The Seducer

19

Buddy had lingered in the neighborhood at his own peril for no reason except a reluctance to leave Maggie alone. She actually was alone, of course, in her apartment, or wherever beyond the apartment she may have gone, but the aloneness was somehow alleviated in his mind by his presence across the street.

He felt terribly sorry for her because she was dead, and terribly sorry for himself because he had killed her and would have to live all his life without her. After standing for quite a long time in the dark recess of the doorway, he began to wish that he had taken time after killing her to pick her up and lay her decently on the bed. He regretted sincerely his failure to perform this last small service for her, and he had decided to return and perform it yet, in spite of all hazards, when he saw Bradley Cannon approach the entrance to the building and enter.

He remained where he was, in the dark doorway, and now in his mind with the dull pain and loneliness there was a new element of slyness, the hard bright malice of a grand idea born whole. He waited until after Brad came running out of the building, which was only a short while longer, and then he left the doorway and walked off down the street until he came, several blocks along, to a service station with a public phone booth.

In the booth, Buddy sorted the coins from a pocket and found a dime. Dropping the dime in the phone and making his connection, he dialed operator and asked for the police. When his call was answered by a policeman on desk duty, he gave the name of Maggie’s apartment house and the number of her apartment. The police should go there at once, he said, if they wanted to find something that would interest them. When the policeman asked him who was calling, he hung up.

He had been feeling at an utter loss, with absolutely nothing to do and nowhere to go for any good reason, but now he had started something that needed doing and ending, and it gave him a purpose that would last for a day or two at least, and he felt a little better.

Leaving the phone booth with a new decisiveness, knowing exactly what he would do and how he would do it, he walked back to the old residence near the college campus where he had a single room at the rear of the second floor. In his room, he undressed in the dark and lay down on the bed.

He could not sleep, lying on his back and hardly moving as the night passed, but his mind had secured a kind of rest in the birth and beginning of his plan, and finally he did sleep after all, when the night was almost gone, and did not waken until after noon.

There were still several hours of waiting to be survived, for he could do nothing until the daily newspaper was on the streets, and this would be late in the afternoon, about four o’clock. He remained in his room until almost that time, sustaining his peace in his new purpose. Then he dressed and walked downtown and bought a newspaper. The story of Maggie’s murder was on the front page, and he folded the paper without reading the story and carried it in his hand to police headquarters in City Hall.

The policeman at the desk asked him what he wanted, and he laid the newspaper on the desk in front of the policeman and said that he wanted to see someone about the murder of Maggie McCall. The policeman glanced down at the newspaper and up at Buddy. It was evident that he was thinking wearily that he had some kind of nut on his hands.

“What’s on your mind, sonny? You want to confess?”

“No. I want to tell someone about something I saw,” Buddy said.

“Saw? Saw where? Saw when?”

“Last night out at the apartment house where Maggie lived.”

“You talk like she was an old friend. First name stuff. You know this Maggie McCall personally?”

“She was my girl once, but she threw me over.”

“Yes? Jealousy’s a good motive. Were you jealous, sonny? Is that why you killed her?”

“I didn’t kill her. I only want to tell who I think did.”

“Go ahead and tell. I’m listening.”

“Are you in charge of the case?” Buddy queried.

“No, but I’ve got ears,” the policeman replied.

“I want to talk to whoever’s in charge.”

The policeman looked him over and shrugged. Maybe a nut, maybe not. You couldn’t always tell.

“You want Trajan,” he said. “Wait here while I see.”

He went out of the room and was gone no more than a couple of minutes. Returning, he resumed his position at the desk.

“Down the hall,” he said. “First door on the left. You better have something for real if you don’t want to be skinned alive.”

Buddy picked up his newspaper and went down the hall to the first door on the left. He found Trajan inside with his fat tail hooked over the corner of his desk. He looked sick and sour and mean, and he was all these.

He had been jerked off the Cannon case by the chief and put on the McCall business, clearly nothing but a sordid little crime of passion, probably committed by some crazy kid, and he resented it bitterly. In his mind, it was just a trick to get the Cannon case shelved.

“What’s your name, sonny?” he said.

“Buddy Jensen.”

“The policeman outside says you claim to know something about this girl who got killed last night. Let’s hear it. Sit down if you want to.”

Buddy sat down in a high-backed straight chair and covered each knee with a hand. Tousled and not too clean, he had a strained and awkward appearance suggesting a reluctant commitment to an unpleasant duty that he would have preferred to avoid. He even managed to suggest a kind of qualified innocence.

“Well,” he said, “I’d better tell you first of all that Maggie and I used to be good friends. I was in love with her, to tell the truth, and I thought she was in love with me, but I guess she wasn’t. Anyhow, she got to know this man who was quite a bit older, and she threw me over and started going around with him secretly, even though he was married. She simply wouldn’t listen to me any more, or even see me if she could avoid it.

“I know it was crazy, but I couldn’t stand never seeing her, or hardly ever, and I started going out to where she lived and standing around across the street just in hopes of seeing her for a minute from a distance when she came or left.

“That’s how I happened to be there last night, about the time the paper says she was killed, when this man she was going around with came and then left in a hurry a little later. A funny thing about it is, this man’s wife was killed only last month.”

Trajan had been staring sourly into a corner of the room, his position and attitude an expression of disgust and boredom. Now, in an instant, without moving in the slightest, he was wholly alert and intently listening in utter silence to a voice that only he could hear.

“What man?” he said.

“His name is Cannon. He’s a professor at the college.”

For a long, long minute Trajan was silent again, listening to his voice. Then he slipped off the desk and belched and rubbed his belly. On his face, despite the sour gas, there was an expression of religious exaltation.

“By God, I’ve got him!” he whispered. “I’ve got the son of a bitch good!”