HAPPY BIRTHDAY, BIRTHDAY GIRL! by Richard A. Lupoff

She didn’t look so bad, she thought, peering at the image of herself in the back-bar mirror. The cobalt-blue coloring and the bottles of vodka and whiskey didn’t hurt, and neither did the two, going-on-three, Lemon Drops that the bartender, what the hell was her name, not Mildred, Mildred’s was the name of the bar, so not Mildred, no, Cissie, that was it, the Lemon Drops that Cissie kept serving up and Dorothy kept drinking down.

Not so bad for a broad observing her fortieth birthday. Observing, not celebrating, God no, not celebrating. The cake in the office with the big plastic 4-0 on top, everybody else seemed to be celebrating but Dorothy merely observed.

Still, look at the dame in the mirror. Face was still pretty good. Hair could use a bit of touching up, especially the roots, but she had that under control. Pretty much under control. Body could use a little work. She looked down at her chest. Not bad. Could use some trimming down. She had to admit that she was starting to sag just a little bit. She figured she’d only added a pound. One lousy pound. But a pound a year, starting when she was at her best, when she was twenty. Oh, the body she’d had then, the skin, the face, the hair…

She could get back to that or close to it anyway. She promised herself as much.

She lifted her glass and took a swallow of Lemon Drop. Man, that was delicious. Who invented these drinks, anyway? She opened her purse and searched for her wallet. Found it underneath her little Nikon. Nothing like the big Canon EOS she favored at work, or the Vivitar Waterproof she took on vacation last winter, but it was fun. She fished a twenty out of the wallet and dropped it on the bar.

Cissie took something that looked like a felt-tip marker and ran it over the bill, held it up to the tensor light over the cash register, nodded and rang up the sale.

When she slid Dorothy’s change to her, Dorothy asked what that had been about.

Cissie said, “Checking for queer, m’dear. We got a bulletin from the Feds about phony bills, especially twenties. I found two of ’em last week, and even a fake Canadian twenty today. And we have to eat those, you know. So we’re being extra careful.”

Somebody had left an out-of-town paper on the bar stool next to Dorothy’s. Paper had a headline about the Red Wings and the Bruins, whoever they were. She picked it up and looked at the weather forecast. Cloudy and warmer. Not here, it wasn’t. Cloudy all right. But hardly warmer. Snowflakes had been drifting down when she left the office and the breeze coming off the lake was like ice. A good thing Mildred’s was so close, she could walk there before she got more than a few stray flakes on her hair and the shoulders of her coat.

Cissie the bartender—Dorothy had once heard a customer call her a mixologist and Cissie had practically had a fit—Cissie the bartender had turned on some music. It was a CD that Dorothy had heard before. All Gershwin tunes.

Embrace me, you sweet embraceable you.

Right.

Some guy wearing a hound’s tooth jacket came out of the rest room and hoisted himself onto the stool next to Dorothy’s. He said, “You can keep it if you want it.” He wore thick eyeglasses with a bifocal line across the middle and boring-looking plastic frames. He smelled faintly of cigar smoke. A loser.

She gave him a WTF look.

“The paper,” he said. He tapped the newspaper with a stubby finger. “That’s my paper, but I’m through with it. You can have it.”

Embrace me, you irreplaceable you.

Dorothy half-turned toward the guy.

He waggled a finger at Cissie. Cissie nodded encouragingly and he said, “Would you mind turning the light away?” He indicated the miniature tensor light on top of the cash register. “It’s—my eyes are sensitive and….” He made a vague, helpless gesture.

Cissie said, “Sure.” She turned the light away from him.

Dorothy started to say something about the newspaper, wondering if it was a pick-up line or if the guy was just being decent. If he was a pick-up artist he was the world’s most inept practitioner of the art.

That was when she saw Carter sitting at a table with a woman. What a coincidence. Carter was supposed to be out of town on business, and here he was in Chicago sitting with a frowsy blond bitch having a drink.

Of all the gin joints in the world, Dorothy thought.

That son of a bitch, she thought.

She turned away quickly so her back was to Carter and the frowsy bitch. She could see them clearly in the back-bar mirror. The blond bitch wasn’t so frowsy after all. In fact she was classier than Dorothy had thought, well turned out and at least ten years younger than Dorothy. Old enough to have been around the block a couple of times but young enough to still have what Dorothy had misplaced somewhere along the way.

You’d think the bastard would have had the decency to stick around for Dorothy’s birthday. They could have had a meal in a nice joint, gone back to her place or to his for a nightcap and some laughs. How often did a girl turn forty anyhow?

Carter and the bimbo were leaning over their little table, laughing at something. They hadn’t seen Dorothy, that was obvious. They were holding hands like a pair of shy teenagers just figuring out which way was up. With their free hands they lifted their glasses. She couldn’t tell what the bimbo was drinking but it was in a Martini glass. She knew what Carter drank. Jack Daniels neat.

They clinked glasses. The bimbo sipped at her drink. Carter, the son of a bitch, knocked back his JD like a desert rat getting his first taste of water in a week. They both put their glasses down. While Dorothy watched, Carter slipped his free hand under the table and reached for the bimbo. She was wearing a skirt, Dorothy could tell that. Carter moved his hand.

Son of a bitch! That was too much. Bad enough what was going on, but rubbing her nose in it was more than any woman could take.

Dorothy pushed herself away from the bar. The out-of-town paper went flying. Her bar stool tipped over backwards and the guy on the next stool half-reached, half-dived for it and caught it before it crashed to the floor.

