The Lottery Winner

by Mary Higgins Clark

  “That’s all?” Brian asked. “Why were you afraid to tell that to Rooney?”

  “Because when she heard Fiona was dead she thought maybe the reason she didn’t answer was because you’d already killed her.” Alvirah leaned forward. “Emmy, why did you ask about Carlton Rumson before? You saw him yesterday, didn’t you?”

  “As I came down the corridor from the rear service elevator, he was ahead of me, going to the passenger elevator. I knew he looked familiar but didn’t recognize him until I saw him again just now.”

  Alvirah stood up. “I think we should call Mr. Rumson and ask him to come down, and I think we should call Rooney and ask him to be here too. But first, Brian, give Willy your play. He’ll run it up to the Rumsons’ apartment. Let’s see. It’s nearly 5:00 P.M. Willy, you ask Mr. Rumson to phone when he’s ready to bring it back.”

  The intercom buzzer sounded. Willy answered it. “Rooney’s here,” he said. “He’s looking for you, Brian.”

  There was no trace of warmth in the detective’s manner when he entered the apartment a few minutes later. “Brian,” he said without preface, “I have to ask you to come down to the station house for further questioning. You have received the Miranda warning. I remind you again that anything you say can be used against you.”

  “He’s not going anywhere,” Alvirah said firmly. “And before you leave, Detective, I’ve got an earful for you.”

  * * *

  It was nearly 7:00 P.M., two hours later, when Carlton Rumson phoned. Alvirah and Willy had told Rooney about the champagne and the glasses and the fingerprints on the cocktail table and about Emmy seeing Carlton Rumson, but Alvirah could tell none of it cut much ice with the detective. He’s closing his mind to everything that doesn’t fit his theory about Brian, she thought.

  A few minutes later, Alvirah was astonished to see both Rumsons enter her apartment. Victoria Rumson was smiling warmly. When introduced to Brian, she took both his hands and said, “You really are a young Neil Simon. I just read your play. Congratulations.”

  When Detective Rooney was introduced, Carlton Rumson’s face went ashen. He stammered as he said to Brian, “I’m terribly sorry to interrupt you just now. I’ll make this very brief. Your play is wonderful. I want to option it. Please have your agent contact my office tomorrow.”

  Victoria Rumson was standing at the terrace door. “You were so wise not to obscure this view,” she told Alvirah. “My decorator put in vertical blinds, and I might as well be facing an alley.”

  She sure took her gracious pills this morning, Alvirah thought.

  “I think we’d all better sit down,” Detective Rooney suggested.

  The Rumsons sat down reluctantly.

  “Mr. Rumson, you knew Fiona Winters?” Rooney asked.

  Alvirah began to think she had underestimated Rooney. His expression became intense as he leaned forward.

  “Miss Winters appeared in several of my productions some years ago,” Rumson said. He was sitting on one of the couches, next to his wife. Alvirah noticed that he glanced at her nervously.

  “I’m not interested in years ago,” Rooney told him. “I’m interested in yesterday. Did you see her then?”

  “I did not.” To Alvirah, Rumson’s voice sounded strained and defensive.

  “Did she phone you from this apartment?” Alvirah asked.

  “Mrs. Meehan, if you don’t mind, I’ll conduct this questioning,” the detective said.

  “Show respect when you talk to my wife,” Willy bristled.

  Victoria Rumson patted her husband’s arm. “Darling, I think you might be trying to spare my feelings. If that impossible Winters woman was badgering you again, please don’t be afraid to tell exactly what she wanted.”

  Rumson seemed to age visibly before their eyes. When he spoke his voice was weary. “As I just told you, Fiona Winters acted in several of my productions. She—”

  “She also had a private relationship with you,” Alvirah interjected. “You used to take her to the Cypress Point Spa.”

  Rumson glared at her. “I haven’t had anything to do with Fiona Winters for several years,” he said. “Yes, she phoned yesterday just after noon. She told me she was here in the building and that she had a play she wanted me to read, assured me it had the earmarks of a hit and said she wanted to play the lead. I was waiting for a call from Europe and agreed to come down and see her in about an hour.”

