نیویورک سیتی

PART THREE: MARION

Chapter nine

New York City

September 1951

Marion Kingship lived alone in a small apartment in New York City. Everything in it could have told a visitor to the apartment about Marion’s tastes - her taste in books, her taste in pictures and her taste in music. But the only visitor who ever went to the apartment was Marion’s father. He didn’t go there often. And Leo Kingship wasn’t interested in his daughter’s tastes.

Marion had never really liked her father. She was ten years old when her parents divorced. Marion had been very upset about it. Ellen was only six then, and Dorothy five. The younger girls hadn’t really understood why their mother had left them. But Marion had known. She’d decided then that her father was a cruel, cold man. And her mother’s death, soon after the divorce, had increased Marion’s dislike of him.

Marion had lived with her father and her sisters at Leo’s beautiful house in New York City until she finished college. She had been a student at Columbia University, in New York. After college, she moved to the small apartment where she now lived.

Marion had always wanted to work in an advertising agency. When she left college, her father had tried to make her work for the agency which looked after his company’s advertising. He told the director of the agency to give his daughter a job. But Marion had never wanted her father’s help. She found a job with a much smaller advertising agency. She didn’t earn much money there, but she liked the job and she was happy.

After she moved into her own apartment, Marion visited her father’s house for dinner one evening a week. They were always polite, but they didn’t really like each other. Soon after Marion left Columbia University, Ellen went to Wisconsin, to study at Caldwell College. And a year later, Dorothy went to Iowa, to study at Stoddard University. So Marion and her father were usually alone together for these weekly dinners.

Nothing had changed between them after Dorothy’s death. Leo was angry because Dorothy had been pregnant. And he was angry because she had killed herself. He had paid people to keep the news of the pregnancy out of the newspapers. Then he tried to forget about his youngest daughter. After Ellen’s murder, Leo did try to be kinder towards Marion. And she felt sorry for her father. Now she went to his house three evenings a week, instead of one. She tried to like him more. But she was always suspicious when Leo tried to be kind. She didn’t really trust him.

Marion Kingship didn’t really love anybody. But she had her apartment, and she loved that. Every Saturday, she spent the day cleaning it. And she often dreamed that one day, a good, kind man would visit her there - someone who would love her and take care of her. “Will he ever come?” she often asked herself.

One Saturday morning in September, Marion was cleaning her apartment. She was cleaning a table and she was looking up at her copy of Charles Demuth’s painting, My Egypt, which hung on the wall above it. Demuth was her favorite painter, and My Egypt was her favorite painting.

The phone rang. Marion answered it.

“Hello,” she said.

“Hello,” said a man’s voice, which Marion did not recognize. “Are you Marion Kingship?”

“Yes,” Marion answered. “Who are you, please?”

“My name is Burton Corliss - Bud Corliss,” the man replied. “I knew your sister, Ellen.”

“Yes, Ellen told me about you, Mr Corliss,” Marion said.

Marion remembered Ellen’s excitement when she had spoken about this man at Christmas. “I love him so much, Marion,” her sister had said. “He’s so good and kind.”

“I’d like to meet you, Miss Kingship,” Bud Corliss said gently. “I have a book which belonged to Ellen. She lent it to me a week before her death. I’d like to give it to you. May I bring it to your apartment?”

Marion thought quickly. This man wanted to give her something which had belonged to her sister. That was kind of him. But she didn’t want him to come to her apartment. The apartment was waiting for the special man who would visit her one day.

“I’m sorry, Mr Corliss, I have to go out soon,” she lied. “Perhaps I could meet you this afternoon? I’m going shopping on Fifth Avenue. I could meet you in that area at three o’clock.”

“Good,” replied the young man. “I’ll wait for you by the statue outside Rockefeller Center. Then we’ll have a drink together. Goodbye, Miss Kingship.”

“Goodbye,” Marion said. She put down the phone.

Marion wasn’t happy about the phone call. Saturday was her special day. She didn’t want to go out. She didn’t really want to meet any of Ellen’s friends. And she didn’t want any of Ellen’s books. Ellen had never liked the kinds of book that Marion liked. Marion enjoyed books by Proust, Flaubert, and all the great nineteenth-century novelists. Ellen had liked silly modern stories - stories that didn’t have much meaning.

“I won’t stay with this man for long,” Marion thought.

Bud Corliss recognized Marion Kingship when she was a hundred feet away from where he was standing. She looked like both her sisters.

He took her to a bar and he bought drinks. They sat at a small table and he gave her Ellen’s book.

“I read it,” he said. “But I didn’t like it very much. It isn’t the kind of book that I enjoy. Ellen’s taste in books was very different from mine. Books like this don’t have much meaning, do they? I like books by Proust, Flaubert, Dickens - writers like that.”

Marion smiled. “I like them too,” she said.

“Ellen told me that you work for an advertising agency,” Bud said.

“Yes, that’s right,” Marion replied. “And you’re still at Caldwell?”

“No, I left college,” the young man replied.

“But at Christmas, you were a third-year student, like Ellen, weren’t you?” Marion said. “Why didn’t you stay for your final year?”

“Well, my father died a few years ago,” Bud replied. “And my mother had to get a job. She cleaned people’s houses. Now, I don’t want her to work any longer, so I’ve come to New York and I’ve got a job here. Maybe I’ll go back to college next year and finish my studies then.”

A few moments later, Marion stood up.

“I have to go now, Bud,” she said. “Thanks for the drink.”

