The Night and The Music (6 page)

Could you get much of a scream out in four seconds?

I stood in the street where she’d fallen and I looked up toward her window. I counted off four seconds in my mind. A voice shrieked in my brain. It was Thursday night, actually Friday morning, one o’clock. Time I got myself around the corner to Armstrong’s, because in another couple of hours Justin would be closing for the night and I’d want to be drunk enough to sleep.

And an hour or so after that she’d be one week dead.

I’d worked myself into a reasonably bleak mood by the time I got to Armstrong’s. I skipped the coffee and crawled straight into the bourbon bottle, and before long it began to do what it was supposed to do. It blurred the corners of the mind so I couldn’t see the bad dark things that lurked there.

When Trina finished for the night she joined me and I bought her a couple of drinks. I don’t remember what we talked about. Some but by no means all of our conversation touched upon Paula Wittlauer. Trina hadn’t known Paula terribly well — their contact had been largely limited to the two hours a day when their shifts overlapped — but she knew a little about the sort of life Paula had been leading. There’d been a year or two when her own life had not been terribly different from Paula’s. Now she had things more or less under control, and maybe there would have come a time when Paula would have taken charge of her life, but that was something we’d never know now.

I suppose it was close to three when I walked Trina home. Our conversation had turned thoughtful and reflective. On the street she said it was a lousy night for being alone. I thought of high windows and evil shapes in dark corners and took her hand in mine.

She lives on Fifty-sixth between Ninth and Tenth. While we waited for the light to change at Fifty-seventh Street I looked over at Paula’s building. We were far enough away to look at the high floors. Only a couple of windows were lighted.

That was when I got it.

I’ve never understood how people think of things, how little perceptions trigger greater insights. Thoughts just seem to come to me. I had it now, and something clicked within me and a source of tension unwound itself.

I said something to that effect to Trina.

“You know who killed her?”

“Not exactly,” I said. “But I know how to find out. And it can wait until tomorrow.”

The light changed and we crossed the street.

She was still
sleeping when I left. I got out of bed and dressed in silence, then let myself out of her apartment. I had some coffee and a toasted English muffin at the Red Flame. Then I went across the street to Paula’s building. I started on the tenth floor and worked my way up, checking the three or four possible apartments on each floor. A lot of people weren’t home. I worked my way clear to the top floor, the twenty-fourth, and by the time I was done I had three possibles listed in my notebook and a list of over a dozen apartments I’d have to check that evening.

At eight-thirty that night I rang the bell of Apartment 21G. It was directly in line with Paula’s apartment and four flights above it. The man who answered the bell wore a pair of Lee corduroy slacks and a shirt with a blue vertical stripe on a white background. His socks were dark blue and he wasn’t wearing shoes.

I said, “I want to talk with you about Paula Wittlauer.”

His face fell apart and I forgot my three possibles forever because he was the man I wanted. He just stood there. I pushed the door open and stepped forward and he moved back automatically to make room for me. I drew the door shut after me and walked around him, crossing the room to the window. There wasn’t a speck of dust or soot on the sill. It was immaculate, as well-scrubbed as Lady Macbeth’s hands.

I turned to him. His name was Lane Posmantur and I suppose he was around forty, thickening at the waist, his dark hair starting to go thin on top. His glasses were thick and it was hard to read his eyes through them but it didn’t matter. I didn’t need to see his eyes.

“She went out this window,” I said. “Didn’t she?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Do you want to know what triggered it for me, Mr. Posmantur? I was thinking of all the things nobody noticed. No one saw her enter the building. Neither doorman remembered it because it wasn’t something they’d be likely to remember. Nobody saw her go out the window. The cops had to look for an open window in order to know who the hell she was. They backtracked her from the window she fell out of.

“And nobody saw the killer leave the building. Now that’s the one thing that would have been noticed, and that’s the point that occurred to me. It wasn’t that significant by itself but it made me dig a little deeper. The doorman was alert once her body hit the street. He’d remember who went in or out of the building from that point on. So it occurred to me that maybe the killer was still inside the building, and then I got the idea that she was killed by someone who
lived
in the building, and from that point on it was just a question of finding you because all of a sudden it all made sense.”

I told him about the clothes on the chair. “She didn’t take them off and pile them up like that. Her killer put her clothes like that, and he dumped them on the chair so that it would look as though she undressed in her apartment, and so that it would be assumed she’d gone out of her own window.

“But she went out of your window, didn’t she?”

He looked at me. After a moment he said he thought he’d better sit down. He went to an armchair and sat in it. I stayed on my feet.

I said, “She came here. I guess she took off her clothes and you went to bed with her. Is that right?”

He hesitated, then nodded.

“What made you decide to kill her?”

“I didn’t.”

I looked at him. He looked away, then met my gaze, then avoided my eyes again. “Tell me about it,” I suggested. He looked away again and a minute went by and then he started to talk.

It was about what I’d figured. She was living with Cary McCloud but she and Lane Posmantur would get together now and then for a quickie. He was a lab technician at Roosevelt and he brought home drugs from time to time and perhaps that was part of his attraction for her. She’d turned up that night a little after two and they went to bed. She was really flying, he said, and he’d been taking pills himself, it was something he’d begun doing lately, maybe seeing her had something to do with it.

They went to bed and did the dirty deed, and then maybe they slept for an hour, something like that, and then she was awake and coming unglued, getting really hysterical, and he tried to settle her down and he gave her a couple of slaps to bring her around, except they didn’t bring her around, and she was staggering and she tripped over the coffee table and fell funny, and by the time he sorted himself out and went to her she was lying with her head at a crazy angle and he knew her neck was broken and when he tried for a pulse there was no pulse to be found.

