Lady in the Lake(54)

“I was struck by the fact that you brought her a fur stole. Is that correct?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Who gave that stole to—Eunetta?” She had not missed the mother’s use of her daughter’s given name, the implicit rebuke.

“I’m sure I don’t know.”

“But it was hers?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“How did you come to have it?”

“Ma’am?”

“She wasn’t living here, right? When she disappeared. She kept an apartment with another girl.”

“Yes, ma’am. She had a roommate. A girl named Latetia. Skipped town without paying her share of the rent, about a week before Eunetta—” She glanced at the boys on the rug, who seemed to be paying them no mind at all. “Well, back in December, Latetia told Eunetta she was going to go to Florida with a gentleman she had met right before Christmas. A couple weeks later, she cabled that she was getting married. Nice for her, but she should have paid her share of the rent for January. And there was no one there to get her cable, although I guess she couldn’t know that. The landlord assumed Eunetta was as flighty as Latetia.” She stopped, seeming to think this had answered everything.

“I’m still not sure why you had the stole.”

“It was only a matter of time before he changed the locks and put their stuff out. So I went over there and packed up some things, the nicest things. The stole smelled of smoke and gardenias, so I assumed she had worn it pretty recently. That’s why I took it to Madame Claire. Because I thought Eunetta had worn it maybe a week or two—before.”

“And who gave it to her?”

“How could I know?”

She didn’t point out that Mrs. Sherwood had failed to answer the question.

“Can I see it?”

The father rattled his newspaper and cleared his throat, stagelike and unsubtle, but Mrs. Sherwood beckoned Maddie to follow her to the rear of the apartment. She led her to what was once a proper pantry, now a crowded closet, full of clothes and boxes and children’s toys. But Mrs. Sherwood seemed to understand whatever order was at work, quickly producing the stole on a hanger, wrapped in plastic. Not the proper way to store a fur, Maddie knew, but she also saw immediately this was not a particularly nice fur. She did not ask permission to remove it from the plastic, just did so, looking for the label. “Fine Furs.” That was Tessie’s family. How small Baltimore was. She inspected the stole carefully, committing every detail to memory.

“Did she buy this for herself?”

Stiffly, swiftly: “She didn’t steal. Eunetta was a good girl.”

“No, I mean—was it a gift?”

“She made pretty good money. Based on what she gave us for taking care of the boys while she tried to . . . get herself situated.”

“Right. She was an accountant? Isn’t that what the Afro said?”

“Not—precisely. She was a cashier, helped behind the bar at the Flamingo Club on Pennsylvania Avenue. We are not a drinking family, but there’s nothing wrong with serving people who do drink. It is legal, after all.”

Maddie continued to inspect the stole. No, it was not an expensive fur, but it was nice enough. The pink acetate lining looked like silk. And it was well constructed.

“So she bought this for herself?”

“I couldn’t say.”

More like won’t.

“Do you have any more of her clothes?”

“I wasn’t supposed to—the landlord—”

“I won’t tell anyone, Mrs. Sherwood. I’m just so—curious. I want to imagine her, to know her. If I could see her clothes—” All she really wanted to do was to prolong the encounter.

After a slight hesitation, Mrs. Sherwood produced outfit after outfit, clearly proud of her daughter’s wardrobe. Each item was shrouded in a plastic dry-cleaning bag, but it took Maddie a moment to figure out what else they had in common—they were all a little dated. Not this season, not even last season. A sequined dress that was long by today’s standards. One Chanel-inspired suit could have been almost ten years old, while the very tasteful black wool dress with a label from Wanamaker’s looked exactly like one Maddie had worn to her father-in-law’s funeral. It had been the height of style—two years ago.

Not a single one was yellow or green, Maddie noticed. So much for Madame Claire.

They walked back to the living room, Maddie’s mind still on those clothes. Wanamaker’s. The Philadelphia department store had never had a Baltimore branch. How did Cleo end up with a little black dress, a good one, from Wanamaker’s? And the label had said size 14, but Cleo was almost certainly no larger than a 10.

“Mrs. Sherwood, did—Eunetta have a boyfriend? I know she went on a date that night, with someone new, someone that the cops never found and no one seems to know. But was she seeing someone else? Someone who might have given her that stole, those dresses?”

To her amazement, the question provoked a flood of tears from Mrs. Sherwood, who dropped her face into her hands. “She was a good girl, I don’t care what people say or think, she was young and foolish, but she was good and she didn’t start anything.”

“She was foolish,” the father said. “I’ll give you that much. She was foolish and spoiled, but that’s on you, Merva. You always made excuses for her, never made her take responsibility for anything.”