Soap Opera Slaughters (19 page)

She reluctantly obeyed. I turned the key the rest of the way, then, holding a handkerchief over my nose and mouth, very gently turned the knob and pushed in the door.

The smell of gas was overwhelming.

Taking a deep breath, I passed cautiously through the hall and into the living room. Grabbing the first heavy object I could lay my hand on, I hurled it through the picture window, part of which shattered. Luckily, the house is set back a distance from the promenade; there was little danger of the fragments injuring someone below. Gasping for air, I seized a chair and swung it repeatedly against the window, widening the ragged aperture.

In the rush of fresh air, I turned and saw Florence seated in a nearby armchair, white and stiff. I tried to find a pulse or heartbeat, but failed. Her skin felt as waxy as it looked, and her limbs were rigid.

Sucking in as much fresh air as my lungs could hold, I started towards the kitchen.

The oven and all four burners were on. The pilot light was out I turned everything off and stood by the range staring stupidly, trying to clear my head. My eyes were tearing and my knees felt weak.

“Gene.
”

Lara swayed in the kitchen archway gasping for breath, pale with terror. I stumbled to her and the two of us lurched down the hall like drunkards. She staggered through the front entrance first, and I crawled the last few feet, collapsing in a heap outside.

After we felt better and the fresh air had a chance to circulate, we cautiously returned to the apartment. I asked Lara to call the police while I went back to the living room.

Now that I could look around without squinting, I saw the typewritten note taped to the aquarium. I walked over and almost started the air pump, but then stopped myself; I didn’t know for a fact that all the gas was gone, and the switch might spark.

I read Florence’s note without removing it from the glass.

I killed Ed Niυen out of jealousy in the manner described last night before three witnesses. I attempted to implicate Joanne Carpenter by planting his clothes in her dressing room. Later I put alcohol into prop medicine I knew she would swallow during taping. I struck Joseph T. Ames when he caught me reading certain private papers in his office.

I cannot live with this disgrace.

Florence was in the armchair near the aquarium, the same she’d occupied Monday night when Lara helped her relax before bedtime by plumping up the pillows, bringing her a ton of Valium and tuning in
WQXR
. My eyes automatically drifted to her sound system, then back again to the dead woman.

I felt a hard knot in my stomach. What was taking Lara so long? Had I sent her into the kitchen too soon? Maybe the gas hadn’t all cleared. Going down the hall, I looked in, but she wasn’t there. I stopped for a moment, trying to quiet the growing tightness inside. I turned and hurried further down the corridor.

I found Lara just hanging up the phone in a small blue bedchamber, the first neat room I’d seen in the apartment It was warm and cheery with a flurry carpet and canopied bed that was all lace hangings and puffed pillows. The dresser was covered with Irish linen held in place by a framed portrait of Florence arm in arm with a man I knew was Ed Niven from the picture I’d seen in the newspaper. A polished mahogany night table held the extension phone and message unit, while underneath, its shelves were full of scrapbooks bulging and trailing edges and faded brown corners of tattered newspaper and magazine clippings, the last scraps of a life that started when a nine-year-old girl did a specialty dance on the Ted Mack Amateur Hour.

“The ambulance will be here any minute,” Lara said.

“Good. Why don’t you wait outside for it? It’s healthier.”

“How about you?”

“I’d better call Lou first.”

When she was gone, I rang up the inspector and gave him a fast précis of the past twelve or thirteen hours and promised I’d stick around till he got there.

Then I went back to the living room, pulled the microphone out of the sound system and pried the
H.M.S
. Pinafore
cassette from Florence’s stiff fingers.

I put it in my pocket and went downstairs.

S
INCE THERE WAS ABSOLUTELY
nothing else Lara could do, and she had her next day’s script to learn, I prevailed upon Fat Lou to let her go. There was no chance of getting away myself, so I submitted to a barrage of questions, which I handled pretty well, glossing over ambiguities with qualifiers like “in my opinion” and “to the best of my knowledge.” Hanging around actors a few days honed my technique.

Betterman eventually released me, and I trudged over to Montague Street, opening the buttons of my shirt as I went. My car was in a garage near the bistro where Hilary, Willie and I had passed a pleasant half-hour the night before; I’d moved it after the emergency squad arrived and before Lou showed up.

As I passed the bistro, a few thoughts occurred to me. I went inside. The place was cool and nearly empty. I stepped up to the bar, ordered a double Bushmill’s, downed it and then requested a Beck’s. I took bottle and glass over to the wall telephone.

I had no luck at Polyclinic, but Micki gave me Joanne’s private number without too much fuss. I got the actress in on the first ring.

