“I don’t,” Grant said, “and I don’t give a damn, either.”
“Why? What’s wrong, mister?”
“Nothing. Nothing’s wrong. It’s none of your business, anyway.”
“Her daughter had her neck broken,” I said. “It’s our business.”
“I don’t give a...” he started to say. He stopped then and looked straight ahead of him, his brows pulled together into a tight frown. “I’m sorry. I still don’t know where she lives.”
“Did you know she was married?”
“To that sailor. Yes, I knew.”
“And you knew she had a daughter?”
“Don’t make me laugh,” Grant said.
“What’s funny, mister?” Pat said.
“Did I know she had a daughter? Why the hell do you think she married the sailor? Don’t make me laugh!”
“When was your daughter married, Mr. Grant?”
“Last September.” He saw the look on my face, and added, “Go ahead, you count it. The kid was born in November.”
“Have you seen her since the marriage?”
“No.”
“Have you ever seen the baby?”
“No.”
“Do you have a picture of your daughter?”
“I think so. Is she in trouble? Do you think she did it?”
“We don’t know who did it yet.”
“Maybe she did,” Grant said softly. “She just maybe did. I’ll get you the picture.”
He came back in a few minutes with the picture of a plain girl wearing a cap and gown. She had light eyes and straight hair, and her face was intently serious.
“She favors her mother,” Grant said. “God rest her soul.”
“Your wife is dead?”
“Yes. That picture was taken when Alice graduated from high school.”
“May we have it?”
He hesitated and said, “It’s the only one I’ve got. She... she didn’t take many pictures. She wasn’t a very... pretty girl.”
“We’ll return it.”
“All right,” he said. His eyes were troubled. “She... if she’s in trouble, you’ll let me know, won’t you?”
“We’ll let you know.”
“A girl... makes mistakes sometimes.” He stood up abruptly. “Let me know.”
We had copies of the photo made, and then we staked out every church in the neighborhood in which the baby was found. Pat and I covered the Church of the Holy Mother, because we figured the woman was most likely to come back there.
We didn’t talk much. There is something about a church of any denomination that makes a man think rather than talk. Pat and I knocked off at about seven every night, and the night boys took over then. We were back on the job at seven in the morning.
It was a week before she came in.
She stopped at the font in the rear of the church, dipped her hand in the holy water, and crossed herself. Then she walked to the altar, stopping before a statue of the Virgin Mary, lit a candle, and kneeled down before it.
“That’s her,” I said.
“Let’s go,” Pat answered.
“Not here. Outside.”
Pat’s eyes locked with mine for an instant. “Sure,” he said.
She kneeled before the statue for a long time, and then got to her feet slowly, drying her eyes. She walked up the aisle, stopped at the font, crossed herself, and then walked outside.
We followed her out, catching up with her at the corner. I walked over on one side of her, and Pat on the other.
“Mrs. Dreiser?” I asked.
She stopped walking. “Yes?”
I showed my buzzer. “Police officers,” I said. “We’d like to ask some questions.”
She stared at my face for a long time. She drew a trembling breath then, and said, “I killed her. I... Carl was dead, you see. I... I guess that was it. It wasn’t right... his getting killed, I mean. And she was crying.”
“Want to tell it downtown, ma’m?” I asked.
She nodded blankly. “Yes, that was it. She just cried all the time, not knowing that I was crying inside. You don’t know how I cried inside. Carl... he was all I had. I... I couldn’t stand it any more. I told her to shut up and when she didn’t I... I...”
“Come on along, ma’m,” I said.
“I brought her to the church.” She nodded, remembering it all now. “She was innocent, you know. So I brought her to the church. Did you find her there?”
“Yes, ma’m,” I said. “That’s where we found her.”
She seemed pleased. A small smile covered her mouth and she said, “I’m glad you found her.”
She told the story again to the lieutenant. Pat and I checked out, and on the way to the subway, I asked him, “Do you still want to pull the switch, Pat?”
He didn’t answer.
Ybor City
by Charles Beckman, Jr.
It happened in an alley in Tampa, Florida, in the squalid Ybor City district. One minute he was a man, smoking a cigarette, waiting for me in the humid summer night. The next, he was a corpse, tailing over with a knife in his back.
I never saw his killers at all, except for two blobs of shadow in the stinking blackness of the alley. One of them was a woman. She collided with me, giving me the feel of her softness and the smell of her cheap perfume. Then she was gone.
Something had spun out of her hand when she plowed into me. I groped around for it. My hands came in contact with a woman’s small purse. Quickly, without looking at it, I stuffed it in my coat pocket. Then I walked down into the black maw of the alley where the dead man lay.
Stuccoed walls, crumbling with age, formed canyons around me. Outlined against the starry summer sky was filigreed iron grill work around a balcony, and the leaves of a banana tree waving above a courtyard wall.
The corpse was heavy, like an inert sack of potatoes. I shoved and wedged it into a doorway, and then I walked back to the mouth of the alley, lighting a cigarette. I was standing there, casually smoking, when the patrolman came up with his flashlight.
“Evening, officer,” I said.
He shoved the blinding light across my face. When he got it out of my eyes, I could see by the glow of a streetlight that he was young and freckle-faced, built like a Notre Dame tackle.
I inhaled a lungful of smoke, let it drift away. His light whipped down the alley, crawled over garbage cans, packing crates, bundles of paper, went over the spot where the dead man had sprawled, and then made a circuit of the fire escapes and balconies.
“Something the matter?” I asked.
“I don’t know. I thought I heard something. Some kind of yell. What’re you doing here?”
“Just walking around. I heard it, too. In the alley. A couple of cats fighting, I think. They make the damnedest sounds. Like a woman getting raped.”
He relaxed a little. “Yeah.” He shoved the flash into his belt, lit a cigarette. Then he took out a handkerchief and mopped his freckled forehead, pushing his cap back. “God, it's hot tonight.”
“Not a breath stirring,” I agreed.
“Yeah, I guess that’s what it was. Cats, I mean. We got a couple of old alley Toms in my neighborhood. Keep me awake squalling and fussing every night.”
“They can raise a lot of hell, all right.”
He stuffed the handkerchief back in his pocket. “You better not hang around here by yourself,” he said in a friendly tone. “Lousy part of town. One of these cigar rollers might slug you.”
I shrugged and moved away from the alley. I walked down the street and crossed over to a drug store. Like the rest of Ybor City, it was all Spanish. A placard in the window said, English Spoken Here.
For a long time, I stared at the window. Then I walked into the place and examined some magazines. After a bit, I went out on the sidewalk again. The young cop had disappeared. The street was empty and lonely. I stepped back into the store, dropped a coin in a pay phone and called a taxi. Then I walked quickly back to the alley.