by Jane Smiley
“What did you think would happen?”
“I hoped she would show herself somehow. I kept people upstate looking for the weapon, or evidence of where she purchased the weapon. That may turn up. It usually does, even if it’s unregistered, but often it takes a while.”
“But she’s still got the weapon.”
“I doubt it’s the same one, frankly.”
“So now she’s shown herself?”
Honey smiled again. “Yes, she has.”
“By trying to kill me?”
“Your testimony will be invaluable as evidence.”
“The sine qua non of a conviction?”
“In a manner of speaking, yes.”
Alice felt a large anger take shape in her chest, but repressed it. “You thought she would show herself by doing something to me.”
“Yes, I thought it was a good possibility, Mrs. Ellis, especially if you manifested any certain knowledge of the murder.”
Nearly throbbing with fury, Alice managed to utter, “What if she’d actually killed me?”
Opaque and unmoved as ever, Honey said, “I considered that relatively unlikely, Mrs. Ellis, although I did think it worthwhile to put you on your guard.”
“Just tell me one thing more. Was anyone watching over me? Was anyone aware of when Susan and I were together, when I might be in danger?”
“I know what you mean,” said Honey. “Someone shadowing you to protect you, like in the movies. No. No, we haven’t that kind of manpower.”
Alice closed her eyes, actually seeing red, a kind of large red oval spot, like the giant red spot on Jupiter, crossing the back of her eyelids. Then she gripped her right hand over the end of the arm of her chair and pulled. There was a ripping noise of nails in wood, and the arm of the chair came up in her hand. She was panting. “Detective Honey,” she said. “I don’t think I am capable of expressing to you how angry I am at what could have happened to me.”
“I suggested to you repeatedly—”
“Don’t speak! Just don’t speak for a while, and please don’t go out of the office. I would like not to destroy every item in this room.”
Honey nodded and Alice closed her eyes again.
15
IT WAS after one when Alice and Detective Honey arrived at Chops, but Susan was not there. Jane, always polite and professional, informed them that Miss Gabriel had taken the day off and would be back in the morning. She seemed to look at Detective Honey suspiciously, but when Alice turned and inspected him, he did not look extraordinarily like a policeman. When they left the store, Alice said, “Do you think she left town?”
“It’s possible, but I don’t think so. After all, she has no reason to suppose that you knew she was at your apartment. She never saw you.”
Alice still felt weak from her fury at the police station, and rather distant from what she was doing—accompanying Honey to Susan’s apartment to have what Honey called “a conversation.” It was peculiar that she should be with him instead of with Susan, profoundly peculiar that she had finally assisted him in laying hands on Susan after all of her resolutions to stay away from him. Oh, yes, but Susan had tried to attack her the night before, in the middle of the night. She had thought so hard and completely about that, she seemed almost not able to remember it.
At Susan’s entrance, Alice took out her keys. “Shall I let us in, or do you want to ring?”
It was when he said that they should ring that it came completely to Alice that this visit was a procedure, hedged about with legal rules and police protocol. Honey rang. Susan’s calm voice spoke through the intercom. “Who is it, please?”
Detective Honey, as calm, said, “Detective Honey, Miss Gabriel.”
The door buzzed at once, and they went in. Alice hoped that Susan would not come down to them, and when the elevator appeared, she was not on it. Alice realized that she had been holding her breath when she began to breathe again. Going up the six floors, Honey moved in front of Alice and took his gun from the holster. Alice felt her eyes widen and her jaw drop. When the elevator doors opened, however, there was no one in the hallway, and the door to Susan’s apartment was still closed. Honey rang the bell, and his arm came across Alice’s stomach, holding her firmly against the wall. His gun was pointing at the ceiling. Alice said, “Do you really—” but then the door opened, and Susan was standing there as usual, in her yellow terrycloth bathrobe with a cup of coffee in her hand. She was smiling politely, and saying, “I just got up—” when she saw first the gun, and then Alice. The trembling of the coffee cup in her hand for a second and a long silence were her only reactions. Then she smiled again and said, “Do come in.” She gave Alice no special greeting or glance. Her eyes slid past her without warmth, and she motioned them to the two orange chairs, herself taking a seat on the couch. Honey holstered his weapon, but did not snap the lock.
