Maroon liquid trickled across the floor from under the box.
The living boy began to vomit.
15
A N APARTMENT ON THE first-floor front was taken over by the police, and it was there a heavy red-faced bored uniformed sergeant interrogated me. “I went up the stairs to the roof,” I told him, “but of course by the time I got up there he was gone. The roof door was open. I went out there and didn’t see anybody at all.”
The sergeant didn’t really care what had happened. A black iron chimney cap, eighteen inches square, six inches high, slightly peaked at the top, weight about thirty pounds, which had been lying unused on the roof near the chimney recently replaced, had been dropped down the stairwell by party or parties unknown, maybe for fun, maybe for serious, and had killed a spic kid, maybe on purpose, maybe by accident. There were unanswered questions, but slums are built of unanswered questions, and the sergeant obviously had little expectation of ever finding the answers to this group of them. He laboriously took down in his notebook what I said to him, took my name and address, told me I might be called for the inquest, and I was free to go. I went through the mob of people still clustered in the hallway, through the second mob outside on the sidewalk, and away.
I hadn’t told the sergeant any more than the bare facts of the event. He hadn’t asked me what I was doing in that building, and I hadn’t volunteered the information. Therefore he had no way of knowing that the death of the child might be connected with three other recent deaths, nor would it have done him any good if I had told him, since the police believed they already had the murderess in custody on two of the deaths, and the third had not been listed as a homicide.
It was possible that someone on the force working on the Wilford killing might stumble across my name in a report in connection with the child’s death and might follow it up out of curiosity and therefore learn that the address of the incident was Terry Wilford’s former address, and so ultimately come knocking at my door to find out what I was doing and why, and of course at that point I would have to be detailed and truthful—mostly—in my answers. But the possibility was a slender one, given the size of the force, the fact that the child’s death had occurred in a different precinct, and the fact that the Wilford and Boles deaths were no longer active police concerns but had been turned over by now for further action to the district attorney’s office. In any event, I had at the very least bought myself additional time.
The child had bought me some time, too. If he hadn’t looked up, if he hadn’t drawn my attention to the black shape plummeting downward, he would have been the witness sitting in front of the bored sergeant and I would have been the body at the foot of the stairs.
It had been meant for me, that much was obvious. The murderer was unsure of himself, worried, afraid his traces weren’t adequately hidden. That was why he’d killed George Padbury, who had known something and been concealing it and had wanted to tell it to me on the phone half an hour before his death. And now the murderer was afraid of me, moving around, poking into this and that, stirring things up that were supposed to be neatly under control. And when he was afraid, this murderer, he killed again.
Was he around me now, watching from somewhere? Had he stayed in the neighborhood to see if things had gone well, and did he now know he would have to try again? It was more likely he’d gone far away, gone to ground for a while, whether or not he knew he’d missed me.
So I probably had some free time, free from police and murderer both. I’d do with it as much as I could.
There was a candy store on the corner, full of children drinking soda. I threaded through them to the phone booth and called Abe Selkin.
He said, “Jack doesn’t want any part of you, Mr. Tobin. He knows you used
The living boy began to vomit.
15
A N APARTMENT ON THE first-floor front was taken over by the police, and it was there a heavy red-faced bored uniformed sergeant interrogated me. “I went up the stairs to the roof,” I told him, “but of course by the time I got up there he was gone. The roof door was open. I went out there and didn’t see anybody at all.”
The sergeant didn’t really care what had happened. A black iron chimney cap, eighteen inches square, six inches high, slightly peaked at the top, weight about thirty pounds, which had been lying unused on the roof near the chimney recently replaced, had been dropped down the stairwell by party or parties unknown, maybe for fun, maybe for serious, and had killed a spic kid, maybe on purpose, maybe by accident. There were unanswered questions, but slums are built of unanswered questions, and the sergeant obviously had little expectation of ever finding the answers to this group of them. He laboriously took down in his notebook what I said to him, took my name and address, told me I might be called for the inquest, and I was free to go. I went through the mob of people still clustered in the hallway, through the second mob outside on the sidewalk, and away.
I hadn’t told the sergeant any more than the bare facts of the event. He hadn’t asked me what I was doing in that building, and I hadn’t volunteered the information. Therefore he had no way of knowing that the death of the child might be connected with three other recent deaths, nor would it have done him any good if I had told him, since the police believed they already had the murderess in custody on two of the deaths, and the third had not been listed as a homicide.
It was possible that someone on the force working on the Wilford killing might stumble across my name in a report in connection with the child’s death and might follow it up out of curiosity and therefore learn that the address of the incident was Terry Wilford’s former address, and so ultimately come knocking at my door to find out what I was doing and why, and of course at that point I would have to be detailed and truthful—mostly—in my answers. But the possibility was a slender one, given the size of the force, the fact that the child’s death had occurred in a different precinct, and the fact that the Wilford and Boles deaths were no longer active police concerns but had been turned over by now for further action to the district attorney’s office. In any event, I had at the very least bought myself additional time.
The child had bought me some time, too. If he hadn’t looked up, if he hadn’t drawn my attention to the black shape plummeting downward, he would have been the witness sitting in front of the bored sergeant and I would have been the body at the foot of the stairs.
It had been meant for me, that much was obvious. The murderer was unsure of himself, worried, afraid his traces weren’t adequately hidden. That was why he’d killed George Padbury, who had known something and been concealing it and had wanted to tell it to me on the phone half an hour before his death. And now the murderer was afraid of me, moving around, poking into this and that, stirring things up that were supposed to be neatly under control. And when he was afraid, this murderer, he killed again.
Was he around me now, watching from somewhere? Had he stayed in the neighborhood to see if things had gone well, and did he now know he would have to try again? It was more likely he’d gone far away, gone to ground for a while, whether or not he knew he’d missed me.
So I probably had some free time, free from police and murderer both. I’d do with it as much as I could.
There was a candy store on the corner, full of children drinking soda. I threaded through them to the phone booth and called Abe Selkin.
He said, “Jack doesn’t want any part of you, Mr. Tobin. He knows you used
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