After a much huffing and growling, Professor Oakley told her where to find the stationery and the book with addresses of influential friends. “I also want Masako’s photo from the desk top. And, oh yes, a clean pair of pajamas.
“And, Louise? Please hurry back.”
“Why the rush? It’s Sunday—I can’t mail your letters until tomorrow.”
He pursed his lips. His newly trimmed beard waggled back and forth. “Lillian Bridges sent word she’d be stopping by after church. She said she had something to tell me. I don’t know what it could be.” He sighed. “Sometimes she, uh…doesn’t know when to leave…”
Louise laughed. “I see, you want me here to tell her when her time is up.”
Professor Oakley nodded sheepishly.
“Don’t worry. I’ll be back before you know it.”
***
The apartment was dim and as quiet as the proverbial tomb. Louise didn’t bother to remove her new coat, now spattered with spots from the light rainstorm that had blown up. She would only be a few minutes. A thin layer of dust covered the desk in Professor Oakley’s study. She found the dove gray box of stationery and matching envelopes in the top drawer. After rummaging for the address book, she put the slim leather volume in the box and slid the whole thing into her large purse.
Now to find the photo of Masako—an eight-by-ten in a silver frame. Louise frowned. It wasn’t in its usual spot on the desk. She switched on the brass desk lamp. Two small framed snapshots sat beside withered roses in an ugly vase, but no Masako. She glanced at one of the snaps and then quickly held it close to the frosted-glass lamp shade.
She’d seen a similar scene somewhere recently: the professor with a group touring some Middle Eastern country. She slapped her palm on the desk. Of course, in Lawrence Smoot’s office! While he and Abe had been discussing the affidavit for the Hearing Board, she’d picked up a photo very similar to this one. Only Professor Oakley’s first wife, Virginia, wasn’t in the one she held in her hand. It was just the two men—Smoot and Oakley—with Lillian Bridges to one side. She grabbed the second photo, which showed just Oakley and Lillian. The urbane Professor Bridges, hair blowing in the breeze, was grinning like an infatuated schoolgirl, gaze fastened on Robert Oakley.
Louise put the photos down. She rubbed her stomach, trying to tamp down the sense of unease gathering there. Where had Masako’s photo gone? She rifled the desk and finally found it in the bottom drawer, wedged beneath some old bank statements. The glass was shattered. Not just cracked, but shattered. As if it had been slammed against something hard.
How had the portrait been damaged? How had the snapshots come to replace it?
Louise’s gaze traveled to the sagging roses in their green vase. How long had they been there? Louise ripped a bloom from its stem—wilted, yes, but the petals didn’t crumble. They felt soft and smooth, like the chamois cloth Dad used to polish the Oldsmobile. The vase must have been on the desk no more than three or four days. Professor Oakley certainly hadn’t placed it there. He’d been too ill to leave the bedroom.
The roiling in Louise’s stomach increased as she reached for the vase. This seemed familiar, too. Green, squat, smooth. She traced the carved Asian characters with one finger and then recalled Masako’s words to Lieutenant McKenna in the doctor’s lounge. They resounded in her head, almost as if they were coming over a loudspeaker: Arthur had a brush pot. Very old. Heavy. Ugly and beautiful at the same time.
And after Masako had run to her husband’s bedside, Louise had heard McKenna mutter, “I’d give a quart of the very best Canadian to find out where that brush pot’s gotten to.”
“Why,” Louise had asked.
“It’s the murder weapon.”
In a swirl of dark red petals, Louise ran out of the study to the phone in the hall. She dialed the operator and asked for Police Headquarters. The desk officer there swore he’d radio the message to McKenna toot sweet.
Back to the operator. “Columbia Presbyterian, please.”
After what felt like an eternity, she had the hospital switchboard. “Room 632. Hurry, please, it’s an emergency.”
Ring. Ring. No answer. Sweet Jesus!
