A Good Story and Other Stories

The Curious Facts Preceding My Execution

I’m not sure when it was, exactly, that I knew I must murder Janice. Oh, I’d been thinking of it off and on for months, but I don’t remember at what precise moment these idle daydreams hardened into cold and determined resolution.

Perhaps it was the day the mailman brought me the bill for a mink coat of which I had never until that moment heard. When I asked my darling if I might at least see this coat for which I was expected to shell out two thousand dollars, one fifth of a year’s wages, she confessed prettily that she no longer had it. Shortly after its purchase, while coming home from the city after an exhausting shopping spree along Fifth Avenue, she had lost the dear thing on the train.

Or perhaps it was even earlier than that. Perhaps it was the evening I returned to our midtown apartment, wearied from my labors in the advertising vineyard, and learned that in my absence Janice had managed somehow to buy a house in Connecticut. No more were we to be pallid Manhattanites. It was the invigorating air of the ranch-style developments for us. Besides, it would improve my health — if not my disposition — for me to arise an hour earlier each morning and sprint for the railroad train.

Or perhaps it was much later, after the move from the city and after die lost mink coat and after Lord knows what else. Perhaps it was the evening when, while poring over our financial records, I discovered that in the last year we had spent more in bank fines than for electricity. When I pointed this out to Janice she replied that the fault was clearly mine, since I didn’t put enough money into the account to cover the money she wanted to take out.

Or perhaps it wasn’t really Janice at all, not finally. Perhaps the catalyst was Karen.

What shall I say of Karen? I had finally received the promotion which made it at least possible for me to feel optimistic about catching up with Janice’s spending, and with this promotion had come my own office and my own secretary, and that secretary was Karen.

It was the old story. At home, a wife who was a constant source of frustration and annoyance. At the office, a charming and intelligent not to say lovely — secretary, with whom one felt one could talk, with whom one could relax. I took to spending evenings in town, telling Janice I had to work late at the office while actually I was with Karen, and the inevitable happened. We fell in love.

But ours could not be a dark and furtive office romance. Karen was too honest, too gentle, too good for such a relationship. I knew I had to free myself of Janice and marry Karen, for the sake of everyone’s happiness.

I did consider divorce, at first. There was no doubt in my mind that Janice would grant me one, since divorce is quite fashionable in our circle and Janice would wish always to be in fashion, but as I thought about it I saw that there was a problem, and the name of the problem was alimony.

I might legally disencumber myself of Janice as a wife, but it seemed clear to me that I would continue to be responsible for her support. And I understood only too well Janice’s insatiable need for money. Statisticians claim that eighty-five per cent of American expenditures are made by women, but Janice beat those statistics cold. Over the course of our marriage I would venture to say that she had, month by month, never permitted her spending of my salary to fall much below one hundred and ten per cent.

It was practically impossible already for me to support both Janice and myself. Add Karen to my responsibilities, and I would be in debtor’s prison within six months.

No, divorce was out, and for a while the problem seemed insoluble. But then Janice bought a speedy little foreign car — one of her few purchases I had no objection to — and I waited hopefully for her to demolish the auto and herself on the Merritt Parkway, but nothing ever came of it. Those cars are mawkishly ugly, but they are also exasperatingly safe.

Still, my mind had been turned to a perhaps more productive area of speculation. Could Janice expire? Nothing but grim Death itself, obviously, would ever stop her spending, but where were she and grim D. likely to meet?

Nowhere. Our home was brick outside, plaster and linoleum and plastic inside; not too much likelihood of a good flash fire. The trains to and from the city had their derailments and so on from time to time, but the accidents were almost invariably minor and never on Ladies’ Day. The possibility of a jetliner falling out of the sky and landing on Janice was a bit too remote to be counted on. As for disease, Janice was so healthy that most doctors suspected we were Socialists.

At long last I had to accept the truth: it was up to me. If you want a thing done right — or at all — you must do it yourself.

