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THE THIRD WOMAN
Mel Waldman
I
Only a woman can commit the perfect murder. The recipe for success is smart chemistry: intelligence, creativity, inspiration, an object of murder both arrogant and stupid, and law enforcers equally macho and simple-minded.
Mrs. Mary Wisdom returned from the party at the Wolf mansion at 1 AM. Intoxicated, she was accompanied by her friend Jennifer who had driven her three blocks south to the Wisdom mansion. Jennifer steadied Mary as they climbed the stairs. Several times she grabbed Mary’s right arm and lifted her body, for Mary’s legs couldn’t hold her up. With Jennifer’s help, Mary opened the front door and entered.
“Thanks,” Mary said, momentarily wearing a big smile.
Inside, they slowly climbed another three flights of stairs. On the third floor landing, they turned left and approached Richard’s study. Richard C. Wisdom was Mary’s husband and a millionaire mystery writer. Often, he avoided crowds and parties. Richard preferred to lock himself in his study and work on a novel.
“Richard, it’s Mary. Open us.”
He did not answer. Jennifer tried to open the door. But it was locked from the inside.
“Richard, please open up. I’m a bit under the weather. Jennifer’s with me. You’ve got to let her out.”
He did not answer.
“Richard, this is Jennifer. Please come out and say hello, darling. Haven’t seen you in ages.”
Silence.
“Please open up, darling and let me out. Mary’s indisposed and can’t climb those dreadful stairs again.”
Silence.
“Just three minutes to let me out and you can return to your magnificent book.”
Silence.
“Mary, darling. I think it’s time to call the police.”
Jennifer helped Mary to her bedroom and put her into bed. Then she called the police.
II
When the police broke down the door, Richard C. Wisdom was not inside. Yet the door had been locked and bolted from the inside. And there were no windows in the room. No apparent means of escape. How did he get out? In what condition? Alive or dead?
In the center of the room was a pool of blood. And one bloody letter sprawled across the room: M. A locked room. No corpse. Only the bloody accusations of a missing victim.
III
Detective Phil Black, a short muscular man with a goatee and bifocals, paced back and forth. “There must be a secret chamber!” he announced. “Let’s find it!”
Detective Black and his team of officers searched the study for several hours. They found nothing. In the meantime, the lab boys came and took samples of the blood. They finished early and left.
At 4 AM, Detective Black said good night to Mary Wisdom and Jennifer. “We’ll be back in the morning. Detective Carr will be across the street in an unmarked car. Detective Dickson will stay downstairs in the living room, if you please.”
“Yes,” Mary Wisdom agreed. “Richard gave the servants the night off. He wanted complete solitude. I don’t want to be alone.”
“Of course not.”
“Jennifer’s staying with me tonight. Still, my nerves are shot.”
“I understand. He’ll be downstairs. No one will harm you. No one.”
IV
I killed Richard. Of course, I did. No one else could have committed the perfect crime. No one but a former circus queen. Queen of the flying trapeze. No one but the architect of Richard’s study.
Yes, I killed Richard because he betrayed me. He deserved to die. So I shot him in the heart (although he was heartless). I should have killed her too. Perhaps, in time.
But where is my dearest Richard? Where is my beloved corpse? There’s been foul play. I’ll get to the heart of this matter. Trust me.
V
The following morning, Detective Black and his team returned. Detectives Carr and Dickson remained to assist the others. As the servants weren’t expected for another hour, Jennifer went downstairs and made coffee for everyone. Soon Teresa, Mary’s twin sister, arrived. Teresa helped Jennifer in the kitchen. Mary lay in bed for she still had a hangover. Although Detective Black and the others searched relentlessly, the team could not find a secret chamber.
VI
Such foolish men searching for a secret chamber. There is no secret chamber. Not in the usual sense. But... You can’t fit a square into a circle. Or vice versa. Detective Black and his boys have no creativity. They must go beyond their narrow thoughts-stretch their imagination and fly. Yes, they must fly!
