After Midnight

by Nielsen, Helen

  “Bang, bang, you’re dead!”

  “Pathetic,” Simon admitted, “but powerful. And I have the uneasy feeling the commander would like to see flogging reinstituted as a part of navy discipline.”

  “I’m sure he would,” Braun agreed. “The primitive can’t think of any other way to make people work. But don’t try to reform the commander, Drake. Primitives can’t be converted—only by-passed.”

  The wind was rising off the ocean, and it was suddenly quite cool on the patio. Simon pushed aside his cup. It was time to go back to work.

  He returned to the hospital floor of City Hall.

  The woman in Wanda was fighting back even if the spirit was still weak. The first thing Simon noticed when he entered the room was a make-up mirror on the bedside table and a return of color to Wanda’s lips and mascara to her eyes. His flowers were still conspicuous on the bedside table and there was something almost pathetic in the way she turned toward him as he came through the doorway.

  “Mr. Drake, do you know about that woman?” she asked.

  “I know,” Simon answered casually. “I knew last night.”

  “Last night? But you didn’t warn me—”

  “I didn’t think it was important.”

  The bluff worked. She was too desperate for reassurance to doubt his sincerity. Quickly, he added:

  “Do you know Nancy Armitage?”

  “No,” she said.

  “Think about it. Are you sure you have never seen her anywhere? On the street? In The Profile? Anywhere at all?”

  The front page of the late afternoon edition of the local paper—with a close-up of Nancy Armitage’s stricken face staring out from under a bold headline: NURSE SAYS WANDA GUILTY—was strewn over the floor beside the bed. Simon didn’t know if this was a result of Dr. Braun’s shock treatment or an indication of Thompson’s determination to get a confession, but it did mean that the woman in the bed had seen the face of her accuser.

  And at this stage, Wanda was like a subject under hypnosis.

  Simon ordered her too think, and she thought. Frown lines worried a forehead that shouldn’t have been troubled by anything more than the daily dinner menu—if the child could cook. And why that fleeting question crossed Simon’s mind was a matter he had no time to pursue.

  “No,” Wanda repeated firmly. “I know that I’ve never seen her. I’m good about faces.”

  “What do you think of her story?”

  He had to be careful with his questions. Though Wanda was outwardly calm, the disposition of the newspaper on the floor could mean she was a hairline from hysteria.

  Her voice came in a husky whisper.

  “I don’t know why she would lie about me, do you?”

  “And you still don’t remember killing your husband—even when an alleged eyewitness details the scene?”

  “I’m sorry—”

  “I don’t want you to be sorry! I want you to think! All that has happened today—Nancy Armitage’s confession, Dr. Braun’s visit, the commander—”

  Simon stopped. There was sudden fear in her eyes when he mentioned the commander.

  “Did you see Commander Warren today?” he asked.

  “No—only Mr. Thompson and Dr. Braun.”

  “Thompson? Was the district attorney here?”

  “For a few minutes. He brought her in for identification—”

  Wanda’s glance fell to the papers on the floor. She tried to speak again but the words wouldn’t come. Perspiration dotted her forehead and threatened her carefully penciled eyebrows, and then her tension broke in great convulsive sobs.

  Simon dropped down beside the bed and held her by the shoulders until his fingers pressed a sobering awareness of pain through the wall of panic.

  “I don’t understand,” she cried. “Mr. Drake, why can’t I remember? If Nancy Armitage is right, why can’t I remember killing my own husband?”

  SEVEN

  When a lady asked a question—and her heart was in it—Simon had to know the answer. He left Wanda to recuperate from her second shock in as many days, and contacted the detective agency. Because of the nature of her work, Nancy Armitage had few secrets. The daughter of a San Diego dentist and his dental assistant wife, Nancy had studied dental nursing and then, in a rare burst of rebellion, switched to general nursing. She had lived at Mrs. Rainey’s since the migration from San Diego—a move probably sparked by the fact that it attracted retired people of means who frequently required the services of a private nurse. She was well recommended by her employers. Not gregarious, she belonged to no organizations outside her profession and the local library. She was known to have attended several of the local churches but was a member of none. And of late her church attendance had fallen off sharply. This item interested Simon enough to request a deeper search in a new area: local night spots and restaurants where she might have worn the uncharacteristic finery. That was the only flaw in the apparently spotless picture of Nancy Armitage, and Simon needed more than a virulent imagination to break down a jury’s confidence in her story.