“Won’t you have another one?” Bud asked.

“I have to meet somebody else now,” she lied. “It’s a business meeting. I mustn’t be late for it.”

Bud watched Marion Kingship leave the bar. Very carefully, he followed her. He saw her go into an apartment building. He waited for half an hour, but she didn’t come out again.

“A business meeting!” he said to himself. “No - she lives there.”

He started to walk towards the poor part of the city where he rented a little room. He knew where Marion Kingship lived now. He could hide in the street near her building whenever he wanted to. He could follow her wherever she went.

For months after he had killed Ellen Kingship, Bud Corliss had been angry and afraid. He’d been angry about the time he’d spent on the Kingships - first on Dorothy, then on Ellen. And he’d been afraid about his future. Was he going to be poor, after everything he’d planned? He’d wanted some of Leo Kingship’s money so much. And everything had gone wrong! He hadn’t wanted Dorothy to get pregnant. And he’d told Ellen not to go back to Blue River, but the stupid fool wouldn’t listen to him.

Bud wasn’t afraid of the Blue River police. He was sure that they would never connect him with the murders. He’d been very careful. When Ellen’s letter arrived, he’d decided that he had to do something quickly. Ellen had almost learned the truth about him and Dorothy! From a closet in his room, he’d taken the gun that he’d had since his years in the army. Then after dark, he’d stolen a car in Caldwell and driven it to Blue River. After he’d killed Powell and Ellen, he drove quickly back to Caldwell. He’d stopped for a moment on a bridge, to throw the gun into the Mississippi River. Yes, he’d been very careful! He’d worn gloves at Dwight Powell’s house. The police wouldn’t find Bud’s fingerprints there! And he’d left the car near the place where he’d stolen it.

In the weeks after the killings, Bud read the Iowa newspapers every day. He read about the police investigation into the murders. He soon realized that the police weren’t going to discover the identity of the killer. And he read about a man named Gordon Gant, who had lost his job as a disc jockey at the Blue River radio station. Gant had tried to tell both the police and Ellen’s father that he had some information about the killings. He’d tried to tell them that Dorothy Kingship’s death was a murder, not a suicide. And he’d tried to tell them that Ellen had been investigating her sister’s death. The police hadn’t believed him, so Gant had started to say rude things about them on his radio program. The owner of the radio station had been angry about that, and the disc jockey lost his job. Bud wasn’t worried about Gant - he couldn’t prove anything!

But when the college term finished in June, Bud went unhappily back to his mother’s house in Menasset. That summer, he argued with his mother every day. He was rude and angry all the time. Then one night, he had an idea. Perhaps the time he’d spent on Dorothy and Ellen had been useful.

They were dead now, but Marion Kingship was still alive. And Leo Kingship was still a rich man!

Bud knew a lot about Marion Kingship. Dorothy had talked about her, and Ellen had talked about her. He’d spent hours listening to both of them talking about their family! Marion was very different from her sisters, he knew that. She liked serious novels and classical music. She liked the paintings of artists whose names he had never heard before.

Bud had taken a piece of paper and written on it all the things that he knew about Marion Kingship.

MARION KINGSHIP

She likes

BOOKS: Proust, Flaubert, Dickens etc.

PLAYS: Bernard Shaw, Tennessee Williams

MUSIC: Stravinsky, Bartok

PAINTERS: Renoir, Van Gogh, Hopper.

Her favorite painter is Charles Demuth (Check spelling - is it Demeuth?)

FOOD: She likes Italian and Armenian food best.

Things to do:

Read books on painters. Read Proust, Shaw and Flaubert. Find out about Italian and Armenian restaurants in New York.

After he had written the list, Bud put it in the small metal strongbox, where he kept his most private things. His brochures from Kingship Copper Incorporated were in it too. He locked the box and hid it in a closet in his bedroom.

The next day, Bud told his mother that he was not going to return to Caldwell College in September.

“I want to go to New York,” he’d said. “I’ll get a job there. I’ve had a really good idea. I can’t tell you about it yet - it’s a secret!”

His mother had smiled at him.

“You always have wonderful ideas, Bud,” she’d said.

On the Sunday afternoon after her first meeting with Bud Corliss, Marion Kingship was sitting in one of the big, bright rooms in the New York Museum of Modern Art. She often came to the museum on Sundays. It was her favorite place in the city. She was looking at some large statues, when she heard a noise behind her.

“Hello again, Marion,” said Bud Corliss. “I didn’t expect to see you here.”

Bud was lying. He had expected to see Marion there. He had been waiting near her apartment building when she came out, and he had followed her to the museum.

“I love this museum,” Bud went on. “I often come here.”

This was a lie too. Bud had been there only once before. He’d found the rooms which contained paintings by the modern artists that Marion liked most.

“I come often too,” Marion said. She smiled at the young man.

“I always wanted Ellen to be interested in art,” Bud said. “But she never wanted to go to museums or look at paintings. Ellen was a very sweet girl, but her tastes were so different from mine. I liked her very much, but I don’t think that we would have stayed together after college.” He looked sad for a moment. Then he smiled.

“Let’s look at the paintings together,” he said. “I love American paintings. My favorite artist is an American. His name is Charles Demuth. Do you know his work, Marion?”

Several hours later, as the two young people left the museum together, Bud held Marion’s hand for a moment.

“I’d like to take you to a restaurant for dinner tonight,” he said. “There’s a wonderful Armenian restaurant, not far from here. Do you like Armenian food, Marion?”