VII
“Ladies, I must confess. I can’t tell who’s who.”
“Well, we are identical twins, Detective Black.”
“Yes, Ms....?”
“Mrs. Wisdom.”
“But how do people tell you apart?”
“I’ve got a mole on my left buttock,” Mary Wisdom announced.
Detective Black grinned sardonically. “That distinguishing feature would help only in very special circumstances.”
“The naked truth, Detective Black.”
“Yes. Of course. But is there any other means of distinguishing the two of you?”
“I am left handed. Teresa is right handed.”
“Anything else?”
“My legs are muscular and strong. Hers are skinny and weak.”
“Yes. But...”
“I have a beautiful singing voice. She does not.”
“How interesting but...”
“I have a narrow, crooked smile. Teresa’s is straight and full.”
The twins smiled wickedly at Detective Black.
“It’s true! At last, I can tell who’s who. Yes!”
VIII
Detective Black kept looking for the secret chamber but to no avail. And although he questioned Mary and Jennifer again, he could not find a hidden clue to Richard’s disappearance and possible murder. Yet he returned to the mansion even after the case was considered inactive. Human blood had not been spilled in Richard’s study. Something mysterious had occurred, indeed, but it was beyond human comprehension. So it seemed.
In any case, Detective Black craved for Mary. And Mary did not discourage his advances. How unfortunate!
IX
One night, at Detective Black’s request, Mary and Phil locked themselves in Richard’s study.
“Phil, you are a strange man. And you make me feel stranger than I’ve ever been.”
They drank white wine and made love. And later, Mary serenaded Phil. When she sang “Fly Me to The Moon,” the high ceiling opened up.
“Look!” Phil cried out.
“Oh, yes, it’s modular and voice activated.”
“We never looked up there.”
“Of course not. You were looking for a secret chamber in the wall.”
“So it was you?”
“Yes.”
“But you were ill that night. Jennifer took you home.”
“Stupid man! She took Teresa home. Teresa went to the party in my place. I stayed behind to...”
“You were a circus queen. Queen of the flying trapeze! I read the articles. Yet I never figured...”
“Yes, I was the Queen! But Richard betrayed me for Teresa. And he betrayed Teresa for another woman. We never figured out who she was. In any case, Richard did not deserve to live.”
“You killed him?”
“I thought I did. Until he disappeared.”
Mary sang “Fly Me to The Moon” again and the open ceiling closed.
“What do you intend to do, Phil?”
“Nothing. There’s no corpse. No human blood. Seems Richard played a grotesque joke on you and Teresa. He wanted out. And he’s out!”
“So what now?”
“I’m in!”
X
Perhaps, the third woman was Jennifer Miles, a tall, slender blonde with penetrating green eyes. Cat eyes. Richard nicknamed her Miles. She was Mary’s friend. Family. And an avid reader of mysteries, especially a Richard C. Wisdom murder mystery. Had she betrayed Mary? If so, was it really betrayal or an act of intimacy?
Of course, there was Maria Borges, Richard’s agent. At times, she seemed to control Richard’s mind. The long-haired brunette with azure eyes possessed “a dark beauty and mystical, occult powers,” according to the Times. She had guided and shaped Richard into a successful writer. Was she the mysterious third woman?
We can’t forget Martha Jacobs, Richard’s editor. Articulate, creative, commanding, and seductive. Martha was a brainy slut with the weird rep of getting down with her male writers. According to rumor, she claimed she empowered “her boys” by sleeping with them. Way to go Martha!
The list of candidates seems infinite. Our recluse was not shy with women, although he was forced into isolation by his brutal drive and insatiable need for recognition and greatness. So be it! Richard C. Wisdom was a man of extremes. Loved and hated, he evoked extreme responses in others.
XI
Richard was alive. His beloved wife Mary had saved his life when she talked in her sleep three nights before the attempted murder. Her unconscious mind had confessed. And as for the musical code to the locked room, Mary had revealed it last summer. But then, the revelation meant nothing to Richard.
