Generous Death

by Nancy Pickard

  Simon lifted his body heavily out of his chair and leaned his weight on his knuckles on his desk top. For the first time a glimmer of fight showed in his eyes. “You screwed things up for me, Allison!” he said loudly. “Everything would have been all right if you hadn’t got them thinking murder!”

  “Well you didn’t exactly make life easy for me either, you bastard!” she screamed at him, shocking me out of my fog.

  It was his turn for mocking laughter and he threw it at her enraged little face.

  “You didn’t like it when I played your game, did you, Allison love? I don’t see why you should mind, dear… I played by your rules, didn’t I?”

  “Why couldn’t you leave it alone?” she screamed at him. “Why’d you have to try to kill Minnie Mimbs?”

  They didn’t even hear me moan. I might as well not have been there; this was a killer duet.

  Simon managed a crooked grin.

  “You put me behind the eight ball, Allison. When I heard how Moshe Cohen and Florence Hatch died, it was real clear to me that somebody was using Arnie’s death to cover another purpose. And that put me in real danger because if the cops tried hard enough, they might prove I killed Arnie. I didn’t have an alibi for that night… and I was at the cocktail party when you doped Moshe. So it was obvious to me that I had to take matters into my own hands again. If somebody was killing the Big Five, I was going to have to have perfect alibis for the last two deaths. And the only way to manage that was to kill Minnie and Jenny myself.”

  “Oh, Simon,” I choked. “Oh, Simon.”

  He turned his face toward me but he didn’t seem to recognize me as anyone he knew.

  “The holograph,” I stuttered, “and the rental car.”

  “How the hell did you figure that out?” he said harshly.

  “I was here this afternoon, Simon,” I said weakly. “See, my car’s in the shop and the only place I could find a rental car was at Lease-A-Lump.” He closed his eyes and shook his head as if he couldn’t believe his own bad luck. Allison had a most interested expression on her face. I said, “And the car they gave me is the one you had leased. The woman told me you’d said you needed a car because your own was being fixed, but I’d seen you driving your car that day you brought Derek to work …”

  His eyes still closed, he smiled slightly.

  “I thought you might know whether Minnie was supposed to live or die,” he said, “and I wanted to know if she was under guard …”

  “Which information I helpfully volunteered,” I said in disgust. “Well, when I realized you had lied about your car, I got a funny feeling—I don’t know, I just got worried because I’d known all along that you could have killed Arnie, and I—well, I drove right over here.”

  Where I had noticed the books on photography, including several on the subject of holography. And a napkin from a cafe near Soho where the Museum of Holography happens to be located. And a tourist magazine where I had noticed an ad listing the hours the museum was open. And a camera that reminded me of the photography show Simon had been putting together for the museum.

  “What the hell is holography?” Allison said.

  “It’s a three-dimensional image,” I said tiredly, “projected into space by means of laser light waves. Ever been to Disney World, Allison?” She nodded, but suspiciously, as if she thought I was making fun of her. “Did you visit the haunted house?” I said, while Simon folded his hands on his stomach and smiled smugly. She nodded again. “Well, then,” I said, “you probably remember the ‘ghosts,’ don’t you?”

  “That’s a holo … hoga …”

  “Hologram,” Simon pedantically corrected her. “Yes, as Jennifer said, it’s a three-dimensional image that can be projected into space so it looks like a real person. Holograms can be made into, well, movies, so the images look for all the world like real people moving about the room. I’ve been working with the people at the Holography Museum in New York City, putting together a demonstration of the art for my photography show.”

  “And I’ll bet,” I said, “that one of the holograms you put together just happened to be a three-dimensional movie of you working at your desk in your office. So if a guard just happened to walk by outside, he’d see you—or what looked like you—bent over your desk. Really, Simon,” I said wryly, “I’ll bet it’s brilliant. I’d love to see it sometime.”

  “Do come to the show,” he said and grinned at me, seeming to forget for the moment that he and I had a new, as it were, relationship.

  “Gee, you’ll have to miss it, Jenny,” Allison said, and Simon’s face turned ashen again. “You, too, Simon. But while you’re boasting, do tell us why you needed a rental car.”

