The Throat

PF: Can you describe the man? His age, his appearance, maybe his clothes?

WD: Real, real ordinary guy. I didn't even pay much attention to him. He might have been about thirty, but I'm not even too sure of that. It was dark.

PF: What about the woman?

WD: Oh, Mrs. Ransom? That was different. Her, I knew.

PF: How did you know her?

WD: Well, I didn't actually know her to speak to, or anything like that. But I knew who she was. My mother left some money when she died, about twenty thousand dollars, and I wanted to take care of it. So I used to go down to Barnett and Company to see Mr. Richard Mueller, he invested the money for me? And I'd see him maybe once a month. For a while I did, anyhow, before things got kind of hectic around here. Mrs. Ransom was in the office next to Mr. Mueller's, and so I'd see her most times I went there. She was a really pretty woman. I liked her. And then her picture was in the paper that time she won the big award. So I decided to use her for the second Blue Rose person, the one in the St. Alwyn, room 218. It had to be the right room.

PF: How did you get her to the hotel?

WD: I called her at the office and said that I had to tell her something about Mr. Mueller. I made it sound like it was really bad. I insisted that she meet me at the hotel, and I said that I lived there. So I met her in the bar, and I said that I had to show her these papers that were in my room because I was afraid to take them anywhere. I knew room 218 was empty because I looked at it just before dinner, when I snuck in the back door. The locks are no good in the St. Alwyn, and there are never any people in the halls. She said she'd come up to see the papers, and when we got into the room I stabbed her.

PF: Is that all you did?

WD: No. I hit her, too. That was even in the newspapers.

PF: How many times did you stab Mrs. Ransom?

WD: Maybe seven, eight times. About that many times.

PF: And where did you stab her?

WD: In the stomach and chest area. I don't really remember this.

PF: You didn't take pictures.

WD: I only took pictures at home.

PF: Did you get to the room by going through the lobby?

WD: We walked straight through the lobby and went up in the elevator.

PF: The clerk on duty claims he never saw Mrs. Ransom that night.

WD: He didn't. We didn't see him, either. It's the St. Alwyn, not the Pforzheimer. Those guys don't stay behind the desk.

PF: How did you leave?

WD: I walked down the stairs and went out the back door. I don't think anybody saw me.

PF: You thought you had killed her.

WD: Killing her was the whole idea.

PF: Tell me about what you did this morning.

WD: All of it?

PF: Let's leave out Alfonzo Dakins for now, and just concentrate on Mrs. Ransom.

WD: Okay. Let me think about it for a second. All right. This morning, I was worried. I knew Mrs. Ransom was getting better, and—

PF: How did you know that?

WD: First, I found out what hospital she was at by calling Shady Mount and saying I was Mrs. Ransom's husband, and could they put me through to her room? See, I was going to keep calling hospitals until I got to the right one. I just started with Shady Mount because that's the one I knew best. On account of my mom. She worked there, did you know that?

PF: Yes,

WD: Good. So I called up and asked if they could put me through, and the switchboard lady said no, Mrs. Ransom didn't have a phone, and if I was her husband I'd know that. Well, that was really dumb. If you wanted everybody to guess where she was right away, you put her in the right place. Everybody like Mrs. Ransom goes to Shady Mount. My mom told me that when I was just a little boy, and it's still true. So I'm sorry to criticize you and everything, but you didn't even try to hide her. That's really sloppy, if you want my opinion.

PF: So you knew she was at Shady Mount, but how did you find out about her condition? And how did you learn her room number?

WD: Oh, those things were real easy. You know how I said that my mom used to work at Shady Mount? Well, sometimes, of course, she used to take me there with her, and I knew a lot of the people who worked in the office. They were my mom's friends—Cleota Williams, Margie Meister, Budge Dewdrop, Mary Graebel. They were a whole crowd. Went out for coffee and everything. When my mom died, I used to think that maybe I should kill Budge or Mary so that she'd have company. Because dead people are just like you and me, they still want things. They look at us all the time, and they miss being alive. We have taste and color and smells and feelings, and they don't have any of those things. They stare at us, they don't miss anything. They really see what's going on, and we hardly ever really see that. We're too busy thinking about things and getting everything wrong, so we miss ninety percent of what's happening.

PF: I still don't know how you found out that—

WD: Oh, my goodness, of course you don't. Please forgive me! I'm really sorry. I was talking about my mom's friends, wasn't I? Really, my mouth should have a zipper on it, sometimes. Anyhow. Anyhow, as I was saying, Cleota died and Margie Meister retired and went to Florida, but Budge Dewdrop and Mary Graebel still work in the office at Shady Mount. Now Budge decided for some reason that I was a horrible person about the time my mother died, and she won't even talk to me anymore. So I think I should have killed her. After all, I saved her life! And she just turns her back on me!

PF: But your mother's other friend, Mary Graebel—

WD: She still remembers that I used to come in there when I was a little boy and everything, and of course I like to stop by the Shady Mount office every now and then and just chew the fat. So the whole thing was just as easy as pie. I stopped in on my lunch hour yesterday, and Mary and I had a nice long gabfest. And she told me all about their celebrity patient, and how she had a police guard and a private nurse, and how she was suddenly getting better up there on the third floor, and everything. And I could see fat old Budge Dewdrop fuming and fretting away all by herself over by the file cabinets, but Budge is too scared of me, I think, to do anything really overt. So she just gave us these looks, you know, these big looks. And I found out what I had to do.

PF: And this Mary Graebel told you that the private duty nurse took breaks every hour?

WD: No, I got lucky there. She was leaving the room just when I turned into the hallway. So I got in there fast. And I did it. Then I got out, fast.

PF: Tell me about the officer in the room.

WD: Well, I had to kill him, too, of course.

PF: Did you?

WD: What do you mean? Do you mean, did I really have to kill him, or did I really kill him?

PF: I'm not really sure I follow that.

WD: I'm just—forget it. Maybe I don't remember the officer who was in the room very well. It's a little blurry. Everything had to happen very fast, and I was nervous. But I know I heard you tell someone that the officer from the hospital was dead. You were walking past the cells, and I overheard what you said. You said, 'He's dead.'

PF: I was exaggerating.

WD: Okay, so I was exaggerating too. When I said that I killed him.

PF: How did you try to kill the officer?

WD: I don't remember. It isn't clear. My mind was all excited.

PF: What happened to the hammer? You didn't have it when you came back to your house.