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“Oh, right. Of course,” she said, remembering that the redheaded man had opened his doors last night at the sound. “So it was just an accident?”
“Yes.”
Zoey glanced over to Lucy Lime’s condo. What was there to say? That Lucy had been sitting in her dark condo last night, smoking villainously after the thump? And what about Charlotte-the-artist’s friend, the one who had left with such an air of secrecy?
“What about her?” Zoey asked, indicating Charlotte’s patio. “Did she hear it, too?”
Charlotte herself opened her doors at that moment, looking sleepy and aggrieved. She was wearing the same strapless summerdress she’d had on yesterday. She stepped out almost in sync with the gurney being pushed out of Lizbeth Lime’s condo next door. There was an unmistakable form buckled under a cover now. Charlotte automatically took a horrified step back. All three of them were silent as the attendants pushed the gurney out of the garden.
Charlotte turned to see Zoey and Frasier standing there. She looked too stunned to speak.
“Lizbeth died last night,” Frasier said before she could ask. “Excuse me, I have some calls to make.”
After he walked away, Charlotte finally spoke. “How did it happen?” Her voice was hoarse, as if she’d just woken up. She put her hands to her head and twisted her wispy blond hair into a topknot.
Zoey took her question as permission to step onto her patio. From the distance of her balcony, all Zoey had gleaned yesterday was that Charlotte dressed like she bought her clothes in vintage shops and drove an old powder-blue scooter. But she was even more interesting up close. What Zoey had mistaken for tattoos on her arms and legs was actually henna. Some of it was dark brown, as if done recently, but some was lighter, almost the golden color of Charlotte’s skin, like an impression left in sand. Her face was narrow, her eyes were large and blue, and her blond eyebrows were feathered into unruly wings at the tails. She wasfascinatingto look at, like a piece of art you had to stare at a long time before it made sense. “Frasier says a bookcase landed on her in the middle of the night,” Zoey said. Charlotte’s eyes kept sliding over to the police officers. “Does that sound odd to you?”
“Odd?” Charlotte repeated, as if Zoey’s words were processing just a second too slow. “No. She was always moving things around in there.”
“Did you hear anything?”
“No. I got used to the noise. And last night I was…” She paused. “Sleeping deeply.”
“What about the guy you were with?”
That got Charlotte’s attention. “Is he still here?”
Zoey shook her head. “I saw him leave around one this morning.”
“Oh. We’re just friends,” she said awkwardly. Then, without another word, she stepped back into her condo and began to close her doors.
“Wait,” Zoey said, startled by how quickly their encounter was over. She held out her hand. “I’m Zoey Hennessey. I just moved here. I’m in the studio.”
The woman shook Zoey’s hand distractedly. Her skin was cool to the touch. “Charlotte.”
“Nice to meet you!” Zoey said as the doors closed on her.
She stared at them for a moment, disappointed. Then she turned and looked out at the garden, wondering what to do with herself now.
With a sigh, she walked away.
Charlotte, listening from inside, heard Zoey finally leave. She slumped against the wall.
Just minutes ago the sound of voices in the garden had been a strange enough occurrence to wake her. No one at the Dellawisp stopped to chat. They didn’t want to risk the wrath of Lizbeth Lime, resident busybody and, unfortunately, Charlotte’s next-door neighbor. She knew whoever was out there was going to make Lizbeth go into full-on crazy-neighbor mode soon. Charlotte had gottenup and quickly walked into the living room, where she’d left Benny sleeping on the couch last night, to warn him not to go out or he’d find himself on the receiving end of an epic tirade.
But Benny had already left.
And Lizbeth was dead.
That was one too many things to process with a hangover.
She needed water. A lot of it. She left the doors and walked through the living room with its old stone floors and exposed ceiling beams. It was furnished with only a squashy yellow couch and chair she’d bought at a charity shop when she’d moved here. Furniture had never mattered to her, and this place was beautiful enough on its own. She sold everything every time she moved, anyway. It was the real estate that mattered most. She always bought a place outright, however small, when she moved. It wasn’t exactly the bohemian lifestyle that teenaged Charlotte had once dreamed of, but she’d never been able to totally overcome her need to have a place of her own so she wouldn’t have to be reliant on someone else for a roof over her head, like her mother.
The quilt she’d covered Benny with last night was crumpled on the floor by the couch like a ball of patterned paper. She bent to pick it up as she passed, and it made her head swim. She and Benny had spent the previous evening drinking and sharing their misery over the rent increase at the Sugar Warehouse, the artists’ enclave where they both worked. Unable to afford it now, they’d both been forced to give up their booths. Yesterday had been their last day. Benny, a wood-carver she’d only ever spoken to in passing, had unexpectedly offered to help her bring home her boxes of henna supplies, because it would have taken her several trips on her scooter.
She’d gotten caught up in Benny’s drunk enthusiasm about banding together to find space somewhere else on the island to do their art. But Benny wasn’t here now, and she didn’t know what that meant. She didn’t have his number. She wasn’t even sure he had a business card. Maybe he was out doing something charming like getting orange scones from one of the bakeries on Trade Street. He’d be back, she told herself, and then they’d scout out some new places. It felt good to at least be together with someone on this.
Life goes on.
