Night Corridor (6 page)

She took the twenty dollar bills from her purse and counted them again, felt their crispness between her fingers, their promise of security. Four bills now, since she'd paid the cab driver, plus a five and some change. Slipping them back into her wallet, she left the room, locking the door after her.

She put the key back in her new blue bag and zipped it closed. The purse didn't really go with her coat. She might have been locked up a long time but she knew blue didn't really go with olive green. But it was the only purse she had.

As she stood outside her door, her heart began to thud in her ears and her breathing quickly became shallow. She wanted to run back inside the room and lock herself in. She swallowed hard, her hand moving to her throat.

No, you can't do that. Slow, deep breaths, the way Nurse Addison showed you. That works for you. What are you, an animal, trading one den for another? Cowering, afraid of shadows? No, she wouldn't be afraid. She wouldn't.

Only then did she realize her back was pressed against the wall, and she made herself move away from it, take a forward step. Letting out a long, shaky breath, she inched toward the stairway.

The stairs stretched down and down, impossible to reach the bottom, like looking through the wrong end of a telescope. Like stairs in a nightmare.

She froze there at the top, unable to lower one foot onto the step, her breath trapped in her throat.

Why did the hallway seem so much darker than yesterday when the landlady was with her? The realization of the door across the hall, behind which the murdered actress had lived not so long ago, crept over her on spider legs. Unable to resist its pull, her gaze involuntarily went there. She looked quickly away. Considered her dilemma.
You can't stand here all day.

Even as it appeared she might, she became aware of the faint smell of pine oil, which reminded her of the cleaning solution they used to clean the floors at the hospital, and this bit of familiarity allowed her to grip the railing and set one foot out over the step which seemed a long reach, suspend it there.

Step down. Just put your foot down on the step. It is not as far away as it looks to you.

Suddenly, above her—a footfall. And another. Step…step…step …behind her.

Coming closer.

She lowered her trembling foot, feeling as if she was about to step out of an airplane into emptiness. Not daring to look behind her, catapulted by sheer terror, Caroline flew down the stairs. She hit the foyer just as Mrs. Bannister came out of her flat, dressed for outdoors in a black coat, and small forest-green hat with a little feather in front, and holding a closed, black umbrella. She turned to look at Caroline, one eyebrow raised in surprise.

"Hello, dear. My, you're all out of breath. I would have thought it was Harold bounding down those stairs if I didn't know he was away at work. You want to be careful running on those stairs; the tenants don't always wipe their feet and they can be slippery when wet. You could take a nasty spill and we wouldn't want the two of us hobbling around, now would we?" She chuckled.

"No, I will. I mean, I won't run…I just…I'm sorry…" Caroline jerked her head around at a footfall behind her.

Mrs. Bannister looked past Caroline's shoulder and smiled. "Good day, Mr. Mason. Taking your constitutional, are you?"

"Something like that, Mrs. Bannister." He smiled at Caroline and held the door for both of them. A pleasant man in a raincoat, more rumpled than hers, like Columbo's. Unlike the detective, one of his sleeves was empty and folded back. No one to fear. How foolish she was.

"Terrible thing about that nice Miss Winters," the landlady was saying, as she preceded Caroline through the door and out into the cool, gray day. "We're not safe in our beds anymore." To Caroline, she said, "I told you about it, dear. She used to live across the hall from you. She was an actress. Small parts, but she had big dreams. That's the second murder in a few weeks, Mr. Mason. The first one was a nurse, wasn't she? Walkin' home from her shift when he grabbed her, poor thing. Oh, by the by, this is your downstairs neighbor, Miss Hill. Just moved in."

He nodded and smiled at Caroline, a man of average size, receding hairline, clearly having no idea he'd frightened her.

"I believe you're right, Mrs. Bannister. Yes, I do remember Miss Winters very well. Lovely girl. Tragic. Of course they don't know yet that the two murders are connected. Anyway, I do hope they find whoever did this terrible thing."

They were standing on the sidewalk now, Caroline with her hands folded in front of her, like a child on the first day of school. When she became aware of it, she dropped her hands discretely to her sides.

"We can only pray." The landlady shook her head in dismay. "Her poor body found in an alley, not a block from here."

After a few more words were exchanged between the two, Mr. Mason bid them both good day and went on his way, a thoughtful expression on his face.

When he was out of earshot, the landlady said, "Poor man came back from the war with an arm missing, and found his wife living with someone else. He's been here ever since, four years now. So where you are headed in such a big hurry this morning?"

"I need to buy food."

Everyone in the building knows about me, Caroline thought. They know where I've been. Did she know about them taking my baby? Did she know everything?

They were walking now, Mrs. Bannister with her fast, awkward gait, Caroline keeping pace with her. Though she was wearing a sweater under her coat, the cold damp air reached inside.

Everything looked so big. The street, the buildings, the gray sky, no fences or boundaries. She felt small and vulnerable, and was glad to be walking alongside her landlady and not by herself. I just need some time, she thought, mentally parroting Nurse Addison's own words to her: "Everything will seem big and strange at first."

She remembered feeling the same way when she was a little girl lying in the grass and gazing up into the vast blueness. After a few minutes, she would get that panicky feeling in her stomach, like she had now, as if she might just get swallowed up in all that blueness, and she would scramble to her feet.

"I think the rain has stopped for the day, but I brought the umbrella just in case. Better to be safe than sorry. By the way," she said, turning to smile at Caroline. "I just bought myself a bigger television set, so I've got one to put in your room, if you want it. Do you enjoy TV?"

"Oh, I do, yes. I like watching television. Thank you."