Dorothy covered the distance to the table where Carter and the bimbo were carrying on in a few angry strides. She had her Lemon Drop glass in her hand.

Carter stood up. He held his hand toward Dorothy. The hand that he’d just withdrawn from under the bimbo’s skirt. He was sweating. He was wearing a classy gray suit and a white shirt with a button-down collar and a tie striped in quiet colors. He said, “Dorothy—”

She said, “You fucker!”

He said, “Dorothy.” He turned to the bimbo, looking down at her. He said, “Marianne.” He looked back at Dorothy. He said, “Dorothy, this is my friend Mari—”

She smelled something, a combination of some flowery, young girl perfume and harsh female musk. She felt sick.

She threw what was left of her third Lemon Drop, half a Lemon Drop, in his face. She felt like a fool, a character in some stupid melodrama, some amateur community theater production of a cheap melodrama.

Her drink was dripping off Carter’s face, mostly landing on his suit, some of it splashing on the table, none of it hitting Marianne the bimbo.

Carter raised his hand, a gesture halfway between the sign that a traffic cop would make to stop cars and the gesture that a kid in a stupid game of Cowboys and Indians would make when he was stuck being an Indian.

Dorothy heard a sound that was somewhere between a roar and a shriek and smashed her Lemon Drop glass on the table top and thrust it at Carter and raked it down his cheek leaving a trail that turned red and spurted blood.

Marianne the bimbo screamed and jumped up and grabbed Carter.

Dorothy thrust the broken glass at Carter’s chest. It hit the lapel of his suit and Dorothy’s hand hit the suit. The jagged edge of the glass sliced into her wrist and more blood spurted. She dropped the glass and it landed on the table and bounced and fell on the floor.

Don’t be a naughty papa, come to baby, come to baby, do.

There were a couple of napkins on the table and she grabbed a couple of them and held them against her wrist to stop the bleeding. Her purse was hanging from her arm and she swung it at Marianne the bimbo and missed. She turned around and ran from Mildred’s.

The door was heavy, padded to keep street sounds out. Dorothy had to lean on it with her shoulder and shove to get it open. The cold air and noise hit her like a fist. She turned around and looked back inside. There was a small window in the middle of the door, round like a ship’s porthole, the glass thick and heavy. Through the window she could see confusion. Carter was standing where he had been, holding a napkin against his face. It was too dark inside Mildred’s for Dorothy to tell whether the napkin was showing blood or not. Marianne the bimbo was dancing around Carter as if she didn’t know what to do, her hands fluttering in confusion, first here then there. Cissie had come around the bar. Dorothy saw her cast one quick glance at the door but they didn’t make eye contact. Instead Cissie turned and ran toward Carter and Marianne the bimbo.

There were a couple of other patrons in the place. They were milling around in confusion. The guy who’d told Dorothy she could keep his newspaper was still sitting on his bar stool as if he didn’t know what to do. A classic poster of Joan Crawford as Mildred Pierce was the only decoration in the place.

Dorothy shoved her hand inside the pocket of the heavy, dark coat she’d been wearing. She still had the napkins wrapped around her wrist. She didn’t think she was bleeding any more.

The sidewalk was crowded with workers who’d stayed past quitting time and were on their way home, and with people headed out for the evening.

Dorothy had been walking as fast as the crowd would permit. Now she slowed down. She was short of breath. Each time she let out a lungful of air it turned to mist in front of her. The air she took back in felt good. It tasted good.

She reached the corner and turned to the right and kept on walking. This was a mixed neighborhood of shops, offices and high rise apartment buildings. She reached the next corner and turned again, kept going again, reached another corner. Eventually she realized that she was about to head back to Mildred’s.

She turned and headed in the opposite direction. She walked through the cold night until she came to a movie theater. She bought a ticket and went in and sat through part of some movie. She had no idea what she was watching.

She got up and made her way to the rest room. She turned on the cold water and let it run over the cut on her wrist. The skin turned fish-belly white around the cut. It wasn’t much more than a scratch. She threw the napkins she’d brought from Mildred’s in a waste container. She blotted the wound with a paper towel. A couple of drops of blood oozed from it.

She looked at her wristwatch. It was getting late. She felt sick to her stomach.

She left the theater and walked some more. She walked until she stood in front of her building. She went inside and took the self-service elevator up to her floor. She used her key and went inside her apartment. She smelled something.

She dropped her coat on the sofa and headed for her bedroom. It was down a short hallway from the living room. She pushed the door open and saw something on her bed. The comforter was drawn over the bed and all she could see was a lump the size of a man with an extra rise in it. It made her think of what a man’s body would look like as he lay on his back with an erection but the rise was at the wrong place.

She pulled back the comforter and looked at the man lying on her bed. It was Carter. Carter Hanson. The jagged cut on his cheek had stopped bleeding but blood had run down his cheek and onto Dorothy’s best bedding.

He was nude except for a pair of lace-edged, bright red panties and matching brassiere. The panties had been pulled up to cover his hips and pubes, their elastic top stretched and squeezing his belly. The ends of the brassiere, designed to hook between the wearer’s breasts, lay open. Dorothy recognized the garments as her own. Carter had bought them for her from a website and asked her to dance for him, wearing them and then removing them.

The tent in the comforter had been made by the handle of a heavy kitchen knife, Dorothy’s best knife. It was covered with blood. She reached for it and tried to pull it from Carter’s chest. It must have been plunged in with great force, probably stuck in bone, maybe his sternum, maybe caught between two ribs.

