“You were intimate?”
She couldn’t resist another sardonic grin. Intimate. Jesus, we used to fuck like minks.
“Dorothy? Miss Doe?”
“We were intimate.”
“Are those your garments?” Goodman asked. “Did Hanson like to dress in women’s undergarments?”
“They’re mine. He never wore my clothes. My underwear. They wouldn’t fit. He was much too big.”
She found herself reaching out toward the deceased. The body. The corpse. The stiff.
Goodman took her wrist. Blood showed through the bandage she’d put on her cut. “I see you’ve been hurt. What happened?”
“Nothing. I just scratched myself. It’s nothing.”
Goodman nodded toward a uniformed officer holding a clear plastic bag. Dorothy turned her head, saw that her best kitchen knife was in the bag.
“Is that yours?” Goodman asked.
The uniformed cop stepped closer to them, held the bag so she could see it clearly but not so close that she could touch it.
“That’s my best knife.”
Goodman asked, “Did you kill Mr. Hanson?”
“No.”
“What would it mean if we find your fingerprints on the knife? If we test your hands, what if we find traces of Mr. Hanson’s blood?”
“When I found him,” Dorothy said. “When I came home and found him, he was under the comforter. I pulled it back and saw the knife. I pulled it out of his chest. It was stuck tight. I had to pull hard but I got it out. Then I washed my hands.”
“That’s your statement? He was—like that when you got home—and you removed the knife? Why did you do that?”
She shook her head. “I don’t know. I just did.”
“Did you think he might still be alive?”
“I don’t know. I just—I saw the knife and I pulled it out. I got blood on my hands. I washed my hands and called emergency.”
Goodman said, “All right.” He nodded to McKibbon and Galloway and they led her back to the living room.
“Would you be willing to come to the precinct with us and give a statement? And would you mind if we take a DNA sample?”
She felt a light shudder pass through her body.
“The DNA sample,” Goodman said, “it’s painless. Non-invasive. We just ask you to let us take a swab of the inside of your cheek. Doesn’t hurt, takes a second, that’s all.”
“Am I under arrest?”
“No.” He shook his head. Again, “No. We’d just like your help. You’re not under arrest.”
“Can I come back here after?”
Goodman hesitated. “I’m not sure that would be wise. Might be a good idea to stay with a friend tonight. Or a family member. Is there anyone…” He left the question hanging.
She shook her head. “No, I—I’m from Buffalo. Buffalo, New York. I’m a photographer. I came here to take a job at Dog Lover’s Digest. Shooting layouts of show-dogs. The people I work with—colleagues. But I don’t think…” This time she left the sentence hanging.
“We can put you up at a hotel, then.”
“You’re sure I’m not under arrest.”
“Absolutely.”
* * * *
Officer McKibbon, the female cop, stayed in Goodman’s work space with Goodman while he questioned Dorothy. The surroundings were much like an office in an up-to-date building. The kind of room that lower-middle management got. Functional furniture. Couple of trophies and mementos for decorations. No outside windows. Probably Goodman would get an office with an outside window with his next promotion.
They went over the same ground that they’d covered at Dorothy’s apartment. Then Goodman asked her to review her whole day and night.
She noticed that they weren’t just recording the interview, they were making a video of it. No hot lights, though. Must be pretty good equipment to get a decent image by available light. No rubber hoses, nobody blowing cigarette smoke in her face. Nothing like the hardboiled movies. Just Goodman asking questions in his polite, friendly voice, and McKibbon sitting there quietly just in case.
Just in case what?
Just in case things went badly and Dorothy wanted to get lawyered up and started howling about inappropriate sexual contact during the interrogation.
“Your co-workers at—what was the name of the magazine? Oh, Dog Lover’s Digest, yes—they’ll vouch for you?”
“I was there until around six-thirty. I wasn’t the last to leave, either. And you have to sign in and out of the building anyway. Maybe they’re being paranoid but…” She let the thought slip away.
Goodman said, “Okay, that’s good news. We’ll check up on it. And then?”
