Mrs. Labelle giggled. “Oh that,” she said scornfully. “Mr. Groener chased every pretty woman in a lazy secret sort of way, but if he’d ever caught one he’d have scurried right back to his wife. I think she kept throwing it up to him just to keep him in line. I’m quite a psychologist—”
“Okay,” the Lieutenant said. “Now about tonight. Did you hear the Groeners quarreling after you went to bed?”
“I wouldn’t call it that. Mrs. Groener just let off steam for awhile as any woman will. I listened. It didn’t make much sense in her case. But it was interesting.”
“And when they quieted down you went to sleep?”
“Oh my no!” Mrs. Labelle gave a little wriggle and flirted her coiled blonde hair. “I had too many exciting things to think about.”
“Good! I want you to tell me exactly what you heard in the way of footsteps and other noises. It’s important you get them in the right order. Mrs. Groener quieted down. Suppose you start from there.”
Mrs. Labelle leaned forward, hugging her elbows, and briefly closed her eyes in happy concentration. “First a long time passed. It must have been an hour or more because I’d almost run out of things to think about and was wondering if I shouldn’t take a sleeping pill. Mrs. Groener’s windchimes were beginning to get on my nerves, though I’d hardly heard them at first. Then I heard Mr. Groener go clumping down the hall.
“I called to him, because I had some hints to give him about how to handle Mrs. Groener. But my door was closed and he didn’t hear me. Then I heard his footsteps stop for a moment and a door close. A moment later I heard him going on to the kitchen.”
“Are you sure about that?” the Lieutenant asked “Mightn’t he have been going into Miss Grave’s bedroom? Think hard, please, before you answer.”
Mrs. Labelle laughed. “Not a chance in the world. He’s scared of her. You know why? Because she’s actually been in love with him her whole life and too stuck-up to do anything about it. That’s why she never married. He wouldn’t have gone into her bedroom even if she’d begged him to. Anyhow, I know he must have gone on to the kitchen, because right away I heard him banging around out there making coffee. Men! After awhile it got quiet and then Mrs. Groener screamed.”
Mrs. Labelle shivered and momentarily closed her eyes. “It was a pretty dreadful scream, even for her, and just a little later there was a thud, as if she’d fallen out of bed. Only it wasn’t quite the same. If my window hadn’t been closed, I’d have probably heard the difference better and been the one to discover her. Just suppose I’d looked out and seen her perching on the sill ten feet away! That would have been a psychological challenge! As it was, I almost did get up though I knew her tricks. But when I waited, half-expecting to hear something else, there wasn’t a sound. Except the windchimes, of course.”
“Think carefully, Mrs. Labelle,” the Lieutenant said. “Wasn’t there some other sound then? Didn’t Miss Graves get up? Or didn’t Mr. Groener at least start back from the kitchen or make some kind of noise?”
“No, officer, it was all quiet as death—oh, I didn’t mean to say that, but it was. Mr. Groener stayed in the kitchen a long time—long enough for two or three cups of coffee, I’d say. I thought about a sleeping pill again and finally I took one and about then Mr. Groener came clumping back. I might have called to him, but I’d just taken the pill. Right after that he came charging out of the bedroom and pounded on my door and told me Mrs. Groener had jumped and to call the police. That’s all.” Mrs. Labelle buried her head in her arms and let out a large sigh.
“Thank you,” the Lieutenant said. “Just a couple more questions now. Miss Graves said Mrs. Groener had tried suicide before. Do you know anything about that?”
Mrs. Labelle laughed. “That was a false alarm. A few months ago he found her almost passed out with an empty bottle of sleeping pills beside her. He started to force warm water down her and he’d just got the waste basket for her to throw up in when he noticed the sleeping pills scattered at the bottom of it. She just wanted to make him think she’d swallowed them. People are funny, aren’t they? What’s the other question?”
“Miss Graves said that yesterday she saw Mrs. Groener drinking—in your sunroom, she said—with her left wrist tied to the arm of her chair with her scarf. Know anything about that?”
“No, it sounds pointless. The sunroom’s that alcove behind you, officer, with the big windows. Wait a minute—I do remember seeing Mrs. Groener do that years ago. It was Oklahoma. It was sold out. We were sitting in the second balcony, and she had her scarf wrapped around her wrist and the arm of her seat. I thought she’d done it without thinking.”
“Huh!” The Lieutenant stood up and started to pace. He noticed Mrs. Labelle. “That’ll be all,” he told her. “When you go back to the dining room would you ask Mr. Groener if I could see him again?”
“I certainly will,” Mrs. Labelle said, popping up with another flash of leg. She smiled and rippled her eyelids. “You gentlemen have given me some fascinating sidelights on life.”
“You’re certainly welcome,” Zocky assured her, gazing after her appreciatively as she click-clicked down the hall. Then he said to the Lieutenant, “Well, that kills my theory of a suicide trigger. I guess Groener really is the pious type who’d never get out of line.”
“Yeah,” the Lieutenant agreed abstractedly, still pacing. “Yeah, Zocky, I’m afraid he is, though ‘pious’ may not be just the right word. Scared of stepping over the line comes closer.”
“But this Labelle’s a real odd cookie—reminds me of that holdup girl last month. She thinks everything’s funny.”’
“You got a point there, Zocky.”
“A real bright-eyes too, despite her barbiturates and booze.”
“Some it takes that way, Zocky.”
“Of course she’s real attractive for her age, but that’s not here or there.”
“Maybe not, Zocky.”
“You know what? When you talked to her about Groener’s supposed mistress I think she thought you meant her.”
“Okay, okay, Zocky!”
When Groener arrived, looking more tired than ever, the Lieutenant stopped pacing and said, “Tell me, did your wife have many phobias? Especially agoraphobia, claustrophobia, acrophobia? Those are—”
“I know,” Groener said, settling himself. “Fear of open spaces, dread of being shut in, fear of heights. She had quite a few irrational fears, but not those particularly. Oh, perhaps a touch of claustrophobia—”
“All right,” the Lieutenant said, cutting him short. “Mr. Groener, from what I’ve heard tonight your wife didn’t commit suicide.”
Groener nodded. “I’m glad you understand alcoholics aren’t responsible for the things they do in black-out.”
Horrible Imaginings
“She was murdered,” the Lieutenant finished.
Groener frowned at him incredulously.
“I’ll give you a quick run-down on what really happened tonight, as I see it, and you can tell me what you think,” the Lieutenant said.
He started to pace again as if he were too wound-up not to. “You went for your coffee. Mrs. Labelle called to you through her door as you passed. You didn’t want any of her child psychology—or anything else from her either. But it told you she was wide awake and listening to everything. Then you came to Miss Graves’s bedroom and the door was open and you saw her sleeping quietly, her silver fleece of hair falling across the pillow.”
Groener shook his head and moved his spread-fingered left hand sideways. But the Lieutenant continued, “It struck you how you’d wasted decades of your life caring for and being faithful to a woman who was never going to get well or any more attractive. You thought of what a wonderful life you could have had if you’d taken another direction. But that direction was closed to you now—you’d been spoiled for it. You’d built up inhibitions within yourself that wouldn’t let you overturn the applecart. If you’d tried to, you’d have suffered agonies of guilt and remorse. It would have killed all enjoyment. So you closed Miss Graves’s door, because you couldn’t bear to watch her.”