Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 25, No. 3, March 26, 1980

A Glimpse of Evil by John Lutz

It was by pure chance that Grayner had observed the murder...

Grayner hadn’t any idea how to decorate an old house. But he had bought a very old house as an investment in Sycamore Groves, a quaint little area not far from the city limits.

It was now nearly impossible to duplicate the ornate scrollwork, beamed ceilings, wide porches, and thick walls of these turn-of-the-century houses without the cost being something only an Arab oil sheik could afford. That was why Evers, Grayner’s financial counselor, had advised him to buy here rather than rent in the city. If a man had to pay an exorbitant amount each month just for a place to live, he might as well have an arrangement whereby he got at least some of that money back.

So Grayner had purchased a white-frame two-story home on the corner of Maple and Fairland. Though structurally sound, the house was in need of refurbishing and a woman’s touch. But Grayner had finally gotten his divorce the previous year, and he was unattached. As he drove his Ford compact along Maple Street he grunted. The home he’d bought would hardly fit anyone’s concept of a bachelor pad.

He turned the compact left onto Fillmore Avenue and continued toward the Thrifty Mart grocery store in Sycamore Groves’ small shopping area. Fillmore was a wide but at that moment deserted street, lined with homes similar to Grayner’s, only larger. Each house sat on a slight rise well back from the street. It was evening, and there were lights glowing behind elaborate lead-framed windows.

Some of the windows were wide and scantily draped, and as he passed a looming dark-frame structure Grayner noticed fancy green wallpaper and a glittering crystal chandelier. Maybe that was what was wrong with his dining room: plain beige paint on the walls, and the chandelier was one of those spindly old converted gas fixtures.

Grayner slowed the compact and began checking the windows of each house as he passed. One living room had a gold-framed mirror above a painted brick fireplace. There was a woman in a dining room the walls of which were adorned with rows of colorful mismatched dinner plates. The wall of another house had been completely covered with what appeared to be old brick. There was a man pointing the straight stem of a smoking pipe at a woman barely visible beyond some sheer lace curtains.

No, not a pipe. A gun!

The woman’s body twitched convulsively as she stumbled back out of sight. The man, stocky and dark-haired with a glistening bald spot, stared at the weapon in his hand, then down toward where the woman must lie. Grayner had pulled the car to the curb. He watched as the stocky man stared at a downward angle toward the woman, then out the window.

Grayner’s foot jerked from the brake and he drove quickly away, his heart keeping time with the racketing engine. The man hadn’t seen him, he was sure. And the tires hadn’t squealed as he pulled away from the curb, so he hadn’t been heard. He slowed his speed and repeated these assumptions to himself until he was reassured and felt safe.

Reasonably safe.

He continued in a daze to Thrifty Mart, checked out with three large tomatoes, diet beer, and a pound of inflation-priced ground chuck, realizing with some misgivings that he should have gone directly to a telephone and called the police. Suppose the woman hadn’t been killed with the first shot?

Then he told himself that even if he had called the police immediately, they wouldn’t have arrived at the house on Fillmore Avenue to prevent the man from finishing what he’d started. If murder was what he’d started. Perhaps Grayner’s eyes had tricked him, perhaps there was an innocent explanation — the man and woman were merely rehearsing for a play.

The incident had already become fuzzy in Grayner’s memory. Yet there was no doubt that he should tell the law about what he’d witnessed. He had an obligation. A murder could occur in pastoral Sycamore Groves as easily as anywhere else. By chance, Grayner might have been in the perfect spot at the precise time to witness such a murder. And it was his duty to play the initial role in bringing about justice.

He was feeling excited and rather noble as he returned home and dialed the number of the Sycamore Groves Police Department. A Sergeant Willoughby listened with mild interest to Grayner’s story, interrupting now and then in a bored voice to ask him to repeat certain pertinent facts.

“Murder, huh?” Willoughby said when Grayner had finished.

“It could have been.”

“What were you doing driving around looking in windows, Mr. Grayner?” The voice was heavy with accusation.

“Why — I was looking for decorating tips.”

After a pause Willoughby said, “Don’t they sell books on that kinda thing?”

Grayner felt seething anger threaten to boil to the surface. “Listen, I just happened to be driving to the store, wondering how I could decorate this new — this old — this house I just moved into, when it occurred to me I could look into the windows of the houses I was driving past and see what their owners did to the interiors. Is that a crime?”

“You say 323 Fillmore?” the sergeant asked.

“Yes,” Grayner said. “It happened about half an hour ago.”

“Where were you for the last half hour?” There was faint suspicion in Willoughby’s tone.

“I was shopping at Thrifty Mart. They’ll remember me there.”

“Why didn’t you phone us right away?”

“Well, I was sort of in shock, I guess. I needed to be sure of what I saw. I mean, that kind of thing you see but you don’t see, if you know what I mean.”

“We’ll check on this, Mr. Grayner.”

Not knowing what else to say, Grayner thanked the sergeant and replaced the receiver. He didn’t feel noble now. Civic duty could be trying and thankless. No wonder so many people chose not to become involved.

