Woman in the Window

by Thomas Gifford

  MacPherson followed Farraday into another office and Tony went along with Danmeier for a quick drink. Things were moving quickly but Natalie knew she couldn’t just disappear without leaving a trace. She dialed Lew’s number and got the answering machine. She started to leave a message but heard the telephone being picked up.

  “Natalie? Are you there?”

  “Yes. I’m so glad to hear you, Lew.”

  “What’s the matter? You sound funny.”

  “A lot has happened and I feel funny. MacPherson has got a line on the man with the gun. His name is Barry Hughes and he killed his roommate yesterday, a guy named Brad Nichols—”

  “Sure, sure, I heard about it on television—he’s the gun thrower, this Barry?”

  “Yes. They’re setting a trap for him. A policewoman posing as me is going to be at my place tonight—”

  “Where are you, Nat?”

  “At the office. MacPherson is here. They’re taking me out to Tony’s aunt’s house on Staten Island tonight. I’m going to stay there until it’s over—he doesn’t think it’ll be long. I can’t talk more now, but I wanted you to know where I’d be.” She gave him the telephone number on Staten Island.

  “Look, do you want me to come out with you? Is there anything I can do?”

  “No, really, I’ll be fine. There’s no way he could find me out there, and the police are turning my place into an armed camp.”

  “Will you call me once you get settled?”

  “Sure I will. And by the way, I saw Dr. Drummond today. I liked him a lot. He wants me to stay in close touch, gave me his private number.”

  “Good, that’s terrific. I told you he was a good guy. Well, you’d better get going. Don’t forget—call me when you get there. Promise?”

  “Sure.”

  “Everything’s going to be all right, kid.”

  She dug through her purse until she found the piece of notepaper Drummond had given her. She called his direct number and recognized his voice.

  “It’s Natalie Rader,” she said. She was out of breath.

  “Yes, Mrs. Rader. You sound upset. Is everything all right?”

  “Well, in a manner of speaking. The police have decided they want me out of the way until they can catch this guy—”

  “The killer of the man you told me about this morning?”

  “Right. I thought you might try to get hold of me and nobody would tell you where I was. I’m going to my former husband’s aunt’s house on Staten Island. I’ll give you a call when I’m back—”

  “I take it they think they’re on the killer’s trail?”

  “Yes. They don’t think it will be long until it’s all over.”

  “Well, I’m sure they’re right, Mrs. Rader. They know what they’re doing. Enjoy your stay on the Island.

  It’s very peaceful out there. And whatever you do, don’t worry. Every nightmare comes to an end. Why don’t you give me a number and I’ll check on you tomorrow?” She gave him the number and he told her once again that he was sure the ordeal was just about over. “It’s all very exciting, isn’t it? In a bizarre way, of course.”

  “As MacPherson says. It’s a movie.”

  “Well, just relax. I’ll give you a call tomorrow.” She hung up the telephone and sighed, sank back in her chair. The two psychiatrists had made her feel immeasurably better.

  Now she had only to keep herself tightly under control. She was trying to wait patiently, and it was more of a job than she’d anticipated. When Farraday got to the apartment, the officer had thought she’d been followed. Once inside, she’d called MacPherson at the agency. Time had slowly ticked away while Natalie’s street was scanned by a plainclothesman … but it had been a false alarm. By then MacPherson was hungry and decided to send out for sandwiches for Tony, Natalie, and himself. But she hardly tasted the food, tuned out of the sparse conversation, spoke briefly with Farraday, who called in hoping to catch them, wondering where the dog food was. Finally it was time to go.

  The wind coming off the water was bone chilling. Foghorns groaned and the commuters shuffled anxiously, collars turned up, backs to the cold, waiting to board the ferry. The lights of Manhattan looked warm and cheery behind them and Natalie felt like a little girl, escaping from her cares and worries across the water to the old castle. She felt slightly light-headed, not quite herself. It was the speed of events. And she hadn’t eaten anything since breakfast.