She told him about stopping at Mildred’s after work.
Goodman wanted to know if that was her usual practice.
No. It had been a rough day. Ellen Stein was complaining about a spread that Dorothy turned in. Said the colors were all wrong, the layout looked like something out of a Sixties teenage mag, the sizing was off. Somehow she’d got through it but instead of leaving a little after five o’clock as she’d planned, she had to do the whole layout over and that took an hour and a half of unpaid overtime.
And with Carter in Detroit on business she’d been planning to go straight home and pig out on comfort food and turn on an Ella Fitzgerald CD and climb in bed with a thick P. D. James novel.
“But you didn’t,” Goodman said.
“By the time I left the doghouse—that’s what we call the office—I was too pissed off to—I—anyway, I couldn’t face an empty apartment. I’d be bouncing off the walls. So I stopped at Mildred’s.”
“That isn’t a lesbian bar, is it?”
Dorothy saw Officer McKibbons’ eyebrows jump when Goodman asked that.
“No.”
“Anyone there know you? Did you talk to anyone who might remember?”
“Some guy tried to pick me up. Maybe not. I was looking at a paper and he said it was his. Nothing else. But Cissie knows me. Bartender. We’re not BFF’s or anything, but we talk now and then.”
“And then?”
“That’s when I saw Carter and the blond bimbo playing feel-me-up. In the mirror. I was sitting at the bar. They were at a table. I saw them in the mirror.”
Goodman made an encouraging sound, somewhere between a hum and a grunt. It translated as keep going. Dorothy did. When she came to the part about the broken Martini glass Goodman raised his hand the way Carter had raised his hand when Dorothy confronted him at Mildred’s.
“Is that when you cut yourself?”
Dorothy held up her bandaged hand like a school kid doing show-and-tell.
“I guess I went nuts,” Dorothy said. “He was supposed to be in Detroit and here he was playing grab-my-crotch with this bimbo. If Ellen hadn’t been such a bitch about the photo layout I would have been home by then thinking he was in Detroit and hoping he’d call me up just to say good-night and there he was with his hand up that bitch’s skirt, laughing at me. So I let him have it with the martini glass.”
She was panting. Must be some dead air, nothing happening on-screen in the video. Wouldn’t pull much on YouTube unless they edited it down.
Finally Goodman asked her to go on.
She told him about the movie.
Did she remember which theater? What picture?
She shook her head.
He suggested—by any chance had she saved her ticket stub?
She had no idea. Probably threw it away. She never saved them. She wasn’t a pack rat.
“And then?”
“Then I went home. I was feeling better. My wrist was throbbing a little where I cut myself but it’s really just a scratch. I thought about what I’d done to Carter. I knew I got his face and he’d show the result for a while but I didn’t think I’d got his eye and I was glad. I was starting to feel a little better about the bastard.”
“Better,” Goodman said. “Would you like a drink of water? Are you hungry? Yo
u didn’t have dinner tonight, did you? Did you have a snack at the movie?”
“Water, yes.”
Goodman nodded and McKibbon got up and got a glass and handed it to Dorothy.
“After the movie,” Goodman prompted, “what did you do?”
Dorothy swallowed some water. It tasted pretty good, better than she’d expected.
She said, “Nothing.”
“Nothing?”
“I went home.” She shrugged. “It was getting late. I was starting to come down. I guess I’d had an adrenaline rush at Mildred’s and the movie—it wasn’t anything interesting, I don’t even remember what it was, something about an airplane crash and survivors, I don’t know, I wasn’t paying attention. The movie ended and I went home.”
“How did you do that?”
“What? Oh, go home? I walked. I’ve always been a good walker. The air felt good. I don’t mind a few snowflakes. I’m a Buffalo girl. You think it snows here, you ought to spend a winter in Buffalo, you’ll learn about snow.”
Goodman said, “I’m sorry. It’s getting late and you must be very tired, and we’re digressing. We can wrap this up for now and you can get some rest.”
