"Well, I couldn"t say how it was. All I know is someone telephoned and when I said he"d been stabbed--Val, I mean--they just hung up as if they might have been surprised."
"Could it have been Johnny Perry?"
"No, sir, I"m dead certain it wasn"t him. And I sure ought to know his voice if anybody does, as long as I"ve been hearing it."
"He"s your stepson? Or is it your G.o.dson?"
"Well, he ain"t rightly neither, but we thought of him as a son because when he came out of stir--"
"What stir? Where?"
"In Georgia. He did a stretch on the chain gang."
"For what?"
"He killed a man for beating his mother--his stepfather. At least she was his common-law wife, his ma, but she was no good and Johnny was always a good boy. They gave him a year on the road."
"When was that?"
"It was twenty-six years ago when he got out. While he was inside his ma ran off with another man and me and Big Joe was coming North. So we just brought him along with us. He was just twenty years old."
"That makes him forty-six now."
"Yes, sir. And Big Joe got him a job on the road."
"Waiting tables?"
"No, sir, helping in the kitchen. He couldn"t wait tables on account of that scar."
"How"d he get that?"
"On the chain gang. He and another con got to fighting with pickaxes over a card game. Johnny was always hotheaded, and that con had accused him of cheating him out of a nickel. And Johnny was always as honest as the day is long."
"When did he open his gambling club here?"
"The Tia Juana club? He opened that about ten years ago. Big Joe staked him. But he had another little houserent game he used to run before that."
"Is that when he married Dulcy--Mrs. Perry--when he opened the Tia Juana club?"
"Oh no-no-no, he just married her a year and a half ago--January second last year, the day after New Year"s day. Before then he was married to Alamena."
"Is he married to Dulcy or just living with her?" The sergeant gave her a confidential look.
Her back stiffened. "Their marriage is as legal as whisky. Me and Big Joe were the witnesses. They were married in City Hall."
The sergeant turned a bright fiery red.
Grave Digger said softly, "Couples do get married in Harlem."
Sergeant Brody felt himself on b.u.mpy water and took another tack.
"Does Johnny keep much cash on hand?"
"I don"t know, sir."
"In the bank then, or in property? Do you know what property he owns?"
"No, sir. Maybe Big Joe knew, but he never told me."
He dropped it.
"Do you mind telling me what you and Dulcy--Mrs. Perry--were talking about that was so important you had to lock yourself in the bathroom?"
She hesitated and looked appealingly toward Grave Digger.
He said. "We"re not after Johnny, Aunt Mamie. This has nothing to do with his gambling club or income taxes or anything concerning the Federal government. We"re just trying to find out who killed Val."
"Lord, it"s a mystery who"d want to hurt Val. He didn"t have an enemy in the world."
The sergeant let that pa.s.s. "Then it wasn"t Val you and Dulcy were talking about?"
"No, sir. I"d just asked her about a run-in Johnny and c.h.i.n.k had at d.i.c.kie Wells"s last Sat.u.r.day night."
"About what? Money? Gambling debts?"
"No, sir. Johnny"s crazy jealous of Dulcy--he"s going to kill somebody about that gal some day. And c.h.i.n.k imagines he"s G.o.d"s gift to women. He keeps shooting at Dulcy. Folks say he don"t mean nothing by it, but--"
"What folks?"
"Well, Val and Alamena and even Dulcy herself. But there ain"t no telling what any man means when he keeps after a woman unless it"s to get her. And Johnny"s so jealous and hot-headed I"m scared to death there"s going to be blood trouble."
"What part did Val play in that?"
"Val. He was always just a peacemaker. "Course, he was on Johnny"s side. He spent most of his time, it looked like, just trying to keep Johnny out of trouble. But he didn"t have nothing against c.h.i.n.k, either."
"Then Johnny"s enemies are his enemies, too?"
"No, sir, I wouldn"t say that. Va! wasn"t the kind of person who had enemies. He and c.h.i.n.k always got along fine."
"Who"s Val"s woman?"
"He"s never had a steady. Not to my knowledge. He just plays the field. I think his latest was Doll Baby. But he wasn"t intending to get corralled by no gal."
"Tell me one thing, Mrs. Pullen--didn"t you notice anything strange about the body?"
"Well--" She knitted her brows. "Not as I recollect. I didn"t get to see him close up, of course. I just saw him from my window. But I didn"t notice nothing strange."
The sergeant stared at her.
"Wouldn"t you call a knife sticking in his heart strange?"
"Oh, you mean him being stabbed. Yes, sir, I thought that was strange. I couldn"t imagine n.o.body wanting to kill Val."