  MacPherson stomped his feet, banged his hands together. He was quiet and she knew he was thinking past Natalie to what lay ahead. It was Barry Hughes on his mind, not Natalie Rader. She felt as if she had almost faded into the past for him. She remembered the Christmas tree and D’Allessandro, wondered if MacPherson believed her about Saturday night. … Her head was beginning to ache. Snow blew like sand across the crusted surface of the water. It was time for the ferry to go. MacPherson grabbed her arm, told her once again that she shouldn’t worry, that it was all going to be fine, that she was handling it like a trooper. She nodded, not really listening, not really caring what he was saying. Everybody seemed to be saying the same thing anyway. …

  She sat alone in the drafty cabin, listening to the chatter of her fellow travelers, hearing the creaking of the ferry and feeling the throb of the engines, half-dozing, letting her body rock to the movement all around her. It had been years since she’d last ridden the ferry but it might have been yesterday. The ride wasn’t one of the things that changed.

  MacPherson had told her to give a cop named Patterson a call when the ferry docked and he’d run her out to the house, but when she arrived he was waiting for her. MacPherson had called ahead. Patterson carried her bag and she settled into the darkness for the quick ride. She was alone and it felt so wonderful, so incredibly unencumbered and safe. Huddled in the back of the police car, feeling the wheels search out a path in the rutted snow, she experienced one of those moments that came sporadically—one of those moments when she wondered what it would be like to kiss it all goodbye, find a little town upstate or in the Berkshires and open a bookshop and serve tea and coffee and become the town’s mysterious spinster. … Not exactly an original fantasy, but soothing and better than dreaming of being a disco queen. She was smiling tiredly when the car slushed to a halt at the foot of the long brick walk that led to the dim shape of the old house. She checked her pocket for the key Tony had given her, thanked Patterson, slung her bag over her shoulder, and pushed on up the snowy walk down which Tony had scraped a path barely as wide as the shovel. It was funny, but looking up at the house brooding in the moonlight filtering through the low, heavy cloud layer, she felt as if she were coming home.

  The house really was a bit of a Victorian gingerbread monstrosity, more so inside than out. It had been in the Rader family forever, and from the looks of it none of the generations of tenants had ever thrown away anything. It was a world of doilies, antique firescreens before the fireplaces, shawls draped over rickety occasional tables, japanned boxes and bric-a-brac and sheet music from the twenties propped up on the piano, which Auntie Margaret still insisted she played to calm her nerves. Presumably when she wasn’t off appreciating John Davidson in Atlantic City. Even the television verged on the prehistoric, an Admiral with rounded corners on the screen. Padded rocking chairs, fringed carpets and lampshades. The firewood in the boot was dry and she laid a fire, built a pile of kindling beneath it, and in no time there was a warm glow radiating from the hearth.

  The kitchen was huge. The vast facade of cupboard doors hid endless stacks of dishes, glasses, baking supplies. She found the tea and made a pot, toasted some bread, scrambled a couple of eggs, and finally settled herself in front of the fire. The wind whispered at the windows, and over the second cup of tea she felt the tension draining away from her neck and shoulders, felt her body and psyche letting go.

  Her mind turned not to what was going on in New York, at her apartment, where the policewoman and MacPherson waited for the killer, but back, willy-nilly, to her paren
ts, to happy times she had treasured because of their scarcity. She remembered sitting much like this at a lodge one winter, the fire crackling, her parents at ease with each other. Rare, wonderful, an image of what she had wanted her marriage to be. She shook her head, watching the flames lick at the old bricks. A girl’s dreams …

  The telephone rang and for a moment she couldn’t quite remember where she was. She groggily found it on a special little table with feet like claws. It was Lew.

  “Hey, you didn’t call me,” he said. “Are you all safe and sound?”

  “Safer than you can imagine. It’s like being in another century, Lew. I made a fire and some tea and eggs and fell asleep in a rocking chair. It’s great.”

  “Dammit, I wish I’d insisted on coming out with you. Just for the night. I’m going to be thinking about you out there—I could still drive out, Natalie. I’d like to—

  “No, really, Lew. I’m fine. I’m going right to bed and I’ve got a Robert Benchley I saw in a bookcase picked out for reading myself to sleep—it really is a time machine. I’m fine. Don’t worry.”