Though Alice had been almost comfortable in the apartment since the murder, the murder now seemed hugely present to her, as if no time had intervened since the moment of her discovery. She seemed to herself both in the chair and looking at the chair with Craig in it. She shifted uncomfortably. Never at a loss, Honey said, “I’d like to have a few words with you, Miss Gabriel. I brought along Mrs. Ellis in order to fill in some pieces of information and to corroborate some details.” Still Susan did not look at her. She put her hand in the pocket of her robe, and Alice jumped, but then she took it out again with only a Kleenex. She wiped her nose. It was terrible, worse in a way than the night before, out on the ledge. Whatever hope Alice had had that the experience was a dream or a hallucination vanished. She sighed.
Honey said, “I gather that you are ill, Miss Gabriel?”
“Just a cold. Mostly tired.” “You were up late, then?”
“Yes.” Now she looked at Alice. “I watched two late movies and didn’t get to bed until about three.”
“Really. Which ones were they?”
“Let’s see. Dark Victory was one, that Bette Davis movie, and some war movie about the Battle of Bataan, with Claudette Colbert and Superman.”
“Was anyone with you while you were watching these movies?”
“Of course not.”
Honey looked at Alice. “Mrs. Ellis thinks that you were at her apartment last night.”
Susan looked at her. “Was anyone with her at her apartment then?”
“No,” said Alice, hopefully.
“Then it’s just a matter of deciding between us, isn’t it?” “In some sense, yes,” said Honey. “Miss Gabriel, are you registered to own a handgun?”
“I’m sure you’ve checked on that.”
“Then, do you own an unregistered handgun, or a handgun registered to another party?”
He looked her straight in the eye, and Susan did not answer.
“Miss Gabriel, exactly when did you return from your vacation? Was it in the evening of Saturday, May tenth, or perhaps, the evening of Friday, May ninth?” Still Susan did not say anything, and Alice wondered how Honey could break her silence. There was, of course, still no real evidence, and it was, after all, her word against Alice’s own that she had “exposed herself,” in Honey’s words. Alice saw that this exposure was primarily a conversational gambit for Honey, a way of surprising Susan into a telling reaction. As such, it had apparently failed. Honey asked, “Did you buy the gun upstate, Miss Gabriel, or have you had it for a long time? Perhaps it was purchased when you first came to New York, for personal protection?” Susan turned her head and looked toward the kitchen. Her copper-colored hair, blunt and shining, swung gently with the movement. Then she looked back at Honey, but still did not speak. It was probably apparent that Honey was bluffing. Honey said, “When you returned to Manhattan on Friday night, did you park in New Jersey and take a subway or a bus to New York, or did you drive straight in?”
Silence.
“You came, perhaps, down the Westside Highway, turned off at Seventy-ninth Street, found yourself a spot to park around the corner on River
side, and came to the apartment building. At approximately twelve o’clock, or a little later? When the band members were still out and hadn’t came home yet?”
Silence.
“You would have been carrying only your keys and the loaded gun, to avoid leaving anything behind by mistake that would give away your presence here, and you even, perhaps, took off your shoes before you came in and put them in a plastic bag, so as not to bring in any tell-tale signs of upstate vegetation or soil?”
Silence.
“Let’s see. Possibly, when you came in, you went into the bedroom, or the bathroom, and waited there for Mr. Minehart and Mr. Shellady. You would have been here for as long as two hours before they came home, but perhaps you sat quietly and patiently, without even touching a book for fear of giving yourself away. I have noticed that you are remarkably calm, Miss Gabriel.” Silence.
“At about one, then, Miss Gabriel, you heard Mr. Minehart and Mr. Shellady come in, accompanied by Mr. Mast, and also by a fourth person, whose voice you did not recognize. That would be Mr. Brick, who was unknown to you, and who has told the department that he never saw you at any time.”
Silence. Susan stared straight ahead. It was hard for Alice to tell if she was breathing.
“Perhaps, and this is merely speculation, the four men had had a few too many beers at the bars. A little high, and a little set up, then, perhaps the men were arguing, or rather, perhaps Mr. Mast and Mr. Shellady were arguing. Can you surmise the subject of the argument, Miss Gabriel?”
Silence.
“My suggestion would be that the subject of the argument was Mrs. Mast, and that the argument was a loud and extremely angry one, at least on the part of Mr. Mast, in whom there had built up a great deal of resentment toward Mr. Shellady. Perhaps the other two had some trouble calming them down? But they did, finally. In the end, Mr. Mast was unable to sustain opposition to Mr. Shellady, who, everyone has agreed, could be both persuasive and abusive, and on whom Mr. Mast depended for his job.”
