Murder on the Aisle Read online

  Dunphy said, "You know, this is the kind of movie that just doesn't come along often enough. It's low-key, it has no pretensions about itself, it genuinely speaks to the heart of each and every American—and it accomplishes all this without a big budget, and without any special effects. I say this is the kind of movie that would make D. W. Griffith proud he was a motion-picture pioneer."

  Tobin shook his head. "Since this is a family show, I can't tell you what I think D. W. Griffith would have done—but I can tell you what I did. Fell asleep."

  Dunphy said, "You sure that was the movie or your hangover?"

  Tobin said, "Or it might have been from reading your column earlier in the morning."

  "Tell him, Tobin!" screamed a film student from the gloom.

  Dunphy sighed. "You really didn't like this movie?"

  "No," Tobin said, "I didn't."

  "Then I'd say your tastes have seriously eroded."

  "You never had any taste, Richard!"

  Whistles and catcalls came up from the audience.

  Tobin was concentrating on these, which explained why he didn't duck when Dunphy got up and crossed the small space between them and laid a good, if glancing, left hook on Tobin's jaw.

  "I owe you this from last night, you little jerk!"

  Over the intercom you could hear the director shrieking

  "Stop tape! Stop tape!" as stagehands rushed to the raised platform where Tobin and Dunphy ordinarily sat. But they weren't sitting now.

  After the punch, and only a bit groggy from it, Tobin tackled the larger man around the waist and hurled him to the floor.

  A roller-derby audience couldn't have been more appreciative.

  Tobin sat on Dunphy's chest and started pounding his fists into Richard's face.

  For his part, Dunphy squirmed and kicked beneath the yoke of Tobin's body, finally bucking high enough to throw Tobin off and into one of the chairs, which promptly fell over.

  The audience went berserk.

  Now it was Dunphy, nose bleeding from several of Tobin's punches, who was on top. He showed Tobin about the same amount of mercy that Tobin had shown him. Eight, nine, ten punches were placed on Tobin's formerly "cute" but now swollen face.

  That was when the stagehands descended on them like crazed dogs, pulling them apart.

  The audience responded immediately, booing and covering the platform with half-eaten Big Macs, beer cans, Diet Pepsi cans, and even a gooey slice of pizza.

  "Let 'em fight!"

  But the stagehands paid no attention.

  One group held Tobin by the arms and around the waist, while another restrained Dunphy.

  "You son of a bitch," Tobin said, "I should have killed you when I had the chance."

  Even in his rage he knew it was a stupid thing to say.

  Frank Emory jumped on the stage then. He was as white as Joan Dailey usually was, and glistening with his own sweat.

  "My God" ' was all he could say as he looked at the two of them, their faces bloody, their clothes in tatters. "My God."

  He really didn't need to say more.

  Chapter 6

  8:47 P.M.

  Who would have thought that a candy ass like Richard Dunphy would have had the punch he did, Tobin thought as he lay back on the leatherette couch in the cheap upstairs dressing room.

  One of the stagehands had gotten him the ice pack that now rode Tobin's face like a hideous rubber growth.

  But that wasn't what was troubling Tobin. He'd been in plenty of brawls in his time. They only hurt for the first twenty-four hours; then they were just embarrassing. People got the wrong idea about you. Mistook you for a jerk. Gosh, who could ever think Tobin was a jerk?

  No, what was troubling Tobin was the fact that he was thinking about Dunphy. Thinking fondly about Dunphy.

  In his mind now he saw the two of them back in '64, when they'd first met, as freshmen, at City College. They'd both been attending a showing of Peckinpah's Ride the High Country, which some twinky professor who preferred foreign directors was saying good things about but in a twinky professor way. "It's, um, a cut above Roy Rogers, but it's a long way from Antonioni."

  Antonioni! That moron couldn't direct traffic, let alone good films!

  So Tobin, even then a mild-mannered and laid-back type, verbally attacked the professor with the ferocity of an Inquisition cardinal stumbling on a den of sin.

