Ed Gorman: Cold Blue Midnight

She couldn't hear anybody.

She could just look up the shadowy steps and see that the door was open a little bit.

Who was up there?

Why wasn't he coming down?

A trouser leg appeared. Then another one.

It was Peter.

He started walking down the stairs, carrying his axe.

At this point that's all she could see the shoes, the trouser legs from the knees down, the axe.

The bloody bloody axe.

Then Peter came the rest of the way down the stairs and stood looking at her.

She had promised herself one and no more well, maybe two, but certainly not anymore than that. Well, an absolute stratospheric max of three…

So far, in twenty-five minutes, Jill Coffey had eaten four of her semi-homemade cookies and was contemplating a fifth when somebody knocked on the downstairs door.

Reporters.

These days, that was always her first thought whenever a knock sounded or the phone rang.

Reporters.

But then came the code three-pause-two-pause-one.

Mitch was here.

She felt as exuberant as a little girl going down the stairs, trying to imagine his surprise as she opened the door and he smelled the tangy odor of the semi-homemade cookies.

'Wow,' Mitch said. 'What smells so good?'

She let him in, glimpsing the chill dusk, the coral-color sky, the quarter-moon above the snow-covered rooftops, the chink-chink-chink of tire chains on a big city sand truck just now passing by.

She led him upstairs by the hand.

Halfway up, he said, 'Would you explain something to me?'

'What?'

'What exactly is a ''semi"-homemade cookie?'

She explained.

'God, they smell great.'

'Wait till you taste one. I added some chocolate chips. And there's also fresh coffee.'

'Is this a glimpse of married life with my future bride?'

'If I say yes, will that mean that we get married soon?'

He laughed. 'Very soon.'

She set a place for him at the table and made him sit down and take off his hat, which he sometimes forgot to do, and then she brought over the cookies and the coffee.

'These are fantastic,' he said after a sizeable bite.

She smiled. 'Well, I don't know if I'd go that far.'

'They are. Truly. If I didn't know the difference, I'd say these weren't "semi"-homemade at all.' He laughed. 'Now, do I get the part in this commercial or don't I?'

'I've had four.'

'Really? Four?'

'Actually, five.'

'Five? You ate five cookies? I didn't know there was such a self-indulgent side to my future bride.'

'Fortunately, not with alcohol or drugs or sticking up convenience stores. Only with semi-homemade cookies.'

He watched her with overwhelming affection. 'God, I love you, Jill.'

'Ditto,' she said, and leaned over and kissed the cookie crumbs from his mouth.

In all, he ate three cookies, which he was quick to point out was several less well, he tried to get away with the word 'several' but she scolded him and changed the word to 'two' than she'd had.

And then she said, knowing this was going to puncture the pretty pink party balloon they'd made for themselves: 'What if she decides not to help us?'

'Cini, you mean?'

'Right.'

'She will. I'm sure of it.'

Jill sighed. Up and down, that's how her moods ran. Up and down. She was in a downswing now. 'Maybe I should talk to her.'

He shook his head. 'Your lawyer Deborah would go ballistic if you did. No, I'll talk to her.' He checked his watch. 'In fact, I was thinking of running over there about now. Remind her that I'm still around. See if there's any way I can help her see what she's afraid of, is what I'm really saying. There's something holding her back and maybe I can get her to tell me.'

Jill glanced around the apartment. 'Boy, it was so nice watching you eating those cookies.'

'There's nothing like semi-homemades.'

'For a couple of minutes there, I absolutely forgot everything except you and me.'

He took her hand, held it tenderly. 'I know. I was feeling the same way.'

'I'm getting scared again.'

'She'll help us, Jill. I know she will. Maybe not tonightbut soon. I can feel it. I really can.'

She got up and walked over to the window and he joined her. They looked out at the city beneath its white winter wrappings. The snow was the beautiful soft blue of the sky with the golden highlights of the moonglow. Snow masked so much of the city's ugliness and harshness.

'You just start planning our wedding,' he said, sliding his arm around her shoulder. 'That's all you need to worry about.'

'Are you really going over to see her?'

'Soon as I get done with a stop for the socialite case. One of her tennis-playing lovers just got back into the city and I need to ask him some questions. Then I'm going over to see Cini.'

'Then you're coming back here?'

'I sure am. And I can't wait till it's time.'

He kissed her several times, and she clung to him with a little more desperation than she wanted to show, and then he left.

She watched him in the winter night, so small and vulnerable-looking against the white snowbanks, and then he was in his car, headlights lancing the darkness, and gone.

Peter stood looking at Marcy for a moment but he didn't really see her. She could tell that. His mind was so preoccupied with something else that she didn't register on his consciousness at all. She was just part of the furniture.

He turned away from the bed and walked to the far end of the basement, to the room where he'd killed his friend Adam.

The blood-splashed axe still dangled from his left hand.

God, what was he going to do now?

She heard him making some noises in the room but she couldn't tell what he was up to.

A long silence.

Then she heard him walking again, his shoes squishing with the blood that had soaked them.

He came walking out with Adam's head tucked into his arm, as if he were carrying something home from the supermarket.

Adam's blue eyes were forever fixed in utter horror and his handsome face was splotched with blood.

Peter carried the axe in the other hand.

He walked past her very slowly, not even glancing in her direction, and reached the stairs and started climbing them.

Squish squish squish went his bloody shoes all the way up.

Squish squish squish.

When he reached the top of the stairs, he opened and closed the door very quietly.

A few minutes later, she heard his car engine start up, hesitant at first in the near-zero temperature.

Then he backed out of the driveway and was gone.

The tennis player's name was Randy Dupree and he would have been a much happier young man if he'd been born thirty years earlier, before tennis went all democratic and started letting in blacks and kids who'd learned on public courts and girls who would not grow up to be princesses.

He said, very spiffy in his dark blue Calvin Klein V-neck sweater and his pressed wheat-colored jeans, 'I can make this fast.'

'All right, make it fast.'

'Would you like a drink?'

'No, thanks.'

'Will you think I'm nervous if I fix myself one?'

'Not at all. I'll just think you want a drink.'

'Good. Because, as I said, I'm going to make this fast.'

Mitch wanted to dislike him but he couldn't quite. Sure, Randy looked like a spoiled twenty-five-year-old rich boy. And sure, he lived in this beautifully-appointed Lake Shore drive condo. And true there was an ever-so-slight look of derision in his eyes whenever he chose to focus on Mitch… but still… he wasn't a jerk.

He made himself a martini at the dry barthe martini surprising Mitch, who'd never thought of jock-types also being martini-typesand then he sat down in the living room and said, 'Nice view, huh?'