Night Secrets (24 page)

I
t was nearly midnight when he found Sam McBride lounging against an unmarked car a few yards from the entrance to Manhattan Norm. He wore a baggy dark-green suit that seemed a size too large for him and an old straw hat with a wide plaid band. He was munching a sandwich casually as Frank approached.

“You're Sam McBride, right?” Frank asked.

McBride nodded. “Who're you?”

Frank realized instantly that the Puri Dai had been right, that McBride did have the same accent he did, only a little deeper, less misshapened by his years in the North.

“My name's Clemons,” Frank told him. He took out his identification.

McBride gave it a quick glance, then took another bite from his sandwich. “What can I do for you?”

“I was talking to Leo Tannenbaum about a case you have in the precinct,” Frank said. “And he told me you were the first man on the scene.”

“What case was that?”

“The murder of a woman on Tenth Avenue.”

“There's been more than one of them,” McBride said flatly.

“This one happened early Monday morning,” Frank said. “At a fortune-telling operation.”

It registered in McBride's mind, and Frank saw his eyes light up slightly. “Them Gypsies, you mean?”

“That's right.”

“Yeah, I took the dime on that one,” McBride said. “It was right near the middle of my tour.”

“You work the graveyard shift, then?”

“Midnight to eight,” McBride said. “Always have.”

“I'm trying to piece some things together on this case,” Frank said.

McBride looked at him quizzically. “How come? Who you working for?”

“The woman.”

McBride looked at him doubtfully. “That's bullshit.”

“She doesn't want me to work for her,” Frank admitted. “But I'm doing it anyway.”

“How come?”

Frank shrugged. “I don't know,” he said. “Maybe because I think she's innocent.”

McBride finished off what was left of the sandwich, then crumpled the paper it had been wrapped in and tossed it into the street garbage can a few feet away. “She gave me a full statement when she finally decided to talk,” he said. “You know what I mean, a full confession?”

“Yeah, I know.”

“But you figure she didn't do it?”

“I think it's possible that she didn't.”

“Well, all I can tell you is that she claims she did it,” McBride said.

“Did she tell you why?”

“Family trouble.”

“Is that all?”

“It's been known to be enough.”

“But what about the murder itself?”

“She says it was her that did it.”

“I mean the details.”

“She don't remember the details.”

“I read her statement,” Frank said. “Does it have pretty much everything in it?”

“Everything she said.”

“So it wasn't a very detailed confession?”

McBride shook his head. “No, but she hit the big points.”

“There were a few things that don't add up.”

McBride shrugged. “They's always a few things like that,” he said. “Like I said, she got the big points pretty good.”

“Well, she's a smart woman,” Frank said. “She could figure the big points out. The little ones would be tough, though. I mean, she couldn't make up a murder she didn't really know about, could she?”

“What makes you think she don't know about it?”

“Because she's already lied about a few things,” Frank said. “And I think she's covering up for somebody.”

“The real killer, you mean?”

“It could be,” Frank told him. “I don't know.”

McBride eased himself from the car and rolled one shoulder. “Arthritis,” he said. “I ain't got that many good strokes left.” His eyes cut away suddenly, settling on a single little girl who played by herself on the sidewalk, oblivious to the few drunken men who eyed her only a few yards away. “All alone in the middle of the night,” he said as he continued to watch her. “It makes me sick, the way people let their kids run wild.” He shook his head. “If her daddy knew what was on these streets, he'd never leave her to play like that.” He looked at Frank. “Past midnight, can you believe it?” He shook his head. “Maybe he just don't give a shit.”

Frank nodded, his eyes studying McBride's face. There was a terrible weariness in it, but it was strangely animated despite that, as if the tiredness came from inside, but had not yet gripped his body, made him useless for the kind of sudden, annihilating action which might still flow from it.

“If I had a little girl,” McBride said, “I'd never let her out of my sight.” He looked at Frank. “I guess that'd make me a pretty bad daddy, right?”

“It depends.”

“You married?”

“Divorced.”

“Any kids?”

“I had a daughter.”

“Had?”

“She died,” Frank said as quickly as he could, then went on immediately.

McBride looked at him, but not brokenly as other people often did. Something in him still trembled with resistance, and for a moment Frank saw that still-living cell as the bedrock of his hope.

“About this case,” he said quickly, “I'd like to go over the confession with you. You know, sort of line by line.”

McBride settled back against the car. “It was pretty short,” he said. “Like you already figured out, there wasn't much to it.”

Frank nodded quickly, his mind still on his daughter. He felt exposed, as if he were naked beneath the grayish light of the street lamp, which shone not far away. He wanted it to darken around him, the spaces to draw in and enclose him.

“Maybe we could go someplace,” he said edgily. “Get a cup of coffee, a beer if you want one.”

McBride shook his head. “Not a beer,” he said. “I don't drink. But I could use a Coke.”

