The Half That You See by Rebecca Rowland (best summer reads .TXT) 📕

could knock it over. It was a wonder that hadn’t happened. And where was that cat? She whistled and slapped her palms against her thighs, but the cat did not appear. Starting to worry, she called the cat’s name and listened for some noise that might indicate it was in the apartment. For a few seconds, she heard nothing. She turned and opened the door she had walked through moments before, and in rushed the cat.  She scooped it up, cradling it in her arms, scratching it behind its ears. But hadn’t she left it sleeping on her pillow that morning? How did it get out? She put the cat on the couch and bolted the door.

“It happened to me, too,” she said. “I think someone was in my apartment yesterday.”

“Are you sure?” asked the voice on the phone after a pause.

“No more sure than you are,” she said. “Things just seem out of place.”

“Oh, I’m sure now,” said March. “Someone has been in my home.”

“Are you certain?”

“Argus is dead, poisoned.”

“Oh, God!  I’m sorry,” she said, pulling her cat onto her lap. “Have you called the police?”

“No. Not yet. I need to think. It has to be someone I know, somebody familiar to Argus. He wouldn’t have let a stranger get near him.”

“Do you have any idea who?” she asked. March didn’t seem like the type of person who would have enemies.

“No, but I think it’s a woman. I found one of my razors and a bunch of hair in the tub, and my pillow smells like perfume.”

Una ran her hand over the nick on her leg and remembered how much worse it had been the time she had tried to shave with her husband’s razor. If there was blood in the tub, maybe the   police would be able to get more information than they could from a bit of stubble. For some reason, the idea made her queasy.

“Look, I have to go,” he said after a long pause. “I’m working second shift tonight.”

“Since when do you work the second shift?”

“Since I woke up late one time too often. I’m lucky I still have a job.”

After hanging up the phone, Una cursed herself. Maybe March really did have an intruder, but it was more likely his dog found something poisonous on his own, and the whole thing with the tub was just ridiculous. He had to have imagined that. It was all some fantasy, and she had let March contaminate her with his delusions.  No one had been in her apartment.  Everything was fine.  Nervous over the situation with Zimmerman, she had been unprepared to deal with March’s wild stories. Everything was fine.

She sat up late, smoking cigarettes and listening to the radio. Turning the radio down around 2:00 a.m., she wondered if the CDs she lent to March were safe. Apparently, his intruder did like to listen to the classical stations while shaving her legs. She chuckled to herself at the thought, but nevertheless, checked the lock on the front door before lying down.

Just when she finally did start to doze off, the phone rang. It was Mr. Daily, her boss.  Somebody had set off the alarm at the office, and, unable to get there himself, he wanted her to investigate the matter. This was not the first time this had happened. She had been called to perform this duty twice before, each time finding nothing but angry policemen. She was sure they would be even less pleasant tonight.

When she arrived at the office, she was surprised to be greeted by a tired-looking detective with rumpled clothes and uncombed hair rather than the usual uniformed patrolmen.  Someone had really broken in.

“Whose office is this?” asked the police detective, pushing open the door.  Broken glass sparkled in the light from the hall and crunched beneath the feet of the silent patrolman who glared at her as though she were somehow responsible. The file cabinets were overturned, and the desk drawers had been emptied on the floor. On the wall behind the desk, someone had drawn a picture of a pig in what looked like lipstick. Upon first seeing the pig, Una thought someone had tried to draw a phallus on it, but as she entered the room to examine the wreckage, she saw the phallus was actually an arrow pointing down toward the floor.

“Whose office is this?” repeated the police detective, putting a hand on Una’s shoulder to prevent her from venturing further into the room.

“It’s mine,” she said. Just then she noticed the legs protruding from behind her desk.  “Who?”

“The wallet says Walter Zimmerman.  Know him?”

“Yes, he is a client,” she said, unable to look away from the legs. As she stared, she noticed they seemed to be resting on a dark colored rug.  “I don’t have a rug,” she said just as the beam of a flashlight caused the dark spot to glisten.  She stepped back and would have fled if the detective had not grabbed her arm.

“Just calm down,” he said, looking hard into her eyes.

“What happened?”

“You don’t know?”

“How would I know?” said Una, alarmed by the policeman’s tone.

“You were seen leaving the building about two hours ago, and—”

“No! I was at home,” shouted Una. “I wasn’t here!”

“Okay, just calm down,” said the detective, stepping back. “Maybe it wasn’t you.  Nobody is accusing you of anything. Just calm down.”

“I didn’t do anything,” Una said, staring at the corpse’s shoes.

“Okay,” said the detective, nodding to the patrolman who immediately came over to stand beside Una. “This is Officer Lee.  He is going to take you home. Maybe tomorrow, if you’re up to it, you can come down to the station to answer some questions for us.” Una nodded and was led off by the grim patrolman.

Una was still shaking when she walked into her apartment. Embarrassed, Una had tried to redeem herself by dismissing the young patrolman at her door. No, she did not want him to come in to check her apartment for her. No thank you.