Peter Robinson - Not Safe After Dark

I looked at Ginny Fraser. She dropped the kitchen knife and flopped onto the sofa.

After I got my breath back, I turned to Karen and said, ‘Right, now we’ve got that charade out of the way, will someone tell me what’s going on here?’

‘I’m sorry,’ Ed said for the third time. ‘I don’t know what came over us. We were desperate. I still can’t imagine what made us think we could kill an innocent man. When Karen phoned from the restaurant and told us you knew… we just panicked.’

‘I’m sorry I deceived you,’ Karen said. ‘I admit I was trying to find out if you knew anything. After I saw you and the woman from the office looking at the pool yesterday, I thought you might be trouble. So I arranged the puncture.’

Well that makes two of us acting from impure motives, I thought. ‘So you’re all sorry,’ I said. ‘Whoop-a-de-doo-dah. Now would someone tell me why I shouldn’t call the police right now?’

‘We can’t stop you,’ Ed said. ‘We won’t stop you. In a way, it would be a relief.’

I poured three fingers of Karen’s bourbon into my glass and settled down on the sofa beside Ginny. Karen and Ed sat opposite in matching easy chairs. ‘Just tell me what it’s all about,’ I said. ‘Who really did kill Schiller?’

‘We all did,’ Ed answered.

I looked at Karen and Ginny, who both nodded.

Jesus Christ, I thought, it’s Murder on the Orient Express all over again.

‘Ginny and I pushed him into the pool,’ Ed went on. ‘He thought we were playing games. Karen plugged in the piano, and we all lowered it in after him. After that all we had to do was lie to the police and tell them he was still alive when we left him.’

‘What I really don’t understand,’ I went on, ‘is why. I know Smith cheated Ed out of his life’s savings, but what did he ever do to you, Karen?’

‘My father,’ she said flatly. ‘Vernon Connant. You’ll find his name on your list. Lee’s my married name. Smith swindled him out of every penny we had. When the news broke he killed my mother, then himself. With a shotgun. I was five at the time. Just before he put the gun in his mouth and pulled the trigger, he looked at me. He was going to kill me, too, but at the last moment, he couldn’t do it. I’ll never forget that look. I’ve spent my whole life trying, one shrink to another, pills, the lot. You can’t tell me that Sherman Smith didn’t deserve to die.’

I took a long sip of bourbon and let the fire fill my mouth before swallowing. ‘What about you, Ginny? You weren’t on the list, either.’

‘My husband. Harvey Pellier. I went back to my maiden name.’

‘What happened?’

Ginny gave a harsh laugh. ‘Nothing quite so dramatic as Karen’s story. Harvey lost everything, and it broke his spirit. He left us. Just walked out and never came back. We hadn’t been really well off, but we’d been happy. When Harvey left, the family just fell apart. I couldn’t hold it together. The kids did badly at school, started hanging with a bad crowd. You know the sort of thing. They drifted into drugs, street life. Will died of an overdose. Jane’s still somewhere out on the streets. I haven’t heard from her in years.’

After a few moments of silence, Ed ran his hands through his hair and said he wouldn’t mind a drink. Karen got him a Scotch on the rocks. Then he began. ‘I bumped into Smith about four years ago. Pure chance. Coincidence. I just couldn’t believe it. I suppose, when you think about it, you never know who’s going to be renting from who. Anyway, I saw him, after over fifteen years, and do you know what?’

I shook my head.

‘He didn’t recognize me. I mean, you ought to recognize people whose lives you ruined, don’t you think? Because of him I had a nervous breakdown, I got hooked on the booze, lost job after job. You name it.’ He thumped his chest with his fist. ‘Then, when I began to relive what he’d done to me, I realized the anger was still there. Only now I had the advantage. But I couldn’t kill him. Not alone.’ He glanced at Karen and Ginny. ‘When it first happened – I mean twenty years ago – lots of us had meetings with lawyers, and I became close to Karen’s father and Ginny’s husband. But Smith had never seen Karen or Ginny. So I got in touch with them, told them the situation and we planned what to do. We befriended him, one by one, pretended we didn’t know each other, then we killed him.’

Ed fell silent and the others looked at me. It was hard to imagine the havoc Sherman Smith had wreaked on these lives, hard not to sympathize with the three of them, but who was I to judge?

‘It’s up to you now, Jack,’ Karen said, seeming to sense my dilemma. ‘You know the whole story now. We’re guilty of premeditated murder.’ She glanced at Ed. ‘If you want my honest opinion, I don’t think it’s helped any of us. I don’t think it’s going to make our lives any easier to bear – probably the opposite – but it’s done and you’re the only one who knows about it. We can’t kill you, but we’re not going to give ourselves up willingly, either. It’s your decision.’

So whether I liked it or not, it was up to me. I finished my bourbon, then I nodded and went back to my condo.

Almost exactly one year to the day later, I found myself in Chloe’s for ‘Happy Hour’. There were one or two faces I recognized around the bar, but most of the people were strangers. I still didn’t know why I kept coming back year after year. Especially this year. Maybe Karen had been right and I was looking for catharsis.

Or for Karen.

I looked across the bar at where I had first really noticed her last year, running her finger around the rim of a glass. Now a chain-smoking brunette with a hard face sat there instead.

‘Hi, Shamus.’

Al French slipped onto the empty stool beside me.

‘Beer?’ I offered.

‘My turn.’ Al ordered two beers. ‘Did you ever get to the bottom of that mysterious death?’ he asked.

‘Which one was that?’

‘You know. Last year. That asshole Bud Schiller.’

‘Oh, him.’ I shook my head. ‘I don’t think there was anything mysterious about it at all. I think he was drunk, he tripped and he fell into the pool.’

‘Yeah, and he pulled the piano in after him just for good measure. Come on, Jack.’

I shrugged. ‘You know, Al, sometimes the strangest of accidents do happen. Did I ever tell you about the guy they found dead on the subway tracks and couldn’t find his head?’

‘Is everything inorder?’ the old man asked, his scrawny fingers clutching the comforter like talons.

‘Seems to be,’ said Mitch.

Drawing up the will had been a simple enough task. Mr Garibaldi and his wife had the dubious distinction of outliving both their children, and there wasn’t much to leave.

‘Would you like to sign it now?’ he asked, holding out his Mont Blanc.

The old man clutched the pen the way a child holds a crayon and scribbled his illegible signature on the documents.

‘There… that’s done,’ said Mitch. He placed the papers in his briefcase.

Mr Garibaldi nodded. The movement brought on a spasm and such a coughing fit that Mitch thought the old man was going to die right there and then.

But he recovered. ‘Will you do me a favour?’ he croaked when he’d got his breath back.

Mitch frowned. ‘If I can.’

With one bent, shrivelled finger, Mr Garibaldi pointed to the floor under the window. ‘Pull the carpet back,’ he said.

Mitch stood up and looked.

‘Please,’ said Mr Garibaldi. ‘The carpet.’