  “That means she called after Brian left,” Alvirah said triumphantly. “That’s why the glasses and champagne were out. They were for you.”

  “Did you come to this apartment, Mr. Rumson?” Rooney asked.

  Again Rumson hesitated.

  “Darling, it’s all right,” Victoria Rumson said softly.

  Not daring to look at Detective Rooney, Alvirah announced: “Emmy saw you in this corridor a few minutes after 1:00 P.M.”

  Rumson sprang to his feet. “Mrs. Meehan, I won’t tolerate any more insinuations! I was afraid Fiona would keep contacting me if I didn’t set her straight once and for all. I came down here and rang the bell. There was no answer. The door wasn’t completely shut, so I pushed it open and called her. As long as I’d come this far I wanted to be finished with it.”

  “Did you enter the apartment?” Rooney asked.

  “Yes. I walked through this room, poked my head in the kitchen and glanced in the bedroom. She wasn’t anywhere. I assumed she’d changed her mind about seeing me, and I can assure you I was relieved. Then when I heard the news this morning all I could think of was that maybe her body was in that closet when I was here and I’d be in the middle of this.” He turned to his wife. “I guess I am in the middle of it, but I swear what I’ve told you is true.”

  Victoria touched his hand. “There is no way they’re going to drag you into this. What a nerve that woman had to think she should have the leading role in Nebraska Nights.” Victoria turned to Emmy. “Someone your age should play the role of Diane.”

  “She’s going to,” Brian said. “I just hadn’t told her yet.”

  Rumson turned to his wife, impatiently. “Don’t you mean—?”

  Rooney interrupted him as he folded his notebook. “Mr. Rumson, I’ll ask you to accompany me down to headquarters. Emmy, I’d like you to give a complete statement as well. Brian, we need to talk to you again, and I do strongly urge you to engage counsel.”

  “Now just one minute,” Alvirah said indignantly. “I can tell you believe Mr. Rumson over Brian.” There goes the option on the play, but this is more important, she thought. “You’re going to say that Brian maybe started to leave, decided to come back and tell Fiona to clear out and then ended up killing her. I’ll tell you how I think it happened. Rumson came down here and got into a fight with Fiona. He strangled her but was smart enough to take the script she was showing him.”

  “That is absolutely untrue,” Rumson snapped.

  “I don’t want another word discussed here,” Rooney ordered. “Emmy, Mr. Rumson, Brian—I have a car downstairs. Let’s go.”

  When the door closed behind them, Willy put his arms around Alvirah. “Honey, I’m going to skip Pete’s party. I can’t leave you. You look ready to collapse.”

  Alvirah hugged him back. “No, you’re not. I’ve been recording everything. I need to listen to the playback and I do that better alone. You have a good time.”

  * * *

  The apartment felt terribly quiet after Willy left. Alvirah decided that a warm soak in the bathtub Jacuzzi might take some of the stiffness out of her body and clear her brain.

  Afterward, she dressed comfortably in her favorite nightgown and Willy’s striped terry-cloth robe. She set the expensive cassette player her editor at the Globe had bought for her on the dining-room table, then took the tiny cassette out of her sunburst pin, inserted it in the recorder and pushed the playback button. She put a new cassette in the back of the pin and fastened the pin to the robe just in case she wanted to think out loud. She sat listening to her conversations wit
h Brian, with Detective Rooney, with Emmy, with the Rumsons.

  What was it about Carlton Rumson that bothered her so much? Methodically, Alvirah reviewed that first meeting with the Rumsons. He was pretty cool that night, but when we bumped into him the next morning he sure had changed his tune, she told herself, even reminded me he wanted to read the new play right away. She remembered Brian saying that nobody could get to Carlton Rumson.

  That’s it, she thought. He already knew how good the play was. He couldn’t admit that he’d already read it.

  The phone rang. Startled, Alvirah hurried over to pick it up. It was Emmy. “Mrs. Meehan,” she whispered, “they’re still questioning Brian and Mr. Rumson, but I know they think Brian’s guilty.”

  “I just figured everything out,” Alvirah said triumphantly. “How good a look at Carlton Rumson did you get when you saw him in the hall?”

