After Midnight

Or fudge a little, maybe. Claim that he was holding the pistol when I opened the door. To make that version work, I would only have to take the gun outside and put it into his hand.

Which hand? That always trips up the criminals on TV. They stick the gun into the right hand of a lefty.

I’m a tad smarter than that.

Tony’d been carrying the weapon in his right rear pocket. Also, he’d reached for me with his right hand.

Reached for me? Maybe he’d been reaching for the doorbell button.

In either case, the evidence seemed to prove him a righty.

Not that it mattered. I had no intention of planting the pistol on him.

I had no intention of calling the cops, either.

Right now, you’re probably thinking, Oh, you stupid idiot! A guy you’ve never seen before in your life showed up in the middle of the night with a gun! It’s a clear case of self-defense! Call the cops right now! Fess up! They probably won’t even charge you with anything!

Wrong.

Calling the police might be smart for you to do, but you’re probably one of those people who’s never gotten in trouble. A good, upstanding citizen.

If I were you, I probably would call the cops and admit everything. And I’m sure it’d turn out hunky-dory.

But I’m not you.

I’m me, alias Alice.

I could’ve gotten away with calling about the prowler. I might have actually done it, too, if the phone had been handy. It would’ve been safe. My troubles were several years earlier and in a different state. Cops coming over to save me from a prowler wouldn’t even know about me or what I’d done.

But if they came to investigate Tony’s death, they’d investigate me.

They’d run my prints.

Find out who I am.

After that, I wouldn’t stand a chance.

So Tony had to go.

Tony and his car, if he’d driven one here.

Obviously, I had a long night ahead of me. But I stayed sitting on the marble floor for a while longer, wondering what to do first, where to start.

Finally, I decided to start by changing my clothes.

No matter what I might end up doing, I didn’t want to do it wearing Charlie’s robe. I liked the robe too much. It was bound to get bloody if I kept it on.

Whatever got bloody would have to be destroyed.

For that reason, I couldn’t wear clothes belonging to Serena or Charlie. I wasn’t eager to sacrifice any of my own clothes, either, but figured it had to be done.

Which meant a trip to my place above the garage.

Now that my mind was made up, I stuffed Tony’s hanky and comb and everything else into the pockets of my robe. Everything except the pistol. I held on to that.

Then I went out the front door again.

I didn’t plan to go back inside the house until everything was taken care of, so I locked the door and shut it after me.

Just for the hell of it, I went over to the porch light, reached up and gave the bulb a twist.

It turned easily.

The light came on, almost blinded me.

“Very interesting,” I muttered.

Had Tony loosened it? Had someone else? Or had the bulb simply worked its way loose all on its own, with nobody’s help? (Light bulbs do that, you know. Almost as if they’re living creatures unscrewing themselves for sport or for reasons we’ll never guess.)

I left it screwed in.

All the better to see by.

Here’s the deal: I wasn’t worried about anyone noticing Tony’s body on the lawn. That could only happen if a person came down the driveway.

Not likely to happen at this hour of the night—or morning.

His body couldn’t be seen from the street because a thick, tall hedge stood in the way. Hedges also ran along both sides of the lawn.

In addition to that, we had no neighbors.

None close enough to worry about, anyway.

There were vacant lots to the right and left, and a string of vacant lots across the road. The nearest house, a couple of lots to the left, was empty and up for sale. The nearest occupied house stood about a quarter of a mile to the right, and on the other side of the road.

We were pretty much alone out here.

It couldn’t hurt to leave the light on. But then I thought, why take the risk? I wouldn’t have any use for the porch light until I came back from the garage.

As I reached up for the bulb, though, my eyes strayed over to Tony.

I hadn’t really seen him before. Not in halfway good light, anyway.

From the chin up, he was a horrible wreck.

You wouldn’t recognize him as the guy in his driver’s license photo.

He looked like a nightmare.

Considering the gory ruin of his head, I was surprised to notice how clean his clothes seemed to be.

With the light still on, I went over to him and checked more carefully. His shirt had a few spots of blood on it, but nothing obvious. His jeans seemed fine.

Why not?

First, I took the purse off my shoulder and removed my robe. I left them on the dry concrete of the front stoop.

Then I crouched over Tony and stripped him. It wasn’t easy, especially because the night was so hot. Even though I’m in pretty good shape, I ended up out of breath and sweaty.

When I was done, I slipped into his loafers. They were a little too big for me, but I could walk in them okay. I carried his jeans and shirt over to the stoop and dropped them.

Then I stretched out naked on my back for a rest.

The concrete felt cool and nice.

Too nice. I could hardly force myself to get moving again.

Finally, though, I stood up to put his clothes on. I started with the shirt. It was very large, and hung halfway down my thighs. But it would do just fine. Next, I slipped his shoes off and climbed into the blue jeans.

They were way too big. When I had them all the way up around my waist, my feet were still inside the denim legs. Also, I had a huge amount of spare room inside the waistband. Looking down the gap, I could see all the way to my knees. I fastened the belt, anyway. It had enough holes to let me cinch it tight and keep the jeans from falling. With that taken care of, I bent over and rolled up the legs. The cuffs reached almost to my knees. I looked like I was wearing waders.

The jeans felt too hot and too heavy.

I needed them, though. I wanted the pockets; otherwise, I could’ve gotten rid of the jeans and just worn the shirt like a dress.

What I finally did was use the saber to cut the legs off. I took the legs off very high, then slit the sides almost up to the belt.

After that, the jeans felt light and airy.

What was left of them.

I returned all of Tony’s belongings to the pockets where I’d found them. I also slipped my own key case into a pocket.

Then I unlocked the front door and went back inside the house, but only long enough to put my purse and