Page 85 of The Mystery Guest

“Thanks,” Angela replies. “True crime podcasts. They taught me everything I know.”

“Would you two mind standing guard for a minute at the entrance while I have a private word with Molly? I have a funnyfeeling the LAMBS might make a reappearance here sometime soon, and I’m in no mood to answer their questions.”

“Of course,” Angela says as Lily nods. The two of them make their way to the door.

Detective Stark and I remain where we are. We’re both staring at the trophies in the banker’s box on the table.

“Molly, there’s one thing I still don’t understand,” Stark says. “How did you know that spoon was the key to everything?”

“The sound,” I say. “When Jenkins brought in tea at the mansion, I remembered my childhood and the first time I heard the tinkling sound of a proper silver spoon against a fine porcelain teacup. I love that sound. Then I remembered that day at the podium when Mr. Grimthorpe was about to make his speech. He took the teacup from Lily, added honey with the spoon from the honey pot, and stirred.”

“So?” says Detective Stark.

“I know the sound of a Regency Grand teaspoon against a Regency Grand teacup,” I explain. “That high-pitched tinkle—music to my ears. But the sound that day was all wrong—a dull clank.”

“Because the spoon Beulah used was not Regency Grand silver?” she asks.

“Exactly,” I say. “It was a stainless-steel one from the Social, the same one I saw sticking out of her peanut butter jar days earlier.”

Detective Stark shakes her head. “You really do have an eye for the strangest details. And an ear for them as well.”

“Mostly, I notice the wrong things at the wrong times,” I say. “That’s been my downfall for as long as I remember.”

“And you think that makes you different from anyone else?” Stark asks. “Molly, I was wrong about you. I read you the wrong way from the very beginning. “

“Never judge a book by its cover. My gran used to say that.”

“Bit of an occupational hazard,” says Stark. “This may come as asurprise, but if you ever wanted a career change, the force could use someone with your skills. My force, I mean.”

“But I’m a maid. My work is to polish guest rooms to perfection. To clean up all the messes people leave behind.”

“Is that so different from what I do? I try to leave the world a cleaner place than I found it,” Stark says.

I see the similarities, I do. And yet I’ve never imagined myself being anything other than what I am now.

“It’s impossible, Detective,” I say. “Changing my profession would mean retraining, going back to school.”

“Well, yes. So what?”

“I was never good at school. Actually, I was an abject failure, below my peers in every way, incapable of meeting the bar.”

“Maybe the bar was set in the wrong place. Maybe the school was the wrong kind. Maybe the teachers made the same mistake I made—focusing on your weaknesses instead of your strengths.”

“Do you know, you sound just like my gran?”

A memory returns with such startling force that the room starts to spin. I grip my hands to my stomach. It’s the moment after Gran’s death. Gran is in our apartment, dead in her bed, and I’m right beside her, holding her serenity pillow, clutching it to my chest as a wave of grief engulfs me, threatening to drown me and take me under forever.

I think of that pillow now, where it sits on the chair by the front door of the apartment I share with my beloved Juan Manuel. I see that pillow every day. Gran embroidered every stitch of wisdom into it. Why did she choose those words? Why that prayer?

It occurs to me only now, the permanence of her message, meant to resonate with mein perpetuum:

God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.

What is it I need to accept?

I am who I am. Molly. Molly with all my weaknesses and foibles. And all my strengths, too.

Maybe it’s time I accept myself, because there’s not a thing I can do to change it.

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