In order to get the knife out Dorothy had to kneel on the bed next to Carter and grab the knife with both hands and lean backwards with all her weight while she tugged with both hands. When the knife came loose it did so suddenly and Dorothy tumbled backwards, landing on her back on the carpet next to the bed. The knife flew out of her hands and bounced off the drapes and fell to the floor.

She pulled herself to her feet. Her hands were smeared with blood. She went to the bathroom and rinsed her hands off, washing them with hot water and soap. That made her cut start to bleed again and she blotted it dry, found a box of adhesive bandages in the medicine cabinet and bandaged the cut. She dropped the now-bloody towel in the laundry hamper.

She took a deep breath. She stood looking at herself in the mirror. Her hair was a mess.

She went back into the bedroom, walked past the bed with a quick glance at Carter Hanson lying dead, still half-covered with her expensive comforter.

Back in the living room she picked up the telephone and called the emergency number. She got a recorded message that made her laugh until she realized she was verging on hysterics so she sat down and worked her way through a telephone maze until she got a live human being and said, “I just got home and there’s a man in my bed and he’s dead. Somebody stabbed him and he’s dead.”

Suddenly the person on the other end of the line started to sound interested.

She laughed again when the police arrived and she had to buzz them up because her building didn’t have a doorman and there was nobody in the lobby to let them in. They hit the buzzer for her apartment and she buzzed them in and in a couple of minutes they were at her door and she was letting them in and they were milling around, mainly looking at the scene in her bedroom.

One of the police was a female officer. She said she was a detective and told Dorothy her name but it whizzed past Dorothy’s ear. She couldn’t have told you the woman’s name five seconds after she’d heard it. But she told the officer her name, Dorothy Doe, and extended her hand.

The female officer looked startled but she accepted Dorothy’s hand and shook it.

“Dorothy Doe,” the female officer said, “as in John Doe?”

Dorothy said, “Yes.”

Another officer, male, came out of the bedroom and leaned over the female officer. They engaged in a brief, whispered conversation. They took turns looking at Dorothy and at each other and casting glances toward the bedroom.

The male officer said, “Miss Doe?”

Dorothy said, “Miz.”

“Of course. Will you come with us, please?”

They led her, the male officer at one elbow and the female officer at the other, into the bedroom.

Carter Hanson was still lying on the bed, staring at the ceiling, the same ceiling that Dorothy had seen many times, looking upward over Carter Hanson’s shoulder.

Dorothy said, “He’s dead.” It was twenty-five per cent question, seventy-five per cent statement.

The two officers ignored that. The male officer said, “Do you know this man?”

Dorothy said, “It’s my birthday, you know.”

The officers ignored that. “Do you know this man?”

“Is he dead?”

“Yes ma’am,” the male officer said. “We’ll have to wait for the medical examiner to certify as much, but it’s pretty obvious. He’s dead.”

The female officer took Dorothy’s hands in her own. She said, “Do you know who he is?”

“Carter Hanson.”

“You knew him.”

Dorothy smiled. “I knew him.”

“Did he have a key to your apartment?”

“We both did. He had mine, I had his.”

She heard a commotion from the living room. She turned to see what was going on. She ought to see what was happening. She didn’t want strangers wandering into her apartment. The two officers, male and female, held her. The female officer still had Dorothy’s two hands in her own hands. The male officer closed strong fingers around her biceps.

More people came into the bedroom. The two officers took Dorothy back to the living room. They let her sit on the sofa. The female officer sat beside her. The male officer stood a few feet away. He paced nervously. He was a big man. He wore a brown suit and a yellow shirt and a tie with little footballs all over it. He kept buttoning and unbuttoning his suit jacket. When he buttoned it, it pulled. Then he would unbutton it again for a minute.

He must have gained weight since he bought the suit. Dorothy figured that his wife wanted him either to lose some weight or to take the suit to a tailor and have it let out so the button wouldn’t tug that way.

There was a bright flash of light from the bedroom, then another. Dorothy blinked, then decided that a police technician was using a flash camera to record the situation in the bedroom. There was even a term for it. She thought about it, then it came to her. Crime scene photos. That was it. Crime scene photos.

Another man in a suit walked out of the bedroom. He squatted on the carpet in front of the sofa. Dorothy felt oddly comforted. The female detective was beside her. The male in the too-tight brown suit had seated himself heavily on her other side. He had exhaled loudly as he landed on the couch. Really, his wife would have to work on him.

The newcomer wore a dark blue suit, solid in color. White shirt. Dark red tie, some semi-glossy material, more likely silk than an artificial fiber. Good haircut. Air of authority.

He squatted on the gray wall-to-wall carpet in front of Dorothy, reached into a jacket pocket and produced a pair of metal-framed eyeglasses. Rectangular lenses. He started to speak but Dorothy got there first.

“Please, you’ll be uncomfortable. There are plenty of chairs.”

The man smiled. He leaned toward the brown-suited man and said a few words, then made a gesture with his head.

The brown-suited man got up and walked back into the bedroom. In a minute he returned carrying a small device. He sat down beside Dorothy and studied the device, touched it a few times, then nodded to the blue-suited man.

The blue-suited man had accepted Dorothy’s invitation, drawn up a chair from the dining table and seated himself.

“I’m Detective Inspector Edward Goodman, City Police Department. The time is—” he looked at his wristwatch—“twenty-two twenty-five hours.” He added the date and the address of Dorothy’s building and the apartment number. He said, “I am talking with—” and then he stopped and asked Dorothy to identify herself.

She gave her full name. Her voice sounded calm and matter-of-fact. She was surprised to hear herself sounding like a woman in control of herself. She knew that a reaction to the sight in her bedroom would surely come, but up to this moment it had not.

