Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine, Vol. 37, No. 6. Whole No. 211, June 1961

Virginia Layefsky Statement Of The Accused

We regret that it was not our editorial privilege to “discover” Virginia Layefsky. She has had one story published before — in "Ladies Home Journal” — and now we bring you her second. "Statement of the Accused" is a story you will not forget for a long, long time — if you ever do forget it…

The author’s formal training has been almost entirely in music. She studied at the Julliard, and before she left New York with her husband, who is a professional musician, she earned her living as a pianist. Now she and her husband move around a great deal. For six months of the year they live in Pittsburgh — for the symphony season; they spend a summer month in the British Virgin Islands, and the rest of the summer in Vermont where the author's husband is a member of the Estival String Quartet. All of which now gives Virginia Layefsky more time to write — which we fervently hope she will take advantage of…

"Statement of the Accused” is a devastating indictment of a certain type of motion picture currently in the vogue. We guarantee you will never see one of those movies again with quite the same feeling…

I go every Friday night. I like the ones best that have them girls they drag along the sand. I saw one like that once. He dragged her along the sand and they was in some desert and she was dead. She was little and long blonde hair and it dragged over the sand. And her head bumped a soft kind of bump when he dragged her down the hills and it showed her eyes was open. They just stared wide open and at first I didn’t think it was a good movie because they said a different language, and the words they print at the bottom go too fast to read. But it was, and it was French I think. He was crying but I don’t know why he was crying because sometimes I don’t watch all the whole movie, only parts, and her blouse was tore.

And all that hair and sand and her dead made me want to laugh and shake and I did. The inside of my mouth got so dry — not from popcorn, and I had some — that I had to lick my lips. It lasted a long time him dragging her with her eyes open until I wanted to shout out loud. But I didn’t because the usher comes then — he did before down at the Paradise — and made me leave. So I was quiet but I felt something happening to me so’s I could hardly sit still. And I couldn’t quit watching and I didn’t want to but I licked my lips some more and moved with her over that sand, and I could feel it all hot like sand, and then somebody whispered.

I looked but she wasn’t whispering to me. They all sat so still just looking at the picture and nothing happening. She was whispering to the man on her other side. He looked at me and he had on a suit and looked like the head of the shipping department, Mr. Munson, looks. And then the both of them got up and left to another seat across the aisle.

I stayed through it all over again through all that talk nobody understood and it took a long time to get back to the place where they were in the desert again. I knew just where it came though because I could feel it begin to happen and it was better that time. But after it was over the lights come on and I hated that. Everybody got up and left and I wanted to cry because I had to leave too. With the excitement still there and to go home where she was, to the apartment. I sleep in the living room because she has the bedroom but she waits up and she’s my aunt.

I been living with her since I was ten and my old lady run off with a merchant marine she met in a bar one night after the divorce. And that was ten years ago. She works in a pants factory, my aunt, every day. Sometimes at home she just stares at me without a word but sometimes she goes on and on and says she didn’t want me then and she don’t want me now. She’s always been like that; I heard about mother-in-laws and she’s worse than mother-in-laws, but like one too. When she does that I think something funny: I’m not married and she’s my mother-in-law I

I tell that to people. It’s a joke, and sometimes they laugh and sometimes they don’t. And it’s a good joke but not the best joke. They tell mother-in-law jokes around the shipping office and that’s the best kind. They don’t tell them to me though, but I hear them. O’Shaughnessy or Jackson or Mendoza never tell me any jokes but that’s because they all eat lunch together across the street. They go out together every day and they won’t let me come. Jackson says Beat it, creep.

But no more jokes on me any more, they all stopped that a long time ago, a week. Mr. Munson didn’t make them stop though he told them they shouldn’t, like the itch powder and the match that exploded and all the lies they tell me. I made them stop. I gnashed my teeth at Jackson one day and picked up the shears I cut twine with and dashed them at him. And I hissed like a cat. So now they leave me alone, and I just wrap packages.

But going home on the subway is hard with all that excitement after a good movie like the girl. And I didn’t stop thinking about her. I wished I had a girl like that blonde girl. She was French.

And it was late because I stayed through two double features though I slept part of the time. And there was this girl sitting right across from me on the D train and only one other man.

