“I don’t know anything about that,” Kathy Franklin said, a little too quickly.
Leopold cleared his throat. “We want to ask you about Pete Selby.” “I haven’t seen him in months.” Too quickly again.
“Miss Franklin, the man who committed these crimes is a particularly vicious person. He endangered the lives of two children. Now you say you haven’t seen Pete Selby in months, but you admitted to Miss Trent that you’d seen him just last week.”
She shot Connie a deadly glance. “I forgot about that time. He was only here a few minutes.”
“He brought a shopping bag with him, from a supermarket that was robbed.”
“I asked him on the phone to bring me a loaf of bread and some milk. Are you going to arrest him for that?”
“What about today?” Leopold asked, ignoring her question. “Where was he this morning, just before noon?”
“I told you I haven’t seen him, and I meant it.” She was suddenly nervous, grabbing for an open pack of cigarettes that slid from her grasp; the cigarettes spilled across the carpet. She cursed and bent to retrieve them.
Connie was on the floor helping her, and Leopold drew back. He wasn’t getting anywhere. Perhaps a woman had a better chance with her.
“Look here, Kathy,” Connie began, reaching for the last of the cigarettes. “If Pete is involved in these crimes you have to tell us. Can you imagine how you’d feel if one of those child hostages was killed?”
“I don’t know anything,” Kathy insisted. “Not a thing.”
“Where’s Pete living these days, Kathy? Is he shacked up with another woman?”
“No!” she screeched from the floor, still on her knees. “He’s with Tommy Razenwood!”
“Where?”
“I don’t know. They have an apartment somewhere.”
Then, as if suddenly remembering Leopold’s presence, Kathy got to her feet and lit a cigarette. “I don’t know anything about it,” she told him. “I don’t see Pete any more.”
“If he’s still on drugs he needs money. Is Razenwood on the stuff, too?”
“I don’t know. I know nothing about Razenwood.”
Her face was frozen into an expression that told Leopold they had pressed it to the limit. If there was more information to be had, they weren’t going to get it from her this afternoon. “All right,” he said with a sigh. “Come on, Connie. We’d better be getting back.”
The policewoman nodded, then reached out to touch Kathy on the arm. “If you hear anything, Kathy, you have my number. Please call me.”
Downstairs Leopold asked, “What do you think?”
“Oh, she’s still seeing him. There’s no doubt about that. But she may just be covering up his usual drug activities. Until we get an identification from that armored-car driver or the supermarket manager, it’s all guesswork.”
He had to agree. “Let’s get back downtown. Maybe Fletcher had some luck with the witnesses.”
Fletcher came into the office almost at once, holding a group of files and mug shots. “We got it, Captain! The driver picked him out, and the manager and the little girl confirmed it.”
“Let me guess,” Leopold said. “Pete Selby.”
Fletcher shook his head. “I struck out on Selby. He was the right age and build, but the wrong face. I was running through some of the people arrested with him in drug raids, though, and I hit a bull’s-eye. A guy named Tommy Razenwood.”
“Razenwood.” Leopold took the picture and studied it. “He and Selby are rooming together somewhere. If we find one we’ll find the other.” The young man in the photo was grim-faced and sleepy-eyed. His age was 23, the same as Selby’s, but he had only one drug arrest, for LSD. There was no evidence that like Selby he was on heroin.
“No known address,” Fletcher pointed out.
“Kathy Franklin knows where they’re holed up. I’m sure of it.” He pressed a buzzer on his desk. “And if anyone can get through to her, Connie can.”
“You sorta like her, don’t you, Captain?”
“Connie? She’s an intelligent young woman.”
Fletcher winked. “I wasn’t talking about her brains.”
Connie Trent appeared at the door and smiled at them both. “Something else, Captain?”
“More of the same, I’m afraid. The witnesses identified Selby’s roommate, Tommy Razenwood, as the man we want. Do you think you could talk to Kathy again and tell her this, convince her it’s Razenwood and not Selby we’re after? I’m sure she knows where they are, and at this point she’s the only lead we have.”
“I’ll do what I can, Captain.”
After she’d left, Leopold said, “Fletcher, I think we’d better put a twenty-four-hour watch on Kathy Franklin’s apartment. If Connie doesn’t get anywhere, I still want to know if Selby shows up there again.”
“What orders if he does show?”
“Follow him. Tommy Razenwood is the one we’re after now.”
The next morning, at an hour still too early for most activity, a boy on a bicycle was starting out to deliver the morning newspapers on a quiet residential street near the north edge of the city. His name was Jim MacIves and he was twelve years old. He lived in the big white house on the corner with his parents and his two sisters.
This morning, as usual, he’d been the first one up. His father could sleep another hour before the alarm would ring to rouse him for his job at the bank. By that time young Jim would be back home and ready for breakfast.
The car was waiting at the first intersection, and the young man opened the door to call out, “Got an extra paper I can buy, kid?”
Always thankful for another sale, Jim said, “Sure,” and wheeled up next to the car.
That was when the man grabbed him around the neck, yanking him off his bike.
Jim tried to fight back, to break the grip on his throat and keep from being pulled into the car, but the man was too strong. The boy felt something hit him on the side of his head and the strength went out of him. He slipped to the pavement, feet tangled in his bike. The man stepped quickly from the car to lift him inside.
“What’s going on there?” a voice shouted from the ground floor of one of the houses. Even in his dazed condition Jim recognized old Matthews, who always sat by the front window waiting for his paper, even at seven in the morning. “Leave that boy alone!”
Matthews came running up, his slippers slapping on the sidewalk, and the young man straightened to face him. He hit the old man on the side of the head, but harder than he’d hit Jim. Then, as Matthews fell forward on his face, the young man seemed to panic. He kicked the bicycle aside and jumped back in his car, and in a moment he was gone.
Jim tried to shake the pain from his head and stand up. The first thing he thought of was poor old Matthews, who’d come running out to save him.
But it was too late for Matthews now. Looking at him there on the sidewalk, Jim could see he was dead.
Captain Leopold came back to headquarters that afternoon feeling old and tired. Perhaps it was the surge of fresh anger that had swept through him at the sight of the dead old man. Or perhaps it was just the senselessness of it all. Why did it have to happen? Why did people like Tommy Razenwood have to go through their lives robbing and killing?
Connie Trent came in, very quietly, and took the chair that Fletcher usually sat in. “I heard about it,” she said simply.
He nodded. “That makes it murder now.”
“You’re sure it was Razenwood?”
“I’m sure. The boy is the son of a bank manager. Razenwood was after another big haul. And he probably would have made it if that old guy hadn’t gotten involved.”
“The boy identified Razenwood?”