A Farewell to Yarns

the top of the stairs, she heard voices from the bedroom at the left, so she turned into the one at the right. She had time for only two impressions before backing out. One, that it was a tiny bedroom, and two, that all that brownish red stuff all over the mattress was Phyllis’s blood. It looked like someone had dumped a gallon or so of paint on the bed.
    She stood in the hall, leaning against the wall, fighting down nausea, and realizing for the first time that she hadn’t even asked how Phyllis had died. She breathed deeply through her nose, trying to fend off the dizziness that was catching up with her. Suddenly someone grabbed her arm.
    “What are you doing up here?“ Mel VanDyne asked harshly. “You’re not passing out, are you? Come here. Clear the way, boys.“ He dragged Jane through the bedroom opposite the tiny one and yanked open the door to the little deck Phyllis had mentioned. Dragging Jane out into the cold, fresh air, he said, “Take a deep breath. That’s it. Good. Another. Now, lean over.“
    “I’m all right now,“ Jane said after a moment. “Really. But I’m freezing out here.”
    He led her back inside. It was a large, airy room with a double bed upon which Bobby Bryant was sprawled with a makeshift cold compress on his head. A burly officer was standing beside him, clearly ready to take care of any further misbehavior Bobby might dream up. Another officer was leaning against the wall just inside the doorway. Jane could see into the pink-tiled master bath next to the cozy sitting room area by the front windows of this room.
    “I need an address where I can reach you,“ VanDyne said to Bobby as he got out his pen.
    “I’m staying right here.“ Bobby’s voice was slightly slurred and very belligerent. “Old Phyl paid for the place, and now it’s mine.“
    “We’ll see about that,“ Mel said, a muscle knotting in his jaw. Apparently he’d taken just as severe and instant dislike to Bobby as Jane had.
    She touched Mel’s arm. “I want to tell you something. Downstairs.”
    He followed her down the steps reluctantly. “He’s the sort of individual who makes me long for the good old days of police brutality.“
    “What’s he doing in that room?“ Jane asked.
    “Hell if I know.“
    “No, listen to me. It’s important, I think. If you knew a house had only a tiny little bedroom and a big master suite and was going to be lived in by a single woman and her teenage son, who would you expect to have the little room?”
    Mel paused in midpace. “The kid. Yeah—“
    “Only Phyllis was the kind of sap who let him have the big room. Now, if you’d been a murderer, prowling around in the dark to kill an obnoxious teenager in his sleep, which room—“
    “You may have something.“
    “Something! That’s it, and you know it. I kept asking why anybody would want to kill Phyllis. Well, nobody did. They wanted to kill Bobby and got the wrong person in the wrong room. Look, we’ve only known Bobby a few minutes each, and we’d both adore knocking him off. Imagine how people who knew him better must have felt about him. But Phyllis—nobody could kill Phyllis. Slap her out of sheer exhaustion, maybe, but not kill her.“
    “Possibly.“
    “You’re only saying that because it was my idea. You know that’s the solution.“
    “Good God, woman! Even if you’re right, which I’m not admitting, it’s not a solution. It’s just a line of inquiry.“
    “That’s ‘Dragnet’ talk again. I’m going home. When you want to know more, you know where I live.”
    On that victorious note, she marched out the door.
    She thought she heard a chuckle just before she slammed the door.
     

Twelve
     
    Jane got in the station wagon and started the engine but found that she couldn’t drive away immediately. Surprise was fading, and shock was setting in. Poor Phyllis was dead. Really and truly dead. In spite of her relatively calm discussion of motives with Mel VanDyne, Jane was deeply shaken. Shivering violently and wondering why her hands and feet felt oddly numb, she reached out and turned the car’s heating system to high. She didn’t trust herself even to drive for a few minutes.
    Poor, poor Phyllis.
    And the worst of it was, it was a mistake. More than just the enormous moral mistake of any murder; she was a victim by mistake. Jane was sure of it. Nobody could possibly want to kill Phyllis, but practically anyone who’d ever known Bobby would have to fight the impulse.