Bo stepped over to hunch down next to her and could see into her nightgown the way she was crouched, so-so breasts hanging limp. He touched her shoulder, then brushed her hair from the side of her face, telling her in a soft tone of voice, “He’s dead, Rosemary.” Now he placed the muzzle of the Walther against her temple, turned his face away and shot her through the head.
He used her nightgown to wipe the Walther clean and placed it in Rosemary’s right hand, pressing her fingers to the grip. He noticed the diamond on her left hand, an impressive stone he believed he could twist from her finger. It occurred to Bo he could take whatever the doctor had in his billfold. Look in the bedroom for jewelry, cash, objects of value-the doctor must do well in his practice, a house this size.
Except he hadn’t planned it to look like a robbery.
As soon as he saw Rosemary coming down the stairs he set the scene. She finds her husband and Mr. Aubrey doing nasty things with each other in the powder room. She has suspected her husband and now catches him going at it with Mr. Aubrey, shoots them both in a blind rage and turns the gun on herself.
He thought about it for several moments.
She’s consumed with a feeling of unbearable shame.
Would the police see that?
Or she can’t imagine spending the rest of her life in prison. Or she’s insane. Or whatever way the police would see it, looking at the evidence.
What was the evidence?
Bo was thinking he’d have to take their clothes off. Dress Mr. Aubrey and now undress him, without getting bloodstains on Vera’s skirt. At least unzip their flies. What was Mr. Aubrey doing? He had to piss. Bo hears him saying to Rosemary, “You’re being a foolish girl. I’m going to piss and be on my way.”
How did he get here?
He must have come with the doctor.
Yes? The police arrive and they see Rosemary has killed her husband and Mr. Aubrey. The police pose motives to explain why Rosemary, with her drooping dugs, is the killer. Why, why, why. Stuck with looking for her motive. Never seeing this as a robbery. Or even thinking of robbery as a possibility.
What he should do, give Vera a call.
In case he’s overlooked something.
He would tell her he changed the plan. He
Make it sound easy and Vera will love it.
Vera was under the covers, the phone in bed with her.
She said, “Wait. Start over. Bo, I was sound asleep. You’re at Dr. Taylor’s?”
Listening to him, not once interrupting, she began to push herself higher on the pillows bunched against the headboard. By the time Bo, winding down, was describing his action as inspired, Vera was sitting up in bed smoking a cigarette. Before she said a word she reminded herself,
“Bo, I love it.”
“I knew you would.”
“You could be a playwright.”
“You know I’ve always wanted to write.”
“But you can’t leave Aubrey there.”
It stopped Bo in his tracks.
“Why? It doesn’t work without Mr. Aubrey. He’s the other man.”
“But as soon as he’s found dead, the check he gave me is worthless.”
“Yes, but who knows when that will be?”
“Rosemary has a maid who comes every day.”
“Go to the bank early, as soon as it opens.”
“Bo, I’m making it out for fifty thousand. I’m not going to deposit the check of a man who was murdered the day before.”
“What if I move Mr. Aubrey?”
“I don’t know,” Vera said.
“He gave you the check and went home to Georgia, as far as anyone knows.”
“I’d still be afraid of it.”
“Even if he’s in the river, never to be seen again?”
“I don’t know.” She needed to think about it and said, “There’s still Dr. Taylor.”
“I could drop him off too.”
“Give me a minute,” Vera said. She slept naked and got out of bed this way, chilled as she went to the tea cart that served as her bedroom bar, poured a slivovitz and drank it down; poured another and brought it to the bed with her.
“If the doctor isn’t there, and his wife is found dead-”
“A suicide,” Bo said.
“Yes, but the police will suspect her husband killed her. Where is he? Has he fled? Bo, leave the doctor where he is. It’s much simpler if Rosemary killed him and killed herself.” Vera finished the slivovitz and lighted a cigarette. “Have you ever had a conversation with Rosemary?”
“I’ve asked her what she’d like to drink. She says, ‘Oh,’ and acts flustered. ‘Do you have white wine?’”
Vera said, “I doubt if anyone who knows Rosemary will believe she killed Michael. But, I suppose that can be said of most women who kill their husbands. She’s a timid soul. I can’t imagine her firing a P38 or even knowing how.”
“The doctor also has a couple of Lugers,” Bo said, “and that bullet hose, the MP40 machine pistol.”
There was a silence as Vera smoked her cigarette and imagined the scene in the doctor’s house. Finally she said, “Bo, listen. I want only the doctor and Rosemary there. Who knows why she killed him. It will be announced on the front pages of Detroit papers, Wife Murders Her Husband the Doctor. After that, stories will be about the doctor’s politics. What is he? An enemy alien born in Canada, a former member of the Bund and alleged member of a German spy ring. We won’t know if the police suspect murder. They’ll talk to neighbors, the doctor’s hospital associates, his nurses, perhaps some of his patients, and before long they’ll ask us how we happen to know Dr. Taylor.”
“Only socially,” Bo said, “he’s so much fun.”
“But if Aubrey’s body is found in the house,” Vera said, “it becomes a much bigger story because Aubrey’s an infamous celebrity. They’ll write entertaining features about his Klan activities, perhaps the only Nazi Grand Dragon in America. The investigation can go on forever, newspaper columnists offering theories. More light is cast on us as enemy aliens and the Justice Department is forced to take action. We’ll be indicted, charged with acts of sedition, if not plotting to overthrow the government. We’ll be offered a bond we can’t possibly afford, and sit in a federal prison for months awaiting trial.”
“But what do they have on us?” Bo said. “Nothing.”
Bo sounding confident for her benefit. Vera knew him, his poses, his attitudes he could turn on and off. By now she could anticipate his reactions. If the FBI came for Bo, he’d run.
She said, “What would you do if they came to arrest you?”
“Run,” Bo said. “Have it already worked out how we’d do it. I
She wanted him to mean it and murmured into the phone, “This is when I need to feel my lovely boy against my body and whisper things to him.”
“Dirty things?”
“What I want him to do to me.”
“You’re giving me what Americans call a boner,” Bo said. “Stay in bed. I’ll be home as soon as I dump Mr.