Inspector Goodman said, “This will be a very brief interview. It is conducted in the presence of two police officers, one male and one female.” He gave their names.

“Dorothy—may I call you Dorothy?”

She nodded.

“This is an informal interview. You understand that you are not arrested or detained. We are merely trying to gather some information. Do you understand that?”

Dorothy nodded.

Inspector Goodman indicated the recording device. He said, “Please.”

Dorothy took his meaning. She said, “Yes.”

Goodman nodded again, waited.

Dorothy said, “Yes, I understand.”

“A man is lying on the bed in this apartment. He appears to be deceased. The examiner is making a determination now.” He nodded as if he’d asked himself a question and answered affirmatively.

“Do you know who that man is, Dorothy?”

She nodded, then remembered about the recording device and said, “Yes.” She was surprised to find that she had trouble getting the word out. Again she said, “Yes, I know him.”

She began to cry. She looked around frantically, her hands waving as if they had minds of their own, looking for a handkerchief, tears suddenly running down her face.

The female police officer produced a handkerchief and handed it to her. She held it to her face, felt her body jerk in a sob, another, then drew a deep breath and offered the handkerchief back to the officer who declined to accept it.

Inspector Goodman said, “Who is the man in the other room?”

“Carter Hanson.”

“You know him personally?”

She smiled and a harsh giggle escaped her throat, hurting as it did so, like an involuntary cough when you’re just getting over a nasty sore throat. She looked toward a nearby window. There were drapes, dark floral-patterned drapes, but they were drawn back to provide a view of the city. It was very dark outside but the city lights provided a glittering backdrop for falling snowflakes.

“Dorothy?” Inspector Goodman prompted.

“I knew him,” Dorothy said. She felt herself nodding, actually bobbing her head up and down in a short, quick arc. She stopped that. “I knew him. And he knew me.”

“You’re sure of his identity.” It was half a question, half a statement. “Would you—I know this will be difficult, Dorothy, but Officer McKibbon will stay with you.” He indicated the female officer seated beside Dorothy. “This may be just a formality but we need you to take a look at the deceased and confirm the identification you’ve given us.”

Dorothy managed an ironic smile. How smoothly Goodman had slid into that nice, impersonal language. The deceased. Not the corpse. Not the body. Not the stiff. Not the departed. No, that would be funeral director talk. The departed. How to talk about death without mentioning death. Oh, better even than the departed, Inspector Goodman, how about the dear departed.

Quiet organ music in the background, soft lighting, stained glass windows, tasteful floral displays, maybe just a touch of incense in the air. Maybe she was wasting her time working at Dog Lover’s Digest. And she didn’t even own a dog. She ought to be doing photo layouts for some funeral directors’ trade journal. She—

“Miss Doe?”

She blinked.

It was the funeral director, no, the detective, Inspector Goodman, what a lovely name for a cop.

“Miss Doe? Are you all right?”

She blinked.

“Would you like a glass of water? Galloway, get Miss Doe a glass of water.”

The cop in the too-tight brown suit stood up and headed for the kitchen. He must have scoped out the apartment while Dorothy wasn’t looking. Otherwise, how did he know where the kitchen was?

He came back with one of Dorothy’s kitchen glasses and held it for her. She took a sip and nodded gratefully. He stood there looking uncertain of what to do, holding the glass of water.

Inspector Goodman said, “Please. If you think you can handle this.”

Dorothy nodded affirmatively. She stood up. She felt the female cop, McKibbon, holding her by the elbow, helping her to stand, steering her back toward the bedroom.

The room was still bustling with strangers. A couple of uniformed cops, a man and a woman in medical whites. Another civilian-in-a-suit, Dorothy figured him for a medical examiner.

Inspector Goodman stood next to the bed, Dorothy beside him, Officer McKibbon beside her. Goodman asked again, “Do you know this person?”

“Yes.”

“Please identify him.”

“His name is Carter Hanson.”

“Do you know where he lives? Lived,” Goodman corrected himself.

Dorothy nodded, gave Carter’s address.

“What was your relationship with Carter Hanson?”

“We were…” She stopped, gathered herself. “He used to stay over some nights, or I would stay at his place. We talked about moving in, sharing an apartment.”

“You were intimate?”

She couldn’t resist another sardonic grin. Intimate. Jesus, we used to fuck like minks.

“Dorothy? Miss Doe?”

“We were intimate.”

“Are those your garments?” Goodman asked. “Did Hanson like to dress in women’s undergarments?”

“They’re mine. He never wore my clothes. My underwear. They wouldn’t fit. He was much too big.”

She found herself reaching out toward the deceased. The body. The corpse. The stiff.

Goodman took her wrist. Blood showed through the bandage she’d put on her cut. “I see you’ve been hurt. What happened?”

“Nothing. I just scratched myself. It’s nothing.”

Goodman nodded toward a uniformed officer holding a clear plastic bag. Dorothy turned her head, saw that her best kitchen knife was in the bag.

“Is that yours?” Goodman asked.

The uniformed cop stepped closer to them, held the bag so she could see it clearly but not so close that she could touch it.

“That’s my best knife.”

Goodman asked, “Did you kill Mr. Hanson?”

“No.”

“What would it mean if we find your fingerprints on the knife? If we test your hands, what if we find traces of Mr. Hanson’s blood?”

“When I found him,” Dorothy said. “When I came home and found him, he was under the comforter. I pulled it back and saw the knife. I pulled it out of his chest. It was stuck tight. I had to pull hard but I got it out. Then I washed my hands.”

