Rehearsal for Murder

by P. M. Carlson

  “I guess it did to Ramona.”

  “I don’t know why she couldn’t understand! She’s got all these Catholic hang-ups even though she hasn’t been to church in years. I’ve explained to her before, when she got into these spells—but Ken Martin told me she was really over the edge this time. Really furious.”

  “She just found out?” asked Maggie.

  “That idiot woman phoned her! Of course Ramona hit the ceiling. Ran straight to Ken to file for divorce. Didn’t have any Catholic hang-up about that! He tried to talk her out of it, of course. Been my friend for years. But he couldn’t.”

  “She was very upset,” said Nick. The car bumped over a pothole and he slid helplessly back into the enveloping seat.

  “But we’ll work things out. Somehow. She’d promised to talk to me, that very night.”

  “So you want to save the marriage?”

  “Of course I do! Ramona—well, she’s special.”

  “You’re right,” Nick agreed, but wondered how much of Jenkins’s disclosure was true. He watched the streetlights sliding past the rear window. “You think Ken Martin is helping you? And Ramona too? I don’t understand.”

  “It’s awkward for him, all right. But he’s been the family lawyer for quite a while. It’s not the first time she’s gone sneaking off to him behind my back. You knew before I did that she’d roped him into this idiotic musical project. But he said he told her he’d insist on her getting someone else for a divorce action. She stormed around, of course, and … well, in the end he told me I might have to get someone else. But all this—what the hell difference does it make now?”

  Nick hitched himself forward again. “Is her condition that bad, then?”

  “She’s—and those idiotic cops! Say they’re doing all they can, but they won’t tell me anything, and from what I can gather, they’re convinced it was one of those men in the photos.”

  “And you’re not convinced?” asked Maggie.

  “Well, she was in such a mood after that stupid woman called her. I wondered if she’d got herself into trouble. If it was someone she knew.”

  “Such as us.”

  “Exactly.”

  “Well, it’s true that she was ripping into us that day,” said Nick. “You’re right about the mood. But she didn’t seem suicidal, if that’s what you’re suggesting. More like distracted. Maybe not as alert as she should have been. And the police seem to think there’s evidence that there was a mugger.”

  “What evidence?” he asked, gruffly eager.

  “Please, Mr. Jenkins, tell us how she is.”

  Jenkins glanced at Nick in the rearview mirror and shrugged. “Bad,” he said brusquely. “Coma. Looks … well, she’s full of tubes, wires. It’s just not Ramona. She got a little better the first few hours, then something happened, a blood clot or something. Set off all their alarms. They added some tubes and she’s stabilized again now. But the nurses … well, I don’t know how to put it exactly.” His voice thickened. “They all became more distant. More mechanical. Stopped telling me to buck up. Just told me occasionally to go get something to eat.” He gave a sidelong glance at Maggie, who had hidden her face against Sarah’s head, and said furiously, “Look, you asked!”

  “Yes. We wanted to know,” said Maggie, turning to look at him directly. “It must be hell for you too.”

  “God, if only—” Jenkins broke off, scowled out at the traffic. His hands tightened on the wheel.

  Nick cleared his throat. “You asked why we said ‘kid.’”

  “Yes.” Jenkins drew his thoughts back to the present. “Did the police show you photos?”

  “Yes. They weren’t kids,” Nick confirmed. “But there was a witness, a woman who had been walking a few steps behind Ramona. She said it was a black kid. But she admitted she didn’t see him well, just a glimpse as he dragged Ramona farther into the building.”

  “I see. A witness. What was her name?”

  “I don’t know,” Nick lied, suddenly reluctant to expose Carlotta to Jenkins’s inquisition. “Besides, she only caught a glimpse. The other thing is that I think the police found the man who stole her gun. One of the photos.”

  “But how did he get the pistol?”

  “Maybe he’s a small man. Maybe he’s the kid’s big brother. Maybe the witness was wrong.”

  “That’s not what I mean,” said Jenkins. “She’d hang on to her bag. He couldn’t get the bag without the gun, could he? And he couldn’t get the gun without the bag.”

