“—I see,” Alvin gravely said. “So you pretty much think that the bottom of the river is where we’ll find the rest of Mr. Anonymous Victim here.”
II
Dom swallowed noisily. He said:
“And the other part of your theory is that somebody, some crazy fuck living in this building did this: dismembering the victim, boxing him up, carrying the parts to the attic and throwing them out the window so they could fall down the rooftop and into the river.”
“Yeah.” Charlie nodded. “I believe that’s what happened.”
“Jesus Christ––”
“And I also believe that it was probably accidental that one of the boxes got off track and landed in here.”
“Accidental for us you mean.”
Carol tentatively looked up. She said to Charlie:
“So the strange noises that we heard overnight were the boxes making their way down?”
“Yeah, that’s right.”
“Thinking of it now,” Dom said, “those noises definitely sounded like sliding noises. But why would someone go through all that hassle? I mean why not just go straight up to the river?”
Charlie had already thought ahead and her answer to that was ready-made.
“That’s a good question,” she said. “And it actually helps narrow down the possibilities to this: I think whoever did it lives on this floor. And I think the party we had here eliminated his option of going out of the building when he was ready to get rid of the boxes. There were a lot of people in the hall and I’ll bet the murderer didn’t want to be seen while carrying the boxes. He didn’t want to be seen doing something that would have drawn attention…”
“But the party eventually ended,” Tara remarked. “I think I would’ve just waited it out.”
Charlie nodded.
“And I think he did, too,” she said. “But even the second time around, the hall wasn’t totally clear. You and Peter were on that terrace. You still had full view of the hall.”
“You mean––” Tara started. She blinked. She leaned forward. “You mean the creep that we saw is the murderer?”
Charlie nodded thoughtfully.
“Yeah, he has to be,” she said.
The picture was now clear in her mind. Everything fitted perfectly well. She went on, her conviction made.
She said, “I mean Max saw him on the attic floor. And you said it yourself: he was acting weird, looking around him all the time. I think he was being cautious, making sure that he was all alone so he could move the boxes out of the building. When he realized the two of you were still in the way, he opted for an alternative solution.”
Alvin said, “Do you guys know any man living on this floor who wears eyeglasses?”
“On this floor––I don’t know,” Tara said. “But I know a couple on the floor below.”
“Jen?”
“I can’t think of anyone.”
“I don’t see anyone either,” Charlie admitted after reviewing in her mind any person next door that might have fitted Tara’s description of the creep. Really, she thought, it could’ve been any of the five thirty-something men who tenanted an apartment down the hall. At first sight, none of them looked harmful or mean. There were just common folks with common jobs. Some were even married, with a family. And as far as she knew, none had any history of violence. Their daddy-of-the-year image, their agreeable personality, was incompatible with the picture Charlie made of the murderer when she thought about the beheaded in the box. But who could really tell what evil lurked in the heart of someone? Suddenly, a new thought assailed her. What if the murderer was a younger person, a person her age, a bespectacled young man who was built like a man?
“What about the meat cleaver?” Simon asked Charlie, his voice cold, passionless. “You seem to have an answer for everything. So what about it? Did it fly through the window just like the box?”
Charlie didn’t reply. There was a granite cast on Simon’s face. A hardness Charlie had never known in him. And she was responsible for that.
She looked at him for a moment, considering whether to tell him she didn’t have an answer for his question.
A series of three knocks rattled the front door. Max went stiff. He said in a panic, “It’s the police.”
Everyone looked at Charlie, expectantly. Time was up. The curtains were inopportunely dropping on them, for the law enforcement people were just about to take over center stage. Knowing there was no other play, Charlie edged over to the front door, despite herself, to let in the cops who would take Max into custody. She had to summon every ounce of poise not to collapse as she went.
III
“Sorry for interrupting again,” Mrs. Brummer apologized as soon as the door opened on her. “I promise it’s the last time that you’ll see me today.”
“Mrs. Brummer––” Charlie stared at the old lady, rather pleased yet a little taken aback to see her instead of the police.
The old lady registered Charlie’s surprise.
“Is everything alright?” She asked.
“Mrs. Brummer, now is not really a good time.”
“Oh––I’m sorry. Well, I thought I’d let you and your friends know that the door is now fixed, that’s all.”
“All right.”
And at that, Charlie pulled the door closed but Mrs. Brummer’s hand swiftly came up and blocked it. “Now hold it, young lady. Where are your manners?”
“Mrs. Brummer––”
“Never in my career have I had a door so rudely shut on me. This may be your apartment, but I’m in charge here and so you ought to have some respect.”
“I assure you––”
“Do I detect an undercurrent of maliciousness right this instant in you?”
“What?”
“Open the door,” Mrs. Brummer ordered.
Her eyes had gone a little harsh. Her lips were set tight. She had been offended and now it was a matter of pride to dispense retribution.
Charlie hesitated to open the door completely. Mrs. Brummer said, “Are you people smoking weed or something in there? Because I caught the other kids doing that the other day and––”
She paused, peeked inside the apartment and frowned, like she saw something she didn’t like. Without warning, she pushed the door open, strode past Charlie and invited herself in.
