100 Malicious Little Mysteries

Matinee by Ruth Wissmann

“It isn’t my fault I fell in love with you,” Carla said. She placed her elbow on the pillow, her chin in her hand and gazed at the man on the bed beside her. “I didn’t want to. I really didn’t want to become involved like this. It just — happened.”

He smiled and rumpled her hair. “But you aren’t sorry,” he said. “I know you aren’t.”

She sighed, sat up and swung her legs from the side of the bed and, after a moment of quiet reflection, said, “No, I’m not sorry, Alan, but I’m not happy either.”

“It’s one of those things, baby,” he said. “You’ll get over it — the worry, I mean. That’s what you’re referring to again. Right?” She nodded.

“Sometimes,” she said, “I look at Tom and get the most God-awful feeling that he knows about us.”

“I should hope not! Aw — he couldn’t.”

A frown shadowed her face. “I know. At least, I don’t see how...”

“We’ve been careful.” He spoke in a relaxed, contented tone of voice.

“Yes. Careful and foolish and selfish and—”

“Come on now. No self-contempt, please.”

Looking around the motel room, Carla said, “I’m always afraid someone I know will see me driving in here. I’ve even had nightmares about it — and about being followed, too.”

“Let’s hope you don’t talk in your sleep.” An amused smile played around his lips and eyes.

“Oh, lord! I should hope not. Alan, aren’t you ever worried about Lisa finding out about us?”

He laughed and shook his head. “She’d kill me, baby. I don’t let myself think about it. This is a chance we have to take, honey. But I believe that everything is chance. Life itself is a chance. What the hell! We can’t worry all the time about what might happen. It would spoil these afternoons for us — these matinees.”

“True.” She sounded uncertain as she stood up. Then, frowning at her wristwatch, “It’s getting late. We’d better shower and be on our way. I have to get home in time to cook dinner and...”

“Okay, my sweet. If you have to, you have to.”

It was Carla who opened the shower door. It was Alan who gasped and clamped a hand over her mouth before the scream really exploded. What they saw would be stabbing their minds for the rest of their lives.

The limp form lying there stared at them with sightless eyes, a bullet hole in its forehead. Here was a deathly white, bloody red shock dressed in black trousers and a gray shirt. Carla was not conscious of Alan’s closing the shower door, but he had. Yet she could still see the grotesque, gruesome body. There was no stopping the wave of hysteria that surged to the surface.

Above the torment wracking her mind she heard his words. “Please! My God! Someone will hear you! Be quiet!” He held her to him while his eyes circled the room quickly as if looking for an escape route where there was none. “Jesus!” he said with disbelief. “What’ll we do? What in hell are we going to do?”

She was shaking and crying, and he felt her skin turning cold and clammy. “Get dressed, Carla,” he said in a voice that had become tense and sharp. “We’ve got to get the hell out of here fast as we can.”

“I know,” she sobbed. “I know, I know!” When he released her, she found that her arms and legs seemed to have turned to water, her fingers to icicles. “It’s so awful! So ghastly! That... that man!” Her heart was thrashing inside her chest, her throat, her ears. Her face was without color. “Alan... I... I think I’m going to — faint.”

“Listen to me,” he said, gripping her shoulders in his cold hands. “This is no time to black out. We’ve got to run for it, and don’t panic. Just don’t panic.”

“Yes, but—” she stared at him with tortured eyes, “—shouldn’t we call the police — or someone?”

He looked at her incredulously as he reached for his clothes. “The police?” he said. “You’ve got to be crazy! I don’t think you realize the jam we’re in.”

“But, Alan — that man’s been murdered! He’s been shot in the head!”

“Oh, God!” He turned his eyes toward the ceiling. “I know you’re not overly bright, but — just get yourself dressed and hurry.” He paused and frowned at the shower door, his eyes dark with apprehension. “We’ve got to think,” he said as though speaking to himself. “Yeah — wait a minute. We...”

“We can think later,” she told him as she tried to brush at her tears and fumbled with the zipper of her skirt. “After we get away we can—”

He shook his head. “It’s not that simple. We can’t just leave here. We can’t just walk out and leave a dead body behind us to...”

She swallowed with effort and the horror of their predicament began to twist in her mind. “Alan!” she gasped. “We’ll be caught, won’t we? And it’ll all come out about us. The manager of this place will tell, and the police will come after us, and there’ll be questions, and Tom will find out, and then—”

“Shut up! I’ve got to think. I can’t think when you’re talking.”

“But Alan, I’ve got to get out of here. I don’t want to get mixed up in a murder. I don’t want Tom to—” Then the tears flowed again and she heard Alan speaking, and there was no sympathy in his words.

“What about me? You think you’re in trouble — what’s this kind of publicity going to do for me at the studio? Let alone with Lisa and that temper of hers.”

Now his eyes seemed to be looking at Carla without seeing her. Watching the lines that fear was etching in his face, she said, “You’re scared. I don’t like to see a man scared. Oh, Alan! Think of something! We have to get away from here — from that...” She swallowed with difficulty and found her throat had become dry and nearly paralyzed, that it was difficult to speak.

He shook his head and finished dressing in silence.

“Alan, whoever was in this room before us must have killed that man, so why don’t you just go to the office and tell the — the manager the truth. Tell him what we found and—”

“Good God!” He spoke with disgust. “Why do you think he’d believe me?”

“Well, I don’t know — but he’d have the name of the person who checked into this room before we did, so—”

“Names, hell! Probably as phony as the one I’ve used. Oh, why? Why did we have the stinking luck to find that stiff?”

