Five minutes later I was in my car. The gun was tucked under my seat. Angel was close behind. We didn’t have far to go. I wasn’t sure where the room I was going to might be, so I just parked on the street, locked it and went in. I left the gun behind. I knew there was a metal detector in the building.
Sally was waiting in the lobby.
“What is this, Lew?”
“I’m not sure,” I said. “I’m pretty sure. I don’t think you should know. Not yet. Maybe never.”
“Susan thinks you might be a little crazy,” she said. “My daughter likes you but-”
“Ten-year-old girls have a sense of things like that,” I said. “She may be right. Don’t trust people who say ‘Trust me,’ but, Sally, I’m asking you to trust me.”
She sighed, checked her wristwatch and said, “All right. Let’s go.”
We went through the metal detector and signed in at the desk. We had an appointment. Sally was known at the Juvenile Security Center. If I could have gotten in without her, I would have.
“You told Adele that Dwight is dead?”
“I came to see you right after you left my office,” said Sally. “She didn’t know how to react. She just stood there for a while. Then she cried for a bit while I held her. When the crying stopped, she gave a deep sigh like she was letting go of something. I think she’s relieved and isn’t ready to admit it to herself. She may never be.”
“And Flo? You told her about Flo?”
“I told her. She agreed. I don’t think she can take it all in yet.”
I followed Sally to an elevator. We went up three floors and were met by a woman in uniform who was waiting for us. She led us down the hall to a room with a sofa and some chairs. There was a single window. It was covered by metal meshing.
We stood while the woman went away and returned in about three minutes with Adele.
The girl looked smaller than I had remembered. In fact, she didn’t look like the same girl at all. Her face was pink and fresh. Her hair was combed out, hanging back and touching her shoulders. She wore a sleeveless summer dress, green with little white flowers. She looked at least a year younger than fourteen. It was her eyes that looked forty.
She looked at me and then at Sally, who stepped to her and gave her a hug.
Adele ticked a smile, a very small, cautious one.
“Remember me?” I asked.
“Sure,” she said. “Denny’s. What you want?”
“To talk to you,” I said.
“‘Bout what?”
“Sally, can I talk to Adele alone for five minutes?”
I could feel the word “Why?” forming inside of Sally.
“Something you don’t think I would want to hear?”
I nodded.
Sally looked at Adele. Adele was looking at me warily.
“Adele,” Sally began, “if you…”
“It’s okay,” Adele said. “Nothing he can say can make things worse than they are and I might as well have it all in one day.”
“Five minutes,” said Sally. “I’ll be right outside the door.”
Sally left, closing the door behind us. I walked to the steel-meshed window and looked down. There was a drive-in spot for trash pickup. Two large green Dumpsters sat waiting. One was bulging with garbage. Fat green plastic bags looked as if they were creeping out.
“Let’s sit,” I said.
“I like standing.”
She moved to the wall, put her back against it and folded her arms. I moved about five feet from her and put my back against the same wall.
“I know who killed Tony Spiltz,” I said.
“Mr. P.,” she said.
“You,” I answered.
She shook her head and said, “You are somethin’. My mom and dad get murdered. I get thrown in here and you come… You are sick. I’ve seen ’em sick. But you are really sick.”
“I can prove it,” I said.
“You can’t, because I didn’t.”
“I’ve got the gun,” I said. “Found it below Pirannes’s balcony, near a palm tree. Took Ames and me about half an hour, but we found it.”
She shook her head no.
“Smith and Wesson thirty-eight. Silver barrel.”
“I don’t know nothing about guns,” she said, looking at the ceiling.
“You didn’t have to. You just pulled the trigger. I’ve got the gun in my car. It has your fingerprints on it. When I leave here, Sally will stay so you can remain in this room. You walk to the window, look down. I’ll be parked right in front of the Dumpsters. I’ll hold up the gun.”
“I didn’t shoot him,” she said weakly.
“Your story was terrible,” I said. “You’re a smart girl. You could have done better. You could have done all kinds of things. You could have wiped your prints off the gun.”
“You think I wanted to get caught?” she said, turning to me with a look, a typical teen look, that said, Are you nuts?
“I think so. I can make up a story to fit, but it would be faster if you just told me what happened. I’m not out to get you, Adele. I’m out to help you.”
“No,” she said, back to the wall again, arms folded, eyes looking up at the ceiling.
“Okay. Pirannes wasn’t in the apartment with you. Spiltz was. Just you and Spiltz. He was there to keep an eye on you. You weren’t exactly a volunteer. Spiltz went after you. You got his gun, shot him, panicked and didn’t know what to do. You threw the gun over the balcony, managed to get Spiltz’s body into the chair and then you cleaned up the blood where you shot him.”
“No,” she said.
Tears were coming. She fought them back.
“I’ve got the gun. It has your prints. The police, if they know the story, can find the spot you killed him. There’ll be blood traces.”
“I shot him in bed,” she said, her eyes closed. “I wrapped him in the sheets and blankets and dragged him into the living room so there’d be no blood and so it’d be easier to move him. There’s a washer and dryer down four, five doors down. I washed the sheets and blankets, dried ‘em and put ’em back in the cabinet. Then I put new sheets and a new blanket on.”
“He had to have a holster,” I said. “Ames and I didn’t find one.”
“I figured a holster would be too easy to find. Reason I took it off him was I… I thought if he was wearing one when he was found dead, the cops might wonder where the gun was that went in it. I figured if he didn’t have a gun or holster, the cops would figure whoever shot him came and went with his own gun. I rolled the holster up neat and put it in one of Mr. Pirannes’s drawers.”
“That was smart,” I said. “No gun. No connection. Police would think the holster was Pirannes’s. Holsters aren’t registered and they’re not illegal. It might even suggest that a gun might have been in it and it might have been the gun Pirannes used on Spiltz. You really think it out that far?”
“No,” she said, eyes still closed. “I just…”
“It’s full of little holes, but it’s pretty good.”
“I was gonna go back when it was safe, find the gun, bury it fast, but I’m here and you got there first. What’s gonna happen to me?”
“I’m working that out,” I said.
“He was gonna rape me,” she said so softly I could hardly hear. “No one ever did it to me without saying I was willing. Nobody, not my dad, not Tilly, not any man. You won’t understand the difference. A man wouldn’t. Most women wouldn’t.”
“Maybe I’m the exception,” I said.
She looked at me.
“Our five minutes are just about up,” I went on as I checked my watch. “The gun disappears. You stick to your story. The only one who knows it’s not true is Pirannes. The police won’t believe him if they catch him. The problem is that Pirannes has probably figured out that you killed Spiltz.”
“He’ll come for me,” she said. “He’ll kill me.”
“No. I’ll get Sally to keep you in here a couple of more days. I’ll find Pirannes and convince him you didn’t kill Spiltz.”
“How you gonna do that?”
“You’re not the only one who can tell stories,” I said.
“And me?” she asked, turning to me again and pointing to herself. The question came out in a thin, plaintive whine like the air escaping from a balloon.
“You? You get out, go live with Flo Zink and live happily ever after,” I said.