  He grudgingly accepted defeat. “But be sure to keep a radio or the TV on, for company. And leave some lights on. I don’t want you getting scared out there all by yourself. The house sounds like something out of Mary Roberts Rinehart—”

  “It is, it is, and I love it. And there’s a huge graveyard next door! Can you believe it?”

  “Christ, I wish you hadn’t told me.” He paused for a moment. “Well, I guess I’ll let you go to bed. And, Nat, be safe out there. You’re very special.”

  “Good night, Lewis,” she said softly and slowly replaced the receiver.

  She was putting the kitchen in order, rinsing off her dishes and putting the milk back into the refrigerator, when a stray thought crossed her mind.

  The cats.

  Where were the cats?

  Tony had specifically said something to her about his aunt’s cats. But she hadn’t seen a cat since she’d gotten there. Still, there in a corner of the kitchen, on the floor, was a large saucer of milk and beside it a bowl of cat food.

  Well, Aunt Margaret must have decided to drop them off with a friend. What else, after all?

  She took a long hot bath in a bathroom roughly the size of her own kitchen. She was reading the Benchley when she heard something. At first she thought it was the wind whining outside. But it persisted, the same sound again and again.

  Slowly it seemed to clarify itself in her mind.

  A cat meowing.

  But far away. A faint sound. Coming again and again.

  She lay in the steaming water, motionless, listening. Was it a cat? One that had been left behind? But then the wind would whine and obliterate the meowing and when it was still again she couldn’t hear the cat. …

  “Christ,” she said aloud, splashing noisily as she stood up and grabbed a towel. “He’s on his own tonight,” she muttered. Poking through the house in the middle of the night waiting to be scared half to death by a cat jumping from the darkness was way too much like a movie. Forget it, Natalie. Bag it, as Julie would have said.

  She crawled into the old four-poster, snuggling down under a heavy comforter with the window opened a couple of inches to the night. The inevitable noises an old house made on a windy night kept her half-awake for an hour but she finally drifted off, thinking somewhat defeatedly about Dan MacPherson. …

  She wasn’t sure what time it was when she opened her eyes and lay listening again.

  She had heard a door closing, clicking into place.

  Her heart was racing.

  What was she afraid of?

  But surely she had heard among the creaks and groans of the house … the closing of a door.

  Or had it been a dream?

  Chapter Twenty-two

  FROM THE KITCHEN WINDOW above the sink Natalie could look out through the scrawny naked branches of the trees in the sloping backyard and see the towers of Manhattan across the water. Low, soft gray clouds scudded across the skyline, and there was fog rising off the water, mist spitting against the window. Manhattan seemed more a mirage than the core of the city: it came and went and the fog seemed almost palpable.

  The coffee was finished perking and she poured herself a mug and sipped it carefully, listening to the weather report on the radio, remembering the sound of the cat in the night, the closing of the door. She’d finally drifted off; upon waking the night’s fears had receded like misshapen giants straggling back to the black openings of their caves. It was odd how vulnerable one became when the darkness closed in and how carefree even the grayest daylight could make one feel. All she’d heard were some house noises that went on day and night—the kind you only heard in the stillness, the darkness, when your senses were sharpened.

  A major winter storm, bigger than the one of the preceding weekend, was on its way, and the weatherman said he expected flurries to begin by noon, turning to full blizzard conditions by mid-afternoon. She was glad to be where she was. The house would be magical with a heavy snowfall outside, like something from a fairy tale.

  She poured another cup of coffee and sat on a high stool by the kitchen telephone. She had wakened thinking of MacPherson, wanting to hear his voice, wondering what had happened at her apartment during the night—but for some obscure reasons of self-discipline she had forced herself to wait until she was coffee fortified to call MacPherson’s office. It turned out he had come to work directly from her place and he sounded tired, edgy when she was put through. She had almost decided to confront him on the D’Allessandro issue, but no, this wasn’t the time.

  “No, nothing, he didn’t show.” She heard him blow his nose. “I tore my pants getting into your backyard, I couldn’t sleep at all, and somewhere along the line I’ve picked up a cold.” He sneezed as if to prove his point.

