Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 51, No. 1 & 2, January/February 2006

After the Fall by Elaine Viets

Mort was walking down the street Monday morning when a woman landed splat! on the sidewalk, right in front of him.

She burst like a water balloon, and Mort was splashed with a tidal wave of blood and little dots of gray-white that he couldn’t identify. Then he could and his stomach heaved. He was already dizzy from the coppery smell of the blood. He was starting a sickly sway when a man in a dirty white apron ran out of Sammy d’s Deli and said, “Whoa, pal, where are you hurt? You been shot? Don’t worry, we’ve called an ambulance.”

“It’s not my blood,” Mort said. “It’s hers.” He pointed to the small twisted figure on the sidewalk. That steadied him somehow, and he was able to go on without fainting or throwing up.

“Jesus,” the deli man said. “She must have jumped.”

They both looked up and saw curtains flapping out of an open window far, far above them.

“You’re darn lucky,” the deli man said. “A few inches more and she would have landed on you. She would have killed you dead.”

The EMS people told Mort he was lucky too, as they took him to the hospital, where he was scrubbed down with a horrible harsh disinfectant that clogged his sensitive nasal passages. It smelled of cherries, like some perverted candy.

“Sorry,” the nurse said when he complained of the smell, “but we have to do this for your protection. Bodies are crawling with bacteria.”

Mort felt queasy all over again at the unseen horrors invading his sensitive skin, burrowing into his nose and distorting his taste buds. For Mort Heffern was an ordinary man in every way but one. He was average height: five feet seven. He was ordinary looking, with a little round paunch and small brown eyes. His thin, tan hair was receding. Well, to be honest, it had already receded.

Yet ordinary Mort enjoyed many extraordinary delights, including a luscious blond wife, a five-bedroom house in Nyack, New York, and a bottle-green Range Rover because of one unusual feature. Mort’s sense of taste was superbly sensitive. It was so sensitive that he was a coffee taster for a top New York firm. Mort’s taste buds could distinguish Kona (which he considered overrated) from Kenya AA. He could even tell you the slope where the coffee beans grew.

To protect his precious taste buds and their ally, his nose, Mort never smoked. He’d only had one cigarette in his life, back when he was sixteen, before he decided to become a taster and forsake smoking for the rarer and more exquisite pleasure of tasting. Sometimes, he thought about that one smoke. But mostly he thought about all the good things his taste buds brought him because he didn’t smoke.

Naturally, he did not drink. Nor did he wear cologne or use scented soap, and he did not permit his luscious wife, Jasmine, to use them, either. When he first met her, Jasmine was as fragrant as her namesake flower, but he couldn’t tolerate living with such a strong scent. She gave it up for him. Mort lavished Jasmine with jewelry to console her for her loss.

Now his taste buds and nose were clogged with the ugly scent of the woman’s death and the overpowering odor of that disgusting cherry disinfectant. Mort had no idea what the woman looked like in real life. He caught only a flash of pale arms, flailing legs, and wide, horrified eyes, before she hit the pavement and made a splash.

He didn’t mean to be flip about the woman’s terrible death. He was shaken, that’s all. He called the office of Percardian and Sons from the hospital and explained why he wouldn’t be at work that day. Mr. Percardian Senior was sympathetic.

“Take a couple of days off,” he said. “Shock can throw off your taste buds.”

Mort slept badly that night. He couldn’t get that splat! out of his mind. The sound was like something out of a cartoon, except that a woman had exploded like a ripe watermelon on the sidewalk and showered him with her blood.

Finally, after tossing and turning and awakening Jasmine several times, Mort got up and sat in the living room. He wished he had a cigarette. He could see it, glowing in the dark night. He could taste it. But he didn’t. He showered three times, trying to remove the smell of disinfectant. But his powerful smelling and tasting apparatus could still detect the faint traces of the cloying candylike scent.

