Night Call and Other Stories of Suspense

by Armstrong Charlotte

“Well, certainly, if I—if I can.” She was bewildered, but since they were policemen, she told herself that there was no need to be

  frightened.

  Miss Peacock let them turn her about and all three walked in a moving spotlight of curious glances. She was glad to think that she need not feel mortified. Nobody knew her. She knew nobody. Between the tall men, Miss Peacock tried to lengthen and hurry her stride; when at last they took her into a doorway, she was out of breath.

  The place was a lingerie shop—just a slot, long and narrow, with one aisle, one counter, and one wall of shelving. On a stool, deep inside, sat a woman. Another policeman leaned beside her. The woman lifted a mass of improbable red hair, and from her painted face a pair of angry brown eyes inspected Miss Peacock.

  Almost at once the woman cried out, in a hoarse and furious voice, “That’s her! That’s the dirty old birdy! You got her!”

  Miss Peacock staggered. Then a man in a brown suit whirled in from the street, nodded to all the policemen, and said cheerfully, “Miller’s my name. Detective. Now, what’s all this?”

  “I’ll tell you,” The redhead’s furious voice gained still more volume and her hands and shoulders began to move dramatically. “I’m Naomi Nelson and this is my shop. So I get here to open up, first thing this morning, and here’s this old birdy waiting to get in. I’m not open yet, see. It’s not nine o’clock. But I got a kind heart. Yah. No sooner do we get in the door, she pulls this gun on me. Look at her! You wouldn’t believe it.”

  “Gun?” said the man in the brown suit.

  “We found a gun,” said one of the policemen, “in the trash can on the corner. Pair of gray silk gloves, also.”

  “That’s right,” cried Naomi, “gloves and all. A real pro, that’s Grandma here. Right away she backs me into the stockroom, behind the curtain. Listen, I mean! First thing in the morning? I’m scared about green.

  I fainted dead away. When I come to, I’m on the floor of the stockroom, and has she got me tied up, but good! Pair of panties stuffed in my mouth. Ugh! Stocking around my jaw. See the marks? Hands and feet. Look at my wrists. I’m a nervous wreck. And talk about gall! All I got on me, see, is the change for the register. So what does Grandma do? She takes over, that’s what she does, and all morning, I’m telling you, I’m lying in there and she’s waiting on my customers and taking in the money. On top of this, she’s got the air-conditioner running for the noise, so nobody can hear me trying to moan and groan. I coulda passed out for good, you know?”

  The man in the brown suit said, “How did you get free, Miss?”

  “Well, see, I always get a lunch-hour rush and then it dies down. Real down. So about a quarter of one, it must have been, some man comes in and starts calling, ‘Hello. Hello.’ So I know she’s gone and I bang around in there and he finds me. She’s gone all right, but she didn’t get far. I got to hand it to you cops. You’re good, I’ll say that. You got her. That’s her, all right. Hiya, Grandma,” said Naomi viciously.

  Everyone in the shop now looked at Miss Peacock. She said, “I don’t know anything about this. I’ve never seen this—this young woman. I’ve never been in here before.”

  “Hah hah,” Naomi let out a theatrical laugh.

  “Can you identify yourself, Ma’am?” asked the man in the brown suit.

  “I am Mary Peacock. Miss Peacock. I don’t quite . . . Beyond stating who I am, how can I identify . . .?”

  “A driver’s license?”

  “I don’t have one. But I do have a l-library card.” Miss Peacock was rummaging hopefully in her purse. “They may know me there. I have a bankbook, of course, but not with me. There is my landlord. I am rather at a loss,” said Miss Peacock, not without spirit. “This woman is simply mistaken.”

  “I’d know her in hell,” said Naomi passionately.

  The man in the brown suit moved between them and asked Miss Peacock to empty her purse on the counter. So she plucked out her clean handkerchief, scented from her sachet, her compact and her lipstick. She took out her coin purse, billfold. The coins were heavy. The bills were a five and a one. She showed her library card. Her fingers found the pearl-handled pocket-knife that she always carried. One of her brothers—all dead now, all gone—had given it to her sixty years ago. Then a small salt cellar, only an inch or so high, with a shaker top.

