Abby glanced up at Dart condescendingly and then said to the girl, “You saw a white man get out of his car-a blue car-and climb those back stairs?”
“Big man. Yes, ma’am. Gray maybe-the car.”
“And what did you do then, Lewellan?” Dart asked, hoping to discover some inconsistency that might invalidate her as a witness and at the same time explain why Kowalski had left out her statement. Hope built inside him that Abby’s instincts were right: perhaps the connection was Kowalski, not Zeller. What a pleasure it would be to bring down Roman Kowalski.
“I watched,” the girl answered. “The Man come sneaking around our alley late at night, and I figure somebody gonna get arrested, maybe kilt.” She nodded at Dart, and he felt a chill down to his feet. Bellevue Square entertainment-arrests and shootings. Said with excitement, as if this window were just another television screen.
Dart considered the possibilities. Gerald Lawrence could have been a dealer, his white visitor a customer. Kowalski could know something about that, having been Narco once. The buyer could have been a cop, Dart realized, looking for Kowalski’s motivation. A cop buying drugs near Bellevue Square, or performing a shakedown was just the kind of information that Kowalski would attempt to keep quiet. If he handled it on his own, if he hushed it up, he could protect a fellow officer and pick up some chits to barter later in his career.
“The white man was upstairs about five minutes,” Abby repeated.
“Yeah, and no shooting.” She told Dart, “My mama tell me when there a shooting to get under a table. Head down and under a table.”
Five minutes was enough time to make a buy and get back down to the car, Dart thought. It didn’t seem to him near enough time to fake a suicide. He experienced another wave of relief-he had jumped to conclusions by considering Zeller. Guilt, he thought, is a form of illness.
He looked at Abby and saw sadness. Someone so young, her eyes said to him. Someone innocent. And innocence, he thought, is like a balloon-once punctured, it’s gone. There is no making it whole again. No making it well. His mother had stolen a different innocence from him; he felt empathy for this young girl.
“What time of night was this, Lewellan?” Abby asked.
“Between eleven and eleven-thirty.”
“You were up that late?” Dart asked. He wondered if this was a possible crack in her story.
“I don’t sleep so good. My mama reads to me after the news is over, then maybe I sleep for a little while.”
“Why don’t you sleep well?” Abby asked.
“Bad dreams.”
By the name of Gerald Lawrence, Dart thought.
He glanced at Abby. How could a person volunteer to work Sex Crimes? How could she live with this day after day?
Abby asked the inevitable question, and as it registered, Dart looked away. “Did Gerry Law ever ask you over to his place?”
“I don’t know.”
“We won’t tell your mother,” Abby promised.
She knows exactly what to say, Dart thought.
He looked back as Lewellan Page shrugged and focused her attention on the cracked linoleum again. She nodded sheepishly. “He had bunnies,” she said. “White bunnies.”
Dart felt a stinging in his eyes, and caught himself with fists clenched. Why bother asking this? he wondered. He didn’t want to hear any of this. But then he realized how important a question it was-perhaps enough animosity and hatred toward Lawrence had built so that a neighbor had killed the man and made it look like a hanging. Maybe there was no white man involved at all. Maybe Kowalski had discovered the hint of a murder and decided a scum like Lawrence wasn’t worth the taxpayer’s money.
Abby’s face held an expression of infinite patience and compassion. Dart admired her; his own face probably held a look of horror. He could see in the young girl’s fear and hesitation that she had indeed been in Lawrence’s lair, had petted those bunnies. A victim.
Attempting to fend off her confirmation-not wanting to hear it-he said impatiently, “Well, you’ve certainly been a big help.” God help him, he would not bring this girl downtown. He no longer cared about Kowalski’s missing pages. Let it go.
But for Abby this was simply another investigation, another case; she had seen dozens of girls like Lewellan Page. She would not allow Dart to close the questioning. “Are they nice bunnies? Cute bunnies?” she asked.
The girl nodded. “Yes, ma’am.”
“Lewellan, did you visit Gerry Law that night?”
“At night? No way. Only when Mama’s at work. Mama don’t like Gerry none. Mama don’t want me seeing the bunnies.” She asked Dart, “You know what happened to them bunnies now that Gerry is dead?”
Dart spun around and left the room, his throat constricted, his vision blurred.
Kill all the Gerry Laws you can find, and there would still be more, he thought. He wanted to change this girl’s life, to turn back the clock.
“Abby,” he called out, hoping to end this.
But he heard her voice from the other room as she asked softly, “Do you think you might recognize this white man if you saw him again?”
Dart didn’t hear an answer. He could picture those thin shoulders lifting into that shrug, the eyes expressive with fear. There was a picture of Jesus Christ on the wall and another of the pope by the door to the bathroom. There was a picture in Dart’s head of Gerald Lawrence hanging at the end of a lamp cord. Cut him down with a pair of wire cutters. Zip him up inside the ME’s black plastic body bag and forget about it. Who cares about him? Why bother to investigate? Kowalski was right: good riddance.
“Abby,” he called again.
“Come in here a minute,” she answered.
Reluctantly, Dart reentered the kitchen.
“Tell him what you just told me,” Abby said, glancing at Dart, and punishing him for his desertion.
“I saw the white man pull the chair out from under him.”
Dart stood there, slack-jawed. For a moment it felt as if his heart had stopped. The rationale that he had formulated in his head-the drug deal, Kowalski chalking up a favor-evaporated.
Several thoughts coursed through him, from how lousy a witness she was: a twelve-year-old victim of sexual abuse; to Kowalski’s missing pages.
The chair. He recalled the photograph: the chair lying on its side, spilled over as if kicked away.
Standing up and glancing out the kitchen window, Abby asked, “Were the shades up or down?”
Dart recognized that tone of voice: Abby didn’t believe the girl. Thank God! he thought.
“The shade was down. Gerry always had the shades down. Said the bunnies didn’t like the sun.” She turned to face Dart and explained, “But it was hot that night, and there was a wind, you know, and the shade blowing back and forth, and it moved once, and I saw that white man pull the chair, and I saw Gerry’s feet … you know?” She glanced over at Abby, and paddled her hands out in front of herself. “Like he was running, you know? Running real fast.”
Dart felt paralyzed. Lewellan Page had witnessed a murder.
To Abby the girl said, “Fritz ran away. That’s my dog. Mama’ll let me have bunnies now that Fritz is gone. Said no bunnies as long as we have Fritz, but Fritz is gone now, gone for good.” She nodded enthusiastically.
Fifteen minutes later Dart and Abby Lang were back in the department-issue Taurus soaking in the air-conditioning. Abby stated strongly, “She killed the dog, or let him go, or gave him away.”
“You think?”
“She wants those rabbits.”
He had a witness now that in many ways he did not want, and yet felt grateful to have. Someone had murdered Lawrence-the same person who killed the Ice Man? he wondered-and no matter who this person turned out to be-even if Walter Zeller-he had to be stopped, and right away. He couldn’t help but think that he might have stopped this killing if back then had he spoken up. He felt cold all of a sudden.