“Yes, please.” As if the power of suggestion had taken her over, Dorothy felt suddenly very, very tired.
“You got home and went into the bedroom and found Mr. Hanson in your bed.”
“Under the comforter.”
“Under your comforter.”
“I saw the tent where the knife was. I pulled back the comforter and pulled out the knife. Got blood on my hands. Washed it off. Phoned you.”
Goodman nodded. “I think we’re caught up. You’ve been very helpful, Miss Doe.”
“Miz.”
“I’m very sorry. Of course. Officer McKibbon will give you a ride to a hotel. Do you need anything? Maybe stop at a drugstore and pick up a few toiletries. On the department.” He smiled.
Dorothy stood up.
“Oh, one more thing,” Goodman said. “I think you mentioned that Mr. Hanson didn’t usually wear your underwear. Is that correct?”
“Yes.”
“Do you have any idea why he was wearing it tonight?”
“No.”
McKibbon took her by the elbow and steered her toward the door.
Before she reached the door Goodman said, “You won’t leave town, will you? In case we need to speak with you again.”
She was almost too tired to answer. “Can I—can I go to work tomorrow?”
Goodman said, “Absolutely. I mean, if you feel up to it. I’m sure your employer will understand if you need to rest up. But that’s up to you, Miss Doe.”
* * * *
Officer Galloway drove and waited in the unmarked car. He waited while Dorothy and Detective McKibbon went into an all-night drugstore and Dorothy bought a few necessities. They got back in the car and Galloway drove them to a nondescript downtown hotel.
McKibbon handled registration. It was obvious that she and the desk clerk knew each other. Dorothy inferred that the police department had a standing arrangement with the hotel. Nobody asked why Dorothy was checking in with only a drugstore package for luggage. The two women rode up in the elevator together.
The room was functional. The bed looked comfortable. Dorothy put her new toiletries in the bathroom. She faced the female cop. “Officer McKibbon—” she began.
“Actually it’s Sergeant but you might as well call me Jackie. Jacqueline to be fancy, but I prefer Jackie.”
“Are you going to stay with me?”
“Only if you want me to. You should be safe here. You don’t think whoever killed Carter Hanson is after you, do you?”
“I thought—I thought I was the suspect.”
“Not for me to say. Inspector Goodman is in charge of the investigation.”
Dorothy was looking around the room, not certain what she was looking for but somehow not quite sure she felt safe.
McKibbon—Jackie, Dorothy reminded herself—must have sensed Dorothy’s unease. “We use this hotel when we need to put someone up.”
“Then I’m not under arrest.” Goodman had told her as much, but she wanted to hear it again.
Jackie shook her head. “You are not.”
“Is this—what do you call it—protective custody?”
“No, Dorothy. Not that either. It’s just—call it a courtesy. Your apartment is a crime scene. No way you could stay there tonight. The medical examiner will remove the victim. Evidence techs will be all over the place, dusting for fingerprints, looking for blood samples, taking photos. They don’t want you there and you don’t want to be there, believe me. I’m afraid you’ve seen the last of that comforter on your bed. It was beautiful, too.”
McKibbon smiled.
Dorothy said, “It came from Marshall Fields. You remember the big sale just before Macy’s took it over. I’ll never set foot in that store again. Somebody ought to blow it up!”
Dorothy stopped. She put her hand to her mouth. “I didn’t mean that. I wouldn’t really—”
Jackie McKibbon actually laughed. It was the first laugh Dorothy had heard since she left the doghouse—how many hours ago? She looked at her Lambretta Cielo watch. It was after midnight. No wonder she was so tired.
Jackie said, “Just between you and me, Dorothy, I felt the same way. Some people have no respect for tradition.” She went over to the window and pulled the curtains back.
Dorothy looked past her at the city. She’d loved this town since the day she arrived. The energy, the excitement of the big city combined with the earnestness of the Midwest. She’d felt at home from that day until—tonight.
Had Jackie been reading her mind?
“Unless you want me to stay, Dorothy, I think I’ll head out now. We have the hotel number and your work number. You’ll probably hear from Inspector Goodman in the next couple of days.”