“Mrs. Brummer––” Charlie called after her.
The others quietly stared at Mrs. Brummer as she came in, eyes snooping and fists swinging stiffly below her thin waistline. She came in very hot as if bent to catch them unawares, but when she didn’t see anything fishy going on about the living room, a small part of her suspicion faded from her face.
“Sorry to bust in on you,” Mrs. Brummer said. “We have a strict policy regarding smoking and, well, never mind; I got a little carried away.”
“We’re not smoking weed as you see,” Charlie said. “Now please, do you mind?”
“Yes I do mind.” The eyes of the old lady went across the faces of everyone in the room. “I have a nose for trouble and, right now, I smell it all over the place.”
Suddenly her hand whipped the air in front of her face. Then she chin-indicated the cardboard box. “And didn’t I tell you to take that away? Now tell me––” her hand whipped again, this time at something buzzing about her earlobe, tickling it annoyingly “—should I be worried about something?”
Charlie hesitated to answer. The police would be here any minute. It was unadvised to let Mrs. Brummer in on what was really going on, and lose time dealing with her reaction. Time was precious; Charlie needed every bit of it to make Max’s case, to glean enough loopholes that could play in his defense.
“Has the cat suddenly got your tongue?” the old lady said again to voice her impatience.
Jen replied, “We … hmm … we’re just having a friendly little argument.”
“All right. Look, I don’t mean to be nosy but I won’t h
ave any funny business here. Not in this house. I won’t stand for it. So don’t give me reasons to suspect that you’re up to something that goes against housing policy.”
Jen nodded agreement to the fair warning because Mrs. Brummer was specifically addressing her.
“Okay, well… Have a good day,” the old lady said again and half rotated on her heels.
“Mrs. Brummer,” Charlie called, thinking of something. “Do you know if someone was in the attic at some point last night?”
“Why are you asking?”
“Just out of curiosity.”
Mrs. Brummer rubbed the tickling off her earlobe.
“As far as I know, the answer’s no,” she said. “The janitor and I are the only ones with the keys. If someone wanted to go in there, they'd have to come to us and––”
She didn’t complete her phrase. Rather, she pulled a flyswatter out from under her garb and, in a lightning bolt of time, smashed a fly that was milling about on a pedestal near her.
Right there Charlie stared at the old lady with curious eyes, her breath becoming short as a grave realization dawned on her.
“And nobody goes up there anyway,” Mrs. Brummer went on, putting the flyswatter back in her garb. “The place’s a real mess, crammed with old relics from the days of yore of the complex. Nobody ever got around to tidying it up. I think we’re going to seal it off, or turn it into a useful area, like a reading nook or something. We’ll see.”
Mrs. Brummer smiled a little. Then she started towards the front door.
Charlie thought quickly. The realization was drilling her brain, hurting her mind. She did not understand it yet. She did not understand how it was even possible. She only knew it was possible. She looked at the old lady as she moved to the door.
“You know,” Charlie said. “The knife you pointed out to us wasn’t ours after all.”
“Oh––” Mrs. Brummer stopped in her tracks. “Really?”
“Yes, really.”
“Well, now you have a spare,” she said, half turning to show her good profile.
Charlie inhaled uneasily and held her breath.
“Why did you plant it there?”
IV
A sour grimace crept over the face of the old lady. She turned completely to face Charlie.
“I beg your pardon?”
“You heard me,” Charlie said.
The nerve in her own voice surprised her. She felt as if her whole body was under pressure, as if her head might explode.
The others stared at Charlie in curious alarm.
Jen said, in a low voice, “What are you doing?”
But Charlie ignored her. She held her eyes on Mrs. Brummer, well aware of the accusation that was in them and which the old lady was plainly seeing.
“Listen, young lady,” the old lady hissed back, “you watch your tone with me. I don’t know what kind of sick game this is but––”
“—You know perfectly well what this is.”
Tara sprung in to limit the damage.
She said to her landlady, “I’m sorry; we’re all going through a rough patch here and––just ignore us.”
“No––wait a second, Tara,” Charlie said. “She knows she planted that knife.” To Mrs. Brummer, Charlie barked. “Now why did you do it?”
Tara looked at Charlie as if her friend was going mad right before her eyes.
Mrs. Brummer jerked her head furiously.
“Okay, that’s it!” She said, “I don’t have to listen to this nonsense.”
She stomped to the front door, but before her hand could turn the knob, Charlie was already there, bounding over to the door, keeping it shut with her weight. The old lady’s eyes grew wide with fright. She stepped back from Charlie.
“What’s wrong with you?” Mrs. Brummer said, her teeth clenching. “Have you gone berserk?”
Simon found himself concerned about Charlie’s aggressive behavior too.
“Charlie––” He called.
“—She must know what happened to the victim,” Charlie said.
“Victim?” Mrs. Brummer repeated.
“Why would she have planted the knife otherwise?”
