Life Penalty (19 page)

“Pardon the mess,” the woman said with a touch of sarcasm. “I wasn’t expecting company.”

“You’re moving?” Gail asked.

“Got my walking papers,” the woman said, pulling an old cardboard suitcase from under the bed and tossing it in the middle of the rumpled sheets. Gail smelled the familiar odor of recent sex and felt her body grow numb, a tingling sensation spreading through her limbs.

“Can we leave the door open?” Gail asked as the woman was about to draw it closed. “It’s just that my purse is lying on my bed and I left my door wide open. Anyone could walk in … Besides,” she continued, desperately needing, the extra air, “I have a thing about closed doors.”

The woman shrugged and returned to her packing. “Yeah, I noticed that your door is always open. Myself, I like privacy. It’s better for business, if you know what I mean.”

“Have you been a prostitute for long?” Gail tried not to sound too naïve.

“Just since I failed my medical exams,” the woman sneered, beginning to clear the items from the top of the dresser and throw them into the suitcase. “What’s your name? You look like a Carol.”

“That’s my sister’s name,” Gail smiled. “My name’s Gail.”

“I’m Brenda, and I don’t make enough money to be called a prostitute. What do you do?”

Gail found herself startled by the question. “I don’t do anything right now,” she stammered. “I’m trying to find a job, but there doesn’t seem to be a whole lot available at the moment.”

“You sound like you got an education.”

“No,” Gail said quickly. “No college degree or anything like that.”

“You finish high school?”

“Yes,” Gail nodded.

“I took a secretarial course once. Never could type more than thirty words a minute, and half of those were mistakes.”

“I can’t type at all.”

“If you can’t type, you can’t get a job,” Brenda told her matter-of-factly. “‘Forget the high school diploma. You got any money?”

“A little. Enough to last a few weeks.”

“You ever thought of hooking?” Gail’s eyes grew wide. “Not that you’d make a whole lot. I mean, let’s face it, we’re both a little past it, if you know what I mean, but you’re pretty enough, you might be able to make a few dollars. I could help you. Introduce you to a few people …”

“I don’t think so,” Gail said quickly. Brenda shrugged and continued packing. “Roseanne kicked you out?” Gail asked.

“First thing this morning. Told me I was getting too obvious, whatever the hell that means. It’s not like she didn’t know what I was doing right from the beginning. She’s probably mad ’cause she’s not getting any share of the proceeds. Or maybe she’s mad ’cause she’s not getting any, period.” Brenda laughed. “If you ask me, she’s a dyke anyway. Either that or she’s got something weird going with that dog.”

Gail shuddered as she unwillingly recalled the vile magazines in the “adult” bookstore. “How long have you been living here?” she asked, changing the subject.

“Couple of months.” Brenda put the last of her belongings into the bag and snapped it shut. “Time to move on anyway, I guess. Doesn’t really matter. One room’s the same as the next.”

“Do you ever make friends?”

“Are you kidding? You’re the best friend I got.”

She laughed.

‘Have you ever talked to anyone in the house?”

“Just the ones who pay me.”

“The people here move around so much.”

“Yeah? I never noticed.”

“Except for that boy in the front room on the second floor. Do you know the one I’m talking about?”

Brenda tossed the question aside. “No.”

“He’s young, maybe nineteen or twenty. Real short crew cut, kind of sullen-looking …”

“Oh yeah, I know who you mean. He’s real creepy, isn’t he? Yeah, I know who you mean. I sidled up to him once and asked him if he felt like having a good time, and he pulled away from me like I had leprosy. What can you do? Can’t be everybody’s type.”

“Do you know how long he’s been here?”

“What?” Brenda asked, distracted, her eyes searching the closet for anything she might have forgotten.

“I asked if you knew how long he’s been here.”

“How would I know? He was here when I arrived. Keeps to himself all the time, that’s all I know about him. Why?” she asked, suddenly suspicious.

Gail laughed. “He looks like an old boyfriend I used to have,” she lied, hoping Brenda would accept the lie at face value.

“Yeah? Well, it ain’t him, and you had lousy taste,” she joked.

