Night Secrets

by Thomas H. Cook

  “Everything she said.”

  “So it wasn’t a very detailed confession?”

  McBride shook his head. “No, but she hit the big points.”

  “There were a few things that don’t add up.”

  McBride shrugged. “They’s always a few things like that,” he said. “Like I said, she got the big points pretty good.”

  “Well, she’s a smart woman,” Frank said. “She could figure the big points out. The little ones would be tough, though. I mean, she couldn’t make up a murder she didn’t really know about, could she?”

  “What makes you think she don’t know about it?”

  “Because she’s already lied about a few things,” Frank said. “And I think she’s covering up for somebody.”

  “The real killer, you mean?”

  “It could be,” Frank told him. “I don’t know.”

  McBride eased himself from the car and rolled one shoulder. “Arthritis,” he said. “I ain’t got that many good strokes left.” His eyes cut away suddenly, settling on a single little girl who played by herself on the sidewalk, oblivious to the few drunken men who eyed her only a few yards away. “All alone in the middle of the night,” he said as he continued to watch her. “It makes me sick, the way people let their kids run wild.” He shook his head. “If her daddy knew what was on these streets, he’d never leave her to play like that.” He looked at Frank. “Past midnight, can you believe it?” He shook his head. “Maybe he just don’t give a shit.”

  Frank nodded, his eyes studying McBride’s face. There was a terrible weariness in it, but it was strangely animated despite that, as if the tiredness came from inside, but had not yet gripped his body, made him useless for the kind of sudden, annihilating action which might still flow from it.

  “If I had a little girl,” McBride said, “I’d never let her out of my sight.” He looked at Frank. “I guess that’d make me a pretty bad daddy, right?”

  “It depends.”

  “You married?”

  “Divorced.”

  “Any kids?”

  “I had a daughter.”

  “Had?”

  “She died,” Frank said as quickly as he could, then went on immediately.

  McBride looked at him, but not brokenly as other people often did. Something in him still trembled with resistance, and for a moment Frank saw that still-living cell as the bedrock of his hope.

  “About this case,” he said quickly, “I’d like to go over the confession with you. You know, sort of line by line.”

  McBride settled back against the car. “It was pretty short,” he said. “Like you already figured out, there wasn’t much to it.”

  Frank nodded quickly, his mind still on his daughter. He felt exposed, as if he were naked beneath the grayish light of the street lamp, which shone not far away. He wanted it to darken around him, the spaces to draw in and enclose him.

  “Maybe we could go someplace,” he said edgily. “Get a cup of coffee, a beer if you want one.”

  McBride shook his head. “Not a beer,” he said. “I don’t drink. But I could use a Coke.”

  They ended up at La Femme Gatée, at a small table near the back.

  Frank pulled out his cigarettes and offered one to McBride.

  McBride shook his head. “No, thanks.”

  Frank smiled quietly. “You’re a clean liver.”

  McBride shrugged. “It ain’t that I don’t want one,” he said. “But I got to live as long as I can. ’Cause of my wife. She’s an invalid, you might say. Nobody else to see after her.”

  Frank nodded. “I understand.”

  “As for drinking,” McBride said with a short smile, “I just like to keep clear-headed, you might say, keep my judgment clear and all that.”

  Frank lit a cigarette. “Where you from?”

  “Mississippi. How about yourself?”

  “Alabama.”

  McBride smiled. “Two old country boys.”

  “Yeah.”

  “What brought you up here?”

  “A woman,” Frank said ruefully.

  McBride shrugged. “I come for my wife. She needs a lot of treatment, and there’s a group up here that takes care of people in her shape.”

  Frank nodded.

  “I don’t much like it, though,” McBride added. “You?”

  “It’s all right,” Frank said. He glanced toward the window. “Good as anyplace else, I guess.” He took another draw on the cigarette, then crushed it out. “About the confession, it was pretty short.”

  “Yeah.”

  “She didn’t give many details.”

  “Maybe they didn’t matter to her.”

  “Maybe she didn’t know them.”

  “It’s possible,” McBride said. “Or maybe she just wanted to get it over with.”

  Frank took out his notebook. “Did you take her through the whole thing?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Starting where?”

  “With why she did it.”

  “What’d she say?”

  “That she’d gotten into an argument with the other woman, and that the old lady had called her names.”

  “What names?”

  “She didn’t remember, just bad names.”

  “Had they always lived together?”

  “Always.”

  “The three women.”

  “That’s right.”

  “Did she say anything about the third woman?”

  “That she lived there, that’s all.”

  Frank wrote it down. “Did she mention any men?”

  McBride shook his head.

  “Any relatives or friends?”

  “Nobody,” McBride said. “From everything she told me, it was like those three were the only people in the world.” He took a quick sip of Coke. “They even slept in the same room.”

  “Yeah, I know.”

  “You do? You been there?”

  “Yeah,” Frank said quickly, then hurried on to the next question. “So it was just a family argument? That’s the way she told it?”

  “That’s right.”

  “That got out of hand.”

  “There was probably a long buildup,” McBride said. “There usually is.”

