No Word From Winifred

by Amanda Cross

  “Have you an idea? Let me remind you, it’s not that easy to dispose of a body.”

  “That’s what they say; I’ve never understood it. Take the farm where Winifred worked; you haven’t seen it, but it’s surrounded by fields and woods. If you just dug a deep enough grave, and put the body in it, who would notice?”

  “It surfaces eventually,” Reed said. “Maybe not for years, but that would hardly be security for the man who put it there. Did you know that when someone buries a body in the desert, a flower grows there, nourished by the decaying flesh? A sure giveaway. In the woods, dogs dig bodies up.”

  “I know, I know,” Kate said. “And here in the city, criminals encase the bodies in cement and drop them in the river.”

  “Have you ever tried working with cement? You need a place to mix it, and a way to dump anything that heavy in the river. That’s gang work.”

  “I think it was cement all the same,” Kate said.

  “In the basement, I suppose you suppose.”

  “So you thought of it too?”

  “How could one help it, with your tales of unfixed-up basements, and Biddy’s telling you the only room down there apart from the laundry was Martin’s study? He had only to do the job when she was in California with the kids, taking his time. Then he moves out. Is that more or less how your thoughts were running?”

  “Reed, sometimes I think we’ve been married too long.”

  “I wasn’t reading your mind, my love, I was drawing the logical conclusion, as you were. The question is, what can be done about it?”

  “Is it really that easy to dig a hole in a basement floor, and to put a body into cement? I’m trying to think logically, as we should, and not notice we’re talking about Winifred.”

  “It’s damn hard,” Reed said. “But it could be done, if one had plenty of time, and no likelihood of being interrupted. He’d break the cement floor up with a pickax. He’d mix the cement in any large wooden receptacle, perhaps an old bureau drawer. If it was wooden, he could burn it, leaving, of course, bits of charred cement, but he’s not counting on anyone’s coming to look for evidence. He’d drop the body into the hole he’d dug, pour cement over it, and level the whole thing off in the end, so that, to the casual eye, what he had was the same cement floor as always. He might, if he was thorough, dirty it so that the new part looked no different from the old.”

  “All right, suppose he did that,” Kate said, looking as ill as she felt. “What do we do about it? Ask Biddy if we can borrow her house for the weekend, and dig up the basement?”

  “Not to be recommended,” Reed said, “for a number of reasons. I’ll spare you the obvious ones about warrants and destroying property. There’s also Biddy. Suppose Martin got a good lawyer who could come close to proving that Biddy had buried her there? I doubt our understanding of the strength of the friendship between the two women would carry much weight in court.”

  “Obviously,” Kate said, “we are going to have to face him with it. That is, I’m going to have to face him with it. If there are two of us, he’ll simply shut up. He’s got to be enticed into conversation, and then shocked into self-incrimination. And don’t try to argue me out of it.”

  “Certainly not,” Reed said. “I think it’s a super idea, simply super. You accuse a murderer of his crime, indicating along the way that you know where he buried the body. Then you get up and walk away. Kate, a man who has killed once will kill again to cover the crime. Even if you’re willing to risk finding yourself in the basement with Winifred, I’m not.”

  “But you’d know where I was, and could dig us both up.”

  “True, there is that consolation. Don’t forget that killing you would be worth it to him. You can’t be hung for more than one murder. We don’t hang people now, thank God, but the principle’s the same: in for a penny, in for a pound. Of course, I’m babbling. Kate, I’ve been wildly supportive of your antics over the years—forgive me: of your very important investigations—but this time you have to listen to me. Unless I’m with you when you confront him, and we have a decent backup system, you cannot risk this. It won’t help Winifred, let me point out.”

  Kate tried hard to speak calmly. “Reed, surely you can see that I can’t just sit back and let him get away with murdering her, without at least finding out what happened. And you know enough of the police and the D.A.’s office to know they wouldn’t listen to me, or even you, for a minute. Habeas corpus, and all that. I know it doesn’t mean you need a body, but it does mean you need a case, and all we have is Winifred’s disappearance and wild suspicions. You can’t argue with me there, can you?”