  He slumped back in his chair again, the spark of defiance having slipped away with the reminder of what she planned for him and his beloved museum.

  “I had to get to and from the Episcopal church,” he said, “without being recognized. And I had to leave my car in the parking lot here so the guard would think I was still here. I fixed the burglar alarm on one of the windows and just climbed in and out as I pleased.”

  “So you finally had a perfect alibi,” Allison smirked, “but hardly a perfect murder. Minnie Mimbs is going to live, you know. Who knows? Maybe right this very minute, she’s telling how you tried to kill her. And won’t that fit in nicely with my plans for you.”

  Defeat settled deeper and more visibly into Simon’s body, his face, eyes, voice. Plainly, she enjoyed his misery and was in no hurry to end it. But then why should she? No one in the world knew we were there or for what deadly purpose.

  “Why didn’t you leave a note with Minnie’s body?” she asked. They seemed so interested in each other’s technique; but then experts in a given field do like to exchange trade secrets. “You knew about my little rhymes.”

  Wearily, he told her how he knew he couldn’t have duplicated the typewriting or style of thought. And rather than take the chance that the police might begin to suspect the existence of two murderers, he omitted that one part of her pattern.

  “The verse in my car,” I blurted out, “did you leave it there, Simon? Did you mean to kill me the same night you tried to kill Minnie?”

  “What verse?” His eyes slid a surprised look toward me before they skittered quickly away again. He didn’t seem to be able to look at me anymore. “No! I didn’t try to kill you, Jenny, I couldn’t, I …”

  “I left that note,” Allison cut in coldly. “Actually, I hadn’t planned to kill anybody else after I killed Moshe Cohen and Mrs. Hatch. I thought that would be sufficient to confuse the police. But I did want the police to be sure to keep looking to all of the Big Five for a motive, rather than to any single victim for a specific motive. So I decided I’d make it look as if Jenny and Minnie were threatened. I thought that would be enough, I thought that then my job would be done and that would be all I’d have to do.” Momentarily, she looked furious with him and for a terrible instant I was sure it was all over. But she must have wanted to prolong her triumph, because she swallowed her fury. The smirk returned.

  “Don’t you want to know how I figured it was you, Simon?” she taunted him. “When I read that somebody had attacked Minnie, I knew somebody was trying to use my pattern. I had to get control of things again before whoever it was inadvertently incriminated me. So I decided I’d have to kill Jenny.” If there was regret in her voice, I didn’t hear it. “I started looking for an opportunity,” she explained coolly. “I knew I’d never get her alone at The Foundation, so I drove by her house every night, but she was never there.”

  I’d been at Geof’s, of course, thank goodness.

  “Well, when I was driving by one Saturday night, I saw that dear Jenny had a visitor…”

  “Oh shit,” Simon said, almost like his old self.

  “There was enough light reflected from the snow that I was able to recognize you,” she said. “I was curious. It was obvious that Jenny wasn’t home, and yet you went up to the door and didn’t come
back down the walk for a long time …”

  “Simon, how could you do that to me?” My voice shook as I confronted him with my memory of his sadistic labors. “How could you …”

  Still, he wouldn’t look at me.

  “Consider the alternative, Jenny,” he said. “I might have killed you, you know. I couldn’t bring myself to do that, but I had to make it look as if there’d been some sort of attack on you or your property. Nothing personal, you understand, love.”

  “Nothing personal!” I flew out of my chair toward him and screamed at his averted face. “Nothing personal, you rotten son of a bitch! What about my mother’s china, what about her clothes and her rug that you unraveled, what about the clam sculpture, what about the baby shoes you, oh Jesus, Simon, you…”

  He did look at me then. His expression was one of bewildered, wounded innocence.

  “Huh?” he said and then we saw awareness in each other’s eyes and we turned as one toward Allison.

  “So I finished the job for him,” she shrugged, “So what?”

  “Why?” I screamed and Simon grabbed my wrists to keep me from lunging at her and bringing instant death down upon both of us. “What have I done to you? Why, why?”

