A Right to Die

Kenneth, Dolly, and I. We knew she was emotionally involved in the civil rights movement. Her mother and Dolly thought she was also emotionally involved with that man, Dunbar Whipple, but I didn't. I thought I understood Susan, and I still think so. You don't think so, do you?'

There was no point to rubbing salt in. 'I don't count. I didn't know her. All I want is to get a murderer.'

'Well, I knew her. I understood her. Her mother and Dolly kept saying I ought to do something, but I thought it was better just to let her work her way through it. They kept harping about that apartment and the disgrace, the scandal, Susan would bring on the family. Then about a month ago Dolly said if I wouldn't do something she would. She didn't tell Kenneth because she knew he wouldn't approve, but she told me. Some evening when Kenneth was staying at the laboratory Mother Brooke would come and stay with the boy, and she would go up there and see what was going on. In one way I didn't approve either, but in another way I did, because I thought she would find there was nothing wrong. You see the situation?'

I only nodded. What a situation for a grown man with a brain supposedly in working order. I wasn't thinking of color; that was an unimportant detail.

'All right,' he said, 'that's how it was. That evening, that Monday evening, I got a phone call as I was eating dinner at the club. It was Dolly. Mother Brooke couldn't come because she was sick, and Dolly wanted me to come and stay with the boy. I suppose I should have refused, but-anyway, I went. I got there a little after eight. She left right away, and-'

'Hold it. Our information is that she got the car from the garage about a quarter to eight.'

'Then your information is wrong. She left the house about ten after, and the garage is four blocks away. My God, do you think I don't know? When I know what happened? When I've been over it and over it a thousand times?'

'Okay, you know.'

'God knows I do. Give her ten minutes to get to the garage and get the car, and ten more to One Hundred and Twenty-eighth Street, and-'

'Maybe not enough. Fifteen.'

'No. Straight up Park Avenue and across, nothing to it at that time in the evening. I drove it and timed it twice yesterday. Nine minutes both times, and I didn't push. So she got there just after half past eight, out of the car and to the building. She went up the two flights and stood at the door of the apartment a few minutes, listening. She didn't hear anything, and she knocked on the door and then stood some more, and then knocked again, and nothing happened. I'm telling you what she told me. She went down and stood across the street, and pretty soon Dunbar Whipple came and entered the building. She wanted-'

'Did she know Whipple?'

'She had met him. Susan had taken her to a couple of ROCC meetings. She wanted to go back in and up to the apartment, but she was afraid to. She went back to the car, which she had double-parked around the corner, and drove to the garage and came home. If you allow twenty-five minutes for that, Whipple got to the apartment at five minutes after nine. It was exactly half past when she got home.'

'And told you what had happened.'

'Yes.'

'What was her-uh-attitude?'

'She was excited. She thought she had proved something, but I didn't. I thought obviously Susan wasn't there, since Dolly had knocked twice and she hadn't answered. A girl who works for the ROCC lived in that building, Susan had told me about her, and Whipple could have been going to see her. We got into an argument about it, and I left and went back to the club.'

I regarded him. He was really a pitiful sight. 'Tell me something. Just curiosity. Why were you so hot to know why we think Whipple is innocent when you already knew damn well he is?'

'I didn't know it.'

'Certainly you did. Only two alternatives. Either Susan was already dead when Dolly arrived, since she didn't answer the door, or she did answer the door and let Dolly in, and Dolly killed her. In either case she wasn't alive at five minutes past nine. Don't tell me you hadn't figured that.'

'Of course I had. But it wasn't certain. Sometimes people don't go to the door when there's a knock.'

'Nuts. No wonder you had conscience trouble. You think Dolly killed her and you baby-sat for her while she did it.'

'I haven't said so and I'm not going to.' He was blinking again. If his eyelashes had been wings he would have been around the world by now. He asked, 'What are you going to do?'

I looked at my watch: 10:43. 'Nothing, for seventeen minutes. Mr. Wolfe comes down from the plant rooms at eleven. I would advise- Oh, a question. Did you tell her you were going to spill it?'

'No. It would have been… tough. She would have tried to talk me out of it.'

'Are you going to tell her you have spilled it?'

'No.'

'Good. Don't. I advise you to flop. Now that it's off your chest you can probably do twelve hours. We have an extra room with a good bed. In your condition you might get run over crossing the street.'

He shook his head. 'I'm going home. God, the sound of that, going home!' He got to his feet and put a hand on the chair back for help. 'I don't want Wolfe to see me. I couldn't take him right now. Can't you tell me what you're going to do?'

'I have no idea. Mr. Wolfe is the cook, I only wait on table. As for your lying to the police, forget it. They expect it. If nobody ever lied to them, most of them would have been out of jobs long ago.' I rose. 'If it has to be that you hear from them, you'll hear from me first.' I touched his arm. 'Come along. Get home in one piece if