“That’s your statement? He was—like that when you got home—and you removed the knife? Why did you do that?”

She shook her head. “I don’t know. I just did.”

“Did you think he might still be alive?”

“I don’t know. I just—I saw the knife and I pulled it out. I got blood on my hands. I washed my hands and called emergency.”

Goodman said, “All right.” He nodded to McKibbon and Galloway and they led her back to the living room.

“Would you be willing to come to the precinct with us and give a statement? And would you mind if we take a DNA sample?”

She felt a light shudder pass through her body.

“The DNA sample,” Goodman said, “it’s painless. Non-invasive. We just ask you to let us take a swab of the inside of your cheek. Doesn’t hurt, takes a second, that’s all.”

“Am I under arrest?”

“No.” He shook his head. Again, “No. We’d just like your help. You’re not under arrest.”

“Can I come back here after?”

Goodman hesitated. “I’m not sure that would be wise. Might be a good idea to stay with a friend tonight. Or a family member. Is there anyone…” He left the question hanging.

She shook her head. “No, I—I’m from Buffalo. Buffalo, New York. I’m a photographer. I came here to take a job at Dog Lover’s Digest. Shooting layouts of show-dogs. The people I work with—colleagues. But I don’t think…” This time she left the sentence hanging.

“We can put you up at a hotel, then.”

“You’re sure I’m not under arrest.”

“Absolutely.”

* * * *

Officer McKibbon, the female cop, stayed in Goodman’s work space with Goodman while he questioned Dorothy. The surroundings were much like an office in an up-to-date building. The kind of room that lower-middle management got. Functional furniture. Couple of trophies and mementos for decorations. No outside windows. Probably Goodman would get an office with an outside window with his next promotion.

They went over the same ground that they’d covered at Dorothy’s apartment. Then Goodman asked her to review her whole day and night.

She noticed that they weren’t just recording the interview, they were making a video of it. No hot lights, though. Must be pretty good equipment to get a decent image by available light. No rubber hoses, nobody blowing cigarette smoke in her face. Nothing like the hardboiled movies. Just Goodman asking questions in his polite, friendly voice, and McKibbon sitting there quietly just in case.

Just in case what?

Just in case things went badly and Dorothy wanted to get lawyered up and started howling about inappropriate sexual contact during the interrogation.

“Your co-workers at—what was the name of the magazine? Oh, Dog Lover’s Digest, yes—they’ll vouch for you?”

“I was there until around six-thirty. I wasn’t the last to leave, either. And you have to sign in and out of the building anyway. Maybe they’re being paranoid but…” She let the thought slip away.

Goodman said, “Okay, that’s good news. We’ll check up on it. And then?”

She told him about stopping at Mildred’s after work.

Goodman wanted to know if that was her usual practice.

No. It had been a rough day. Ellen Stein was complaining about a spread that Dorothy turned in. Said the colors were all wrong, the layout looked like something out of a Sixties teenage mag, the sizing was off. Somehow she’d got through it but instead of leaving a little after five o’clock as she’d planned, she had to do the whole layout over and that took an hour and a half of unpaid overtime.

And with Carter in Detroit on business she’d been planning to go straight home and pig out on comfort food and turn on an Ella Fitzgerald CD and climb in bed with a thick P. D. James novel.

“But you didn’t,” Goodman said.

“By the time I left the doghouse—that’s what we call the office—I was too pissed off to—I—anyway, I couldn’t face an empty apartment. I’d be bouncing off the walls. So I stopped at Mildred’s.”

“That isn’t a lesbian bar, is it?”

Dorothy saw Officer McKibbons’ eyebrows jump when Goodman asked that.

“No.”

“Anyone there know you? Did you talk to anyone who might remember?”

“Some guy tried to pick me up. Maybe not. I was looking at a paper and he said it was his. Nothing else. But Cissie knows me. Bartender. We’re not BFF’s or anything, but we talk now and then.”

“And then?”

“That’s when I saw Carter and the blond bimbo playing feel-me-up. In the mirror. I was sitting at the bar. They were at a table. I saw them in the mirror.”

Goodman made an encouraging sound, somewhere between a hum and a grunt. It translated as keep going. Dorothy did. When she came to the part about the broken Martini glass Goodman raised his hand the way Carter had raised his hand when Dorothy confronted him at Mildred’s.

“Is that when you cut yourself?”

Dorothy held up her bandaged hand like a school kid doing show-and-tell.

“I guess I went nuts,” Dorothy said. “He was supposed to be in Detroit and here he was playing grab-my-crotch with this bimbo. If Ellen hadn’t been such a bitch about the photo layout I would have been home by then thinking he was in Detroit and hoping he’d call me up just to say good-night and there he was with his hand up that bitch’s skirt, laughing at me. So I let him have it with the martini glass.”

She was panting. Must be some dead air, nothing happening on-screen in the video. Wouldn’t pull much on YouTube unless they edited it down.

Finally Goodman asked her to go on.

She told him about the movie.

Did she remember which theater? What picture?

She shook her head.

He suggested—by any chance had she saved her ticket stub?

She had no idea. Probably threw it away. She never saved them. She wasn’t a pack rat.

“And then?”

“Then I went home. I was feeling better. My wrist was throbbing a little where I cut myself but it’s really just a scratch. I thought about what I’d done to Carter. I knew I got his face and he’d show the result for a while but I didn’t think I’d got his eye and I was glad. I was starting to feel a little better about the bastard.”

