Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 35, No. 10, October 1990

Someone had closed the window. There were two windows that opened, one in the sleeping alcove, the other in the living room section, but a row of undisturbed potted plants in front of the bedroom window made it evident she’d gone out of the other one. I wondered why anyone had bothered to close it. In case of rain, I supposed. That was only sensible. But I suspect the gesture must have been less calculated than that, a reflexive act like tugging a sheet over the face of a corpse.

I went into the bathroom. A killer could have hidden in the stall shower. If there’d been a killer.

Why was I still thinking in terms of a killer?

I checked the medicine cabinet. There were little tubes and vials of cosmetics, though only a handful compared with the array on one of the bedside tables. There were containers of aspirin and other headache remedies, a tube of antibiotic ointment, several prescription and non-prescription hayfever preparations, a cardboard packet of Band-Aids, a roll of adhesive tape, a box of gauze pads. Some Q-tips, a hairbrush, a couple of combs. A toothbrush in the holder.

There were no footprints on the floor of the stall shower. Of course he could have been barefoot. Or he could have run water and washed away the traces of his presence before he left.

I went over and examined the windowsill. I hadn’t asked Guzik if they’d dusted for prints and I was reasonably certain no one had bothered. I wouldn’t have taken the trouble in their position. I couldn’t learn anything looking at the sill. I opened the window a foot or so and stuck my head out, but looking down was extremely unpleasant and I drew my head back inside at once. I left the window open, though. The room could stand a change of air.

There were four folding chairs in the room, one near the bed, one alongside the window, the other two closed and leaning against a wall. They were royal blue and made of high-impact plastic. The one by the window had her clothes piled on it. I went through the stack. She’d placed them deliberately on the chair but hadn’t bothered folding them.

You never know what suicides will do. One man will put on a tuxedo before blowing his brains out. Another one will take off everything. Naked I came into the world and naked will I go out of it, something like that.

A skirt. Beneath it a pair of pantyhose. Then a blouse, and under it a bra with two small lightly padded cups. I put the clothing back as I had found it, feeling like a violator of the dead.

The bed was unmade. I sat on the edge of it and looked across the room at a poster of Mick Jagger. I don’t know how long I sat there. Ten minutes, maybe.

On the way out I looked at the chain bolt. I hadn’t even noticed it when I came in. The chain had been neatly severed. Half of it was still in the slot on the door while the other half hung from its mounting on the jamb. I closed the door and fitted the two halves together, then released them and let them dangle. Then I touched their ends together again. I unhooked the end of the chain from the slot and went to the bathroom for the roll of adhesive tape. I brought the tape back with me, tore off a piece, and used it to fasten the chain back together again. Then I let myself out of the apartment and tried to engage the chain bolt from outside, but the tape slipped whenever I put any pressure on it.

I went inside again and studied the chain bolt. I decided I was behaving erratically, that Paula Wittlauer had gone out the window of her own accord. I looked at the windowsill again. The light dusting of soot didn’t tell me anything one way or the other. New York’s air is filthy, and the accumulation of soot could have been deposited in a couple of hours, even with the window shut. It didn’t mean anything.

I looked again at the chain bolt, rode the elevator to the basement, and found either the superintendent or one of his assistants. I asked to borrow a screwdriver. He gave me a long one with an amber plastic grip. He didn’t ask me who I was or what I wanted it for.

I returned to Paula Wittlauer’s apartment and removed the chain bolt from its moorings on the door and jamb. I left the building and walked around the corner to a hardware store on Ninth Avenue. They had a good selection of chain bolts, but I wanted one identical to the one I’d removed and I had to walk down Ninth Avenue as far as 50th Street before I found what I was looking for.

Back in Paula’s apartment I mounted the new chain bolt, using the holes in which the original had been mounted. I tightened the screws with the super’s screwdriver and stood out in the corridor and played with the chain. My hands are large and not terribly skillful, but even so I was able to lock and unlock the chain bolt from outside the apartment.