Louise slammed the receiver down, rubbed a frantic hand over her cheeks. That green vase might be an antique brush pot or it might be just a cheap, ugly green vase—Lieutenant McKenna would have to sort that out. Even if it did turn out to be the pot that killed Arthur Shelton, what was it doing on Professor Oakley’s desk? With flowers undoubtedly brought by Lillian Bridges?
Louise thought of the look on the woman’s face in the photo. She’d been gazing at Oakley with absolute devotion. Now all the flowers made sense—Lillian Bridges was besotted with Robert Oakley. On one of her visits, she could have easily slipped in his study and replaced Masako’s photo with her own. And earlier this morning, the professor had mentioned that his colleague had something to tell him. What was it? Certainly not a declaration of love? Oh, my god—no! How would Lillian react when Robert Oakley responded with the horror he’d certainly feel?
Louise hurled the flowers from the green vase and took off with it at a dead run.
Chapter Eighty-six
The elevator lurched to a stop on six, and Louise shouldered between an elderly couple and a sad young woman in a bedraggled hat. “Well, really,” she heard the older woman exclaim as she hurried through the opening doors, “girls these days. No manners at all.”
Louise had no time for niceties. During the stop-and-start taxi ride from the Oakleys’ building, she’d imagined all kinds of scenarios. One ended in Professor Oakley laughing and telling her the vase she hugged under her coat was a dime-a-dozen special from Woolworth’s.
The others weren’t nearly so pleasant.
The nurse’s station on Six North was deserted. Behind the counter, an array of patient records in metal folders stood unguarded. A glance down the intersecting corridor told Louise why. She could see all the signs of a medical crisis—an intern calming a distraught family, a nurse rushing a water suction apparatus down the hall, another delivering a sterile tray loaded with syringes and test tubes. A chest patient in distress, Louise thought. Even the ward clerk hovered outside the room, apparently taking down orders barked by a doctor inside. The full medical team would be busy for a while. Distracted.
The breath Louise took filled her lungs to the bursting point as she started down the corridor that led to the private rooms. She passed closed doors, some with bright red contagion warnings on them, and open ones, with noisy families visiting recuperating patients. The professor’s was at the very end. Faster she walked and faster. With each step, Louise’s worries multiplied into pulsing sirens of alarm.
Did Lillian Bridges hate Masako Oakley? Had her deep concern for the Japanese woman all been an act? Was Masako’s husband even now in dire peril from this woman he considered to be a friend?
By the time she reached the professor’s closed door, her heart was pounding at her ribs.
Knock or burst in? She put an ear to the white-painted wood. A sharp thump made up her mind. Louise turned the knob and pushed.
Chapter Eighty-seven
“I’m weary—so weary with waiting, Robert,” Lillian Bridges had declared. “With hanging onto your every word, decoding your signals.”
“Signals?” She sat now on the side of his bed, far too close. He frowned, puzzled. Ever since his old friend had walked in the room, she’d been a tad off. Supremely satisfied, then petulant, by turns. Oh, where was Louise?
Lillian bent her frown into a smile. “You rush to pull my chair out at dinner, darling. You give my flowers pride of place. Why just before you became ill, you told Lawrence how much you appreciated me. I knew what that meant.” She nodded, running her fingers through her black and silver bob.
Robert Oakley couldn’t believe what he was hearing. He press
ed fingers to his forehead, gritted his teeth. “Lillian, all that was over, decades ago. We were just college kids then.”
Even in his wet-behind-the-ears, fresh from a missionary family naiveté, he’d known during those years that Lillian Bridges had been deeply infatuated with him. He’d taken her to the movies, a few dances, double-dated with a fraternity brother. Then they’d gotten more serious. The excitement of her confident swagger, her keen wit, and, yes, her sexual candor aroused him for a time. But the spark fizzled fast; Lillian was just so damned bossy. He tired of being told what to do, what to say, even what to think. By his junior year, he’d broken it off. But they’d remained friends.
College friends, part of a wider circle, he’d thought, and nothing more.