In any case, Richard bought a bullet-proof vest and got three plastic bags of canine blood from Barbara Stone, a vet, former consultant and mistress. Even with the bullet-proof vest, Richard could have died. Had Mary shot him in the head rather than the heart, he’d be dead. But since she had a poetic sense of justice, she shot him in the heart. When the bullet struck the plastic bag hidden beneath his shirt, canine blood gushed out. He fell to the floor, pretending to be dead. Mary saw the blood saturating his shirt and flooding the floor. She believed he was dead.
Mary climbed the rope suspended from the opening in the ceiling and attached to a metal cabinet on the next floor. She sang “Fly Me to The Moon” and flew off. Richard rose, removed his bloody shirt, and watched a cornucopia of blood rush to the floor. Then he opened the other two plastic bags of blood and spelled the letter M. He stripped naked, cleaned his body, opened the door, and went to his bedroom where he found the hidden rope. Then he went upstairs, sang “Fly me to The Moon,” attached the rope to the metal cabinet and dropped it through the opening in the ceiling. He went downstairs, entered his study, and locked the door.
Richard collected his bloody clothes, bullet-proof vest, and packed them in a black traveling bag which had contained a change of clothes. He got dressed, attached the traveling bag to his belt and climbed the rope. He sang “Fly Me to The Moon,” slipped out of the house by the back entrance and vanished.
XII
Richard waited for me on the other side of town. I was late. Yet he was there when I arrived.
“I was worried something happened to you.”
“Worried? But you almost got me killed.”
“I was careless. Mary followed me that night. I never suspected...”
“Mary’s crazy! She could have murdered us!”
“Well, she almost shot me dead!”
“You were lucky. She warned you in her sleep. You had time to...”
“Yeah.”
“I was less fortunate. She broke into my place. Terrified me. Yet in the end, she let me go.”
“Why?”
“Why not? She was obsessed with other matters.”
I smiled wickedly at Richard. He misunderstood. He glanced at my hands covered with black leather gloves.
“Let’s go inside. I’ve missed you.”
“Yes, I suppose you have.”
I removed Mary’s .38 from my purse. “I’ll miss you, Richard. Goodbye.” And I shot Richard in the forehead at point blank range. Wearing a quizzical look, he died instantly.
XIII
Mary had followed Richard to Barbara Stone’s place two nights before the attempted murder. That night she figured out that Barbara was the third woman. She had suspected that they were having an affair two years ago. But she thought the affair was over. Obviously, Richard was a womanizer and con man of the highest order. Miraculously, he was still alive. He had escaped. Yet tonight, Barbara Stone would die.
Before leaving, she made one call. Then she rushed into the beguiling night.
I made one call. I didn’t rush. If my calculations were correct, it would all be over by the time I arrived.
XIV
When I arrived, they were dead. Phil stood over the bodies.
“I was too late. Mary had already murdered Barbara Stone. Then she tried to kill me.”
“But...”
“Guess it was nothin’ personal. A desperate woman does desperate things. She was fast. I was faster. Sorry.”
XV
Mary called me before she went on her mission. Guess she trusted me. Or perhaps, she wanted me to stop her. I didn’t. I wanted her to kill and be killed. So I called Phil. Told him I was worried about Mary. I begged him to stop her from killing Barbara Stone. He believed me as Mary had believed me about the third woman.
Barbara Stone wasn’t the third woman. The third woman never existed. Only Teresa, Mary’s twin. Not Mother Teresa but Teresa Faustus, the twin of Mary Wisdom born Mary Faustus. Our Father was a famous doctor. And we were his precious girls.
Tonight, I hid Mary’s .38 in the Wisdom mansion. Tomorrow, I’ll give Phil a call. He’s kinda cute. A bit macho and simple-minded and certainly, a lousy detective. But a simple woman must be realistic. Can’t shoot for the stars. A good man’s hard to find. But so easy-so very easy to kill.