At six A.M., when the newspaper arrived, Mort looked for a story about the dead woman. It was on page six. He learned that she was Patricia Henley Daniels, forty-seven, a special education teacher. She was married to Decameron Daniels, fifty-one, a stockbroker with Wayne-Symmons. The accident occurred at about seven thirty Monday morning. Her husband told police that he had been dressing in their bedroom when he heard a noise and noticed the living room window was open. He said his wife had been depressed about her father’s recent death from cancer. Patricia had jumped or fallen twenty-one stories to her death.

In her photo, Patricia looked small and pretty. She had large dark eyes, curly dark hair, and a friendly smile. She looked like the sort of person you would want to teach your child. Mort felt sad that she had ended her useful life on a Manhattan sidewalk.

Mort was mentioned too in the news story: “Police said the deceased had fallen close to a passerby on the sidewalk, Mort Heffern, forty-two, of Nyack. Heffern was not injured.”

“Not injured” indeed, thought Mort, as he replayed that awful splat! in his mind and smelled the odor of cherry disinfectant. His hands shook so badly the newspaper rattled.

He stayed home that day as his boss, Mr. Percardian, advised. Mort was pale and tired and everything still tasted of hospital disinfectant. He showered every hour, praying the insinuating cherry scent would leave his nostrils.

He ate sparingly, hoping the blandness of white meat of turkey and whole wheat bread would restore his tortured taste buds. But under the soothing taste of prime turkey breast he caught the corrupting cherry tang. Even sharp English mustard on his sandwich did not remove it.

He tried to nap between his several showers, but every time he closed his eyes, he saw the flailing limbs of Patricia Henley Daniels. Now the dead woman had a face, and he saw those dark eyes, pleading with him to save her in the last dreadful seconds of her life. Then he heard the splat!

“Are you still carrying on about that jumper?” Jasmine was filled with wifely concern. “You should be glad she didn’t land on you. You’re lucky.”

“Lucky!” Mort snapped, his patience at an end. “Everyone keeps saying I was lucky. I was nearly killed. I keep seeing that poor woman hitting the sidewalk. It was awful.”

“Poor baby,” Jasmine said. “Maybe you need some sleeping pills or something.”

But Mort couldn’t take sleeping pills. They made his tongue feel as if it was covered with fur and that interfered with his tasting.

Jasmine made his favorite comfort food that night, homemade tomato-vegetable soup. But the bits of vegetables and rice reminded him of the odd bits and specks the nurse had cleaned off him. And the soup was blood red. He pushed his bowl away, feeling nauseated. Jasmine looked hurt, but she bravely tried to understand.

“Not hungry, baby?” She kissed his broad forehead. “You must try to eat something. I got your favorite dessert.”

She returned with another soup bowl, this one filled with Cherry Garcia ice cream. He could smell the revolting cherry odor before she walked through the dining room door. His stomach gave a mighty heave and he barely made it to the bathroom in time. Patricia’s death resulted in another tragedy. Cherry Garcia had been ruined for Mort for all time, and he mourned the loss.

Mort couldn’t sleep that night, either. Or rather, he would doze off until he saw Patricia in front of him, helplessly clawing the air in the last futile seconds of her life. He would hear the splat! her body made and wake up, panting and sweating, sheets twisted around him, Jasmine blinking unhappily in the light he’d so rudely turned on.

Once more he got up and sat in the living room, staring out the window, wishing for a cigarette, until the morning paper arrived. Today, there were interviews with Patricia’s friends and colleagues saying what a fine person she was. There was more news: The police were investigating her death as “suspicious,” although the story didn’t say why.

Mort spent another day at home, showering, sipping bottled water, and nibbling white meat of turkey. His resilient taste buds were beginning to recover. The dreadful stink of cherries was retreating from his nostrils. Jasmine gave him the comfort of her sweet, unscented self, but did not fix him any food that day. He still heard the splat! in his dreams, and he still sat up most of the night, waiting for dawn and wishing for a cigarette.

It was an exhausted Mort who went out on his porch for the paper that morning. But he woke up when he saw Patricia’s name on the front page. The story said the police had arrested Patricia’s husband, Decameron, for her murder.