“When can I get back into my apartment?”
“Call the precinct. Or just call Inspector Goodman or me.” She wrote a couple of phone numbers on a business card and handed it to Dorothy. “You can probably get back in tomorrow if you want to, but phone us first.”
She went to the door.
“You’re sure you’re all right? Need some food, anything else?”
“I’ll sleep.”
Once McKibbon was gone Dorothy checked out the room. If the police put people up here regularly the place might be bugged. She couldn’t find anything. But then, she thought, what if the place was bugged? What would they hear, snores? She smiled to herself.
She brushed her teeth and stripped down to her underpants and climbed into bed. Suddenly she wasn’t just tired, she was sore in every part of her body. She watched a video playing on the ceiling, herself in Mildred’s, the pick-up artist claiming ownership of the newspaper, the Gershwin tune.
I love all the many charms about you.
Suddenly, with no warning, she was crying.
Above all I want my arms about you.
That bastard. How could he do that to her? Who in hell was the blond bimbo? Something with an M. Mikey, Martha, Marianne. That was it. Marianne. What did she have that Dorothy didn’t have?
Had she told Goodman about Marianne? She tried to remember her interrogation. He hadn’t been nasty, no third degree tactics. Was there even such a thing, or was that just the stuff of comic books and gangster movies?
Why was Carter wearing her bra and panties?
She hated the son of a bitch.
She loved the son of a bitch.
She screamed once, then felt better, stopped crying, clicked off the video on the ceiling.
* * * *
She ordered breakfast from room service; it came with a copy of the World’s Greatest Newspaper. There was a one-paragraph story about Carter Hanson’s murder, buried near the bottom of an inside page of the local news section. That was all the space that the crime rated.
She got dressed. She’d bought a fresh pair of panties at the drugst
ore—they sold everything except drugs there—but otherwise wore the same outfit she’d had on when she left the office a million years ago or maybe yesterday.
She got to the office at midmorning. Joanna the receptionist gave her a questioning look but said nothing as she hung up her winter coat. Ellen Stein came out of her office and asked Dorothy to come in. She shut the door. She asked Dorothy if she wanted to take the day off. The issue was about ready to go to bed. Avril could clean up the loose ends.
Dorothy said she’d rather stay. She went to her desk and opened and closed drawers. She felt light-headed. She drifted through the rest of the morning. At noontime she asked Avril if she’d mind finishing up. She got her coat off the rack and left.
She made her way to Carter Hanson’s building. She wondered if the police had sealed his apartment, too, as a crime scene. Probably not. After all, nothing had happened there. The whole sequence of events had started at Mildred’s and ended at Dorothy’s.
Carter had lived in posher surroundings than Dorothy. There was a uniformed doorman to contend with, and an elevator operator. They both recognized her, both of them murmured a few incoherent words to her, neither of them said anything about the police, neither of them tried to stop her from making her way to Carter’s apartment.
She stepped inside and the heavy apartment door slammed itself behind her like the lid coming down on a heavy coffin. She shivered.
The apartment was familiar enough. She’d been there—how many times? There was something in the air. A stale odor. Carter must not have been home for the past few days. He’d said he was going to Detroit on business. Dorothy realized that she didn’t really know what his business was. Whenever she asked he told her it was pretty boring, nothing as exciting and creative as hers. Being a glamour photographer, now, that was something to be excited about.
She laughed then. Photographing smug society matrons posing with their pampered pups was a living but it wasn’t why she’d moved all those miles and taken this job. Dorothy was saving her money. Once she had enough put away she was going to give her notice at Dog Lover’s Digest, tell Ellen Stein that Avril Freeman was ready to take over her job, and set up a studio of her own. She had enough contacts to make it as a freelance. She’d have to hustle, but the thought of never having to shoot another prize poodle with its coat cut into pompoms and a hundred dollar ribbon on top of its head kept her going.
Sherlock Holmes Mystery Magazine, Volume 16 Page 5