  “Why don’t we both talk to him, then?”

  “You mean, ask him here for a social evening with an old married couple and just say, an hour after he arrives: ‘By the way, where did you put her body?’ ”

  “Why is he any likelier to talk to you if you meet him alone?” Reed asked.

  “It’s more logical,” Kate said. “After all, he used to work in my period. I read his paper on Graves, and I could indicate a new interest in Charlotte Stanton, about whom by now I can sound quite knowledgeable, believe me. He doesn’t know I know Biddy, I’m pretty sure of that. There is a chance that he saw my ad, and that would make him suspicious, but he could hardly refuse my invitation on that account; in fact, he’d have to accept it. My invitation. Reed, don’t you see, I could bring that off, but not if it’s a social occasion with me and my significant other. I’ve got to see him alone; it’s the only way I’ll manage it at all. You do see; what I love above all is your ability to see things honestly, and admit it.”

  “How about this, Kate? You get in touch with him, arrange to meet him, but somehow—I don’t care with what excuse—get him to meet you here. I won’t be in evidence; you can tell him you’re alone, or just let him assume it. But I want to be in the apartment, and I want to be able to hear what goes on.”

  “Reed, I will not tape-record what he says. I can’t tell you why, but that appalls me. To tape-record someone’s conversation when he hasn’t been warned is as paradigmatic of what’s wrong with the world today as anything I can think of.”

  “Granted. So you’d rather let him get away with Winifred’s murder, or succeed in silencing you with no one the wiser.”

  “Ends and means. Reed, it’s always ends justifying means. That’s how it all gets started. Our motives are pure, so it’s all right if we do what the bullies and tyrants do.”

  “All right, we won’t record it. We’ll compromise. We’ll just fix it so that I can hear the conversation. That way, I can call in the troops, if necessary, or come to your aid; I can also testify to what he said, though I can hardly wait for the moment in court when I’m asked in cross-examination why I didn’t record the conversation, and I answer, ‘Because my wife considers tape recorders immoral.’ Never mind, I’ll go along with you if you’ll go along with me. After all, if I’d wanted to spend my life with a sensible woman, I’d have married much earlier, and not you. But you must agree to meet him here, and to traduce your Girl Scout soul far enough to lie about your being alone here. Take heart, he may not ask; he may just assume it.”

  Kate was silent with her eyes shut for so long that Reed wondered if she’d fallen asleep. Then she opened them. “You’re on,” was all she said.

  Getting Martin Heffenreffer to the apartment turned out to be easier than Kate could even have hoped, let alone anticipated. He was glad enough to see her when she called expressing an interest in his work; indeed, so pleased that she concluded he had not seen the ad and was very lonely. It was child’s play to arrange the meeting for her apartment. That he might misinterpret the invitation as a more personal one than Kate intended was always a danger, but all things considered, hardly a major one. Only the Stan Wymans of the world assumed that every woman was dying for their sexual attentions, which perhaps explained the paucity of their succ
esses, if Leighton’s analysis was to be believed. Reed had no difficulty setting up the eavesdropping system while Kate was out of the room; no point in rubbing it in. He also saw no point in mentioning that there would be a policeman in the room with him, someone with a gun and the ability to forget what he had heard, if necessary, and who owed Reed a favor.

  Kate had invited Martin for tea or a drink. Reed having persuaded her that the earlier the meeting started, the better. Martin, given his choice on the phone, had, unlike Richard Fothingale, chosen beer.

  From the moment he arrived and sat on the edge of a chair, his arms resting on his knees, it was clear that Martin was nervous and exhausted. Well, Kate reminded himself, he’s lost his love and his wife, and a large stake in his children. He needn’t be a murderer to look harried.

  Kate was able to open the conversation naturally enough by speaking of her recent interest in Charlotte Stanton, without, of course, mentioning what had led her to that interest. Martin seemed ready enough to speak of her, despite the fact that he must have known of Stanton’s connection with Winifred. But Kate had mentioned reading the papers from the Houston MLA session, and there was no reason to suspect her motives.

