Into The Night (13 page)

On the piano was a song sheet. Probably the last thing she'd looked at before going out. For some inscrutable reason, to the end of her days, for as long as she remembered having met and having known Dell Nelson, whenever she thought of her, this song title would flicker across the eyes of her mind. "Heaven Drops Its Curtain Down upon My Heart."

Madeline took a cursory look into the bedroom before leaving. The bra that Dell must have changed out of before her bath lay looped around one of the footposts of the bed. From where she stood she could glimpse a narrow triangular wedge of the bathroom, and in this a sliver of green-blue showed up, just above the rim of the tub. Dell had left in such a hurry she'd even forgotten to let her bathwater run out of the tub.

Madeline went over closer and looked inside. It lay there bluegreen, smooth and motionless as ice, the warmth gradually going out of it into the air around.

She leaned forward and looked closer still.

Dell was still in it. Dead in it.

A cigarette, the last cigarette she had smoked, a woman's cigarette with a dab of red at the tip, still lay on the edge of the washbasin where she had parked it as she got in. A drop of water on the washbasin rim had stopped it from consuming itself past the quarter mark.

Her head was at the bottom, face upward. It could have fallen there, or it could have been pushed there, held down there. It could have been a heart attack, a skidding fall against the bottom of the tub, a dizzy spell from the combination of alcohol and hot water, resulting in self-drowning, or--a homicide. Madeline couldn't tell which it was.

She looked closely at the hands. They were still looped loosely over the edge of the tub; they hadn't gone down with the rest of her. They were caught on the turn of the rim by the wrists. Alongside of them were two small flecks of red on the enamel, about as much as a mosquito makes if you squeeze it, and a thin trickle of much paler red that had gone down into the water. The water itself showed no traces. Not enough blood had been spilled to stain it.

That told the story. It had been a murder. She'd been held under until she drowned.

Madeline got down on her heels and examined the hands exhaustively, from an inch away, without touching them. There were no marks on them anywhere, no scratches or nicks. She even looked at the undersides, the palms, by stretching out full length on the floor and putting her face up under them.

The blood was not Dell's. But underneath the tips of all ten nails, where a smidgin of white should have showed past the point where the nail enamel ended, there was instead a caked hairline of red. She'd clawed someone, either on the face or forearms or hands, in fighting for her life.

Madeline got to her feet and stood looking down at her. At the startled blue eyes, colder than ever now, staring up through the blue-green water. Adelaide Nelson had played the game her own way and lost it.

And yet which one of us ever yet won it? philosophized Madeline. It's a game you can't beat. If death doesn't take away your chips, as in this case, then old age comes along and cleans out your table stakes just as surely. Maybe she'd had the best of it at that. At least she'd gone out looking good. Still desirable enough to be killed for it.

A man should die bravely. A woman should die beautiful.

Reflex fear, which had been strangely held back until this point (possibly by the feverish excitement of the discovery), now came on fast and chilling. I have to get out of here, she told herself, bigeyed. What am I doing standing around here, lingering here, like this? Someone may walk in.

Her dread wasn't so much of being accused of the crime itself-- in fact that didn't even occur to her--as of being inextricably enmeshed in it from then on, saddled with it past all endurance. Detained, questioned ad infinitum, and above all rendered publicly identifiable, to the frustration of any possible fulfillment of the mandate which still awaited carrying out.

She wanted no part either of it or in it.

She left the bathroom hurriedly, left it just as she'd found it, door wide, light on; moved across the bedroom like a swift, silent streak. Across the main room, eyes straying to this side, to that, in oddly nostalgic snapshots of farewell. No more oleander tree watered with highballs. No more notes left on the piano. Taps waiting to be played instead: -Heaven drops its curtain down upon my heart-.

She listened carefully a moment, then opened the door sparingly, and neatly sidestepped through it. The hail was empty. She closed the door after her. She didn't bother cleaning the knob. Somehow that seemed to belong more in books than in real life, she couldn't have said why. Anyway, there'd probably be a myriad of others touching it after her.

The indicator above the elevator was at rest. It was down at the street. She pushed and brought it up to her. Then she got in, and pushed "two," not the street. She was lucky, no one else got on during the entire sixteen-floor ride down. No one saw her riding that car.

She got out at two, and walked quietly down the stairs, which opened out onto the lobby, to one side of the elevator. She had noticed them many times, in her comings and goings. She stopped just out of sight,just before they made their final turnaround into view, and waited there for the chance to leave unseen. She determined not to move without it, not to accept anything less, not if she had to stand there two hours on end. Just one stray glimpse of her by someone, and it could backfire later on when least expected and involve her in disaster.

The setup was favorable, from her point of view. The callboard, on which incoming visitors were announced to the various apartments, was over on the other side of the lobby, away from the foot of the stairs. In performing his chore, the doorman had his back to her. However, she would have to time herself so that he didn't turn around too quickly and glimpse her as she went out the door (and consequently wonder where she had come from). It was a long entrance-lobby, and the distance she had to traverse was not inconsiderable.

He was outside on the street when she first came down. It was impossible to escape detection with him in that position. He had to be brought inside by some arrival and placed with his back to her.

A young man was the first arrival. The doorman came in with him. "Miss Fletcher," the young man said. "Mr. Larkin." Miss Fletcher promptly said to come up. A dinner date probably, and she was expecting him. He was noticeably carrying an orchid inside an isinglass box.

A single arrival was no good to her. It took too little time to announce him and left the doorman free again too soon.

A trio showed up, two men and a girl, to pick up the fourth member of their quartet. Madeline made an abortive move forward, then her courage froze and she backed up again. The doorman said the three names awfully fast. She would have been pinpointed less than halfway to her destination if she'd made the try.

