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Except, of course, for the night he went to dispose of Nadia’s body.
He shuddered at the memory, watching himself struggling down the two flights of stairs with the garbage bags containing her body. He made it to the bottom and was reaching for the door reserved for renters when it suddenly opened and there stood Imogene.
She was wearing a long, blue nightgown and a look of total confusion. Her feet were bare.
“Mrs. Lebowski?” he asked, as shocked to see the octogenarian as she was to see him. “What are you doing here? Are you all right?”
Truthfully, he didn’t give a rat’s ass how she was. He cared only that she was there, her watery gray eyes fixed on the garbage bag on the floor behind him. Had he made more noise than he’d realized when stuffing Nadia’s body inside it? Had he woken up the old bat, arousing her suspicions?
“Who are you?” she asked.
“WhoamI?” he repeated, wondering what game she was playing.
“What are you doing in my house?”
“I’m your tenant, Mrs. Lebowski. Don’t you know me?”
“Of course I know you,” she said, although her eyes said otherwise. “What are you doing?”
“Just throwing out a bunch of old crap. What areyoudoing?”
Imogene Lebowski sighed. The sigh said she had no idea.
Either she was sleepwalking or she was having some sort of seizure. Or maybe it was the onset of dementia. He didn’t know and he didn’t care. All he cared about was getting away from her as fast as he could. “Mrs. Lebowski,” he began. “I don’t think you should be out now. It’s two o’clock in the morning. You should go back to bed.”
If she found it odd that he was throwing things out at two in the morning, she gave no such indication. She just stood there. Staring at the large green garbage bags containing Nadia’s body.
“Mrs. Lebowski,” he repeated. Then, laying a gentle hand on her arm, as he’d done with Joan Hamilton in Nordstrom’s that afternoon, “Imogene.”
A coquettish smile appeared at the corners of her lips. When she spoke, her voice fluttered girlishly between octaves. “You’re a very handsome young man,” she said. “Has anyone ever told you that?”
He lowered his chin modestly.You’ve got to be kidding me,he thought. “Thank you. Now, I really think you should be getting back to bed.”
“Could you help me?”
For an instant, he thought she might be propositioning him. Then he saw the look of fear in her eyes and realized she wasn’t sure where her bedwas.Shit,he thought. Escorting her back to her room meant leaving Nadia’s body at the foot of the stairs, unattended, for at least five minutes. He didn’t know if the tenant in the second-floor unit was home or not. What if he was out and came back to discover the bag lying there? What if he peeked inside? What if he called the police? Shit.Shit.
Still, what choice did he have? If he refused, he and Imogene could be standing here till morning. “Okay,” he said, taking her elbow and leading her into the warm night air.
Luckily, she’d left the front door unlocked, and he guided her inside the foyer, leaving the door open as he escorted her to the master bedroom at the back of the house. The place had that “old people” smell, he was thinking as he maneuvered her gently toward her bed. “My daughter wants to put me in a home,” she confided as he was tucking her inside the wrinkled, stale-smelling sheets.
“Get some sleep,” he said, wondering if he should do everyone a favor and simply finish her off now, save her daughter the trouble and expense of putting her in a home. It would be so easy, he thought, to press a pillow over her nose and mouth until she stopped breathing.
Although it would probably be more fun to strangle her, to watch those watery gray eyes turn milky white.
“You’re a very sweet man,” she whispered, interrupting his thoughts. “You won’t let my daughter put me in a home, will you?”
“Wouldn’t dream of it.” He pulled her blanket up around her shoulders. “Now get some sleep.”Then die,he added silently.
“Good night,” she whispered as he was tiptoeing from the room.
“Good night,” he said firmly, as a car door slammed outside.Shit,he thought, racing to the front door.What now?
But if there’d been a car, it had vanished into the night.
Just his imagination getting the better of him. Another unpleasant surprise.
He wasn’t used to anything getting the better of him.
