by Sue Grafton
Tony was watching me warily. “Did she say she went out?”
“She claims she was home with you.”
“So?”
“Come on, Tony. You’re the only alibi she has. If you were zonked on medication, how do you know where she was?”
He pressed the elevator button.
The doors opened and we got on. The doors closed without incident and we went up to six. I checked his face as we stepped into the hallway. He was clearly conflicted, but I didn’t want to press just yet. We headed down the corridor toward the suite his psychiatrist apparently occupied.
“Is there anything you want to talk about?” I asked.
“No,” he said, his voice breaking with indignation. “You’re crazy if you think she had anything to do with it.”
“Maybe you can explain that to Feldman. He’s in charge of the case.”
“I’m not talking to the cops about her,” Tony said. He tried the office door and found it locked. “Shit, he’s not here.”
There was a note taped to the door. He reached up to snatch the piece of paper, turning the movement into an abrupt shove. Next thing I knew, I was on my hands and knees and he’d taken off. He banged on the elevator button and then veered right. I was up and running when I heard the door leading to the stairway slam back against the wall. I ran, banging into the stairwell only seconds after he did. He was already heading up.
“Tony! Come on. Don’t do this.”
He was moving fast, his footsteps scratching on the concrete stairs. His labored breathing echoed against the walls as he went up. I don’t keep fit for nothin’, folks. He had youth on me, but I was in good shape. I flung my bag aside and grabbed the rail, starting up after him, mounting the steps two at a time. I peered upward as I ran, trying to catch sight of him. He reached the seventh floor and kept on going. How many floors did this building have?
“Tony. Goddamn it! Wait up! What are you doing?”
I heard another door bang up there. I stepped up my pace.
I reached the landing at the top. The elevator repairman had apparently left the door to the attic unlocked and Tony had shot through the gap, slamming the door behind him. I snatched the handle, half expecting to find it locked. The door flew open and I pushed through, pausing on the threshold. The space was dim and hot and dry, largely empty except for a small door opening off to my right where the elevator brake, sheave, and drive motors were located. I ducked my head into the cramped space briefly, but it appeared to be empty. I pulled out and peered around. The roof was another twenty feet up, the rafters steeply pitched, timbers forming a ninety-degree angle where they met.
Silence. I could see a square of light on the floor and I looked up. A wooden ladder was affixed to the wall to my right. At the top, a trap door was open and waning daylight filtered down. I scanned the attic. There was an electrical panel sitting on some boxes. It looked like some kind of old light board from the theater on the ground floor. For some reason, there was a massive papier-mâché bird standing to one side… a blue jay, wearing a painted business suit. Wooden chairs were stacked, seat to seat, to my left.
“Tony?”
I put a hand on one of the ladder rungs. He might well be hiding somewhere, waiting for me to head up to the roof so he could ease out and down the steps again. I started up, climbing maybe ten feet so I could survey the attic from a better vantage point. There was no movement, no sound of breathing. I looked up again and started climbing cautiously. I’m not afraid of heights, but I’m not fond of them either. Still, the ladder seemed secure and I couldn’t figure out where else he might be.
When I got to the top, I pulled myself into a sitting position and peered around. The trap came out in a small alcove, hidden behind an ornamental pediment, with a matching pediment halfway down the length of the roof. From the ground, the two of them had always looked strictly decorative, but I could see now that one disguised a brace of air vents. There was only a very narrow walkway around the perimeter of the roof, protected by a short parapet. The steep pitch of the roof would make navigating hazardous.
I peered down into the attic, hoping to see Tony dart out of hiding and into the stairwell. There was no sign of him up here, unless he’d eased around to the far side. Gingerly, I got to my feet, positioning myself between the nearly vertical roofline on my left and the ankle-high parapet on my right. I was actually walking in a metal rain gutter that popped and creaked under my weight. I didn’t like the sound. It suggested that any minute now the metal would buckle, toppling me off the side.
