The Maid's Diary(57)
In the bathroom Mal finds a hairbrush with fine blonde hairs. The hairs are dark at the roots. She bags the brush, along with a toothbrush. Since foul play is suspected, the paperwork for this has already been processed by her team.
Benoit returns. While Mal searches through Darling’s bedroom, Benoit tackles the living area.
“No laptop, no tablet, no phone here,” he calls out.
“Nothing like that here, either,” Mal says. “She must have taken those things with her.”
Benoit joins Mal in Darling’s bedroom. “Maybe they’re in her vehicle.”
Mal finds a cylindrical container on the floor next to the closet. She picks it up. It feels empty. She opens the top. “It’s a cremains urn,” she says with surprise. “What is Darling doing with an empty urn on her bedroom floor?”
“Can’t quite let a loved one go?” Benoit suggests as he opens the bedroom closet. He bends down, removes a sneaker. He checks inside. His gaze shoots up to Mal.
“Size seven,” he says. “Same size as the bloodied sneaker in the Glass House.”
DAISY
October 26, 2019. Saturday.
Five days before the murder.
The morning after Daisy found the tombstone Chucky note in her letter box, she has Rose Cottage to herself. It’s Saturday, and Jon is off playing golf with clients from out of town. After golf he’s got some big dinner with them. He told her it could be a late night—the clients are potentially major investors for the new resort, and he needs to woo them. Jon seems very preoccupied. Daisy is certain he’s up to something and that it’s tied to Ahmed Waheed. At least Jon found his missing shoes this morning. Right where they’d always been—at the back of the closet, next to his golf shoes. She, however, has not found her missing diamond pendant.
Daisy sinks into a chair in the living room and props her feet up on an ottoman. She sips her tea. She’s exhausted after a sleepless night tossing and turning, and her feet are even more swollen. All she can think about is the threat left in her mailbox and Charley Waters’s words: This is about Kit, isn’t it?
And her neighbor’s words:
Just the maid. The usual one, same as always.
Daisy’s mind goes again to her missing diamond pendant. Surely the maid would not have taken that? However, the maid might have seen someone suspicious on their property, or approaching the letter box, or lurking in the back lane behind the bushes.
Daisy has no idea who this maid is who drives a little yellow Subaru. She has always preferred to think of her as an anonymous house fairy. Not some woman with a fully fleshed life. Daisy doesn’t even know her name. She makes a decision.
It’s maid day again on Monday. Daisy will stay home until the maid arrives on Monday morning. She will ask the maid to her face whether she has witnessed anyone suspicious lurking around Rose Cottage.
And Daisy will ask the maid directly if she has seen her diamond pendant.
Maybe the woman just stashed the diamond somewhere “safe,” because Daisy does not want to assume the worst of her servant. Holly’s Help came well recommended. The service has incredible reviews online. It’s bonded. Reputable. Even Vanessa uses them.
But it’s time to meet her maid.
MAL
November 1, 2019. Friday.
It’s almost 10:00 p.m. when Mal and Benoit pull up outside Boon-mee Saelim’s rented house on the east side of the city.
Saelim answers the door as soon as they knock. He’s expecting them because they called ahead. Saelim is slightly taller than average height for a male. Smooth brown skin. Broad forehead. High cheekbones. Intense, black eyes. A nose ring. Silver ear spools. He wears a black T-shirt and jeans. He’s a good-looking guy, thinks Mal.
“Call me Boon, please,” he says after they have introduced themselves. “Do you mind if we talk outside, in your car or something? I share the house with a bunch of tenants, and it’s full of people right now, and—” His voice cracks. His eyes glisten with tears. “It’ll be easier to talk away from the noise,” he says.
Mal and Benoit take Saelim to their vehicle. He sits in the back while they sit in the front, turned to face him. They keep the inside light on. Rain patters on the roof and squiggles down the windshield. It’s cold, so they have the engine running, and the windows are fogging up.
“When did you last see Kit?” Benoit asks him.
He closes his eyes, and Mal immediately senses he’s going to lie. She’s a veteran interrogator. Or perhaps he’s just struggling to hold in his emotion.
“I think it was two days ago.”
“You think?” Mal says.
His eyes flick to hers.
“Here’s the thing, Boon,” Mal says. “Sam Berkowitz, Kit’s neighbor, says you went around to her apartment looking for her. Sam tells us you were worried. Holly McGuire at Holly’s Help also says you expressed concern for your close friend. You’ve been looking for Kit all day, and you haven’t yet determined when you last saw her?”
“Am I a suspect here or something?”
“Are you?”
His eyes narrow. His energy turns hostile. “I didn’t see her today. Nor yesterday. I saw her the day before Halloween, so that would have been Wednesday. For our D&D session.”