Murder in a Hurry (25 page)

She put on a long, close-fitting robe and zipped it up the front; she drew the belt tight about her waist. It had been a long time now since she got home, she thought; perhaps nothing was going to happen after all. She took her watch from the chest and looked at it as she clipped it on her wrist. It had been only about half an hour since she had walked away from the Norths into the lobby of the building. It was twenty minutes after two.

She looked at the bed; she even turned the covers back. But she could not make herself get into it. In bed, one is defenseless. It is easy to die in bed. She went into the living room and, at the moment she entered it, the buzzer of the apartment door sounded. It was raucous, insistent. Involuntarily, Liza lifted both hands to her throat, the fists clenched. She could feel the blood of the neck arteries pulsing against her knuckles. Now—

I am not to seem frightened; I am to seem surprised. I am to deny, but not so I will be believed. I am to manage to leave the door chain—I must reset the catch on the door—I must—

She walked to the door and opened it against the chain, cautiously. With the chain on it opened only a few inches.

“Yes?” Liza O'Brien said. She had the word ready, the tone ready—the tone of surprise, of slight annoyance; the tone which would indicate only that she was tired and had had a day, was on her way to bed, wanted no callers. The word came out as it had been formed to come out before her mind caught up, the identity of the caller became clear. “
No!
” Liza said then. “Oh—
no!
”

There hadn't been enough time, not nearly enough for an adequate job. If any professionals were involved, they would spot it instantly, have it out in no time. It might, one could hope it would, be a different matter with only amateurs concerned. One could hope that this would, as the lieutenant was betting, wind it up quickly, before anyone else got hurt. One could hope—Sergeant Stein could hope, sitting in a commandeered room, at a strange desk, earphones clamped over his head—that the one they were after was as stupid as the lieutenant assumed; as the lieutenant insisted he all along had proved himself to be. That was one of the reasons the lieutenant wanted it wound up quickly, on the theory that stupid murderers are dangerous, are of any the most dangerous.

Stein looked at his notes.

“0151, L.O. in.”

“0152–0201, moves around apartment, apparently straightens up.”

“0201, leaves living room, apparently to bedroom. Bad pickup.”

You can't do a decent job without time; can't even cover an apartment as small as that without time. Stein had left the theater before the others; he and the technicians had worked fast. Still there were, there had to be, dead spots. He had been able to hear the girl faintly as she moved in the bedroom; had gone into the bathroom. The sound of the shower had come through better.

“0216—telephone rings. Not answered. L.O. in shower.”

It had been a toss-up whether she would hear the telephone; it was not surprising, not alarming, that she had not. But Detective Sergeant Stein had been relieved when he had again heard movement in the apartment. The whole thing was ticklish, although it was pretty certain they had it covered. Certainly there had been no one in the apartment when the girl had gone in; certainly no one had come in since unseen—and unheard.

“0216—door buzzer.”

“Here,” Stein said. “Get on it.” He waited until the police stenographer was seated, then pulled the headset off, watched it go, fast, on the other's head. “O.K.,” the stenographer said. “Got it.” He pulled a pad toward him.

“Taking the chain off the door,” he said, at the same time making the hieroglyphics of his craft.

“I hope to God she remembers to leave it off,” Stein said. “
And
remembers the catch.”

The stenographer held up his hand for silence.

“Sounds surprised as hell,” he said. “Said ‘Yes?' as if she were just a little put out. Then said ‘No—oh, no!' as if she were surprised as hell. Wait a minute.”

He twisted one receiver away from his ear, and Stein leaned down to put his own ear to it. He listened a moment. Then he said he'd be damned.

“Get it all,” he said, put the receiver back against the stenographer's ear, and reached for a telephone. What, he wondered, was the lieutenant going to make of this?

“I say you've
got
to,” Brian Halder told Liza. He had come in; she had let him in. She shrank back and let him in, and color drained out of her face. He did not seem to notice this at first; he was filled with his own anger, insulated by it. “I don't care what you agreed.”

