Corkscrew

by Donald E. Westlake

  'There was no indication of forced entry,' Detective Grasso said.

  'She knew her attacker,' Detective Maurice said.

  'But — why? Was it — was it, you know, rape?'

  'No, sir,' Detective Grasso said, and Bryce astounded and horrified himself by laughing. They didn't react, just both kept watching him.

  'She's dead,' he told them, in explanation, still helplessly grinning, 'beaten to death, and I'm worried about rape.'

  Detective Maurice said, 'Sir, I think you could use a glass of water.'

  'I want to hear this,' Bryce told him. 'Wednesday. Why didn't anybody tell me?'

  Detective Maurice got up and went over to the kitchen area, as Detective Grasso said, 'She was found this morning. She was supposed to see friends last night, go to a movie, I believe, and never showed up. They tried phoning her, and this morning when she still wasn't around one of them phoned the local precinct there.'

  Detective Maurice came back with a tall glass of clear water and extended it to Bryce, saying, 'You ought to drink this, sir. A bit at a time.'

  'Thank you,' Bryce said, but when he took the glass he almost dropped it, and then had to hold it with both hands. He drank some, and the edge of the glass chattered painfully against his teeth. He put it on the coffee table with a clatter, then held his hands out, palms down, and stared at them. 'I'm shaking,' he said.

  'Take it easy, Mr Proctorr,' Detective Grasso said.

  Bryce stared at Detective Grasso. He felt he was laughing again, or smiling maniacally, but he didn't seem to have any control. 'We're getting divorced,' he explained, 'we don't love each other any more, we don't care about each other, why would I — Why am I shaking?'

  'It's a shock,' Detective Grasso told him.

  'If you feel faint, Mr Proctorr,' Detective Maurice said, 'put your head down, or lie down on the sofa there. You don't want to hit your head on the coffee table.'

  'No, I'll be all right,' Bryce said. 'I'll be all right.'

  'I'm sorry, sir,' Detective Grasso said, 'but there are a few questions.'

  'Of course, sure.'

  Detective Maurice said, 'Would it help you if your fiancée was here, sir?'

  'Maybe so,' Bryce said. 'Yes. Maybe so. She's in the coffee shop.'

  'I'll call,' Detective Maurice offered, and Detective Grasso gave him his notebook, in which he'd apparently written down Isabelle's name.

  'I'm just bewildered,' Bryce told Detective Grasso, while Detective Maurice was on the phone over by the kitchen area. 'Why would anybody do that?'

  'That's what the NYPD is working on,' Detective Grasso said. 'And they asked us to help.'

  'Anything,' Bryce said. 'Anything I can do.'

  Detective Maurice came back and sat on his chair again, saying, 'She'll be right along. She sounds very pleasant, Mr Proctorr. No accent at all.'

  'No, she's really American,' Bryce said. 'She works for an ad agency in New York, she writes copy for clothing catalogues, her ex-husband was Spanish, the divorce was in Spain and he got the children, three children, it's been very tough on Isabelle, her father's doing what he can, he's retired now, back in Spain, he lives in Madrid.'

  I'm babbling, he thought, they don't care about all this, but he couldn't control the babbling either, any more than the expressions on his face. He picked up the water glass, again with both hands, and this time he managed to drink without hitting the glass against his teeth.

  'I'm sorry,' he said, as he put the glass down. 'Usually, I'm better than this.'

  'It's been a shock,' Detective Grasso said. Hadn't he said that before?

  They heard Isabelle at the door, and all looked that way as she came in. She had changed into a summer blouse and skirt, from whatever she'd worn on the plane, and looked very beautiful.

  The detectives stood, but when Bryce started to stand he lost his balance and almost fell sideways on to the coffee table. Both detectives reached quick hands in his direction, but he found his balance, stood upright, and smiled shakily at Isabelle as she hurried to him, frowning with concern.

  'Bryce, what is it?'

  'Isabelle de Fuentes,' he said, feeling formal introductions were absurd but necessary, 'these are Detectives Grasso and Maurice from the Los Angeles police. They're here because somebody killed Lucie.'

  'Lucie!' Isabelle stared from him to the detectives, and back to him. 'They don't think you did it!'