The sergeant kept staring at her though he didn"t quite know what to make of that statement.
"If it had been Johnny there instead of Val it wouldn"t have struck you as strange."
"No, sir."
"But didn"t it strike you as strange how he came to be tying there in that bread basket just a few minutes after Reverend Short had fallen from your window into the same bread basket?"
For the first time her face took on a look of fear.
"Yes, sir," she replied in a whisper, leaning on the desk for support. "Powerful strange. Only the Lord knows how he came there."
"No, the murderer knows, too."
"Yes, sir. But there"s one thing, Mr. Brody. Johnny didn"t do it. He might not have had no burning love for his brother-in-law, but he tolerated him on account of Dulcy, and he wouldn"t have let n.o.body hurt a hair on his head, much less have done it hisself."
Brody took the murder knife from a drawer and laid it on the desk top. "Have you ever seen this before?"
She stared at it, more out of curiosity than horror. "No, sir."
He let it drop. "When is the funeral to be held?"
"This afternoon at two o"clock."
"All right, you may go now. You"ve been a great help to us."
She arose slowly, bracing her hands on the desk top, and extended her hand to Sergeant Brody with Southern-bred courtesy.
Sergeant Brody wasn"t used to it. He was the law. People on the other side of this desk were generally on the other side of the law. He found himself so confused that he clambered to his feet, knocking over his chair, and pumped her hand up and down, his face glowing like a freshly boiled lobster.
"I hope your funeral goes well, Mrs. Pullen--that is, I mean, your husband"s funeral."
"Thank you, sir. All we can do is put him in the ground and hope."
Grave Digger and Coffin Ed stepped forward and escorted her with deference to the door, holding it open for her to pa.s.s through. Her black satin dress dragged on the floor, sweeping dust over her straight-last shoes.
Sergeant Brody didn"t sigh. He prided himself on the fact that he never sighed. But, as he glanced at his watch again, he looked as though he would have loved to.
"It"s ten-twenty. Think we can finish before lunch?"
"Let"s get it over with," Coffin Ed said harshly. "I haven"t had any sleep and I"m hungry enough to eat dog."
"Let"s have the preacher, then."
On catching sight of the shiny wooden stool sitting in the spill of glaring light, Reverend Short drew up just inside the door and shuddered like a stuck sheep.
"No!" he croaked, trying to back out into the corridor. "I won"t go in there."
The two uniformed cops who"d brought him from the detention block gripped his arms and forced him inside.
He struggled in their grip, performing exercises like an adagio dancer. Veins roped in his bony temples. His eyes protruded behind his gold-rimmed spectacles like a bug"s under a microscope, and his Adam"s apple bobbed like a float on a fishing line.
"No! No! It"s haunted with the souls of tortured Christians," he screamed.
"Come on, buddy boy, quit performing," one of the cops said, handling him rough. "Ain"t no Christians been in here."
"Yes! Yes!" he screamed in his croaking voice. "I hear their cries. It"s the chamber of the Inquisition. I smell the blood of the martyred."
"You must be having a nosebleed," the other cop said, trying to be funny.
They lifted him bodily, feet and legs dangling grotesquely like a puppet"s from a gibbet, carried him across the floor and deposited him on the stool.
The three inquisitors stared at him without moving. The chair in which Mamie Pullen had sat once more served Grave Digger as a footstool. Coffin Ed had retired to his dark corner.
"Caesars!" he croaked.
The cops stood flanking him, a hand on each shoulder.
"Cardinals!" he screamed. "The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not fear."
His eyes glinted insanely.
Sergeant Brody"s face remained impa.s.sive, but he said, "Ain"t n.o.body here but us chickens, Reverend."
Reverend Short leaned forward and peered into the shadow as though trying to make out a blurred figure in a thick fog.
"If you"re a police officer then I want to report that c.h.i.n.k Charlie pushed me out of the window to my death, but G.o.d placed the body of Christ on the ground to break my fall."
"It was a basket of bread," the sergeant corrected.
"The body of Christ," Reverend Short maintained.
"All right, Reverend, let"s cut the comedy," Brody said. "If you"re trying to build a plea of insanity, you"re jumping the gun. No one is accusing you of anything."
"It was that Jezebel Dulcy Perry who stabbed him with the knife c.h.i.n.k Charlie gave her to commit the murder."
Brody leaned forward slightly.
"You saw him give her the knife?"
"Yes."
"When?"
"The day after Christmas. She was sitting in her car outside my church and thought there wasn"t n.o.body looking. He came up and got into the seat beside her, gave her the knife and showed her how to use it."