Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 48, No. 1, January 2003

The time was only ten to eight, and our three-flat was a short drive from the mall, so on the spur of the moment I decided to run over in the car, see Judy, and possibly even do a little Christmas shopping afterwards. I made quick time to and through the mall to the same glass-and-brick corridor, but when I poked my head into Judy’s office she wasn’t in evidence, and the reception area twenty yards farther along the way appeared to be abandoned as well. While I stood there with the reception door open, wondering whether to call out or try another office, I heard a strange, high-pitched sound, almost like a whistle, coming from the far end of the corridor. I stepped out looking, the way you do, and there, running toward me, shrieking nonstop, was a young girl, maybe fifteen years old, dressed in early-eighties high-school chic — tight Levi’s, aviator’s jacket, and a pint each of eye makeup and hairspray. Behind her near the entrance to the women’s washroom was a second girl, similarly dressed, retching and screaming.

I stepped into the first girl’s path — I had to, in order to stop her — and grabbed her by both shoulders. “What’s wrong?” I said. “Tell me — I’m with mall security.”

She went limp and started hyperventilating. Between gasps she said, “Blood — in the restroom — a woman all bloody—”

By that time the screams had attracted a handful of curious people. One of them was a competent-looking middle-aged woman, and on an impulse I said, “Ma’am, could you please take these girls—” the other one had come up to us “—into that office? There’s a phone on the counter. Call the Speedway Security Office — it explains how right there — and tell whoever answers to get an ambulance over here because there’s been a severe injury in the washroom by the mall office. It’s an extreme emergency.”

I steered the first girl in her direction, then took off at a run toward the washroom, afraid of what I was going to find. As I dodged around the blockoff at the entrance I could smell a whiff of recent gunfire, and then I saw that I was right: on the floor at the far end, between a row of stalls and a row of sinks, Judy Pilske lay face downward in a pool of blood. I hurried to kneel by her and then adjusted her head to let her breathe easier, but I was afraid to do anything else. She’d been shot twice — in the lower back and the right shoulder — and the bruise on her forehead made me think that she’d fallen headfirst against the base of the wall. Her pulse at the neck seemed thin and fast to me, and her respiration light and slow.

I brushed the hair away from her face while I thought dark thoughts, then stood up and hit the wall with my fist.

After that I looked around belatedly to make sure that no one else was in the washroom before I went back outside to see if anything else was happening. I discovered a young and extremely green mall security guard standing by the entrance, but he told me he was embarrassed about entering the ladies’ restroom, so I suggested that he simply keep guard instead, then went to a pay phone farther down the corridor and dialed the local district headquarters to report the shooting and ask for support. At about the time a dispatcher told me that a squad car had already been sent, I could hear sirens sounding in the far distance, so I went back inside the washroom to stand over Judy. I took off my overcoat and covered her with it, I remember, hoping that I was doing the right thing and wishing that I remembered more first aid.

The good part, anyway, was that she was still alive and she had a chance. She’d been shot in nonvital spots by a smaller caliber weapon and I’d found her fast. Unfortunately, she’d also lost a lot of blood. So, if they got her on plasma quickly, I thought, and if the exit wounds were clean, and if the ambulance didn’t break down, and if the paramedics weren’t Stan and Ollie...

“Someone trailed her to the washroom,” I said half out loud to get my mind in focus. Trailed her, stepped inside, fired twice, and left quickly. That was how it must have happened, because otherwise Judy would already have died from a third wound fired from closer up. But why did the assailant leave? I hunted around for another clue, one of those essential details that shows up later full of meaning, but I didn’t find anything, and just as I started to go back outside, the ambulance crew and the police arrived together in a rush.

It had been a long seven minutes.

Part II