After we were through talking, I called Jess Brass’ office and made an appointment to see her in an hour. Then I returned to the bar and ordered a refill.

“Of which?” the bartender asked. “The Bush or the beer?”

“Both.”

It was a program I intended to pick up again after I saw the columnist.

When Hilary entered her lobby shortly after five o’clock, she found me sprawled on the green leather sofa waiting for her.

“Left my car in Brooklyn Heights,” I said, carefully pronouncing each syllable.

“I should
hope
you didn’t drive in that condition. What’s wrong with you? Never mind, tell me inside after you’ve had some coffee.”

“No, no,” I said, ponderously shaking my head, “haven’t you heard? Coffee’s bad for the pancreas.”

“I’d suggest you worry about your liver first. Are you able to stand?”

“For
what?
”

She sighed. “All right, brightness, put your arm around me. I’ll help you.”

I think I said something stupid then, me or someone else hiding inside, but damned if I remember what. All I can clearly recall is Hilary smiling at me with a kind of curious sadness, and then the next thing I knew, she had her door open and I was slouching in her office, sitting in my old chair slopping black coffee all over my chin.

Twenty-five minutes later, give or take. Lots of caffeine followed by aspirin. Hilary never lost her patience, raised her voice or blamed me, but once I was coherent again, she pulled her desk chair close to mine.

“All right, Gene, what’s the matter? I never saw you like this before.”

“Florence McKinley’s dead.”

“Oh,
no!”

“Yes. I phoned her this morning from Lara’s, didn’t like what I heard, rushed over there and found Florence in front of her fish tank with the gas on.”

“We never should have left her alone last night”

“No. But Lara insisted—”

The doorbell rang. Hilary answered the summons and let in her cousin. Lara was in lightweight gray slacks and blouse and had her hair pinned in a net. She was carrying a script. When she saw me, her eyes widened.

“Gene, I had no idea where you got to. I thought you would’ve called by now.”

“Well, I asked Hilary to invite you over. I’ve got something I thought you’d want to hear.” I fished in my pockets till I found the
H. M.
S.
Pinafore
cassette, the second of a set of two. One side contained the last half of the second act from the “Bell Trio” to the Finale, while the other held a complete performance (1927 D’Oyly Carte) of
Trial By Jury.
I handed it to Hilary and asked her to bring out her tape recorder and put on Side A.

Lara looked dubious. “Gene, I don’t have much time. I’ve got lines to learn for—”

“Trust me,” I interrupted. “There might be something worth hearing besides Gilbert and Sullivan. I found this tape clutched in Florence’s hand this morning.”

The cousins stared at me, surprised and shocked. “Lou let you take this with you?” Hilary asked skeptically.

“Nope. He doesn’t know it exists.” I pointed to the label. “Hilary, note the timings.”

She held it up and read, “Side B,
Trial By Jury,
thirty minutes thirty seconds. Side A,
Pinafore
Act II Conclusion, nineteen minutes and nine seconds. Hmm. Roughly eleven minutes of blank runoff at the end of Side A.”

“So what?” Lara asked.

“So,” said Hilary, immediately on my wavelength, “we all know Florence McKinley was a penny pincher. I suppose she couldn’t stand the notion of wasting eleven whole minutes of tape. In fact, the thought crossed my mind last night when—”

“Look, this is silly,” Lara broke in. “You can’t record on a commercial cassette. They’re manufactured so they won’t work that way on a home machine. I know, I tried it once.”

“Lainie, look at
this
one.” Hilary pointed to a pair of thin strips of adhesive pasted over the two holes on the ends of the top edge of the cassette. “That’s all it takes. The holes are punched by the manufacturer to prevent accidental taping over of their album on home machines. But if you cover the apertures with Scotch tape, you can then use the empty footage that you sometimes find at the end of commercial reels. As a matter of fact, Lainie, I noticed that Florence kept a roll of tape on the dust cover of her phonograph, right next to an
FM
program guide.”

“Uh-huh,” I nodded, “so did I.”

Hilary put down the cassette and left the room to get her recorder. While she was gone, Lara hovered over her cousin’s desk, examining the tape. After a moment, she turned to me.

“Gene, maybe Flo had some music playing at the end. She might’ve just taken this out of the recorder and—”

“No.” I shook my head. “She was definitely making a voice recording. When I found her body, I noticed a microphone plugged into her sound system. It wasn’t there last night when we left.”

Lara might’ve asked me something else, but Hilary returned with her portable cassette machine and put Side A of the tape in it. Lara took the black leatherette lounge seat near Hilary’s desk and watched her cousin press fast forward, monitor, fast forward, monitor, eventually bringing the recording down to speed at the recitative preceding Buttercup’s penultimate song.

