Rather than turn on a lamp I reached into my purse for my flashlight and followed the circle of light up the stairs. The heat had been turned down for the night so I didn’t take my coat off. In my bedroom I quickly stripped and pulled on long underwear, flannel pajamas and two pairs of socks, stopping long enough only to hang up my dress. My stockings were ruined; I’d laddered them running shoeless back to the hotel after my altercation with Leo, so I pitched them into the trash can.
I went into the bathroom but didn’t bother to brush my teeth or remove my make-up. I was too tired even for those simple tasks. But once in bed, under a mountain of blankets, I couldn’t sleep. Everything that had happened to me since Joe and I had stopped in at the Baron Steuben for a drink last Saturday kept running through my head. Witnessing the discovery of Floyd Stinson’s bloody corpse was just the beginning of a weeklong nightmare made worse when Joe left town and I didn’t get to see him or talk to him beforehand.
I no longer remembered exactly what I had told Miss Osborne, what I had told Sergeant Royal (or rather not told him) or what I had told Mavis Forrester and Leo Maxwell about the case. Or when, for that matter. I’d lost track of my lies, although most of them were lies of omission rather than outright ones, but I was too tired and confused to care. On Monday, when I went in to work, I would give Miss Osborne a complete report. She would tell me what I was allowed to tell Sergeant Royal, and I would report to him. Then I intended to wash my hands of the entire affair. Al was dead. I was still not convinced he’d murdered Stinson, but it wasn’t my job to clear his name, and there was nothing I could do for him that I hadn’t done already.
‘Don’t look at me like that,’ Ada said. ‘I’m may not be much of a cook but I’m capable of removing a plate of fried Spam and waffles from the warming oven.’
The kitchen was the warmest room in the house, so Ada and I were enjoying a late morning cup of coffee at the kitchen table. Phoebe and Dellaphine were at the Western Market buying groceries for the week with our ration books and the morning newspaper sale ad. The men, Milt and Henry, were in the lounge listening to the news on the radio.
For once I had slept later than Ada. It was almost eleven o’clock in the morning when I made my way downstairs, the latest I had slept in years. Since Dellaphine didn’t cook on Saturdays Phoebe had fixed breakfast and saved me a plate, bless her. In a most un-Ada-like rush of domesticity, Ada laid the table in front of me with napkin, knife and fork and brought me the plate of waffles and Spam. She even went into the pantry to get the maple syrup.
‘You’re being quite the housewife,’ I said, as I took a bite of Spam. It was crunchy, just the way I liked it. ‘What are you planning to do today?’
‘Rehearse,’ she said. ‘It’s too cold to go shopping.’
Ada was an accomplished musician. When she practiced I could hear her through the wall that separated our bedrooms. She played with the Willard Hotel house band, which was more than half female now. I wondered if she would be able to keep her job after the war when the men came home. She’d take a huge pay cut if she had to go back to teaching the clarinet instead of performing. She didn’t seem to worry about her future after the war, though, not the way I did anyway.
‘And what are you going to do?’ Ada asked me. ‘Read, as usual?’
‘No, I’m going to the zoo.’
‘You’re joking. In this weather?’
‘I need to clear my head. Besides, the new gorilla baby might be on display.’
‘You’re a queer girl, Louise.’
The zoo was almost deserted. It was strange to see it on a Saturday afternoon without throngs of people crowding the park and queuing at the various animal houses. I guessed it was just too cold and people were still worried about catching the flu. This was all right with me, I wanted to be alone anyway.
I’d bundled up in long underwear, corduroy trousers and a thick sweater under my coat. With my gloves and a scarf wrapped around my head I was comfortable, but the brisk walk from the bus stop to the ape house warmed me up even more. As I passed the seal and beaver ponds I saw the animals frolicking happily in frigid water. Or rather, the seals were frolicking and the beavers were working industriously on yet another dam. A couple with two children bundled up so that you could see only their eyes watched their antics.