  And before he was through, this much taller and quieter-spoken kid he'd seen around the film department a lot jumped in and started verbally pummeling the twinky professor, too, though in a somewhat more respectable manner.

  That was how they met and, man, had they been good friends, the best friends in the world, and how did you get from there to here—to wrestling around on the floor in front of a live audience while the videotape was rolling?

  He was just about to get up and get himself a drink when the knock came.

  He had been deep enough in his memories that the knock had a startling quality, almost the quality of a summons. He raised his head—the beating he'd taken working with his day-long hangover to give him a headache of bitter hunger—and looked at the door.

  "Who is it?" he called.

  No answer.

  Or no verbal answer anyway. But there was a sound. A sound of something falling against the door.

  Instantly he knew that something was wrong. Dropping the ice pack on the dressing table, he went to the door and yanked it open.

  And Richard fell into his arms.

  Tobin got only a glimpse of Richard's face but even that brief look told him of Richard's condition.

  By the time he'd dragged the man to the couch, he'd had his first good look at the knife sticking out of Richard's back.

  Dagger.

  Blood.

  Jesus.

  "Richard, Richard," Tobin began to say. His voice was like a mewl, some primitive human sound that tried uselessly to articulate shock and grief and dread.

  "Richard," he said again.

  He had him face-down on the couch. Now he was afraid to move him. He crawled down Richard's long body to where his face lay turned up.

  "Richard," Tobin said.

  Richard had one eye open. Tobin imagined he saw recognition in it.

  "Richard," Tobin said. "Who did this to you?"

  But when Richard tried to talk, blood bubbled from his mouth and then his eye closed.

  Tobin went berserk. "Richard! Goddammit! Listen to me! We're still good friends! Still good friends, Richard!"

  And then he began to shake him, as if life could fill Richard's lungs, and start his heart again, if only Tobin shook him long enough and hard enough.

  Finally, Tobin's eyes fell on the common kitchen knife sticking up out of Richard's back.

  There was the culprit!

  Maybe Richard would start breathing again if only Tobin could pull it out.

  So Tobin bent down and put one hand against Richard's back for leverage and wrapped the other hand around the wooden handle of the knife.

  He was just pulling it out, his hands covered with blood by now, when Michael Dailey and Sarah Nichols appeared in the doorway.

  Sarah Nichols screamed, "My God, Michael! Tobin's killed him!"

  Chapter 7

  9:23 P.M.

  For all the cops-and-robbers movies he’d reviewed, Tobin had to admit he didn't know much about actual police procedure.

  What seemed like dozens of men and women, some in suits, some in white lab smocks, some in uniforms, came and went in his dressing room. Some knelt and did inscrutable things to various pieces of furniture (dusting for prints? looking for pieces of fabric?); some moved among the dozens of onlookers from the show and asked quiet and seemingly routine questions; and some had what appeared to be an arsenal of tools—flashlights, tiny whisk brooms, tape measures.

  Tobin watched a great deal of all this backward at his dressing table, where he sat with a water glass half-filled with bourbon Frank Emory had supplied him. He had be
en told by the detective in charge, a perpetually amused kind of guy named Huggins, to "please wait right here." There had been no mistaking the way he'd meant "please"—as an order.

  So now he sat watching as, miraculously, the half-filled glass became one-third, then one-quarter gone. He just sat and stared at it, scarcely conscious he was emptying it. He was trying to figure out how to feel. Or, more precisely, what to feel. In books, shock victims were always said to feel "unreal," in a dreamlike state. Then he sure wasn't in shock because everything was too real, from the puddles of blood surrounding Richard Dunphy's covered body to the tart odors of the various bottles and flasks and vials the police people used in their investigation.

  Something made him raise his eyes and then he saw her. Jane Dunphy.

  She stood in the doorway, taller than the two uniformed policemen in front of her, gazing inside with a curiously beatific expression. She looked younger, sadder, and more vulnerable than he'd ever seen her, as if she'd cracked completely, then been put painstakingly back together.

