Charlaine Harris - Three Bedrooms, One Corpse

Martin had been listening quietly, thinking along with me. Now he held up his hand.

“No,” he said. “I think Idella must have put back the key.”

“Oh, my God, yes. Idella,” I said slowly. “That’s why he killed her. She knew who had had the key. She got it from whoever was at Greenhouse Realty.”

That made so much sense. Idella, crying at the staff meeting right after Tonia’s body was discovered. Idella, red-eyed and upset during the days after the killing.

“It must have been someone she was incredibly loyal to,” I murmured. “Why wouldn’t she tell? It would have saved her life.”

“She couldn’t believe it, she wouldn’t believe this person did it,” Martin said practically. “She was in love.”

We stared at each other for a minute.

“Yes,” I said quietly. “That must have been it. She must have been in love.”

I thought of Idella after Martin fell asleep that night. Deluded in the most cruel way, Idella had died at the hands of someone she loved, someone of whom she could believe no evil, no matter how compelling the evidence. In a way, I thought drowsily, Idella had been like me… she’d been alone for a while, coping with her life on her own. Maybe that had made her all too ready to trust, to depend. It had cost her everything. I prayed for her, for her children, and finally for Martin and me.

I must have coasted off into sleep, because the next thing I was aware of was waking. I woke up just a little, though; just enough to realize I’d been asleep, just enough to realize something unusual had roused me.

I could hear someone moving very quietly downstairs. Martin must be getting a drink and doesn’t want to disturb me-so sweet, I thought drowsily, and turned over on my stomach, pillowing my face on my bent arms. My elbow touched something solid.

Martin.

My eyes opened wide in the darkness.

I froze, listening.

The slight sound from downstairs was repeated. I automatically reached out to the night table for my glasses and put them on.

I could see the darkness much more clearly.

I slid out of bed as silently as I could, my slithery black nightgown actually of some practical use, and crept to the head of the stairs. Maybe it was Madeleine? Had I fed her before we came up to bed?

But Madeleine was in her usual night place, curled on the little cushioned chair by the window, and she was sitting up, her head turned to the doorway. I could see the profile of her ears against the faint light of the streetlamp a block north on Parson Road, coming in through the blinds.

I glided back to the bed, very careful not to stumble over scattered clothes and shoes.

“Martin,” I whispered. I leaned over my side of the bed and touched his arm. “Martin, there’s trouble. Wake up.”

“What?” he answered instantly, quietly.

“Someone downstairs.”

“Get behind the chair,” he said almost inaudibly, but very urgently.

I heard him get out of bed, heard him-just barely heard him-feeling in his overnight bag.

I was ready to disobey and take my part in grabbing the intruder-after all, this was my house-when I saw in that little bit of glow from the streetlight that Martin was holding a gun.

Well, it did seem time to get behind something. Actually, the chair felt barely adequate all of a sudden. I left Madeleine right where she was. Not only would she very probably have yowled if I’d grabbed her, but I trusted her survival instincts far more than mine.

I strained as hard as I could to hear but detected only some tiny suggestions of movement-maybe Martin going to the head of the stairs. Despite the dreadful hammering of my heart, I said a few earnest prayers. My legs were shaking from fear and the cramped crouching position I’d assumed.

I willed myself to be still. It worked only a little, but I could hear some sounds coming up the stairs. This intruder was no skilled stalker.

I found I was more frightened of what Martin might do than I was of the intruder. Only slightly, though.

I heard the someone enter the room. I covered my face with my hands.

And the lights came on.

“Stop right there,” Martin said in a deadly voice. “I have a gun pointed at your back.”

I peeked around the chair. Sam Ulrich was standing inside the room with his back to Martin, who was pressed against the wall by the light switch. Ulrich had a length of rope in one hand, some wide masking tape in the other. His face was livid with shock and excitement. Mounting my stairs must have been pretty heart-pounding for him, too.

“Turn around,” Martin said. Ulrich did. “Sit on the end of the bed,” Martin said next. The burly ex-Pan-Am Agra executive inched back and sat down. Slowly I got up from my place behind the chair, finding out that during those few moments I’d spent there, my muscles had become strained and sore from the tension. My legs were shaking, and I decided sitting in the chair would be a good idea. My robe was draped over the back of it, and I pulled it on. Madeleine had vanished, doubtless irritated at having her night’s sleep so rudely interrupted.

“Are you all right, Roe?” Martin asked.

“Okay,” I said shakily.

We stared at our captive. I had a thought. “Martin, where did you park when you came tonight? Are you in your car?”

“No,” he said slowly. “No, I parked out back in one of the parking slots, but I’m in a company car. I don’t like to leave my car parked at the airport.”

“So he didn’t know you were here,” I observed.

Martin absorbed that quickly. From looking perplexed and angry, his expression went to murderous.

“What were you going to do with the rope and the tape, Sam?” he asked very quietly.

I felt all the blood drain from my face. I hadn’t followed through on my own idea until Martin asked that critical question.

“You son of a bitch, I was going to hurt you like you hurt me,” Sam Ulrich said savagely.

“I didn’t rape your wife.”

“I wasn’t going to rape her,” he said, as if I weren’t there. “I was going to scare her and leave her tied up so you’d know what it was like to see your family helpless.”

“Your logic escapes me,” Martin said, and his voice was like a brand-new razor blade.

I knew this was a quarrel between the two men, but after all, it was I who would have been tied up.

“Didn’t you feel it might be a little cowardly,” I said clearly, “to creep up in the dark and tie up a woman who wasn’t even your real enemy?”

It seemed Sam Ulrich had never put it to himself quite that way. He turned even redder in a slow, ugly way.

“I’d like to kill you,” Martin said very quietly. I didn’t doubt his sincerity, and I could tell from the hunch of his shoulders that Ulrich didn’t, either. Martin, even in pajama bottoms, had more authority than Sam Ulrich would have had in a suit. “But since it’s Roe’s house you broke into, and her you were going to harm, maybe she should decide what should happen to you.”

I knew that Martin would kill this man if I asked him to.

I thought of calling the police. I thought of cops I knew from having dated Arthur, perhaps even Arthur himself, up here in my bedroom looking at me in my black nightie. I thought of their eyes as they found out Martin and I had been asleep together when I heard someone downstairs. I thought of the report taken from the police blotter that appeared daily in the Lawrenceton Sentinel. Then I thought of letting this dreadful coward go scot-free. But my flesh crawled when I pictured myself alone here with this frustrated man and his rope and his tape.

And I’ll tell you what I just plain liked about Martin. He let me think. He didn’t say one word, or look impatient, or even make a face.