She shuddered and reached for her sweater. “Alan, I’m going home. I have to be there before Tom arrives. I... I’m leaving.”

His face darkened quickly. “You just wait one damn minute,” he snapped. “You’re not going to walk out of here and leave me with this on my shoulders. You’re in this jam as much as I am, you know.”

Her eyes widened with alarm. “But I can’t stay here!” she wailed.

“Keep your voice down. These walls are thin. Someone will hear you.”

Carla looked at the room around them as though it were a prison. Seeing Alan pace the floor like a caged animal, she croaked, “We’re trapped, that’s what. We’re trapped in this ugly place with that... that—”

“Shut up. I’m trying to think of everything — of every angle.”

“Like what?”

He turned on her with narrowed eyes. “Well, suppose — just suppose Tom does know that you’ve been with someone, and—”

“No! Don’t say that. I won’t listen. I just won’t!”

“You’ll listen and you’ll listen good. How do you know you don’t talk in your sleep? How can you be sure that he hasn’t followed you here? Maybe he thought that... Look, suppose he came here and found that guy in this room and thought he was me — thought he was the one you’ve been meeting here.”

“No! Oh, no!” She shook her head quickly.

Again Alan paced the floor. Then he walked back into the bathroom, opened the shower door, grimaced and closed it again. “Jesus! That’s horrible! Whoever did that was goddamned mad — insane.” Now he stood still, frowning thoughtfully and hitting a fist against his open palm.

A long, agonizing moment of silence followed before he walked back into the bedroom, took a deep breath and said, “There’s only one thing we can do. It’s a hell of a chance, but we’ve got to take it.”

“Leave here?” she asked. “Just get into our cars and drive away?”

“How can you be so stupid?” he said, spitting out the words. “The manager here would recognize us anytime, anywhere, because we’ve been here so often.”

“But he doesn’t know your name.”

“This,” he said, pointing to his face. “This he’d recognize, describe. Yours too. No doubt he’s taken a good look at you more than once. He could identify our cars, too. Did you ever think of that? He may have our license numbers.”

She was trembling again. “I want to go home. I have to get out of here. I wish I’d never come here in the first place, I wish...”

He dropped into a chair, closed his eyes and rested his chin on clenched, white-knuckled fists that looked like marble. Then he finally nodded. “Yes, all I know is to wait until dark, put that stiff in the trunk of my car, take him somewhere and dump him.”

She caught her breath and then said, “You’re right. Yes — you do that. I’ll leave now, and after it gets dark, you—” She saw him cast her a long and thoughtful stare. “Don’t look at me like that, Alan. You make me feel guilty.”

“Do I?”

“Alan — I have to leave here. I can’t help it that soon Tom will be home, and that he’ll be worried about me. He’ll wonder where I am. He’ll call the neighbors and our friends. How can I ever explain where I’ve been? It’ll be late and dark and—”

“Funny,” he said, “but suddenly I’m thinking about a rat leaving a sinking—”

“What do you expect me to do?” she cried.

“Nothing.”

“But, Alan, you know I can’t wait any longer.”

He watched her silently as she walked to the window, parted the Venetian blinds a little and looked through. “The sun’s going down,” she said. “In winter, you know it gets dark early. You won’t have long to wait.”

“Thanks. That’s most encouraging.”

“Alan, where will you — put him?” she asked in a tight little voice.

“On your front porch. Where else?”

“Oh, Alan! You can’t blame me. You can call Lisa and tell her you’ve been delayed, but I can’t. There’s no logical reason for me to be late. Tom would—”

“Look,” he said, pointing a finger at her. “If I’m caught dumping that body...”

“Dammit,” she said. “What do you want me to do?”

“Testify for me if I get caught,” he told her. “That’s what you can do.”

“But you didn’t kill that man, so they couldn’t... Could they?”

“You think not? Carla, if I get caught dumping this body — or if his murder is traced to me — you’re going to have to come forward and swear that we arrived in this room at exactly the same time. Understand? I don’t want anybody to know that I got here before you did. Remember that.”

“But then Tom will...” She stared at him while perspiration trickled down her forehead. “I can’t believe it,” she said. “I can’t believe that all this is happening to me. Alan, if you cared for me, you wouldn’t want me dragged into this horrible mess. You would try to protect me, keep my name out of it — if you loved me.”

The air thickened with the heavy silence, and then he said, “Carla, whatever made you think that I did?”

“Alan!”

“For God’s sake, what does that matter now? What does anything matter but to get ourselves out of this jam? I mean — we’re in real trouble.”

“It matters,” she said slowly.

“Jesus! There’s a dead man in that shower. There’s no one to pin the blame on but us. Us! You and me!”

Carla’s cheeks had turned from white to a fiery red, and her voice rose as she said, “I’m getting out of here. Alan, don’t call me. Don’t try to contact me — ever — in any way. I’ll never help you. You should have told me that you didn’t love me. Do you know what I hope? I hope you burn in hell!”

She was gone, and he was staring at the door she had slammed behind her. He heard her start her car, kill the engine, start it again. He stood like a stone pillar as she drove away. Then he went outside, looked around swiftly and, seeing no one, opened the trunk of his car, pulled out a raincoat and hurried back into the motel room.

He went directly to the shower, reached inside, and dragged out the lifeless form. Hastily he wrapped his coat around it as he said, “We’ve done it again, good old George. Now it’s back to the prop department for you.”