  “But she didn’t talk about that.”

  “No.”

  “What about the murder?”

  “I took her through it,” McBride said. “She said that she came home early that morning and that the other woman was waiting for her.”

  “Where had she been?”

  “To buy groceries.”

  “At four in the morning?”

  “That’s what she said,” McBride told him. “And it checked out, too. We talked to the people in the store. It’s not too busy at that time of day, and the woman, she had a look about her. Everybody remembered her.”

  “And she had them delivered, right?”

  McBride nodded. “The delivery boy, he actually saw her with the razor in her hand.”

  “Was the door open when he got there?”

  “Yeah, I think so,” McBride said. “Anyway, he called for somebody to come to the door, and when nobody come, that’s when he stepped on in and saw her.”

  “With a razor in her hand?”

  “That’s right.”

  Frank looked at him skeptically.

  McBride shrugged. “That’s his story. It’s her story, too.”

  Frank tried to get everything in order. “So she comes home from grocery shopping, gets into an argument with the other woman, kills her, then leaves the door open when the delivery boy shows up?” He looked at McBride pointedly. “Did she give him a tip?”

  McBride shook his head.

  Frank decided to cut to the bone. “During the whole time she was making her statement, did she say anything that didn’t match the murder?”

  “You mean the physical facts?”

  “Yeah.”

  “No. She didn’t say anything that went against what we already knew.”<
br />
  “How about anything that struck you as odd in some way?”

  “No.”

  “How about the place itself?” Frank said. “Did you give it a good toss?”

  “A routine toss.”

  “Did you find any clothes around?”

  “Clothes?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Surewe found clothes,” McBride said. “Hell, they was three women living there.”

  “I mean, in a paper bag. A big brown shopping bag. Sort of damp.”

  McBride shook his head. “No, why? Should we have found something like that?”

  “Well, just before the murder, she went up to that laundromat at Fiftieth Street and did some laundry.”

  “You sure about that?”

  “The old lady who keeps the place remembered her,” Frank said. “And that little shit who runs the bodega across the street from the building, he saw her go in with the bag.”

  McBride shrugged. “Maybe she put ’em away.”

  “Wet clothes? Wouldn’t somebody have noticed? I mean, unless they just disappeared.”

  McBride seemed unimpressed. “Well, the delivery boy said he left the groceries right in that front room, and we never found them.” He drew in a weary breath. “’Course, anybody could have taken food mat was setting mere like that.”

  “But not wet clothes,” Frank said.

  “Okay,” McBride said, giving in slightly. “What’s your idea about what happened to them?”

  “I think it’spossible that somebody took mem,” Frank said. “That maybe she was doing laundry for somebody.”

  “You mean, a man?”

  “That’s right.”

  McBride smiled slyly. “You mean, like me real killer? The one she’s protecting?”

  Frank could tell be wasn’t buying it. “Maybe,” he said with a quick shrug, then went on to something else. “How about anything else like that? Some little thing that got you to thinking.”

  McBride considered it for a few seconds. “Well, I don’t remember nothing very important along them lines,” he said finally. “Not the kind of thing you’re looking for.”

  “But something?” Frank asked hungrily. “What?”

  “Well, when we were going back over everything, I asked her where she got the razor,” McBride said. “You know, just to pin that down.”

  “What’d she say?”

  “She said, ‘Off the floor.’”

  “Those were her exact words?”

  “Exact words.”

  Frank wrote them down.

  “And I said, ‘You mean, the razor was on the floor?’” McBride added. “And she said, ‘The bathroom.’ And I said, ‘You mean, off the bathroom floor?’ And she said, ‘Yes.’”

  “Did she look nervous when this was going on?” Frank asked. “Like she’d missed something?”

  McBride snapped his fingers. “For just that long she had that look,” he said. “She just went right back to herself.”

  Frank wrote it down quickly, then looked back up at McBride. “When she gave the confession, how’d she seem?”

  “Seem?” McBride asked.

  “Did she look like she was having trouble with her story?”

  “You mean, like she was sort of making it up as she went along?” McBride asked.

  “Yeah.”

  “No, she didn’t look like that,” McBride said. “The only thing I can say is, she seemed mad as hell.” He took a sip from the Coke. “’Course, she’s had a few bad days, I can’t deny that. But the way she’d look at you, it was like she wanted to blow your head off right there, set the whole world on fire.” He shook his head. “The whole time, she looked like she just wanted to haul back and spit right in my face.”

  Frank could see her face in his mind, the stark, threatening eyes, as if all the world had become the object of her vengeance. You are like the rest.

  “And to tell you the truth, that’s one of the things that made me think she did it,” McBride said. “I mean, besides being caught right there, and the blood and the fingerprints and all that kind of thing. I’m talking about the, what you might call, the will to do it. I could see it in her, that if she really got into it, she could pull it off.”

  “Kill somebody?”

  “Kill anybody,” McBride said. “It’s not everybody that can actually take something to the limit that way.” He grew silent for a moment, his face growing somewhat red as the seconds passed. “A woman can get mad,” he said finally. “Real mad, but most times it don’t amount to much, don’t amount to nothing a man ever has to really be afraid of.” Suddenly his eyes glistened and his voice became a fierce, vehement whisper. “And more’s the pity for that, Frank,” he said. “More’s the fucking pity.”

