Duplicate Keys

by Jane Smiley

  And how would she, how could she make the turn? The angle, which had seemed huggable in prospect, seemed in actuality to fold dangerously away from her, as if she were lying on a dropleaf table and the leaf suddenly dropped. She breathed very carefully, and made herself think of Jeff pointing that gun at her, and looked up instead of down, but no tricks were of any use. The impossibility of turning the corner immobilized her, expanded in her mind like a balloon, pushing every other more reasonable thought away.

  She was going to fall, she was going to fall. Dreams of falling came back to her vividly, not as prophecies of this particular experience, but as certain knowledge of the sensation of falling, of the absolute loss of her grip, unreclaimable, a mistake never set right. Alice groaned. It seemed not that the building turned a corner, but that it disappeared entirely. Once again, for a split second, she felt herself not standing against the wall, but lying on it, at the edge of it, where it dropped into a bottomless pit. When the split second disorientation was over, a repetition of it was what she feared the most, suspecting that any unconscious movement to correct it would precipitate her off the wall. She said, “I am standing up. I am standing up. My head is up, my feet are down. Time to go around.” She felt for the ledge around the corner, gripped it, but it seemed unattainable. She was stuck.

  Then, like an inevitable rising tide, came her self-disgust at being stuck. Forever she had been stuck in one thing or another. She could never get past being stuck! What was wrong with her? And then, without thinking, she was struck by the absurdity of being about to die, of which she was certain, and yet wondering right to the end how she had failed this time and how she could improve. At once, the corner seemed possible, and she inched her way right up to it, put her foot around it, and then dragged her head under the cornice, and planted her crotch right on the angle of the brick. She took a deep breath, tightened the grip of her left hand, and then brought her body flat around, scraping her thigh painfully, but there it was, her foot, and here came her hand. She was around the corner. The fire escape, about twelve or thirteen feet ahead, was dark, shadowed by the building next door. Alice stilled herself and listened. It was impossible to tell if Jeff was there. She inched toward it, one hand, one foot at a time. Soon she herself was in the dark, which was frightening. Now her feet were trembling as well as her calves, and her wrists, too. Six feet to go. She paused and listened for breathing. There was none. Perhaps, after all, Jeff could not find the key to the fire escape bars, bars Jim had made them install five years ago. It was right in the lock, but the lock was out of the way. Alice put out her left hand and touched the iron railing of the fire escape and gripped it tightly. After a moment, she put out her foot, and then her other hand. Almost at once she was on it, ready to go down.

  Afraid still of any clanging or noise from the fire escape that might resound to listening ears in the apartment, Alice squatted and put her foot on the first step of the down staircase. It was rusted and rough, but made no creaks or groans. Gradually, she shifted her weight to the foot. Still no noise, still no Jeff in the window. Then, just as she was about to straighten up and put her other foot on the step below, the first step crumbled into dust, and her foot went through into empty space. Alice took a deep breath and gripped more tightly to the railing, then began to put weight on her other foot, on its step. Only the greatest effort had kept her from crying out in surprise at the breaking away of the step, but now she was better prepared, saying to herself, “No noise! No noise!” The transfer of weight was painfully gradual. If only she could see the steps, see what shape they were in, but the shadow of the building next door was too black, and the steps themselves too darkly rusted or painted. The second step bent, then it, too, split and fell apart. Alice hoisted herself back onto the fire escape, glad that she had never had to escape from the apartment in the last five years. She paused and thought of herself going hand over hand down four flights of railings, but that she could not even imagine as she had imagined herself on the ledge. At last she tip-toed across the fire escape to the steps upward and began to test them. From her apartment, anyway, Jeff would have no ready access to the roof, and, perhaps, no reason to go there. The first of the upward steps bent, too, under her foot, but the prospect of an ascent was somehow easier than the prospect of a descent into nothingness, so she rested her weight mostly on her two hands on the railing, and began slowly to climb, quiet and holding her breath, up the ten rusted steps. Only one, at the top and the least protected from the rain, threatened to break and fall noisily onto the fire escape below, but as soon as Alice felt it begin to go, she lifted her foot off it and swung up to the fifth floor platform. There, to catch her breath, she crouched in silence.

  It was then that a kind of fog, comprised of fear and fatigue, began to invade her. The steeply pitched tin roof seemed to recede, to become, in fact, rather unattractive as well as impossible. Even as she disapproved of herself, she began to feel safe enough here, and no amount of self-disgust could prevail on her to go any farther. Her body, her whole being began to feel kind of shocked, numb, drained of adrenaline, so what if it was too soon. But the fire escape was very dark, and furnished with two large potted plants. Alice wedged herself behind one of them, against the wall, and waited for conviction or fear to move her upward toward the roof.

