A Perfect Crime

by Peter Abrahams

  “Grandpa and I are going to decorate the tree,” Em said; she held tight to his hand. “It looks so bare.” Or maybe it had been passed on after all, just skipping a generation.

  “I…” Francie looked at Ned, saw that notch in his forehead above the right eye.

  “Yes,” he said. “Please do. Some people are stopping in.” He turned to his mother. “You called the caterer, didn’t you, Mom?”

  She nodded. “But don’t expect anything elaborate.”

  “Be that as it may,” Roger said, “Francie and I wouldn’t dream of intruding at a time like this.”

  “It wouldn’t be an intrusion, would it, Ned?” said Anne’s father.

  “You could help with the tree,” Em said.

  Roger smiled down at her. “Perhaps some other-”

  “I’d be honored,” Francie said. “Why don’t you take the car home, Roger? I’ll be back later.”

  Their eyes met; his were cloudy, as though film were whizzing by at high speed, just beneath the surface. “As you wish,” he said. “But don’t be too too late.”

  The caterers had laid out a buffet in Ned’s dining room: salads, cold cuts, a bar. There were people Francie didn’t know, from the radio show, the B.U. psychology department, Cleveland. She poured herself a glass of red wine because she couldn’t think of a convincing reason not to, and she needed it, and went into the living room.

  The corduroy chair was gone, and in its place stood the tree, Anne’s father looping a string of lights around it, Em cross-legged on the floor with a cardboard box of ornaments wrapped in tissue. Francie sat beside her.

  “Mom,” Em began, choked on the word, went on, “made most of these herself.”

  Francie wanted to comfort her in some way, to stroke her head, but it wasn’t her place. She unwrapped an ornament. “She was a glassblower, too?”

  “Oh, yes,” said Anne’s father. “She learned at summer camp. They said she had a knack for it.”

  Francie examined the decorations: delicate translucent balls, red, green, gold, and a few of all three colors at once, that changed from one to another as she turned them in her hand; tiny bells with tiny glass clappers that rang with tiny crystal peals; stained-glass saints with alien medieval faces but relaxed, modern poses; oddities, the opposites of gargoyles, she supposed-a dog with a pagoda-roof head, a bicycle with Marlon Brando faces for wheels, a smile made of two glass snakes, one red, one green, and white Chiclets; and a Tower of Pisa, with a robed figure on top. Galileo, but studying him closely, Francie saw that he held not metal balls but a bottle of champagne and a stemmed glass, perfectly formed but no more than a quarter of an inch tall. “These are great,” she said.

  “Do you think so?” Em said, watching her carefully; so was Anne’s father, from a footstool on the other side of the tree.

  “Oh, yes.” Better than her paintings, much, much better; of another order entirely. “Are there more?”

  “Just the angel,” Em said. “It lights up from inside.”

  But it wasn’t in the box.

  “Maybe it’s still in the closet,” Em said. “I couldn’t reach the top shelf.”

  “I’ll get it,” Francie said, rising. “What closet?”

  “Upstairs,” said Em, “on the left.” She gazed down at a glass elephant in her hand, playing its saxophone trunk.

  Francie climbed the stairs, opened the first door on her left. Something wrapped in red tissue lay on the top shelf. She took it down, removed the tissue, saw a shining black angel with spun-glass wings and a face that reminded her of Miles Davis. Anne, in death, kept growing in her mind.

  Turning to go downstairs, Francie saw the closed door of the master bedroom. Inside hung the portrait of Ned, unless he’d taken it down. She went closer. Why hadn’t Ned shown his portrait to Savard? Perhaps he simply hadn’t wanted to bother taking it off the wall, carrying it down. Francie knocked on the door. No response. She opened it slightly, looked in. The room was unoccupied and the portrait hung in its place. Francie went in.

  Standing at the foot of the bed, she studied the painting, saw what she had seen before-the resemblance, unaccountable in strictly photographic terms, the powerful, dominating pose, the surprising absence of sensuality-but nothing more, nothing that would explain any reluctance to have it examined. Then it struck her that something might be written on the back, some title or dedication. She laid the glass angel on the covers, walked around the bed, leaned over, got her hands on the frame-and heard a moan.