  A small packet of cleansing tissue. A roll of mints for the breath. The Order of Worship from last Sunday’s service. A small circle of wire strung with little brass safety pins. Then, and finally, a folded wad of paper money, from the side pocket.

  “Hah hah,” cried Naomi, who was breathing on the man’s neck. “There it is. That’s my money.”

  “I beg your pardon,” said Miss Peacock. “This is my money.”

  “Why is it separate?” the man in the brown suit wanted to know.

  Miss Peacock, who was trembling, steadied herself. “I manage on a budget quite—quite well. Whenever, in any given week, there is something left over, I put it aside. There are forty-one dollars in bills. I have it with me because I had intended to buy a new coat today.”

  Then the redhead seemed to be shouting scorn, and the men began to confer; the place was noisy, crowded, stifling. People were peering in from the sidewalk. Miss Peacock felt as if she had fallen into a whirlpool. She began to put her things back into her purse, desperately clinging to this much order.

  Then, at last, she was breathing cooler air. The man in the brown suit was helping her into his car. The staring faces frightened her. But when the car was moving, she pulled her wits together and said, “What is going to happen, now, please?”

  The man said, “They’ll take Miss Nelson to the police station and have her statement typed up. They’ll also hunt around for some customer who was in there, this morning, and might have seen you. The girl can’t give us any names. She couldn’t see.”

  “And what are you doing with me, in the meantime?”

  “I’m checking your alibi.” She did not reply and in a moment he said, “Do you understand what I mean, Ma’am?”

  Miss Peacock understood only too well. “Sir,” she said, “I have no alibi. I came to California two months ago, from Philadelphia, where I have lived all my life. I am a librarian, retired. During the last few winters I’ve been having an annual bout with the flu, and there is no one to take care of me. So I came out here for the climate. I live alone. I have no relatives, no friends, or even acquaintances, anywhere near. No one will have noticed me, during this morning or any other.”

  “You are not exactly invisible, Miss Peacock,” he said sharply.

  “I may as well be.”

  “You can remember what you did this morning?”

  “Of course. But I cannot prove it. And you can’t, either.”

  “We’ll see,” he said.

  He stopped the car at her apartment building. Miss Peacock’s hand was not steady with the key in the lock on the second floor, but she finally managed. The man in the brown suit looked around her bed-sitting room, furnished, into her tiny kitchenette, the bathroom, the single closet.

  “It is old,” said Miss Peacock, “but the paint is fresh, and the rent is moderate. It suits me.”

  He said, “Okay. Start at the beginning. This morning?”

  “I awoke,” she said, a bit childishly.

  He was unperturbed. “When?”

  “I really can’t tell you. I try, these days, to sleep as late as I can.” She nibbled on her dry lips. “First, I put the coffee on. Then I took a shower. Then I made the bed and prepared my breakfast, and ate it. I was quite alone, of course.”

  “Did you open your door for any reason at all?”

  “Why, to bring in my quart of milk. But there was no one in the hall. I saw nobody, and nobody saw me.”

  “Go on.”

  “Then I tidied up the kitchen. I washed out some things. I took them up to the roof to hang in the air. But there was nobody on the roof.

  I was not seen.”

&
nbsp; “What time was this?”

  “About ten, I should say. I returned and attended to my plants. I nipped off the dying leaves and I turned them.”

  The man in the brown suit stepped to her window sill and inspected her three plants. A sweet potato, in water, which was sprouting nicely. One African violet, on the shady end. A geranium slip she had started in a can, a gawky thing that leaned away from the light.

  “I see they have been turned,” he said.

  “And I could have done that yesterday,” said Miss Peacock tartly.

  He glanced at her. He moved to finger the four library books on the table. “Murder mysteries? A librarian?”

  “We are human,” said Miss Peacock. “I enjoy them.”

  “All right,” he said meekly. “Go on, please.”

  “I have a lamb chop for my dinner. Nevertheless, I planned to go to the supermarket and buy some food for lunch, to eat in the park. The sun is so very nice in the middle of the day. I sit near the drinking fountain. I know it is rather a gypsy thing to do . . .”

  The man said, “And then?” He looked as if he were struggling not to smile, or scowl.