This conviction grew in me, becoming stronger and stronger, until at last I dared broach the subject to Karen. She was, at first, shocked and appalled, but as I talked on, reasoning with her, explaining why it would never be possible for us to wed while Janice still lived, she too began to accept the inevitable.

Once accepted, the only questions left to answer were when and how. I had four types of murder from which to choose:

a) murder made to look like an accident

b) murder made to look like suicide

c) murder made to look like natural death

d) murder made to look like murder

I ruled out a) accident at once. I had daydreamed for months of possible accidents which might befall Janice, and had finally come to realize that they were all unlikely. And if they were unlikely even to me, who passionately desired that Janice should have herself an accident, how much more unlikely would they seem to the police?

As for b) suicide, there were far too many of Janice’s suburban friends who would be delighted to volunteer the information that Janice was happy as a lark — and about as bright — and that she had absolutely no reason in the world to want to kill herself.

As for c) natural death, I knew far too little about medicine to want to try and outwit the coroner at his own game.

Which left d) murder. Murder, that is, made to look like murder. I planned accordingly.

My opportunity came, after a number of false starts, on a Wednesday in late March. On the Thursday and Friday of that week there was to be an important meeting in Chicago, concerning a new ad campaign for one of our most important accounts, and I was scheduled to attend. All I had to do was arrange for Karen to accompany me — an easy matter to justify — and the stage was set.

Here was the plan: I had two tickets on the three P.M. train Wednesday for Chicago, due to arrive in that city at eight-forty the following morning. (Our explanation for traveling by train rather than by plane, should we need an explanation, was that I could get some preliminary paperwork done on the train, which would have been impossible in the tubular movie houses which airplanes have lately become.) At any rate, Karen was to take this train, carrying both our tickets. We would leave the ad agency together at noon, ostensibly headed for Grand Central, lunch, and the train. But while Karen went to Grand Central, I would hurry uptown to the 125th Street station, where there was a twelve fifty-five train for my portion of Connecticut. I would arrive at my town at two-ten, wearing false mustache, horn-rimmed glasses, and the kind of hat and topcoat I never wear.

Our mortgaged paradise was a good twenty blocks from the station. I would walk this distance, shoot Janice with the .32 revolver I had picked up second-hand on the lower East Side two weeks before, ransack the house, take the five-oh-two back to the city, go to a movie, take the twelve forty-five plane for Chicago, arrive at three-forty A.M., and be at the railroad station when Karen’s train pulled in at eighty-forty. We would both turn in our return-trip tickets, claiming we had decided to go back to New York by plane. This would necessitate my filling out and signing a railroad company form; an extra little bit of evidence.

It was foolproof. And after a decent period of mourning, I would marry my Karen and live happily and solvently — ever after.

The day arrived. After breakfast I told Janice I would see her on the following Monday, and I took my suitcase with me to the office. Karen and I left at twelve, and the plan went promptly into effect. Karen took both our suitcases with her to Grand Central and I headed immediately uptown, stopping off only to buy a hat and topcoat. I caught the train at 125th Street and, in its swaying men’s room, I donned the horn-rimmed glasses and the mustache.

The train arrived barely five minutes late, and I found the station virtually deserted at this time of day; even the newsstand was shut down. I saw no one I knew in the twenty-block walk to the house, striding along with the pistol an unaccustomed weight in my pocket. I arrived at the house, saw the little foreign car in the driveway, which meant Janice was at home, and let myself in the front door with my key.

Janice was seated in the living room, on the unpaid-for new sofa, reading a slick women’s magazine and being instructed, no doubt, in some new way to make money disappear.

At first she didn’t recognize me. Then I removed the hat and glasses and she exclaimed, “Why, Freddie! I thought you were going to Chicago!”

“And so I am,” I told her. I redonned the hat and glasses, and moved over to close the picture-window drapes.

She said, “Whatever are you doing with that mustache? You look terrible with a mustache.”

I turned to face her, and withdrew the pistol from my pocket. “Walk out to the kitchen, Janice,” I said. I planned to make it seem as though a burglar had come in the back way, been surprised by Janice in the kitchen, and he had shot her.