I glanced down eight floors to the street, which didn’t seem that far away. The buildings across from me were two stories high and lent a comforting illusion of proximity, but pedestrians still seemed dwarfed by the height. The streetlights had come on, and the traffic below was thinning. To my right, half a block away, the bell tower at the Axminster Theater was lighted from within, the arches bathed in tawny gold and warm blue. The drop had to be eighty feet. I tried to remember the velocity of a falling object. Something – something per foot per second was as close as I could come, but I knew the end result would be an incredible splat. I paused where I was and raised my voice. “Tony!”
I caught a flash of movement out of the corner of my eye and my heart flew into my throat. The plastic bag he’d been carrying was eddying downward, floating lazily. Coming from where? I peered over the parapet. I could see one of the niches that cut into the wall just below the cornice molding. The frieze that banded the building had always looked like marble from the street, but I could see now that it was molded plaster, the niche itself down about four feet and to the left. A half shell extended out maybe fifteen inches at the bottom edge and it held what was probably meant to be some sort of lamp with a torch flame, all molded plaster like the frieze. Tony was sitting there, his face turned up to mine. He’d climbed over the edge and he was now perched in the shallow ornamental niche, his arm locked around the torch, legs dangling. He’d taken a wig out of the bag he carried, donning it, looking up at me with a curious light in his eyes.
I was looking at the blonde who’d killed Daggett.
For a moment, we stared at each other, saying nothing. He had the cocky look of a ten-year-old defying his mom, but under the bravado I sensed a kid who was hoping someone would step in and save him from himself.
I put a hand on the pediment to steady myself. “You coming up or shall I come down?” I kept my tone matter-of-fact, but my mouth was dry.
“I’ll be going down in a minute.”
“Maybe we could talk about that,” I said.
“It’s too late,” he said, smiling impishly. “I’m poised for flight.”
“Will you wait there until I reach you?”
“No grabbing,” he warned.
“I won’t grab.”
My palms were damp and I wiped them on my jeans.
I squatted, turning to face the roof, extending a foot tentatively down along the frieze. I glanced down, trying to find some purchase. Garlands of pineapple, grapes, and fig leaves formed a bas relief design that wound across the face of the building. “How’d you do this?” I asked.
“I didn’t think about it. I just did it. You don’t have to come down. It won’t help.”
“I just don’t want to talk to you hanging over the edge,” I said, lying through my teeth. I was hoping to get close enough to nab him, ignoring visions of grappling with him at that height. I steadied myself, tucking a toe into the shallow crevice formed by a curling vine. The niche was only four feet away. At ground level, I wouldn’t have given it a thought.
I sensed that he was watching me, but I didn’t dare look. I held onto the parapet, lowering my left foot.
He said, “You’re not going to talk me out of this.”
“I just want to hear your side of it,” I said.
“Okay.”
“You won’t try to kill me, will you?” I asked.
“Why would I? You never did anything to me.”
<
br /> “I’m glad you recognize that. Now I feel really confident.” I heard him laugh lightly at my tone.
I’ve seen magazine pictures of a man who can climb a vertical cliff face in a pair of tennis shoes, holding himself with the tips of his fingers tucked into small cracks that he discovers as he ascends. This has always seemed like a ludicrous pursuit and I usually flip to an article that makes more sense. The sight of the photographs makes me hyperventilate, especially the ones taken from his vantage point, staring down into some yawning crevasse. Maybe, if the truth be known, I’m more anxious about heights than I let on.
I allowed my right foot to inch down again as far as the lip of the niche. I found a handhold, down and to the right. Felt like a pineapple, but I wasn’t sure. Pinning my safety to a phony piece of fruit. I had to be nuts.