  Ned’s moan. Francie whirled around, eyes on the closed bathroom door, heard him again. He was there, a few steps away, in quiet agony. Francie took those steps, not to say anything, not to put any pressure on him, just to hold him, to let him know she was there. She knocked quietly on the door.

  Silence. Then he said, “Em? Is that you? I’ll be down in a minute.”

  Francie heard agony in his tone, yes, but something else as well, something urgent and furtive that made her try the door. Locked. So she stooped, stooped to a lower level, to look through the keyhole in the old period door in Anne’s old period house. Ned was there, but not alone, and she’d misinterpreted the sound she’d heard. Francie’s eyes, expert eyes, trained for grasping detail and composition, took it all in, understood for her what her reeling mind could not: the half-clothed embrace, the glossy-haired woman, Chinese-American, leaning back on the sink, Ned curved over her, their faces turned toward the door in listening attitudes. Then Ned’s gaze fell toward the keyhole, fastened on it, and slowly went through changes that ended in horror.

  “Francie?” Ned said. “Francie?” Through the keyhole, she saw him push himself away from the woman. “Oh my God, Francie, no.”

  What happened next? Francie didn’t know, only knew she was somehow bolting down the stairs, free-falling, not even in contact with them, the glass angel in her hand. There was Em, still on the floor, going through the ornaments.

  “Here you are, sweetheart,” Francie said, and gave her the angel. Then came a pause, in which neither of them seemed to breathe, and Francie took the liberty of touching Em’s head; her hand did so, really, and she didn’t stop it.

  Then she was in the hall, getting her coat, walking out of the house, leaving. Walking fast, fast, fast. She could tell how cold it must have been from the hard bright snow on the ground and the icy sky and the whining wind, but she didn’t feel it at all. She was burning up. Walking, walking, walking: Francie walked and walked, but couldn’t escape the burning, and finally there was nowhere to go but home.

  34

  What a house Roger had! Whitey explored it from top to bottom. He’d been inside the cottages of the rich, the second homes, but never seen anything like this. The furniture, the rugs, the stuff! Even this sculpture or whatever it was on the bookcase in the living room, made of some material he’d never seen, maybe a rare stone or mineral, so smooth. What was it worth? Whitey picked up the sculpture-heavy, but not as heavy as it looked, maybe not so valuable after all-turned it in his hands: a strange, curved thing that reminded him of tits from one angle, ass from another. At that moment a phone rang, nearby and loud, startling him. He dropped the goddamn thing; it fell on the gleaming hardwood floor, just missing the edge of the thick carpet, and smashed in pieces. The noise was shattering; in the midst of it, he heard a voice, spun around, saw no one.

  “Francie? Nora. I was going to swing by and ride out with you. Guess you’ve already left. See you there. God, I hate funerals, this one especially.” Beep.

  Beep. Just an answering machine. Whitey told himself to stay cool. He said it out loud. “Stay cool.” Cool like ice, like snow. He glanced down at the remains of the sculpture. The cool thing, the smart thing, would be to leave no trace, right? In case some illegal act was going to happen, say. He went into the kitchen-what a kitchen! like there was a restaurant on the other side of the door-found broom and dustpan, swept up the mess, dumped it into a trash bin under the sink. Cool.

  Beep. He jumped. The fucking
thing had beeped again. Whitey returned to the living room, stared at the red light blinking on the phone. He wasn’t sure which button turned it off; maybe better, cooler, to forget about it, leave no trace. But what about the jumpiness? He went to the cabinet beside the tall plant in the corner, a waist-high cabinet with a silver tray on top bearing bottles-Scotch, vodka, gin, all fancy brands. He tried the vodka, not that he liked vodka particularly, but because they said it had no smell: leave no trace. He was getting very smart, and it went down nice like that, surprisingly nice, warm from the bottle. Beep. He took another, just a tich, as Ma used to say back in her drinking days, before this religious shit. Didn’t matter-he had no plans to see her again.

  What were his plans, anyway? Exactly, like?