  Instead, she must have dozed, because she had the sensation of waking up suddenly and of not knowing for a second where she was. She might even have dreamt of going around that corner again, because the sensation of being about to fall was an immediate one. Her feet were asleep. She moved the left one very carefully, and wiggled the toes, then the right one. She lifted her shoulders one by one. Still there was no sign from the apartment below that it was inhabited in any way. Perhaps, after all, the initial sounds that impelled her escape were natural to the apartment, or were even a dream. Perhaps she had sneaked out of her window and around the apartment building for nothing. Perhaps Jeff was home, innocent in his own bed, not really a psychopath, dreaming of cocaine, looking forward to breakfast. Alice rolled her head around on her neck and opened her mouth, trying to stretch and relax the jaw that had been clenched and tense. Then she opened her hands and fluttered her fingers. It was all she could do not to sigh. She couldn’t even remember the noises now, remember if the silence that surrounded them was the silence of her mind or the silence of her apartment. On the other hand, it was not worth the risk, after all this effort, to check. She waited. It seemed like she had waited for about an hour.

  It was like waiting for rain to let up, when after a while, and it is still raining hard, you just go out into it, your concern about getting wet dissipated, your adjustment complete. Alice stood up, and heard the scrape of metal. She stopped still, thinking at first that the sound had come from her, but it came again. It came from below. As quietly as possible, she squatted down and peered through the grating of the floor. At first there was nothing, just the empty blackness of the lower fire escape, but then a figure appeared, a head leaning and then moving out of the window of her apartment. Head, then shoulders, then arms, like a baby. Then the figure twisted, and out came the hips and the legs, one by one. The silhouette, substantial, athletic, shapely, was unmistakably Susan’s and when she lifted her hands from the window sill and turned around, there was a gun in one hand. Alice nearly gasped.

  But she did not. In the end, she did not gasp or make any kind of a sound, and she had the courage to keep watching, watching Susan’s head, turning left then right, then back toward the apartment. Susan stood quietly for a long time, then put her free hand back on the window sill, preparatory to going back in. Alice nearly breathed. First Susan’s left foot went over the sill, then she began to lift the right, but she put it down again. She had thought of something, and she did it. She looked upward, peering right at Alice, right into her face with her own shaded eyes that Alice could imagine but not see. She peered for a long time, and then she lifted her right foot and climbed back into Alice’s apartment. Conscientious
ly, she closed the window and then the metallic bars. No doubt she locked them. Alice let her head roll back against the wall, but otherwise dared not move for a long time.

  THE next sound Alice heard was the sound of an alarm clock, muffled, but nearby, as near as her ear. She opened her eyes and found herself crouched on the fire escape, not in sunlight, but in full day. When she opened her eyes, the first thing she saw was her upstairs neighbors in glorious naked splendor. When the hand of her neighbor arrived at and stilled the alarm clock, his eyes opened as well, on her. He gave a bark of surprise, muffled by the closed window. Alice smiled politely and stood up. Her neighbor, Gardiner she thought his name was, she had only spoken to him once in the lobby, covered his wife with one hand and motioned a question to Alice concerning her desire to come in. Alice, still smiling, nodded. The wife turned lazily over, determined not to wake up, and uncovered herself again. He spoke to her. She woke up.

  On the street an hour later, in Phil Gardiner’s sandals and Rose Gardiner’s clothing, Alice grew immediately jumpy in a way that she hadn’t been in the Gardiners’ apartment. Susan seemed imminent everywhere, and the seven blocks to the Twentieth Precinct house endless and dangerous. Oddly, though, she felt only a little appalled by Susan’s pursuit of her, and very anxious to see Honey.

  Honey, of course, was not there, although he had checked in already and would surely turn up soon. She turned down a cup of coffee and sat across from the empty cell in the detective’s common room. She tried to imagine Susan there, and could not. It was very difficult, now that she was sitting and thinking, to relinquish her habitual picture of Susan, her habitual appreciation of Susan’s competence and warmth. Perhaps Honey would tell her she had had a nightmare and send her home. Phones on the detectives’ desks rang continually. Alice was grateful for the way that they broke up and scattered her thoughts. Honey did not come. Alice waited. Called the library, made some excuse, turned down another cup of coffee. It was nearly eleven. The locksmith would have come and gone. She should have called him. Just then Honey appeared.