In the ape house there were no other spectators but me. The animals were sensibly inside, in their viewing cages, avoiding the cold. The ape family seemed half asleep. Even Sultan was curled up in a straw nest, his eyes half open while one of his ‘wives’ groomed him. I was disappointed that the baby, Daudi, and his mother, Eshe, weren’t on display yet with the rest of the gorillas.
‘Do you believe in evolution?’ a familiar voice asked me. I jumped, and turned with one hand over my heart.
‘You startled me,’ I said. ‘I didn’t hear you come in.’
Mavis Forrester stood behind me, enveloped in her mink coat with her hands deep in her pockets.
‘Sorry,’ she said, gazing at Sultan and his family. ‘I was just thinking, I’m sure we’re related to apes. Look at their eyes and their expressions. What do you think?’
‘I don’t really know. Every time I come here I think how like us the apes are. But I was raised to believe in Genesis word for word.’
‘Adam and Eve and everything?’
‘Yes. Weren’t you?’
‘I didn’t go to church.’
‘Oh.’ I hadn’t attended church since I’d been in Washington but I’d spent a lot of time as a child in church or at church. I’d read about the theory of evolution but hadn’t given it much thought.
‘I’d prefer a gorilla to lots of people I know, wouldn’t you?’ Mavis asked.
‘Well, gosh, maybe,’ I answered. I didn’t know what to make of this odd conversation. ‘Quite a coincidence to run into you here.’
‘It’s not a coincidence.’ Mavis continued to stare at the gorillas while she talked with me. Her eyes seemed unfocused. Then she turned and stared directly at me, as if she was seeing me for the first time.
‘I went to your house,’ she said. ‘I wanted to talk to you. Your landlady told me you were here.’
‘How did you know where I lived?’
‘I’m a librarian. I can find anyone’s address.’
‘Well, what is it you want to talk about? Do you want to go to the café and get a cup of coffee?’
‘No, this is a good place.’ Her eyes swept over the empty room. ‘There’s no one else here.’
‘Tell me what this is all about, Mavis,’ I said.
Mutely she pulled a hand out of one of her deep pockets and showed me the object in it. A tiny silver clown with an ivory face. The one I’d noticed missing from the cocktail table in the drawing room of the German embassy. She had been the intruder the night I wandered the embassy; she had stolen the clown and the cigarette lighter and she must have been the person who’d locked the back door, trapping me inside.
She must have had a key. How?
A key. For the first time I focused on an obvious fact, that there were bound to be many sets of keys to the embassy. How would the Swiss have known how many there were? They would have accepted whatever they were given by the Americans, who would have confiscated them from all the previous occupants of the embassy. But what about the Americans who worked there? Floyd Stinson, the custodian, would have kept his set, but he was still employed at the embassy.
Who else might have had a key – legitimately, that is? Other than the obvious people. Perhaps staff who didn’t live there? Like Stinson. Or maybe a cleaning woman! The Germans wouldn’t have brought a cleaning woman from Germany. They would have hired a local person to clean. Just as they hired Floyd Stinson as custodian. A cleaning woman might have a key to the back door, where the kitchen and service areas were located. And I remembered Sergeant Royal telling me that Mavis’ mother was a cleaning woman, and how remarkable it was that Mavis had come so far up in the world.
Mavis held the c
lown up for me to see.
‘It’s so pretty, isn’t it? I don’t think I’ll sell it yet; I don’t need the money.’ She gently pushed the clown back into her pocket.
‘What else have you stolen?’ I asked.
‘Lots. Ever since the Germans left I’ve been going to the embassy. Mostly during bad weather, when the army guards huddle under the portico to smoke. You would be surprised what the Germans left behind.’ She stretched out her hand to show me the diamond dinner ring on her right hand. ‘In one of the bedrooms I found a little jewel case in a dresser drawer under a telephone book. The German woman who left it behind when our government evacuated the German embassy must have been distraught to forget it. I sold another ring and a couple of bracelets but kept this.’ She turned her hand to admire the ring. ‘I’ve found money and more jewelry, and items like the clown. That was my mistake, taking things in plain view. Floyd Stinson noticed. He figured out it was me. He knew my mother when she worked at the embassy. I used to come to the embassy sometimes with her. When he started to play chess with Al Becker at the Baron Steuben he recognized me.’
