The Case of the Lady in Apartment 308 Read online

  She wore big glasses. She had no makeup on. But her coveralls were stiff with paint. She looked like a dribble painting by Jackson Pollock. He would have envied her splatters.

  Ed bellowed rather loudly, “Who put you in here? What the hell are you doing, painting this…whi— Marcia? Is that you under all that paint?”

  “Yes.” She went back to painting.

  Slowly the dawn broke in Ed’s brain. “You’re a painter?”

  “Yes.” She didn’t glance around.

  “I thought you meant pictures!”

  “No.”

  “Now, just a minute.” While he was speaking loudly, his voice tried to be reasonable. “You can’t paint this room white. It’ll look like a hospital.”

  “No.”

  He was stern. “I will not have this apartment painted a stark white!”

  “I like it. I’ll live here. I want it this color.”

  With some superiority, he assured her, “White isn’t a color.”

  “To me, it’s a background. I want it white.”

  He imparted wisdom: “Most renters want a cream color. It goes with anything.”

  “So’s white.”

  He scowled at the painter who did walls and not canvases. “It’s my apartment house.”

  “Oh?” She turned her head and gave him a paintspeckled glasses evaluation. “I thought you were the rent collector.”

  “I also rent out the apartments. If this is painted white, and you take off in the middle of some night, how am I to get this place rented again?”

  She went back to painting. “There will undoubtedly be someone who is as discerning as I who will love having clean, white walls.”

  He repeated, “It looks like a hospital.”

  “It won’t.”

  There is nothing more irritating to a man than a positive woman who doesn’t agree with him.

  How could a shorter, lesser-strengthened portion of humanity have the guts to counter him? Women are a God-given man’s burden. Dealing with women is what cancels out men’s sins.

  Ed looked at the flaw in the universe that had lighted on his territory and thought: To hell with it.

  He turned and walked out of the room into the hallway and went on down the hall toward the stairs. It was only then that Ed realized he’d retreated.

  No. He was giving her time to review her flaws and apologize.

  He narrowed his eyes as he considered that a light green would look even better painted over that white wall. It would be okay.

  Ed saw the white walls the next day. She was on a ladder—where did she get the ladder?

  In some shock, he asked, “Where did you get the ladder? The last time I saw it, it was in the basement, locked in the toolroom.”

  “Rudolf freed it.”

  “He doesn’t have the key.”

  She turned big, serious eyes to his—and it was rather overdone—as she said, “Do you suppose that Rudolf would pick a lock?”

  “No.”

  She turned back to what she was doing and enlightened the creature by the door, “He did. I showed him how.”

  “You can pick locks?”

  “Readily.”

  “So that’s how you got in here that first day to paint.”

  She shrugged. “The key man wasn’t here.” She gave him a censoring look that identified him as the recalcitrant.

  Her voice touched the words marvelously as she finished, “I dislike sitting, waiting and twiddling my thumbs.”

  He could understand that.

  And as he was adjusting to her being logical, he realized she was hanging drapes! Orange ones. Orange! And only that one wall was painted.

  He had the audacity to mention his surprise. His voice squinched up just like his face as he said, “Orange drapes with a white wall?”

  Since it was obvious that was exactly what she was doing, she saw no need to comment in confirmation of his observation.

  He questioned, “Corduroy? In summer?”

  She instructed with some impatience, “You can’t see through it.”

  He nodded in thoughtful, slow bobs.

  Not even looking at him, she said, “Hold this.”

  He just went right on over and reached up easily and held the corner of the drape. And he got to watch her from another point of view.

  She was, of course, standing on the ladder. She was stretched up, hooking the drapes into the holes on the rod.

  It was an enticing and interesting view for a potent male. He swallowed but kept his eyes on her.

  She said, “Let go.”

  He gasped at her insolence. He wasn’t touching her!

  She pulled on the material and looked down at him as she repeated, “Let go.”

  He did.

  But she’d noted he was susceptible.

  She licked her lips, looked away from him and went right on doing whatever it was she was doing to the drape in reference to the rod.

  He put his hands into his trouser pockets and walked around a little.

  She came down the ladder and lifted it easily out of the way. She then folded her arms and tilted her head a tad as she observed the hung drapes.

  Ed was thinking, She could look away from me! He said to her, “They’re noticeable.” But his eyes looked down her body.

  “My mother got a real deal on this material two years ago in the spring. My dad wouldn’t have it in the house, so she split it between my sister and me. I love the color.”

  He ought to say something to support that but he squinted and just cleared his throat.

  She soothed him, “When the pictures go up on the wall, it’ll all balance.”

  Pictures? “We don’t allow more than one nail hole per wall.”

  “I’ll fill the holes with putty and paint them with a dab of…white, of course…and you’ll never notice.”

  Obviously, there was more than one picture.

  He turned his squint onto her and asked, “How many pictures do you intend hanging?”

  “Well, I have friends who paint.” She paused, “Pictures. Then there are the family pictures. I’m a godmother, and I have a niece.”