  'No no, I was here already, it was when, Wednesday.' To the detectives: 'Wednesday?'

  They both nodded, watchful. Isabelle said, 'What happened?'

  'She was beaten to death—'

  'Oh, my God!'

  ' — in her apartment.'

  'Mr Proctorr,' Detective Maurice said, 'I think you should sit.'

  'Yes, thank you, yes.'

  They all sat, Isabelle now at Bryce's right, holding his upper arm with both hands. Bryce said to Detective Grasso, 'Her apartment. I've never seen that apartment. I can't, I can't picture it.'

  'Just as well,' Detective Grasso said.

  Detective Maurice said, 'She didn't live there during the marriage?'

  'No, we have an apartment on Central Park West, and a house in Connecticut. She moved out, it was her idea to get her own place, temporary, a furnished apartment, and at the end of the divorce we'd see who'd get what place, what, what we wanted.' Frowning, he said, 'It's a furnished apartment, who knows how many keys there are.'

  'The detectives in New York have established,' Detective Grasso told him, 'that the management changes the lock code with each new tenant.'

  'There'll be a funeral,' Bryce said, and looked helplessly at Isabelle. 'I have to go to the funeral, don't I? I suppose I have to go to the funeral.'

  'Mr Proctorr,' Detective Grasso said.

  Bryce faced him. 'Yes?'

  'Could you tell me the reason for this trip, sir? Vacation, is it?'

  'Well, a working vacation, I guess,' Bryce told him, thinking, they want to know if I did what I did, got out of the way so someone else could do it for me. He said, 'I'm a novelist, and—'

  'Yes, sir,' Detective Grasso said, 'we know who you are.'

  'Oh, okay. Well, three of my books have been made into movies, and there's interest in more, so I'm here to talk to people about them. For instance, I had lunch today with George Jenkins, he has an idea to do a series of cop movies — sorry.'

  Detective Grasso seemed amused. 'That's okay, Mr Proctorr, we're cops.'

  'Okay, fine. Well, anyway, he thinks he'd like to do this series from a book of mine called Twice Tolled. What I do, I come out every once in a while, remind everybody I exist, meet with people, and usually something comes of it.'

  'And had this trip been planned for some time?'

  'Well, talking about it for some time,' Bryce said, 'but didn't finalize it until the last minute. I ran into a snag in the book I'm working on — Isabelle, you remember, I was working on it last weekend.'

  'Yes, sure,' she said. 'You seemed very happy with it.'

  'I was, until Monday. Then I saw I'd really written myself into a corner, I'm going to have to think about it for a while, so I called Jeff — he's my agent out here — and he said he could set up meetings this week, so I came out Tuesday.'

  Detective Grasso said, 'And when do you go back?'

  'Well, I planned to be here for another week or so, I've got appointments most of next week, but now, I suppose I really do have to go to the funeral.'

  Isabelle said, 'Oh, Bryce.'

  'It's very hard to believe Lucie's dead,' Bryce told the detectives. 'We didn't get along at all, the last couple of years, it hasn't been an easy divorce, but to have her suddenly gone, I can't fathom it. She's one of the liveliest people I know. Right now, I can hear her voice.' And he could.

  Detective Grasso said. 'Do you expect to be back in New York by Monday?'

  'Probably sooner, depending on the funeral.'

  'A Detective Johnson in New York will want to talk to you.'

  'Sure, of
course. Does he know how to get in touch with me? I'll be in the New York apartment.'

  'Why don't I take the address and phone number,' Detective Grasso suggested. 'Just in case.'

  'Sure.' Bryce gave it to him, and they all stood, and Detective Grasso said, 'Sorry to be the bearers of bad news.'

  'Thank you. You did it about as well as it could be done, I guess.'

  At the bungalow door, Detective Grasso gave Bryce his card, saying, 'If anything occurs to you.'

  'All right.'

  Detective Maurice said, 'At least enjoy our weather a day or two more.'

  'I will. Thank you.'

  They left, at long last they left, and Isabelle folded herself against him. 'Oh, Bryce, I feel so badly for you. What a terrible thing.'

  'Yes. Yes.'

