Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 36, No. 6, June 1991

Mama’s street and the one above were as quietly austere, as uncommunicatively introverted, as always. I nosed the car onto the slanted driveway but short of the garage door. Then I opened the trunk of the car and rummaged around and found what I think is called a tire iron. The garage door was locked with a padlock. I pushed the end of the tire iron in behind the padlocked bolt and pulled. I heard the groan of old, termite-eaten wood as the bolt broke through. I pulled open the door onto an empty garage. Neat and empty. Tools hung on peg-boards, waxes, polishes neatly capped and lined up on the workbench, chamois in a basket.

I put the tire iron back into my trunk and slammed it shut. I walked down the cement steps into the yard below and noticed now that it looked better than it ever had during all those years Joe Gomez had taken care of it — more formally pruned, clipped, and manicured, the flagstones swept and edged — as if whoever was doing it was either taking pride or making mileage.

Just as I reached the front of the house, the mail truck was moving away from the box down at the curbing. I had forgotten about the mail! I ran down the front steps, opened the box, and drew out a couple of bills — one, the electric bill, postmarked the day before, probably today’s delivery — the other, a gas bill postmarked the day before that, yesterday’s delivery. The precanceled Occupant mail carried no date, but an envelope addressed to Mama from a local travel agency showed a postmark of three days ago. I tore it open upon brochures for “Romantic Hawaii,” climbed the front steps, inserted my credit card, and let myself in the house.

I left the door open, put the mail on the telephone stand, opened the drawer, looked up the number of the travel agency, and dialed.

“Why, yes,” the sweet young voice answered my question, “that was in reply to a telephone request from Mrs. Mossby. The request?” She seemed to be consulting some notes. “Why, it was the twenty-fifth, three days ago, the same day I sent out the brochures. She said she and her fiancé — I believe that’s who she said — would want to look them over before making a decision.”

“Thank you,” I said.

“Well, would Mrs. Mossby...” she began, and I said, “I’m afraid not.” My throat closing, I hung up.

Mama had sat here three days ago, girlishly giddy, apparently alive and well, and made her telephone call — her fateful call, of that I was sure. It was all beginning to come together. I thought of those personal jigsaw puzzles so popular about ten years ago — Jeff had the account of a game company that manufactured them, and he was enthusiastic, so the company enlarged photographs and mounted them of each of the kids and cut them into jigsaw puzzles, big pieces for small fingers to put together, and Jeff brought them home, watching the kids with an ad man’s perceptive frown, and got the surprise of his life. Steve, four, slapped his together in nothing flat and screamed in terror at all the cracks in his face. Carolyn, two, managed to get her hair and part of her face locked in, then abandoned the project, which was exactly the position I was in at that moment. There was a big hole in Mama’s personal jigsaw puzzle and I didn’t want to find those remaining pieces.

A sudden gust of hot wind swung the door to shadow the hall. The Santa Anas were back. I opened the door wide again, took the telephone book and wedged it, open to the yellow antiques section, under the door. I stood there a moment, looking out and across the street at one of the few orange groves left in town. There was no one over there to see anything over here. Nor was there anyone on either side to see anything between the tall, vine-covered walls. I felt a little sick.

It was almost two o’clock. Food, I thought. I needed food; the brandy sloshing around in my stomach was making tidal waves.

I went into the kitchen. The sun, slanting between fluffy curtains, was September hot, Santa Ana dry, the kitchen shone. Then I noticed its shine — not ordinary kitchen sunshine, but scrubbed bright, fussy neat, nothing left on the counter tops, nothing in the polished sink. Mama, now, Mama tended to be careless, as would be expected from a “Little Bit.”

I opened the refrigerator and was surprised at the milk and cream, butter, eggs, cheese on the shelves — a well-stocked refrigerator as Mama’s had never been. I poured some milk into a glass and sipped it as I leaned against the sink, looking out the back windows toward the cement steps. The only people who could have seen anything, had there been anything to see, would have been those across the street from the garage up above.