She blinked at the gun, then stared wide-eyed at my face. “Freddie, what on earth—”

“Walk out to the kitchen, Janice,” I repeated.

“Freddie,” she said petulantly, “if this is your idea of a joke

“I’m not joking!” I said fiercely.

All at once her eyes lit up and she clapped her hands together childishly and she cried, “Oh, you old dear!”

“What?”

“You did get the washer-dryer after all!” And she leaped to her feet and hobble-trotted out to the kitchen, her high heels going clack-clack on the linoleum. Even then, in the last seconds of her life, her only thought was of adding yet another artifact to the mound of possessions she had already heaped high about her.

I followed her to the kitchen, where she was turning, puzzled, to say, “There isn’t any washer-dryer—”

I shot from the hip. Naturally, I missed, and the bullet perforated a dirty pot on the stove. I abandoned cowboy-style forthwith, aimed more carefully, and the second shot cut her down in midstream.

Three seconds of silence. They were followed by the sudden brrriinnnggg of the front doorbell, the sound box for which was on the kitchen wall three feet from my head.

I jumped, and then froze, not knowing what to do. My first instinct was to stay frozen and wait for whoever it was to go away. But then I remembered Janice’s little car in the driveway, advertising her presence. If there were no answer to the doorbell the visitor might become alarmed, might call for help from the neighbors or the police, and I would never manage to avoid detection.

So I had to go to the door. Disguised as I was, I should be able to fool any of Janice’s friends, none of whom knew me that well anyway. I would say I was the family doctor, that Janice was sick in bed and could see no one.

The bell rang again while I was still thinking, and the second burst unfroze me. Putting the gun away in my pocket, I hurried through the living room and stopped at the front door. I took a deep breath, steeled myself, and eased the door open an inch.

Peering out, I saw what was obviously a door-to-door salesman standing on the welcome mat. He carried a tan briefcase and wore a slender gray suit, a white shirt, a blue tie, and a smile containing sixty-four gleaming teeth. He said, “Good afternoon, sir. Is the lady of the house at home?”

“She’s sick,” I said, remembering to make my voice deeper and hoarser than usual.

“Well, sir,” he bubbled, “perhaps I could talk to you for just a moment.”

“Not interested,” I told him. “Sorry.”

“Oh, but I’m sure you will be, sir. My company has something of interest to every parent—”

“I am not a parent.”

“Oh.” His smile faltered, but came back redoubled. “But my company isn’t of interest only to parents, of course. Briefly, I represent the Encyclopedia Universicana, and I’m not actually a salesman. We are making a preliminary campaign in this area—”

“I’m sorry,” I said firmly. “I’m not interested.”

“But you haven’t heard the best part,” he said urgently.

“No,” I said, and slammed the door, reflecting that Janice would have bought the Encyclopedia Universicana, and that I had dispatched her just in time.

But I had to get on with the plan. I would now ransack the house, emptying bureau drawers onto the floor, hurling clothing around in closets, and so forth. Then, when it was time, I would leave for my train.

I turned toward the bedrooms, and the phone rang.

Once again I froze. To answer or not to answer? If I did, if I didn’t — I finally decided I should, and would be again the family doctor.

I picked up the receiver, said hello, and a falsely hearty female voice chirped, “Magill Communications Survey calling. Is your television set on, sir?”

I stood there with the phone to my car.

“Sir?”

“No,” I said, and I hung up.

Doggedly, I turned again toward the bedroom, and this time I reached it. Opening a bureau drawer, I tossed its entire contents on the scatter rug. I didn’t have to worry about fingerprints, of course, since my fingerprints were quite naturally all over everything. The police would simply assume that the burglar, being a professional, had known enough to wear gloves.

I was working on the third drawer, having pocketed three pairs of earrings and an old watch for realism’s sake, when the doorbell rang.

I sighed, plodded wearily to the living room, and opened the door the usual inch.

A short stout woman, smiling like an idiot, said, “Hello, there! I’m Mrs. Turner, from over on Marigold Lane? I’m selling chances for our new car raffle at the United Protestant Church.”