“You keep saying that,” Mrs. Brummer protested, “and I still don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Tara slowly sighed. “Charlie, we’re looking for a man, remember?”
“The lighting wasn’t great, you said.” Charlie looked at Tara. “You could easily mistake a woman for a man under such circumstances.”
Tara’s mouth opened and then closed. But no sound came out. Except the sound of a silent discord.
V
Tara said at once, “Charlie this is a stretch––”
“—No, it’s not. It’s not improbable. You could’ve easily made that mistake.”
“I don’t think so!” Tara argued.
“Do you know so?” Charlie’s eyes riveted to Peter, who had been quietly listening to all the fuss from his corner of seclusion. “Tell me you’re one hundred percent positive that it was a man you saw.”
Peter hesitated. He frowned. He licked his lips.
“There was not enough lighting,” he said, “It’s hard to be sure.” Tara threw a peeved look at him and he said to her, “It’s hard to tell … you could hardly see anything down the hall.”
Mrs. Brummer’s face suddenly became lined with extreme anger. She exploded.
“What is all this about? Now I warn you, you are pushing the envelope here and if you keep this up, I’m going to have to terminate your residency here, you hear me?”
Charlie didn’t seem fazed at all. She just stared defiantly. A sort of strange emotion was animating the facial features of the old lady as she issued her warning. And it wasn’t anger. Anger had nothing to do with it, Charlie thought. It was more like an age-old malevolence, deep-rooted and inhumane. Charlie had never noticed that before, until she’d taken a good look today.
“Listen to me, Charlie,” Tara said, almost in a moan. “I know what I saw. The man wore eyeglasses and his hair was cut really short… And I mean close cropped. She doesn’t even wear eyeglasses. And her hair…”
Charlie gave some thought to that. Tara was right. She had never seen Mrs. Brummer wearing eyeglasses. And her hair was long and stringy. The premise of Charlie’s accusation, therefore, fell awfully short. She now felt unsure of everything. That’s when Jen said, “Ahem … the janitor told me once that … huh … her night vision was impaired. And sometimes she had to wear eyeglasses to go around at night.”
Charlie quickly raised her eyebrows at the old lady. She said:
“Is that a wig that you have on?”
“Now who do you think you are to ask me that?”
“Alright, Charlie, let’s say she wears eyeglasses,” Carol said. “And she has a wig on. That still doesn’t prove anything.”
“Right,” Mrs. Brummer said. “For crying out loud, before accusing me of anything, what proof do you have that I’ve supposedly planted that knife, huh? What is your evidence?”
Charlie said nothing. A palpable tension was circulating through the room like a fish moving along in a river. And everyone could feel it. It made them uncomfortable…
“I realize this is a shot in the dark,” Charlie finally said, her voice slightly different. “But I’m just going to put it out there.” She looked at Mrs. Brummer. “Do you happen to have with you that USB cork you told us about?”
The old lady knitted her brow, grunting.
“What ––”
“—Do you have it on you?”
“What does that have to do with anything?”
“You have it or not?”
Mrs. Brummer shifted into a relaxed posture, but her face was still a nasty pout. Her hand disappeared inside her garb.
“I don’t know where you’re going with this, but I won’t take any more of this brass. Soon as we’re done here, I want yo
u out. All of you... Or I call the police.”
Mrs. Brummer pulled the cork out and presented it to Charlie. But then she froze when her eyes dropped on the little object clasped between her fingers. She blinked at it madly, uncomprehendingly.
The others gradually shared the same incomprehension. Then Tara said, with shock, “Hey—it’s the cork I sketched the magnolia on early this morning.”
At that, Charlie dug inside her pants’ pocket and came out with a cork. She showed it to everyone. It was a USB cork identical in every way to the cork Mrs. Brummer was still holding, except for the drawing on its topside.
VI
In reference to the USB cork, Charlie explained, “I picked it up right next to where the knife was found. And I think it fell out of your pocket when you covertly planted the knife—a meat cleaver to be exact—behind that piece of furniture.”
“But how did she plant it though?” Dom asked. “I didn’t see her do it.”
Carol nodded. She said:
“We were all out here with her while you were in the kitchen.”
“My guess is that she probably used a string to lay down the knife in place as gently as possible so she wouldn’t have to bend. Then she saw the other cork in her vicinity––” Charlie glanced down at the old lady’s footwear: flat house slippers. “And all she had to do was to nab it with her toe and hide it in her slipper. She didn’t notice it was the wrong cork then since both are practically identical. And that’s the mistake you made.”
There was silence. Presently, Mrs. Brummer’s face turned a different color. The look in her eye was ugly, full of spite and hatred. There was no telling what thoughts were flashing across that mind of hers.
“You’re a darn pretty smart girl, aren’t you?” she said at last to Charlie.
Tara’s mouth gaped in horror:
“Oh my god––”
“—Oh please! Don’t throw me those ridiculous bulging eyes of yours,” Mrs. Brummer said with disdain, squaring her shoulders with dignity. “You know nothing; you haven’t lived yet to see real horrors.”
Charlie hesitated to ask:
“But why?”