mysterybkluv: seriously sometimes murder is super convenient
poirotsgirl: ever notice how there are always like fifteen people with a motive but the cops only pay attention to one person?
tyz7412: cops have no imagination
CELIA FORGOT, OR MOSTLY forgot, about Mrs. Corrigan in the rush to prepare and serve lunch. Pete did stop by to pick up some lasagna to go, but she didn’t really have a chance to talk to him because she was busy in the kitchen. He poked his head in the door long enough to say hello and that he’d pick up Stephanie after soccer practice, then disappeared again—a good thing, since she had no idea what to say to him. She didn’t remember anything about their life together, and that wasn’t the kind of thing you casually mentioned over a take-out container.
She was relieved to discover that even if she didn’t remember much about her identity, she did seem to have a kind of muscle memory for running a restaurant. Recipes appeared in her brain the moment she needed them; her hands moved without conscious thought, rolling out pasta dough and assembling vinaigrettes. Another server, a curvy middle-aged woman named Nancy, had joined Tia just before the lunch hour started, and the two of them moved through the dining room seamlessly, needing no direction from Celia.
At four o’clock, Tia headed out to her night classes at the local community college. Nancy stayed for an extra hour, serving early-bird senior citizen diners, then handed off the evening shift to three new people. Celia didn’t have time to examine their faces or memorize their names. Around 5:00 p.m., families with small children started showing up, and the restaurant stayed busy until almost 7:00, when the hordes finally slowed to just a few twentysomething couples staring into each other’s eyes. Katherine’s shift was over and Celia assured her that she could manage the last hour on her own.
Celia stuffed a piece of bread into her mouth. She was ravenously hungry and hadn’t taken a moment to eat all day, instead making sure that Katherine had ample breaks. Now that things had slowed down, she grabbed a piece of truffle lasagna and stood at the work counter to eat it.
One of the servers, a young man with long brown hair in a ponytail, peeked his head inside the door just as she put the first bite in her mouth. “Uh, boss?”
“Yes?” She couldn’t remember his name and she couldn’t see his name tag, which was annoying.
“There’s, um, a police officer here to see you. Lyle Corrigan.”
“Oh, for the love of—” she said, then shook her head. There was no point in getting worked up before she even talked to him, even if she knew there was only one possible reason he could be there. “It’s fine. Just send him back here.”
“Sure thing,” he said, and disappeared.
Celia looked down at the lasagna, which had seemed so appetizing just a moment before. Now she wondered how much power this police officer had over her. Yes, it was a small town, but he wasn’t a health inspector. He couldn’t charge her with nonexistent violations that would threaten the restaurant.
Could he?
The back door swung open and Lyle Corrigan came in. Like his aunt, he had a tight, sour-faced look, one that expected the worst of the world and usually found it. He was about as tall as Celia, maybe five foot nine, and had very broad shoulders and biceps that bulged out of his short-sleeved uniform.
The kind of guy who lifts weights and drinks protein shakes as his personal identity, Celia thought. He probably hasn’t eaten a carbohydrate since he graduated from high school.
“Officer Corrigan,” Celia said, with a smile that felt as fake as it no doubt appeared. “Did you stop in for today’s special? The truffle lasagna is a customer favorite.”
“You know I wouldn’t eat a thing from this place if you paid me,” Corrigan said.
She’d expected some show of authority, but not the same outright hostility she’d received from Corrigan’s aunt. Temper surged, but she swallowed it down. It wouldn’t help her cause if she shouted at a police officer clearly bent on antagonizing her.
“How can I help you, then, if you’re not here for a meal?”
“I’m here to investigate a report that you assaulted my aunt this morning,” he said, taking a notebook and pen from his pocket. “I’d like to hear your version of events.”
Celia really didn’t like the way he said “your version of events,” like anything she stated would automatically be construed as fiction. She decided that the best thing would be to state the unadorned facts as quickly as possible.
“Your aunt knocked on the back door this morning prior to the restaurant’s opening. She angrily accused me—or rather, accused the dumpster in the corner of the parking lot—of causing rats to proliferate in her basement.”
Corrigan paused in his writing and glared at her. She was struck, in that moment, of how strongly he resembled the police-officer-as-Neanderthal trope, right down to his oversized chest and slightly overhanging brow. “Proliferate?”
