Too Easy (24 page)

Kathy knows something is wrong now. She also knows there's no third person in the kitchen. So what the hell is going on? “Look, um, I'll talk to you later. This is probably a bad day.” She's still hesitating. “I'll, uh, leave you my card.” Trying to keep all her options. Kathy lifts the pocketbook halfway to her chest.

“No,” Anne blurts out, her face pale and tense. “You won't do anything. . . . You know why?”

“What?” Kathy pretends not to understand, desperately wanting to know what the woman means. She freezes, the pocketbook motionless in front of her stomach. I could get the knife in a second, she thinks. “What did you say?”

“I, uh, have a recording system in the house. . . . Everything's being recorded.” Anne can't stop there. “Sooo—you're the . . . the bitch?”

Kathy's eyes widen.
The bitch?!
Definitely all wrong now. Run? Go for it? Yes, this is a smart woman. Kathy can see that now. But not very happy. In fact, almost rigid with un-happiness. There's not going to be any way to talk to this woman. What now? What do I do? What do I say? How does this woman know who I am? Robie! . . . Kathy can't remember feeling so indecisive.

“I said,” Anne says with grotesque emphasis, “so-you-are-the-bitch?”

“I think you are confused—” Kathy sees the tension in the other woman's shoulders and arms, thinks that Anne is about to attack her. Kathy flinches, raises the pocketbook a little more, to protect herself. Anne's left hand jerks up, the elbow still by her ribs, and her fingers snap open less than a foot from Kathy's face. The pepper gets into her eyes and nose. She immediately begins crying and coughing and gagging. “Wait . . . minute,” she tries to say, but the words are smothered. She blinks rapidly in an attempt to clear her burning eyes; she can see only light and a few colors. She lets go of the pocketbook. “Help me. . . .” She's backing up, bending over slightly, touching at her eyes with both hands. Thinking, Robie . . . she knew . . . she
knew!
How could you let . . . ?

Anne has already stepped to a nearby table and picked up a Steuben ashtray she put there earlier in the morning. Now she smashes it down as hard as she can on the other woman's forehead, just above the hairline. Kathy's legs give and she kneels on the floor, coughing and stunned. Her eyes clenched shut. She can't move, can't think clearly. Robie—
my Robie
—is vaguely in her consciousness, a small figure getting smaller, and everything she worked for is fading with him.

Anne drops the ashtray and snatches up the pocketbook and rips it open, to find out what kind of weapon is in there.

•
 Anne stares blankly into the pocket-book. Then she sees the knife in a fold. She lifts it out, stares some more.

“Why, it's . . .
my
knife.”

She glances toward the dining room, at the cabinet where the silver is kept. Her heart is beating so wildly, she thinks she might faint. She doesn't hear the other woman's hacking and sobbing. This knife—there's no doubt it's Anne's, a gift that used to belong to her grandmother. There's a fancy script
M. . . .

Her voice is soft and ghastly. “Oh, Robert. You gave her the knife to . . . Oh, who could think . . . ?”

The knife maddens her. She drops the pocketbook and quickly picks up the ashtray. She hits Kathy again, in the same spot, harder. Again she drops the chunk of glass and pushes Kathy's shoulder so that she sprawls back on the carpet. Anne squats beside her, placing the handle of the knife
into Kathy's right palm, careful that the cutting edge is down, the knife the way a person would normally hold it. Kathy is struggling in a weak and disoriented way, maybe not even conscious. She hardly resists.

“You're not taking anything else,” Anne tells her.

Anne closes the other woman's gloved hand and forces the hand across so that the blade goes in under Kathy's left breast. “That what you had in mind?”

Kathy can't see or understand what is happening. She hardly reacts to the blade sliding into her heart.

Anne pushes down hard on Kathy's fist, moving the knife some. Kathy's body thrashes but without strength. Blood oozes up around the blade. She twitches more feebly.

Anne sees the color vanish out of Kathy's face.

Anne sits back on the rug. Trying to breathe in a normal way. “I thought it might come to this. . . . Maybe I hoped it would. . . .”