Silence.
“But then it was business that brought the four men back to the apartment, wasn’t it? The business of the cocaine. Perhaps you could tell us in your own words how the business negotiations went?”
Silence.
“I would suggest, but you may correct me, that the negotiations did not go as Mr. Shellady had imagined they would. The sale to Mr. Brick, who is fairly well known as a dabbler in cocaine distribution among the musicians of the city, fell through, and, with no other reason for staying, Mr. Brick soon left. Mr. Shellady and Mr. Minehart now knew two things: that they were unlikely to pay off their debt to their suppliers by selling the remaining cocaine in their possession, and that they had made a mistake in trying to doctor the powder with Manitol to make it appear to weigh more than it really did. The supplier, perhaps, was becoming anxious for his money. What happened next, Miss Gabriel?”
Susan licked her lips.
“Perhaps there ensued a conversation between Mr. Minehart and Mr. Mast, in which, as a favor, Mr. Minehart asked Mr. Mast to take the coke to his apartment until another contact was made. This favor was granted, and Mr. Mast soon took himself and the cocaine off, leaving the other two men alone, as far as they knew, in the apartment. Mr. Mast then, might have stood in the hall for a few minutes, himself waiting for the elevator, or doing something else.”
Alice imagined Noah, breathing hard and with trembling fingers, rolling and then lighting a joint.
“The bedrooms and the kitchen were dark. Mr. Minehart and Mr. Shellady sat down in these two chairs that Mrs. Ellis and I are sitting in, and, counting on their intoxication and perhaps their distraction by the argument and the negotiations they had just been involved in, you came to the living-room door with your gun raised, and you shot them each once in the head. Since they had both turned to look at you, the shots entered from the front. Then you returned to the bedroom and waited until you were sure of the departure of Mr. Mast and Mr. Brick, and you retrieved your shoes in the bag and your keys, went down the back stairs so as to miss anyone who might recognize you. You were lucky. You did miss everyone, and soon you were in your car, back on the Westside Highway. What you did with the gun, I have been unable to find out, but otherwise you were extremely successful in leaving no evidence of your presence at the scene, so that even though your alibi was weak, there was no positive reason to suspect you.”
Susan had not moved for hours, it seemed to Alice. Now she turned her head and looked at Honey, her eyes still calm. “Setting aside the truth or falsity of what you have said,” she declared, “and viewing matters from a purely legal standpoint, you still have no evidence that I was even present at such a scene, whereas you do have evidence that Noah and this other guy were there, and that each of them had a motive.”
Alice looked at Susan and then at Honey. The sunlight was streaming in the windows now, brightening the beige carpet and bleaching out the brownish stains that Alice could not help but be aware of, as pale as they were. On the floor beside the couch was the morning paper. On the coffeetable a peach pit, the hulls of four or five strawberries, and some toast crumbs. Motes of dust floated in the sunlight. After what seemed like hours, Alice said, “I know one thing she did while she was waiting. She watered the plants.”
A small smile stretched Susan’s lips. After a moment, she suppressed it.
Alice said, “When I got here Saturday morning, I had missed a day, but the plants were damp. There was one, especially, a piggyback plant that was very sensitive to dryness, and would have begun to look wilted. After the police came, I remembered that I had originally come over to water them, and I felt them. They didn’t need it. Everything was damp.”
Susan sat back in her chair.
Alice went on. “And then you got rid of them. That struck me, but I didn’t realize why.”
Susan said, “You never notice anything. I can’t believe you noticed that.”
Alice bit her lip, stung by the other woman’s tone.
Honey said, “Let me add something, Miss Gabriel. Mr. Mast, who has been in my custody for felony possession of a controlled substance with intent to sell, is of the opinion that Mr. Minehart and Mr. Shellady killed each other, or that one killed the other and then killed himself. The evidence at the scene of the crime did point rather more in that direction than in any other, except for the factor of the missing weapon. Without the weapon, the evidence is merely confused, and doesn’t point anywhere. You, it is true, did an excellent job of concealing your presence in the apartment, and no judge will convict you on the strength of what Mrs. Ellis has just said, unless the prosecutor is very deft. Let me suggest, however, that what you were unable or unwilling to conceal was your anger at the victims. For some reason, you wanted it known that they were murdered, that there had been an intention to kill them. Perhaps, at one time, you hoped the blame would fall on the suppliers of the cocaine, but that, after all, was secondary. What was primary was your determination that Mr. Minehart and Mr. Shellady would be known as murder victims, and I think, frankly, that closing off other options was your first mistake.”