“All I could think of was she was dead in my apartment and full of drugs and I was in trouble.”

“So you put her out the window.”

“I was going to take her back to her own apartment. I started to dress her but it was impossible. And even with her clothes on I couldn’t risk running into somebody in the hallway or on the elevator. It was crazy.

“I left her here and went to her apartment. I thought maybe Cary would help me. I rang the bell and nobody answered and I used her key and the chain bolt was on. Then I remembered she used to fasten it from outside. She’d showed me how she could do that. I tried with mine but it was installed properly and there’s not enough play in the chain. I unhooked her bolt and went inside.

“Then I got the idea. I went back to my apartment and got her clothes and I rushed back and put them on her chair. I opened her window wide. On my way out the door I put her lights on and hooked the chain bolt again.

“I came back here to my own apartment. I took her pulse again and she was dead, she hadn’t moved or anything, and I couldn’t do anything for her, all I could do was stay out of it, and I, I turned off the lights here, and I opened my own window and dragged her body over to it, and, oh, God in heaven, God, I almost couldn’t make myself do it but it was an accident that she was dead and I was so damned
afraid — ”

“And you dropped her out and closed the window.” He nodded. “And if her neck was broken it was something that happened in the fall. And whatever drugs were in her system was just something she’d taken by herself, and they’d never do an autopsy anyway. And you were home free.”

“I didn’t hurt her,” he said. “I was just protecting myself.”

“Do you really believe that, Lane?”

“What do you mean?”

“You’re not a doctor. Maybe she was dead when you threw her out the window. Maybe she wasn’t.”

“There was no pulse!”

“You couldn’t find a pulse. That doesn’t mean there wasn’t any. Did you try artificial respiration? Do you know if there was any brain activity? No, of course not. All you know was that you looked for a pulse and you couldn’t find one.”

“Her neck was broken.”

“Maybe. How many broken necks have you had occasion to diagnose? And people sometimes break their necks and live anyway. The point is that you couldn’t have known she was dead and you were too worried about your own skin to do what you should have done. You should have phoned for an ambulance. You know that’s what you should have done and you knew it at the time but you wanted to stay out of it. I’ve known junkies who left their buddies to die of overdoses because they didn’t want to get involved. You went them one better. You put her out a window and let her fall twenty-one stories so that you wouldn’t get involved, and for all you know she was alive when you let go of her.”

“No,” he said. “No. She was dead.”

I’d told Ruth Wittlauer she could wind up believing whatever she wanted. People believe what they want to believe. It was just as true for Lane Posmantur.

“Maybe she was dead,” I said. “Maybe that’s your fault, too.”

“What do you mean?”

“You said you slapped her to bring her around. What kind of a slap, Lane?”

“I just tapped her on the face.”

“Just a brisk slap to straighten her out.”

“That’s right.”

“Oh, hell, Lane. Who knows how hard you hit her? Who knows whether you may not have given her a shove? She wasn’t the only one on pills. You said she was flying. Well, I think maybe you were doing a little flying yourself. And you’d been sleepy and you were groggy and she was buzzing around the room and being a general pain in the ass, and you gave her a slap and a shove and another slap and another shove and — ”

“No!”

“And she fell down.”

“It was an accident.”

“It always is.”

“I didn’t hurt her. I liked her. She was a good kid, we got on fine, I didn’t hurt her, I—”

“Put your shoes on, Lane.”

“What for?”

“I’m taking you to the police station. It’s a few blocks from here, not very far at all.”

“Am I under arrest?”

“I’m not a policeman.” I’d never gotten around to saying who I was and he’d never thought to ask. “My name’s Scudder, I’m working for Paula’s sister. I suppose you’re under citizen’s arrest. I want you to come to the precinct house with me. There’s a cop named Guzik there and you can talk to him.”

“I don’t have to say anything,” he said. He thought for a moment. “You’re not a cop.”

“No.”

“What I said to you doesn’t mean a thing.” He took a breath, straightened up a little in his chair. “You can’t prove a thing,” he said. “Not a thing.”

“Maybe I can and maybe I can’t. You probably left prints in Paula’s apartment. I had them seal the place a while ago and maybe they’ll find traces of your presence. I don’t know if Paula left any prints here or not. You probably scrubbed them up. But there may be neighbors who know you were sleeping with her, and someone may have noticed you scampering back and forth between the apartments that night, and it’s even possible a neighbor heard the two of you struggling in here just before she went out the window. When the cops know what to look for, Lane, they usually find it sooner or later. It’s knowing what you’re after that’s the hard part.

“But that’s not even the point. Put your shoes on, Lane. That’s right. Now we’re going to go see Guzik, that’s his name, and he’s going to advise you of your rights. He’ll tell you that you have a right to remain silent, and that’s the truth, Lane, that’s a right that you have. And if you remain silent and if you get a decent lawyer and do what he tells you I think you can beat this charge, Lane. I really do.”

“Why are you telling me this?”

“Why?” I was starting to feel tired, drained, but I kept on with it. “Because the worst thing you could do is remain silent, Lane. Believe me, that’s the worst thing you could do. If you’re smart you’ll tell Guzik everything you remember. You’ll make a complete voluntary statement and you’ll read it over when they type it up and you’ll sign your name on the bottom.

“Because you’re not really a killer, Lane. It doesn’t come easily to you. If Cary McCloud had killed her he’d never lose a night’s sleep over it. But you’re not a sociopath. You were drugged and half-crazy and terrified and you did something wrong and it’s eating you up. Your face fell apart the minute I walked in here tonight. You could play it cute and beat this charge, Lane, but all you’d wind up doing is beating yourself.