  Duane Thompson, encouraged by the new turn of events, pressed for a quick indictment. The hearing was set for Tuesday morning. Simon had done nothing to arrange for bail. In her present condition, and with nothing to go home to but a murder house where she would be vulnerable to visits from a vindictive father-in-law, Wanda Warren was better off in the custody of the county. When, by the Monday morning preceding the hearing, neither the county psychiatrist nor Dr. Braun had been able to rouse recall, Simon took action. Thompson, like all politicians, was vain. Fortified by the Armitage story, he was now cocky with confidence and, in this frame of mind, inclined toward magnanimity. Simon stated his proposition bluntly.

  “I want to take Mrs. Warren out of the county jail for a day,” he said. “I think she’s been hit by too much in too many ways and in too brief a period of time. A complete change of scenery might prod her memory.”

  “And I think she’s lying,” Thompson answered. “I think she remembers exactly what happened the night of the murder and can’t tell us because she’s guilty.”

  “In that case, the state has nothing to lose. But if I take my client down memory lane and there’s still no recall, I’ll walk into the courtroom tomorrow under a cloud of doubt. You know what a handicap that is to any lawyer.”

  “Even Simon Drake?” Thompson teased.

  “Even Superman—if he could pass a Bar exam.”

  “And if you don’t walk down memory lane?”

  “Then I’ll be reasonably certain that Mrs. Warren’s ‘amnesia’ is nothing but the natural emotional shock caused by her beloved husband’s death at the hands of an unknown assailant while she slept peacefully in the bedroom. Reasonably certain because the district attorney is too unsure of his ground to let me try.”

  It worked. Thompson agreed to the experiment with certain limitations: namely, two plainclothes detectives as escort and a state-owned Cadillac for transportation. It was Wanda’s first venture outside City Hall since her arrest. For the occasion, Simon brought a green linen suit and accessories from the house on Seacliff Drive and a double bunch of violets from a florist in the City Hall arcade. In due time, Wanda came out into the sunlight, pale from her ordeal, with her large, bewildered eyes hidden behind dark glasses, the violets in one hand and the other clutching Simon’s in childlike trust as they hurried across the rear parking lot before the reporters could catch their scent. Franzen’s deputy sat in the front seat with the driver. Simon sat in the rear seat with Wanda and wondered how anything so lovely could get into so much trouble in so few years of life.

  He had given instructions to the driver to take them past the Rainey house on Pacific View. Mrs. Rainey was out on the patio working with her roses; Nancy Armitage was nowhere in sight. But the important thing was that Wanda showed no interest whatsoever in the house. If it, or its occupants, had any place in her life, that place was hidden behind the wall of amnesia. They drove on, then, to the hous
e on Seacliff Drive. Here Wanda did show interest. She drew back against the seat as if afraid he would ask her inside.

  “Why have we come here?” she asked.

  “Because this is where it began,” Simon said. “We’re going to go back over the route you and Roger took the Sunday he died,” Simon explained. “I want you to try to get the feel of the day. There may be some thing—some very little thing—that you see or remember that will open the door we’ve been trying to force. Where did you go when you left the house?”

  “To The Cove,” she answered. “We went directly to The Cove because we had overslept and Roger wanted to be sure he got there in rime to rent the white boat.”

  It was a cool, clear day and a steady wind came in off the sea. In off-tourist months there was little activity on the pier other than holidays and weekends. One large fishing boat was out—far enough beyond the horizon line that its masts stood against the sky like a cluster of crosses with no visible hull attached, and two of the small rental craft were shearing patterns of white foam through the deep blue fabric of the Pacific. But the white boat—the only white boat in a rainbow collection—rode at anchor with its motors raised and covered from the weather.

