Lies We Bury(16)

Vanilla air freshener stings my nose upon entering the apartment housing office, and I’m reminded why I never come here and always wait for Derry Landry to track me down. Crisp white napkins are folded into cranes beside a plate of chocolate chip cookies. A tall fake plant in the corner enhances the showroom atmosphere—clean, uncluttered, secure: the exact opposite of how I lived growing up with Rosemary.

“Claire, good to see you.” Derry winks at me from behind a white oak table. A stack of lease agreements sits aligned with the table’s edge. “What can I do for you?”

“Here’s the rest of what I owe.” I hand over the remaining hundred dollars, earned from this morning’s photo sessions. Air-conditioning chugs through the ventilation duct above and adds to the sick feeling in my stomach.

“Excellent. What are you doing later?” he asks in a low tone as he writes out a receipt.

I face him, annoyed that we can’t interact without him flirting. His gaze travels down my tank top; then he looks at me from beneath dark eyelashes. “I get off at five if you feel like a beer. You like beer, right?”

My skin prickles at the question—the subject of my thoughts the last day and a half. “Why do you say that?”

I wonder if the Walsh Wheat is noticeable on my breath from this far away.

Derry shrugs. “You carry out a lot more beer in your recycling than wine bottles.”

He points a thumb over his shoulder to the window behind him. With the shades open, his desk has a perfect view of the path from my apartment to the complex’s dumpster. He’s been watching me.

“Thanks for the receipt.” Before he can say anything else unnerving, I leave, pocketing a cookie as I pass the front table.

Safely behind the dead bolt of my apartment door, I sink into the cushions of my love seat.

My phone rings. Pauline’s phone number flashes across the screen, and my stomach knots, fearing she’s calling to tell me about another murder. “Hello?”

“Claire, hi. I have a proposition for you. How would you feel about becoming our resident photographer?”

I sit up and move to the edge of the couch. “That would be amazing. What for? I mean, what department at the Post needs coverage?”

Papers rustle in the background, and a woman shouts something. “I know you’ve never done this before, but you seem to handle each assignment I give you easily. Tatum is going to be out for another six weeks, because the idiot went for a late snowboarding trip and broke his damn leg, and—”

“You want me to cover live events?”

“Hold on.” Pauline muffles the phone and bellows something about a deadline. “Madison, victims never cooperate with us after the fact. They’re unpredictable. I need a better variety of sources, got it?” She uncovers the phone, and the sound becomes clear again.

“Sorry about that, Claire. The crime beat. We need someone on call during this business with the brewery murder. The police don’t usually allow this much media access to live sites, but they’re desperate to find the culprit. This is something that’s usually seen in Seattle or San Francisco, and we need to take advantage of that urgency. So what do you think? . . . Hello?”

“Yes, I’m here.” Sweat breaks out across my neck as I try to marshal my thoughts. Get a grip. Process what she’s suggesting. “What kind of—what would you pay me to be your crime photographer?”

I hate negotiating. I always get nervous and psych myself out, certain that the other party will tell me I’m not worth whatever price I’m asking. But I’ve had enough experience with law enforcement, violence, and criminals for a lifetime. For me to accept a role in which I must be physically present at these sites, in the thick of the chaos of police personnel and up to my neck in crime details, I’d need to be offered a solid sum.

Although she is offering to pay me for what I’m already doing on my own. And recalling the two dead-end breweries I visited today—someone’s life may depend on it.

Pauline clears her throat. “The same rate as before. How does that sound?”

I lean onto my knees, hugging the phone to my ear. “For me to be your sole crime photographer . . . I think . . . it’s not great.”

She makes a noise, and I can’t tell if it’s good or bad. I wait for her to hang up, to tell me she’s going to call someone from the ad that she placed on the freelancer website.

“Fine. I’ll double it,” she says with a sigh.

Double? To two dollars per photo? Even the retouched photos cost her five dollars each. I take a deep breath.

“I’ll need my normal rate. One hundred dollars per hour of work.” My headshot sessions actually amounted to more than that—but this rate will narrow the gap. And allow me to buy more than a sandwich for lunch and Cup Noodles for dinner.

Pauline clicks her tongue. “All right. Come back to the office to sign the paperwork. We’re already a day behind, so I need you to go and capture images from the brewery’s basement today.”

“Like . . . right now?” The panic in my voice makes me wince.

“Is that a problem?”

Flashes of memory snap forward at her words, and I recall climbing Chet’s crooked stairs, leaving the darkness beneath. The metal door he kept us behind was painfully cold on one side, subject to the house’s air conditioner that was on full blast during the summer heat. Rosemary told me not to look back, but I did; the dim space of our home, where I had spent the first seven years of my life, hungrily returned my gaze. Suddenly it was a monster, nipping at my heels and eager to keep us in its belly.