What is the dark heap on the floor? It looks like a pile of clothes. Except—is that an arm?
Wake up, he says to himself. Wake up, wake up, wake up. But he is awake.
He struggles to a sitting position. The pile of clothes—or maybe it’s a pile of sheets and Aileen, prone to distraction, left them here, she can be quite messy—is fairly close to his bedside and while he cannot move his bad leg, he has the core strength to lean out of the bed for a better look.
The pile of clothes is Margot, her black cape surrounding her like a velvety puddle. Did he dream the second part of their encounter? Did he push her hard enough to harm her? Didn’t she leave? Wasn’t Victoria here when everything happened?
Margot’s face is turned away from him. He takes the walker, the one he used in his own defense, and prods the body until her head lolls toward him. A happy little salesman appears to be dancing on Margot’s face.
It’s the handle of his father’s old letter opener, Acme School Furniture, and it’s been plunged into Margot’s left eye up to the hilt.
Light fills the room; the crimson sunrise has yielded quickly to a blue sky with cumulus clouds skittering by like sailboats. It’s going to be a gorgeous day. Oh, say can you see? Oh, say can you see? Oh, say can you see?
PART II
GIRLS
March 13
THUD, THUD, THUD. Thud, thud, thud.
It’s a familiar sound, but Gerry can’t identify it, not with the blood pounding in his ears and his mind darting around, trying to make sense of the tableau before him.
Thud, thud, thud.
Maybe it’s the telltale heart, although how would one bury a body beneath a floor of poured concrete? If only. If only there were a heart still beating inside that black puddle of cloth, if only a brain were still humming inside Margot’s damaged skull.
Thud, thud, thud.
It’s Aileen’s heavy tread on the stairs. Shit. She always comes up to say goodbye in the mornings, although Gerry usually feigns sleep to avoid conversation with her. Maybe he should do that now, play possum. Maybe he is asleep. A dream would be dreamy. This is a dream, it has to be a dream, and when he awakes, the shape will be gone, in the same way the apparition disappeared that one night. Opioid-fueled delusions, dementia, who cares? All that matters is an explanation for what he thinks he sees on the floor. He closes his eyes. Maybe his eyes were always closed.
Thud, thud, thud.
Then—nothing. The moment of silence stretches out. He keeps thinking she will scream and when she doesn’t, it gives him hope. Her breathing is regular, in and out, a little huffy as always after she climbs the stairs, but normal, measured.
“Oh my,” she says. “What happened here?”
He opens his eyes. There stands Aileen in her puffy coat, arms akimbo, the not-so-little teapot, tall and stout. Her knitting bag dangles from the crook of her elbow.
“I don’t know, I honestly don’t know,” Gerry says. “She showed up yesterday, but I sent her away. She attacked me, she scratched me, and I fended her off, but I didn’t—I wouldn’t. And that was earlier, when Victoria was here. I didn’t—I couldn’t—I don’t know how—”
“She sneaked back in,” Aileen says. Or asks. Her calmness is surreal, but she is a nurse, she has seen things that others have not.
“She must have. I don’t know how. She knows I have to leave the front door unlocked, maybe she hid in the stairwell between the floors—”
He sounds ludicrous. Could he have done this? That sounds ludicrous, too, the idea of Margot spending hours in a stairwell. But Victoria was here until five and there was no body on the floor when Aileen arrived at seven. This has happened overnight. He is proud that he can pinpoint this, then appalled. Margot is dead, in his apartment, and not even she is drama queen enough to plunge a letter opener into her own eye.
“This is bad, Mr. Andersen.” For once, he is grateful for Aileen’s flat aspect, her gift for understatement.
“I guess we need to call the police,” he says.
“Sure,” Aileen says, although she doesn’t move. “Obviously, it was self-defense.”
“Yes,” he says. “I mean, I think. I don’t remember anything.” He wonders if sleep-murdering is another potential side effect of Ambien. “Any statement I give would be inherently false.”
“You need time,” she says. “The worst thing to do in an emergency is go off half-cocked without a plan.”
“Yes,” he agrees fervently. “Maybe call a lawyer or—”