  “Pretty good.”

  “Then you could see he was carrying the script, couldn’t you? I mean if he was telling the truth that he only went down to tell Fiona off, he’d never have picked up that script. But if they talked about it and he read some of it before he killed her, he’d have taken it. Emmy, I think I’ve solved the case.”

  Emmy’s voice was barely audible. “Mrs. Meehan, I’m sure Carlton Rumson wasn’t carrying anything when I saw him. Suppose Detective Rooney thinks to ask me that question? It’s going to hurt Brian, isn’t it, if I tell them that?”

  “You have to tell the truth,” Alvirah said sadly. “Don’t worry. I still have my thinking cap on.” When she hung up, she turned the cassette player on again and began to replay her tapes. She replayed her conversations with Brian several times. There was something he had told her that she was missing.

  Finally she stood up, deciding that a breath of fresh air wouldn’t hurt. Not that New York air is fresh, she thought as she opened the terrace door and stepped out. This time she went right to the guardrail and let her fingers rest lightly on it. If Willy were here he’d have a fit, she thought, but I’m not going to lean on it. There’s just something so restful about looking out over the park. The park. I think one of the happiest memories in Mama’s life was the day she had a sleigh ride through the park. She was sixteen at the time and she talked about it the rest of her life. She’d taken the ride because her girlfriend Beth asked for that for her birthday.

  Beth!

  Beth!

  That’s it! Alvirah thought. Again she could hear Brian saying that Fiona Winters wanted to play the part of Diane. Then Brian corrected himself and said, “I mean Beth.” Willy had asked who that was, and Brian said it was the name of the lead in his new play, that he’d changed it in the final draft. Alvirah switched on her microphone and cleared her throat. Better get this all down, she reminded herself. It would help to have her immediate impression when she wrote the story up for the Globe.

  “It wasn’t Carlton Rumson who killed Fiona Winters,” she said aloud, her voice confident. “It has to have been his wife, See-No-Evil Vicky. She was the one who kept after Rumson to read the play. She was the one who said Emmy should play Diane—she didn’t know Brian had changed the name. And Rumson started to correct her, because he had read only the revised version of the play. She must have listened in when Fiona phoned him. She came here while he was waiting for his call from Europe. She didn’t want Fiona to get involved with Rumson again, so she killed her, then took the script. That was the copy she read, not the final draft.”

  “How very clever of you, Mrs. Meehan.”

  The voice came from directly behind her, but before she could even blink, Alvirah felt strong hands push at the small of her back. She tried to turn as she felt her body press against the guardrail and panel. How did Victoria Rumson get in here? she wondered. Then, in a flash, she remembered that Brian’s key had been on the foyer table. Victoria must have taken it.

  With all her strength she tried to throw herself against her attacker, but a blow on the side of her neck stunned her. She was able to spin around so that she was facing the other woman, but the blow had been an effective one, and she sagged against the railing. Only vaguely was she aware then of a creaking, tearing sound and the feeling of her body teetering over yawning space.

  * * *

  Pete’s retirement party was a blast. The room at the K of C in Flushing was filled with Willy’s old buddies. The aromas of sausage and peppers and corned beef and cabbage mingled together enticingly. The first keg of beer had been tapped, and a beaming Pete was going from friend to friend, insisting they drink up.

  But Willy could not get in the spirit of the evening. Something was bugging him, gnawing at him, telling him he should be heading home. He sipped his beer, nibbled halfheartedly at a corned-beef sandwich, congratulated Pete on his retirement, and then, without waiting for even one chorus of “Danny Boy,” he slipped away and got in his car.

  When he reached the apartment, the door was slightly ajar; immediately his internal panic button began to shrill a warning. “Alvirah,” he called nervously. Then he saw two figures poised at the terrace railing. “Oh my God!” he moaned, then raced across the room, shouting Alvirah’s name.

  “Come in, honey,” he pleaded. “Get back. Get away from there.” Then he suddenly realized what was happening. The other woman was trying to push Alvirah through the guardrail. He took one step out onto the terrace just as a section of the railing separated and fell away behind Alvirah.