“Nothing,” she said, but her voice was thin with fright. “I don't know what you mean, Brian.”

He paid no attention. He seemed to Liza even taller than usual; it seemed to her that a kind of violence emanated from him—from his face, his voice.

“Get dressed,” he said. “I'll get you out of here. Before—” He stopped. “Whatever you know,” he said. “Whatever it would prove. The point's to get you out.” He reached forward and took her shoulders. They resisted, her whole body tried to shrink away.

“Don't,” she said. “Don't, Brian!”

Still he was oblivious to what she said; still insulated by his seeming anger, by his own determination.

“Get dressed,” he repeated, still in the same harsh voice. “I'll take your somewhere. You can't stay here. Wait for—”

“Please,” she said. “Please listen, Brian. What is it? What do you mean?”

She was to wait; someone would come. She was to wait. And Brian came. She tried to pull herself away.

“What do you want?” she said, and now she looked up at him. “Why did you come here?”

“To get you away,” he said. “Good God, what do you think?”

“I don't know anything,” she said. “I tell you I—I don't know anything.”

That was not the way she was supposed to say it; that was what she was supposed to say, but not that way of saying it. She was to hesitate, to sound as if—But this was Brian.
This was Brian!

“Nobody believes that,” he said. “Can't you understand? Nobody. The police don't. Weigand made that clear enough.”

“He—” Liza began, and then she stopped. But the bargain—what was the bargain? This was Brian.

“He was pretending,” Liza said. “It was the way he planned it.”

For an instant, then, Brian Halder seemed to listen. She saw his eyes go quickly around the room, take in the room—its single door, its window far above the street. He laughed, shortly.

“I came here,” he said. “Nobody stopped me. If I—if I were the one who needed to, you see what I could do.” His hands were still on her shoulders. He shook her, his fingers biting into her. He looked at his hands. “It could be your throat,” he said. “What could anybody do?”

The man outside the door, bending to the lock, worked with infinite slowness, infinite care. He looked up at Bill Weigand, standing over him.

“Got it,” he said, his lips forming the words almost without sound. “Do we?”

“No,” Weigand's moving head told him. Weigand bent, spoke into the man's ear. The man looked doubtful, said, as softly, “I can try.”

Patiently, slowly, so that the door made no sound, he pushed it open, only inches open. He could reach a finger in then and press the button which released the catch. He pulled the door closed again. The resetting of the lock had made the slightest of sounds, the closing door made none. “She remembered the chain, anyway,” the man said, and stood up. Weigand nodded. There was no use regretting that she had not remembered the latch. She had been surprised. So, Bill Weigand admitted to himself, had he. But he should not have been.

The telephone bell rang. It was shrill, absurdly loud, in the tiny living room. Liza moved, seeking to turn toward the telephone, but the strong fingers on her shoulders only tightened.

“No,” Brian said. “Let it ring, Liza.”

His hands were heavy, they would not let her move.

“Whoever it is will think you've gone,” Brian said. “That's the best way.”

The bell continued to ring. It stopped; started again. But now Liza O'Brien did not try to move toward it, did not try to resist the hands which held her. It didn't matter; nothing mattered. Mind and body both went limp. All that mattered was that it had been Brian who came—came filled with anger and violence, trying to get her to go away somewhere, came to put hands heavily on her shoulders, tell her how easily hands could move to a throat. There had been heavy hands, strong hands, on the throat of the little man whose eyes once had been so bright, the little man who had known too much. Well—if it was to be this way, to be Brian, nothing mattered enough to fight. It—

“That's better,” Brian Halder said. “You make sense now. You're—” But then something in her attitude, her limpness in his hands, seemed to reach him, and he stopped abruptly and looked down at her. She should not look at him. That she could do; she could avoid looking at him. She could know it was Brian, but she did not have to see it was Brian. The hands could be merely hands, heavy, hurting. In the end it might even seem that they were not Brian's hands.

“Liza!” he said. “You're shaking!”

She would not look at him, would not answer him. The telephone was no longer ringing.