  Charley Becker, noting activity on the rental dock, came out of the building and strolled casually down the pier. He watched Simon and Wanda for a few moments, took interested note of the police car parked at the head of the dock, and then his blunt face brightened in recognition. Approaching Wanda, he said: “You’re the dame who stabbed her husband. I thought I’d seen you before.”

  Wanda took the accusation without a show of emotion.

  “I’m glad you’re not on the prelim jury,” Simon said. “Mrs. Warren is merely under arrest. She hasn’t been indicted—much less found guilty.”

  “I read the papers!” Becker retorted. “I dig that legal hocus-pocus. But this is off the record, man, and so I ask you—who else would kill Roger Warren? He was the one who knocked her around.”

  “When,” Simon asked, “and where?”

  “Right here in my place the evening before the murder. He came in from fishing about six-thirty—I remember the time because a storm was brewing and I was worried about my new boat.”

  “The white boat?” Simon asked.

  “That’s right. Warren always took the white boat. ‘White,’ he said, ‘is for purity.’ He had a sense of humor.”

  “Why do you say that? White is for purity, isn’t it?”

  Charley Becker regarded Simon with pitying indulgence. “Warren,” he scoffed, “with his high-powered car and his expensive tastes and his decorative filly—I mean, his sexy wife—this kind, man, is not one to know or to care about purity!”

  “How many times did he rent the white boat?” Simon asked.

  “Four times,” Becker said. “Four Sundays—one in each of the past four months. You know, I’m beginning to feel like a tape recording. These guys parked in the police car—one of them was out here with Lieutenant Franzen one day asking these same questions.”

  “And you gave him the same answers?”

  “I gave them the only answers. For four Sundays Roger Warren rented my white boat and went fishing. He always brought his own gear and his Missus. But only on the last Sunday did she jump the boat and come back ahead of him, so I figure something happened out there—something big enough to end in murder.”

  Simon looked at Wanda. She must have heard everything Becker said, but she seemed completely uninterested. Her eyes were fixed on the horizon. Simon followed the direction of her gaze and it led too the distant profile of Commander Warren’s yacht riding sleek and gray against the sky. He looked at her eyes again and now there was sadness and fear in them. He didn’t want to question her about that until they were alone again, and so he turned back to Becker.

  “And so Roger Warren came in angry,” he said.

  “What would you expect?” Becker challenged. “His wife jumped ship and came ashore with a couple of sailors and the three of them were whooping it up in a booth behind the bar when he got in. I couldn’t blame him for hitting her. All the same, I got my place to think about, so I told him to clear out.”

  “Did he go?”

  “What else? It makes no difference to Charley Becker if his old man’s a war hero. To me, Warren is just a slob who hits his wife in public, and I don’t like that kind of slob in my place. Period.”

  “And what time did Warren leave?”

  “Warren and his wife, you mean. They went out together at about twenty to seven.”

  “That leaves five hours before they reached the house on Seacliff,” Simon reflected. “I wonder where they spent all that time.”

  Becker shrugged. “Why ask me? Ask the lady.”

  Simon turned back to Wanda and found himself staring into space. She had moved quickly and quietly and, with Franzen’s watchdog commanding the head of the pier, there was only one place she could have gone. The patio entrance to the bar was unguarded.

  Becker followed Simon inside. Two truck drivers were seated at the bar and so Becker went back to work. Wanda was at the far end of the room standing before the juke box. As Simon approached, she opened the handbag the police matron had thoughtfully returned to her and dug inside until she found a coin and a match folder. She examined the match folder and then noticed Simon.

  “It isn’t going to do any good, Mr. Drake,” she said. “I told you. Mr. Becker told you. We haven’t learned anything new.”

  “And just being here doesn’t rouse memories?” Simon suggested.

  “Oh, yes—memories.” Her eyes found the window and the sea again. “He hates me, you know.”