  Farouk arrived at Frank’s office just as he was heading up the stairs the next morning.

  “You are going to Mrs. Phillips’s home, yes?” he asked.

  “Yeah,” Frank said as he mounted the final step.

  “Perhaps, you wish to have a companion?”

  “Why? Do you want to come along?”

  “There is something that interests me,” Farouk said. He nudged Frank forward and the two of them began walking east on Forty-ninth Street.

  “The license number which you gave me,” Farouk said. “I worked on it this morning.”

  Frank glanced at his watch. It was only a little after eight. “You must have gotten on it pretty early,” he said.

  “Like you, I do not always sleep.”

  “Well, what did you find out about the limousine?” he asked.

  “First of all, it does not belong to Mr. Devine,” Farouk told him.

  “Who does it belong to?”

  Farouk smiled darkly. “Winston Burroughs.”

  “Who’s that?”

  “A most important man,” Farouk said. “But one who is not known for his charitable acts.”

  They reached the corner of Eighth Avenue and waited for the light to change. Frank glanced back at the delicatessen on the comer. “I could use a cup of coffee,” he said.

  Farouk nodded. “Yes, good. I will join you.”

  They walked inside and took a table at the back. The waiter came and they both ordered coffees.

  “Coffee, regular,” Farouk said unhappily after the waiter had disappeared. “It is all they have in such places.”

  Frank lit a cigarette. “What do you know about this Burroughs guy?”

  “That he is powerful,” Farouk said. “He moves in great circles. A British citizen, but an international businessman, and he also has diplomatic status. He would not be subject to the laws of this country.”

  Frank looked at Farouk pointedly. “Is there any reason to think he’s broken a few of them?”

  Farouk shook his head. “None at all,” he said. “But to one who lives so high, the law seems far below.”

  “You don’t like him, do you?”

  “I do not like his kind. People who live beyond the fear of consequences.”

  The coffees arrived, and the two of them drank silently for a moment.

  Farouk was the first to speak. “Burroughs has had important dealings with Devine.”

  Again, frank thought about asking him how he knew such things, but stopped himself. “What kind of dealings?” he asked instead.

  “Mostly it has been in oil and real estate,” Farouk said. “He is a man of many investments.”

  “But everything looks legal?”

  “Yes.”

  “How about charities?”

  “As I said, he is not a generous man.”

  “But he must give away something.”

  “He funds political parties,” Farouk said.

  “What kind?”

  “Those which would serve him well.”

  “How?”

  “Open their countries up to him,” Farouk said. “Markets. Resources. As we say in Arabic, ‘Buying and selling are the wind and rain.’”

  Frank put out his cigarette and glance
d at his watch. “We’d better get going.”

  The two men got to their feet and headed toward the cashier at the front of the delicatessen.

  Farouk walked out into the street and lingered there while Frank paid the check. He was looking at the delicatessen’s name when Frank joined him on the street a few seconds later.

  “Do you know what it means,” he asked, “La Femme Gatée?”

  Frank shook his head.

  Farouk thought a moment, struggling for the right translation. “The unruly … no, not exactly.” He considered it again, his eyes perusing the words a second time. “Yes,” he said finally. “That’s it.” He looked at Frank. “The ungovernable woman,” he said. “She who cannot be ruled.” As he said it, something seemed to strike him suddenly.

  Frank leaned toward him. “What is it?”

  He didn’t answer. Instead, he closed his eyes very slowly, then opened them.

  “You must go alone today,” he said solemnly. “I have changed my mind. There is something else I must work on.” Then he turned and headed back down Forty-ninth Street, moving away so quickly that Frank didn’t have time to ask him if he’d meant the night case or the day.

  * * *

  Frank had barely arrived at his usual place across the street from Phillips’s brownstone when he saw her emerge from the building. She walked east to Madison Avenue, but this time crossed it and headed farther east, all the way to Park Avenue. Then she turned south, walked to the corner of Park and Sixtieth Street and stopped.

  There was a large building just behind her, and after a moment, she walked behind one of its large black supporting columns. For a time, Frank couldn’t see her. Then she came into view again, her hair still in place, her shoes the same, along with her dress, but with a red silk handkerchief dangling loosely from her hand.

  She looked as if she’d used it to daub her eyes, but instead of returning it to her purse, she walked once again to the curb, then let it drop to the ground beside her.

  Almost immediately, another limousine pulled up to the curb. This time it was a white Cadillac, and Frank recorded its license number quickly as Mrs. Phillips disappeared into its dark interior.

  After it had pulled away, Frank walked over to where Mrs. Phillips had been standing. Her red handkerchief was fluttering gently on the sidewalk, and he bent down and picked it up. It was soft and very delicate, and he unconsciously ran it through his fingers while he watched the white limousine move slowly southward through the thick Park Avenue traffic. It was almost out of sight before he stuffed the handkerchief into his pocket and hailed a cab.