  The little hand holding the little gun began to shake. I watched, mesmerized, as the trembling crept from her hand through her entire arm, into her shoulders, down her body. She shook as if she were in the grip of a fever, she shook as if she were convulsing and the gun began to slide around in the air, pointing wildly now at Simon, now at me, now at nothing.

  “Stop!” Simon howled at her, terrified the gun would go off in her shaking hand. “For God’s sake, stop!”

  As abruptly as it started, the violent shaking stopped, leaving her coated in sweat and staring wildly at us—no, not at us, at me.

  “My father,” she whispered. “My father’s name was Charles Parker, but you wouldn’t know that, would you, Jennifer? He was just another little man canning clams.”

  “Oh my dear lord,” I sank into the chair again. Instantly, I understood the source of her hatred.

  “He worked for Cain Clams for thirty-two years, Jennifer, but you wouldn’t know that, would you? And he was going to retire, but when your father took the money and ran there wasn’t even any pension fund left, was there, but you wouldn’t know that, would you?”

  “I know! I’m so sorry, I …”

  “Sorry! You don’t know sorry yet, you don’t know it at all! My mother died that year, you do know that, I put that much on my resume. And then Dad lost his job and his pension and he left us and they split up us kids and I had to start begging, Jennifer, just like I always had to beg from The Foundation. Just like I had to beg from Mrs. Hatch. Thank you, please, excuse me, thank you, please, excuse me …”

  “Allison …” But there was absolutely nothing I could say; what had happened to her father and her family was a terrible thing and it was my father’s fault. And no amount of good works on my part would satisfy her lust for revenge. It didn’t matter that it wasn’t my fault. I was a Cain. And worse than that. I was someone else to whom she’d debased herself with hypocritical gratitude.

  Somehow, from some inner source of bitter strength, she pulled herself together. With one last look of vengeful triumph, she turned away from me and leveled her eyes and her gun at Simon once again.

  “This morning,” she said curtly, “I learned that you were said to have been at the museum all Saturday night and I was the only person in the world who knew that wasn’t true. That’s when I figured it out, Simon, that’s when I knew you were the one who’d attacked Minnie because you had the same alibi for that night, too. And the only possible reason for you to follow my pattern was if you had killed Arnie Culverson here at the museum that night. You had something to cover up, and that was it.”

  “He came to me in my office that night,” Simon said, looking off into a painful space of memories. “And he told me he was going to write the museum out of his will. I didn’t know he’d already done it; I guess he didn’t have the nerve to tell me that much. I thought my only chance was for him to die before he could write the new will. So I killed him. We got in an argument. He got a migraine. He took some of his pills and when I saw the bottle, I knew, that’s how I could kill him. He took off his coat because he was hot and he went to the bathroom. I emptied the pills out into my hand and I dropped them in a glass of wine. They’d dissolved by the time he came back. I said to him, I said, It’s okay, Arnie, let’s be friends again, let’s have a drink on it. And we did. And all I had to do was wait for him to get drowsy. So I said, Let’s take a walk, Arnie, I want to show you something in the Chinese Wing. And we sat on the testered bed and talked until he got drowsy and then he went into a stupor. And I put him on the bed and I went back down and got that damn comforter and pillow and I fixed him up on the bed and I wiped my fingerprints off the pill bottles and put the bottles in his hand so his prints would be on them again. And I thought I’d saved the museum.”

  Simon smiled gently into space.

  “I’ve received a fair number of shocks, recently, ladies,” he said. “But I suppose the worst was that morning Jenny came to my office and told me there was a new will and we weren’t in it.”

  Quietly, he crossed his arms on his desk top, lay his head on them and gave up.

  “Don’t go to sleep, Simon,” Allison chided him. “I’ll tell you what we’re going to do. Get up.”

  He did, in slow motion.

  I wondered if he could—would—help me if I made a move to escape. I was not so stupid that I failed to appreciate the danger to myself now from him as well as from her. If we got rid of Allison, we’d still face each other. Simon and I, he with his guilt and I with my knowledge of his guilt. Would his meager supply of scruples survive a second test with my life? Or would I have another killer from whom to run—my good friend, Simon Church?

