The Entirely Fabricated Story of Lizzie Nickerson

Chapter 7

As he descended the stairs to the second floor, Stoudemire noticed that Lizzie was no longer seated on the fifth step of the staircase below. The door to the deceased Frederick Gibbs' apartment was open and when he peered inside, he saw Lizzie pacing slowly through the apartment immersed in contemplation.

"Maybe it would be best if you didn't go in there," he said. "If you're worried about the fish--" 

"Somebody was in here," she said and then disappeared from view.

Stoudemire stepped into the apartment. "What makes you think someone was in here?"

She poked her head in from the adjacent room, held up the apartment key, and said, "This." She vanished again.

"The key?"

"Oh, geez," she said as she entered the living room, her perpetual annoyance on display. "I always place the key pointing to the left when I put it under the welcome mat." She pointed the key to her left. "Every. Single. Time. But today, it was facing the other direction." She turned the key in the opposite direction."Pointing to the right."

"Do you think maybe it was the landlord looking to clear out Mr. Gibbs' belongings and–"

"The landlord has his own key."

"Good point."

She looked past Stoudemire toward the front door. "The doorknob smells like Ms. Brennan." She held the key to her nose. "But this key doesn't."

Ms. Margery Brennan did have a noticeable aroma about her, most likely as a result of the heavy application of some perfume, body spray, or moisturizer. It hadn't occurred to him earlier, but now the fragrance brought back nostalgic memories of his Great Aunt Emma's enthusiasm for Chanel No. 5.

The detective lowered his voice. "Do you think that the relationship between the deceased Mister Frederick Gibbs and his first-floor neighbor, Margery Brennan, went beyond cookies?"

Lizzie wore a blank expression as though Stoudemire had asked the question in Farsi.

He followed up with, "Do you think that perhaps they were more than friends?"

Her brows furrowed. "What's more than friends?"

"I mean, could it be that maybe they were romantically involved?"

Her brows dipped even deeper, scrunching her porcelain face. 

For a moment, he thought she might cry but the fact of the matter was that Lizzie had only cried once in her life. When she was in first grade (when she was still Maribeth Finch), her gym class assembled in the playground for a game of kickball. When it was Lizzie's turn, she lowered her head, turned her back to the pitcher, and wept. It never happened again. Not kickball or crying.

"Let's forget all about the more than friends business," he said softly. "Forget I mentioned it."

Lizzie looked down at her shoes, watching the involuntary toe-tapping of her right foot before raising the key to her nose and repeating, "The doorknob smells like Ms. Brennan but this key doesn't."

He imagined that her toe tapping was a tic brought on by anxiety, not realizing that she was stimming in response to overstimulation in the same way that she repeated phrases like 'oh, geez," and 'that doesn't even make sense.' 

The detective glanced around the apartment, not sure what it was that he was supposed to be looking for.

"This is another time when a dog would come in very handy," she said.

"Yeah, I suppose it would."

"Dogs have one hundred million sensor receptor sites in their nasal cavities compared to humans with only six million. The part of their brains devoted to smell is forty times bigger than a comparable section of the human brain. They can smell one thousand to ten thousand times better than people can."

"Is that so?"

"And, oh, geez, I'm not even going to get into the vomeronasal organ, usually referred to as Jacobsen's organ, that increases a dog's ability to smell."

"Yeah, let's just leave it at dogs can smell waaaaay better than humans can."

"Waaaaaaaaaaaay better. It's not even close. Don't make me laugh."

Stoudemire wished Lizzie would laugh but realized that she was ending her statement with a common expression that, in this case, was ironic. He had never seen her smile let alone laugh. He'd never met anyone who seemed so emotionally detached. 

Had he approached Lizzie with his observation, she would have probably replied, "The word you're looking for is alexithymia. It sounds like a big deal, but actually, it means that I have difficulties expressing emotions that are socially appropriate. I'm not a menace to society or to myself. I'm just one of those people with alexithymia. That's all. It's fine. Don't worry about it."

But he was a little worried because they didn't have that conversation. It's a shame. 

"Dogs can detect certain odors in part per trillion," she said. "Per trillion! Do you know how many zeroes are in a trillion?"

"A lot. Okay. Yeah. I get it," said Frazier. "Dogs' noses are like wow! Super amazing."

Had it not been for Lizzie's distraction, for which the detective was grateful, her dissertation on the incredible olfactory capabilities of man's best friend may have continued well into the evening.

"Oh, look there." She squatted, reached out with an index finger, and touched something on the floor that the detective could not see. She rubbed her index finger and thumb together. "It's viscous. Like maybe some kind of oil." She brought her fingers to her nose. "Yeah, I think it is oil." She stood and then darted out of the living room.

He squinted at the floor when he heard her call from the other room.

"It's gone."