A Kiss Before Dying

‘This afternoon I went down to the library and read all the newspaper reports of Dorothy’s death. There were a few details that were never mentioned, little things like the colour of her hat, and the fact that she was wearing gloves. I have another date with him tomorrow night. If I can get him talking about her “suicide” maybe he’ll drop one of those things that he couldn’t know unless he was with her.’

  ‘It wouldn’t be conclusive evidence,’ Gant said. ‘He could claim he was in the building at the time and he saw her after she—’

  ‘I’m not looking for conclusive evidence. All I want is something that will prevent the police from thinking that I’m just a crank with an overactive imagination. If I can prove he was anywhere near her at the time, it should be enough to start them digging.’

  ‘Well will you please tell me how the hell you expect to get him to talk in such detail without making him suspicious? He’s not an idiot, is he?’

  ‘I have to try,’ she argued. ‘What else is there to do?’

  Gant thought for a moment. ‘I am the owner of an old ball-peen hammer,’ he said. ‘We could beat him over the head, drag him to the scene of the crime, and sweat it out of him.’

  ‘You see,’ Ellen said seriously, ‘there’s no other way to—’ Her voice faded.

  ‘Hello?’

  ‘I’m still here,’ she said.

  ‘What happened? I thought we were cut off.’

  ‘I was just thinking.’

  ‘Oh. Look, seriously – be careful, will you? And if it’s at all possible, call me tomorrow evening, just to let me know where you are and how things are going.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Just to be on the safe side.’

  ‘He thinks I’m Evelyn Kittredge.’

  ‘Well call me anyway. It can’t hurt. Besides, my hair greys easily.’

  ‘All right.’

  ‘Goodnight, Ellen.’

  ‘Goodnight, Gordon.’

  She replaced the receiver and remained sitting on the bed, biting her lower lip and drumming her fingers the way she always did when she was toying with an idea.

  SEVEN

  Snapping shut her purse, Ellen looked up and smiled across the lobby at Powell’s approaching figure. He was wearing a grey topcoat and a navy blue suit, and the same smile he had worn the previous evening. ‘Hi,’ he said, dropping down beside her on the leather divan. ‘You certainly don’t keep your dates waiting.’

  ‘Some of them I do.’

  His smile broadened. ‘How’s the job-hunting?’

  ‘Pretty good,’ she said. ‘I think I’ve got something. With a lawyer.’

  ‘Swell. You’ll be staying in Blue River then, right?’

  ‘It looks that way.’

  ‘Swell,’ he drew the word out caressingly. Then his eyes flicked to his wristwatch. ‘We’d better get on our horses. I passed the Glo-Ray Ballroom on my way over here and there was a line all the way—’

  ‘Ohh,’ she lamented.

  ‘What’s the matter?’

  Her face was apologetic. ‘I’ve got an errand to do first. This lawyer. I have to bring him a letter – a reference.’ She tapped her purse.

  ‘I didn’t know secretaries needed references. I thought they just tested your shorthand or something.’

  ‘Yes, but I mentioned that I had this letter from my last employer and he said he’d like to see it. He’s going to be at his office till eight-thirty.’ She sighed. ‘I’m awfully sorry.’

  ‘That’s all right.’

  Ellen touched his hand. ‘I’d just as soon not go dancing,’ she confided. ‘We can go some place, have a few drinks—’

  ‘Okay,’ he said more cheerfully. They stood. ‘Where is this lawyer?’ Powell asked, standing behind her, helping her on with her coat.

  ‘Not far from here,’ Ellen said. ‘The Municipal Building.’

  At the head of the steps that fronted the Municipal Building, Powell stopped. Ellen, in the quadrant of a revolving door, relaxed her about-to-push hand and looked at him. He was pale, but that might have been the greyish. light filtering out from the lobby. ‘I’ll wait for you down here, Evvie.’ His jaw was rigid, the words coming out stiffly.

  ‘I wanted you to come up with me,’ she said. ‘I could have brought this letter over here before eight o’clock, but I thought it was kind of odd, his telling me to bring it in the evening. He’s a greasy-looking character.’ She smiled. ‘You’re my protection.’

  ‘Oh,’ Powell said.

  Ellen pushed around through the door, and after a moment Powell followed her. She had turned and was watching him when he came out of the door. He was breathing through partially-opened lips, his face barren of expression.