  “Stanton’s always being compared to Graves,” Martin said, “and I think that’s unfortunate. They’ve nothing in common but a classical education and a gift for storytelling. Graves was a poet, and full of mystical ideas about the White Goddess and other fancy theories. Stanton was a very down-to-earth person, from all I can gather. They’re compared also because they were both at Oxford at the same time, but all that says really is that they’re almost the same generation. I don’t think there’s much to discuss about their similarities beyond that.”

  “Do you like Stanton’s novels?” Kate asked, really curious.

  “They’re okay. She’s more of a romantic than Graves; she portrays individuals—fictional, of course—with higher motives, a greater sense of honor and personal integrity than does Graves. He’s likelier to see the sinister motives in those in power. And there’s another odd thing. He wrote of women—have you read Homer’s Daughter, or even the Claudius novels? Stanton seemed to scorn women. I’ve noticed that women consider it unrealistic to put women into stories set in ancient Greece, but men don’t, at least some men don’t. What do you make of that?”

  Kate found herself interested by his conversation, and attracted by his observations. Well, was that so surprising? Not all murderers are brutes, obviously; perhaps only those who get found out. Intelligence must count for something, here as elsewhere. “I’ve noticed it often,” she answered. “As though scholarly women are afraid of being accused of being fanciful, whereas men can take the chance. And Graves wasn’t holding down an academic position; remember that.”

  “You mean, it was all right for her to write popular novels about ancient Greeks, as long as she maintained a high standard of syntax and didn’t make too much up for which she hadn’t evidence?”

  Kate nodded. She was quiet for a time, offering him another drink, deciding to take the plunge, when he took it for her.

  “I used to know someone who knew Charlotte Stanton when she was a child,” he astonishingly said. “Since you seemed to be looking for her in that ad of yours, I assumed you knew her too.”

  “I didn’t know her, I’m sorry to say,” Kate said, handing him his beer. “In fact, I put that ad in because I wondered where she’d got to.”

  “What made you wonder?” he asked.

  “A friend of mine was looking for her and couldn’t find her,” Kate said. Near enough to the truth. In fact, the truth.

  Martin merely nodded, and drank. Kate, although she had meant to put him out of her mind, thought of Reed listening and wondered what he was making of this. What was she to do? Come out with it: Where did you put her body? How did you kill her?

  “I’ve met your wife,” Kate said. “I’ve seen your house. I ought not to have asked you here without telling you that; so now you know.”

  “So it was Winifred you wanted to talk about. I guess I always knew. I guess what I couldn’t resist was the thought of talking about her. I loved her, you know; I’ll always love her.”

  “Do you ever think of her in your basement?” Kate not so much said as heard herself say. My God, she thought—invoking, as was a common enough habit, a being in whom she did not believe—what have I done?

  “My basement?” Martin repeated, as though Kate had said “the moon.” “What do you mean, my basement?”

  So they had been wrong about that. No, he was lying. He had always planned to lie. I am lousy at this job, Kate thought.

  “All right,” she said, suddenly angry, “let’s just make it a question: What did you do with her body?”

  “What body?”

  “Winifred’s,” Kate all but shouted. “Isn’t that who we’re talking about? Isn’t that who’s disappeared?”

  “Jesus Christ,” Martin said. “You think I killed her. You think I killed Winifred. Well, why not, why shouldn’t you think that? I don’t know how much you know about all this, but you’re not far wrong. I wanted to kill her, at least, I discovered I wanted to kill her. I’m obsessed by her, but I’m trying to get over it. I’m not doing very well, but I didn’t kill her. Thank God, I didn’t kill her.”

  “Tell me about it,” was all Kate could say.

  “Starting when? When I met her? Do you know how we met? It was through Charlotte Stanton, in fact. But perhaps you knew that.”

  “I didn’t know, but I guessed,” Kate said. “Don’t start with when you met her. Start with your meeting with her at Kennedy airport, when Stan Wyman saw you.”