  Mulling that question, Whitey opened the cabinet, just to have something to do while he thought. There were photograph albums inside. He leafed through one, saw Roger, a much younger Roger, in tennis whites, his arm around a beautiful woman, the woman he’d seen in his car, the super-Sue Savard. She wore a little tennis skirt. What a body! What was her name? He’d just heard it on the answering machine. Francie. He searched the albums for more pictures of Francie, preferably nude, but there was nothing like that. Roger and Francie smiling on a chairlift, Roger saying something to Francie on a sail-boat, Roger reading a menu at an outdoor cafe, Francie staring into the camera.

  Beep.

  Most of the pictures were dated underneath, none more recent than ten years ago. The last album, the most recent, petered out in the middle with two last pictures: Roger, Francie, and a big woman, standing on a tennis court, the two women laughing, Roger watching them; and Francie and another woman, both in bathing suits, sitting on a floating dock. They both had nice bodies, Francie’s better-bigger tits, for starters-but the bathing suits weren’t as revealing as some, and Whitey was about to close the book, when he realized there was something odd about that last picture. He studied it carefully, especially the wooden house behind the trees in the background, and then he recognized it-the cottage out on the island in the middle of the river. What did this mean? It had to mean something. Whitey didn’t know. He peeled the photograph off the page and stuck it in his pocket.

  Beep.

  Whitey helped himself to another tich of vodka, more than a tich. It had to mean something. He went into the kitchen and opened the fridge, looking for chocolate milk. There was none, but he found a jar of peanut butter, scooped some out with his fingers, ate it. He wandered to the desk in the little alcove, glanced at the mail on top, opened a drawer, saw a twenty-dollar bill, pocketed that, too. Under it lay a newsletter from some tennis club. CULLINGWOOD-FRANKLIN TO VIE FOR DOUBLES CROWN, he read, a headline followed by a brief article summarizing tennis matches, and two photographs, one of Francie, the other of… could it be? Yes. How could he forget that face, face of the woman who’d tried to kill him? Meaning? Meaning that there were-what was the word? Connections. Had to mean something. What? Whitey couldn’t take the next step, but the buzzing had already started, deep inside his head.

  Beep.

  Tich.

  He didn’t feel his strongest, because of what she’d done to him, and that might be bad. He ate more peanut butter from the jar to give him strength. What next? What next? There was still the basement. He found the stairs and went down.

  Nice and dark, the only light coming from narrow windows at the top of the wall, at street level. He could see well enough, was in a laundry room: washer, dryer, clothes hanging on a line. Bra and panties, for instance, which he felt as he went by. He opened a door, entered a large room, darker than the first; here the street-level windows were covered with black paper, and the only light came from a glowing computer screen. Computer, printer, desk, file cabinets: an office, Roger’s home office, where he worked late into the night, making all his money. Maybe he took little naps on that couch with the sleeping bag on top, or maybe that woman of his, Francie, sometimes came down for a quick one.

  Beep. Very faint now, but he heard it; his senses were keen. That would explain in some way why darkness was his friend, but in what way, exactly, he didn’t know.

  Whitey sat at the desk, looked at the computer screen. On one side was a crossword puzzle. He checked two or three clues, had no idea. On the other side of the screen he saw a heading-Puzzletalk-and under it lines of print scrolled slowly by, a conversation of some sort. Was this one of those chat rooms, where, according to Rey, at least, you could pick up girls or download porn? He scanned it quickly, saw it had nothing to do with sex, but-what was this? Rimsky? His eyes flashed up to the top, catching a line as it disappeared from view. criminals?

  › BOOBOO: Oh, please, not capital punishment again!!!

  › FLYBOY: Yeah, we know how you like to fry ’em up on a daily basis down there in Fla. but give it a REST.

  › RIMSKY: This is why Rome fell. The barbarian’s inside your walls and you don’t even know it.

  › BOOBOO:???

  › RIMSKY: Member that guy I was telling you about? Whitey Truax?

  › BOOBOO:???

  › FLYBOY: Who gives a?

  › MODERATOR: I remember.

  › RIMSKY: First chance he got he jumped parole killed two more people, one of them his mother. Not a deterrent, kiddies?????

  The buzzing grew louder. Whitey tried to read on, but the words had stopped scrolling; the response, if any, was off the screen, and he didn’t know how to make it appear. One of them his mother? Impossible-he’d hardly even tapped her; picked her up, dusted her off. She’d been fine when he left. Rimsky had it wrong. And he could prove it, prove the asshole wrong, just by calling her on the phone.