The hardest part was actually letting go of the coping once my foot was resting safely in the recess. I had to bend my knees, turning slightly to the right, sinking little by little until I could take a seat. Tony, ever gallant, actually gave me a hand, steadying me until I eased down next to him. I’m not a brave soul. I’m really not. I just didn’t want him flying off the side of that building while I looked on. I locked my left arm around the torch, just below his, holding onto my wrist with my right hand. I could feel sweat trickle down my sides.
“I hate this,” I said. I was winded, not from effort but from apprehension.
“It’s not bad. Just don’t look down.” Of course I did. The minute he said that I had an irresistible desire to peek. I was hoping somebody would spot us, like they always do on TV. Then the cops would come with nets and the fire engines would arrive and somebody would talk him out of this. I’m an organism of the earth, a Taurus. I was never born of air, of water, or of fire. I’m a creature of gravity and I could feel the ground whisper. The same thing happens to me in old hotels when I’m staying on the twenty-second floor. I open a window and want to fling myself out. “Oh, Jesus. This is such a bad idea,” I said. “For you maybe. Not for me.” I tried to think back to my short life as a cop and the standard procedure for dealing with potential suicides.
Stall for time was the first rule. I didn’t recall anything about hanging your ass off the side of a building, but here I was. I said, “What’s the story, babe. You want to tell me what’s been going on?”
“There’s not much to it. Daggett called the house on Monday. Aunt Ramona made a note of the number so I called him back. I dreamed about killing him. I couldn’t wait. I had fantasies for months, every night before I went to sleep. I wanted to catch him with a wire around his neck and twist till it bit into his windpipe and his tongue bugged out. It doesn’t take that long. I forget what that’s called now…”
“Garroting,” I supplied.
“Yeah, I would have liked that, but then I figured it was better if it looked like an accident because that way I could get away with it.”
“Why’d he call?”
“I don’t know,” Tony said uncomfortably. “He was drunk and blubbering, said he was sorry and wanted to make it up to me for what he did. I go, ‘Fine. Why don’t we meet and talk?’ And he goes, ‘It would mean so much to me, son.’” Tony was acting out the parts, using a quavering falsetto for Daggett. “So then I tell him I’ll meet him the next night at this bar he’s calling from, the Hub, which didn’t give me much time to put together this getup.”
“Was that Ramona’s skirt?”
“Nah, I got it at the Salvation Army thrift store for a buck. The sweater was another fifty cents and the shoes were two bucks.”
“Where’d the sweater go?”
“I tossed it in another trash can a block away from the first. I thought it would all end up at the dump.”
“What about the wig?”
“That was Aunt Ramona’s from years ago. She didn’t even know it was gone.”
“Why’d you keep it?”
“I don’t know. I was going to put it back in her closet where I got it, in case I needed it again. I had it on at the beach, but then I remembered Billy already knew who I was.” He broke off, obviously confused. “I might have told my shrink about the whole thing if he’d been here. Anyway, the wig’s expensive. This is real hair.”
“The color’s nice too,” I said. I mean, where else could I go with this? Even Tony recognized the absurdity and he flashed me a look.
“You’re humoring me, right?”
“Of course I’m humoring you!” I snapped. “I didn’t come down here so we could have an argument.”
He did a half shrug, smiling sheepishly.
I said, “Did you actually meet him there Tuesday night?”
“Not really. I went. I had it all worked out by then, only when I walk in, he’s sittin’ at this table talking to some guy. Turned out to be Billy Polo, but I didn’t know it at the time. Billy was sitting in this booth with his back to the door. I saw Daggett, but I didn’t realize he had company till I was right there in front of him. I veer off the minute I spot Billy, but by then he’s had a good look at me. I’m not worried. I figure I’ll never see him again anyway. I hang around for a while but they’re really into it. I can tell Billy’s leaning all over him and isn’t likely to let up so I take a hike and go home.”
“Was this one of the nights you had a migraine?”
“Yeah,” he said. “I mean, some are real and some are fake, but I have to have a pattern, know what I mean? So I can come and go as I please.”
“How’d you get down to the Hub, by cab?”
