Magdalena's Story, a life in three parts

Part 2 Chapter 4 Gathers Alibis

Chapter 4 Constable Fielder gathers the alibis

Scene 1 Magdalena

The day after my homecoming, where Miss Pollock took over from Rita and Marcello, Constable Fielder was announced, waiting in the dining room. When I came in, he was looking at the pictures on the wall, some old watercolours, faded but delicately done, and he turned and told me I looked astonishingly well for a girl just released from the hospital. I gestured him to sit, which he did, after he had pulled my chair out and safely seated me first. Miss Pollock wanted to know if she could get the tea things, to which he nodded. She left and he took out his little notebook and the well sharpened yellow pencil. This is what I told him.

At 6 pm on Saturday, October 13th, I met Marcello, I know that because it is written in my diary. I handed Constable Fielder my own notebook, a black drawing pad with pencil lines connecting thoughts and arrows curving graceful arcs. He looked at it intently. He looked up at me again as if to check I was still on the planet earth, the lines foreign to him, and he noted in his book, after a dash, 6pm. I told him it was dark already, the sun went down before I left work. I carry a bag of clothes all the time, an old habit, to change for the evening. They picked me up, Rita and Marcello. "Was Marcello not at work?" he asked. "No," I told him, "he left early to conclude some deal he said. I think we went to the Commodore, and I say that because I remembered entering with Marcello. No, not Rita, I don't remember her there. Some lady was. Another lady who went to the powder room at the same time as me sat with us. A friend of somebody. I was the only one dancing all the time. I remember dancing and I think I fell. I remember someone fighting and some running and passageways that I had never seen before, not backstage, maybe kitchen, funny smells, a back door, a car, and another car following and that's it."

"Why did you say another car following?" he asked. "Curious, yes, good question, because we were going fast, taking chances, I was swaying, my neck jerked forward then back and my shoulder hit the door handle, I think it was, and then I was laying sideways and the world was spinning. I felt centrifugal force, not drunk spinning, you know the difference, then I don't know what happened next." I took the teacup offered by Miss Pollock whom Constable Fielder waved out of the room after he complimented her on the tea strength and temperature, proper British. My hand was shaking, the china chattered. "How did you get home?" he asked. "I don't know" I told him. "But I don't think that was it for the night." "Oh, my" he said. I laughed. He looked startled and asked what time I left the Commodore, and I told him it was probably 11 pm. He asked why I thought that, and I could only tell him that the rush hour to go home after work was over, as was the "come out to dine" crowd done, and we were well into the "party clients," which is usually about 9 pm, and now those who "started too early and have begun to fight" which would make it about 11. There was a cloud cover, and I don't believe there was a moon.

Constable wondered if she had been drugged. She swore she was not drinking anything but water. The other lady was also drinking water and went and got it from the bar while Magdalena was dancing. Magdalena remembered thinking she had a nice walk and was tall in heels and a black slinky dress. Who was that if not Rita? Certainly not Jill Chivalrous. Constable Fielder smiled at the picture. He had heard that gangsters in New York use a date rape drug in clubs. Its chemical name is Ketamine. It can be put into a drink. Doctors and veterinarians use it as anesthesia because it is a dissociative drug, which means it makes you feel detached from reality. Researchers are also studying it as a benefit for people who have severe depression. Nurses have access to it, he thought, as he smelled the tea, given to them by Miss Pollock, with renewed interest.

He is an odd duck, Magdalena thought, as she watched him and his short blond mustache twitch. "Did anyone see you running, or can verify this story about the Commodore, see you fall on the dance floor, slide into the alley, jump in the car, did any of your friends tell you what happened? Who were you with in that car?" he asked all at once. "Why, yes they all talk" I sighed, "but it is all very confusing," and a tear choked me and I dropped my biscuit and Miss Pollock came in and asked him not to tire me and he said "I beg your pardon" and I got up and he walked over and stood behind me looking out the window and I said "I don't know, not Marcello, he was not in the car. We lost him." "Was it a man or a woman, or both?" "Maybe three I feel. I was in a car going uphill, leaning back on the seat curves. It was a white house. No not the one Marcello designed in our neighbourhood, a strange white house on a hill. I could see the Lions Gate Bridge far away twinkling when I got out of the car. The house door was large. It was very impersonal. It opened. There was a bird in a cage. Several men in full dress attire were playing cards on the low coffee table, ladies with skirts spread like flower petals around them on the soft carpet, several more gentlemen with ladies in men's attire smoked slim cigars at the cocktail bar balancing martini glasses elegantly. Elbows propped; feet crossed one en pointe over the other, like long legged sea birds. An ornate cascading stairway where one could make an entrance. Small carpets on the floor, all deep burgundy but one which was crimson in the centre of the room, a single cane chair, a lamp with faceted sides of delicate metal fretwork, with oval gems of primary colours, embedded.