She was blonde too and she had on a green dress and her eyes was blue. She had her legs crossed. I could see her knees but that’s all. She reminded me a lot of the movie girl and her hair was long enough to drag across the sand and I thought of it dragging. And her throat. The man choked her in the movie and the girl had a little gold chain on her throat, the girl in the subway I mean.

I looked away whenever she looked at me and pretty soon she uncrossed her legs and pulled her skirt over them. And then after one stop she got up and moved to another seat. I had to lean forward to see her and then it was harder. In the movie he held her by the ankles to pull her across the desert.

And then that blonde girl got up and went right into the next car and I was angry at her. Because I had to move and go into the next car myself before I could see her that time at all. The man kissed that girl when she was dead. It was a four star picture. I never kissed a girl was dead, but once two years ago I got to kiss a girl and other things too. But she was alive.

That girl’s eyes slopped looking straight ahead and no one else came in that car. Her eyes went from side to side looking in all the corners and pretty soon they moved pretty fast though she sat still. And I thought of a funny thing I hadn’t thought of before and that was I didn’t have to go home. I don’t like those green walls there and she wouldn’t come after me, not down five flights of stairs clear from the Bronx. And I knew I could get off when the blonde got off. And just get off and decide what to do after that.

But in the end I couldn’t because of the man. He was a subway man and wore the cap they wear and he came in the car just then to change the sign from Grand Concourse to Coney Island. And when he changed the sign he picked up a Daily Mirror the last man left. He would of gone away then, the guy, except the girl got up and went over to him. I was mad at her again for that.

He looked at me when she talked to him and after that he sat down right in that car and read the Daily Mirror. He was a big guy and I looked at her and then sometimes I felt him look at me.

She didn’t even stand up to go until the train was already stopped and then she picked up her purse and left so fast I had to hurry to get up. She was clear out the doors before I got to them but I would of made it except for that guy. He got up too and put his arm across the doors until they closed and looked at me. Next stop, Bud, he said. And that was all because the train started.

I looked for her other times after that but I never did see her. That was a good movie. Four stars.

But the best I ever saw was last Friday night. And you don’t always get good movies, sometimes only cowboys and I don’t mind them but they don’t make me clench my teeth or nothing happen.

This man on TV made this movie and I watch him Tuesday nights. He shows mystery shows but beforehand he jokes and talks to his brother in a coffin or has a skull or a rope in one hand or something. All the people laugh and sometimes I do too but it makes me mad when they laugh and I don’t understand. I get mad when I don’t understand good.

But I knew this picture would be good because it was cinemascope and technicolor and he made it. I went right after work and I didn’t go home to the old lady. I had orange drink and a hot dog at Nedick’s instead. I saw it twice that night and twice Saturday night because I knew right away he was telling me something, that man, though I didn’t know, not then, what it was. And it was the best I ever saw.

I’m not sure what the story was, stories are hard to figure out. And after the knife I didn’t worry about the story any more or think about it. I just waited until he come again, and he come three times, running in.

And the music made sounds that prickled my skin and hurt my ears when he done that, because it was high up and sharp like screams and I’ve heard it before but never out loud. I didn’t know anyone else ever heard that but the man on TV did and he put it right in the film enough to make you sweat. And I did.

Other people in the movie house screamed. He had a knife and he killed somebody, the first one and that was an old lady. I saw the blood on the knife and some dripping down on the floor and it was technicolor. Her eyes was open too and her hand went down pulling the curtains, it didn’t let go right away. It held on and the knife didn’t stop and you could see her shuddering, it hurt so much. A long knife like for cutting bread and it made you feel like a man but too much water in your mouth so I kept swallowing.

Oh, I can’t stand much more of this, a girl behind me says.

And after the third time he run in there was more talking and then it was over and the lights come on. But I still felt high high up and clenched tight, so hard to sit still. And I knew because of that it was the best I ever saw.

People talked. The girl behind me says Let’s go. She had a voice like a piece of pink ribbon I found once so I listened. And a man says What’s the matter, Beth? Are you scared?

No, she says. It’s disgusting that all. It’s obscene.

And obscene means dirty, like the sign in the post office where you can’t send dirty stuff out in the mail or they catch you. I seen that sign.

You are too seared, the man said.

No, I’m not. I just don’t think they should show a picture like this, there’s something wrong about it. I don’t know why exactly, she says.

So he says well, we’re all adults. Nobody forces us to buy a ticket.