  Then her eyes raised from the body of her dead husband and fell on Tobin's in the mirror. They stared at each other a moment and then she eased herself past the two cops and came into the room.

  When she reached the body, she paused. Then she walked around it as if she'd somehow convinced herself it wasn't there in the first place.

  When she reached him, she put a hand on his shoulder and startled him by laughing. "My God, Tobin, this isn't a joke or something, is it?"

  He looked at her carefully. "No. No, it isn't a joke."

  "He's dead?"

  "I'm afraid he is."

  "My God."

  "Maybe you'd better go over there and sit down."

  "I don't know what to say."

  "Right now there's nothing to say."

  Now that he saw her tears, the reality of the moment seized him.

  He started to take her hand, and then instantly realized that—no, that was the worst thing he could do.

  An image of Sarah Nichols screaming "My God, Tobin's killed him!" cut through his confusion.

  A good policeman—hell, the dumbest policeman in the world—would get suspicious if he saw a suspect holding the hand of the deceased's widow.

  He stopped himself.

  She said, in control of herself now, "I need to ask a question."

  "What?"

  "Did you do it?"

  "My God," he said. "Are you serious?"

  He searched her face for an unlikely hint of humor but of course there was none.

  She was serious. Quite serious.

  "No," he said. "No I didn't kill him."

  He watched as relief brightened her eyes. "Oh, thank God, Tobin. Thank God."

  Then she did the very last thing he wanted her to do in this circumstance: She bent over and took his face in her lovely hands and kissed him. Not on the mouth, true, but gently, gently, a familiar kiss and not in any way a casual kiss.

  Which was just when Detective Huggins appeared, as if by magic, and stood by them.

  He was there watching as Jane took her warm, teary face from Tobin's. Watching carefully.

  "You told me, Mrs. Dunphy, that you and Tobin here were old friends. I guess I just didn't know how friendly."

  An eavesdropping uniformed cop smiled to himself. Apparently part of Huggins's act was to provide snappy patter to keep the interrogations from getting dull.

  Jane did just what Huggins wanted her to do. Got flustered. "We're friends—good friends—we've known each other since college—we—"

  Huggins held up a hand. "It's fine. I understand." He managed to put just the right amount of smirk in his voice. Not enough so you could accuse him of smirking but enough that he annoyed you.

  Now he moved closer to Tobin and all of a sudden Tobin knew why he'd disliked the man instantly. Huggins reminded him of Frog Face McGraw, the eighth grade's most notorious bully. In addition to cracking Tobin across the naked ass with a whip-like towel, in addition to sneaking up behind Tobin and shouting so loudly in his ears that Tobin was literally lifted several inches off the ground, in addition to taking his new Schwinn and "hiding" it until he finally got tired of the gag and gave it back, in addition to all the garden-variety bully numbers, Frog Face had specialized in humiliating guys in front of girls. The longer he looked at Huggins, the more resemblance Tobin saw—this was Frog Face twenty-five years later, a chunky if not quite fat body, sleek dark hair (though beginning to thin), a face that managed to be almost fascinating in an ugly way, and an easy laugh for someone else's grief. Now, confirming Tobin's suspicions that he was Frog Face reincarnated, Huggins said, "I thought show-biz people were cutting out all that kissy-face stuff. With all the diseases around."

  "It wasn't kissy-face,” Jane said, her face exploding into a blush. "We're . . ."

  Tobin stood up from his chair. Touched her hand. "He's just trying to rattle us. Don't give him the satisfaction."

  "You were about to say something, Mrs. Dunphy. You were about to say, 'We're . . . ' I believe you were going to explain your relationship to Tobin here."

  "We're friends, that's all I was going to say. We're friends."

  "I see." He looked at them and his dark eyes, nearly as shiny as his hair, became ironic again. "Friends. Yes." Then he said, "There's a lunchroom downstairs, Mr. Tobin. I wonder if you'd meet me down there in ten minutes." He indicated the crowd of police officials in the room. "'This isn't a good place to talk."