“I don’t want any raffles,” I said.

“New car raffle,” she said.

“I don’t want any cars,” I said. I shut the door. Then I opened it again. “I have a car,” I said. And closed the door again.

On the way back to the bedroom, the echo of that conversation returned to me and it seemed to me I hadn’t been very coherent. Could I be more nervous than I’d thought?

No matter. In little more than an hour I would leave here and catch the train for New York.

I lit two cigarettes, got annoyed, stubbed one out, and went back to work. I finished the bureau and the one drawer in the vanity table and was about to start on the closet when the phone rang.

I had never before realized just how shrill, just how grating, that telephone bell actually was. And how long each ring was. And what a little space of time there was between rings. Why, it rang three times before I so much as took a step, and it managed to get in one more jarring dreeeeep for good measure as I hurried down the hall to the living room.

I picked up the receiver and a male voice said in my ear, “Hello, Andy?”

“Andy?”

He said it again. “Hello, Andy?”

Something was wrong. I said, “Who?”

He said, “Andy.”

I said, “Wrong number,” and gently hung up.

The doorbell clanged.

I jumped, knocking the phone off its stand onto the floor. I scooped it up, fumbling, and the doorbell sponged again.

I raced across the room, and forgetting all caution hurled the door open wide.

The man outside was gray-haired, portly, and quite dignified. He wore a conservative suit and carried a black briefcase. He smiled upon me and said, “Has Mr. Wheet been by yet?”

“Who?”

“Mr. Wheet,” he said. “Hasn’t he been here?”

“No one by that name here,” I said. “Wrong number.”

“Well, then,” said the portly man, “I suppose I’ll just have to talk to you myself.” And before I knew what was going on he had slipped past me and was standing in the living room, looking around with a great display of admiration and murmuring, “Lovely, lovely. A really lovely room.”

“Now, see here—” I began.

“Sampson,” said the portly man, extending a firm plump hand. “Encyclopedia Universicana. Little woman at home?”

“She’s sick,” I said, ignoring the hand. “I was just fixing some broth for her. Chicken broth. Perhaps some other—”

“I see,” said the portly man. He frowned as though thinking things over, and then smiled and said, “Well sir, you go right ahead. That’ll give me a chance to set the presentation up.”

With that, he sat himself down on the sofa, right where Janice had been when I first came in. I opened my mouth, but he opened his briefcase faster, dove in, and emerged with a double handful of paper. Sheets and sheets of paper, all standard typewriter size, all gaily colored in green and blue, prominently featuring photographs of receding rows of books. SAVE! roared some of the sheets of paper in block print. FREE! screamed others, in red. TRIAL OFFER! shrieked still more, in rainbow hues

Portly Mr. Sampson leaned far forward, puffing a bit and began to arrange his papers in rows upon the rug, just in front of his pointed-toe, highly polished black shoes. “Our program,” he said, smiling at me, and lowered his head to distribute more sheets of paper over the floor.

I stared at him. Not five feet from where he was sitting my late wife lay sprawled upon the kitchen floor. In the bedroom chaos was the order of the day. In just under an hour I would be leaving here to catch my train back to the city. I would leave the pistol — wiped clean — in some litter basket in town, knowing full well some enterprising soul would shortly pick it out again, and that by the time the police got hold of it, if they ever did, it would have committed any number of crimes past this current one. And then I would fly to Chicago and see Karen. Lovely Karen. Dear darling Karen.

And this miserable man was trying to sell me encyclopedias!

I opened my mouth. Quite calmly I said, “Get out.”

He looked up at me, smiling quizzically. “Eh?”

“Get out,” I said.

The smile flickered. “But — you haven’t seen—”

“Get out!” I repeated, this time a bit louder. I pointed at the door, my forearm upsetting a table lamp. “Get out! Just — just — just get out!”

The miserable creature began to sputter: “Well, but — see here—”

“GET OUT!”

