“I was shopping at Thrifty Mart. They’ll remember me there.”
“Why didn’t you phone us right away?”
“Well, I was sort of in shock, I guess. I needed to be sure of what I saw. I mean, that kind of thing you see but you don’t see, if you know what I mean.”
“We’ll check on this, Mr. Grayner.”
Not knowing what else to say, Grayner thanked the sergeant and replaced the receiver. He didn’t feel noble now. Civic duty could be trying and thankless. No wonder so many people chose not to become involved.
Grayner turned on the Stravinsky recording on his stereo and switched on his tape recorder. For the last several days he’d been taping library records for his personal collection. The music helped him to forget about his divorce, and now about what he’d seen this evening. Maybe, in the hazy future, he’d have to go to court to testify, but for now he was finished with whatever had or hadn’t occurred at 323 Fillmore.
Two evenings later, when Grayner answered a knock on his front door, he was confronted by a stocky, dark-haired man with a bald spot that gleamed in the glow from the porch light.
“Mr. Grayner,” the man said, “I’m Roger P. Farrell.” He pushed past Grayner into the house.
“I don’t believe—” Grayner began. Then he recognized the man.
“I believe,” Farrell said, “that you’re in a position to cause me a great deal of trouble, Mr. Grayner. Apparently you were driving past my house on Fillmore Avenue and happened to notice my wife and me in our dining room having a spat.”
Grayner felt a rush of relief. So nothing violent, nothing gruesome had occurred. He owed Farrell an apology. “Well, a misunderstanding—”
“Just pure chance that anyone would drive by and see me kill Alice,” Farrell continued.
Grayner’s audible gulp actually hurt his throat.
Farrell lighted a horrible-smelling cigar without asking Grayner’s permission. “I noticed your name and address written on a policeman’s pad when they came to question me the first time. I remembered seeing a car driving away from the house that night, so I figured what must have happened.”
Grayner’s vision was wavering. “You mean you’re standing there admitting that you actually killed your wife?”
“I am,” Farrell said. “Buried her in the park. She broke the, yolk of my egg once too often. Besides, she was two-timing me.”
“You’re insane!” Grayner said in a tone of distressed revelation.
“Used to be. The problem is, now that the police suspect foul play — thanks to you, I might add — it’s probably just a matter of days before they find Alice’s body under second base.”
“Second base?”
“I buried her on the baseball diamond. The ground’s always churned up around second base anyway, so nobody’d suspect Alice was there. Of course she’s not deep, and before the season’s over somebody will slide hard into base and Alice will be found — probably during a double play. But I’ll be long gone from Sycamore Groves by then.”
“They’ll catch you,” Grayner groaned. “Don’t you realize they’ll catch you?”
Farrell’s fleshy face took on a considered expression. “They might. There’s an element of chance in everything. That’s why I’m here.”
A coldness expanded in Grayner’s stomach. He could hear the raucous music of Rachmaninoff, barely audible from the den of the thick-walled old house. It did nothing to soothe him or make him forget. “I don’t understand,” he said, sensing that he didn’t really want to understand.
“If they ever do find me,” Farrell said, “I’ll just tell ’em Alice walked out on me and somebody else must have killed her — perhaps someone’s hired hit man. But they won’t believe me, even though they won’t be able to prove anything against me.”
And Grayner did understand. He stood listening numbly.
“So they’d come back to you, Mr. Grayner, and maybe be able to build a case, because I took a chance in not pulling the drapes closed in the dining room.” Farrell’s tiny black eyes brightened with cunning. “But if somebody murdered you the police would have no witnesses.”
Panic sprang into Grayner’s throat. “They’d know you did it!”
“But they couldn’t prove it. Not without witnesses.” Farrell walked to the window, smiled, and pulled the drapes closed. Then he drew a revolver from beneath his shirt.
Grayner walked backward on a carpet that suddenly seemed to have become a deep, constraining pudding. Even the air seemed to have thickened to suffocating density as he stumbled into the den. Farrell followed, smiling with approval. The drapes were already closed in the den.
“I was simply driving around,” Farrell said, “thinking things over, when I noticed I was on your street. On impulse I stopped at your house. Oh, I knew what I had to do, and there’s a knife in the toolbox in the trunk of the car. But a knife!” He shook his head. “Every time I use a knife I cut myself. So I had second thoughts. I drove home and got my gun, the one I used on Alice. This time I’m not acting on impulse. That’s the thing that’s got me in trouble all my life.”
Grayner’s breathing was rasping in his ears.
“When I killed Alice,” Farrell said, “the only thing that could have gone wrong was a one-in-a-thousand chance, like somebody driving past and just happening at that second to be looking in the window. And darned if that didn’t happen.” He shook his head in bafflement. “Some days the finger of fate likes to flick us around, Mr. Grayner.” He squeezed the trigger.
The pain that erupted in Grayner’s chest sent fiery tendrils throughout his body. He was on the floor, watching the ceiling slowly rotate, the globe light fixture above orbiting like a displaced and sterile planet. From a corner of his vision he saw Farrell leave, hurrying away in organized fashion like a salesman late for his next appointment.
Now he was alone with impending darkness and the vibrant music blaring from the stereo speakers. He had spent a lot of money on his stereo equipment and he knew that the sensitive recorder taping the rousing Rachmaninoff concerto had picked up every sound in the room. Even if there was some confusing overlap, tape experts would easily be able to filter individual sounds and bring out everything they needed on the tape. Every incriminating word.
Farrell had carefully considered sight this time, but not sound. Far below the level of his pain, Grayner experienced a strange serenity as he died to the crash of cymbals.
The Odds Are Even
by Mary Ruth Furman
They planned the bank robbery like a military operation...
“Robbing banks ain’t as easy as it looks on TV,” Bobby complained.
Little Ed nodded in gloomy agreement. Neither of them looked at the General because he was mad at them. It seemed like an easy enough operation and the hardware was no sweat: just guns, stocking masks, a grocery sack to hold the loot, and a stolen car for the getaway. They figured they could also grab a hostage if the cops got too close. Real simple — yet they had come up empty on the last three jobs. As a matter of fact, they hadn’t ever gotten through the front door of a bank.
“We’re going to get it right this time. Understand me, soldier?” The General got up from the floor, where a map was nailed down with carpet tacks, to glare at Little Ed. He wasn’t really a general, but he thought bank robberies ought to be conducted like military operations, the way he’d seen it done on TV shows.
Little Ed flushed. “That was an awful nice car I took last time.”
“Sure.” The General’s tone was unnecessarily sarcastic. “A great set of wheels. Motor ran like a dream, new tires, air-conditioning, tape deck, power-steering, power-windows — all kinds of power, plus crushed-velvet upholstery. Only one little problem. The damned gas tank was sitting on Empty.”