’t really want to discuss this over the phone.”

“Who was it? Is he okay?”

Zach hesitates. “His name is Garrett Haines. The W. Garrett Haines the Third. You know him, of him. He’s a big man around town. And, no, he’s not okay.”

Rose lets out a gasp and hopes it sounds like a real one. “Is he dead?”

“Just get over here, Rose.”

There are two police cars in the lot when Rose arrives. She took a cab, which she’s never done before, because she has to know if Garrett is dead, if Liddy has been arrested, if anyone is aware that she, Rose, was there when Garrett fell because she was covering up Michael’s robbery. She also has to find out if Zach knows Liddy is living in a storage unit, if he’s going to fire her and then have her arrested.

She isn’t exactly sure what her crime is, but she’s got to be breaking Cambridge building codes and maybe she’s also guilty of some kind of insurance fraud. Even if it’s not either of these, she’s guilty of something. At least of not being loyal to a guy who’s given her the chance to do things that hardly any other boss would for someone without much education or real skills. And of course she’s guilty of taking money that’s not hers to take.

Yellow police tape is stretched across the front of the elevator door, and Zach is standing in her office talking to a cop. The two men turn and look at her when she walks in. The cop’s face is serious but normal-looking. Zach, who’s so happy-go-lucky and cracking jokes all the time, almost doesn’t look like the same person. He’s slouched and pasty and his bloodshot eyes burn into hers. He always acts like such a kid and now he looks like an old man.

“This is Rose Gentilini,” Zach tells the cop. “The office manager I was telling you about.” He turns to Rose. “Officer Thomas.”

Rose shakes his hand and tries to smile like it’s just any other day. The office manager I was telling you about.

“We’re going to need to speak to you, Ms. Gentilini,” Officer Thomas says.

“Me?” Rose’s voice squeaks, and she’s sure she looks and sounds guilty. “I, uh, I wasn’t even here.”

“It’s not about the accident, per se. I understand you’re the one responsible for rentals, and we want to ask you some questions about this. Also about the elevator maintenance contract. The inspections.”

“Of course, of course,” Rose says. Responsible for rentals. “I know about those things. Be happy to talk to you. I’ll be here all day.” She glances at Zach, who doesn’t correct her. “Just let me know when. Whenever. Just let me know.”

“I’ll be back in an hour or two,” the cop says, and leaves her alone with Zach.

She turns to face him. He drops into one of the chairs and points to the other. Rose sits. Her legs are wobbly and she’s glad for the chance to get off them. “Is the man who fell dead?”

Zach runs his hands through his hair, which make pieces of it stand up in clumps. “He’s in bad shape, had to have surgery, but he’s not dead. I’m guessing this could change at any moment. The cops said he was barely alive when they finally extracted him.”

Extracted him. Rose thinks of the thud of Garrett’s body against the door and how he dropped out of sight. Dropped right out of sight.

“I know,” Zach says, although she’s said nothing. “I have to go down to the police station in an hour.”

She studies his ashen face, dotted with stubble, and the lines etched into his forehead, and she wonders if maybe he’s just upset about what happened to Garrett and he doesn’t know about any of the things she’s done wrong. “There’s, there’s a renter here,” she says because that’s what an innocent person would say. “She has two units actually. Liddy Haines. Is she a relative? Was, was she involved?”

“She’s his wife, and she was here. They were standing in front of the elevator on the fourth floor, apparently arguing and—”

“Was she hurt too?”

Zach gives her a strange look. “As far as I know, she’s fine. The police said she’s at the hospital with her husband. They’re going over there to talk to her sometime later today.”

Rose wants to ask more questions about Liddy but supposes that she should be the most interested in the details of the accident. “I don’t get how this could’ve happened.”

“Apparently, one of the elevator doors wasn’t hinged properly.” Another swipe through his hair. “Haines knocked up against it and fell through the bottom.”

Rose acts like this is confusing. “Fell through the bottom of what?”

“The bottom of the door. It somehow slid inward, created a gaping space . . .” Zach shudders.

“So Garrett broke the door?” Rose asks and then worries that Zach might wonder why she’s calling a man she doesn’t know by his first name.

Zach doesn’t notice. He stares over her shoulder and swallows hard. “The police have been all over the place. They seem to believe something was wrong with the elevator before this happened. That it wouldn’t have been possible for Haines to break it on his own. They talked about the door’s safety retainers, something about gibs. They think the elevator . . .” He stops and looks right into her eyes. “They think it might not have been properly maintained.”

“But it has!” So this is why Zach is upset, and it has nothing to do with her or with Liddy or Marta or Serge. “It was last winter, I remember. Maybe March? The annual inspection had to be put off because of a snowstorm. But they came. Both the maintenance people and the city. I have the paperwork.”

“The problem is that the certificate in the elevator expired two years ago, on December 20, 2015.”

“No. That can’t be right. I must have forgotten to replace it. Sorry, shouldn’t have done that. But I know it’s in here.” She crosses to the wall of file cabinets, yanks open the top left drawer, and grabs a file from it. Thank you, Jesus. Thank you, Jesus. She and her family are saved. Thank you, Jesus.

“Are you sure?”

Rose sits down and flips through years of inspection applications and canceled checks and receipts from the maintenance company. She lifts up a certificate and grins. She screwed up, but it was a small screwup. Not posting it in the elevator isn’t all that bad. She hands the certificate to Zach.

“Great.” He takes it from her and smiles for the first time since she got here. “This could save my ass if Haines sues.” His smile fades as he checks the date and then checks it again. When he looks up his face is all white like it was when she first got here. “This expired December 22, 2016. Over a year ago.”

Rose takes the paper and runs her finger under the date. That isn’t possible, but there it is, right in her hands. This isn’t some small screwup after all. She searches through the file again, but there isn’t a more recent certificate. She goes to her desk and pulls up last year’s calendar on her computer. She’s supposed to file an application for the elevator inspection a month before the last certificate expires, and she always marks the date to remind herself. Sure enough, there’s a reminder to do just that on November 14, 2017, but apparently she never did it. She closes her eyes so she can’t see the screen.

The middle of November was when Vince got fired and when he started drinking and not moving from his chair. She must have let the application fall through the cracks of her life. And now this is going to destroy Zach and herself. Even if no one ever finds out about Liddy and Serge and Marta, or Michael stealing from the renters, or her being at Metropolis when it happened. Garrett Haines would be a fool not to sue Zach, and whatever else Liddy has said about him, she never said he was a fool.

“I’m so sorry, Zach. Oh dear God, I’m so, so sorry. I’ve been taking care of these inspections for ten years. I’ve always done it right before . . . I don’t know, I don’t know how this could have happened.”

Zach is staring blankly at the certificate and doesn’t say anything.

Rose walks over and touches his shoulder. “I’ll do anything, everything, I can to make this right.”

He startles at her touch and jerks away from her. “There isn’t anything you can do,” he says dully. “It’s already done.”