“Wait, did you hear something?”

Gail sucked in her breath, her adrenaline beginning to pump. She cocked her head to one side, listening for whatever Brenda thought she might have heard. “Stay here for a minute,” Brenda told her cautiously. “I’ll check it out.”

Gail sank down on the now empty chair. What was she so afraid of? That the young man had been listening to them from outside the door? Her hands were shaking, she discovered, burying them between her knees.

“Nothing,” Brenda said, returning a minute later. “Must be hearing things in my old age.” She picked up her suitcase. “Well, I’m on my way.” Gail stood up. “Nice talking to you, Gail. Maybe we’ll run into each other again some time.”

“Good luck,” Gail called after her, wondering who the next tenant would be to sleep in this bed.

She heard the downstairs door open and close, and returned to her own room.

Her purse was lying opened, its contents emptied onto the bed. Gail took a minute to assess what had happened, her mind racing as her fingers fumbled through her wallet. Her social security card was there, as were her credit cards and driver’s license. Only her cash was missing.

Brenda! she realized. There hadn’t been any noise in the hallway. Brenda hadn’t heard anything at all. It had been a clever ruse to get into Gail’s room and at her money. Gail had told her that the door was open, that her purse was unprotected. Good God, she had even told her that she had enough money to get by for several weeks!

Some detective she was turning out to be, Gail thought as she raced down the steps trying to catch up to Brenda. She was the one who was supposedly doing the pumping for information and yet it had been Brenda who had gleaned all the pertinent facts, and made off with over a hundred dollars in cash.

Gail found herself staring down a deserted street.

The sky was threatening rain. The weathermen were already predicting an unusually cold winter. Gail felt the chill through her thin blouse and returned inside.

He was watching her from the top of the stairs. At first, too lost in her own thoughts, she didn’t see him. She’d have to be more careful next time, she scolded herself, leave everything but what she absolutely needed at home, leave her driver’s license in the pocket of her slacks. It wasn’t until she started up the steps that she saw him on the landing.

“Oh!” she cried, trying to laugh, feeling awkward and afraid, “you scared me. I didn’t see you.”

He said nothing.

“It’s cold out there,” she continued, rubbing her arms. “They’re calling for rain.”

Still he said nothing, just kept staring at her face, and Gail wondered if he recognized her from her photographs in the newspapers, if he was the one who had murdered her little girl. She looked directly into his eyes. Tell me, she commanded silently. You can’t lie to
me.

He stared back at her blankly, telling her nothing. An instant later, he was descending the steps at a fast pace,
pushing past her without saying a word. Gail heard the door open behind her, felt the cold wind against her back until the door slammed shut again and she was alone. She took a few seconds to catch her breath, hearing the drone of the afternoon soaps emanating from Roseanne’s room, and began a slow climb up the stairs.

Things could be worse, she told herself, trying to banish from her mind the sinister image of the boy. Brenda could have cleaned her out before lunch, or the man at the parking lot could have collected at the end of the day instead of at the beginning. Then, where would she be? Hungry and walking home to Livingston, she answered, trying to make herself smile.

At the first flight landing, she stopped and looked down the hall. The door to the boy’s room beckoned her like a door in a nightmare, surreal and terrifying, floating several inches off the floor, attached to nothing. Gail took a first tentative step toward it.

It was unlikely that this boy was Cindy’s killer, she told herself with each succeeding step. Despite his strange behavior, despite the knowing look in his eyes, it felt wrong that she should stumble across him so quickly in the first house in which she had taken up residence. Yet, she had begun her search in July. It was now October. She had selected the house carefully. It could be him, she repeated to herself as her hand touched his doorknob. He could be the one.

Of course, the door was locked, she realized with a mixture of relief and dismay. Not everyone was as stupid as she was to leave a door open in invitation for anyone to enter.

“Oh my God,” she said aloud, realizing that she had done exactly that again, left her door wide open, the contents of her purse spread invitingly across the dismal blue-flowered bedspread. She ran up the second flight of stairs to her room.