The police said Patricia had not been depressed about her father’s death, as her husband claimed. Her friends said she rarely saw the bad-tempered old man and was pleasantly surprised when he’d left her a million dollars. Six days before her death, Patricia discovered that Decameron was having an affair with a woman at his brokerage firm. Patricia had been planning to dump her unfaithful husband without a penny.

The police said Decameron had killed his wife so that he could inherit her million dollars and marry his cookie. They found suspicious-looking scratches on Decameron’s hands and arms that indicated Patricia had fought for her life.

The paper showed a photo of the woman Decameron supposedly had the affair with. She was a blonde of about forty, who looked like a B-movie adulteress. Mort thought she was cheap and obvious compared to pretty little Patricia. As far as Mort was concerned, Decameron had no taste.

But Mort did. His delicate taste buds had recovered, despite his tiredness. He was ready to return to work. But when he got to the block where it happened, he heard that horrible wet splat! rend the air and saw Patricia’s windmilling limbs again. He walked two blocks out of his way to avoid the awful vision and ran smack into a coffee cart featuring warm cherry Danish. The smell was so unnerving, he went yet another block out of his way. He arrived at work half an hour late, jumpy as a bishop in a brothel.

His hands shook and he craved a cigarette so badly he could taste it. He knew it would destroy his career, but he thought only a soothing smoke could blot out the horrible splat! and erase the smell of that sickening cherry disinfectant.

After six more sleepless nights, Mort gave in. He drove to an all-night convenience store and found the same brand he’d smoked at sixteen: Lucky Strikes. It was three A.M. He went outside and lit up on his back porch. As he breathed in the first smoke, he felt the nicotine course through him and got a buzz he hadn’t felt in years. A pleasant buzz, better than coffee, more soothing. Yet he felt more alive at the same time. It was just the jolt his system needed. He watched the white smoke curl upward to the stars, and smelled only burning tobacco and cool night air. The vile odor of cherries was gone.

Of course, he could never smoke again. He knew that. He finished his cigarette and buried the butt in the garden. Then he washed his pajamas and showered and scrubbed his teeth until the cigarette smell was gone. Finally, exhausted, he fell into a dreamless sleep.

At breakfast, he craved another cigarette with his morning paper. He read a story that said Patricia’s husband Decameron had hired Jasper J. Cowell as his attorney. Cowell said his client was innocent and he would prove it.

Mort was afraid. Cowell had a reputation for twisting facts and confusing witnesses so that his guilty clients went free. Poor Patricia would never receive justice and neither would Mort. Patricia’s death had shattered his nerves, upset his delicate tasting apparatus, and ruined any enjoyment of cherries forever.

Mort worried that Patricia’s husband would escape punishment, as so many wealthy wife killers had before him. The cigarette craving grew worse. At lunch, he went to La Jeunesse, to treat himself to a civilized French meal. But alas, the day’s special was duck breast in cherry sauce, and the restaurant was permeated with the fowl odor. Mort left and had a bland turkey sandwich from the coffee shop in his office building. He still wanted a cigarette. He wanted it at one thirty and at three and at six and ten that night. He didn’t give in to his craving until three o’clock in the morning.

As he puffed on the cigarette in his garden, Mort promised himself he’d never smoke at the office.

He kept that promise one week.

It was Mr. Percardian Senior who caught Mort on the third-floor landing of the fire stairs, blowing smoke out the window.

“I am sorry,” Mr. Percardian said. “I know that you have been under a strain recently. But you know the rules. Smoking destroys the taste buds. Even one cigarette is enough to ruin them forever, and from the yellow stains on your teeth and fingers, this is not your first cigarette. When I noticed them, I suspected as much, and followed you. I must let you go.”

Mort left the office where he’d worked for more than seventeen years, engulfed in shame and rage. He was no longer a coffee taster and he could never be one again. Mr. Percardian would see to that. Mort had loved his job. He was not one more cog in the great mercantile machine of New York, but a big wheel in his world. Now he was a jobless nobody. His beautiful young wife Jasmine, used to the little luxuries he could provide, would leave him when he didn’t have any money.

But she did not.

“Don’t worry, baby,” she said. “I know you’re disappointed, but now you can work for my brother’s dotcom company. You’ll make a ton of money, even more than you did as a coffee taster. And I can wear perfume again.”

