The Best American Mystery Stories 2005

“Now what else is really in this room?” Davis said. “Rug and desk, you said. Curtains?”

“Heavy dark things,” Jeffers said. “Like in here. Just like in this place. Timothy Speed made her get them. That’s the first place we looked. We thought she’d thrown herself out one of the big windows, although she was so light they might not have broken. Who knows. But she wasn’t there. And don’t think behind the door because I looked there and kicked the goddamn wall. I’m telling you she wasn’t hiding. She must have gone out the other one.”

“It’s a lightwell,” Bruno said. “It goes up,” to a skylight made of marble you can shine light through. The light is yellowy. I don’t like it. But that’s where it goes.”

“Up to a skylight,” Davis said, “and down to where?”

“To another window, in the basement,” Bruno said. “Painted shut. Not messed with. The police used what I have read was a fine-tooth comb.”

“She was gone,” Jeffers said. “When we saw the window we ran downstairs to the basement. There were four cases of wine stacked up against that window. They were dusty. She wasn’t there. We ran all the way up to the roof. The sun was coming up over the park, I’m telling you, the goddamn birds were singing but my wife was not on the roof and there’s no way she was ever on the roof.”

Davis stopped wiping the table. “Afraid of heights?”

“No,” Jeffers said. “You can’t open that marble thing. It’s old. Wesson didn’t build it to be opened.”

“Who went up on the roof?” Davis said. “All of you? Gregor too?”

“Gregor’s old,” Jeffers said. “He dozed in the other chair.”

“The police have been with him a million times,” Bruno said. “That’s why they haven’t arrested Mr. Jeffers, I think. They believe that I’d help him murder somebody and hide a body, but not Gregor. They thought maybe they couldn’t shake me, but two hours with the cops and Gregor would cry like a baby.”

“He lost his mom young,” Jeffers said. “That’s why he’s such a fucking baby.”

“I really don’t like you,” Davis said. She walked back to the bar and ran a thoughtful hand down the wood, close to where I was sitting. I couldn’t help watching her even though it must have looked schoolboy. “A girl,” she said, “goes into a room with nothing in it but antique furniture and closed windows. Someone brings her a drink. Glass breaks. A tiny window that goes nowhere is broken. The other ones aren’t, and you’re sure, right? Became they’re tall. You might have missed a small break at the top.”

“When we got back from the roof I ripped those drapes down myself,” Jeffers said.

“Which hasn’t helped your case,” Bruno said. “He trashed that whole room and then had to tell the cops that nothing had been broken but the window. We got an Italian guy doing the wiring and an old man with a shop in his garage. He’s the only man who can fix a Wesson chair, so he says.”

“Yes,” Jeffers said. “I threw the chair.”

“The chair that broke the door?” Davis asked.

“No,” Jeffers said. “Another chair. The chair by the desk. It was like a throne but I lifted it and I snapped it over the desk.”

“So there was another chair in the room,” Davis said. “What else?”

“Papers in the desk,” Jeffers said. “I don’t know. Nothing. A letter opener, maybe? When I tipped it over I didn’t notice anything missing.”

“The drink,” Bruno said.

“What?” Davis asked.

“The Delmonico,” Bruno said. “The tray was there and the little shaker full of melting ice. But the glass and the drink were gone. Gin, vermouth, brandy, dash of bitters.”

“An invisibility potion,” Jeffers said. “Like I said. Gone like her.”

“Mr. Jones,” Davis said, “put something on the jukebox.”

She handed me two of Callahan’s unearned dollars. He glared at me. I walked to the jukebox and chose Chet Baker, which is what I do often.

“What was she wearing?” Davis asked.

“A necklace,” Jeffers said. “A lot of money around her neck. Diamonds and I think sapphires, I don’t know. A vintage thing somebody found for me. A present after a fight. And a silk dress I ripped. And her shoes, but her shoes were sitting on the desk, right next to the phone which I tipped out oí the wall. Just tell me where the fuck she is or stop with the stupid questions. I’m so tired of this. The cops ask all the same things, what was she wearing, like I would have forgot to mention jet-pack.”

“I’m going to pour you one more Scotch,” Davis said. “And you’ll drink it and I’ll tell you something and you’ll leave. And you’ll pay for another bourbon for Mr. Jones.”

“Who the hell is Mr. Jones?” Jeffers asked.

“A customer who doesn’t give me any trouble,” Davis said, her back to the bottles. She poured, and then she reached up and coaxed two martini glasses from a rack above her head. I always forget about that. The gentlemen sipped and I sipped and she filled the two glasses with ice and left them on the bar, while she busied herself with a shaker. Gin. Brandy. You know where this is going. She trembled the bitters bottle over the shaker, stirred, and shut the lid. The ice shifted in the glass. The jukebox played.