“Better,” Goodman said. “Would you like a drink of water? Are you hungry? You didn’t have dinner tonight, did you? Did you have a snack at the movie?”

“Water, yes.”

Goodman nodded and McKibbon got up and got a glass and handed it to Dorothy.

“After the movie,” Goodman prompted, “what did you do?”

Dorothy swallowed some water. It tasted pretty good, better than she’d expected.

She said, “Nothing.”

“Nothing?”

“I went home.” She shrugged. “It was getting late. I was starting to come down. I guess I’d had an adrenaline rush at Mildred’s and the movie—it wasn’t anything interesting, I don’t even remember what it was, something about an airplane crash and survivors, I don’t know, I wasn’t paying attention. The movie ended and I went home.”

“How did you do that?”

“What? Oh, go home? I walked. I’ve always been a good walker. The air felt good. I don’t mind a few snowflakes. I’m a Buffalo girl. You think it snows here, you ought to spend a winter in Buffalo, you’ll learn about snow.”

Goodman said, “I’m sorry. It’s getting late and you must be very tired, and we’re digressing. We can wrap this up for now and you can get some rest.”

“Yes, please.” As if the power of suggestion had taken her over, Dorothy felt suddenly very, very tired.

“You got home and went into the bedroom and found Mr. Hanson in your bed.”

“Under the comforter.”

“Under your comforter.”

“I saw the tent where the knife was. I pulled back the comforter and pulled out the knife. Got blood on my hands. Washed it off. Phoned you.”

Goodman nodded. “I think we’re caught up. You’ve been very helpful, Miss Doe.”

“Miz.”

“I’m very sorry. Of course. Officer McKibbon will give you a ride to a hotel. Do you need anything? Maybe stop at a drugstore and pick up a few toiletries. On the department.” He smiled.

Dorothy stood up.

“Oh, one more thing,” Goodman said. “I think you mentioned that Mr. Hanson didn’t usually wear your underwear. Is that correct?”

“Yes.”

“Do you have any idea why he was wearing it tonight?”

“No.”

McKibbon took her by the elbow and steered her toward the door.

Before she reached the door Goodman said, “You won’t leave town, will you? In case we need to speak with you again.”

She was almost too tired to answer. “Can I—can I go to work tomorrow?”

Goodman said, “Absolutely. I mean, if you feel up to it. I’m sure your employer will understand if you need to rest up. But that’s up to you, Miss Doe.”

* * * *

Officer Galloway drove and waited in the unmarked car. He waited while Dorothy and Detective McKibbon went into an all-night drugstore and Dorothy bought a few necessities. They got back in the car and Galloway drove them to a nondescript downtown hotel.

McKibbon handled registration. It was obvious that she and the desk clerk knew each other. Dorothy inferred that the police department had a standing arrangement with the hotel. Nobody asked why Dorothy was checking in with only a drugstore package for luggage. The two women rode up in the elevator together.

The room was functional. The bed looked comfortable. Dorothy put her new toiletries in the bathroom. She faced the female cop. “Officer McKibbon—” she began.

“Actually it’s Sergeant but you might as well call me Jackie. Jacqueline to be fancy, but I prefer Jackie.”

“Are you going to stay with me?”

“Only if you want me to. You should be safe here. You don’t think whoever killed Carter Hanson is after you, do you?”

“I thought—I thought I was the suspect.”

“Not for me to say. Inspector Goodman is in charge of the investigation.”

Dorothy was looking around the room, not certain what she was looking for but somehow not quite sure she felt safe.

McKibbon—Jackie, Dorothy reminded herself—must have sensed Dorothy’s unease. “We use this hotel when we need to put someone up.”

“Then I’m not under arrest.” Goodman had told her as much, but she wanted to hear it again.

Jackie shook her head. “You are not.”

“Is this—what do you call it—protective custody?”

“No, Dorothy. Not that either. It’s just—call it a courtesy. Your apartment is a crime scene. No way you could stay there tonight. The medical examiner will remove the victim. Evidence techs will be all over the place, dusting for fingerprints, looking for blood samples, taking photos. They don’t want you there and you don’t want to be there, believe me. I’m afraid you’ve seen the last of that comforter on your bed. It was beautiful, too.”

McKibbon smiled.

Dorothy said, “It came from Marshall Fields. You remember the big sale just before Macy’s took it over. I’ll never set foot in that store again. Somebody ought to blow it up!”

Dorothy stopped. She put her hand to her mouth. “I didn’t mean that. I wouldn’t really—”

Jackie McKibbon actually laughed. It was the first laugh Dorothy had heard since she left the doghouse—how many hours ago? She looked at her Lambretta Cielo watch. It was after midnight. No wonder she was so tired.

Jackie said, “Just between you and me, Dorothy, I felt the same way. Some people have no respect for tradition.” She went over to the window and pulled the curtains back.

Dorothy looked past her at the city. She’d loved this town since the day she arrived. The energy, the excitement of the big city combined with the earnestness of the Midwest. She’d felt at home from that day until—tonight.

Had Jackie been reading her mind?

“Unless you want me to stay, Dorothy, I think I’ll head out now. We have the hotel number and your work number. You’ll probably hear from Inspector Goodman in the next couple of days.”

“When can I get back into my apartment?”

“Call the precinct. Or just call Inspector Goodman or me.” She wrote a couple of phone numbers on a business card and handed it to Dorothy. “You can probably get back in tomorrow if you want to, but phone us first.”

She went to the door.

“You’re sure you’re all right? Need some food, anything else?”

“I’ll sleep.”