Mort went to work for his brother-in-law, a grinning dipwad who called him Buddy, just like he called everyone else, because he couldn’t remember names. Mort made more money than he had as a coffee taster. But he was unhappy. He hated this meaningless work. He couldn’t even drink the office coffee. Dipwad bought it in bulk from an office supply company. It tasted like warm mulch.

Mort missed the prestige of his old job. Decameron the wife-murderer had a lot to answer for. He’d killed Mort’s career. He’d murdered Mort’s sleep. Mort was awakened by that fatal splat! at least once a night. Then he’d sit up the rest of the night smoking.

Mort followed the approaching murder trial in the papers. Decameron’s lawyer was using every possible delaying tactic and dirty trick, but the prosecuting attorney promised that the wife killer would get life in prison.

Good. Maybe then Mort would once more sleep easy. Maybe he would get through a day without sneaking around for a cigarette like a teenager. Mort couldn’t smoke in his dipwad brother-in-law’s office, because it was bad for the computers. He sneaked smokes around the Dumpster with half a dozen other nicotine renegades, his sensitive nose assaulted by the stench of garbage, until the healing cigarette smoke blotted out the odor.

Mort returned home each night to find his wife drenched in jasmine scent. The bathroom reeked of jasmine soap, lotion, and bubble bath, and his delicate nostrils itched in protest. But Jasmine refused to give up her perfume, no matter how many blue boxes from Tiffany’s Mort brought her.

“It was one thing to give up perfume for your job, Mort. But now you want me to give it up because you’re so sensitive. Well, I’m sensitive too.” Jasmine looked mean when she said that. He didn’t remember giving her that tennis bracelet on her shapely arm.

“Where did you get that...” he started to say “bracelet,” but then realized she might tell him, and changed his sentence to “scratch on your arm?”

“From my kitten, Puss-Puss.” She opened the garage door and out strutted a white hairball with malicious blue eyes. “Puss-Puss is a gift from a friend.”

The only thing that Mort hated more than perfume was cats. Jasmine had never had one before. The litterbox odor permeated the house, even if Jasmine did keep it in the basement. But Mort was afraid to ask who the cat-giving friend was. Jasmine might tell him. In fact, she seemed to be daring him to ask.

Mort began adding scotch to his nightly smokes. The booze blotted out the olfactory assaults caused by his wife’s perfume and her cat. After a few drinks, he didn’t even mind the tumbleweeds of cat hair drifting around the house.

He started taking a scotch bottle to work to get him through the boredom of his dotcom days. He couldn’t seem to negotiate the garage very well lately, and that caused a couple of little dents his bottle-green Rover, but he thought it only improved it. A tough vehicle was supposed to have a few dents.

When Jasmine complained, he bought her a red ragtop Eclipse. He did not buy her the crystal pendant that she hung on the ragtop’s rearview mirror and he didn’t ask where she got it. He was certain she was seeing someone else. He wondered when his marriage would be over.

It ended the night he accidentally ran over Puss-Puss in the driveway.

“I’m sorry, Jasmine, I didn’t see the cat,” he said, as she cried over the crushed body.

“No,” she spat back. “You saw two. You’ve been drinking for months. I can’t take it any more.”

The next day, when he came home from his dull dotcom job, his wife left him, or rather, she asked him to leave her. His bags were packed and waiting in the garage. The locks were changed on all the doors. He got a good lawyer. She had a better one.

Jasmine got the house, the ragtop, and a staggering amount of alimony. He couldn’t possibly pay it, especially after his dipwad ex-brother-in-law fired him. He didn’t care. Jasmine would leave him alone if there was no money. He found out she’d moved in with a car dealer — the same one who sold Mort her red Eclipse.

Mort traded in the bottle-green Range Rover for a 1978 Torino whose main color was Bondo gray, got a cheap apartment and a job delivering pizzas. Not even gourmet pizzas, but junk food made from frozen dough, canned tomato sauce, and cheese that melted like napalm. The smell revolted his twitching taste buds, but he ate the pizzas anyway. They were about all he could afford. That and scotch and smokes.

