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

I meant it and he realized as much. He thought about taking a shot at me and he decided it wasn’t worth it. Maybe it wasn’t all that much of a stereo. While he was unhooking it, I dumped a carton of his clothes out onto the floor and we packed the stereo in it. On my way out the door he said he could always go to the cops and tell them what I’d done.

“I don’t think you want to do that,” I said.

“You said somebody killed her.”

“That’s right.”

“You just making noise?”

“No.”

“You’re serious?” I nodded. “She didn’t kill herself? I thought it was open and shut, from what the cops said. It’s interesting — in a way, I guess you could say it’s a load off my mind.”

“How?”

He shrugged. “I thought, you know, maybe she was upset it wasn’t working out between us. At the Web the vibes were on the heavy side, if you follow me. Our thing was falling apart and I was seeing Sunny and she was seeing other guys and I thought maybe that was what did it for her. I suppose I blamed myself.”

“I can see it was eating away at you.”

“I just said it was on my mind.”

I didn’t say anything.

“Man,” he said, “nothing eats away at me. You let things get to you that way and it’s death.”

I shouldered the carton and headed on down the stairs.

Ruth Wittlauer had supplied me with an Irving Place address and a Gramercy telephone number. I called the number and didn’t get an answer, so I walked over to Hudson and caught a northbound cab. There were no messages for me at the hotel desk. I put Paula’s stereo in my room, tried Ruth’s number again, then walked over to the 18th Precinct. Guzik had gone off duty but the desk man told me to try a restaurant around the corner, and I found him there drinking draft Heineken’s with another cop named Birnbaum. I sat at their table and ordered bourbon for myself and another round for the two of them.

I said, “I have a favor to ask. I’d like you to seal Paula Wittlauer’s apartment.”

“We closed that out,” Guzik reminded me.

“I know, and the boyfriend closed out the dead girl’s stereo.” I told him how I’d reclaimed the unit from Cary McCloud. “I’m working for Ruth, Paula’s sister. The least I can do is make sure she gets what’s coming to her. She’s not up to cleaning out the apartment now, and it’s rented through the first of October. McCloud’s got a key and God knows how many other people have keys. If you slap a seal on the door, it’d keep the grave robbers away.”

“I guess we can do that. Tomorrow all right?”

“Tonight would be better.”

“What’s there to steal? You got the stereo out of there and I didn’t see anything else around that was worth much.”

“Things have a sentimental value.”

He eyed me and frowned. “I’ll make a phone call,” he said. He went to the booth in the back and I jawed with Birnbaum until he came back and told me it was taken care of.

I said, “Another thing I was wondering. You must have had a photographer on the scene.”

“Sure. That’s routine.”

“Did he go up to the apartment while he was at it? Take a roll of interior shots?”

“Yeah. Why?”

“I thought maybe I could have a look at them.”

“What for?”

“You never know. The reason I knew it was Paula’s stereo in McCloud’s apartment was I could see the pattern in the dust on top of the dresser where it had been. If you’ve got interior pictures, maybe I’ll see something else that’s not there any more and I can lean on McCloud a little and recover it for my client.”

“And that’s why you’d like to see the pictures.”

“Right.”

He gave me a look. “That door was bolted from the inside, Matt. With a chain bolt.”

“I know.”

“And there was no one in the apartment when we went in there.”

“I know that too.”

“Matt, the case is closed and the reason it’s closed is the dizzy broad killed herself. What are you making waves for?”

“I’m not. I just want to see the pictures.” I drank what remained of my drink. “You need a new hat anyway, Guzik. The weather’s turning and a fellow like you needs a hat for fall.”

“If I had the price of a hat, maybe I’d go out and get one.”

“You got it,” I said.

He nodded and we told Birnbaum we wouldn’t be long. I walked with Guzik around the corner to the 18th. On the way I palmed him two tens and a five, the price of a hat in police parlance. He made the bills disappear.

I waited at his desk while he pulled the Paula Wittlauer file. There were about a dozen black and white prints, eight by ten high-contrast glossies. Perhaps half of them showed Paula’s corpse from various angles. I had no interest in these, but I made myself look at them as a sort of reinforcement, so I wouldn’t forget what I was doing on the case.

The other pictures were interior shots of the L-shaped apartment. I noted the wide-open window, the dresser with the stereo sitting on it, the chair with her clothing piled haphazardly upon it. I separated the interior pictures from the ones showing the corpse and told Guzik I wanted to keep them for the time being. He didn’t mind.

He cocked his head and looked at me. “You got something?”

“Nothing worth talking about.”

“If you ever do, I’ll want to hear about it.”