Once McKibbon was gone Dorothy checked out the room. If the police put people up here regularly the place might be bugged. She couldn’t find anything. But then, she thought, what if the place was bugged? What would they hear, snores? She smiled to herself.

She brushed her teeth and stripped down to her underpants and climbed into bed. Suddenly she wasn’t just tired, she was sore in every part of her body. She watched a video playing on the ceiling, herself in Mildred’s, the pick-up artist claiming ownership of the newspaper, the Gershwin tune.

I love all the many charms about you.

Suddenly, with no warning, she was crying.

Above all I want my arms about you.

That bastard. How could he do that to her? Who in hell was the blond bimbo? Something with an M. Mikey, Martha, Marianne. That was it. Marianne. What did she have that Dorothy didn’t have?

Had she told Goodman about Marianne? She tried to remember her interrogation. He hadn’t been nasty, no third degree tactics. Was there even such a thing, or was that just the stuff of comic books and gangster movies?

Why was Carter wearing her bra and panties?

She hated the son of a bitch.

She loved the son of a bitch.

She screamed once, then felt better, stopped crying, clicked off the video on the ceiling.

* * * *

She ordered breakfast from room service; it came with a copy of the World’s Greatest Newspaper. There was a one-paragraph story about Carter Hanson’s murder, buried near the bottom of an inside page of the local news section. That was all the space that the crime rated.

She got dressed. She’d bought a fresh pair of panties at the drugstore—they sold everything except drugs there—but otherwise wore the same outfit she’d had on when she left the office a million years ago or maybe yesterday.

She got to the office at midmorning. Joanna the receptionist gave her a questioning look but said nothing as she hung up her winter coat. Ellen Stein came out of her office and asked Dorothy to come in. She shut the door. She asked Dorothy if she wanted to take the day off. The issue was about ready to go to bed. Avril could clean up the loose ends.

Dorothy said she’d rather stay. She went to her desk and opened and closed drawers. She felt light-headed. She drifted through the rest of the morning. At noontime she asked Avril if she’d mind finishing up. She got her coat off the rack and left.

She made her way to Carter Hanson’s building. She wondered if the police had sealed his apartment, too, as a crime scene. Probably not. After all, nothing had happened there. The whole sequence of events had started at Mildred’s and ended at Dorothy’s.

Carter had lived in posher surroundings than Dorothy. There was a uniformed doorman to contend with, and an elevator operator. They both recognized her, both of them murmured a few incoherent words to her, neither of them said anything about the police, neither of them tried to stop her from making her way to Carter’s apartment.

She stepped inside and the heavy apartment door slammed itself behind her like the lid coming down on a heavy coffin. She shivered.

The apartment was familiar enough. She’d been there—how many times? There was something in the air. A stale odor. Carter must not have been home for the past few days. He’d said he was going to Detroit on business. Dorothy realized that she didn’t really know what his business was. Whenever she asked he told her it was pretty boring, nothing as exciting and creative as hers. Being a glamour photographer, now, that was something to be excited about.

She laughed then. Photographing smug society matrons posing with their pampered pups was a living but it wasn’t why she’d moved all those miles and taken this job. Dorothy was saving her money. Once she had enough put away she was going to give her notice at Dog Lover’s Digest, tell Ellen Stein that Avril Freeman was ready to take over her job, and set up a studio of her own. She had enough contacts to make it as a freelance. She’d have to hustle, but the thought of never having to shoot another prize poodle with its coat cut into pompoms and a hundred dollar ribbon on top of its head kept her going.

She circled the living room, pulled back the drapes and peered out at the city. The sky was gray this morning. She’d been in such a fog, she hadn’t even noticed what kind of day it was until now. She could see a vague, milky brightness where the sun was trying to break through the clouds. A few snowflakes were drifting down again. There hadn’t been much snow this winter, and the few sizable storms had given way to brief thaws. The streets were clear.

She walked into the kitchen, opened the fridge. Nothing remarkable there. Somebody would have to clean it out, though. Carter wasn’t coming back. Nothing much in the cupboard. A few cans of soup, some veggies, packages of pasta. Carter liked elbow macaroni, that was his favorite. Had been his favorite, Dorothy reminded herself.

She put her purse on the counter and removed her little Nikon. She could remember when a camera like this would have cost her a week’s salary. Now they practically gave them away in boxes of breakfast cereal.

All right. She’d been putting it off but the moment was here. She crossed the living room again and stood at the bedroom doorway. She remembered the first time she’d crossed that threshold with Carter. It wasn’t the first time they’d been to bed together. That had been at her place. In the very bed where she’d found his body.

She flashed back on that moment. Had she even looked at his face? He’d been lying on his back, wearing a pair of her panties and almost wearing one of her bras. She could see the knife sticking out of his chest, could remember exactly what it had felt like, grasping the handle, feeling the slippery blood, tugging at it until she’d got it out of his chest.

But had she even seen his face? Were his eyes open or closed? Did he have a look of surprise, or had he been in agony when he died?

She felt herself getting dizzy.

She half-leaned, half-fell against the bedroom door. It swung open and she staggered into the room. She could smell something in the air. A faint odor of cigar smoke, and a cheap, young-girl perfume mixed with harsh female musk.

She felt her knees turning to jelly as she stumbled toward the bed. This was impossible. Impossible. Another comforter, another shape, another tent.

This couldn’t be real. This was some kind of mad, psychotic flashback.

She leaned against the bed, her knees against the side of the bed, the Nikon in her left hand; with her right hand she pulled back the comforter.