“Multiply,” Celia said, and bit her lip so she wouldn’t laugh at his obvious irritation. Apparently, Officer Corrigan didn’t like to be confronted with words he didn’t recognize. “I told her that I’d paid to have a pest remover investigate her claims. Gianni’s found no evidence of rats in her basement, but she still insisted otherwise. During the conversation, she put her finger very close to my face and I gently batted it away. Then she began screaming that I assaulted her. I shut the door at that point. My cook witnessed the entire event, and I assure you that nothing close to assault occurred. Katherine will verify that.”
Corrigan’s lip curled. “Katherine. Uh-huh.”
Oh, come on, Celia thought. Surely he’s not holding a grudge about something that happened years ago in high school?
She waited as he scribbled in his notebook, and wondered why he took notes the old-fashioned way. Why not just use his phone to record her statement? Then she wondered if this was something as formal as a “statement.” Should she be worried? Should she be looking for a lawyer?
Corrigan finished writing and very deliberately closed his notebook. “I have to tell you, Ms. Zinone, that my aunt gives a very different account. She stated that you punched her in the face and denied her medical care when she requested it.”
Celia’s mouth didn’t drop open, but it was a near thing. “My hand didn’t go anywhere near her face. If anything, I was the one in danger of having my eye jabbed out by her fingernail.”
“Really,” Corrigan said, and he said it in such a smug, I-know-something-you-don’t-know way, that Celia wanted to throw her plate of lasagna at his head. “Then why does she have a black eye?”
Celia blinked. “A black eye?”
“Yes,” he said, and pulled his phone out of his pocket.
After tapping on the screen for a moment, he held it up for Celia to see. There was a photo of Mrs. Corrigan in the same salmon-pink sweatshirt she’d worn that morning. The left side of her face was turned toward the camera, and her eye was purple and swollen.
Celia realized then just how determined the horrible woman and her clearly equally horrible nephew were to frame her for something, anything at all. What she didn’t understand was why on earth they would want to do such a thing. Had she wronged them in the past?
The empty blank space of her memory suddenly appeared less like a slightly worrisome black hole and more like a sharp-edged box, full of teeth and monsters. I have to remember my life. I have to remember who I am.
“Nothing to say?” Corrigan asked.
Celia realized she’d been staring blankly at the photo. She needed to stay in the present and worry about her amnesia later. “I’m very sorry your aunt has been hurt, but that injury has nothing to do with me.”
“What, she walked into a door?” Corrigan said, and again his tone was so provoking that Celia was seized by a powerful urge to start throwing food at his big, stupid head.
One of the servers came into the kitchen then, carrying a tray full of plates. He clearly hadn’t been aware of Corrigan’s presence in the kitchen and stopped short as he entered, glancing from Celia to the police officer and back again.
“Everything okay?” he asked. He looked a little older than the other two servers, maybe in his late twenties or early thirties, and something in his look made Celia think he didn’t much like Officer Corrigan.
Celia shot a quick peek at the server’s name tag. “Thanks, Will. Everything’s fine. You can leave those dishes.”
Will carried the dishes over to the sink and began unloading them in what appeared to be an exaggeratedly slow manner. Corrigan gave Will a look that implied later retribution, then tucked his phone away.
“I’ll be speaking to you on this matter again, Ms. Zinone,” he said, and exited out the kitchen door and through the dining room.
“He is such an asshole,” Will said, dumping the rest of the dishes into the sink without a care once Corrigan was gone. He came to lean on the counter a few feet away from Celia. “What’s his problem now?”
The way Will stood and spoke implied a familiarity that the other servers didn’t have with her. They seemed like they might be close to the same age, and Celia wondered if perhaps they’d gone to school together.
Why can’t I remember? she thought, and the thought was fast becoming a scream lodged in her throat, a scream struggling for breath. Why can’t I remember?
Will watched her expectantly, and a little line of worry appeared between his brows. “Hey, Ceil, are you all right? What did that jerk say to you?”
Calm, stay calm. Breathe and don’t let anyone know what’s wrong. No one can know. They’ll think you’re crazy.
“He seems to be under the impression that I punched his aunt in the eye this morning,” she said, and she was impressed with how calm her voice sounded. Nobody would know she was on the verge of a full-on anxiety attack.
“Did you?” Will asked.
Celia frowned at him, and he laughed.
“Just kidding, I know you wouldn’t. Although if anyone deserves it, it’s Mrs. Corrigan. Half the town would probably give you an award if you had done it, though.”
“Does anyone like her?” Celia asked.