  “I sat there for some time, contemplating my purchase, you know. Anticipation is so great a part of one’s pleasure. At last, I walked over to the shopping street. And you,” said Miss Peacock abruptly, “know the rest.” She sat down suddenly, feeling rather exhausted.

  “How much is your income, may I ask?”

  She told him. It was very small. “I can manage,” she insisted. “I am frugal. As a matter of fact, I enjoy the effort and all the little victories.” Miss Peacock was not sure about the expression on his face, whether it was doubt or pity, but she hadn’t asked for pity. “I suppose my life has become very much constricted, very narrow, as most lives do when they are drawing towards an end. That is not to say I don’t appreciate every drop of it.”

  “I see,” he said in an odd way.

  “You must also see,” said Miss Peacock spunkily, “that I am right. I have no alibi. It is hopeless to try to prove anything that I have

  told you.”

  “I don’t know about that,” he said, “since I haven’t tried, yet.”

  The woman who answered the neighboring door was stout and fresh of face. The man in the brown suit was well-spoken and respectful. Mrs. Bradley was perfectly willing to answer his questions. “Well, no, I didn’t see her, not this morning. Miss Peacock, did you say? How ja do?”

  “How do you do?” said Miss Peacock with numb lips.

  “But I heard her in her shower, I know that, if it helps any.”

  “At what time, Ma’am?”

  “Well, I couldn’t say exactly. I was rushing around, myself. Before eight thirty, that’s for sure. I had to go out, then.”

  “Did you see a bottle of milk at her door?”

  “Any time I get out of this place that early, I’m still blind as a bat.

  I guess I didn’t notice.”

  “Then you can’t give an exact time when you were sure that Miss Peacock was in her apartment? Were you sure, by the way, that it was she?”

  “Why, sure, I’m sure. She sings. In the shower. ‘Ancient of Days’ and like that. These walls . . .”

  Miss Peacock spoke painfully, “I am very sorry. I had no idea.”

  “Oh, no, now, listen,” said Mrs. Bradley, “don’t stop. I like to hear the old hymns. They take me back. Don’t stop. Gee, I’m sorry.” Mrs. Bradley’s round face took on the pout of a deprived child.

  Marveling a little, Miss Peacock let the man in the brown suit lead her up two flights to the roof. There was another tenant up there, a youngish woman, struggling with some slippery pink garments, some clothespins, and her basket.

  Her name was Mrs. Terry Payne, she told the man, and no, she had not met Miss Peacock before. Oh, she had seen her, but not this morning. “Only thing I can say,” said Mrs. Terry Payne, “she must have hung out her things after nine forty-five. ’Cause that’s when I hung out mine, and hers weren’t up here, then.”

  “You recognize her things, then, do you?”

  “Oh, sure,” said Mrs. Payne. “Listen, I’ve noticed them before.

  See, I’m a slob,” she said candidly. “Always wish I wouldn’t fall for so many bargains and end up with such junk. Look at her underwear.”

  Miss Peacock stood on the roof, not knowing whether to be mortified or not.

  “Real dainty,” said Mrs. Payne. “Quality. The kind to last. Oh, well,

  I got no sense, really.” She sighed. “If that’s all . . .?” She left them.

  The man in the brown suit asked Miss Peacock politely if she would care to take her things down to her apartment, now that they were dry, and freshen up, perhaps? He would meet her in the lobby. Miss Peacock did all this, thinking hard.

  Afterwards, coming down the one flight, she could hear her landlord speaking.

  “Minds her business. No complaints. No trouble. And I’ll tell you something else. Pays her rent smack on the first day of the month. I’m sorry I didn’t happen to see her this morning. Oh, Miss Peacock. Listen, if there’s anything I can do . . .”

  “Thank you very much, Mr. Gould,” said Miss Peacock. “But I am in this gentleman’s very competent hands.”

  The gentleman in the brown suit said sternly, “What about mail?” He was looking at the row of brass boxes.

  “I receive very little personal mail,” said Miss Peacock, “and none this morning. There was a circular, addressed to Occupant. I threw it in a trash basket on the way to the supermarket. Proving nothing.”

  “True,” he said ruefully. He led her out of the building. “Which way to the supermarket?”

  As they walked together down the familiar blocks, she said, “Even a thief, I presume, might take a shower. As for my wash, how can you prove I hung it there?”