  Nick pondered that. Carlotta had said nothing about a struggle or screams. But then she’d been running away, screaming herself, before the shots were fired. She might not have heard Ramona. He said, “Suppose the guy snatched her bag and she chased him. He happened to find the gun in the bag and shot her.”

  “Must have found it pretty fast,” said Maggie dubiously. “Look, here’s our corner, Mr. Jenkins.”

  Jenkins double-parked and Nick got out and took Sarah from Maggie. Maggie leaned back in and touched Jenkins on the arm. “Thank you. Take it easy, if you can.”

  He met her sympathetic gaze and his jowly face crumpled. “I’ll never forgive myself!”

  “She was upset, yes, but when you explain—”

  “Oh, I know, we would have worked it out about the divorce. I don’t mean that,” he said roughly. “I mean, I bought her those goddamn pistols. For her goddamn fortieth birthday.”

  He was pulling away almost before she could shut the door.

  Evening offered no relaxation. Nick fed and bathed his daughter as usual, but when Maggie arrived at nine thirty he had to leave again instantly for a late appointment that his vocal coach had arranged. When he let himself back in, well after eleven, he found them in the bedroom rocking chair. Sarah was still nursing, drowsily euphoric at her mother’s breast. Maggie too was dreamy, absorbed in the baby’s happiness. Nick felt a wrenching at his roots, a surging primeval love for both of them. “Ahem,” he said.

  Maggie smiled up at him through mists of contentment. “She’s almost done, love.”

  “I can change her.”

  “Good. I need a shower. Hey,chouchoute, you ready to go?” She sat the baby upright on her knee. Sarah woke up a little and belched.

  “Go team,” said Nick. Sarah noticed him and cracked that awe-inspiring grin of hers.

  “Nick, how’re you doing?”

  He sat on the bed. “Okay. Made real progress on the Gladstone numbers tonight. But I still worry about Ramona.”

  “Yeah. So do I. Jenkins wasn’t encouraging.” Maggie handed Sarah to him and got out a clean diaper.

  “Things okay with you?” he asked.

  “Well, Dan’s having some trouble at the office.”

  “What kind of trouble?”

  “You remember that job we got from the Department of Corrections analyzing parole board decisions?”

  “Yeah, I think so.”

  “They awarded it to us because I’m a whiz at multiple regression and Dan’s a whiz at computers. When I told him how it should be set up, he thought it would be easy to adapt his regression program.”

  “And it wasn’t?” Sarah was squirming. Nick propped her on his knee.

  “We can’t put in all the variables we need, it turns out. Program itself takes up too much room.”

  “I don’t follow.” Sarah was beginning to bounce on his knee. He held her delicately under her tiny arms.

  “See, this program has a lot of options we don’t need, and they take up core space. So Dan has to write a whole new program for this one analysis.”

  “Hey, look at that! You little Amazon!” Sarah had straightened her legs and was standing upright, her plump little body leaning into his supporting hands, her little toes kneading his thigh as she tried to jump.

  “Yeah. Anyway, things are sort of at a standstill for my part of it,” said Maggie morosely. “Until he gets the program done. Next week, he says.”

  Sarah’s delight in the bouncing game was infecti
ous. Nick was overwhelmed by her amazing trust in him, her joy in the developing abilities of her uncoordinated little body, her sheer glee in being alive and healthy and loved. After a moment he noticed that Maggie had said something. “What?” he asked, eyes still homed in on Sarah.

  “Goddamn it, Nick, I’m here too! I asked you a question!” She jerked her bathrobe from a hook.

  “Hey, c’mon, Maggie! Don’t be jealous of your own daughter!”

  “Yeah, okay. But I want to talk, and you’re cooing to her.”

  “Well, it’s nothing to get upset about.”

  “Isn’t it? I thought maybe you, of all people, would understand!” She disappeared into the bathroom with a slam.

  Dismayed, Nick stared at the door, then took Sarah to her table to change the diaper. “Your mother baffles me,” he told her, worried.

  “Ah-yah.” Sarah grinned, not worried at all.