  The vast marbled lobby was silent and empty. Three of the four elevators were black behind latticed metal gates. The fourth was a yellow-lighted cell with wooden walls the colour of honey. They walked towards it side by side, their footsteps drawing whispering echoes from the domed ceiling.

  In the cell a tan-uniformed Negro operator stood reading a copy of Look. He tucked the magazine under his arm, toed the floor button that released the big sliding metal door, and threw the latticed gate across after it. ‘Floor please,’ he said.

  ‘Fourteen,’ Ellen said.

  They stood in silence, watching the steadily advancing position of the lighted numeral in the row of unlighted numerals over the door: 7–8–9 … Powell rubbed his moustache with the side of his forefinger.

  When the light jumped from 13 to 14, the car came to a smooth automatic top-floor stop. The operator drew in the gate and pulled down on the jointed bar that opened the outer door.

  Ellen stepped out into the deserted corridor, Powell following her. Behind them the door slid shut with a hollow clangour. They heard the gate closing and then the decrescent hum of the car. ‘It’s this way,’ Ellen said, moving towards the right. ‘Room fourteen-oh-five.’ They walked to the bend of the corridor and made the right turn. There was light behind only two of the frosted door panels in the stretch of straight-lined corridor before them. There was no sound except their feet on the polished rubber tiles. Ellen groped for something to say, ‘It won’t take long. I just have to give him the letter.’

  ‘Do you think you’ll get the job?’

  ‘I think so. It’s a good letter.’

  They reached the end of the corridor and turned right again. One door was lighted, up ahead in the left wall, and Powell angled towards it. ‘No, that’s not the one,’ Ellen said. She went to an unlighted door on the right. Its frosted panel was inscribed Frederic H. Clausen, Attorney-at-Law. Powell came up behind her as she futilely tried the knob and looked at her watch. ‘How do you like that?’ she said bitterly. ‘Not even a quarter after and he said he’d be here till eight-thirty. (The secretary on the telephone had said, ‘The office closes at five.’)

  ‘What now?’ Powell asked.

  ‘I guess I’ll leave it under the door,’ she said, opening her purse. She took out a large white envelope and her fountain pen. Uncapping the pen, she held the envelope flat against the purse and began to write. ‘It’s a shame about the dancing,’ she said.

  ‘That’s okay,’ said Powell. ‘I wasn’t too keen on it myself.’ He was breathing more easily, like a novice aerialist passing the middle of the taut wire and becoming less uncertain of his footing.

  ‘On second thought,’ Ellen said, glancing up at him, ‘if I leave the letter now I’ll only have to come back for it tomorrow, anyway. I might as well bring it over in the morning.’ She re-capped the pen and put it back in her purse. She held the envelope at an angle to the light, saw that the ink was still wet, and began to wave the envelope with quick fan-like motions. Her gaze drifted to a door across the corridor, the door marked Stairway. Her eyes lighted. ‘You know what I’d like to do?’ she asked.

  ‘What?’

  ‘… Before we go back and have those drinks.’

  ‘What?’ He smiled.

  She smiled back at him, wavin
g the envelope. ‘Go up to the roof.’

  The aerialist looked down and saw the net being drawn out from under him. ‘What do you want to do that for?’ he asked slowly.

  ‘Didn’t you see the moon? And the stars? It’s a perfect night. The view must be tremendous.’

  ‘I think we might still be able to get into the Glo-Ray,’ he said.

  ‘Oh, neither of us are crazy about going.’ She slipped the envelope into her purse and snapped it shut. ‘Come on,’ she said gaily, turning from him and crossing the corridor. ‘What happened to all that romance you displayed in the hall last night?’ His hand reached out for her arm and caught empty air.

  She pushed the door open and looked back, waiting for him to follow.

  ‘Evvie, I – heights make me dizzy.’ He forced a thin smile.

  ‘You don’t have to look down,’ she said lightly. ‘You don’t even have to go near the edge.’

  ‘The door’s probably locked.’

  ‘I don’t think they can lock a door to a roof. Fire laws.’ She frowned in mock disgust. ‘Oh, come on! You’d think I was asking you to go over Niagara Falls in a barrel or something!’ She backed through the doorway on to the landing, holding the door, smiling, waiting for him.

