On Wednesday morning Tess taped June's list to the wall beside the dining table. It was easier to look at the six crossed names when they were not under her hand. The unlocked phone lay below it with the hotel manager's message confirming the room entry was disputed. Jo had called once, and Tess had called back. Mrs. Dyer had waved from across the landing. Three people now knew how to reach the real Tess without trusting a name alone.
She printed the photographs she had taken of Mara's slips and arranged the copies by date, leaving the address sides face down. The phone number ending in forty-two appeared seven times. One slip named Nora clearly. Another might have said Ruth. A third had a line of letters smudged by June's thumb, or by a driver who had set it against a wet window. Tess could make any of those marks look like a name if she stared long enough.
She had brought home blank catalog cards from work. One held what the slips said; another held what she thought they meant. She caught herself writing Nell beside all seven occurrences, though the hotel had supplied that name for only one additional guest. She turned the cards over. At work, a book entered under the wrong author could stay there for years.
Jo sent a picture of the small blue bowl June had used for keys, still sitting by June's front door. I'm here collecting the casserole pan. Do you want this with the rest of her things? Tess stared at the bowl. June had left spare keys with people as if the metal proved she trusted them, then complained if they used a door without calling. Tess wrote, Leave it there for now. I can't sort her house this week. Jo sent back a simple Okay. It was the first question about June in two days that had an answer Tess could give without gathering witnesses.
Tess took June's keys out of the little box Mara had left. The case was only across the room. She pressed the faded red tag between finger and thumb. Yesterday she had demanded answers and then asked Mara to wait. She wanted to hear a living person before opening June's account of her. Mara had agreed, but only until they had spoken to the host. Tess put the ring beside the sealed hotel packet. This afternoon she would have to keep her promise.
Mara arrived with bread and a notebook of her own. “Bess Hale hosted someone on the spring run. I have her number.”
“Have you called her?”
“Not yet. Yesterday you asked me to speak to her with you.” Mara put the bread on the counter. “I was waiting.”
“Oh.” Tess had expected the meeting to be arranged already. She glanced at the keys. Bess could answer back. Tess held up the spring slip. “This one. We show the day and courier contact, not the address. What will you ask?”
“Whether she remembers who brought the person to her.”
“Don't say we think it was Nell. We don't know.”
“I wasn't going to.” Mara glanced at the list on the wall. “If these were six different people, Bess shouldn't have to hear their names just because hers is on one old route.”
Tess moved the list into its folder. She had been about to bring the page to the meeting, as if a frightened guess were an introduction. “Ask about the handoff she was part of. If she remembers a person, let her describe that person before we show the phone number.”
Mara called. She told Bess June had died and that the sisters were checking an old handoff because someone was asking for June's papers. She did not name the hosted person. Tess heard Bess's voice rise briefly through the phone: “Which papers?” Mara looked at Tess rather than giving her own answer.
“Tell her we have a payment slip from the spring run,” Tess said. “We can bring that one slip. We won't bring files about the person she hosted.”
Mara repeated it. Bess asked to meet at the bakery near her shop at noon, not at Tess's flat or June's house. She wanted a table where she could see the door and asked whether Tess herself would be there. Mara passed the phone to Tess.
“Yes,” Tess said. “I need to hear what you remember, but you can tell us what you don't want to answer.”
“I can tell you what happened at my door,” Bess said. “I won't give you someone else's history over a table.”
“That's what I need.” After they ended the call, Tess wrote down the meeting time and Bess's request to see them both.
Tess wanted to dial the repeated number. She put her phone in her bag instead. The spring slip stayed on top; she covered the unknown client's address and left June's list at home.
In June's list, each crossed line was straight. Her mother had not scratched a name away; she had retired it. Tess could hear June using that word if the list turned out to be work. But why write Tess beneath it, and why date her for Friday? The room record suggested one answer: someone was borrowing her name. It did not say June had intended to let her.
Before they left, Tess moved the slips away from the window. Mara watched her place a chair against the cupboard door, though the case behind it was locked. “You don't have to guard it with furniture,” Mara said.
“I don't. I want to know if somebody moved the chair.” Tess shut the front door and tested the new key. She had been doing that since Tuesday afternoon. It still caught at the same point, and the click was still hers.