  Willy took a second step toward the struggling women and then passed out.

  * * *

  Emmy sat in the precinct station, waiting for her statement to be typed up, heartsick with worry about Brian. She knew that Detective Rooney believed Carlton Rumson’s story that he’d gone into Alvirah’s apartment, thought it was empty and had left. It was obvious that Rooney had made up his mind that Brian had killed Fiona.

  Why can’t he see that Brian had no reason to kill her? Emmy agonized. Brian had told her that Fiona had done him a favor when she walked out on the play. That it showed him just what kind of person she was. Oh, I shouldn’t have been so upset when Fiona showed up at my apartment yesterday, she thought. Brian never would have gotten involved with Fiona again, Emmy was sure of that. But when she’d tried to convince Detective Rooney of it, he’d asked, “Then if you were so sure that Brian was finished with Fiona, why did you follow her over to his aunt’s apartment?”

  Emmy rubbed her forehead. She had such a headache! It was impossible to believe that only a few nights ago Brian had let her read the new play and asked her advice about changing the name of the lead from Diane to Beth.

  “Diane is a pretty strong name,” he’d said. “I see the character as someone who comes across as vulnerable, even wistful; then as the action unfolds, we get to know just how strong she is. What do you think of calling her Beth instead of Diane?”

  “I like it,” she’d replied.

  “That’s good,” Brian had said, “because you were the model for her, and I want you to be happy with the name. I’ll make the change in the final draft.”

  Emmy sat up straight and stared ahead, no longer aware of the harsh lights in the precinct room, or even of the bustle of activity and confusion around her. Beth . . . Diane . . .

  That’s it! she thought suddenly. Tonight Victoria Rumson told me I should play the part of Diane. But the final script, the one she’s supposed to have read, has the name change in it. So she must have read the copy of the play that is missing from the apartment. That means she was there with Fiona. Of course, it all fits! Perhaps Victoria Rumson’s ability to overlook her husband’s indiscretions had been strained to the breaking point when she had almost lost him a couple of years ago—to Fiona Winters!

  Emmy jumped up and ran from the station house. She had to talk to Alvirah right away. She heard a policeman call after her but didn’t answer him as she hailed a cab.

  When she reached the building, she charged past a stuttering doorman and raced to the elevator. She heard Willy shouting as she came
down the corridor. The door to the apartment was open. She saw Willy stumble onto the terrace and fall. Then she saw the silhouettes of two women and realized what was happening.

  In a burst of speed, Emmy rushed out to the terrace. Alvirah was facing her, swaying over empty space. Her right hand was grasping the part of the railing that was still in place, but she was quickly losing her grip because Victoria Rumson was pummeling that hand with her fists.

  Emmy grabbed Victoria’s arms and twisted them behind her. Victoria’s howl of rage and pain rose above the crash as the rest of the railing collapsed and fell. Emmy shoved her aside and managed to grasp the cord of Alvirah’s robe. Alvirah was teetering. Her bedroom slippers were sliding backward off the terrace. Her body swayed as she hovered thirty-four stories over the sidewalk below. With a burst of strength, Emmy pulled her forward and they fell together over the collapsed form of the unconscious Willy.

  * * *

  Alvirah and Willy slept until noon. When they finally woke up, Willy insisted Alvirah stay put. He went out to the kitchen, returning fifteen minutes later with a pitcher of orange juice, a pot of tea and a piece of toast. After her second cup of tea, Alvirah regained her customary optimism. “Boy, was it good that Detective Rooney came barging in here after Emmy and caught Victoria trying to escape. And do you know what I think, Willy?”

  “I never know what you think, honey,” Willy said with a sigh.

  “Well, I bet you one thing—that Carlton Rumson will still want to produce Brian’s play. You can be sure he won’t be shedding any tears over seeing Victoria going to prison.”

  “You’re probably right,” Willy conceded. “Those two certainly weren’t a pair of lovebirds.”

  “And Willy,” Alvirah concluded, “I want you to have a talk with Brian, to tell him he’d better marry that darling Emmy before somebody else snaps her up.” She beamed. “I have the perfect wedding present for them, a load of white furniture.”