I dashed forward and grabbed all his papers, crumpling them this way and that, gathering them in my arms and hurried with them to the front door. In turning the knob I dropped a lot of them, but the remainder I hurled outside, and they fluttered leaflike to the lawn. I kicked at those that had fallen around my feet, and turned to glare at Mr. Sampson as he scuttled from the house. He wanted to bluster, but he was a bit too startled and afraid of me to say anything.

I slammed the door after him and took a deep breath, telling myself I must be calm. I lit a cigarette. I lit another cigarette. Irritably I stubbed the first one in a handy ashtray and lit a third. “Tcha!” I cried, and mashed them all out, and stormed back to the bedroom, where I tore into the closet with genuine pleasure. Once the closet was a hopeless wreck I ripped the covers from the bed and dumped the mattress on the floor. Then I stood back, breathing hard, to survey my handiwork.

And the doorbell rang.

“If that is Mr. Sampson,” I muttered to myself, “by heaven I’ll—”

It rang again. We had an incredibly loud doorbell in that house. Odd I’d never noticed it before.

It rang a third time as I was on my way to answer, and I almost shouted at it to shut up, but managed to bring myself under control by the time I reached the door. I even remembered to open it no more than an inch.

A tiny girl in a green uniform stood looking up at me; she bore a box of cookies.

Life, I reflected at that moment, is unkind and cruel. I said, “We already bought some, little girl,” and softly closed the door.

And the telephone screamed.

I leaned against the door and let my nerves do whatever they wanted. But I knew I couldn’t stay there; the phone would only make that noise again. And again. And again and again and again until finally I would have to give up and answer it. The only sensible move would be to answer it right away. Then it wouldn’t make that noise any more.

A good plan. I was full of good plans. I went over and picked up the phone.

“Hiya, neighbor!” shouted a male voice in my ear. “This is Dan O’Toole, of WINK. Can you Top That Mop?”

“What?”

“This is the grand new radio game everybody’s talking about, neighbor. If you can Top That—”

I suppose he kept on talking. I don’t know. I hung up.

I caught myself about to light a cigarette, and made myself stop. I also forced myself to be calm, to think rationally, to consider the circumstances. The house, except for my own ragged breathing, was blessedly silent.

With waning fervor I studied once more the tableau I was leaving for the police. The dead woman in the kitchen, and the ransacked house. All that remained was to fix the back door to make it look as though the burglar had forced his way in.

It seemed as though my plan should work perfectly well. It really did seem that way.

Slowly I trudged out to the kitchen. For some reason I no longer believed in my plan, but was merely going through the motions because there was nothing else to do. All of life was involved in a great conspiracy against me, and I didn’t know why. Could every day be like this in the suburbs? Was it possible that Janice’s reckless spending had simply been a form of escape, a kind of sublimated satisfaction in lieu of biting people like Mr. Sampson and Top That Mop?

At the back door I paused, listening for doorbells and phone bells and church bells and jingle bells, but there was only silence. So I opened the door, and a short round woman was standing there, her finger halfway to the bell button. She was our next-door neighbor, she wore a flour-stained apron, and she had an empty cup in her other hand.

I gaped at her. She looked at me in puzzled surprise, and then her gaze moved beyond me and came to rest on something behind me, at floor level. Her eyes widened. She screamed and let go of the empty cup and went dashing away.

I went rigid. I stared at the cup, watching it in helpless fascination. It seemed to hang there in midair for the longest while, long after its owner had run completely out of sight, and then, quite slowly at first, it began to fall. It fell faster, and faster, and at long last it splattered itself with a terrible crash on the patio cement.

And when that cup splattered, so did I. I went all limp, and sat down with a thud on the kitchen floor.

And there I sat, waiting. I sat waiting for the census taker and the mailman with a Special Delivery letter, for the laundry man and the Railway Express driver, for the man from the cleaners, a horde of Boy Scouts on a paper drive, a political candidate, five wrong numbers, the paper boy, the police, the milkman, a lady collecting for a worthy charity, a call from the tax assessor’s office, a young man working his way through college selling magazines...