Susan pulled the lapels of her robe more tightly together, and said, “Is this still a conversation?”
Honey replied, “Yes, but I do have Mrs. Ellis here as a witness, and you are entitled to a lawyer at this point.”
“Well.” She looked at the ceiling. “I guess I don’t care. I would like to say something, mostly to Alice.”
“I’m afraid I can’t really leave you alone, Miss Gabriel.”
“You can hear, too. And you don’t have to tell me that thing about my rights. I don’t care.”
Alice looked at Honey. They waited for a minute or so, and then Susan sat up and began to speak. “Let me tell you about the day before I left for my vacation. I was here all day getting ready, and they were here all day, too. I got up about eight and made some coffee. I was looking forward to the vacation, and feeling pretty good. I had finally decided to leave Denny, and I th
ought of the vacation as a practice session. I hadn’t lived alone since I was nineteen, remember. It was very quiet in the apartment, I didn’t even have any music on. Craig came out of the second bedroom about nine, which was sort of a surprise, since they’d come in late, and Denny hadn’t told me that Craig was staying.” Her voice was reasonable, nicely modulated. “Denny got up a few minutes later. They started talking right away. They called to each other from the bathroom, went at it over breakfast, over the dishes. It was obviously a conversation continued from the night before, from all the nights before, and they simply couldn’t drop the subject.”
“Were they talking about the cocaine?”
“Oh, they wouldn’t have talked about that in front of me.” Susan reached across the debris of her breakfast and picked up a red book on Alice’s side of the coffeetable. Susan said, “This is a guide to records that was put out by Rolling Stone about a year ago.” She opened it. “Page ninety-eight. You see how it falls open at the page? ‘Deep Six; two stars. Sole album by the band that recorded the hit single “Dinah’s Eyes.” “Dinah’s Eyes” had a mildly interesting riff by guitarist and band leader Dennis Minehart, and the wavering voice of lead singer Craig Shellady attains a kind of gravelly substance, but the rest of the album is pallid stuff, imitating almost everything else that had a vogue in the early seventies. Both sides are short (thirty-four minutes combined playing time) but they seem twice as long. Too long. Now deleted.’ That was the subject.”
“Miss—”
“You have to understand. They talked about that review for almost a year. Both of them knew it by heart. I knew it by heart. I also knew by heart every remark they had to make about the review. That Rolling Stone always hated their kind of music. That you had to be black and play jazz to get four stars, or be produced by an editor at the Rolling Stone. That at least they’d gotten two stars. Look at John Denver, he only got one and sometimes none. But then look at what they said, those fuckers. ‘Imitating almost everything else.’ They’d been trying some stuff out, but not imitating, not copying. They went through the whole book and counted how many records got no stars or one, how many got two, how many got three or more. Then they went through again leaving out the jazz section. It seems like it took days. But at least, this particular discussion of that six-line passage took another whole day out of my life. Believe me, I’d stopped telling them not to worry about it, that it was only one guy’s opinion, or that they couldn’t control what people thought, they just had to do their best. Now I kept quiet, and hoped they would go on to something else, and finally they did. They went on to a discussion of whether Craig had been right in breaking their contract for a second album. That was a discussion they’d been having for four years. I could just envision both discussions going on for the rest of my life, and never going anywhere. They repeated themselves so much that they were even using the same phrases. Well, about dinner time, they stopped talking about the contract, and there was about a half an hour of silence, and then they started talking again, and damn if it wasn’t about the review. Craig compared it to the original review of the album in Rolling Stone, which had been better. He decided for the umpteenth time that the two reviews balanced each other out, and then he went over to the framed clipping on the wall of the article about them in Rolling Stone, and he read it, even though he knew that by heart, and then the both of them began talking about those fuckers. I mean I could see what they were doing. They were trying to make sense. They were trying to make these two reviews and this article into the word of God, into some kind of oracle that would tell them once and for all whether they were any good, but they couldn’t do it, and I knew that even if they had, even if a real voice from the sky said, ‘Stop playing music, you aren’t going to make it,’ they would have talked their way around it. That night I thought truly for the first time that they needed to be killed. Or rather, that if they had an accident or something, they would be a lot better off. And I would too.”