Now Lillian sat on the edge of his hospital bed, ready for romance in a silky blue dress with a plunging neckline. Her fingers descended to his thigh, stroking. She leaned so close he could smell her light scent, feel her breath ruffle his hair. “You don’t have to hide it, darling,” she crooned. “No more waiting. All that’s over now. Masako will soon be back in Japan—where she belongs.” Savvy fingers crept up his thigh. “We can be together now—like you’ve always wanted. We’ll get a new place. You’ve always loved the Dakota.” She threw her head back, lost in a bizarre fantasy that left Oakley appalled.
“When this war is over we’ll travel. Explore the capitals of Europe.” Her forehead puckered. “Good Lord, I do hope there’s something left of Paris once the Nazis get through with it.” She looked into his eyes and flashed a luminescent smile. “We must have Paris.”
Oakley shook his head. “Lillian, stop this! I don’t want any of those things. All I want is my wife back—Masako here by my side, out of that terrible prison, safe and sound.”
She frowned, pushing out her chin in a parody of a thwarted child about to have a tantrum. Or was it a parody? Oakley was by no means certain. She said, “You love me. You know you do,” then smiled.
Oakley’s fists closed around the bedcovers. She hadn’t said, “I love you.” In that case he might have felt compassion for a vulnerable, lonely woman. Instead she’d said, with that secret, certain, even fixed, smile, “You love me. You love me.” And that smile, mad.
Lillian was mad. How had he not seen this before? Meaningless, everyday politenesses—she’d taken them and woven a tapestry of romance. How long had this delusion—there was nothing else to call it—been eating away at her mind? All those years of his marriage to Virginia, and then to Masako? “You’re a sick woman, Lillian,” he croaked.
Her body snapped upright. “You don’t mean that.”
“But I do.”
“No.” She jerked her hand from his thigh.
“If you think I’d ever fall in love with you, you’re totally barking mad.” He hoped a disgusted sneer hadn’t accompanied his words.
Lillian jumped up and whirled around, her hand sliding into her décolletage. My god! The woman was about to bare her breasts—right there in his hospital room! Where the hell was that goddamned call button? He looked around only to see it well out of reach. Had she moved it? Yes!
Could he summon the strength to get out of bed? He turned back to Lillian and immediately saw that the reality was worse than his fear. In her shaking hand she held a pistol, a mother-of-pearl-handled gun so small Oakley at first thought it was a toy. She held it in her palm, looking down, face full of indecision. The gun was pointed toward her own chest.
Then she met his eyes, seeming to read him, and her expression altered, darkened, became resolute.
Oakley felt himself shrink back against his pillows. Mad, he thought, completely mad.
Casually she turned her hand toward him, to show him the gun lying flat on its side. “When Columbia hired me on,” she said, in a conversational tone, “Father gave me this—for protection in the big, bad city.” She turned the barrel toward her face, now, staring into it, as if it held a message for her.
“‘My life had stood, a loaded gun,’” she murmured. Then she smiled at him. “Do you know that poet, Robert? No, of course you don’t. Not one of the greats—a little New England nobody. But she knew about passion; it possessed her, she wrote—‘carried me away.’ I know what that feels like.”
As if he were being carried away, by a slowly moving nightmare, Oakley saw his old friend tightly grasp the pistol’s pearl handle; it seemed to fit beautifully in her elegant, slim hand. As she raised her arm, light from the overhead fluorescent strip glinted off the bright nickel finish. She lifted the pistol to her head.
“No, Lillian,” he yelled, attempting to heave himself off the bed.
She dropped the gun to her side. “So you do care, do you, Robert?” Lillian’s tone was tender. She moved toward him, one step, two, her eyes pleading. “Then there’s hope for us, is there not?”
She studied his stricken face for a long moment, and her expression hardened. “Make no mistake, Robert. If you won’t have me, there’s no future for either of us.” Then she raised her lowered arm and stretched it toward him, pointing the gun’s barrel straight at his chest.
Had he struggled for Masako’s sake to recover from pneumonia only to succumb to this besotted woman’s bullets?