Another body. Another kitchen knife. Another pair of red panties. Another lacy red brassiere.

Marianne the bimbo.

Her head was whirling, blackness descending over her, her ears ringing. She felt herself falling into a bottomless pit. She’d never fainted in her life and now she had a fleeting moment of self-awareness in which she thought, this is what fainting is.

She thought, it was like passing out drunk.

Just one look at you, my heart grows tipsy in me.

Warm flesh against her face. She opened her eyes, let out a brief scream, pushed against, against what? Against Marianne the bimbo? Flesh still warm but not like a living person. And her face was wet; she touched her cheek, slippery, brought her hand away, red.

She tried to stand up, found herself on her knees beside the bed, unable to rise.

She heard a door open and turned. The bathroom door. Carter’s bathroom. For a crazed moment she remembered that she’d kept a toothbrush there to use when she stayed over with Carter.

You and you alone bring out the gypsy in me.

He was standing in the doorway. Not Carter. Who the hell was he? Hound’s tooth jacket. Thick glasses. Bifocal line. The loser from Mildred’s.

For a few seconds they stared at each other, Dorothy and the hapless pick-up artist, a frozen tableau. She remembered his newspaper. It was The Detroit Free Press. If Carter wouldn’t go to Detroit, then Detroit would come to Carter.

He lunged for the bed, reached for the knife sticking out of Marianne the bimbo. Dorothy hit the button on the Nikon and the little camera flashed in the man’s face. He threw his hands up and tumbled backwards across the bed. Dorothy whirled and ran for the doorway, stumbled across the living room.

Before she could reach the doorway the door swung open and two figures entered.

She recognized them.

Behind her she heard an incoherent male sound, something between a grunt and a roar. She tried to turn and see who was coming but her momentum made her tumble over backwards. She landed on her rump, the Nikon still clutched against her shoulder.

The man in the hound’s tooth jacket had a bloody knife in his hand and he was coming at her. She fired the camera at him again, heard a crash from behind her, saw a startled look on the man’s face, heard another crash and saw red spots appearing on his jacket. She snapped another frame and watched him tumble to the carpet and lie still.

She felt strong hands pulling her to her feet, blinked and saw Officer Galloway. He lifted her and she clung to him. She turned her face and saw Jackie McKibbon bending over the man in the hound’s tooth jacket. She kicked the kitchen knife away, put a couple of fingers on the side of his neck and nodded.

Dorothy leaned away from Galloway. “I’m okay. I’m okay.”

Galloway muscled her to the nearby sofa and lowered her as if she were a child. She aimed the Nikon and snapped another exposure of the man in the hound’s tooth jacket.

Now Galloway rumbled away, into the bedroom. A minute later he was back. Jackie McKibbon was doing something with the body on the carpet and Dorothy took another picture. Galloway signaled to Jackie McKibbon and she followed him into the bedroom. A minute later she was back in the living room, sitting with Dorothy.

Now Galloway came walking out of the bedroom shaking his head.

Dorothy looked at the two cops, Galloway and McKibbon. “How did you know?”

“We didn’t, we were just keeping an eye on you, Miss Doe. We did have an eye on Timmy Stander, though.”

Dorothy frowned, puzzled.

“Him.” Jackie McKibbon indicated the man on the floor.

“But—why? What’s the connection?”

“Hanson was buying counterfeit twenties in Detroit, paying for them with good cash and bringing the queer bills back to Chicago. The printing plant is in Windsor. They print U.S. phony there and smuggle it into Detroit for distribution.”

“I don’t get it. Why would anybody swap good money for counterfeit?”

McKibbon laughed. “It wasn’t one for one. Going rate for queer bucks is something like twenty per cent of face value. Anyway”—she ran her fingers through her hair—“anyway, Hanson must have run some kind of double-cross on his customers. I heard of one of these double-crosses where a bad guy tried to buy counterfeit money with counterfeit money. He even got away with it for a little while. Eventually he wound up in Lake Michigan. Whatever Hanson was up to, the Detroit people sent Stander to straighten him out.”

Dorothy was starting to get her bearings again. She peered at the man lying on the floor. “He doesn’t look like an enforcer.”

“No.” Jackie McKibbon nodded. “No fedora, no pencil moustache, no pinstripe suit, right? That’s just the point, Dorothy.”

She touched Dorothy’s hand. “This is some building. Shots fired and nobody says boo. We’ll have to call this in, get people up here.”

Dorothy said, “He must have stolen my bra and panties as a gift for her. I never even missed them. He was crazy about red lace, red lace bras and panties. I had a drawer full of them. I never even missed them.”

Jackie McKibbon smiled. “They are nice.”

“They came from Marshall Fields,” Dorothy told her. She stood up and made her way back to the bedroom. McKibbon tagged along, watching Dorothy’s every move.

She stood over the dresser where she sometimes kept a few changes of clothing, a convenience for those times she’d stayed over with Hanson. She slid the drawer open. It was filled with red lacy underthings. She reached in and picked up a couple of sets of undies.

From behind her she heard McKibbon’s hissed exclamation. She saw McKibbon reach past her and pull more underwear aside, exposing the carefully packaged sheaves of twenty-dollar bills.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Richard Lupoff has written sixty volumes of fantasy, mystery, science fiction, horror, and mainstream fiction. His recent books include the collections Killer’s Dozen, Quintet: the Cases of Chase and Delacroix, Before 12:01 and After, The Universal Holmes, and Terrors, Visions, and Dreams. His nine-volume mystery series involving Hobart Lindsey and Marvia Plum was reissued by Wildside Press in 2013.