She parked herself about a foot from me and pushed her face forward and looked into my eyes.
She didnt get it.
I looked wise. I nodded my head and looked at Randall and Randall nodded his head. He went to a window and looked at the side of Mrs. Florians house. He came back softly, holding his pork pie under his arm, debonair as a French count in a college play.
She didnt get it, I said.
Nope, she didnt. Saturday was the first. April Fools Day. He! He! She stopped and was about to wipe her eyes with her apron when she remembered it was a rubber apron. That soured her a little. Her mouth got the pruny look.
When the mailman come by and he didnt go up her walk she ran out and called to him. He shook his head and went on. She went back in. She slammed the door so hard I figured a windowd break. Like she was mad.
I swan, I said.
Old Nosey said to Randall sharply: Let me see your badge, young man. This young man had a whiskey breath on him tother day. I aint never rightly trusted him.
Randall took a gold and blue enamel badge out of his pocket and showed it to her.
Looks like real police all right, she admitted. Well, aint nothing happened over Sunday. She went out for liquor. Come back with two square bottles.
Gin, I said. That just gives you an idea. Nice folks dont drink gin.
Nice folks dont drink no liquor at all, Old Nosey said pointedly.
Yeah, I said. Come Monday, that being today, and the mailman went by again. This time she was really sore.
Kind of smart guesser, aint you, young man? Cant wait for folks to get their mouth open hardly.
Im sorry, Mrs. Morrison. This is an important matter to us
This here young man dont seem to have no trouble keepin his mouth in place.
Hes married, I said. Hes had practice.
Her face turned a shade of violet that reminded me, unpleasantly, of cyanosis. Get out of my house afore I call the police! she shouted.
There is a police officer standing before you, madam, Randall said shortly. You are in no danger.
Thats right there is, she admitted. The violet tint began to fade from her face. I dont take to this man.
You have company, madam. Mrs. Florian didnt get her registered letter today either is that it?
No. Her voice was sharp and short. Her eyes were furtive. She began to talk rapidly, too rapidly. People was there last night. I didnt even see them. Folks took me to the picture show. Just as we got back no, just after they driven off a car went away from next door. Fast without any lights. I didnt see the number.
She gave me a sharp sidelong look from her furtive eyes. I wondered why they were furtive. I wandered to the window and lifted the lace curtain. An official blue-gray uniform was nearing the house. The man wearing it wore a heavy leather bag over his shoulder and had a vizored cap.
I turned away from the window, grinning.
Youre slipping, I told her rudely. Youll be playing shortstop in a Class C league next year.
Thats not smart, Randall said coldly.
Take a look out of the window.
He did and his face hardened. He stood quite still looking at Mrs. Morrison. He was waiting for something, a sound like nothing else on earth. It came in a moment.
It was the sound of something being pushed into the front door mail slot. It might have been a handbill, but it wasnt. There were steps going back down the walk, then along the street, and Randall went to the window again. The mailman didnt stop at Mrs. Florians house. He went on, his blue-gray back even and calm under the heavy leather pouch.
Randall turned his head and asked with deadly politeness: How many mail deliveries a morning are there in this district, Mrs. Morrison?
She tried to face it out. Just the one, she said sharply one mornings and one afternoons.
Her eyes darted this way and that. The rabbit chin was trembling on the edge of something. Her hands clutched at the rubber frill that bordered the blue and white apron.
The morning delivery just went by, Randall said dreamily. Registered mail comes by the regular mailman?
She always got it Special Delivery, the old voice cracked.
Oh. But on Saturday she ran out and spoke to the mailman when he didnt stop at her house. And you said nothing about Special Delivery.
It was nice to watch him working on somebody else.
Her mouth opened wide and her teeth had the nice shiny look that comes from standing all night in a glass of solution. Then suddenly she made a squawking noise and threw the apron over her head and ran out of the room.
He watched the door through which she had gone. It was beyond the arch. He smiled. It was a rather tired smile.
Neat, and not a bit gaudy, I said. Next time you play the tough part. I dont like being rough with old ladies even if they are lying gossips.
He went on smiling. Same old story. He shrugged. Police work. Phooey. She started with facts, as she knew facts. But they didnt come fast enough or seem exciting enough. So she tried a little lily-gilding.
He turned and we went out into the hall. A faint noise of sobbing came from the back of the house. For some patient man, long dead, that had been the weapon of final defeat, probably. To me it was just an old woman sobbing, but nothing to be pleased about.
We went quietly out of the house, shut the front door quietly and made sure that the screen door didnt bang. Randall put his hat on and sighed. Then he shrugged, spreading his cool well-kept hands out far from his body. There was a thin sound of sobbing still audible, back in the house.
The mailmans back was two houses down the street.
Police work, Randall said quietly, under his breath, and twisted his mouth.
We walked across the space to the next house. Mrs. Florian hadnt even taken the wash in. It still jittered, stiff and yellowish on the wire line in the side yard. We went up on the steps and rang the bell. No answer. We knocked. No answer.
It was unlocked last time, I said.
He tried the door, carefully screening the movement with his body. It was locked this time. We went down off the porch and walked around the house on the side away from Old Nosey. The back porch had a hooked screen. Randall knocked on that. Nothing happened. He came back off the two almost paintless wooden steps and went along the disused and overgrown driveway and opened up a wooden garage. The doors creaked. The garage was full of nothing. There were a few battered old-fashioned trunks not worth breaking up for firewood. Rusted gardening tools, old cans, plenty of those, in cartons. On each side of the doors, in the angle of the wall a nice fat black widow spider sat in its casual untidy web. Randall picked up a piece of wood and killed them absently. He shut the garage up again, walked back along the weedy drive to the front and up the steps of the house on the other side from Old Nosey. Nobody answered his ring or knock.
He came back slowly, looking across the street over his shoulder.
Back doors easiest, he said. The old hen next door wont do anything about it now. Shes done too much lying.
He went up the two back steps and slide a knife blade neatly into the crack of the door and lifted the hook. That put us in the screen porch. It was full of cans and some of the cans were full of flies.
Jesus, what a way to live! he said.
The back door was easy. A five-cent skeleton key turned the lock. But there was a bolt.
This jars me, I said. I guess shes beat it. She wouldnt lock up like this. Shes too sloppy.
Your hats older than mine, Randall said. He looked at the glass panel in the back door. Lend it to me to push the glass in. Or shall we do a neat job?
Kick it in. Who cares around here?
Here goes.
He stepped back and lunged at the lock with his leg parallel to the floor. Something cracked idly and the door gave a few inches. We heaved it open and picked a piece of jagged cast metal off the linoleum and laid it politely on the woodstone drainboard, beside about nine empty gin bottles.