  She had said all that quite softly as one speaks to someone who is already grieving. What is it about men’s rejection of nails in walls?

  He accused her of smuggling. “I didn’t see any pictures when you came in here.”

  “They’re in the trunk of my car. Would you like to help me bring them up here? You don’t appear to be occupied with anything, right now.”

  How could he refuse? Well, this would give him an opportunity to discard some of the pictures and leave them in the trunk of her car.

  He made two trips, carrying the pictures. Two trips up two flights. She wasn’t even breathing quicker.

  Of course, she hadn’t really replied to his long argument on leaving some of the pictures in the trunk of her car. She’d simply piled them on his arms and didn’t really pay any attention to his succinct reasoning over excess pictures.

  He took up pictures and held them against the wall. The frames were wood and heavy. She stood back and decided what should go where. Then she put those on the floor and arranged them to balance.

  He got to pound in the nails. Every hammer stroke caused a flinch in his body. He did alter one nail. He knew it was over wires.

  And he saw that she had a discreet pair of binoculars.

  Hmmmm. A voyeur? He frowned over at the woman who was calmly doing whatever it was she was doing then.

  She could be a bird-watcher.

  He went over and put one hand between the drapes to peek out and see what she would see. The orange-colored windows overlooked The Strip.

  That caused him to be very thoughtful. Deliveries? There were some posh stores down there.

  Marcia was taking over Elinor’s apartment. Were they in cahoots? Was Marcia to signal when one of the stores got a big delivery? The police were just lucky that Ed Hollingsworth was a good citizen.

  How could he
turn in the supple and intriguing Marcia Phillips? Hmmm. Intriguing Marcia Phillips. The first letters spelled IMP. Perhaps that was a sly indication of what she was?

  Yep. The law was just lucky it had Ed Hollingsworth who was a good citizen.

  And of course, that gave Ed a good excuse to see Marcia as often as he could. She tolerated him. She was kind. She worked the tail off him.

  He had to admit the proliferation of pictures on her one painted wall was almost as fascinating as she.

  She began to paint the next wall. Ed found she wouldn’t work in any apartment on the other side of the building. She would paint any apartment he wanted that was on her side, including the two which looked down on The Strip, but she would not paint in the other two sides of the building.

  Ed asked Marcia, “Why not?”

  She regarded him with her lower lip pushed up in contemplation and replied, “The light.”

  “There’s nothing wrong with our wiring. It’s been completely rewired in the last six months.”

  “Daylight.”

  He considered her with a frown. And she returned his consideration with placid interest. Ed guessed, “Maybe you are an artist after all.”

  “After all?” She lifted her eyebrows.

  “I thought you painted pictures.”

  She shook her head gently as she reminded him, “I have friends who do. They are having a joint showing down on the docks next week.”

  “Tell me when, and we’ll go.”

  “We?” Her eyes had become riveted.

  “You and I will go together so that I know if the artist is any good.”

  “Just look at the pictures.”

  He looked vulnerable. Men of thirty-seven can do that quite well. He told her seriously, “I have an older brother and three younger but I have never looked at any pictures except those in Playboy. How come you’ve never posed for any of the pictures?”

  She gasped.

  “I’ve looked at all the copies for the last five years and you’re not in any of them.”

  She straightened in indignation.

  He went right on. “I’ve noticed and you could qualify—easily. Hasn’t anybody else said anything about pictures to you?”

  She said a short, stopping, “No.”

  But he laughed. “You’ve got to be over twenty-five. You don’t blush or wiggle. You’re one of those new women who think—who consider they’re equal to any man. So you paint to prove you can do it, just like any man can.”

  She discarded the conversation and went back to her dainty, precise painting.

  She had no idea how many times he climbed those stairs to be sure she was all right. He kept track of every male who entered the building.

  She never seemed to look up. She apparently didn’t know he watched over her. She painted with the apartment door open. She’d placed a fan on the floor just inside the door. The windows were all open. Very little of the paint smell crept out into the hall.

  He began to worry about her diet. He stood near her as she continued to paint and asked her, “What’s your favorite food?”

  “Peanut butter.”

  He realized she never gave him more than the initial, brief, identifying glance.

  3

  Ed became concerned about Marcia’s diet. While peanut butter was a good staple, she needed other nutritional input. Input? Yeah. She ate it.

  But she needed more fruit and vegetables.

  He went to his mother and said, “What are some good, easy, balanced meals that you can take somewhere and eat?”

  His mother knew instantly he was interested in some female. At last. But obviously, she was not a cook. Hmmmm.

  His mother asked with such an innocent face that appeared not too interested, but only casual and kind, “What sort of things does he like?”

  Ed moved in the manner a man does when he sees a snake close by, but avoidable, and he said with a slow, casual hand opening, “‘He’ is me. I need some different foods to eat. Something I can carry with me.”

  He looked up with clear eyes to his radar mother and added in a gentle manner, “I’m out of work.” He began that way as if she’d forgotten his firing. “I need to make pots of things and freeze them. I could take them out of the freezer as I need them. They’d be ready to eat when it was a mealtime.”

