‘Please stop! Stop it!’
‘Okay, that’s enough,’ said the driver. ‘Out of my cab, fella. Now!’
‘Cheating on my wife doesn’t make a good motive for murder.’
‘Oh, sure it will. I like it. Money motives are the best. According to your father-in-law’s will, you don’t inherit if your wife dies. Smart old man, your father-in-law. And you don’t get alimony if she divorces you for cause. And that, incidentally, is the clause that hangs you – you couldn’t afford to get caught in the act.’
‘You can’t possibly base a murder motive on the possibility that she wouldn’t overlook one small indiscretion. You’d be laughed out of court. Everybody cheats.’ And everybody lies.
‘You mean the way she overlooked your embezzlement? I found the transactions in the company computer. She covered the sale of the stock you didn’t own, and she covered the collateral loan on the condo. She wouldn’t haul you in court for that. It might make the stockholders nervous to find an embezzler in the family. But I’m betting she’d haul you in for adultery.’
‘The threat of divorce is still a weak motive for murder.’
‘Is it? If Angel divorces you, you get nothing. You even had to agree to give custody of your own child to another relative in the event of your wife’s death. That’s how much the old man trusted you.’
Kipling was backing off in the body language, regrouping for another tack. ‘My wife is rather cold. She never lets me touch her any more. I had to have a woman on the side. But I certainly didn’t kill Amanda.’
She had always known it would be something simple, and disappointing. Now there was only the tedium of letting him flap his mouth, catching him in the lies while the camera was rolling. He was exhibiting all the signs of the liar. He explained too much, emoted too much. And now he was going on and on about the tragic death of Amanda and his own, more important tragedy.
All his life, he’d been waiting on opportunity, which had arrived in the shape of an heiress. And now, when he was set for life, it was all falling apart on him, everything unraveling, and he could not, would not see it. The lies didn’t work any more, and yet he kept on lying.
‘Amanda made the decision to have an abortion,’ he said.
Butchery, Mallory silently translated.
‘It’s unreasonable to blame me.’
She was going to tell your wife.
‘Eventually, Amanda saw it my way.’
Stunned with a rock, and bleeding.
‘I loved Amanda. I love all women.’
To death.
And here, Mallory interrupted him. ‘Your blood type is B positive.’
Kipling tightened all the muscles of his face.
‘You killed her by the water, and then you ran away. You came back later and smashed up her hands. You took some time with that.’
‘I suppose you were there when this fantasy supposedly happened?’
Mallory smiled.
At a dead run, Charles took the stairs leading down below the level of the sidewalk. He was half falling down them, as others were shouldering up the narrow stairway. At the booth, he made a frantic exchange of coins for tokens. The man behind the bulletproof window busied himself with some bit of paperwork and then began slowly to count out a packet of dollar bills. He never looked up, never responded to the crazed knocking on the glass, which sounded the panic of the oncoming train that Charles would miss without the token. The train pulled in as the clerk was pushing a token under the partition.
Charles turned into the crush of disembarking straphangers, to plant his token in the slot and hurry through. He ran at the train. The doors were closing, and he put his hand inside and pressed them open again with the aid of an electronic eye which had not kicked in until Charles felt real pain. He squeezed in among the press of other passengers, who looked up at him as though his size was something he was guilty of.
Now the train was in motion and the public address system was making an announcement to the passengers. He couldn’t make out the individual words among the garble of mechanics and the garble of a man who was eating his lunch as he addressed the riders over the loudspeaker in what was obviously his second, and recently acquired language.
‘What is he saying?’ Charles asked a woman who had the bored look of having been this route many times. The woman only shrugged.
It was Amanda, by his side, who answered his worst fears. ‘He’s saying what they always say. No matter where you’re going, you can’t get there from here.’
When the train did stop again, he discovered the local had turned into an express. Judging by the lynch mob attitude of other passengers, who were far more irritated than the shrugging woman, this change of route was a whim of the engineer. When he saw the light of day and the first street sign, he knew he was miles out of his way, and he began to run.
‘You were standing down by the water when she nailed you on the lie. She was going to give your wife all the evidence she needed to divorce you for cause. You panicked and grabbed her by the arm. First you stunned her, and then you killed her. Then you ran away… like the dog.’
‘My dog – ’
‘You were walking the dog that morning. That was your excuse for going out to meet her in the park. The dog was running loose. While you fought with Amanda, he got his leash caught in the bushes when he was heading north over the rise. You’re probably wondering how I know that. So you found the dog and took it home. Then, about thirty minutes later, you came back to drag Amanda’s body into the woods – ’
‘You couldn’t – ’
‘ – and you smashed up her hands, her fingerprints. You made so many stupid mistakes, Harry.’
He moved toward her and away from the knife. Good. Now she was circling around him. The way to the door was almost clear. His hands were rising now, the hands which had snapped a woman’s neck. It was panic time again for Harry Kipling. He was rushing toward her. She reached out to grab his outstretched hand, struck one long leg across his path and pulled hard on his hand to guide all of his weight to the floor.
Big he might be, but not terribly graceful.
He was looking for his large feet when she kicked him in the groin to double him into a fetal position. Then she rolled him on his stomach and pulled one arm up behind his back until he screamed.
‘You’re going to break it!’
‘Then hold still!’
With her free hand she reached for the heavy drapery cord and yanked on it, bringing down drapes and curtain rod.
His running was hampered by the dense crowd of people on the sidewalk. It wasn’t fair, the streets should be deserted. Couldn’t all these people have waited one blessed day before racing out to return their Christmas gifts and exchange them for the right sizes?
Charles dropped the gun, and an old woman kicked it out of her way. He wondered if she could not see it over her packages, or did she think it was commonplace sidewalk debris for this part of town? He leaned down and picked it up. He began to make better time now, suddenly not bothered by the crowd any more. In fact, people were hurrying to get out of his way.
Well, this was more like it.
And now it occurred to him that this sudden show of public courtesy might have something to do with the naked gun in his hand. Well, of course they were all being polite.
Fool.
Harry Kipling was hogtied. Hands tied behind him and roped to one leg, he was pulled back in a bizarre bow. He looked ridiculous; he was ridiculous, a pathetic bastard who had struck out in childish fear, in anger, and then tried to clean up his mess, the death of a human being named Amanda.