She sees for the first time that Kathy's hair is a wig. It's slipped up a few inches. Well, well . . .

Alright, she thinks, work this out. Now or never. . . . The knife, the damned knife . . . should I change the knife? What's the best story? For me . . . for Robert . . . ?

Anne stands up, looks at her clothes, at the room, the carpet. Trying to be sure she catches anything that doesn't fit. She stares down at Kathy.

Anne knows there's something she has to do while she's angry enough to go through with it. She reaches down and seizes Kathy's arms and yanks the woman up, first to her knees, then all the way. Anne shakes her as violently as she can manage, back and forth, and side to side, to mess up her clothes. Then Anne kicks her on both legs and knees her twice. She knows a bite would be a good touch but she can't do it. She lets the body topple backward onto the carpet.

The knife didn't move. Anne kneels down by the dead woman and again folds the limp right hand about the handle of the knife. Tears fill her eyes. . . .

Okay, officer, it's like this. The woman came to the door, wanted to ask me some questions about the neighborhood. No, never saw her before. So we're walking and talking, go into the dining room there. And she starts to stare at me, real mean. She opens the cabinet, grabs a knife and comes after me. I grabbed the pepper shaker off the table, opened it and tried to throw pepper at her. We're circling the table and I got some in her eyes. It slowed her down. So I run in here and get this ashtray and, what with the pepper and jumping around, I throw it and hit her pretty good. I was hysterical. We both were. I've probably got this all mixed up. So now we're grappling and I get her hand in mine and I'm kicking and I bent her hand around and stabbed her. And I can tell you, I just hung on until I was sure she wasn't coming after me anymore. Basically, that's it. . . .

Anne holds the woman's hand tight about the handle of the knife for a few more minutes, until she sees it's starting to hold by itself.

“You poor bitch,” Anne whispers. “Robert sends you to do what he couldn't. . . . I got that part right. . . . And who are you, Kathy?”

Anne lets go of the knife and walks slowly into the kitchen. She puts the pepper away, cleans up any traces. Then she goes to the dining room table and opens the shaker there, throws some on the table, several places on the floor. She knocks two chairs over. She walks back to Kathy and sprinkles some pepper on her blouse, tosses the shaker across the room. No way she would be accurate in a real fight.

The ashtray? . . . Fine where it is.

Anne stares out the window, sees that a faint rain is still falling. The street gray and empty. Suddenly Anne wonders, Well, how'd she get here?

Anne goes to the coat hanging on the chair, reaches into the pockets. She finds the car keys. She almost drops them. Oh, my God, they're Robert's! . . . He's out there? No, the
car's out there. . . . And it couldn't be unless he gave it to her. How can I ever save this man? Never mind whether I should.

Anne makes the decision to keep on trying. She goes to the closet, gets a raincoat. . . . No, she thinks, hanging it up again. She puts on Kathy's coat, uses her umbrella. She leaves the house, walks to the sidewalk, looks both ways. . . . Nothing. Alright, try the nearest corner. As soon as she turns the corner, she sees the car, walks purposefully to it. Glancing nervously about, not seeing anyone. She gets in the car, drives it back to her house, parks it beside her car. Alright, Robie couldn't get it started, he got a cab. . . . No, he got me to take him. Yeah, that's good. I was out this morning. Could have been. . . .

She goes back inside, thinks about what she's done. Terrible thing, she thinks, staring at the dead woman. Well, it's
supposed
to be me there. . . . And then what was going to happen? Robert comes home from a day at the office, finds his dear wife dead, and cries all the way to his next honeymoon.

Anne thinks about Robert. Yeah, he's probably waiting right now for a call. The poor bastard. I'll try to save him. Then I'll never talk to him again.

Not sure she means this, but it sounds right.

Anne wanders into the kitchen, to pull the phone out of the drawer, call the cops. Get on with the second half of her life. No, she thinks. That other Anne's dead. . . . maybe that's not the right way to say that. . . .

She starts to punch 911.

