Лоуренс Блок - One Night Stands and Lost Weekends

“I gathered as much.”

“It wasn’t a well-kept secret, was it? I told you that much before I told you my name, almost. Of course I was on the make for you at the time. That may have had something to do with it.”

She looked at her drink but didn’t touch it. Slowly, softly, she said, “After the first death there is no other.”

There was a minute of silence. Just as I was about to prompt her into speaking, she repeated, “After the first death there is no other.” She sighed. “When one death affects you completely, then the deaths that come after it don’t have their full effect. Do you follow me?”

I nodded. “When did it happen?” I asked.

“Four years ago. I was in college then.”

“A boy?”

“Yes.”

She looked at her drink, then drained it.

“I was nineteen then. Pure and innocent. A popular girl who dated all the best boys and had a fine time. Then I met him. Ray Powell introduced us. You probably met Ray. He worked in the same office as Mark.”

I nodded. That explained one contradiction — Ray’s referring to Lynn as the pure type, the one-man woman. When he had known her, the shoe fit. Since then she had outgrown it.

“I started going out with John and all at once I was in love. I had never been in love before. I’ve never been in love since. It was something.” For a shadow of an instant a smile crossed her face, then disappeared. “I can’t honestly remember what it was like. Being in love, that is. I’m not the same person. That girl could love; I can’t.

“He was going to pick me up and something went wrong with his car. The steering wheel or something like that. He was going around a turn and the wheels wouldn’t straighten out and—

“I changed after that. At first I just hurt. All over. And then the callus formed, the emotional callus to keep me from going crazy, I suppose.” She picked up a cigarette and puffed on it nervously, then stubbed it out. “You know what bothered me most? We never slept together. We were going to wait until we were married. See what a corny little girl I was?

“But I changed, Ed. I thought that at least I could have given him that much before he died. And I thought about that, and maybe brooded about it, and something happened inside me.” She almost smiled. “I’m afraid I became a little bit of a tramp, Ed. Not just now and then, like last night. A tramp. I went to Ray Powell and lost my virginity, and then I made myself a one-woman welcoming committee for visiting Yale boys.”

Her face filled up with memories. “I’m not that bad anymore. And I don’t honestly feel John’s death either, to be truthful. It happened a long time ago, and to a different girl.”

“I don’t think Mark Donahue killed himself,” I said, “or the girl. I think he was framed and then murdered.”

“It doesn’t matter.”

“Doesn’t it?”

“No,” she said, sadly, vacantly. “It should, I know. But it doesn’t, Ed.” She stood up. “Do you know why I really wanted to come here?”

“To talk.”

“Yes. I’ve learned to pretend, you see. And I intend to pretend, too. I’ll be the very shocked and saddened Miss Farwell now. That’s the role I have to play.” Another too-brief smile. “But I don’t have to play that role with you, Ed. I wanted to say what I felt if only to one person. Or what I didn’t feel.” She rose to leave.

“And now I’ll wear imitation widow’s weeds for a while, and then I’ll find some other bright young man to marry. Goodbye, Ed London.”

I almost forgot about the date with Ceil. I’d made it the night before instead of the pass I would have preferred to make. When I got there, she said she was tired and hot and didn’t feel like dressing.

“The Britannia is right down the block,” she said. “And I can go there like this.”

She was wearing slacks and a man’s shirt. She didn’t look mannish, though. That would have been slightly impossible.

We walked down the block to a hole in the wall with a sign that said, appropriately, FISH AND CHIPS. There were half a dozen small tables in a room decorated with travel posters of Trafalgar Square and Buckingham Palace and every major British tourist attraction with the possible exception of Diana Dors. We sat at a small table and ordered fish and chips and bottles of Guinness.

I said, “Donahue’s dead.”

“I know. I heard it on the radio.”

“What did they say?”

“Suicide. He confessed to the murder and shot himself. Isn’t that what happened?”

“I don’t think so.” I signaled the waiter for two more bottles of Guinness.

“It’s possible that someone — probably Conn — killed Donahue,” I added. “The door to his apartment was locked when the police got there, but it’s one of those spring locks. The inside bolt wasn’t turned. Conn could have gone there as soon as he learned Mark was released, then shot him and locked the door as he left.”

“How could he know Mark was released?”

“A phone call to police Headquarters, or a call to Mark. That’s no problem.”

“How about the time? Maybe Conn has an alibi.”

“I’m going to check that tomorrow,” I said. “That’s why I would have liked to see Jerry Gunther keep the file open on the case. Then he could have questioned Conn. The guy threw punches at me once already. I don’t know if I can take him a second time.”

She grinned. Then her face sobered. “Are you sure it was Conn? You said Abeles had the same motive.”

“He’s also got an alibi.”

“A good one?”

“Damn good. I’m his alibi. I was with him in Scarsdale that afternoon, and I called Donahue’s apartment as soon as I got back to town, and by that time Donahue was dead. Phil Abeles would have needed a jet plane to pull it off. Besides, I can’t see him as the killer.”

“And you can see Conn?”

“That’s the trouble,” I said. “I can’t. Not really.”

We drank up. I paid our check and we left. We walked a block to Washington Square and sat on a bench. I started to smoke my pipe when I heard a sharp intake of breath and turned to stare at Ceil.

“Oh,” she said. “I just had a grisly idea.”

“What?”

“It’s silly. Like an Alfred Hitchcock television show. I thought maybe Karen really did make those phone calls to him, not because she was jealous but just to tease him, thinking what a gag it would be when she popped out of the cake at his bachelor dinner. And then the gag backfires and he shoots her because he’s scared she wants to kill him.” She laughed. “I’ve got a cute imagination,” she said. “But I’m not much of a help, am I?”

I didn’t answer her. My mind was off on a limb somewhere. I closed my eyes and saw the waiters wheeling the cake out toward the center of the room. Stripper music playing on a phonograph. A girl bursting from the cake, nude and lovely. A wide smile on her face—

“Ed, what’s the matter?”

Most of the time problems are solved by simple trial and error, a lot of legwork that pays off finally. Other times all the legwork in the world falls flat, and it’s like a jigsaw puzzle where you suddenly catch the necessary piece and all the others leap into place. This was one of those times.

“You’re a genius!” I told Ceil.

“You don’t mean it happened that way? I—”

“Oh, no. Of course not. Donahue didn’t kill Karen—” I stood.

“Hey, where are you going?” Ceil asked.

“Gotta run,” I said. “Can’t even walk you home. Tomorrow,” I said. “We’ll have dinner, okay?”

I didn’t hear her answer. I didn’t wait for it. I raced across the park and jumped into the nearest cab.

I called Lynn Farwell from my apartment. She was back in her North Shore home, and life had returned to her voice. “I didn’t expect to hear from you,” she said. “I suppose you’re interested in my body, Ed. It wouldn’t be decent so soon after Mark’s death, you know. But you may be able to persuade me—”