They ended up at La Femme Gatée, at a small table near the back.

Frank pulled out his cigarettes and offered one to McBride.

McBride shook his head. “No, thanks.”

Frank smiled quietly. “You're a clean liver.”

McBride shrugged. “It ain't that I don't want one,” he said. “But I got to live as long as I can. 'Cause of my wife. She's an invalid, you might say. Nobody else to see after her.”

Frank nodded. “I understand.”

“As for drinking,” McBride said with a short smile, “I just like to keep clear-headed, you might say, keep my judgment clear and all that.”

Frank lit a cigarette. “Where you from?”

“Mississippi. How about yourself?”

“Alabama.”

McBride smiled. “Two old country boys.”

“Yeah.”

“What brought you up here?”

“A woman,” Frank said ruefully.

McBride shrugged. “I come for my wife. She needs a lot of treatment, and there's a group up here that takes care of people in her shape.”

Frank nodded.

“I don't much like it, though,” McBride added. “You?”

“It's all right,” Frank said. He glanced toward the window. “Good as anyplace else, I guess.” He took another draw on the cigarette, then crushed it out. “About the confession, it was pretty short.”

“Yeah.”

“She didn't give many details.”

“Maybe they didn't matter to her.”

“Maybe she didn't know them.”

“It's possible,” McBride said. “Or maybe she just wanted to get it over with.”

Frank took out his notebook. “Did you take her through the whole thing?”

“Yeah.”

“Starting where?”

“With why she did it.”

“What'd she say?”

“That she'd gotten into an argument with the other woman, and that the old lady had called her names.”

“What names?”

“She didn't remember, just bad names.”

“Had they always lived together?”

“Always.”

“The three women.”

“That's right.”

“Did she say anything about the third woman?”

“That she lived there, that's all.”

Frank wrote it down. “Did she mention any men?”

McBride shook his head.

“Any relatives or friends?”

“Nobody,” McBride said. “From everything she told me, it was like those three were the only people in the world.” He took a quick sip of Coke. “They even slept in the same room.”

“Yeah, I know.”

“You do? You been there?”

“Yeah,” Frank said quickly, then hurried on to the next question. “So it was just a family argument? That's the way she told it?”

“That's right.”

“That got out of hand.”

“There was probably a long buildup,” McBride said. “There usually is.”

“But she didn't talk about that.”

“No.”

“What about the murder?”

“I took her through it,” McBride said. “She said that she came home early that morning and that the other woman was waiting for her.”

“Where had she been?”

“To buy groceries.”

“At four in the morning?”

“That's what she said,” McBride told him. “And it checked out, too. We talked to the people in the store. It's not too busy at that time of day, and the woman, she had a look about her. Everybody remembered her.”

“And she had them delivered, right?”

McBride nodded. “The delivery boy, he actually saw her with the razor in her hand.”

“Was the door open when he got there?”

“Yeah, I think so,” McBride said. “Anyway, he called for somebody to come to the door, and when nobody come, that's when he stepped on in and saw her.”

“With a razor in her hand?”

“That's right.”

Frank looked at him skeptically.

McBride shrugged. “That's his story. It's her story, too.”

Frank tried to get everything in order. “So she comes home from grocery shopping, gets into an argument with the other woman, kills her, then leaves the door open when the delivery boy shows up?” He looked at McBride pointedly. “Did she give him a tip?”

McBride shook his head.

Frank decided to cut to the bone. “During the whole time she was making her statement, did she say anything that didn't match the murder?”

“You mean the physical facts?”

“Yeah.”

“No. She didn't say anything that went against what we already knew.”

“How about anything that struck you as odd in some way?”

“No.”

“How about the place itself?” Frank said. “Did you give it a good toss?”

“A routine toss.”

“Did you find any clothes around?”

“Clothes?”

“Yeah.”

“Surewe found clothes,” McBride said. “Hell, they was three women living there.”

“I mean, in a paper bag. A big brown shopping bag. Sort of damp.”

McBride shook his head. “No, why? Should we have found something like that?”

“Well, just before the murder, she went up to that laundromat at Fiftieth Street and did some laundry.”

“You sure about that?”

“The old lady who keeps the place remembered her,” Frank said. “And that little shit who runs the bodega across the street from the building, he saw her go in with the bag.”

McBride shrugged. “Maybe she put 'em away.”

“Wet clothes? Wouldn't somebody have noticed? I mean, unless they just disappeared.”

McBride seemed unimpressed. “Well, the delivery boy said he left the groceries right in that front room, and we never found them.” He drew in a weary breath. “'Course, anybody could have taken food mat was setting mere like that.”

“But not wet clothes,” Frank said.

“Okay,” McBride said, giving in slightly. “What's your idea about what happened to them?”

“I think it'spossible that somebody took mem,” Frank said. “That maybe she was doing laundry for somebody.”