The Woman with the Spare Key
Chapter 02 - The Woman with the Spare Key
Ruth Bell lived on the third floor of an old brownstone in Queens, above a laundromat that smelled of warm cotton even with the windows closed. When Lily arrived, Ruth was standing in the doorway wearing slippers and an apron with faded strawberries on it.
"You should have called before coming across town in this weather," Ruth said.
"I did call. It went to voicemail."
"I was making soup. I don't answer the phone when I'm chopping onions. Come in."
It was such a Ruth answer that Lily nearly cried. Instead she took off her soaked coat while Ruth looked at her swollen feet and fetched a footstool.
Ruth was sixty-eight, short and wide-shouldered, with the careful hands of a woman who had spent her adult life carrying other people's packages. Her husband had died six years earlier. She had kept working because she liked the feeling of having somewhere to be expected.
"They fired you," Lily said.
"They called it restructuring. At my age, they think a longer word makes it kinder."
Ruth put a bowl of chicken soup in front of her. Lily tasted it and realized she hadn't eaten since breakfast.
"A woman came on a Monday," Ruth said. "Miss Voss. She showed me papers and said Mr. Rinaldi had approved a temporary residence arrangement. I told her it was your apartment. She said everyone understood that, and that you were staying elsewhere for your health."
"I knew nothing about it."
"I thought so."
"Why didn't you call me?"
Ruth folded her hands. "I tried. Twice. Both calls were answered by your husband's office. A woman said you were resting, and I shouldn't disturb you."
Lily remembered how Cole's assistant had insisted on handling messages while Lily was in and out of appointments. The arrangement had seemed considerate then.
"What happened next?"
"Miss Voss wanted your aunt's blue cabinet opened. The one beside the library fireplace. She said it held insurance documents. I said Mrs. June kept nothing there that concerned a guest."
"She knew about the cabinet?"
"She knew which hinge stuck."
That was the first thing that frightened Lily more than the photograph. Aunt June's cabinet looked ordinary. The hinge squeaked unless you lifted the door while turning the key. June had told Lily that trick on the last afternoon they spent together.
Ruth went to the hall closet and returned with a cardboard box tied with string. "I couldn't stop them from changing the lock. I could save this."
Inside lay three knitted baby caps, one of June's chipped teacups, the photograph of Lily and Cole dancing at their wedding, and a little tin shaped like a lemon. The tin was empty.
"The baby caps were in the hallway trash," Ruth said. "The movers said they had instructions to clear the room. I brought them home before it rained."
Lily held the three caps in her lap. She had made them after June's funeral, when she was still unsure she could have children. Each had a different colored stripe. She ran one finger along the stitches and tried to remember how to breathe without hurting.
"Where did you get the lemon tin?"
"It was behind the books in the workroom. I thought it was a keepsake."
June used to keep paper clips in it, along with a pair of small brass keys. Lily turned it over. Beneath the painted lemon was a scratch shaped like a crescent.
"Did you see what Miss Voss took?"
"Two suitcases of clothes. Some files. The blue cabinet was still locked when I left." Ruth hesitated. "And she brought in a man. Older. Very well dressed. He knew where June kept the spare bathroom towels."
"Could it have been Cole's lawyer? Samuel Crane?"
"That was the name on his briefcase."
Lily put down the cup. Samuel had handled June's estate at Cole's suggestion. Lily had resisted, saying June would have preferred the neighborhood lawyer who had known her for thirty years. Cole had called it a favor, and she had eventually agreed.
She thought now of all the favors in her marriage that had required her to surrender a small decision first.
Ruth watched her for a while, then pulled up the other chair. "The day June came home from the hospital," she said, "she asked me to check the nursery every morning. She was worried you'd forget to sit down and rest. I promised I would. Then this happened, and I couldn't even get into the building."
"You did more than anyone else," Lily said.
"Not enough. But I'm still here." Ruth nudged the little caps toward her. "We'll put these in a clean drawer until you're ready."
That evening Nora Pike called. Lily had given her a number on the condition that she not publish anything about the babies. Nora agreed without bargaining.
"Your husband has not announced an engagement to Solen Voss," Nora said. "Someone issued a statement under the company letterhead and pulled it an hour later. The agency says it came from an authorized account."
"He told me he had a flight."
"His aircraft hasn't left Teterboro."
Lily closed her eyes. The storm tapped at Ruth's kitchen window. From downstairs came the low churn of washing machines.
"You could make a fortune selling this story," Lily said.
"Probably. I lost my mother in a nursing home that called her confused every time she complained about her care. That's not this story, I know. But I learned to pay attention when somebody powerful says a woman is too distressed to know what's happening."
Lily looked toward Ruth, who was rinsing a pot and pretending not to hear.
"What do you need from me?" Lily asked.
"Permission to ask questions. Not permission to write about your medical appointments. I can wait on the rest."
After the call, Lily opened the lemon tin again. Something rattled inside its lid. She felt beneath the rim, loosened a paper lining and drew out a narrow folded slip written in June's steep handwriting.
*The apartment is yours. The history isn't. If anyone asks for the blue cabinet, call Teresa first.*
Lily read it twice.
Teresa Rinaldi was Cole's mother. She had never liked June. Once, at a family dinner, Teresa had called her "that troublesome old tenant" before realizing Lily could hear.
Ruth leaned close and saw the name. Her face changed.
"There's something I should tell you," she said.
"What?"
May you like
Ruth took a folded copy of the building's lock-change request from her apron pocket. At the bottom, beside Samuel Crane's name, was a second signature authorizing access to June's private cabinet.
Teresa Rinaldi had signed it.
