Rosemary Gracey is Dead and I Know Who Killed Her

She was dead.

Pale and cold and turning blue right in front of me. There was yelling, coming from somewhere I’m not sure of. Behind me, surrounding me. The words could’ve been spit in my face and I wouldn’t have cared, wouldn’t have known. Because she was all I could see. Fingertips that had run through my hair and pinched my cheeks now a drying gray, still and silent. Puckered frozen lips and eyes so blue they looked like they held the ocean in them, glazed over and unseeing. Blonde hair splayed over the floor, perfectly fanned out as the droplets of blood dried on the strands.

I felt fingers pinch my forearm, dragging my attention from the dead. “Are you … do you want to leave?”

I shook my head from side to side. I couldn’t leave, not now. No matter how many years of therapy this very image was causing me, I couldn’t leave her.

She was my stepmother. Keyword being ‘was’.

I saw the source of the raised voice across the room. My father stood toe to toe with a tired-looking police officer, screaming at him to find the man that did this.

“He’s going to give himself a heart attack,” I felt myself whisper, tears pricking my eyes for the first time since we were called to the ground floor.

“Should we do something?” Her voice as mousy as ever, cautious and uncertain. I could tell Storey was as confused as I was. Poor thing was just a guest. My parents had been inviting her on our family vacations for the last five years, since we were sophomores in high school. It was a chance for her to escape her mundane life for a week or two and it gave me someone to talk to instead of my brother.

But she didn’t sign up for this. Leaving as a group of five and coming home four, traumatized and grieving.

“I don’t know,” I answered her honestly, watching his face grow tomato red and a pointed index finger rise to his eyeline, aimed at the cop. “Okay, maybe now we should,” I blurted before weaving around the crime scene to catch my dad’s attention.

I was beaten by my brother, who immediately grabbed the older man’s arm and pulled it down, repeating an urgent, “dad, stop,” until our father finally took a breath.

“I just have a few questions to ask, then I can let you guys go back to your rooms.” The officer assured us, lifting eyebrows in hopes of some sympathy over what he’s had to deal with. Who.

Air was forcefully blown from my father’s mouth as he turned and began to pace the few feet of empty room along the wall, keeping an ear pinned to our little huddle.

“Can any of you think of any person that would want Rosemary Gracey dead?”

His words hit like a punch to the gut. Rosemary Gracey was dead. An hour ago she was debating if a slice of chocolate cake and an affogato was too much right before bed, and now she’s lying dead in some hotel laundry room.

“I can’t think of anyone,” my voice taught with emotion.

“Yeah, me either.” Winston took a deep breath before confessing, “we don’t have enemies, officer. We’re just … average-”

“Callum Snyder. He’s staying on the third floor. He’s your guy.”

Our heads swiveled back to my dad, who now stood tall and still, staring right at the policeman with such conviction I nearly forgot what he had said.

“Who?” I heard Winston whisper, to himself or our patriarch, I’m not sure.

“How do you know this Callum Snyder?” A fair question that, unbeknownst to the cop, the rest of us were wondering as well.

“He’s a colleague.” Conviction lagging with each syllable my father spoke.

The man nodded in return, asking for our hotel room numbers in case he had any other questions. Four thirteen and four-oh-two, I managed to get out clearly. Two suites, just like it has always been. My parents with their king bed and the kids sharing a two bedroom, both equipped with furnished living rooms and decked out kitchens, just in case one of us felt the sudden need to cook in between skiing and drinking.

I haven’t even touched the coffee pot and we’re on day six.

And then we were turned away, told to wait for a call for further questioning or what we’d like done with the body. They spoke of her like she was some sandwich that had gone bad and not a prominent fixture in our house since I was seven.

I let four tears hit my chest before wiping my face dry.

—

He slammed the door to the miniature fridge so hard I thought the hinges would break. Three bottles clattered on the counter, all for him, no doubt. He popped the top off one of them and started guzzling the amber liquid, the leathery-tanned skin of his throat wiggling with each gulp. I leaned against the bedroom door jam, mine and Storey’s double queen room, and watched Winston crack every knuckle in his fingers, working up the courage to question our father.

Finally, with a puff of his chest in faux confidence, he questioned, “alright, who the hell is Callum Snyder?”

Halfway through the second bottle, our father slowed down, calmly setting it back on the granite before bracing himself against the edge of the counter.

“He’s the reason we’re here.”

His answer surely didn’t clear anything up for either of us, considering the pinched eyebrows and slight frown Winston wore, matching my own.

“Is he an old friend or someth-”

“We were hired to kill him.”

The hum of the refrigerator the only sound echoing in the tiny suite. No words, no breath, just a tense silence. I heard Storey halt in packing her suitcase back up, understandably eavesdropping and just as shocked as I.

“As in our family?” Winston always asked stupid questions.

“As in your mother and me.” I’ve never heard my father’s voice so devoid of feeling.

“Stepmother,” I corrected, force of habit.

I felt the vibration of his kick against the cabinet door more than I heard it, his anger suddenly coming out in waves. “Goddamn it, Eloise, what does it matter? The woman is dead,” his voice cracking on the last word.

My face twitched, wincing at his outburst and mumbling out a “sorry.”

“That doesn’t explain anything, though. Why would someone just hire you to kill a man? And why would you agree?” Okay, maybe Winston’s questions weren’t always idiotic.

“This is our job,” he scratched his cheek, refusing to look in either of our directions. “People hire us to get rid of the problem,” shrugging like this was normal. “Sometimes it's a spouse demanding half of everything in a divorce, or a sibling to split inheritance with. An occasional stalker or predator. A whistleblower. Whoever’s willing to pay top dollar.”

Winston seemed to stiffen to solid stone. He folded his arms across his chest and stared straight at the bland carpet, chewing a hole in his cheek.

“Why are you telling us this?” I whispered.

“Because you should know the truth,” he insisted, sounding irritated at my asking. “How many years we’ve been going on these trips, keeping you two in the dark. Finland, Monaco, Hawaii, every place we go, there’s a job with it. Well,” he threw his hands up, “now I need your help.” He dug his fingers into his back pocket, pulling out his phone and dropping it in front of himself.

Except, it wasn’t his phone.

Not his usual one, anyway. Not the one we had known about. The one with the fuzzy purple case he bought by accident, holding pictures from past Christmases and family vacations, a long-running document with written recipes he had made, emails from his friends carrying the latest stupid meme. No, this one was black and sleek and ancient looking. Indestructible, somehow.

He tapped away at the screen, no doubt entering some long winded password to the mystery device. “Here,” he turned it, showing Winston the lit phone, “this is Callum.” He then aimed the picture at me. “Have you two seen him around here? He arrived the day after we did.”

I blinked repeatedly at the brightness in my face, finally seeing a clear image of an aging man, mid-to-late sixties, with thin hair he tried to comb over and wrinkles covering his freckled face. He had no distinguishing features and I didn’t think I had seen him since we started our getaway.

But, I could say for certain, he did not kill her.

I did see someone with my stepmother a few minutes before her assumed time of death, and that person was not Callum Snyder.

I know who killed Rosemary Gracey.