The room was as she had left it, everything tossed unceremoniously across the bed. Nothing had been touched, Gail realized with relief as she checked through each charge card and piece of identification. She clasped the white straw bag tightly between her fingers and began tossing each item back inside—her lipstick, brush, a tampon holder, her car keys, her wallet with her driver’s license and assorted charge cards.

Gail looked back at the open door. Even locked, it didn’t afford much protection. It was an exceedingly flimsy lock. Probably a large bobby pin was all that was necessary to open it. She felt the weight of the wallet in her hand. Or a credit card.

She froze, her head turning toward the hallway, afraid that somehow someone had overheard her thoughts. Don’t do it, she heard a small inner voice cry out, don’t go in there. He’s waiting for you.

But her feet were already on the steps and then edging across the second floor hallway to the room at the front of the house. What if he came back? What if he returned suddenly to find her searching through his things? She stopped, motionless, outside his door.

She pulled out her American Express card—Don’t leave home without it, a little voice whispered giddily—and thrust it forward. She would be able to see him from the window, she told herself; she would be able to hear the front door open and slam shut. She would have lots of time to get back up to her room before he could find her.

She pushed the card in the narrow crack between the door and the wall, rotating it haphazardly around the lock as she had seen in countless television shows. There was nothing to worry about, she assured herself, and then realized with a combination of disappointment and relief that the reason there was nothing to worry about was that she was never going to get inside that room. It might look
easy on television, but reality was something else again, and the lock was proving more formidable than she had been prepared for.

And then it opened.

Slowly, almost reluctantly, the door fell back against the inside wall, daring the intruder to enter, to find its hidden secret.

Gail took a deep breath, felt her knees weaken and stepped across the threshold.

She ran to the window and looked down at the street, careful not to let herself be seen. There was no one. Still, she had better move quickly. He could come back at any minute. She couldn’t afford to be long. She had to be exact, make sure that everything was returned to its proper spot. He couldn’t know that anything had been disturbed.

She backed away from the window and did a quick appraisal of the room. The first thing she noticed was that it was spotlessly,
excessively
clean, the bed made with perfect hospital comers, the cheap formica table polished until it actually shone, not a speck of dust clinging to the lampshade, not a stray sock anywhere. And that smell, she thought, recognizing it as disinfectant, so strong, so overpowering. How had she failed to notice it immediately? How could he sleep with that sharp odor covering him like an extra blanket?

The small dresser was shined as brilliantly as the little table. There was nothing on top of it, no pictures, no bottles, no brushes or combs. Nothing but a well-rubbed surface in which she could almost make out her own reflection.

Gail heard a noise and raced to the window, knocking the lamp from the table and watching helplessly as it crashed against the wall. “Oh God,” Gail uttered as she looked outside to see the two drunks from downstairs arguing over which one of them was going to get the first
sip of a newfound bottle. Gail quickly righted the lamp, hearing her breath escape in short, frantic ripples of fear.

She had made a slight dent in the lampshade. A normal person might not notice it, but there was no question that she was not dealing with a normal person, and that the boy would quickly discover the dent and figure out that someone had been in his room snooping around. Her fingers worked furiously, trying to straighten out the indentation. She told herself to be calm, that even if he did suspect someone of snooping, he was far more likely to assume it had been the land-lady.

Gail wasted several more seconds trying to fix the shade, improved it somewhat—not enough, she knew—and then returned it to the table, turning it so that the dent faced the wall. Perhaps this way there was a slight chance it would escape his notice.

She opened the boy’s closet. Two pairs of neatly pressed trousers hung side by side. Old, shabby, but hung as proudly and as carefully as if they were expensive imports. On the floor, unobtrusively off to one side, was a large bottle of Lysol and another, smaller spray can of Pledge.

There was no question that this boy had problems, Gail told herself, returning to the chest of drawers, but was he sick enough to have raped and killed a six-year-old child?

She pulled open the first drawer. It was filled with pair after pair of heavy black socks. Gail rifled through the piles. There must have been fifty pairs, all identical, all neatly folded one inside the other, all smelling of fabric softener.