  “I can’t,” he said carelessly, watching on all sides. He stopped at the corner gas station. “Do you know this lady?” he asked the man at the pump.

  “Well, I’ve seen her,” said the gas-station man, nodding to Miss Peacock cordially. “I guess she’s a neighbor. Right? She goes by, pretty near every day.”

  “Did you see her go by this morning?”

  “Huh?” The gas-station man wanted to know why he was asked and when he found out that it was police business he became very cautious. “I’d say I probably did. But I can’t swear to it. Too easy to get mixed up, when you’re busy, like I am. Sorry, Ma’am.”

  “It’s quite proper to be careful,” said Miss Peacock amiably.

  The gas-station attendant turned and said to the detective, “Gee, I wish I could swear. I’ve got two girls at home. Seems to me I spend half my life trying to get them to stand up straight. I keep telling them, ‘look at the actresses.’ I keep telling them, it’s not only healthier, it’s prettier. Every time I see this lady walking by, I think of how I wish I could get it through their heads, so they’ll walk like her, some day.”

  His face was red with the embarrassment of being so open and personal. He nodded and stepped backward to his duties.

  Miss Peacock and the detective walked on. Her back was straight and her feet were light.

  It was a huge market. The girl at the proper checkout stand was wearing her blonde hair in an enormous pouf. Under it, her face looked pinched and small and shrewd.

  The man in the brown suit spoke his piece and the girl said, “Yeah. What I mean, I’ve seen her, lots of times. Um, boy,” said the girl, “and many is the time I wish I could belt some of these people a good one in their jaw. She’s a lady. I notice that.”

  “Oh?”

  “Listen, what I mean, she don’t buy much, but she waits her turn. And some of these big fat mamas, with two carts-full of stuff to check out, they haven’t got the kindness to step aside and let her through.” The girl wiggled and scratched her scalp with a pencil. “Burns me up,” she said.

  “Did you see her in here this morning, Miss?”

 
; “I dunno,” said the girl. “Was you in here?”

  Miss Peacock nodded before the detective could stop her.

  “Sure I saw her,” said the check girl loudly, looking very wide-eyed and exactly like a liar.

  “At what time?”

  “This morning.” The girl shrugged.

  “What did she buy?”

  The girl’s lashes quivered. “A Spanish onion,” she said loudly, and her eyes slid to Miss Peacock, to see whether she had guessed correctly. A look of delighted mischief came into her face, but she suppressed it immediately. “Listen,” she said, all innocence, “how I remember. One time I says to her, ‘What do you do with all those onions?’ I says to her. I’m kidding, see. She buys one at a time. Well, she tells me she eats them raw in a sandwich because they’re healthy. So I remember. Right?”

  Miss Peacock swallowed. “Yes, I too remember that conversation.

  But it was several weeks ago.” She smiled at the girl.

  “And she looks healthy,” the girl burst out. “A lot of old people are creeps, you know? But not her. I’ll swear,” she said.

  The man thanked her gravely and led Miss Peacock away. She met his eye and had to smile. “Not a good witness,” she pronounced.

  “She was obviously guessing.”

  “Did she guess right?”

  “As a matter of fact, she did. I bought two rolls, one small tomato, and a medium-sized Spanish onion. I have my little knife. You saw it. And a little salt. I made myself the sandwiches in the park.”

  He goggled at her. “Somebody ought to remember that,” he said.

  “I doubt it,” said Miss Peacock gently.

  They walked on to the little square park and the man looked about at the grass, the trees, the drinking fountain. “See anybody who was here this morning?”

  Miss Peacock sank down on her accustomed bench. “Yes, I think so,” she said in a moment. “Two of the children. That little girl in blue, and the one in green.”

  The man in the brown suit walked away. He had no sooner squatted down to speak to the little girls when a young woman came hurrying out of a house, opposite, and across the grass.

  Miss Peacock watched, almost dreamily. The detective evidently made his routine speech. The young woman, at first hostile, began to speak in her turn. Suddenly she lifted her arm and hailed another young woman who was just parking a car. This one came to them. The children, meantime, ran off to play. Soon the two young women and the man in the brown suit came drifting into Miss Peacock’s range of hearing.