Are we? she says. Well at least they shouldn’t allow children to see this.

And he says Probably not, and then the lights went down.

Let’s go she says again.

Aw come on, he says, we came in the middle, don’t you want to see what happens? So they didn’t go.

When it was dark I turned around to see what she looked like. She was pretty all right but she was frowning. She wasn’t blonde either, her hair was brown and it was cut short. And the man with her had ahold of her hand and he had on a suit and tie with his hair combed nice. He looked like Mr. Munson.

But I forgot them when the show come on. It was even better the second time and the girl in it was a blonde, like that other movie. And she walked around in a black brassiere and high heels talking to a man and I liked seeing her like that. It made me feel like running fast and shouting loud and I couldn’t get my breath. I seen my aunt like that once and others too, but the others only through windows. And I knew later on that girl would be dead like the old lady and blood on the floor and her hair spread out on the rug and it would show blood in it. And I wished he would drag her through the sand a long ways like that. But that was a different movie.

It started right then, when I thought about that and I could feel it starting but nothing happened until he run in the second time with the knife and killed the blonde. Then I couldn’t help myself. Sometimes, like then, it comes too strong. I had to shout and I did shout the way he wanted to. I shouted loud and I could feel the way I bowed back and forth with it.

Someone beside me started to stand up but then the usher came, like they do, and took my arm. So I went with him like I done last time. And he walked me right out the door and I knew it was wrong to shout in the movie like that.

And he looked at me like Jackson and O’Shaughnessy and Mendoza, like they always look.

Don’t come back again, Mac, he says. We don’t want you here.

I walked all the way home that night because I was too excited to ride. And things weren’t clear yet though I knew I had somethings to do.

And then she was up, my aunt, sitting in her chair, looking at me. And things weren’t clear so I went to bed without even telling her hello and she kept sitting there.

But after Friday it’s Saturday so today I bought the knife. I saw it in the window of a pawnshop when I was walking and just when I saw it I knew I would need it. It wasn’t a bread knife but all the same it was a peach. It had a leather holster and both sides of it was sharp and a pointed tip. So I bought it. I paid five dollars and worth it.

And then it was late and time for supper and I put it under my shirt so’s I could feel it bumping against me while I walked, like a little head over sand.

I went into the Automat because I was hungry then and had my favorite: beefsteak pie, side of sauerkraut, baked beans and afterward cherry pie. But not coffee. I don’t like coffee.

And after that I found another movie house where they shown that same movie and seen it twice more. And it was better this time because of my very own knife bumping my chest and twice as exciting. When it come time to shout I held on tight and put my hands over my mouth and this time it was so quiet no one heard it though, because I couldn’t made me shake.

And this time I knew the old lady in it must be the mother-in-law. I knew before they are all bad because of those jokes and they hate you like a girl in another movie I seen said. But this movie showed me how bad they really was.

So it was pretty clear all right and it would of worked out except for that long walk from the subway to the apartment afterwards. It’s six blocks and dark because it was so late and all the people’s lights were off because they was in bed. And there she was walking all alone a block ahead of me. She had on high heels that were noisy and she was going pretty fast, looking from side to side but not behind. And when I got closer I knew she was too young to be anybody’s mother-in-law. And I knew that.

But then she had a blonde ponytail and things got mixed up again. I guess she heard my footsteps because she looked around and began to walk faster and then she began to run. And I run then and she looked around and screamed. The scream was better than that whole movie and better than anything. It made me shout. And then I just couldn’t help it with the knife already in my hand.

And then later somebody must have called them because I was still walking around later that night and they pulled up in a shiny car. All the way downtown they didn’t listen to me good, not like this anyway, and the detective later wouldn’t listen either unless they ask you a question.

But I seen a picture once in the Daily Mirror of a guy that killed a girl and it was on the front page. And I read what he said. And I would like to say the same thing to you fellas now so you can write it down and put my picture in the front page like you done his.

Just put that I tell the parents I’m very sorry what I done and I don’t know what come over me. Everything went black. And that’s what he said, the other guy.

And I guess there isn’t anything more to say except I guess all the guys down at the shipping office will be reading this tomorrow, and Mr. Munson, because it will all be on the front page. My picture.

So I would like you to put that I say hello to all of them and I don’t hold no grudges. And put that I’m sorry I done it, and I feel fine.