  He came with a slow trance-like helplessness, as though there were part of him that perversely wanted to follow her. When he was on the landing she released the door. It swung closed with a soft pneumatic hissing, cutting off the light from the corridor and leaving a ten-watt bulb to fight a losing battle against the shadows of the stairwell.

  They climbed eight steps, turned, and climbed eight more. There was a dark metal door with a warning painted on it in large white letters: Entrance Strictly Forbidden Except in Emergency. Powell read it aloud, stressing the words ‘strictly forbidden’.

  ‘Signs,’ Ellen said disdainfully. She tried the knob.

  ‘It must be locked,’ Powell said.

  ‘If it were locked they wouldn’t have that.’ Ellen indicated the sign. ‘You try.’

  He took the knob, pushed. ‘It’s stuck, then.’

  ‘Oh, come on. Give a real try.’

  ‘Okay,’ he said, ‘okay, okay,’ with to-hell-with-it abandon. He drew back and slammed his shoulder against the door full-force. It flew open almost dragging him with it. He stumbled across the high threshold on to the tarred deck. ‘Okay, Evvie,’ he said sullenly, straightening himself, holding the door wide, ‘come look at your gorgeous moon.’

  ‘Sourpuss,’ Ellen said, the light tone of her voice stripping his bitterness of significance. She stepped over the ledge and breezed a few steps past Powell, advancing from the shadow of the staircase housing out on to the expanse of roof like a cold-legged skater pretending not to worry about thin ice. She heard the door closing behind her, and then Powell came up on her left.

  ‘Sorry,’ he said, ‘it’s just that I almost broke my shoulder on the damn door, that’s all.’ He managed a starchy smile.

  They were facing the KBRI tower; skeletal, black against the blue-black star-spattered sky; at the very top of it a slowly flashing red light whose steady pulsing flushed the roof with intermittent rose. Between the red throbs there was the soft light of the quarter moon overhead.

  Ellen glanced at Powell’s upturned tense-jawed profile; first dim white, then bathed with red, then white again. Beyond him she saw the wall that rimmed the airshaft, its white stone top distinct in the night. She remembered a diagram that had appeared in one of the newspapers; the X at the south side of the square – the side nearest them. Suddenly she was caught by a crazy desire to go there, look over, see where Dorothy … A sick wave swept over her. The focus of her vision realigned on Powell’s white-edged profile and involuntarily she drew away.

  It’s all right, she told herself, I’m safe – safer than pushing conversation in some cocktail lounge. I’m all right, I’m Evelyn Kittredge.

  He became conscious of her gaze. ‘I thought you wanted to look at the sky,’ he said, not lowering his own skyward face. She looked up and the sudden lifting of her head heightened the dizziness. The stars wheeled …

  She broke away, went to the right, to the outer edge of the roof. Abrading her hands against the roughness of the coping, she gasped lungfuls of the cold night air. This is where he killed her. He’s bound to betray himself – enough to go to the police. I’m safe … Finally her head cleared. She looked at the panorama below, the myriad lights glittering off into blackness. ‘Dwight, come look.’

  He turned and walked towards the parapet, but he stopped a few feet away.

  ‘Isn’t it beautiful?’ She spoke without looking back.

  ‘Yes,’ he said.

  He looked for a moment, while a breeze plucked softly at the tower cables, and then he turned slowly around until he was facing the airshaft. He stared at the parapet. Then his right foot extended itself and his legs began to walk. They carried him forward with silent relentless efficiency, like the legs of a reformed alcoholic carrying him to the bar for just one little drink. They carried him straight up to the airshaft parapet and his hands rose and set themselves flat on the cool stone. He leaned over and looked down.

  Ellen felt his absence. She turned round and probed the quarter-moon obscurity. Then the tower light flashed on, its crimson glow showing him at the wall of the airshaft, and her heart jumped chokingly. The red glow vanished, but knowing where he was she could still distinguish him in the wan moonlight. She began moving forward, her steps noiseless on the resilient tar.

  He looked down. A few yellow beams from lighted windows criss-crossed the square funnel of the shaft. One light was far below, at the very bottom, illuminating the small grey concrete square that was the focus of the converging walls.

  ‘I thought heights made you dizzy.’

  He whirled.