No. . . . She goes down to the basement, unclips the little wires that connect the recorder to the phone lines. Then erases the messages she kept. She thinks about hammering it into little pieces and flushing them down the toilet. Probably hard to do . . . and not necessary.

She remembers a box full of old appliances. She throws the recorder against a cinder block wall two times. Now it
looks old and broken. She wipes it clean of prints and puts it in the box with the tape player and the mixer and the slicer. The wires she carefully rolls and puts in the opposite corner of the same box.

Boy, she thinks, you get into this stuff and you can't stop. I'll take it out tomorrow and throw it in the Hudson, if that'll make me feel any better.

Anne walks back to the kitchen, messes her hair, dishevels her clothes, and now she dials 911.

•
 Robert sees that the train is close to Bronxville. He's staring with crazed eyes at the landmarks that tell him this. Then at his watch. Then at the phone, punching REDIAL again.

Knowing he must look like a mad person. The kind of person they used to put a net over and lock up.

Without any question, he thinks, the worst hour of my life. Each minute of it worse than the one before. There are so many bad possibilities. Something's wrong at the house. There's a dozen things right there. Or everything went right, and I should be in Manhattan now. How can I be an alibi?

But is that what I want?

Robert realizes he can't decide which of the scenarios flashing in his head is the worst. Or if he could choose any one of them, which one he wants. This has to be what hell is, he thinks. Pain like this, you naturally commit suicide after a few hours.

“But in Hell you couldn't. That would be the catch.”

Robert realizes he's mumbling out loud. He stares around guiltily, punching REDIAL again.

The phone rings.

Oh, God, he thinks, slumping back heavily in the seat. Is it a trick? Did the number go through right?

Anne answers. “Hello.”

He can't speak. He stares at the phone. Then at his watch. It's almost 1:35. Is it a recording?

Suddenly he coughs up some words, “Anne? . . . Robert.”

“Hi, Robert. How are you?”

Her voice sounds normal. Completely normal.

“Anne? The phone was busy. . . .”

“That can happen.”

“So you're all right?”

“What should be wrong?”

He can't speak. What should he say? He's got to blurt it out. “Anne, there's this woman. . . .”

“Yes?”

“Uhh, she might stop by to talk to you.”

Anne chuckles. “What about? More life insurance?”

Robert thinks his heart has stopped. He's wheezing. He can't go on.

“Robert, this call sounds a little funny. Some kind of noise. Where
are
you?”

He can't close his mouth or start talking. He almost screams:
What should I say?

“Robert, listen. There's not much time. The police are coming over. We had an intruder today.”

And what happened?
He can't say the words.

“Where are you, Robert? Tell me now.”

“Tr-tr-train,” he stutters.

“To Bronxville?”

“Yes . . . yes.”

“That looks funny, doesn't it? I just called you to tell you what happened, said to come right away. . . . Well, probably you can figure this out.”

“You called me?”

“Let's say I did. . . . Oh, I hear them. Robert, one suggestion. Don't say anything before you talk to me.”

The phone clicks in his ear. He's stunned. This is worse, this is better? He can't even guess.

But Anne's alive, he thinks. It was her voice. Maybe that's good. Has to be! No murder. There won't be a murder. The cops are coming. There can't be. Great, I hated the thought. There's got to be some other way. . . . But what happened? She said an intruder. Anne didn't say a woman. Maybe some burglar. But look—Anne didn't sound upset. It can't be too bad.

The train is stopping. Robert looks around, realizes he has to stand up, get off the train.

And do what? . . . What was all that, the way she was talking to me?
Doesn't that look bad? You can figure it out.
What's all that?

Robert realizes he can't remember anything clearly. His heart knotted up in his chest, he remembers that. Anne's voice sounded normal. She's alive. These are things he's sure of. But the words . . . What they mean? . . . All of this is drifting away like a shape you think you see in clouds.

That's it—she said to talk to her first. . . . Why'd she say that?

Robert lurches off the train and along the platform. He feels suddenly exhausted, as if he's been awake for twenty-four hours and now he just wants to sleep. He sees it's still raining, but not enough to bother him. He goes down to the parking lot and to his car.