But if you wait long enough for the right combination, you finally get it. If you wait for the right kind of weather, it finally comes along. If you work a safe long enough, it finally opens. If you bet on it enough, your horse finally comes in.

People came and people went. Even an elderly lady in a wheelchair was brought in by an attendant. Obviously a tenant, since she wasn't announced.

Then finally it paid off. A whole group of arrivals came in in a body. Actually there were not more than five or six, but they seemed to fill the lobby with a clamor of voices and restless movement and carefree laughter. They were all young, high teens or low twenties, and they were evidently all invitees to some dinner party or birthday party or engagement party, for most of the boys carried wrapped gifts.

The doorman was inundated. He disappeared in the middle of all of them, and Madeline, with the calm assurance of complete anonymity, stepped down off the stairs and glided across the lobby, not a hasty motion in her entire body.

Just as she passed through the door, she heard him direct them: "Seventeen-A, everybody." A shudder flickered down her spine. The party was being held underneath the apartment in which the corpse lay.

Sensible enough not to linger in front of the building to pick up a taxi, she walked briskly, with head lowered to lessen chances of recognition, to the nearest corner, and there made a play for one and got in.

Unless there's an unlucky star hanging over my head, she told herself, not a living soul saw me come into or go out of that building. And she superstitiously switched her middle finger across her index and kept them that way.

The first thing she did when she got back was take a drink, to try and steady up. She, who had scorned Dell's drinking. But this was therapy.

She couldn't bear the thought of sitting down at a table and eating, after what she had just seen. She kept walking back and forth, walking endlessly back and forth, sometimes pinching her eyes together, sometimes holding the side of her jaw as if she had a toothache. She had one, a toothache in her conscience.

It was more than just the sight of a dead body--even a friend's dead body--and she knew it. It came on slowly, but once it had started there was no stopping it.

I killed her. I killed her just as surely as if I was the one held her head under, instead of the man. He was only the instrument, I was the instigator. The blame for this death is on me.

So this is how I free myself from the burden of Starr's death. By taking on another, a worse killing. One that really is a murder. This is what I've accomplished. This is what I've done for myself.

Around ten--she didn't notice the actual time, but somewhere around ten--she took another drink. Then she resolutely put the bottle away and turned the glass upside down. It was bad for you, when you were undergoing an emotional crisis like this. It enlarged it, it blurred it, it kept you from thinking logically and plunged you into unrealistic melancholia. It was only good for physical shock, like after having seen Dell's body, but not for mental and metaphysical distresses.

The second drink did no good, but at least she finally stopped walking around and sat down. She could tell she was building up into another guilt complex such as she had experienced following Starr's death. Only this one promised to be far worse.

Dell was no good. The world won't miss her, she told herself. But I had no right to kill her. It wasn't for me to judge her, she answered herself.

This probably would have gone on all night, at increasing heat and at increasing pace, but a diversion suddenly occurred which stopped it short. Not only that, but eradicated it completely from her thoughts and from her system.

The buzzer at the door sounded, and when she went over and opened it, two men were standing out there.

"Miss Madeline Chalmers?" one said, and politely touched the edge of a finger to his hat brim.

One was average in height, the other a little better than average, and a good deal huskier in build as well. Both were the sort of people who, a moment after you had looked at them, you couldn't have told what they looked like. Perhaps a sort of professional invisibility, you might say.

"Yes, I am," she said tonelessly.

"We'd like to speak to you. May we come in?"

"Not now," she said unwillingly, and turned her head aside. "I'm very tired, and I can't see anyone right now."

"I'm afraid you'll have to, Miss Chalmers," he said, as polite as ever but with an added crispness. "This is police business." And he showed credentials.

As soon as this! passed through her mind. Not more than three hours ago--and already!

But the worst part of it was the way she could feel her own face pale, as she stepped aside and let them pass. Its whitening was almost a physical sensation, like a pulling back, a drawing tight, of the skin.

They saw it too. They must have, and that wasn't good.

She sat down on the middle section of the sofa. The larger one sat down at its end, facing her. The other one brought over a chair and sat down diagonally across from her. They formed an approximation of a small, intimate triangle. Only, she didn't find it cozy.

It began at once. In casual fashion, but at once, without preamble and from then on without letup. Every question impeccably polite. More polite than the average ballroom or dinner-table conversation.

"Do you know an Adelaide Nelson?"

"Yes, I do."

"How well do you know her?"

First hitch already, and only the second question.

"It's difficult to pinpoint a thing like that," she hedged.

"It shouldn't be. Do you know her well or don't you know her well?"

"I know her moderately well."

Watch your step now, she kept warning herself. Watch your step. One wrong word and you're in it up to your neck. These boys are experts.

"How long have you known her?"

"I first met her in September."

"About two and a half months, would that be about right?"

"About two and a half months, that would be about right."

"Have you ever been up in her apartment?"

"Yes, on a number of occasions."

"Frequently, would you say, or seldom?"

The doorman used to see me coming and going all the time. I wonder if they've gotten to him yet. What if I say seldom, and he says the other way around?

"In the beginning, quite often. Afterward it tapered." Which actually was the fact.

"Any particular reason why it should taper off? Did you grow cooler toward one another?"

"No-o," she said with cautious consideration. "It wasn't intentional. This just happens sometimes, in the course of human, human"--she couldn't find the word for a moment-- "associations."

"How did you first come to meet Miss Nelson?"

"I looked her up." She told them about her songwriting aspirations. "The music publishers were no good. I thought if I could tie in with a performer, I might get somewhere."

"Did she string you along? Is that why you had to keep going back to see her repeatedly?"

What were they trying to do in this particular spot, build a grudge between Dell and herself?

"Not at all. You see, she was kind enough to let me have the use of her piano. I don't have one of my own to work on."