“Close enough,” said Hilary. “Let’s listen.”

Hold! Ere upon your loss

You lay much stress,

A long-concealèd crime

I would confess.

Pinafore
never had a grimmer audience. The three of us sat sober-faced through the literal last Hurrahs of the jolly operetta. A long ensuing silence—then we again heard the solo piano piece by Gottschalk.

“
Le Bananier
” Hilary said. “It surprised me last night when it began to play. Florence didn’t change the cassette, yet instead of
G&S
, Gottschalk suddenly emerged from the speakers. That made about as much sense as coupling a Bach toccata to a Loretta Lynn disc, so I figured Florence probably was in the habit of using segments of blank tape on her commercial albums to record music off
FM
.”

The piano solo ended. Another pause. I glanced at Lara, but saw nothing more in her than casual interest. Hilary, however, seemed unusually intent. We waited out the silence. Suddenly, we heard the unmistakable voice of Florence McKinley.

MEMO TO MR. WILLARD FROST

MOST OF WHAT LARA’S FRIEND SAID WAS TRUE. ED CALLED, SAID WE NEEDED TO TALK SATURDAY. HE WAS WORKING UP THE NEW “BIBLE,” SO WE MET FOR LUNCH NEAR THE STUDIO. HE TOLD ME HE INTENDED TO BREAK OFF WITH ME. HE SAID THERE WAS ANOTHER WOMAN. OF COURSE I GREW UPSET, SO HE TOOK ME OUT OF THE RESTAURANT BECAUSE HE NEVER COULD ABIDE PUBLIC SCENES. WE WENT TO WBS, BUT THE GUARD WAS ON HIS ROUNDS AND THE LOBBY ACCESS DOOR WAS LOCKED, SO WE TRIED THE OUTSIDE FIRE EXIT AND FOUND IT OPEN. WE AVODIED ED’S OFFICE—TOO NEAR THE NEWSROOM—AND ANYWAY, WE’VE OFTEN GONE TO THE TOP FLOOR SLEEPING ALCOVE TO BE ALONE.

WE ARGUED. HE TOLD ME I WAS CONDUCTING A VENDETTA AGAINST JOANNE CARPENTER, WHICH TOLD ME WHO WAS BEHIND IT ALL. I CRIED. ED NEVER COULD STAND A WOMAN’S TEARS. HE DID HIS BEST TO COMFORT ME, AND WE ENDED UP MAKING LOVE, BUT AFTERWARDS...NEVER MIND. HE INSULTED ME. OUT OF ANGER, I PUSHED HIM AWAY FROM ME. THAT’S WHEN HE LOST HIS BALANCE, FELL AND HIT HIS HEAD.

A longish silence. Her breath sighed unnaturally loud over the speaker. When she resumed, her voice grew increasingly languid.

IT WAS AN ACCIDENT, BUT I PANICKED. YOU HEARD ESSENTIALLY WHAT HAPPENED TONIGHT FROM LARA’S FRIEND. I TOOK THE PILLOW TO THE BASEMENT TO BURN IT. ON THE WAY BACK UP, OLD WOODY SAW ME. I ASKED HIM NOT TO MENTION I WAS THERE AND GAVE HIM A FEW DOLLARS. BUT HE CALLED ME ON SUNDAY AND SAID HE’D BEEN FIRED, SO I’D BETTER HELP HIM OUT. I TRIED TO PUT HIM OFF, BUT HE INSISTED ON SEEING ME MONDAY NIGHT AFTER LARA AND GENE LEFT. I WAS LATE TO WORK THE NEXT MORNING BECAUSE I HAD TO STOP AT THE BANK AND MAKE A LARGE WITHDRAWAL WHICH WOODY PICKED UP LATER THAT MORNING AT WBS. AND THAT’S—

Click.
The cassette ran out of tape and stopped. Lara exhaled audibly. “She never finished.”

I shrugged. “I suspect she was pretty close to done. Wouldn’t you say so, Hilary?”

“I don’t know. She didn’t have time to mention either Joanne’s poisoning or Ames’ clubbing.”

“Hilary, come off it, don’t you know what she would have said?”

“No, I don’t.” She gazed at me oddly. “Gene, why did you remove this tape? Won’t Lou need it?”

“No. I took care of all that. Let’s not get sidetracked. On Sunday, you and Lara came to my place in Philly. What was going on then between the two of you?”

The cousins exchanged glances. Hilary’s fingers tapped a rapid tattoo on her desk top. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, Gene.”