‘So that was the mansion you talked about? Where you had to sit still all day and read?’
‘That was it.’
‘And your mother had a key to the back door. I’m surprised the Germans gave her one.’
‘The butler gave it to her. He didn’t like being awakened as early as she arrived. She had to get most of her work done before the Germans woke up and came downstairs because they didn’t like to see the help. She died of pneumonia in 1939 and I found the key in the pocket of one of her uniforms when I was cleaning out her closet.’
I found myself gripping the guardrail hard with both hands, as if I couldn’t trust myself to stay standing. Why had Mavis followed me here? Why had she confessed all this to me? What did she plan to do? She clearly had a mental disease.
‘What do you want from me?’ I asked.
‘I went out to eat last night with friends, at the Bistro Français. The maître d’ told me you were asking questions about me. Where I was on Tuesday. As if I needed an alibi. I can’t have that, Louise. I must stop you. You do understand, don’t you?’
My gut knew I was in danger before I did, seizing up into a painful, hard knot. Mavis was threatening me. But before I tried to escape her I wanted to know the truth about what she’d done.
‘Mavis, did you kill Stinson?’
‘I had to. He was going to turn me in to the police. I talked him into meeting me at the bar before he did. I hinted that I was going to give him my key and some of the stolen stuff I still had to return to the embassy.’
‘You knew the key to the back door of the Baron Steuben was outside above the door.’
‘Sure. Everyone regular knew it. We saw that moron Cal reach for it often enough.’
‘I don’t understand why you hid the body behind the bar.’
‘I thought the bar would be closed because of the weather. Instead that damn kid came in to open up. You should have seen him. He was so frightened he blubbered. I promised him that I’d give him three hundred dollars if he helped me hide the body until I could get rid of it. He’d already turned on the lights and the neon sign so we didn’t have time to get it away.’
‘The two of you dragged Stinson’s corpse behind the bar where no one could see it but the barkeep. You ditched the knife and the bloody coat and tablecloth, then came back into the bar to keep an eye on Cal.’
‘It was a good plan. Should have worked. Would have except for Walt.’
‘You know that Al Becker was suspected of Stinson’s murder and that he killed himself because of it, don’t you? You’re responsible for the death of two people!’
‘He didn’t kill himself. I killed him. I ran into him on the Taft Bridge after I had dinner last Tuesday night with friends. He challenged me. Apparently Floyd had told him he was suspicious of me, asked him if he remembered my mother and me. So I had to kill him too. I just tipped him over the rail and threw his suitcase over after him. I’m very strong, you know. I swim at the Y almost every day after work.’ She was stronger than Cal, that’s for sure, strong enough to stab Floyd Stinson with the knife she found in the storage room.
Mavis wouldn’t have confessed Al’s murder to me unless she planned to kill me too.
I glanced back at the door to the ape house. No one appeared. Mavis and I were still alone.
‘Look,’ I said to her. ‘The best thing for you to do is surrender yourself. Sergeant Royal will figure out it was you eventually.’
‘I don’t see why,’ she said. ‘He’s sure Al killed Floyd. And Floyd is dead and can’t correct him. He thinks Al committed suicide. If you’re not around to tell him about me, how will he know?’
Mavis pulled a Luger out of another pocket. It was a ‘Black Widow’, so called because of its black pistol grip. She pointed it directly at me. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said, ‘but I’m going to have to kill you too. Then I’ll be safe.’
I had to use all my strength to keep from trembling and present a calm front.
‘Mavis, you’ll be caught. Someone will have seen you. Sergeant Royal is a very good detective. Three murders, you’ll hang!’
‘I don’t see why. The zoo is deserted. I haven’t seen a single guard. They’re all somewhere warm drinking coffee. The keepers won’t appear until it’s time to feed the animals. I came in through the eastern gate and I’ll leave the same way. No one was on duty there.’
I licked my dry lips. ‘Someone will hear the shot.’