“What the hell's the matter with you?” Brian demanded. There was a strange note in his voice now. One might have thought something about her surprised him. “Liza!” he said again. His voice was not raised, but it seemed as if he were shouting at her. “What the—” He stopped again. “For God's sake!” he said. “You don't—”

He shook her as if she were asleep and must be wakened. Again, insistently, he repeated her name.

“Why,” he said, “you thought—!” Suddenly his hands dropped from her shoulders. And then she looked at him.

“My God!” he said, standing in front of her, looking down at her. “My God, Liza!” He moved as if to touch her, but his hands fell back to his sides. “You thought I—” he said, and seemingly could not, still could not, put into words what she had thought.

It was hard to stand alone, to look up at him, to hear the note in his voice of unbelieving surprise, of defeat. For a moment, so complete was the change, so utterly had everything become different, one tension been superseded by another, Liza was only strangely helpless. Even horror can be a bulwark; one can cling even to fear. But then new emotions came, mixed, confused. Relief was one of them, and something beyond that—hope beginning again. And with this there was the beginning of a kind of heat, almost of anger. Why you! she thought of Brian. Why—
you!

“You were afraid of me,” Brian told her. “After everything—you were afraid—again!”

She was shaking more than ever now; now she wanted his hands. Now she hated his hands.

“You were the one who came,” she said. “It was
you!
”

“Before someone else did,” he said, and now his voice was dull.

“What did you think I'd think?” she said. “You were the one who—”

“You thought I came to kill you,” he said, in the same dull voice. “Or to take you away somewhere and—I don't know.” He shook his head slowly. “I'll never know what you think,” he said. “You think I killed Dad, Sneddiger—could hurt you.
You.
”

She was not shaking now.

“You come here and grab me,” she said. “You—you talk about choking me. You order me around. You ask a lot.”

“Too much,” he agreed. There was the beginning of bitterness in his voice. “Too damn much. Evidently. You thought I hit you at the—”

“Keep still!” she said. “Keep still! You frighten me. The bottom falls out. And it's
my
fault. My fault.”

Her voice was bright with anger. She wanted to put her arms around him, hold tight to him. She wanted to hit him in the face—to hold his face between her hands and kiss his lips—to touch his eyelids gently with her fingers—to shake him until his teeth rattled.

“Damn it all,” she said, “I love you—you—you!” There was no word. She shook her head. “You enormous fool.”

Suddenly she was closer to him.

“
You!
” she said, and began to beat his chest with her fists. It made her hands hurt. It was fine.

And the buzzer sounded.

The commandeered room was just across the hall. Stein stood at the door, now. The door was inconspicuously open. He turned, held up a hand just as the stenographer with the headset spoke, in a low voice, to Bill Weigand. Weigand had just said, “Right,” into a telephone. “She just called him a fool. An ‘enormous' fool.” The adjective became a quotation, its choice admittedly puzzling.

“Maybe he is,” Weigand said. “On the other hand—”

Then Stein's gesture stopped him. He moved quickly to join the tall, dark sergeant.

“0237—door buzzer,” the police stenographer wrote on a pad, in longhand. He poised the pencil over his notebook.

“Damn,” Bill Weigand said. “I hope they have sense enough to—” He stopped, because the door across the hall was opening. It opened only a few inches, evidently was stopped by the chain.

“Yes?” Liza O'Brien said. Her tone held just the planned combination of surprise, minor irritation, tentative rejection. She looked through the door's opening at the broad, the substantial, man standing in the corridor. “Why,” she said. “Mr. Whiteside.”

Whiteside did not seem matter-of-fact now. There was anxiety on his face and in his voice.

“You're all right?” he said, and then, before she could answer, “Thank God for that.”

“What is it?” she said, and kept, carefully kept, the note of surprised enquiry in her voice. “I don't understand.”

“I've got to talk to you,” Whiteside said. “I came as soon as I could. Before—” He stopped, as if he had almost said too much. “Before anyone else,” he said. He looked at her, looked at the door. “You must listen,” he told her, and put his hand on the door.