  Arms around her, feeling the trembling in her body, his eyes squeezed shut, Bryce thought: Wayne. He has me now, he has me in his power now.

  10

  The strange thing was, he had no problem sleeping. When he was awake, Wayne was troubled by quick images of what had happened in Lucie's apartment, sharp shocking instants kept exploding suddenly like flashbulbs in his mind, and he'd physically recoil, or make a sudden muffled shout: 'Huh!'

  But at night, in his sleep, apparently there were no bad dreams, or at least nothing he remembered the next day, and Susan assured him he was sleeping heavily, almost too heavily. If she awoke during the night, no movement or sound by her would disturb his deep sleep. And then he would feel rested in the morning, physically fine. It was as though he were drugging himself, creating some secretion in the brain that kept him tranquil at night, that kept the bad things at bay.

  They hadn't talked about it at all, it, since he'd come home Wednesday night. Every morning, they got up as usual, behaved as though everything were normal, and Susan went off to work in the regular way. Wayne usually bought just the Times, but this week he was buying the News as well, in case for some reason the Times didn't carry it, and he was reading both papers much more extensively than usual.

  In the evenings, now, they'd go out for dinner and a movie in the neighborhood. By unspoken mutual consent, they didn't watch any television news, morning or night; maybe they didn't want to face anything more graphic than newsprint.

  What amazed him was the work. Thursday and Friday, immediately after the murder, he'd done phenomenal amounts of work on The Shadowed Other, and kept thinking about those characters and their story in the times when he was away from his desk. It was as though the land inside The Shadowed Other were his real life, and this out here was make-believe.

  But when would it start?

  •

  Finally, it was in Saturday's paper.

  Both papers. Of course the Times would carry the story, it was on their own best-seller list that Lucie's husband had become famous.

  The News devoted more space to the story, with two pictures, one of the building on Broadway on the Upper West Side where Lucie had died, the other a shot of Lucie and Bryce arm-in-arm, smiling at the camera in front of their Connecticut house; probably from the same photo session as the picture in People.

  Both papers had the same meager details of the murder: beaten, no evidence of a break-in, no neighbors saw or heard anything, police were working on it. The building itself was meant for transients, none of whom had known Lucie, who had moved there after filing for divorce.

  Both papers reminded their readers who Bryce Proctorr was, the News mentioning the actors who'd starred in the movies made from his books, the Times mentioning their own best-seller list. The News said that Lucie was beautiful; the Times did not.

  Both papers mentioned the divorce proceedings, and both reported that Bryce had been in Los Angeles at the time of the murder, there in connection with potential movie projects. The News had found a scene in one of Bryce's novels, Twice Tolled, that was vaguely similar to Lucie's death: 'In the novel, the husband is a suspect at first, but is proved to be innocent.' That was enterprising of them.

  Susan was home today, it being Saturday, so when Wayne brought the papers back to the apartment they sat together in the living room, she on the sofa, he in his regular chair, and read both pieces, trading back and forth. Then Susan said, 'No one heard anything.'

  'I saw that,' Wayne said. 'That's good.'

  And it was good they could let the story into their lives now because it wasn't exclusively their lives any more; Lucie Proctorr was dead in everybody's life now.

  Susan at last put the News aside and said, 'We should go out today, somewhere outside.'

  'It's cold.'

  'We shouldn't just stay in here all day,' she said. 'Cooped up in here.'

  They didn't own a car; what did they need a car for in New York? Just another expense, and the constant fuss of moving it from place to place. Those rare times when they went out of town, they'd rent a car. So Wayne said, 'You want to get a car? You want to go away for the weekend?'

  'We could do that.' The News was open on the sofa beside her, to that page. Looking at it, she said, 'I'd like to see that house.'

  'What, Bryce's house? What for?'

  'I don't know, I'd just like to. It's a sunny day, even if it is cold, it might be nice to drive around Connecticut, maybe even up to Massachusetts, spend tonight in a bed-and-breakfast up there, drive back tomorrow.'

  'I've been working—'

  'Too much,' she said.

  He smiled at her, comfortable with her. 'Too well, I was going to say. The book is moving along.'