Will shrugged. “Not that I know of. You know how it is. Most people can’t stand her, and everyone else is tolerant. I don’t think anyone would choose to be in her company.”
“Except Lyle.”
“Yeah, and everyone knows that Lyle only does it because he’s waiting for that sweet, sweet inheritance.”
“She doesn’t seem like she’s that wealthy,” Celia said, and then realized that she might have just given herself away, that perhaps she ought to know just how wealthy Mrs. Corrigan was because it was general knowledge.
“Well, nobody’s really sure how much money she has, you know that,” Will said. “But her husband did sell the cookie factory to that international conglomerate before he died, and that sale can’t have been chump change.”
“And yet her clothes scream ‘sale rack,’ and not Nordstrom Rack, either,” Celia said.
“She’s a penny-pincher, no doubt. Now tell me what happened this morning.”
Celia explained the circumstances, making sure to add that Katherine had witnessed the whole thing.
“He hasn’t got anything resembling a case, and if he tries to pursue it, I’m going to make sure to report him for harassment,” Celia said. “And maybe his aunt, too.”
“Sure, that will go about as well as the last time you reported him for harassment,” Will said, rolling his eyes. “The police chief is halfway to retirement and doesn’t care what Lyle does so long as he does it quietly.”
“This is absurd,” Celia said. “Why should I be held hostage by an old woman and her jerk nephew, just because that nephew happens to be a police officer?”
“This is small-town America, sweetie,” Will said, lightly punching her shoulder. “You ought to be used to it by now.”
He left the kitchen and Celia stood for a moment, contemplating her lasagna. She dumped the contents of the plate into the trash. She was decidedly not hungry anymore.
The last hour passed in a flurry of cleaning and prepping for the next day. The three servers cleared the dining room, washed down the tables, refilled the Parmesan cheese shakers and played “rock, paper, scissors” to determine who was going to wash and who was going to dry the serving dishes. Celia put sauce into jars, wrapped up the remainder of the lasagna and washed down all the kitchen surfaces until they gleamed.
The other three trickled out one by one as they completed their tasks. Will paused in the back door, watching Celia tie up the plastic bag full of kitchen trash.
“Listen, don’t worry too much about Mrs. Corrigan or her nephew, all right? It’s not worth your time and energy.”
Celia just nodded. She didn’t say that she had a low hum of anxiety inside her stomach, or that it was tangled up with her lack of memory and the persistent feeling that she didn’t actually belong here, that this wasn’t her life and these weren’t her people. She didn’t say any of those things because it was very important—and she wasn’t really sure why but nevertheless remained convinced of this truth—to make sure that no one knew what was going on inside her. She must keep it a secret. She must keep herself safe.
Something flitted across the front of her brain, a memory moving with the speed of a darting rabbit. Tight hands around her wrists, a cruel mouth saying that nobody would believe her, nobody would believe her no matter what.
A sharp pain followed in the wake of this, a pain that shot like electricity behind her eyes and made her bend over, gasping.
“Hey!” Will said.
He was at her side, holding on to her waist. He seemed so familiar in that moment, so much more familiar than the man who called himself her husband. She knew Will. She knew his scent and his face and even the way his hand touched very lightly at her hip, in a way that said he would catch her if she fell, but only if she wanted him to do so.
“What’s the matter? Do you want a glass of water?”
“Yes.” She didn’t want a glass of water, but she needed him to move away because that jolt of familiarity had confused her, had made her think that maybe she was wrong and this was her life after all.
He half-filled a glass with water from the tap and brought it over, his brows drawn together.
“I’m okay,” she said, taking the glass from him. “I just forgot to eat today and I have a headache.”
“Are you okay to drive home?”
“Definitely,” she said, waving him away. “Go on, I’m perfectly fine.”
“You don’t look perfectly fine. You look like you’re about to throw up.”
“Well, there’s nothing in my stomach to throw up, so that won’t be a problem. Really, it was just a little pain that took me by surprise. It’s a short drive home and I can manage.”
“If you say so.”
“I say so,” she said, gathering up the trash. “Go on, I have to lock up.”
She followed Will out the door, flipping the kitchen lights off as she went. She locked the door as he climbed into his car. She was glad that she remembered which key to use. The last thing she needed was Will noticing anything else was wrong with her.
His car engine turned over and the headlights clicked on as Celia turned around. She waved cheerily with her free hand as he pulled out.
Nothing to see here. Everything’s just fine.