  He showed her politely to his office, offered her still another cup of coffee. He was wearing the same gray suit he had worn the first day she met him, and three or four times since. In every other way, too, he was unchanged, and Alice had a strong sense of herself in a stranger’s clothes, changed utterly. To such a monolith it was nearly impossible to speak. Courteous concern played over his surface like little whitecaps. “You look like you’ve had some sort of accident, Mrs. Ellis.”

  “I’m just scraped up a little. If I begin, you won’t believe me.” But she knew that he would. He got up and closed the door.

  “Does your visit have anything to do with these abrasions?”

  “Yes.”

  “Can you tell me about it?” He took out his pad, and Alice felt herself sinking back onto the usual couch, opening her mouth. She closed her mouth. She said, “Maybe you can tell me about it.”

  “I don’t understand you.”

  “Really?”

  Honey swivelled in his desk chair and leaned it back until it groaned under his solid weight. Finally, he said, “Why are you so suspicious, Mrs. Ellis? I’m not. I’ve never thought ill of you, never suspected you of the murder, for example.”

  “Are these observations personal or professional?”

  “Personally, I find your reticence intriguing. Professionally, I find it annoying and obstructive. And unnecessary, as far as I can tell.” He swivelled back to her. Alice said, “In the first place, please believe me, I can’t help it. In the second place, I want you to talk to me. I want to know the truth, too. I feel like I tell you what you want to know, and then you shut up your book without giving me the diagnosis. I do think you have some idea what’s going on, and I really do want to talk to you. I came here of my own accord, and I waited for two and a half hours, without a magazine, I might add, but I don’t want to leave here without knowing. I have had a very bizarre experience, much more bizarre and strange to me than it has been for you, and I find the ignorance I’ve been floundering around in intolerable.”

  “So?”

  “So, I’m offering you a bribe. In exchange for my telling you what I know and think, I want the same from you. I want to question you.”

  Honey laughed. “Who goes first?”

  “I’ll show you my good faith. I’ll tell first.” Honey nodded, and Alice recited her experiences of the previous twenty-four hours, beginning with Ray in the hospital and Susan at lunch, ending with Susan’s dark and silent appearance on the fire escape, gun in hand. Honey was appreciative of her exploits on the four-inch ledge, but she waved him off. When he had gotten it all down, Alice said, “Now, I want to ask you the first question. Where do you think Susan is now?”

  “At her shop. Minding her business.”

  Alice sat forward. “Am I still in danger?”

  “I don’t know. I rather think so.”

  “Have I been in danger all along?”

  He said it without hesitation. “I’ve thought so, yes.”

  “From Susan?”

  Honey nodded.

  “You sound like you think she did it.”

  “I’ve thought so for a long time.”

  “Why?”

  “Motive. Poor alibi. Psychological outlook. All circumstantial, really.”

  “Then why did you arrest Noah?”

  Honey smiled ruefully. “Extremely bad luck. In the first place, he lied. In the second place, we had a witness who heard the shots and placed Mr. Mast at the scene of the crime, or near it, while it was being committed. And Mr. Mast, too, had a motive in the affair that his wife was having with Mr. Shellady. Finally, Mr. Mast was in possession of three and a half ounces of cocaine, which is a felony offense in this state, and it was for that I had to arrest him.”

  “Rya said the charge was murder.”

  “I never explicitly stated that Mr. Mast was being arrested on a homicide charge.”

  “But you let her believe it, and tell it to us.”

  Honey shrugged.

  “Who was the witness?”

  “Daniel Brick. He and Mr. Mast had been in the apartment with the victims, and he had left the group and gone down the elevator. While he was in the elevator, he heard shots, and then about ten minutes later, Mr. Mast came down.” Honey inspected his pencil, then looked at Alice. “The exact scenario isn’t quite clear.”

  “When did you figure all of this out?”

  “Shortly after we arrested Brick. He was bursting with it, in fact.”

  “But when did you decide it was Susan?”

  “Some time ago.”

  “Why didn’t you arrest her, then?”

  “Absolutely no evidence. No weapon. No witnesses to put her at the scene of the crime. Dan Brick, who got a look at her when she came to look at him, had never seen her before. No fresh traces of her presence in the apartment, such as used water glasses or anything, no hairs, no telling cigarette ash.” He smiled. “She could have gotten there by any means, but even our investigations into bus schedules and toll takers have yielded nothing. I didn’t expect they would. A homicide arrest is a legal procedure. If there’s no hope of an indictment, much less a conviction, then an arrest is futile.”