  His radar mother’s eyes narrowed slightly. Ed had explained too long and too much. It was a woman. He was interested enough to slyly feed that woman. Hmmmm.

  His mother reluctantly rejected sauerkraut and wieners for a delicate woman. That had taken real backbone not to be lured into doing something so overly maternal. But she didn’t know anything about this witch who was trying to lure—

  Actually, it was her son who was trying to lure some indifferent woman?

  How rude of the insolent witch!

  The senior Mrs. Hollingsworth told her second of five sons quite casually, “I have a loaf of my bread in the freezer. Your father sliced it a bit thick since he likes it that way—”

  “I was hoping you had some of your rolls?”

  “Well, yes, I do.”

  “Then, some of those, and do you have any of your stew?”

  “I…believe so.”

  No voice could be as reluctant as hers in her replies.

  Her sensitive, second son didn’t notice.

  His mother had recently assumed that—unlike his raucous, randy, older brother who already had five children—Ed would not marry. What the three younger boys did was their own choice, but she’d always considered Ed as her own child.

  In the continuing effort of his acquaintances even she had touted several good, staunch, true women. But he’d never taken them out on a date singly. He’d had several other couples along, every time.

  But he had dated singly. When he’d gone with the women of his choice, he’d never allowed anyone else along.

  Ed was now thirty-seven years old and still unmarried. His observant mother had quite comfortably come into the idea that if his dad died before she did, Ed would move in and take care of her and the house…the yard, the errands. The grocery shopping…

  It was something of a jolt for Mrs. Hollingsworth to find her son was probably thinking in another line entirely. Ed was concerned with some female’s diet. That was very serious.

  Ed wasn’t aware of “serious.” He was curious about the woman and feeding her was a way to observe her. She was a strange person. He couldn’t figure her out.

  In all of Ed’s life, there hadn’t been too many women who didn’t wiggle around for his observation. Marcia didn’t wiggle. She looked at him as if she knew more than he did.

  How rude of her.

  She had the ears of a cat. He’d come to the open door of the apartment she was painting, and she’d be picking up her brush. She wasn’t just dipping it into the paint, she was picking up the brush and then she dipped it.

  Instead of interrupting her painting, he was interrupting something else. It was a good thing he was paying by the apartment instead of by the hour.

  But what was distracting her? And there were those discreet binoculars. Was she a lookout?

  Was she nosy? Was she watching some other man? For whom? For…what? Why?

  And Ed figured Marcia was in some sort of trouble and needed a strong male to take care of her. Somebody like Ed Hollingsworth.

  He said, “You’re still in this room?”

  She cast a brief, patient glance his way and replied, “I’m careful.”

  He thought she’d be a lot quicker if he stood around and watched her. She wouldn’t need to wander around and hurry back to the painting when she heard him coming down the hall.

  She didn’t seem to act guilty when he caught her that way. She just didn’t want any questions? What distracted her? Who?

  Since he did pay her by the apartment and not the hour, why did he care?

  Well, after all, he was a time and motion expert. Many and many a time, he’d gone and studied how people could do a
job more efficiently.

  This female painter needed more concentration. But then…He wasn’t anxious for her to get through with the painting. Although it took a good deal of his time to keep check on her safety, he didn’t even notice how much time it took for him to monitor her. His time and motion checking her didn’t count.

  The most intrusive part of his life was the constant meetings and telephone calls trying to find a place that would hire him. He was very marketable. But he was getting pickier and pickier about what jobs were being offered.

  He’d turned down three positions since Marcia had begun working for him. His conscience touched on that briefly, but he didn’t examine the illogic of the blue-eyed reason.

  It wasn’t the woman who’d influenced his choice, it was—the apartments. He didn’t want to leave town and leave the supervision of the apartments to a stranger.

  Right.

  He said to the aloof woman, “I’ll bring your lunch today. Can you eat about twelve?”

  She looked at him with a weighing sobriety. Then she said grudgingly, “Okay.”

  No surprise, no smile, just that reluctant “Okay.” The woman had no idea how to treat a man. She needed lessons. For her own life, she needed to know how to handle a man. He could help her in learning such skills.

  He smiled just a tad.

  She gave him a glance that a woman would give to a spider.

  She probably didn’t know about black widow spiders who ate the male after they’d mated.

  He considered her. He wouldn’t mind being eaten by her. He smiled and licked his lips. But he was discreet.

  He wasn’t thinking of cannibalism.

  He regarded her. All he could see was that paintflecked hat and the too-big overalls that were stiff with paint splashes, streaks and smears. Did she ever wash them?

  He lifted his nose a little and tested the air. Since the fan was behind him, he moved casually to the other, downwind side. She didn’t stink. He smiled.

  Then he licked his lips and bit down on his lower lip. He was testing to see if she bathed? Think of that! Just because her clothes were paint smeared didn’t mean she didn’t wash them. She just didn’t soak them in turpentine first.