  'You can take a day off from it.'

  Suddenly his mood changed, he felt lousy, and he flopped back in his chair. 'I could take forever off from it,' he said. 'It isn't going anywhere.'

  'Wayne, no,' she said, 'you'll find a publisher.'

  'Sure.'

  'No, you will,' she insisted. 'You can make Bryce help you.'

  'Make him?'

  'Of course. He owes you now.'

  'I'm getting money from him,' Wayne said. 'If he doesn't stiff me.'

  'What do you mean, stiff you?'

  'Just take my book and thumb his nose at me. What am I going to do, take him to court? 'I killed this man's wife for him, and now he won't pay me.' Sure. And he could switch the book around so I wouldn't even be able to prove it was mine.'

  Susan sat forward on the sofa, leaning toward him. 'Wayne,' she said, 'Bryce doesn't dare cross you. He owes you now, and he knows it, and he'll do whatever you want. Don't you know why?'

  'No,' he said. 'I don't see what you're getting at.'

  'You don't see it because you know who you really are,' she told him. 'And I know who you really are. But he thinks you're the person who did… that, on Wednesday night. He talked to you in the library in the first place because he thought you were a desperate man, and now he's sure you're a desperate man, and he'll do anything to keep you happy.'

  He looked at her, not liking what she was saying. 'Or I'll beat him to death, too? Maybe all his children?'

  'No. Wayne. If you're desperate, he can't predict you, and he can't control you. I know who you—'

  'Listen, wait a minute,' he said. 'Wait a minute. I don't want to talk about, you know…'

  'Of course you don't, and you don't have to.'

  'But just one thing,' he said. 'I didn't plan it that way, I wouldn't plan a thing like that, it wasn't supposed to happen Wednesday at all, not for who knows how long, and certainly not brutal, not, I was as, as, as surprised and scared as she was when it started. I didn't know it was going to start—'

  'Wayne, stop.'

  '— and then it started, and there was no way—'

  'Wayne, please stop, you're crying, Wayne.'

  '— to stop it, I had to keep on — Oh, Jesus Christ, Susan!'

  She came over and knelt and held him for a long while, until the shaking and the crying stopped, until he took a long deep breath and said, 'Okay, now.'

  'All right?'

  'It's over now,' he said, and he could feel that it really w
as, that some balled fist inside his chest had finally unclenched itself. 'I'll be all right now,' he said.

  She continued to kneel beside his chair, and now she leaned back, still holding his arms, to study his face. 'You're sure?'

  'I'm sure.' he said and smiled at her. 'Let's go for a drive.'

  They couldn't find the house. There weren't enough clues in the stories in the newspapers nor in the photo in the News. They knew the house was somewhere near Bethel, but all the country roads looked the same, meandering through patches of woodland, charming in the sunlight even with their leaves down. The old low stone walls undulated with the land along the roadside, and Wayne made random turns at the intersections in the little red rental Saturn. There wasn't much other traffic, and the mere fact of driving around was pleasant.

  •

  But they couldn't find the house. The large houses and estates around here were mostly set well back from the road, in among trees, hard to see, sometimes impossible, and most of these people didn't put their names on their mailboxes. After a while, they were just looking at attractive houses for their own sake.

  He only raised the taboo subject once, when they were on a rare straight stretch, black and white dairy cows in a large open field on their left, tangled brushy woods on their right. 'I'm just glad,' he said, 'I'm not dreaming about it.'

  'That's kind of a surprise, really,' she said.

  'And a relief. What if I had nightmares?'

  'You don't think you will?'

  'No. If it hasn't started by now, it won't.'

  'Good.'

  A little later, Susan said, 'I don't really need to see his house. I just needed to get out of the apartment for a while.'

  'I'm glad you talked me into it.'

  'So what do you want to do now?' He said, 'We'll go on up to Massachusetts, like we said.'

  'We can go antiquing.'

  'Why not?' he said. 'We'll be rich soon.'

  11

  The funeral was Sunday, so they flew back on the late afternoon plane Saturday, getting into Kennedy at midnight. They traveled together, because there was no reason to hide any more, no more private detectives lurking around. Everything had changed now. The burden was gone.