  Tobin waited for a smart remark. When none came, he said, "Ten minutes. All right."

  Huggins turned to go and then said, "I know what good friends are, Mrs. Dunphy, but I'd really like to talk to Tobin alone." He smiled. "You can get back to your personal business later tonight."

  She flushed again.

  Chapter 8

  10:46 P.M.

  "He wasn’t going to sign the contract, was he?"

  "Apparently not."

  "And if he didn't the show wouldn't be nearly as strong, would it?"

  "Maybe it wouldn't have been."

  "In fact, Mr. Tobin, without him, there might not have been any show at all, would there?"

  "I can't say. It'd be too speculative."

  "And that's why you hit him last night, wasn't it?"

  " 'Hit' him is too strong. I swung at him. Brushed him, more than anything."

  "And then again tonight—while your show was taping—even then you couldn't restrain your anger. You got into it again."

  "If you got your facts correct, you'd know he started it."

  "But you didn't try to stop it. You got down there on the floor and started punching back."

  "I was angry."

  "Obviously.

  "But not angry enough to kill him."

  "Let's say I give you the benefit of the doubt."

  "Gee, thanks a lot."

  "Understand one thing here, Mr. Tobin. I take guff from only two people—my captain and my wife. You don't happen to be either of them."

  "All right."

  "So let's say I give you the benefit of the doubt. Let's say that last night was a fluke and that tonight was all Dunphy's fault. Let's say you're just a sweet little altar boy wandering around in a world of wolves. Let's say all these things."

  "All right. Let's say them."

  "There's still one thing that bothers me a great deal."

  "What's that?"

  "Jane. His wife."

  "What about her?"

  "What about her? Jesus Christ, are you kidding me, what about her?"

  "No, I'm not kidding you."

  "The way she was kissing you when I walked up? You've got to be kidding me, Mr. Tobin. You're having an affair with her."

  "No. I'm not."

  "Of course you are, and I'm going to prove it. You ready for a refill?"

  When their cups were full again with strong black coffee, they went back to the table in the lunchroom where they'd been sitting and started talking again. Studio people—grips, lighting me
n, a makeup man or two—drifted in and out, and each of them, whether they got soda pop or coffee or a candy bar, each of them did the same thing.

  Stared in a certain special way at Tobin.

  A way that seemed to say, You're a nice guy, my friend, but your ass is grass.

  "So here you are sitting quietly in your dressing room, minding your own business, probably rereading the Constitution or something like that, when there's a knock on your door and gosh darn if it isn't your old buddy Richard Dunphy, who just happens to have a knife sticking out of his back. Put there, of course, by person or persons unknown."

  "That's what happened, yes."

  But Huggins kept right on talking. "And then, almost as if he's trying to get even with you for taking a swing at him the night before, not to mention having some good times with his wife on the sly—he falls through your door and onto your floor just in time for his protégée—a Miss Sarah Nichols—and his manager to step up and find you kneeling over his dead body."

  "That's the way it happened. Yes."

  "That's the way it happened? You're sure?"

  "I'm sure."

  Huggins stirred the sugar in his coffee. He'd used several packets of the stuff. He'd torn so many of the things open, he'd probably managed to build up his biceps in the process. "How many movies a year do you think you see?"

  "Pardon me?"

  "How many movies a year do you think you see?"

  "Couple hundred, probably. Why?"

  "Well, think about everything you've just told me in terms of a movie script."

  "I don't follow you."

  "Say they based a movie on your alibi—that you were just sitting quietly in your dressing room and Dunphy came through the door—would that make a good movie?"

  "Life isn't like the movies."

  The smirk again. "Apparently not." Some more stirring. Some more looking around the big plastic room with its lumbering armies of vending machines. Some more nods to police people who went in and out getting coffee for themselves. Then he looked back at Tobin. "Yosemite Sam, huh?"