“Donald, I’m going to tell you the truth. I was frightened. I hid. I watched. I tell you, I saw people moving around in that cabin after the shots and I saw a car drive away. Then I beat it. I could hardly walk. My knees wouldn’t work.”
“Then what?”
“Then I hitch-hiked. I gave the usual story about being out with a man who had made me walk home. The man who was driving the car was very gallant.”
“He drove you here?”
“Don’t be simple, Donald! I didn’t want to leave a back trail. I had him take me to a downtown hotel. I told him I lived there. Then after he’d gone, I picked up a taxicab and came out here.”
“And I suppose you handed the man a story that was very well embellished with all of the lurid details.”
“Naturally,” she said. “When a man picks up a woman at a time like that he expects at least a good story.”
“At least?” I asked.
She laughed. “You’re a sweet, naive man, Donald.”
“And he made passes at you?”
“Of course he did, Donald. Don’t be silly. I’m attractive, and he thought I went out for a good time but just didn’t like the man I was with.”
I said, “How did it happen that you wrote down KOZY DELL SLUMBER COURT on the back of that menu, and…”
“Donald, I didn’t.”
“Didn’t what?”
“Write that.”
“It was in that packet of cigarettes that you…”
“I know it was, but I didn’t write it, Donald.”
“Who did?”
“If I knew that I’d know a lot. I’m trying to find out. You see, Donald... No, I’m not going to tell you until... until I know you better.”
I said, “You’re a scheming little bitch, aren’t you?”
She swung round on the bed so her eyes locked with mine. “Yes,” she said. With that, she cupped her hands on my cheeks, drew my face towards hers and kissed me.
It was a kiss to remember. It lasted a long time. Then she suddenly pushed me away.
“Now,” she said, “you know all the answers, don’t you?” There was a provocative challenge in her eyes.
“Yes,” I said, I got off the bed and started for the door.
“Where are you going?”
“First,” I said, “I’m going to get a friend of mine on the phone — Sergeant Sellers. He’s on Homicide, and he thinks I’m a damn liar. I’m going to let you talk with him.”
“Donald, you can’t go out that way.”
“All right, I’ll go out this other way.”
“No, no, not that way, either. Look, Donald, my sister is in the front room.”
“Where’s Mrs. Arthur Marbury?”
“She’s out tonight. Donald, darling, please — give me a break. I’ll go — anywhere.”
“What do you mean, anywhere?”
“Exactly what I said. If you want to turn back the hands of the clock by twenty-four hours, it’s okay by me.”
“You mean…”
“My God, do I have to draw you a diagram, or something?”
I said, “Get your clothes on.”
“I’ll hurry and get dressed,” she said. “Look, Donald, go in the bedroom at the front end of the hall. That’s my sister’s bedroom. Wait in there, I’ll come in as soon as I’m dressed. Then we’ll go in together and I’ll introduce you to my sister. I’ll make her think that you came to get me and that I let you in the side door by the patio. She’s reading a novel and…”
“And suppose she should quit reading a novel and…”
“She won’t. Donald, you’d love my sister. She’s a sweet, innocent girl. Her heart’s been absolutely broken, and the only thing she does is read. She reads all the time. She doesn’t go out. She’s eating her heart out. It’s the most pathetic thing. Donald, when you see her you’ll realise the truth of what I’m telling you. You won’t hold it against me what I’ve done. And I’ll — I’ll show you I’m really a good scout, Donald. Honest I will. I’ve been thinking about you. I couldn’t sleep last night. I didn’t want to play you for a — well, you know — do the way I did.”
She took my arm, pushed me out of the door, pointed to the door down the corridor. “Right in there, Donald, and wait. It won’t take long. I’ll be with you.”
I walked a few steps, waited until she’d closed the door, then tiptoed to the end of the corridor, down a short flight of stairs, and peered through a curtained, arched doorway into a living-room furnished in Mission style.
A brunette was spread out on a chaise-lounge, a book in her hand, a cigarette in her fingers. She was reading so intently that her eyes seemed to bore holes in the page. Apparently there was no one else in the house.
I went back to the bedroom door Lucille had indicated. It was a bedroom very similar to the other, except that the windows opened on the side of the house that was toward the adjoining lot. A cord had been pulled which stretched the curtains all the way across the windows on the side.
It was a girl’s bedroom, with toilet things spread out on the dresser, a nice bed, a deep, comfortable chair with a standard lamp behind it, a table with some magazines and a book.
I settled down in the chair to wait, then I remembered the lipstick on my face. I went over to the mirror, took my handkerchief and rubbed off the sticky red stain which had smeared my mouth.
I looked around for a telephone. There was no phone in the bedroom.
I settled down in the chair, glanced at a magazine, then picked up the book.
It was a story of two kids who were in love, I glanced through the volume, then I became interested and started to read.
It opened up as a darned sweet story. Then a woman who was a shrewd, unscrupulous bitch entered the picture. The man became all confused. She was taking a green kid who didn’t know too much about life and rubbing all the new off his soul. The thing he had felt for the other girl was something so much deeper than sex it wasn’t even funny. The book had been read until the binding was limber. The cover had been wrapped in cellophane. You’d have thought it was the kid sister’s Bible.
I moistened my lips, felt uncomfortable for a minute and couldn’t realise what it was. Then I knew that it was the taste of Lucille’s lipstick that somehow still clung to my lips.
I got my handkerchief and scrubbed hard and then I went back to the book.
I was vaguely conscious that time was passing. I thought Lucille was taking a long time getting her clothes on. Suddenly it occurred to me that she might have gone out through the french doors into the patio. I didn’t know what good it would do her. I’d found her now and knew who she was. Her kid sister was sitting in the front room, reading a novel — all I had to do was walk out there, introduce myself, or I could go back the other way, out through the bedroom..
The door was open. Someone was standing there.
“Well, it’s about time,” I said.
I heard a choking scream, and looked up.
It wasn’t Lucille who stood in the doorway, but the brunette, the kid sister.
Looking at her startled, white face, the big black eyes, the hollow cheeks, I could see from the family resemblance that she was Lucille’s sister. She was younger than Lucille, and she was fragile and sensitive. There was a soulful quality in her eyes, and she was getting ready to scream again.
I got up, and said, “I’m waiting for Lucille. She’s dressing. She told me to wait here.”
That calmed her down. “But how did you get in?”
“Lucille brought me in through the side door.”
“Through the side door?”
I nodded.
“I didn’t hear anything.”
I said, “You were reading a book and you were completely hypnotized by it.”
“I was reading, but I wasn’t... well…”
I said, “Lucille motioned me to silence and put me in here. She said she wanted to change.”