  At the arrival gate, Elaine was pleased and surprised. Damn, she was a nice woman, thought Steve. So full of love and beauty. She exclaimed, “Steve! You didn’t have to come!”

  “I wanted to. Had to stay late at the office anyway. I’ve had quite a day too.”

  “Where’s Muffin?”

  “Home. With Rachel. No problem.”

  “Oh, I hope she’s still awake when we get there!”

  He grinned at her. “If she is, she’ll be cranky.”

  “I don’t care!”

  “Listen, how’s your dad?”

  “He sailed through it. The doctor seemed pleased. Dad was awake and grumbling before I left. Made me promise to call when I got home. But Mom whispered that I’d better not, because she’d been told to give him a sleeping pill as soon as she got him home tonight.”

  “I knew he’d be all right,” said Steve. Avery Busby was too tough to die. Occasional unworthy thoughts had crossed Steve’s mind, especially after he’d lost the Japan job. But Steve had to admire Avery Busby, crusty as he was. A formidable father-in-law.

  “How’s your mom holding up?” he asked Elaine. She discussed her family and her trip as they drove home through the rain. It had been good for her to go, Steve thought, getting her out of her routine a little, seeing her parents, her roots. She was relaxed now, relieved that her father had had no problems. Thank God for that.

  As they turned into their oak-lined street, he could see that there was something wrong. Elaine tensed too. “What’s going on, Steve?”

  “I don’t know.” It was hard to pinpoint. Past the tall hedge he could see Rachel standing out on their lawn, outlined by the light that streamed from her own living room window next door. Bob was patting her rigid shoulders. That was it, maybe, her stiff posture, hands clamped one in the other. Her usual relaxed good humor had evaporated completely.

  “Oh, God,” said Elaine. “Do you think it’s premature labor? She was doing so well! And where’s Muffin?”

  “I don’t know,” said Steve. Something heavy and cold was growing in his gut. Evil things were in motion. He pulled up to the curb. Elaine was out almost before they had stopped, running across the light-streaked lawn to Rachel.

  “Rachel, are you all right? Where’s Muffin?”

  “You don’t have her? Oh, God!” Rachel sagged against Bob, whose arms went around her supportively.

  “What the hell is going on?” Steve felt far away, as though he were watching the scene from the stars sparkling above. Rachel was sobbing, Elaine standing before her, alert and anxious.

  Bob said, “Rachel went to pick her up, but she wasn’t there. The woman said someone else had come for her.”

  “Someone else?”

  “A young woman who said you had sent her.”

  “Have you called the police?” demanded Steve. Rachel shook her head. “I didn’t know what to do! I called your office right away, but you were out.”

  “Yes. I had to leave for a little bit,” said Steve guiltily. Susan. He’d been with Susan while this was happening, while Rachel was trying to reach him.

  “And I thought maybe you really had found someone else and then couldn’t reach me because I’d already left. So I just came back here to see if you might be home. Tried to call you at your office again.”

  “I was probably on my way to meet Lainey by then.”

  Elaine was looking back and forth, not comprehending, maybe not wanting to. “What young woman? Where’s Muffin?”

  “Oh, honey, we don’t know!” said Rachel. “I don’t know what to do!”

  “We call the police,” said Steve. He bounded across the lawn and up his flagstone walk. The others trailed after him. He flipped on the hall light and hurried into the kitchen to pick up the phone. What should he dial? Local police? Manhattan?

  “Steve!” cried Elaine. “Steve! Oh, God, stop!”

  “What?” Still holding the receiver, he stepped back into the hall.

  Elaine was crouched on the floor where the mail had fallen through the slot into a rough pile. She was holding a sheet of paper printed with large letters. Looked a little like an advertisement from here, Steve thought. But badly set, letters unmatched.

  Elaine was looking up at him, dazed, like a shot animal that cannot comprehend what has happened to it. Steve dropped the receiver and squatted beside her, one arm around her shoulders. Gently he took the paper from her.

