I must anticipate every trick the killer might pull.
My apartment, since yesterday, has been off limits to my friends.
This morning I placed an ad on the NYU website, looking to hire a few students to help me search my apartment for any weapons the killer might have already planted there.
I will, of course, frisk my friends when they arrive on the night of the dinner.
My brain is so muddled from stress that I haven’t been able to focus on anything except getting things safe for the dinner. My work has suffered. I’m supposed to be creating a hat that goes with the quirky green velvet outfit I finished two days ago. Ordinarily, I’d be able to come up with an original hat concept in less than twenty minutes. But now my mind has deteriorated almost to the point of asking myself, “What’s a hat?”
I take a walk down Fifth Avenue to Washington Square Park, trying to imagine every weapon the killer might think of using, and I dismiss the ones I assume I don’t need to worry about, such as a gun — which frisking would detect — and a vial of poison — which I plan to guard against by keeping my friends away from the food until it’s served. A wire to strangle Strad would be easy to smuggle in but does not worry me because getting strangled takes a couple of minutes and we’d have more than enough time to pull the killer off Strad. More dangerous are the weapons that can be used in a split second, such as blades, especially razor blades. They’re simple to sneak in and they’re quick. But perhaps most importantly, a blade was the killer’s weapon of choice the first time around.
AT NIGHT, I wake up in cold sweats. My friends are not the types to do anything very bad, much less kill someone, but I’m aware we don’t always know people as well as we think we do, and Gabriel is not the type to lie. So I try to figure out, yet again, which of my friends murdered the man from the bar.
Jack is, of course, the most obvious, mainly because he has killed before. He killed two men in the shootout with Penelope’s kidnappers, the same shootout that left him limping. In addition, he’s still very strong despite his injuries. He would certainly be capable of slitting a man’s throat if he wanted, probably far more easily than Georgia, Penelope, or Lily, at least on a physical level. On a psychological, emotional, and moral level, that’s another matter. I think back on when he first got his part-time job at the senior center, which he took soon after rescuing Penelope, when he realized he’d never be able to get back on the police force due to his limp.
After a few weeks of serving meals and asking after grandchildren at the senior center, he was feeling depressed, missing the kind of work he’d done as a police officer. That was when the seniors started getting into frequent fights — a couple of them a week. Jack broke up the fights. He thought it was strange that the fights were so numerous, but the truth was, he didn’t mind. He felt more useful and less depressed this way.
Jack had broken up six fights in the three weeks since the fights had begun. He decided to ask the director of the senior center what was going on.
“Thank you for keeping the peace and breaking up the fights,” the director said to him.
“No problem.”
“The fact that the fights are fake should not in any way diminish your sense of accomplishment.”
“The fights are fake?”
“Yes. The seniors were excited to have a hero such as yourself working here, but they were worried you would not be happy merely serving them lunch if your special skill — of keeping the peace — wasn’t used. That’s why they took it upon themselves to stage fights. It’s very touching.”
“I’m touched and humiliated at the same time. I don’t think I can continue working here, now that I know this. And I’m not sure why you told me.”
“I told you because I was afraid you’d figure it out yourself and decide to quit the job before giving me a chance to explain how important it is that you continue.”
“Continue serving lunch?”
“And breaking up fights.”
“Fake fights.”
“Yes. The seniors have never been happier. You’ve given them a sense of purpose. They think they’ve given you a purpose in life and that without them you’d be falling apart.”
“It’ll be difficult for me to continue playing along with this.”
“Yes. And therefore very rewarding. Please continue to give the seniors a sense of purpose by letting them think they’re giving you a sense of purpose. That’s a far greater gift than serving them lunch, which you do wonderfully well too.”
Jack has been happy enough at that part-time job for the past five years. The seniors love him and the feeling is close to mutual. He has no immediate plans to leave.
Sure, Jack’s willingness to go along with such an eccentric plan could be considered deviant behavior — but deviant in the most selfless and kind-hearted of ways. It shows such an endearing willingness to swallow his pride that I can’t imagine him murdering a stranger over an offensive comment at a bar — even one directed at Lily. I know I could be wrong, but nevertheless I dismiss Jack as a possible culprit for now and turn my thoughts to Georgia, Penelope, and Lily to try to remember things they’ve said or done that could be indicative of their guilt.
I don’t come up with any grand revelations.
THE NEXT DAY, I decide I must get some work done, must buckle down. I can’t let my desire to protect Strad-the-Jerk damage my career. The movie director I’m working with left me a message asking where the hat was that I said I’d send him two days ago and if everything’s okay.
No, things are not okay, but I must compartmentalize. Just because there’s a problem in one life-box doesn’t mean it has to create a problem in all my other life-boxes.
I settle down to my work, blank page in front of me, elbows on the table, head in my hands, thinking of hat for green outfit. I’ve hardly been at this for two minutes when the phone rings. I should have turned off the ringer. Forgot to.
It’s Jack, saying he just got word from the forensic handwriting expert that Gabriel’s letter is authentic.
I take this in. Jack then says there’s a special way the killer could sneak in a weapon on the evening of Strad’s death, even if I frisk everyone. And he describes the way.
After we hang up, the “way” haunts me.
I call for a meeting; I must discuss the way.
We meet for dinner at Penelope’s place on the Upper East Side. We bring sandwiches.
Before we’ve even unwrapped them, I’m anxious and hence can’t delay getting on topic: “It has been brought to my attention by one of you that women can hide weapons inside their bodies in the fashion of a tampon, and that the weapon can easily be accessed, especially when the woman goes to the bathroom.”
“Typical that a man should think of this,” Penelope mutters, looking at her shoes.
Jack seems taken aback by her guess, but doesn’t deny it. “I’m a cop! That’s why I thought of it. Not because I’m a man.”
Georgia says to me, “Men can hide weapons inside their bodies in the fashion of a suppository. Don’t tell me you’re going to explore our crevices.”
“I can’t be explored,” Penelope says softly, still gazing at her shoes.
Lily looks apprehensive as well.
“Don’t be ridiculous,” I tell them. “I’m not going to explore anyone. I just want you to wear pants, that’s all.”
“You mean so we can’t whip it out in the middle of dinner?” snaps Georgia.