  “Oh God, yes, Stan Wyman. He always had the hots for Biddy.”

  “Why was Winifred there? Why did she come back so suddenly from England? Start there,” Kate said.

  Martin got up and began pacing the room. His body was taut, like a tennis player’s before serving, and for the first time Kate realized the possible danger from a man at the edge of violence and likely to pass over the edge at the merest touch. “You can’t imagine the state I was in,” he said, and Kate thought: You’re giving me a pretty good idea. Kate had known few men who became physically wrought up in this way, who shook their fists and moved about frantically. Suddenly he stopped, stared out of the window, his back to Kate, and spoke.

  “When I came upon Biddy and Winifred, laughing together—the sort of laughter only long affection can account for—I thought I would go mad, quite literally mad. Later, I accosted Winifred. It was her I minded about, you know, not Biddy—of course, I minded them knowing each other so well, but it was Winifred I felt betrayed by: she’d gone behind my back to my wife; she was a spy in the enemy country; there isn’t a horrible metaphor I didn’t employ. I tell you, I was close to madness. I confronted Winifred . . . oh, not long after, when I thought I had enough control of myself not to kill her, not, at any rate, to beat her up—I did hit her, you know, I hit her so hard she nearly fell, which frightened me. She said it had been an accident, they had met by accident, but that didn’t console me, not much it didn’t. ‘Okay,’ I said, but when you found out Biddy was my wife, when you heard her name was Heffenreffer—it’s not that common a name after all—you should have just faded, you should have given a false name and said “nice to have met you” and disappeared. God knows you’ve had lots of practice at disappearing. You’re hardly the world’s expert on keeping in touch. Why was it necessary to go on seeing her?’ ” Martin was lost in the story now, Kate forgotten. How long he must have needed to tell it to someone, how often he must have told it to himself.

  “She simply left me, of course; she took a job on some damn farm. I didn’t know where she was; neither did anyone. I tell you, I nearly went crazy with anger. Don’t ask me why; I don’t know, though I’ve tried to think about it. I wanted her to myself, you see. I loved her like I’d never loved anyone—not eve
n Biddy, not even the children. It was an obsession, I guess, but a quiet one. I mean, till I found out about her and Biddy, I didn’t know I was obsessed. I just thought I was happy. I thought: Life is wonderful as they said it could be. Don’t ask me who ‘they’ is. I guess I must have known it was a precarious situation: Biddy was bound to find out one day, somehow or other; wives always do. The truth is, I used to picture myself discussing it with her, after she found out, I calm, reasonable, apologetic but firm, she pleading. I ought to be ashamed to say it, but that’s how I pictured it. And then I learned that they’d known all about it; that I was useful to both of them. That Winifred loved me, but loved Biddy too; Biddy loved me, but loved Winifred. Can you imagine what that was like?”

  He seemed to have become aware of a listener, and faced her with the question, but it was rhetorical. He assumed no listener could imagine what it was like.

  “Winifred took off, and Biddy and I tried to patch things up. What a joke. Every time I looked at her, I felt betrayed, as though she’d had an affair with my best friend. The kids were all that kept me at all sane, and even so they weren’t happy. They sensed—shit, they heard—the problem. I used to shout, and Biddy shouted too, after a while. Who’s to blame her? I hated her so for finding Winifred, for loving Winifred, for being Winifred’s friend. I couldn’t forgive her that, ever. It was pretty clear we better split up, Biddy and I, for the sake of the kids, as I guess they always say, don’t they?

  “In the end, Biddy kept the house; I couldn’t have stood it anyway, and I did have to think of the kids. I have them on weekends and vacations, and those times aren’t too bad. They wanted to have fun, to be with me, and I acted like every divorced father; I became the guy you had special times with, good times. I’ve heard divorced men say they saw far more of their children after the divorce than before, but I’d been a full-time father; Biddy and I shared it all. But I was glad of the chance not to have to impose schedules, and discipline, because I didn’t trust myself to be anything but indulgent. I was afraid of my anger, even the least bit of anger.