  “You too.” She was beginning to treat me cavalierly, like the dispensable commodity I was to her. “Up.”

  She directed us, step by excruciatingly terrifying step, into the guard room.

  Simon saw the dead guard.

  He didn’t speak, but just sagged further into his bones. I knew then, he would be useless to me; the enormity of the chain of events he had triggered had caught up with him and overwhelmed him. I didn’t think he consciously wanted to die, but I couldn’t think of a single reason why Simon might want to live.

  While those thoughts skittered around my brain, Allison lit a cigarette. I had a wild image of her blindfolding us, tying our hands behind our backs and giving us one last puff before she blew our brains out. But she was not so fanciful; simple arson was her plan. On the floor, there was a small pile of trash which the guard had evidently been in the act of sweeping into a dustpan when we interrupted him permanently. She dropped the lit cigarette and the burning match onto the trash. Then she lit the other matches in the book and tossed them into a wastebasket close by a neat stack of old newspapers. She didn’t care if it looked like arson; she wanted it to look deliberately set.

  “I’ll tell you what we’re going to do,” she said calmly. “I’m going to shoot Jennifer. Or, would you rather do it, Simon? No? Oh, that’s right, you don’t have the stomach for killing dear Jenny. Well, that’s all right, I’ll do it. And then, Simon, I’m awfully sorry but I’m afraid that for this plan of mine to work, you’re simply going to have to burn to death.” He stared at the dead guard; he didn’t seem to hear her sentence of death. “Or,” she smiled, “if you’re lucky, maybe smoke inhalation will get you. Either way, when they find you, they’ll think you got hoist by your own petard.”

  I wondered—in the middle of my own sudden desperation—how she thought she’d get him to submit to such horror; maybe she’d knock him out before she escaped, put his fingerprints on the gun, toss it beside his body and leave him to the flames. It wouldn’t be hard for her to do, not in the mesmerized, submissive state to which she had reduced him.

 
; Her gun, which had been leveled at a midway point between Simon and me, moved slightly in my direction. On the floor, the trash threw off burning sparks; the flames in the wastebasket tickled the newspapers which caught fire and warmed the old wood walls. I had a fleeting, futile thought of the smoke detectors that had never been purchased for this room. It was, in fact, the only room without them—one of the many absurd little economies to which we’d resorted to save a penny here, there. Surely, everyone had said, in the guard room of all places a fire will be quickly seen and extinguished. There’d even been a little article about it in the local newspaper, an article that Allison had undoubtedly seen.

  The flames from the floor were now waist high. I didn’t have much time left; she’d have to make her move soon if she was going to get out unnoticed and alive herself. Smoke made my nose sting and my eyes water. Fire crept toward the outstretched arm of the dead guard. I knew I couldn’t bear to watch his cremation. I’d have to make a move before that happened.

  “Simon,” Allison said suddenly, and she laughed at her own cleverness. “Tell me—is there any last work of art that the dying museum director wishes to see?”

  Of all the millions of words she could have strung together in a sentence to say to him, those were the crudest. Of all the ways to rub it in, that was the worst.

  It was also the dumbest mistake she could possibly have made.

  Chapter 34

  She had underestimated not his love of life, but his love of art. He might have let her kill him, but not his treasures. It was not for himself, but for El Greco and Rodin and even Andy Warhol that he leaped at her—through the flames, over the guard’s body, past me—with a great outraged roar. She, having felt so confident of his slumping defeat, was taken shockingly off guard. The gun went off, but wildly, because her shot was reflexive rather than aimed. Still, the bullet hit him, piercing the palm of one of his outstretched, hands so that when he wrapped them around her neck he bloodied her. Over and over as he strangled her, as they struggled on the floor, he yelled, No! No! No! She never let go of the gun, but beat it frantically against his skull and against the torturing hands that gripped her neck and would not let go. Her feet and knees kicked up convulsively at him; her back arched; her body twisted in its futile effort to wrench free; her round blue eyes bulged. But in the end it came down to this: His strength was greater than hers; his passion for art was greater than hers for living.