  Whitey picked up Roger’s phone and dialed her number. It was answered on the first ring.

  “Sergeant Berry,” said a man.

  Whitey snapped the phone back in its cradle.

  Beep.

  Buzz, buzz. And Rimsky. What was he doing on Roger’s computer? Whitey remembered Rimsky: a guard on his cell block, a shit disturber, which was what they called the ones who made a little extra effort during the cavity searches. And now here he was on Roger’s computer. Member that guy I was telling you about? When? Telling who? Rimsky, on Roger’s computer. Connections. Connections all over the place, past and present. Yes: past and present, an expression he’d heard before, and now understood a little better. One thing for sure, it was all about-yes! talk about connections-masters and puppets, and the goddamn thing was, the thing that made him want to puke up all that vodka and peanut butter-and he almost did-the goddamn thing was Whitey heard something over the buzzing, a mechanized, metallic rumble. The garage door. He rose, listening hard. A car door closed beyond the far wall. They were home, home from the… funeral. And he knew whose funeral it must have been. Connections. His mind was making them like never before. But what did it add up to? What was the complete picture? He needed time to think, but Footsteps: hard shoes on the cement floor of the laundry room, coming his way. He looked around wildly-no, not wildly, stay cool, stay cool-and saw another door, at the end of the row of filing cabinets. He hurried across the room, but quiet, quiet and cool, opened the door: a small room, cold and musty, with a single street-level window, not blacked-out but very dirty, and shadowy objects inside. Trunks, beach umbrellas, a woodpile. Beep. Whitey went in, closed the door silently, knelt behind the woodpile. An earthen floor: common in basements where he came from, but strange to find in a house like this. And there was something hard under his knee. He reached down, freed it, picked it up-an ax.

  “Joe Savard of the Lawton police calling for Nora Levin. Missed you at Anne Franklin’s funeral today, would like to talk. Please get back to me at one of the following numbers.”

  Roger entered HQ, glanced at the computer screen. Times of London puzzle up-one across, strengthening, eight letters: roborant, no doubt-saw some illiterate conversation taking place, switched off the machine. Think, he commanded, and the marvelous brain responded without hesitation.

 
Two problems: Francie and Whitey, once conjoined in an elegant solution, now separating fast like particles that had failed to collide. Of the two, Whitey presented by far the more unknowns, variables, intangibles, unless he was frozen solid in the woods, and that would be lucky, and he, Roger, had always had rotten luck.

  So, Francie, less unknown, less variable, less intangible, first. Soon she would be home, despondent. Funeral day: the atmosphere would never be better for the ending he had improvised, but the details had to be right, had to be in character, had to be her. Would she leave a note? No, not her style at all. No note. That made it easier. And what of the method itself? Suitable, fitting, Francie. Nothing messy, nothing violent, nothing brilliant. He heard a faraway beep. The answering machine. He ignored it: wouldn’t be for him.

  Where was he? Nothing messy, nothing violent, nothing brilliant-something feminine, something that would make her weeping friends agree, Yes, that was Francie, all the way.

  The problem having been properly framed, the answer came at once: gas. Gas, of course. Gas was feminine. Gas was her.

  What gas? CO.

  CO. Roger pictured the molecule in his mind, a simple thing, not particularly attractive but sturdy, like a reliable peasant. CO-odorless, colorless, plentiful. And so simple, like one of those schoolboy science projects that never failed: insert subject in garage, close doors, run fossil-fuel-burning internal combustion engine, wait outside.

  The details, the adjustments: his brain sketched those in without any active direction from him. Difficult to persuade or trick the subject into inserting herself into the garage for the requisite time, of course, but neither was it necessary, the only necessity being that her body be found there. Much easier to perform the operation elsewhere-her bedroom, say, while she slept-and then transfer the end result to the garage when convenient. After that, the performer of the operation had merely to open the bedroom windows for an hour or two, and then the garage doors as well, perhaps screaming a desperate plea into the alley-would a trashman come running? — those procedures to be followed by the frantic call to 911, punctuated with a cough or two. Perfect, perfect, perfect. Oh, to have a brain like this, to never know boredom.