She lugged the bag of trash across the parking lot toward the dumpster. Most of the houses on Cherry Lane had illuminated windows, their residents tucked in for the evening. There were no lights on at Mrs. Corrigan’s house.
Probably burning a candle to save on electricity.
Celia wondered again what she could have done to earn the ire of the older woman. There didn’t seem to be a real reason for such deep hostility. She dismissed the “rat problem” out of hand, especially since it appeared to be a big nothingburger. But the faked black eye . . . that was taking things a little too far. That was more than distress over an imagined nest of vermin. Maybe Mrs. Corrigan had undiagnosed mental health issues.
The trash bag seemed heavier than it ought to be, probably because Celia hadn’t really eaten and she still felt a little sick from the sudden headache that had burst behind her eyes. The dumpster seemed so far away. She should have asked Will to carry the trash out, but she’d been so focused on appearing completely normal that she’d wanted him to leave as soon as possible.
Why am I so worried about seeming normal? Why do I feel like I can’t trust anyone, like I can’t tell anyone what’s wrong with me?
She shook her head. Maybe all she needed was a good night’s sleep, and tomorrow morning her whole life would come flooding back into her brain. There was no need to share her troubles. Not yet, anyway. Or maybe never. She might be able to go on faking it indefinitely.
Most women faked half their lives daily, pretending to have their work and their family and their health completely under control, moving through the world with just enough makeup and effortless shampoo-commercial hair. They were the ones wearing beautiful cream-colored knitted sweaters in white rooms on their Instagram pages. They were the ones spouting corny philosophical sayings and talking about their many blessings. Meanwhile, they were taking prescription drugs just to stand up straight in the morning and their husbands were on their fourth affair with someone from the workplace.
It’s deeply irritating, Celia thought, to remember all these meaningless things about the world in general, and nothing about my life specifically. Why do I know so much about Instagram moms and I couldn’t even recall my own daughter’s name?
A shudder ran up her spine. The idea of going on day after day with only a yawning hole behind her where her memories were supposed to be was terrifying. The future was an unknowable space for everyone, and the only thing that made it bearable was having the solid footing of the past as an anchor.
The dumpster was in the darkest corner of the lot, far out of the reach of the streetlights’ glare. Celia paused when she was a few feet away from it, listening hard. She could have sworn she heard something—the scrape of a shoe? The rustle of clothing? Was someone out here, lurking in the darkness?
Or maybe it’s one of Mrs. Corrigan’s fictional rats. Get it together, Ceil. If anyone is standing in the shadows waiting to pounce, it’s that crazy old woman. And if she is there, you can just leave. There’s no rule that says you’re required to engage with her if she starts yelling.
Celia walked the last few feet to the dumpster, lifted the lid and tossed in the trash. A second later her brain registered that there was something wrong. Something very, very wrong.
There was someone in the dumpster. The pool of shadow only allowed her to see the faint outline of a person, the glow of pale clothes and pale skin.
She let the lid close with a clang that echoed around the parking lot. Celia backed away from the dumpster, her heart pounding. Had she just seen what she thought she saw? Or was it the product of her strange day, her lack of food, her overheated imagination?
You have to look again. You have to look.
Celia glanced around. There was no one walking on the street, no one driving by that she could flag down. It was too late to knock on someone’s door, but she didn’t want to do this alone. She didn’t want to open up the dumpster by herself.
Stop being a baby and do it. You’re a grown woman, and if there really is someone dead inside, then they aren’t going to hurt you. A dead body is only a zombie in George Romero movies.
The thought made her still, not because she was actually worried about the possibility of zombies, but because it seemed out of character for her to even know about George Romero movies. The boring dining set and matching dishware in the house she’d left that morning did not scream “quirky horror movie fan.” Yet she had a strong, clear memory of exactly that—of watching Dawn of the Dead in a living room that belonged to her but did not look like the one she’d walked through that day.
Is this really my life? Did I sacrifice everything interesting about myself in order to get married, have a baby, drive a midsize sedan?
Her head was hurting again, the pain spreading behind her eyes like seeping lava.
Okay, enough of this. Just open the dumpster again, confirm that there’s no one actually inside and go home.
Celia pulled her cell phone out of her bag and turned on the flashlight feature. Holding her phone in her right hand, she carefully eased the lid of the dumpster open with her left and shone the light inside.
The lid clanged shut again and Celia’s phone clattered to the ground.
There was definitely someone inside the dumpster.
It was Mrs. Corrigan, and someone had slit her throat.