  “How’s Officer Farraday?”

  “Slept like a log. Woman hasn’t got a nerve in her body.”

  “So what happens now?”

  “She left the house and went to your office. She’ll come home again tonight. We’ll wait. I know he’s watching, waiting, wondering what to do. Maybe tonight will be the night. How is it out there, Natalie? Snowing yet?”

  “Misting. Cozy. I’m fine.”

  “Well, just relax, sit tight. I can’t think of anyone who could use a vacation better than you. This’ll be over soon.” He was beginning to sound like the needle was stuck, but, she supposed, when you didn’t have anything to report, you just didn’t. In any case, he didn’t sound angry with her, which was something.

  She called Julie at her office and told her what was going on. “Well,” Julie said, “I won’t have you staying out there all by yourself. I’m coming out tonight. Period. End of report.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous,” Natalie said, a small hope at the back of her mind. “There’s a huge storm coming. It wouldn’t be worth the effort. You’d just have to go back in the morning—”

  “Not if we’re snowed in.” Julie cackled triumphantly. “The perfect excuse. I’ll be there tonight, one way or another. We can sit around and listen to the house creak and the disappearing cats meow and tell ghost stories—it’ll be like Girl Scout camp all over again!”

  She wouldn’t take no for an answer and Natalie hung up looking forward to her arrival. Somehow, storm or not, Julie would get through.

  The first big flakes of snow had begun to blow across the drifts still remaining from the weekend when Natalie got into her sheepskin coat and headed out the door. She was standing on the front porch, feeling the tingling in her cheeks caused by the brisk, wet wind, when she heard the telephone ring behind her. The locks on the outside doors hadn’t worked for years, Aunt Margaret was fond of reminding people from Manhattan, and she’d never had a burglary. The result at the moment was that Natalie was able to dash back inside and get to the phone before the caller hung up. She was thrown for a moment: it was an unfamiliar voice. Then it dawned on her that the call was intended for Aun
t Margaret.

  “Well, where in the world is Margaret?” It was a woman of a certain age. “And who are you? Is this Margaret’s house?”

  Natalie identified herself. “And Aunt Margaret’s gone to Atlantic City with friends.” She laughed. “I hope they took along plenty of money—they may get snowed in at the casinos—”

  “Oh, no, we didn’t go to Atlantic City. We got a much better deal on rooms for the first week in January and what difference did it make to us? Bunch of old biddies out on a tear? December, January, who cares? So we didn’t go.”

  “Well, Margaret isn’t here. I came last night and there’s not a soul around. Not even the cats. Maybe she decided to go anyway, on her own?”

  “Maggie? Oh, I don’t think so. She’s the life of the party but she does need the party. She’s not one to go off by herself. I wonder … could she have gone into the city? Well,” her voice broke out of the momentary questioning reverie, “she’s a big girl, isn’t she? She can do what she likes. But the cats, I wonder what she did with the cats.”

  “I’m sure I don’t know,” Natalie said. “She’s bound to call someone, you or some other friend, or she’ll just come home. I’m sure it’s perfectly simple.” Something about Aunt Margaret’s disappearance was making her nervous: it was the state of mind she was in, obviously, and had nothing to do with Aunt Margaret and the cats.

  “I suppose you’re right,” the woman said. “When she gets back, have her call Fanny and explain what she’s been up to.”

  Natalie said she would and jotted down a note on the pad by the telephone. She went back outside and noticed that the flakes of snow were already bigger and blowing harder across the front of the house. She couldn’t resist the high iron gates of the cemetery, the way the blowing snow shrouded the monuments as if they were an army crouching against the elements, waiting for nightfall to attack. She leaned into the wind, hands deep in her pockets and chin buried against her chest, barely looking outward, enjoying the simple awareness of where she was. The solitude, the desolate wind, the insistent scraping of the snow on her face like a cat’s tongue. She wound around the driveways, seeing the dead, broken flowers in pots, the sheen of ice on the odd monument, the rims of snow growing along the edges of the marble. Someone had scattered breadcrumbs and little dun-colored birds tiptoed daintily along the crust, lunching.