At night, Mort would drink and think about how Decameron the wife killer had ruined his life. He had been a happy man until that scumbag pushed his pretty wife out the window. Mort seethed with the injustice of one man ending two lives with a single push.

Mort arranged his life around Decameron’s upcoming murder trial. He delivered pizzas after six P.M. By day he sat in on the trial. Mort and Patricia would have justice at last, and he would see it. At first, Mort was afraid he’d be called as a witness, but fortunately, his drinking and employment history made him too unreliable for either side to use. So he was free to be a spectator.

He looked with horror on the prosecution’s exhibit photos of the dead woman splattered on the sidewalk. Her death was even worse than he dreamed. The photos added new color and depth to his nightmares.

He grew queasy as the experts described just how far twenty-one stories was from window to ground, and how long it would take a body to fall that distance. He thrilled with horror at the pathologist’s description of what had happened to her body as it hit the sidewalk. Every bone was broken. Every bone.

Mort heard her late father’s executor testify about Patricia’s inheritance. Her attorney swore that she had made an appointment to change her will and disinherit her husband. She died before she could keep it.

He saw the prosecution’s photos of the scratches on Decameron’s hands and arms. Poor little Patricia had fought like a wildcat before her husband threw her out the window. It was terrible. They found his skin under her broken nails.

But more terrible were the explanations of the defense. The crafty Cowell had a psychiatrist testify that it was “not uncommon to commit suicide within six weeks of losing a family member.” Patricia’s father had been dead for one month. The shrink also said that two-thirds of all suicides did not leave a note. Patricia had left no note.

Cowell produced a prescription for Prozac from her family doctor. Mort wished the good doctor did not look so much like a water rat, from his beady eyes to his shaggy gray suit. The man was hostile to the defense, insisting Patricia was “not the victim of a major depressive disorder.” When Cowell finished with him, the doctor seemed incompetent.

Then Cowell put the woman Decameron was supposed to be having an affair with on the stand. Hannah Higginsworth looked nothing like her photo in the newspaper. Her mousy brown hair was pulled into an unflattering bun. Her suit was inexpensive brown polyester. It turned her complexion an ugly mud color. Her figure was positively maternal. Her nails were short and unpainted. Hannah said she was a victim of vicious office gossip and wept on the stand.

Mort knew the slick lawyer had pulled another of his tricks. He’d dressed Hannah like a frump and ordered her to gain weight. You could imagine her making cookies for the church bake sale, not hunting husbands.

Especially not Patricia’s husband. On the stand he looked so smooth, so sincere, so handsome, that Mort knew Decameron had been rehearsed better than a Broadway actor.

The prosecutor could not break him. Yes, he had scratches on his hands and arms. He also had them on his back. His wife had made passionate love to him on the last morning of her life, then said, “Hold me one more time.” Decameron thought she meant, “Hold me before I leave for work.” He did not realize he was listening to her last wish.

A single manly tear made its way down his face. Decameron bravely ignored it. He loved his wife, he insisted. He would never kill her. He could not imagine having an affair with that woman, Hannah. He said her name with a sneer.

Cowell introduced photos of Decameron’s back, slashed with scratches. Cowell claimed these were passion scars made by Patricia. She’d also scratched his hands and arms. Decameron said he did not tell the police about them when he was arrested because he was in shock. How could he remember a few scratches when his beloved wife was dead?

Mort thought that argument was clever, but flawed. The defense couldn’t prove the scratches on Decameron’s back were made by Patricia. Any woman could have made them any time — even Hannah before she cut her nails. Surely no one was buying that story?

Mort glanced at the jury. The women were smiling at Decameron. The men were nodding their heads in agreement.

At that moment, Mort knew there would be no justice for Patricia or for himself. The prosecutor’s inept cross examination guaranteed it. Mort would never again have a peaceful night’s sleep. He had lost his exceptional job, his desirable wife, and his handsome house, all because Decameron had tossed tiny Patricia out a window. One splat! and Mort’s own dreams were dashed.