‘From inside a concrete building? I doubt it. Besides, I’ll be long gone. When the doctors at your autopsy dig the bullet out of your body they’ll see it came from a Luger. I stole it out of a desk drawer in the office at the embassy. That’ll confuse them good. On my way out of the zoo I’ll toss the gun in the creek. I won’t steal anything from the embassy for a while. I’ve got lots of money stashed away. Then when I go back I’ll stay away from anything in plain sight. That was my mistake. I should have stuck to drawers and cabinets.’
Just then Sultan stretched and let out what could only be called a bellow, startling us both. He lumbered over to the bars of his cage to check us out. Mavis was distracted long enough for me to grab at the gun. I tried to wrench it from her hand, but she was very strong and I couldn’t get it away from her. With every ounce of strength I could summon I pulled her close to me and kneed her in the stomach. She cried out and doubled over long enough for me to turn around and break for the door. I’d worn saddle shoes today, thank God. A shot exploded and ricocheted off the floor at my feet, so close I could feel bits of the cement floor spraying my ankles. Another shot drove me away from the exit and toward the door to the back room where Eshe and Daudi were housed.
The shots drove Sultan wild. He screamed, beat his chest and threw himself at the bars of his cage while his family cowered in a corner. Climbing up the bars with all four limbs he clung there and howled again, rattling the bars so hard the entire cage wall shook. I found the door to the room where Eshe and Daudi had been isolated and tried to wrench it open, but the lock was jammed. Like Al had when we visited earlier, I jiggled the doorknob roughly. But while I worked at it I kept my eyes on Sultan, who was still enraged. The entire wall of bars shuddered as he threw himself against it.
Mavis had picked herself up off the floor and, still clutching her gut with one hand, apparently terrified that Sultan might break out of his cage, aimed the Luger at the enraged gorilla.
‘Don’t!’ I screamed. ‘Don’t shoot him! He can’t hurt you! He can’t get out!’
Mavis heard me and swung the gun toward me. The door gave way under my hand and swung open. I rushed into the room, turned and slammed the door shut. Lungs burning, I leaned against the door to pull myself together. I heard a guttural snort and turned to see Eshe staring at me from behind the bars of her cage. Daudi clung to her back.
‘Hi, there,’ I said, struggling to keep my voice from wavering. ‘Don’t b
e afraid. Remember I was here before with your friend Al? I’m not going to hurt you or your baby.’
Eshe didn’t believe me. She looked quite nervous and pulled her baby son even closer to her.
I heard footsteps outside the door and quickly grabbed a chair to jam under the doorknob. The doorknob began to turn as Mavis tried to get at me. I’d trapped myself here in this tiny room and didn’t see any way to get out, except to keep Mavis on the other side of the door. I didn’t think I could do that for long.
I cast about the room for a weapon and saw a thick rod balanced on top of a pile of feedbags. Picking it up, I noticed the brass battery case and two metal prongs sticking out of one end. It was a cattle prod, used to keep Eshe back when she was being fed, I supposed. I grabbed it up. I doubted it would be much use against a Luger but it was better than nothing. Where the hell were the zoo guards? Even in freezing weather they should be checking on the animal houses.
Eshe moved to one side of her cage and I noticed a door behind her, a low door with just a knob to open it. The door that led to the outside enclosure. It was secured to a wall hook to keep Eshe from opening it while Daudi was small, but just with a bit of rope. On the other side of the door I heard Mavis fling her weight at it. The chair I’d propped up against the doorknob scraped across the floor. I didn’t doubt that, unless by some miracle a guard appeared, Mavis would break through and shoot me.
‘It’s OK, girl,’ I said to Eshe, as I moved toward her cage. ‘I’m not going to hurt you.’ Eshe didn’t take her eyes off me, her arms wrapped around Daudi, who watched me curiously.
It took just a second for me to unlatch the cage door. I pointed the prod at Eshe and she shot to the corner of her cage and cowered, with her body between her baby and me. I hoped I wouldn’t have to use the prod against her.
Louise's Lies Page 19