Robert Oakley tensed his flaccid muscles, again made ready to spring. He intended to live to see his wife a free woman—not end as a sacrifice to Lillian Bridges’ twisted delusions. Erotomania, he thought, that’s what the Freudians call this. And, he recalled, it has no cure.
Lillian took another step, then another, in her red, high-heeled shoes. Red. Had he ever before seen decorous Lillian wearing red shoes?
Now, old man, he coached himself. Now, or never. Oakley leapt up. The blanket twisted around his leg, but he summoned enough power to shake it loose. He tackled Lillian at knee level, heard the pistol hit the floor as she fell backward. He, too, was on the floor, topping her. Now if he could just put his hand on that damn shiny toy of a gun.
But, no. She was faster than he. She had it. He was finished.
Chapter Eighty-eight
Louise burst into the hospital room to find the air reeking of sweat and overturned bedpan. And herself at gunpoint.
“Get in here and close the door.” Lillian Bridges rose from her knees in one fluid motion.
Louise complied, then turned toward the professor, who was moaning and flailing on the floor.
“Don’t touch him,” Lillian ordered Louise in mid-step.
“But he may be hurt.”
“It doesn’t matter anymore.” Using the gun, Lillian waved Louise around the bed, toward the room’s one chair. “Sit down. Whatever you’re hiding under your coat, put it there on the table. Then put your hands on top of your head. Keep them there.” Her eyes were fixed and gleaming. Fanatical.
In that moment, as Louise placed the jade brush pot on the bedside table, she knew she’d been right about Lillian’s erotic fixation on Professor Oakley, and she understood that Lillian meant to kill him. Because she’d stumbled in the door at the wrong time, she, too, would die. Then the woman would turn the gun on herself.
Bang, bang, bang. Three dead bodies in as many seconds, before anyone could come running.
Louise had only one hope: stall Lillian Bridges until the ward nurse finished with the emergency in the other corridor and came to check on Oakley. That would provide a distraction and maybe one of them could make a grab for the gun. Or—she’d left a message for McKenna, hadn’t she? Any moment, the cop could burst in to the rescue.
Okay, keep this deranged woman talking. How? The psychopath wants to talk, her psychology books always said. Wants someone to understand.
Louise made her voice conversational, calm. “You see what I’ve brought?” She tipped her chin toward the brush pot, careful to keep her hands piled on her hatless head, one on top of the other.
Lillian ga
ve it a careless glance, then drew up to full height. “So, you know about Arthur. Very clever, Miss Nurse. Much cleverer than that ox of a police detective.”
Louise couldn’t see Oakley on the floor, on the other side of the bed, but she heard him suck in a breath at Arthur’s name.
Professor. Please, for once, just keep your mouth shut.
Louise went on, “I see why you must hate Masako, Miss Bridges, but why did you kill the art dealer? What did you have against Arthur Shelton?”
Lillian pressed her lips into a bloodless line. Steadied her aim. Louise thought she might shoot them right then and there, but after a moment’s pause, the woman began speaking.
“Arthur was clever, too,” Lillian said accusingly, as if being clever were the eighth deadly sin. “Somehow, he’d figured out that I’d hired some thugs to picket the gallery.”
“No Go Jap Show,” Louise whispered. “Masako was so stung by those words.”
“I certainly wasn’t the only one who thought she should pack up her precious paint box and go back to Tokyo.” Lillian gave an anguished cackle. “Nigel Fairchild’s floozy made a spectacular scene at the opening reception. When she hurled wine at Arthur and that beastly painting, I could have cheered.”
“Yes, I heard about that, too.” Louise forced an appreciative smile. “Did the wine incident inspire the picket line?”
An unruffled shrug. “I’ll give credit where credit is due. Yes. When I saw red streaks running down that painting, I thought, why not a more public denouncement? Unfortunately, Arthur caught on—how I don’t know. He called me into the gallery for a ‘little talk.’ He accused me of duplicity—actually threatened to tell Robert what I’d done. For his own good.” She snorted. “What nerve! Arthur branding me duplicitous when he’d spent three years soaking poor Lawrence for cash.”
Face of the Enemy Page 33