Fallen Sparrow by Dorothy B. Hughes Page B

in the purple chintz chair. She pushed a bell. He felt her eyes on the back of his head while he stood there looking out. She said, “You’ll have a drink, Kit?” and spoke to the maid.
    He said, “Yes,” and curiously, “There’s a guard on this window.”
    “Yes, Kit.” She was spiritless. “That night there wasn’t. It was being repaired.” He took the rose wing chair opposite her. The fire the maid had lighted was beginning to redden the logs. Det’s stubby hand lay on her cheek. “The guards in all the apartments were being tested that week. Some new building inspector pushing an old ordinance. It was cold, little danger of anyone leaning out a window.”
    He couldn’t ask her if Toni Donne killed Louie. She was Toni’s tigress. He accepted the highball. But he could ask, “How did Louie happen to be here that night, Det? I didn’t know you knew him.”
    “I didn’t. Though I should have. I remember old Giovanni’s flower carts.” She hadn’t answered him; he waited. “Toni brought him.”
    “How did he happen to know Toni?” He made it so casual; you wouldn’t think it mattered; you’d think it nothing but idle curiosity.
    She answered almost coldly, “She met him”—her eyes narrowed—“at Barby Taviton’s.” Then she softened the blow. “War work makes for wide acquaintance, Kit. Your friend Louie was working with refugee placement. Italians and Spanish in particular. He spoke those tongues.”
    He still couldn’t get “it was the cops” out of his head. How could that make sense unless Louie were mixed up with wrong ones? Louie couldn’t have been. And yet—the goad kept drilling into a sensitive spot—Kit hadn’t escaped; he’d been released, and through Louie’s help. He demanded, “Who handled the investigation, Det?”
    “Inspector Tobin. Toby himself.”
    “Yes.” That could explain why Toby resented Kit’s interest. It wasn’t just a lot of bilge that Tobin was the smartest inspector that had ever headed homicide. The records proved it. Yet how could Tobin not have seen through the holes in this accident unless he were investigating with shut eyes? Even that couldn’t resolve: “it was the cops.”
    He took another swallow. “I feel bad about it,” he said, as if that would cover his interest in Louie.
    She said, “Chris was that way, Kit. A friend was a friend.”
    No matter what, her inflection stated. Was she trying to tell him that Louie wasn’t worthy? He asked quickly, “What do you mean?”
    Her eyes were lidded. “I was engaged to Chris once, Kit.” She smiled. “You might have been my kid if I hadn’t—gone fancy.” She looked at him now. “But he never held it against me—running off that way. And when I came back—he put me on my feet. He helped found Det’s.”
    He hadn’t known this past history; he’d never been curious. It explained things; his mother being so much younger than his father. Chris had carried the torch for Det long enough, or lost faith in women for a long time. It explained why Chris’s advance from cop to Tammany tycoon came later than most come-uppers, after forty. Beatrice McKittrick had been the prod; she’d ambitions to be in the better circles even then. It explained Bea’s ability to forget McKittrick days, to forget old Chris; she hadn’t been of real import to either. It didn’t explain why Det should be telling this now.
    She said, “I made my vow then, Kit. I’d be as good as your father was. No matter what, a friend was a friend.”
    He didn’t get it; he refused it. He said brusquely, “I’m afraid there’s little chance for me to be a friend to your Toni.” It was enough subject change.
    She said grayly, “It might be better if you didn’t.”
    He waited but there was no explanation.
    Her voice was pitying. “She’s had a bad time, Kit. It’s never been roses for her—as for others.” They were both thinking of Barby but he didn’t understand the bleakness of her mouth. She