Grayner turned on the Stravinsky recording on his stereo and switched on his tape recorder. For the last several days he’d been taping library records for his personal collection. The music helped him to forget about his divorce, and now about what he’d seen this evening. Maybe, in the hazy future, he’d have to go to court to testify, but for now he was finished with whatever had or hadn’t occurred at 323 Fillmore.

Two evenings later, when Grayner answered a knock on his front door, he was confronted by a stocky, dark-haired man with a bald spot that gleamed in the glow from the porch light.

“Mr. Grayner,” the man said, “I’m Roger P. Farrell.” He pushed past Grayner into the house.

“I don’t believe—” Grayner began. Then he recognized the man.

“I believe,” Farrell said, “that you’re in a position to cause me a great deal of trouble, Mr. Grayner. Apparently you were driving past my house on Fillmore Avenue and happened to notice my wife and me in our dining room having a spat.”

Grayner felt a rush of relief. So nothing violent, nothing gruesome had occurred. He owed Farrell an apology. “Well, a misunderstanding—”

“Just pure chance that anyone would drive by and see me kill Alice,” Farrell continued.

Grayner’s audible gulp actually hurt his throat.

Farrell lighted a horrible-smelling cigar without asking Grayner’s permission. “I noticed your name and address written on a policeman’s pad when they came to question me the first time. I remembered seeing a car driving away from the house that night, so I figured what must have happened.”

Grayner’s vision was wavering. “You mean you’re standing there admitting that you actually killed your wife?”

“I am,” Farrell said. “Buried her in the park. She broke the, yolk of my egg once too often. Besides, she was two-timing me.”

“You’re insane!” Grayner said in a tone of distressed revelation.

“Used to be. The problem is, now that the police suspect foul play — thanks to you, I might add — it’s probably just a matter of days before they find Alice’s body under second base.”

“Second base?”

“I buried her on the baseball diamond. The ground’s always churned up around second base anyway, so nobody’d suspect Alice was there. Of course she’s not deep, and before the season’s over somebody will slide hard into base and Alice will be found — probably during a double play. But I’ll be long gone from Sycamore Groves by then.”

“They’ll catch you,” Grayner groaned. “Don’t you realize they’ll catch you?”

Farrell’s fleshy face took on a considered expression. “They might. There’s an element of chance in everything. That’s why I’m here.”

A coldness expanded in Grayner’s stomach. He could hear the raucous music of Rachmaninoff, barely audible from the den of the thick-walled old house. It did nothing to soothe him or make him forget. “I don’t understand,” he said, sensing that he didn’t really want to understand.

“If they ever do find me,” Farrell said, “I’ll just tell ’em Alice walked out on me and somebody else must have killed her — perhaps someone’s hired hit man. But they won’t believe me, even though they won’t be able to prove anything against me.”

And Grayner did understand. He stood listening numbly.

“So they’d come back to you, Mr. Grayner, and maybe be able to build a case, because I took a chance in not pulling the drapes closed in the dining room.” Farrell’s tiny black eyes brightened with cunning. “But if somebody murdered you the police would have no witnesses.”

Panic sprang into Grayner’s throat. “They’d know you did it!”

“But they couldn’t prove it. Not without witnesses.” Farrell walked to the window, smiled, and pulled the drapes closed. Then he drew a revolver from beneath his shirt.

Grayner walked backward on a carpet that suddenly seemed to have become a deep, constraining pudding. Even the air seemed to have thickened to suffocating density as he stumbled into the den. Farrell followed, smiling with approval. The drapes were already closed in the den.

“I was simply driving around,” Farrell said, “thinking things over, when I noticed I was on your street. On impulse I stopped at your house. Oh, I knew what I had to do, and there’s a knife in the toolbox in the trunk of the car. But a knife!” He shook his head. “Every time I use a knife I cut myself. So I had second thoughts. I drove home and got my gun, the one I used on Alice. This time I’m not acting on impulse. That’s the thing that’s got me in trouble all my life.”

Grayner’s breathing was rasping in his ears.

“When I killed Alice,” Farrell said, “the only thing that could have gone wrong was a one-in-a-thousand chance, like somebody driving past and just happening at that second to be looking in the window. And darned if that didn’t happen.” He shook his head in bafflement. “Some days the finger of fate likes to flick us around, Mr. Grayner.” He squeezed the trigger.

The pain that erupted in Grayner’s chest sent fiery tendrils throughout his body. He was on the floor, watching the ceiling slowly rotate, the globe light fixture above orbiting like a displaced and sterile planet. From a corner of his vision he saw Farrell leave, hurrying away in organized fashion like a salesman late for his next appointment.

Now he was alone with impending darkness and the vibrant music blaring from the stereo speakers. He had spent a lot of money on his stereo equipment and he knew that the sensitive recorder taping the rousing Rachmaninoff concerto had picked up every sound in the room. Even if there was some confusing overlap, tape experts would easily be able to filter individual sounds and bring out everything they needed on the tape. Every incriminating word.

Farrell had carefully considered sight this time, but not sound. Far below the level of his pain, Grayner experienced a strange serenity as he died to the crash of cymbals.