Pity Him Afterwards

Flaunting herself at him. Giving him the sidelong looks. Smiling in that suggestive way. Swinging her body in front of him.

She had asked for it. By first promising him release, and then by turning him away. How vicious that was! She’d deserved to die.

But what was he to do now? They would find her body, sooner or later. What was he to do?

He could run. He could run away again, as he had run away from the asylum.

But it was unfair. He was happy here. He was safe here, and content. He was with people he liked. It was unfair that he should have to give all this up, just because that stupid girl had forced him to kill her.

Could he stay?

He had an alibi. He was downstairs at the rehearsal. Yes, he’d left the room for a few minutes, but so had everybody else at one time or another. He would be suspect, but so would everyone else.

And they needn’t even think it was a member of the company. The front door was unlocked. Anyone could have come in, anyone at all. A stranger, a prowler.

He could take a chance on it. If it looked as though they might catch up with him, he would have to run away. Otherwise, he’d take a chance on it.

He hurried into the bathroom to wash his face and hands, to adjust his clothing and look at himself in the mirror to be sure he bore no signs of what had happened. There were no signs. He was clean. He could go back downstairs. He could stay on here with these people.

He loved these people. They had taken him in, they were good to him.

And all at once he felt sad. Because they had all liked Cissie Walker. They would be unhappy that she was dead. They would miss her.

He was unhappy, too, about her death. Because it would make his new friends sad. And because she had only been a foolish girl, not a mean girl. What had happened had been no more her fault than his. She had just been very young and silly, and hadn’t realized the effect she had on men. And he had been too long away from women, and hadn’t realized she didn’t really mean the promises she seemed to make.

Would this spoil things? It had been a mistake, that’s all, they’d both been mistaken, and the result had been inevitable. He hadn’t wanted to kill her, he hadn’t gone up there to kill her. He had intended to kill that old man and old woman, but he hadn’t intended to kill Cissie Walker.

He wanted them to understand that. Not Doctor Chax; he had no explanations for Doctor Chax. His new friends, they were the ones. He wanted them to know he hadn’t meant it, he wished it hadn’t happened. He couldn’t tell them so without them knowing it was he who had killed her, but he wanted them to know.

There was a bar of soap on the sink. He picked it up and wrote with it on the mirror:

I’m Sorry

That was all. They would understand. After all, he didn’t have to write that there, so they would know he meant it sincerely.

He put the soap back on the sink, wiped his hands again on the towel, and went back down to the rehearsal room. He’d been gone no more than ten minutes.

The scene was still going on. Everyone was watching Loueen and Dick. No one paid any attention to him when he came in and sat down.

Five minutes later, Ralph Schoen had them turn to another scene, in which all of them appeared. The madman carried his playbook up to the front of the room with the others, and went through the scene with them. It was a brief scene, and then Ralph talked to them, criticizing their interpretations of the characters, though most of them had simply read the lines with no attempt yet at characterization. And then they were interrupted by Bob Haldemann, bringing in the actor who was a day late. It was a short interruption, and when it ended, Ralph had them go through the group scene again.

They’d barely started reading when they heard the shouts begin. Shrill male cries: “Help! Help!” And heavy footsteps thudding down the stairs.

Eric Sondgard had been back on the job barely three days when the call came from the summer theater. Joyce Ravenfield — mayor’s daughter, City Hall receptionist, one-woman clerical staff, answerer of calls to all city departments including the police force — this Joyce Ravenfield buzzed Eric Sondgard’s office at precisely four thirty-six. “Call from the theater, Eric,” she said. “They say there’s been a murder.”

“Are they still on the line?” He hadn’t reacted at all to the terrible word; later on, he’d have leisure to wonder about that. Another psychic tooth to poke at.

“Yes, I think so.”

“Tell them not to touch anything. Call Mike, have him get out there. Tell him just hold the fort, don’t do anything.”

“Right.”

“Find Dave. He’s probably at the boat. Tell him to come here and mind the store till I get back.”

“Will do. Should I wake the boy?”

She meant Larry Temple, who was working night patrol, and who wouldn’t be waking up for another two or three hours. Songard said, “No, let him sleep. We won’t be needing any extra manpower.”

“Okay. Anything else?”