“Tell me more about my sister’s sex slaying.”
“Don’t be obtuse, Susie. I merely foresaw the headlines in the hypothetical event that I were involved in a hypothetical crime.”
Susie tapped the chart. “If it’s all so hypothetical, why this?”
Mervyn spoke slowly and patiently, as to a child. “According to Harriet, Mary made arrangements with ‘John.’ In which case, it would seem that ‘John’ came to meet Mary.”
“You don’t have a heading for lust or lechery or whatever you’d call it. Isn’t that an important element of a sex slaying? Almost indispensable, I’d think.”
“If a sex slaying occurred. Naturally, there are wheels within wheels.”
“Naturally.” Susie nodded at a private, rather grim, joke. She studied the chart. “Am I supposed to take this seriously? Perhaps we’re on our way to hang John Pilgrim now. Or better, let’s get John Boce. His score is almost as high, and he lives closer.”
“My chart doesn’t seem to impress you.”
“It’s silly. The headings all overlap.”
“If you arrange them in a circle, like a color wheel, they all blend smoothly together. For instance, Imagination, Ingenuity, Drive and Persistence come in sequence. Imagination and Drive are equivalent to Ingenuity. Ingenuity and Persistence equal Drive. What I’m trying to say is, these headings are just points around a circumference. The chart indicates the shape of the circumference — I won’t call it a circle. The totals indicate the extent of the enclosed area.”
“Clever.”
“You’re still not taking me seriously.”
“To think that ten minutes ago you were insulting Harriet because she’s a psychologist.”
“I see I’ll have to explain.”
“I wish you would. I’ve been wondering whether my sister is alive or dead.”
“She’s dead.”
Chapter 1
The Yerba Buena Garden Apartments, a pair of two-story six-apartment complexes, faced each other across a court flagged with black concrete rectangles. There was a small fountain in the center of the court; and a strip of soil planted to palms, white flax, pampas grass, oleander and dwarf bamboo comprised the “garden.” Mary and Susie Hazelwood occupied Apartment 12, at the far end of the south unit’s upper tier. Psychologist Harriet Brill had Apartment 10, at the street end of the balcony. Between, in Apartment 11, resided old Mrs. Bridey Kelly, a retired schoolteacher and a widow, who was very much interested in God. Apartment 9, directly below Susie and Mary, was vacant. In Apartment 8 lived a retired couple currently spending a month in Mexico. Apartment 7 irregularly housed a group of airline hostesses who came and went at unpredictable times and whom no one knew.
In the north six-plex, directly across from Susie and Mary but on the lower level, Mervyn Gray occupied Apartment 3. Apartment 2 was vacant. In Apartment 1, across from Harriet Brill but also on the lower level, lived John Boce. Apartment units 4, 5 and 6, on the top deck, were rented to three working couples who formed a clique of their own.
On the morning of Friday, June fourteenth, Mary Hazelwood, a senior at the university (with another semester to go before graduation), finished the last of her final examinations. At eight o’clock in the evening she left Apartment 12. She was wearing a sky-blue suit and a jaunty light gray coat, and she was carrying a small suitcase. She went down the steps to the court and out to the sidewalk and was seen no more.
She had confided her plans to no one, least of all her sister Susie, whom she loved dearly but with whom she quarreled regularly.
Harriet Brill was the last person to admit having seen Mary. About six o’clock, entering Apartment 12 without ringing, she found Mary, curled on the couch, talking into the telephone. Harriet stood poised on tiptoe in the event Mary should turn to look questioningly at her. Mary completed her conversation: “...I don’t know how, but I’m sure you’ll manage. You’ve got such a persuasive tongue... Please, John, be on time for once?... Please?... Naturally I love you. Who else?... Well, then... Good-bye.” The affectionate avowals were in Mary’s usual frivolous vein, and Harriet attached no significance to them. Later she was not so sure.
Mary jumped to her feet. She showed no surprise at the sight of Harriet; possibly she had been aware of Harriet’s presence. “You’ll have to forgive me,” said Mary. “I’m in a terrible rush. I’ve got to shower and change and pack a suitcase and I’ve only got an hour or so.”
“Going somewhere?” asked Harriet, eyes dancing with curiosity.
“Timbuktu. Around the moon. The robber woods of Tartary. Possibly even Los Angeles.”
“Tchk, tchk. Such high spirits!”
“Exams are over. I’m a free woman. Hurrah.”
“I scent a mystery,” said Harriet archly. “Are you eloping?”
Mary laughed, the friendly, infectious laugh that instantly reduced men to servility (if her physique had not already done so). “I might do worse. I’m twenty-two and still single. Practically a spinster.” She went into the bathroom and started the shower; and Harriet, thirty and still single, turned on her heel and marched out. She had no great affection for either Mary or Susie, though Mary was usually easier to get along with. Conceited little twerps, both of them. Just because they had sleek round bottoms and cute young faces they thought they could elbow everyone else into corners... And she wondered who the John could be that Mary loved so exclusively.
Mary’s world was full of Johns, and Harriet knew all of them. John Boce, John Viviano, John Thompson, John Pilgrim. Mary no doubt loved them all exclusively; her heart was catholic. Harriet herself scorned the tricks that Mary used to attract attention. Popularity was one thing; cheapness another. Not many people saw through the sunny façade to her mixed-up interior. The ingenuous flirting, the teasing, the laughing — they housed an underdeveloped sexuality. An enormous number of men were either blind or just didn’t care. That offensive but Byronically handsome Mervyn Gray in Apartment 3, for instance. And dear dependable John Boce, solid and comfortable as an old oak settle. Thank heaven he was starting to show more stability.
Harriet returned to her own apartment at the beginning of the deck. She was tall, with thin shoulders and legs that unfortunately emphasized her heavy hips. She wore her straight black hair in a coiled braid to frame what she felt to be the keen, classic purity of her features. Harriet had her master’s degree in psychology, and she worked at various part-time jobs as a consulting psychologist. She was addicted to violent peasant blouses, straw sandals and Mexican jewelry; she marched for peace, she folk-danced like one possessed. Her walls displayed copies of the more incomprehensible works of Picasso and Klee; besides her technical books her shelves displayed Kafka, Henry Miller, Sartre, Camus, Aldous Huxley, Bertrand Russell, C. Wright Mills and Lawrence Durrell, as well as a group of exotic cookbooks from which she concocted the most unsavory messes imaginable.
Now she prepared a cup of tea and speculated on the identity of “John.” Not that she really cared, but... She reached for the telephone, dialed a number. Then she hung up when the bell at the other end began to ring.
She chewed at her lower lip. Finally, with defiance, she dialed the number again. The bell rang — three... four... five times. No answer. Harriet returned the receiver to its cradle with a stealthy click.
Presently she took it up again and called the Bancroft Textbook Exchange, where Susie had taken a temporary job during the end-of-semester rush. Susie was a junior, a sociology major, and her finals were also over and done with. There was a short wait while Susie was called to the phone.
“Hello? Susie Hazelwood.” Susie’s voice, as usual, was self-possessed.