Mort did not wait around the courthouse for the not guilty verdict. He did not want to see the smile of triumph on Decameron’s face. As it was, he saw it in the newspaper the next morning.

Mort spent the next month in a cigarette-and-scotch fog, but even these could not blot out the Technicolor re-enactments of Patricia’s last moments. Somehow, he held onto his pizza delivery job. When the debauched fog cleared, he decided if the law could not provide justice, then he would deliver it to Decameron’s door.

He spent another month watching Decameron and learning his habits. The killer still lived in the same co-op on the twenty-first floor, but not alone. A lush blonde went in and out as if she lived there too. It took awhile before Decameron recognized her as the maternal mud-colored brunette who cried on the witness stand. Hannah had lost weight, so that her figure was now curvaceous. Her curves were cuddled in colorful Escada suits. He knew the designer, because his own curvaceous ex-wife used to wear the same suits. Hannah’s hair was now a stylish blonde. Her sensible shoes were replaced by spike heels. Hannah was definitely homewrecker material.

She stuck close by her man. Hannah rarely went out without Decameron. She wore him on her arm as if he was another flashy accessory. Mort noticed only one pattern. Every Tuesday night, without fail, Hannah left the apartment at eight P.M. and did not return until midnight. That was Mort’s window of opportunity.

He decided Decameron would die next Tuesday night. He was not going to enjoy Patricia’s money and Hannah’s splendors much longer. Mort would see to that. He would have justice in four days.

Once he decided to kill Decameron, Mort slept better. In fact, for the first time since poor Patricia died, he began sleeping all night through, without that awful splat!

He gave up the booze and cigarettes. He wanted his mind clear the moment he killed Decameron. He wanted his wonderful olfactory apparatus to be working again. He wanted to smell Decameron’s fear. He wanted to taste his triumph as the body went out the window.

Mort carefully plotted every detail. On Tuesday night, he drove into Manhattan, dressed in his pizza delivery uniform, which made him virtually invisible. He even found a legal parking space, which he took as a sign that God had smiled on his mission. He saw Hannah leave at eight o’clock. At eight fifteen, the bored doorman buzzed in Mort. He went up to the twenty-first floor and knocked on Decameron’s door.

“Pizza!” he said.

Decameron came to his door and looked out the peephole at the balding, mild-looking man holding the pizza box.

He opened the door and said, “I didn’t order—”

Mort had been made ox-strong by months of carrying pizzas in heavy insulated bags up to fourth-floor walkups. He hit Decameron with the full force of his rage and misery.

A stunned Decameron landed flat on the floor. Mort slammed the door and pulled out the tire iron from the pizza box. He broke Decameron’s arms and legs with swift strokes. Decameron screamed in pain and terror.

Mort could taste his fear. It was bitter. Very bitter. And sweet. So very sweet.

“At the trial, the pathologist said your wife fought like a wildcat to live,” Mort said. “You won’t be able to fight me off. You can’t kick me, either. And these broken bones won’t be noticed at your autopsy, because all your bones will be broken in another moment, Decameron. You’re going to join your wife.”

Mort flung open the living room window while Decameron tried to scoot toward the door. He didn’t get far. Mort dragged him across the polished wood floor toward the open window. He was careful to hold Decameron by his shoes, so there were no drag marks on the parquet.

Decameron moaned. “Why are you doing this?” he said, sounding like a dead man already.

“Because when your wife went out the window, so did my career,” Mort said. “I was the man on the street when Patricia landed. The innocent bystander who was drenched with her blood. The horror that I saw cost me my job, my marriage, and my house. There was no justice for me in court. But I will have justice now.”

He flung Decameron out the window. Mort heard him scream all the way down. Then he heard the splat! It was such a satisfying sound.

Mort looked out the window to see his triumph, twenty-one floors below. He saw a man standing on the sidewalk. An ordinary man. Drenched with Decameron’s blood.

Mort was horrified. It was as if he was watching Patricia’s death all over again, from a different, more terrible view — the same way God must have seen it.

“I didn’t check to see if anyone was walking down the street,” Mort wept. “I forgot to look.”

But he would not forget now.