“My bike. The night I killed him, I rode down and left it at the marina and then I called a cab from a pay phone and took it over to the Hub.”
“How’d you know he’d show up?”
“Because he called again and I said I’d be there.”
“He never twigged to the fact that you’d showed up the first time in drag?”
“How was he going to know? He hadn’t seen me since way before the trial. I was twelve, thirteen, something like that, a fat boy back then. I figured even if he guessed, I’d do it anyway, kill his ass… and once he was dead, who would know?”
“What went wrong?”
His brow furrowed. “I don’t know. Well, I do. The plan went fine. It was something else.” His eyes met mine and he looked every bit of fifteen, the blonde wig adding softness and dimension to a face that was nearly formless with youth. I could see how he’d pass as a woman, slim, with a clear complexion, sweet smile on his wide mouth. He looked down at the street and for a moment I thought he meant to swing out into space.
“When I was eight, I had these pet mice,” he said. “Really sweet. I kept ‘em in this cage with a wheel and a water bottle hanging upside down. Mom didn’t think I’d take care of ‘em but I did. I’d cut up strips of paper in the bottom of the cage so they could nest. Anyway, the girl mouse had these babies. They couldn’t have been as long as this.” He was indicating the end of his little finger. “Bald,” he went on. “Just little bitty old things. We had to go out of town one weekend and when we got back the cat had tried to get in the cage. Knocked it off the desk and everything. The mice were gone. Probably the cat got ‘em except for this one that had been laying in all these paper shreds. Well, the water had spilled so the paper was damp and the little thing must have had pneumonia or something because it was panting, like it couldn’t breathe good. I tried to keep it warm. I watched it for hours and it just kept getting worse and worse so I decided I better… you know, do away with it. So it wouldn’t suffer anymore.”
He leaned forward, swinging his feet back and forth.
“Don’t do that,” I murmured anxiously. “Finish the story. I want to know what happened next.”
He looked over at me then, his tone of voice mild. “I tossed it in the toilet. That’s the only way I could think of to kill it. I couldn’t crush it, so I just figured I’d flush it away. The little thing was half dead anyway and I thought I’d be doing it a favor, putting it out of its misery. But before I could
do it, that little tiny hairless baby started struggling. You could tell it was in a total panic, trying to get out of there, like it knew what was happening…” He paused, dashing at his eyes. “Daggett did that and now I can’t get away from the look on his face, you know? I see it all day long. He knew. Which was fine with me. I wanted that. I wanted him to know it was me and his life wasn’t worth two cents. I just didn’t think he’d care. He was a drunk and a bum and he killed all those people. He should have died. He shoulda been glad to go. I was putting him out of his misery, you know? So why’d he have to make it so hard?”
He fell silent and then he let out a deep breath. “Anyway, that’s how that went. I can’t sleep anymore. I dream about that stuff. Makes me sick.”
“What about Billy? I assume he figured it out when he saw you at the funeral.”
“Yeah. That was weird. He didn’t give a shit about Daggett, but he felt like he should get part of the money if he kept his mouth shut. I would have given him all of it, but I didn’t believe him. You should have seen him. Swaggering around, making all these threats. I figured he’d start bragging one night about what he knew and there I’d be.”
The edge of the niche was beginning to cut into my rear end. I was hanging on so tightly that my arm was getting numb, but I didn’t dare ease up. I couldn’t figure out how to get us out of this, but I knew I’d better start talking fast.
“I killed a man once,” I said. I meant to say more but that’s all I could get out. I clamped my teeth together, trying to force the feelings back down where I’d been keeping them. It surprised me that after all this time, it was still so painful to think about.
“On purpose?”
I shook my head. “Self-defense, but dead is dead.”
His smile was sweet. “You can always come with me.”
“Don’t say that. I’m not going to jump and I don’t want you to either. You’re fifteen years old. There are lots of other ways out.”
“I don’t think so.”
