Free Return to Dust by Andrew Lanh

personality. Faded rose chintz on the sofa, thin blue polyester drapes, dusty plastic flowers on the glass-top coffee table. Glossy religious icons in plastic frames, one after the other, hanging crookedly on the walls, shriveled palms tucked around them. Everything was neat here, but cheap. I breathed in—a hint of mothballs in the air that reminded me of an old closet suddenly opened—that kind of cloying smell. Marta had not wanted to spend money on furnishings, so she froze her settings in some undefined decade long gone.
    Karen saw me looking around. “I’ve already taken some things out. The few things I want to save. Photo albums, old furniture of my grandparents’. A table I remember. Nothing else I want here. I’m gonna sell it all.”
    She waved her hands again, as though she hoped her gesture would make it all disappear.
    Dressed in brown slacks, a little too tight in the thigh, she had thrown a bulky off-yellow cotton sweater over them. With her long blonde hair pulled into a ponytail, she looked self-consciously seasonal. Even her lipstick was a shade of Halloween orange, an eccentricity that jarred—but compelled you to look.
    Once, walking with Hank Nguyen through the arcade, he’d commented on her window display of her own art. It wasn’t the first time he’d mocked her artwork. “Thomas Kinkaid meets Jean-Michel Basquiet at a potluck supper.”
    She moved from the wing chair to sit on the sofa next to me, so close her sleeve touched me, and I smelled lavender perfume, the kind her aunt wore. Turning to look at her, I saw Marta’s face—the same angular bone structure, the same razor-thin lips, the same wispy blue eyes.
    â€œHere is the list I promised you.”
    I had asked her for a list of her aunt’s last cleaning jobs, the people whose homes she routinely cleaned. I quickly scanned the list. Karen had written their names in neat script, with phone numbers.
    â€œAny acquaintances I should talk to?”
    She ignored that. “I copied it from her notebook. She had scaled back her jobs lately—mainly two professors.”
    I saw the two professors’ names, and I saw Marcie and Vinnie’s names. She pointed. “One of her last jobs. There may have been others.” A quick smile. “You—when you called her.”
    â€œI know.” It was a small list, but a decent place to begin.
    â€œYou asked if I knew folks she had trouble with—like arguments.”
    â€œAnd?”
    She shook her head. “Off and on spats with Hattie Cozzins, her old friend. And—that scene with Willie Do. She didn’t like him.”
    I nodded and tucked the list into my pocket.
    I spent the next hour checking out the house, and Karen left me alone, busying herself in the kitchen, rifling through boxes, selecting items she’d carry to her apartment. When I walked into the kitchen, I spotted her idiosyncratic choices: a stained pot holder, Dutch boy-and-girl salt and pepper shakers, a chipped serving dish, a pie tin. The longer she emptied the cabinets, the lighter her spirits became. I heard humming at one point, a top-ten radio hit I vaguely recognized as an old Michael Jackson song. The man in the mirror… She was happy by herself, so I left her alone. Every so often I looked over, said something, but each time she frowned. Obviously I was smashing through some reverie she was enjoying.
    A waste of time, this survey. I discovered nothing unusual. A small cubbyhole desk yielded piles of bills and receipts, but nothing out of the ordinary so far as I could tell. Sadly, Marta threw little out, which could be a good thing for someone looking for clues, but not always. In my laptop I jotted down bank numbers and accounts. I entered names copied from letters, some from out of state. Casual acquaintances she met in Atlantic City and Vegas. A number for the bus company that ran tours to gambling centers.
    What secrets did