Carl stood on the iron steps, leaning against the railing, perfectly still, as if he had been transfixed by a terrible insight. Anguish was radiant on his face. Then his head and his knees went loose, and he somersaulted to the second-floor platform. He lay there like a bundle of blue rags.
I climbed up to him. The drag of gravity was powerful on my legs. When I got to him he was dead. There was a hole in the back of his head, another hole in the middle of his back, a third hole in his belly. He was barefooted.
Above me, Ostervelt replaced his gun in its holster with the air of a good workman putting away a tool. He sat down heavily on the iron steps:
“Too bad. I had to do it. He was hiding in the kitchenette in Milly’s apartment. I figure he was waiting until I left, so he could get his crazy hands on her. I heard a noise in there. I pulled my gun and opened the door. He came at me with a knife in his hand.”
“Where’s the knife?”
“He dropped it when I plugged him the first time. Dropped it and made for the window.”
“Did you have to shoot him twice more?”
“Maybe not. I usually finish what I start. He wasn’t much use to himself alive, anyway. You might say that I saved him a lot of grief.”
“I think he had it all,” I said. “All the grief there is.”
“Maybe so. Well, it’s all over now.”
“Not quite.” I looked down at the ruined head.
A prowl car rounded the corner and squealed to a stop behind my double-parked car. Two uniformed cops with outraged faces got out. Ostervelt yelled in a big cracked voice:
“Up here.”
The men in uniform ran across the lawn towards the fire escape. Their feet were silent in the grass.
“You handle them, Sheriff,” I said. “I want to talk to Mildred.”
He rose with a sigh and stood against the wall to let me pass him on the narrow steps. I didn’t want to touch him. But his belly protruded like a medicine ball under his clothes, and I had to.
Mildred’s room was cheaply furnished with a studio bed, a threadbare rug, a couple of chairs, a record-player on a rickety table. The sheriff’s evidence case was on the table beside it. Mildred was hunched over on the edge of the studio bed with her face in her hands. When I stepped over the windowsill, I saw her eyes sparkle between her fingers:
“Is he dead?”
“Ostervelt saw to that.”
“How dreadful.” She dropped her hands. Her face was white and intent. There were no tears on it. She said: “Yet I suppose it had to be. It’s lucky for me that Ostie came up here with me. He might have killed me.”
“I doubt that, Mrs. Heller.”
“He killed the others,” she said. “It would have been my turn next. You should have seen him when he came lunging out with that knife in his hand.”
A long knife gleamed on the worn rug outside the open door to the kitchenette. I picked it up and tested its edge with my thumb. It was a wavy-edged bread-knife, very sharp. A few small bread crumbs clung to its shining surface.
“I wish I had been here,” I said. “I’d have taken the knife away from him. Your husband would still be alive.”
“You don’t know what you’re saying. He was terribly strong–”
“Not as strong as you, Mrs. Heller. He was like a child in your hands. So was I for a while.”
“What do you mean?”
I didn’t answer her. I turned on my heel and went into the kitchenette. It was a tiny cubicle containing an apartment stove and refrigerator, a sink and a small cupboard. A loaf of bread and an open jar of peanut butter stood on the masonite workboard beside the sink. A slice of bread, half-severed, hung on one end of the loaf. A pot of coffee was steaming on the stove.
On a towel rack above the stove, a pair of gray cotton socks were hanging limply. I took them down and stretched them out in my hands. They were clean and very large, about size twelve – a pair of men’s work socks which someone had washed and hung up to dry. They were nearly dry.
Mildred appeared in the doorway. Her blue eyes were inky, almost black in her white face:
“What are you doing in here? You’ve got no right to interfere with my things.”
I held up the gray socks. “Are these your things? They’re pretty big for you.”
“What are they? How did they get here?”
“They’re your husband’s socks. He wore them here. Apparently he took them off and washed them and hung them up to dry. He must have done that quite some time ago, because they’re just about dry. Feel them.”
She backed away, her arms stiff at her sides.
“He must have been here in your apartment for quite a long time,” I said. “In fact, I’ll give you odds that Carl was here all day.”
“But that’s impossible. He was at the ranch. There was the gun.”
“Yes, there was the gun. But there was no evidence that he carried it there or used it on his brother.”
“I saw him there.” Her face was grim and haggard, as if a generation of years had fallen on her in the past five minutes. “I went out in the greenhouse to see if Jerry was all right. Carl was with him. I actually saw him shoot Jerry.”
“Where were you?”
“In the passageway between the house and the greenhouse.”
“That much I believe.”
“It’s true. It’s all true.”
“Why didn’t you tell us before?”
“I hated to. After all I am his wife.”
“His widow,” I said. “His merry little widow. You didn’t tell us because it didn’t happen. You went out in the greenhouse, no doubt, but Jerry was alone. And you were carrying the revolver yourself.”
“I couldn’t have,” she said. “You know I couldn’t have. Carl had the revolver. I saw him take it from Dr. Grantland’s desk.”
“Why didn’t you tell me that this morning?”
“Didn’t I? It must have slipped my mind. Anyway, he had it. He showed it to you in your office this morning. You told me that yourself.”
“I know I did. Is that when you got your big idea?”
“What big idea? I don’t understand.”
“The big idea of shooting Jerry and using Carl’s escape for a coverup. The same way you used him to cover you when you strangled his father.”
Her breath was quick, and loud in the hidden passages of her head. “How did you know?”
“I didn’t know for certain, until now.”
“You tricked me.” She spat the words.
“That’s fair enough. You conned me nicely in my office this morning. When I told you Carl was carrying a gun, you put on a very good act. Surprised alarm. It took me in completely. The gun was in your bag at that very moment. I suppose you met him coming out of my office, and talked him into giving you the gun. Talked him into coming here to your apartment and lying low. He was the sucker of the century, but I was a close second. I even gave you transportation to the scene of the crime. And you went through the same routine that worked five years ago, and almost worked again.”
Her mouth twisted in a ghastly mimicry of a coaxing smile. “You wouldn’t tell anybody on me, would you? You don’t know what I’ve been through, how awful it was to marry a man and have him turn out crazy. And then we had to go and live with his family. You don’t know how I suffered from that family. I thought if the old man died, we’d be able to get some money and break free. How was I to know they’d lock Carl up for it? Or that Jerry would cut me off the way he did?”
“Is that why you killed Jerry?”
“He deserved it. Besides, I was afraid they’d open the case again when Carl escaped.”
“Did Carl deserve what you did to him?”
“I didn’t do it,” she said. “It was Sheriff Ostervelt.”