Lisa Unger - Sliver Of Truth

I suspected anything that might have offered some clue as to who Max had been-who he’d really been-was long gone. I’d discovered over a year ago that the lawyers had taken all his files and date books (which he kept like journals), and his computer. Valuables like watches and jewelry, and all other personal effects, had gone to my father and mother. So I didn’t know what I was looking for exactly. I just started opening drawers and cupboards, sifting through old books, looking behind photographs.

But the drawers and file cabinets were empty. There were no secret safes in the floor or behind pictures. Everything was just as it had been when he was alive, in perfect order…except that it was all dead. Void of the energy of a life being lived, of vital paperwork and important files. Gone.

Something I’d always noticed about Max while he was alive was his fastidiousness. His sock drawer, with each pair precisely folded in careful rows, organized by color, made me think about how he was always straightening-the pictures on the wall, the silverware on the table, the arrangements of objects on his desk or dresser. It used to drive my mother crazy, probably because she was equally particular. She seemed to think it was some kind of competition when he came to the house and rearranged the table she had set, fussing with the centerpiece or aligning the silverware even more precisely.

Of course, Max always had a staff of people following him around, cleaning up after him, but he held those people to such exacting standards that turnover was always high. Personal assistants, maids, cooks, came and went, a parade of polite and distant strangers, always nervous around Max, always replaced in a matter of weeks or months. Only Clara, who acted as maid and part-time cook and sometimes babysitter for me and Ace, stayed through the years, never seemed rattled by Max or his demands. What did this say about Max? I didn’t know. It was just something that came to mind as I sifted through the apartment. Maybe it didn’t mean anything. Maybe nothing did.

After a while, frustrated and unsatisfied, I sat on Max’s bed, a gigantic king swathed in 1,000-count Egyptian cotton sheets and a rich chocolate-brown raw silk comforter, piled high with coordinating shams and throw pillows. I leaned back against the plush surface and tried to think about what I was doing there, what I was looking for, and what I intended to do once I found it.

After a minute, I got up again and walked over to the recessed shelving in the opposite wall that held a large flat-screen television, another legion of photographs (mainly of me), objects he’d collected in his travels around the world-a jade elephant, a large Buddha, some tall giraffes carved delicately in a deep black wood. My eyes fell on a familiar object, a hideous pottery ashtray formed by a child’s fingers-a pinch pot, I think we called them in kindergarten. It was painted in a medley of colors-purple, hot pink, evergreen, orange. In the center, I had painted, I LOVE MY UNCEL MAX, and my name was carved on the underside. I didn’t remember making it but I did remember it always being on Max’s desk in his study. I wondered how it had wound up in here. I lifted the piece of pottery and held it in my hand, felt a wave of intense sadness. As I was about to put it back down, I saw that it had sat on top of a small keyhole. I quickly searched the shelving for a drawer or some clue as to what might open if a key was inserted, but it seemed to be a keyhole to nothing. I resisted the urge to hurl the little piece of pottery against the wall.

I walked back over to the bed and flopped myself down on it.

That’s when I smelled it. The lightest scent of male cologne. Not a sense memory of Max but an actual scent in the air, or possibly in the sheets. It made my heart thump. I got up quickly from the bed, my eyes scanning the room for something out of place. The small clock beside the bed suddenly seemed very loud, the street noise a distant thrum.

A haunting is a subtle thing. It’s not flying dishes and bleeding walls. It’s not a mournful moaning down a dark, stone hallway. It’s odors and shades of light, a nebulously familiar form in a photograph, the glimpse of a face in a crowd. These nuances, these moments are no less horrifying. They strike the same blow to the solar plexus, trace the same cold finger down your spine.

As I stood there, my nose to the air, my limbs frozen, I took in the scent of him. Max. Whatever the alchemy of his skin and his cologne, it could be no one else. Like my father, rainwater and Old Spice, or my mother, Nivea cream and something like vinegar…unmistakable, unforgettable. I listened hard to the silence. A sound, soft and rhythmic, called me from where I stood. I walked over the carpet and into the master bath. Another huge space, embarrassingly opulent with granite floors and walls, brushed chrome fixtures, a Jacuzzi tub and steam-room shower. I paused in the doorway and noticed that the shower door and the mirrors were lightly misted. I walked over and opened the glass door to the shower. The giant waterfall showerhead that hung centered from the ceiling held tiny beads of water in each pore, coalescing in the center and forming one enormous tear that dripped into the drain below. My mind flipped through a catalog of reasons why this shower might have been recently used. This was a secure, doorman-guarded building. My parents, the only other people with access, were both away. I reached in and closed the tap; the dripping ceased.

My breathing was deep and there was a slight shake to my hands from adrenaline. Once a month, I knew, a service came in to clean. But I was sure they’d already been here this month, and I’d never known them to leave a faucet to run or surfaces wet.

I went to the cordless phone by Max’s bed to dial the doorman.

“Yes, Ms. Jones,” said Dutch, the eternal doorman, whom I’d passed on my way in.

“Has someone been in this apartment today?”

“Not on my watch. I’ve been here since five A.M.,” he said. I heard him flipping through pages. “No visitors last night or all day yesterday. Not in the log.”

“Okay,” I said.

“Something wrong?”

“No. Nothing. Thanks, Dutch,” I said. I pressed the button to end the call before he could ask me any more questions.

The phone rang while it was still in my hand. I answered without thinking.

“Hello?”

There was only static in my ear.

“Hello?” I said again.

The line went dead.

SOMETIMES I THINK it’s not the ghosts themselves but the dark spaces where they might reside that are the most frightening. I was filled with dread as I continued my search of the apartment. I approached each space with a kind of reluctance, a turning away, wanting to cover my eyes like I might if watching a horror movie by myself at night. Looking back, I guess it was more that I was searching to find nothing than looking for something in particular. I wanted to do my due diligence so that if the worst were true, I could leave self-blame off my list of emotions. I wanted to know I hadn’t closed my eyes the way Elena had.

The sky outside had turned dark blue in the twilight, and I was starting to feel tired. The scent had deserted the apartment and the bathroom was now dry as a bone. I was already starting to wonder if I’d imagined the whole thing. I flipped on some lamps to chase back the gloom that was settling on me. As I did, something caught my eye.

In the light I saw a small corner of white peeking out from beneath the coffee table. I got down on my knees and retrieved a matchbook. I turned it in my hand. There was an opalescent symbol embossed on each side, which could be seen only when it was held at a certain angle to the light. Three interlocking circles within a larger circle. There was something familiar about it, but I couldn’t place it. I felt my stomach start to knot; a light nausea crept up in my throat. I flipped the matchbook open. Inside a single note had been scrawled: Show this at the door. Ask for Angel.