  “The commander?”

  “Yes. I told Roger that he hated me. No, I said, ‘Your father despises me,’ and Roger said, ‘You’re mistaken. It’s me he despises. You’re incidental.’ Do you think he was right?”

  “It’s possible. I imagine Commander Warren wanted his son to follow in his footsteps. You told me that Roger was kicked out of Annapolis. Do you know why?”

  She solemnly shook her head.

  “No, he never talked about it—except once when he was drunk. He was very bitter.”

  “Roger?”

  “Yes. That’s the peculiar thing, you see. Roger fought with his father every rime they were together and pretended to hate him. But he didn’t hate him at all. He had a kind of feeling for him—like hero worship. It’s all mixed up, isn’t it?”

  Wanda looked at Simon with her troubled, little-girl face, and he couldn’t begin too tell her how really mixed up it was. He asked about the five hours that elapsed from the time she and Roger left The Cove until they arrived home. She grew very serious then and began to fill in the period bit by bit:

  “First of all,” she said, “we sat in the car. Roger was furious because I ran out on the commander. He said I had undone all the progress he’d made toward the loan. But that was silly because there wasn’t any progress. We must have sat there battling for half an hour, and then Roger started to drive. Whenever he’s—” Remembering her new widowhood, Wanda corrected herself. “Whenever he was angry, he drove too fast. We got a speeding ticket on Skyway Road.”

  “A speeding ticket—that’s good,” Simon said. “I can check on that. Where did you go after Roger slowed down?”

  “He didn’t slow down,” she said. “He took another road and we went to the Ramshead Inn for dinner. Yes, the Ramshead. Isn’t that funny? It came out so easily, and I couldn’t remember at all before.”

  “Then it’s working,” Simon said eagerly. “Try to remember more.”

  Wanda frowned at the match folder in her hand. “Maybe it’s because I just found this in my purse,” she added. “It’s from the Ramshead.”

  “Don’t analyze,” Simon urged. “Just keep talking and we’ll see what comes out next.”

  “We drove,” she said slowly. “And then I remember that Roger bought gas. I don’t know where, but I suppose we can find out. He used a cred
it card.”

  The voices at the bar had faded to an indistinct murmur. Outside, the sound of the surf gave a sense of remoteness. Wanda’s memory was wending its way back to her own driveway.

  “I think I slept some coming home,” she said, “or maybe I just passed out. Then, after Roger parked in the driveway, we started fussing at each other again. I don’t remember why. Oh, yes. I lost a heel from one of my shoes and Roger lectured me about my choice in clothes. He always said I looked cheap—but that’s how he made me feel!”

  “Nobody can make you feel cheap,” Simon said sternly. “Nobody! Remember that!”

  “You don’t make me feel cheap,” she reflected, and then unexpectedly smiled. “Violets—in September!” she said. “Where did you get them?”

  “I have an in with the florist,” Simon answered. “He grows his own in a hothouse.”

  “But violets are for spring.”

  “And spring is a state of mind. New life—renewal. It’s the first week in April—”

  Simon gave it the best sell he had, but it wasn’t good enough. Wanda’s smile faded back into that troubled frown. “It’s no use!” she said tragically. “I can’t remember any more! It always stops at the same place, Mr. Drake. I can’t remember any more!”

  And so they had made the full circle and come back to where they were in the beginning. Wanda turned away from him and studied the juke box. She would always be unpredictable. She would always do unusual things at unusual times. Now, as if it was the most important act of her young life, she ran one finger down the selector bars until she found the title wanted; then, soberly, she deposited a coin and watched a disc emerge from the stack and slide over to the turntable. Simon watched her, wondering soberly if there was any possible way of knowing when this strange child was lying.

  The music began to play—low, throbbing, sensuous. Her body swayed slightly and she hummed a few bars and then Simon, listening, asked sharply:

  “What is that song?”

  She stopped humming. “It’s called ‘Infidelity,’” she said. “They give songs such silly titles, don’t they?”