  There were sweat beads on his brow and above his moustache. A nervous smile shot to his lips. ‘They do,’ he said, ‘but I can’t help looking. Self-torture.’ The smile faded. ‘That’s my speciality.’ He took a deep breath. ‘You ready to go now?’ he asked.

  ‘We just got here,’ Ellen protested lightly. She turned and walked towards the eastern rim of the roof, threading her way between the gaunt shapes of ventilator pipes. Powell followed reluctantly. Reaching the edge, Ellen stood with her back to the parapet and gazed up at the rearing red-limned tower beside them. ‘It’s nice up here,’ she said. Powell, looking out over the city, his hands folded on the parapet, said nothing. ‘Have you ever been here at night?’ Ellen asked.

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘I’ve never been here before at all.’

  She turned to the parapet and leaned over, looking down at the shelf of the setback two storeys below. She frowned thoughtfully. ‘Last year,’ she said slowly, ‘I think I read about some girl falling from here.’

  A ventilator cap cracked. ‘Yes,’ Powell said. His voice was dry. ‘A suicide. She didn’t fall.’

  ‘Oh.’ Ellen kept looking at the setback. ‘I don’t see how she could have got killed,’ she said. ‘It’s only two storeys.’

  He lifted a hand, the thumb pointing back over his shoulder. ‘Over there – the shaft.’

  ‘Oh, that’s right.’ She straightened up. ‘I remember now. The Des Moines newspapers gave it a very big write-up.’ She put her purse on the ledge and held it squarely with both hands, as though testing the rigidity of its frame. ‘She was a Stoddard girl, wasn’t she?’

  ‘Yes,’ he said. He pointed far out towards the horizon. ‘You see that roundish building there, with the lights on it? That’s the Stoddard Observatory. Had to go out there for a Physical Science project once. They have a—’

  ‘Did you know her?’

  The red light stained his face. ‘Why do you ask?’ he said.

  ‘I just thought you might have known her. That’s a natural thing to think, both going to Stoddard.’

  ‘Yes,’ he said sharply, ‘I knew her and she was a very nice girl. Now let’s talk about something else.’


  ‘The only reason the story stuck in my mind,’ she said, ‘was because of the hat.’

  Powell gave an exasperated sigh. Wearily he said, ‘What hat?’

  ‘She was wearing a red hat with a bow on it and I had just bought a red hat with a bow on it the day that it happened.’

  ‘Who said she was wearing a red hat?’ Powell asked.

  ‘Wasn’t she? The Des Moines papers said—’ Tell me they were wrong, she prayed, tell me it was green.

  There was silence for a moment. ‘The Clarion never mentioned a red hat,’ Powell said. ‘I read the articles carefully, knowing her.’

  ‘Just because the Blue River paper never mentioned it doesn’t mean that it wasn’t so,’ Ellen said.

  He didn’t say anything. She looked and saw him squinting at his wristwatch. ‘Look,’ he said brusquely, ‘it’s twenty-five to nine. I’ve had enough of this magnificent view.’ He turned away abruptly, heading for the staircase housing.

  Ellen hurried after him. ‘We can’t go yet,’ she wheedled, catching his arm just outside the slant-roofed shed.

  ‘Why not?’

  Behind a smile her mind raced. ‘I – I want a cigarette.’

  ‘Oh, for—’ His hand jerked towards a pocket, then stopped short. ‘I don’t have any. Come on, we’ll get some downstairs.’

  ‘I have some,’ she said quickly, flashing her purse. She backed away, the position of the airshaft behind her as clear in her mind as if she were looking at the newspaper diagram. X marks the spot. Turning slightly, she sidled back towards it, opening the purse, smiling at Powell, saying inanely, ‘It’ll be nice to smoke a cigarette up here.’ The parapet reared against her hip. X. She fumbled in her purse. ‘You want one?’

  He came towards her with resignation and compressed-lip anger. She shook the crumpled pack of cigarettes until one white cylinder protruded, thinking – it has to be tonight, because he won’t ask Evelyn Kittredge for another date. ‘Here,’ she offered. He snatched the cigarette grimly.

  Her fingertips dug for another one, and as they did her eyes roved and apparently became aware of the airshaft for the first time. She turned towards it slightly. ‘Is this where—?’ She turned back to him.