I suppose it was close to three when I walked Trina home. Our conversation had turned thoughtful and reflective. On the street she said it was a lousy night for being alone. I thought of high windows and evil things on the edge of thought and took her hand in mine.
She lives on 56th between Ninth and Tenth. While we waited for the light to change at 57th Street I looked over at Paula’s building. We were far enough away to look at the high floors. Only a couple of windows were lighted.
That was when I got it.
I’ve never understood how people think of things, how little perceptions trigger greater insights. But I had it now, something clicked within me and a source of tension unwound itself.
I said something to that effect to Trina.
“You know who killed her?”
“Not exactly,” I said. “But I know how to find out. And it can wait until tomorrow.”
The light changed and we crossed the street.
She was still sleeping when I left. I got out of bed and dressed in silence, then let myself out of her apartment. I had some coffee and a toasted English muffin at the Red Flame. Then I went across the street to Paula’s building. I started on the tenth floor and worked my way up, checking the three or four possible apartments on each floor. A lot of people weren’t home. I worked my way clear to the top floor, the twenty-fourth, and by the time I was done I had three possibles listed in my notebook and a list of over a dozen apartments I’d have to check that evening.
At eight thirty that night I rang the bell of Apartment 21-G. It was directly in line with Paula’s apartment and four flights above it. The man who answered the bell wore a pair of Lee corduroy slacks and a shirt with a blue vertical stripe on a white background. His socks were dark blue and he wasn’t wearing shoes.
I said, “I want to talk with you about Paula Wittlauer.”
His face fell apart and I forgot my three possibles forever because he was the man I wanted. He just stood there. I pushed the door open and stepped forward and he moved back automatically to make room for me. I drew the door shut after me and walked around him, crossing the room to the window. There wasn’t a speck of dust or soot on the sill. It was immaculate, as well scrubbed as Lady Macbeth’s hands.
I turned to him. His name was Lane Posmantur and I suppose he was around forty, thickening at the waist, his dark hair starting to go thin on top. His glasses were thick and it was hard to read his eyes through them but it didn’t matter, I didn’t need to see his eyes.
“She went out this window,” I said. “Didn’t she?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Do you want to know what triggered it for me, Mr. Posmantur? I was thinking of all the things nobody noticed. No one saw her enter the building. Neither doorman remembered it because it wasn’t something they’d be likely to remember. Nobody saw her go out the window. The cops had to look for an open window in order to know who the hell she was. They backtracked her from the window she fell out of.
“And nobody saw the killer leave the building. Now that’s the one thing that would have been noticed. It wasn’t that significant by itself, but it made me dig a little deeper. It occurred to me that maybe the killer was still inside the building, and then I got the idea that she was killed by someone who lived in the building. From that point on, it was just a question of finding you.”
I told him about the clothes on the chair. “She didn’t take them off and pile them up like that. Her killer put her clothes like that, and he dumped them on the chair so that it would look as though she undressed in her apartment, and so that it would be assumed she’d gone out of her own window.
“But she went out of your window, didn’t she?”
He looked at me. After a moment, he said he thought he’d better sit down. He went over to an armchair and sat in it.
I said, “She came here. I guess she took off her clothes and you went to bed with her. Is that right?”
He hesitated, then nodded.
“What made you decide to kill her?”
“I didn’t.”
I looked at him. He looked away, met my gaze, then avoided my eyes again. “Tell me about it,” I suggested. He looked away again and a minute went by before he started to talk.
It was about what I’d figured. She was living with Cary McCloud, but she and Lane Posmantur would get together now and then. He was a lab technician at Roosevelt and he brought home drugs from time to time and perhaps that was part of their attraction. She’d turned up that night a little after two and they went to bed. She was really flying, he said, and he’d been taking pills himself, it was something he’d begun doing lately, maybe seeing her had something to do with it.
They went to bed and did the dirty deed, and then maybe they slept for an hour, something like that, and then she was awake and coming unglued, getting really hysterical, and he tried to settle her down and he gave her a couple of slaps to bring her around, except they didn’t bring her around, and she was staggering. She tripped over the coffee table and fell funny, and by the time he sorted himself out and went to her she was lying with her head at a crazy angle and he knew her neck was broken and when he tried for a pulse there was no pulse.
“All I could think was that she was dead in my apartment and full of drugs and I was in trouble.”
“So you put her out the window.”
“I was going to take her back to her own apartment. I started to dress her, but it was impossible. And even with her clothes on, I couldn’t risk running into somebody in the hallway or on the elevator. It was crazy.
“I left her here and went to her apartment. I thought maybe Cary would help me. I rang the bell but nobody answered. I used her key but the chain bolt was on. Then I remembered she used to fasten it from outside. She’d showed me how she could do it. I unhooked her bolt and went inside.
“Then I got the idea. I went back to my apartment and got her clothes and rushed back and put them on her chair. I opened her window wide. On my way out the door I put her lights on and hooked the chain bolt again.
“I came back here and took her pulse again — she was dead, she hadn’t moved or anything. I... I turned off the lights and opened the window. I dragged her over to it, and, oh, God in heaven, God, I almost couldn’t do it, but it was an accident that she was dead and I was so damned afraid—”
“And you dropped her out and closed the window.”
He nodded.
“And if her neck was broken it was something that happened in the fall. And whatever drugs were in her system was just something she’d taken by herself, and they’ll never do an autopsy anyway. You were home free.”
“I didn’t hurt her,” he said. “I was just protecting myself.”
“Do you really believe that, Lane?”
“What do you mean?”
“You’re not a doctor. Maybe she was dead when you threw her out the window. Maybe she wasn’t.”
“There was no pulse!”
“You couldn’t find a pulse. That doesn’t mean there wasn’t any. Did you try artificial respiration? Do you know if there was any brain activity? Of course not. All you know was that you looked for a pulse and you couldn’t find one.”