"Great. It's just a fourteen-inch, a Philco, but it's color and works fine. Did you sleep well your first night here?"

"Yes," she lied. The lie came easy.

Should she have told her the truth, that she'd felt afraid lying alone in the strange bed, listening to unfamiliar sounds outside her window, other noises throughout the building.

She let the lie stay. She didn't want the landlady to think her troublesome.

Mrs. Bannister was chatting away as they walked, divulging personal information about another of her tenants, happily and without malice. She was a nice and generous lady, just didn't keep secrets very well.

Caroline saw the yellow police tape even before she saw the small group of people gathered on the sidewalk, near the alley. A police cruiser was parked at an angle on the street, the door flung open. She could hear a squawking voice coming from the car radio, although there was no one to hear except passersby like herself and Mrs. Bannister.

A little ways past the cruiser, a small red car was being towed away.

"Most of the mob is thinned out now," the landlady said, slowing her step as they neared the alley. "You should have seen them yesterday—packed in like sardines, they were, craning their necks like starved giraffes." This comment was made as she herself peered into the alley, a deep dark well, even in daylight, between the two buildings.

"The cops had to force the crowd back," the landlady said, picking up her pace again as they passed on by the alley. "Wanting to get a look at that poor dead girl. Can you imagine?"

Yes, she could imagine. "We passed here yesterday in the taxi," Caroline said. "The driver told me what happened. I didn't know then that the woman who was killed used to live in your building."
Didn't know she had dark hair and blue eyes
.

"No, how could you? But that was a while ago and it's got nothing to do with you or my building. But I admit it's pretty unnerving. Well, here's where you'll be working come next Monday. Frank's. You wanna go in for a bite to eat?"

Caroline looked up at the red and white awning that bore the name FRANK'S in gothic scroll. The restaurant looked warm and inviting, but though she was hungry and the smell of good food and coffee wafted out to her, a new panic gripped her.

Monday. I'll be ready Monday
.

"No, thank you, Mrs. Bannister." She moved on past the restaurant. "I'd just like to get some bread and tea and then I'll go home. Maybe I could watch some TV later."

The landlady laughed, and said, "Sure, I'll get Harold to carry it up. Speaking of Harold, there he is now. He's off for lunch. I'll give him the key to your room and he can take that TV upstairs and it'll be all set up when we get back."

"That's okay. He can just leave it outside the door."

She was looking across the street where Harold Bannister was unlocking his bike from the post in front of the bakery, and didn't see the displeasure on the landlady's face at her suggestion that her nephew leave the TV in the hallway.

Harold gave them a half-wave, then dropped his head as if embarrassed at seeing them here, so close to his workplace. He was dressed in a black hooded shirt, jeans and sneakers. Others were coming out of the place where he worked. Three girls, arm in arm, laughing together. She looked up at the dark green and gold sign on the faded red brick building that spelled out BIG BAKERY.

He was about to jump on his bike and Caroline saw that Mrs. Bannister was about to wave him over. "No, please, I don't want anyone else to have my key."

The woman's mouth tightened and the warmth went out of her eyes, like a light suddenly switched off.

"I have the key to your room, dear. I own the house."

"I know, but…"

"Harold is my nephew and he's a fine boy. What reason would you have not to trust him? I doubt you have anything so valuable he would want to steal it."

She'd offended her. She hadn't meant to. Hadn't meant to make her angry.

Eight

Out on the sidewalk, most of the onlookers had moved on, but the damage had been done, making a thorough investigation of the crime area difficult. Shoeprints over shoeprints, rubberneckers wanting to get a look, at the same time afraid of what they might see.

Yesterday, they had cordoned off the area with crime tape, then waited around until the body was zipped into a body bag and driven off to the morgue before leaving. No sirens, no speed, no reason for urgency.

He emerged from the alley, pretty certain she didn't die here. But before Detective Thomas O'Neal could get to the cruiser, a familiar looking glamour-puss blond from the local TV station shoved a microphone in his face.

"I'm hearing there's a similar pattern between how this girl met her fate and the nurse who was murdered in late August. Can you comment, Detective O'Neal?"

He paused long enough tell her he didn't know who her sources were, but that they were being premature, speculating. The investigation was hardly underway. "When I have more details to offer the public, I'll release them." Until then, he had no further comment. He pushed past her, as pleasantly as he could manage, ignoring the next question she threw at him. "Was she sexually assaulted, Detective?"

***

There is always a chill in the morgue, and that faint smell of death and formaldehyde permeating the air, that most cops never got used to. Detective O'Neal was no exception.

The alley had reeked of urine. O'Neal knew bums and drunks coming out of the bar down the street used it as a public toilet, evidenced by the dark yellow stains he saw running down the side of the building. She deserved a better resting place.

Even this was an improvement.

Her dark hair had fallen to one side of the slab she lay on. A clot of blood had dried at the corner of her mouth. Her face was bruised and swollen, eyes near shut, slits of dead blue showing.

Just as she'd looked back in that alley. Except she'd been fully dressed then, in a green paisley blouse and black slacks that looked expensive to Detective Tom O'Neal. Her white wool jacket was smeared with blood. She'd worn black stiletto sandals with those thin straps that flatter a woman's leg. Not that she'd needed any help. Beautiful woman when she was alive. Damn shame.

Her blouse had been buttoned unevenly, signaling to the detective that someone else had dressed her, probably after she was dead. Her hair was matted with blood, lifeless blue eyes staring blankly up at the strip of azure sky visible above the alley where she lay. There were blood spots in her eyes, evidence of strangulation, borne out by the bruises on her neck, no doubt made by the killer's thumbs.