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I don t understand, Mattie said.
I guess Andrew felt he d be accepted more readily
as Andrew Goren. He knew Eppie Diamond, knew she
didn t have a son. He writes fiction. It was easy for him
to make up an identity.
He s a nut, Harry said.
Yes, I agreed. But he didn t kill anyone.
He had the motive for Mackey at least. Mackey
made a fool of him.
And Eppie Diamond?
Maybe she found out he was using her name and her
life and told him to stop.
Now no one is left to tell him to stop, Mattie said.
But why Rae? Why Rae? My fists came down hard
on the bedclothes.
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Harry shrugged. Where did you go from Eppie Dia-
mond s?
After about a half hour, when we didn t find the
shoes, we gave up. Mr. Colangelo and I left together. I
walked with him for a block trying to get him to talk
about Andrew, but he was recalcitrant. We parted and I
walked down to Fourteenth Street and then back toward
Seventh Avenue and the subway.
But you didn t come home till near seven o clock,
Mattie said.
I ran into Edward Hall and kept him company over
lunch at the Green Dragon.
Till seven? Harry said.
I shook my head. There was something I needed to
do. I d gone to see Ilona Gabori at her atelier when I left
here. Every mannequin she owned wore my face.
Harry was staring at me as if I d lost my mind.
I mean, my face was painted on every mannequin.
How can that be? Mattie said.
I asked the same. She told me the mannequins came
from the Glaser Company. I lay back again. Harry s bed
smelled of cigarettes and beer, mixed with perspiration. It
was reassuring. I remembered that Bennett Newman s
flat is above the Glaser Family Printers. It was Bennett
who had painted my face on all the mannequins. So when
I left the Green Dragon, I went off to berate him.
What did he say?
Harry, your cigarette! He grabbed his nub of a ciga-
rette before it could burn the papers on his desk. Another
fire would not please me.
Go on, Oliver. You were going to tell us what Bennett
said about the mannequins.
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Annette Meyers
He was not at all remorseful. He said I should be flat-
tered and if I didn t like it maybe Rae would.
Were you there till seven o clock? Mattie stopped
drifting and sat down on the bed beside me. I held her
hand.
Bennett had to deliver some drawings to Lord and
Taylor, and I fell asleep. I woke up because he d left his
cigarette burning and it had started a fire. I put out the fire
and was on the street when I realized I d left my cigarette
case in the flat so I went back to get it. And that s how I
saw him and Stephen Lowell arguing under Bennett s
window. I would have called down to them, but Gerry
came along with Detective Walz, so I hid downstairs in
the Glaser Family s storage closet until I could get away.
Harry was making frightening noises. The coppers
think you killed Rae.
What is the matter with everybody? I couldn t. I
loved her.
They found a letter to you in her purse.
I sat up, moved again to tears. Did you read it? What
did it say?
Mattie put her arm around me. She said she was
going to marry Whit.
No! She wouldn t. I looked to Harry for a denial.
She did.
I felt betrayed. No more now, please, Harry. I stood
up.
I m sorry, Oliver, but I have to He stopped dead,
exchanged a glance with Mattie I couldn t fathom.
Have to what? Tell me.
Oliver, Mattie s been scrubbing up the trail you left on
the back stairs when you came home. And your coat
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What trail! I screamed. What about my coat? What
are you talking about, Harry, damn it all?
His face was blank. I couldn t read anything in his
eyes. He said, Oliver, how did you get all that blood on
your coat and shoes?
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Chapter Forty-eight
My attorney, Thomas Jenner III, Esq., is
tall, pleasant-faced, not much older than I, but truly a
generation apart in the way we look at life. He arrived for
lunch, which Mattie served in our tiny dining room. He
had already spent an hour with Harry, who had told him
all the particulars of my troubles.
I d inherited Mr. Jenner, as he had me, from my great-
aunt Evangeline. Thomas s late father had been Aunt
Evangeline s attorney.
Proper person that he is, and I am not, he would have
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