  This isn’t real, he thought, a bad movie or a bad dream. The words consisted of the cliché letters-cut-from-newspaper-headlines, as though already preparing for cliché tabloid emotions. But the message, cliché or not, went straight to the heart.

  We’ve got Muffin. Cute kid. If you want her back, pay us $500,000 by Friday night. We’ll tell you where and how. We mean business. If we don’t get the money, we’ll send you her finger. If you call the police, we’ll send you her ear.

  Part Three

  A GRASSHOPPER’S UNCLE

  Friday morning

  March 9, 1973

  VIII

  Friday morning

  March 9, 1973

  By morning Steve was beyond exhaustion, existing in a world of numbing fatigue and paradoxically heightened senses. For hours he and Elaine had been alternately bickering and comforting each other. They both felt panic; they both ached for their child; they both felt enormous, paralyzing guilt. And in this state of emotional chaos they had to hammer out a plan of action.

  “Steve, we’ve got to be rational!” Elaine had sobbed last night after one bitter exchange of accusations. “Her life depends on it!”

  “I know, honey.” Steve had hugged her, his face buried in her hair, guilt washing over him again. How could he ever have believed that being with Susan was worth risking this? A giddy kid, now paying dearly for his irresponsibility. He couldn’t add confession to Elaine’s burdens now. But her pain was another knife twisting inside him. He said, “We’ll be rational. Let’s finish the finances.”

  They’d totaled it up. Most of their assets were tied up—the house, the cars, insurance. Bank accounts and stocks that could be cashed in before the Friday night deadline came to just over $100,000.

  It was Elaine who finally acknowledged it. “We’ll have to call Dad.”

  “Yeah. Damn.”

  She had called, near midnight, only to be reminded by her mother that Avery Busby was under sedation on doctor’s orders. Elaine had refused to tell her mother the problem, but said she’d call back early the next morning. “Oh, I hope I didn’t worry her too much,” she’d said as she hung up.

  “You were fine, honey.”

  “But do you think he can help?”

  “Yes, but not till the banks open.”

  “Steve, how could you have let someone else pick her up?”

  “It was Rachel, damn it!” Steve had just not been able to tell her about Maggie and Mrs. Golden. “You’ve left her with Rachel sometimes yourself!”

  “Oh, God, why did I ever leave her?” Her anguish had shifted again, aimed at herself now.

  “Honey, we can’t do anything about what’
s already happened. We have to go on from here. Let’s try to get some sleep.”

  A foolish suggestion; there was little sleep for either of them. Steve’s thoughts were a maelstrom of worries—about Elaine, about Susan, about money, most of all about his daughter. Was she all right? Was she frightened? Would he ever see her again? The memory of her delicious dimpled smile knifed, clear as glinting sunlight, through the fatigued muddle of his worries. In the unfriendly darkness Steve put his head into the pillow and wept for his lost daughter.

  But then Elaine, who with the aid of Valium was dozing a little beside him, awoke with a sob, and Steve blinked back his own tears so that he could try to comfort her.

  Friday’s dawn found them both ravaged by the night, but at least they could begin to act. They hurried first to the front door, to see if by chance a second message had already arrived, but nothing was there. Mechanically Elaine made coffee and toast. Only minutes later there was a knock on the door: Rachel, her belly enormous under a plush bathrobe.

  “I saw the light on. Any news?”

  “Nothing yet.”

  “I feel so guilty!” she sobbed. “If only I’d tried harder to check with you, Steve! If—”

  “Rachel, please, it’s not your fault. Anyway, I wasn’t always by the phone.”

  “Oh, Steve! You shouldn’t have come to pick me up!” Elaine burst out.

  “Lainey, don’t you think I’d do everything differently if I could?” Steve sat down helplessly, head in hands.

  But her mind had already spun on to another question. “It’s still too early to call Dad, I guess.”

  Steve checked his watch. “Maybe not. He’ll kill us if we wait too long about something like this.”

  Elaine handed coffee to Rachel. “Really? It’s okay?”

  “Go ahead,” said Steve.

  Avery Busby was awake, all right. Elaine’s mother put him on, and from across the kitchen Steve could hear the testiness in his “Hello?”