Gentle Murderer (23 page)

“Yes,” he sighed. “Why is it that we’ve always got to be practical? Do we want so much? A horse, a dog, a deer in the woods … I don’t want any more than they do Katie. I don’t care about eating. A big meal makes me sick to my stomach. I don’t want a heavy coat. I’d fall asleep in it. I just want to see the stars at night. I’d even like to go barefooted so I could feel the good warm soil. Have you ever smelled the ground when it’s just been turned over, Katie?”

“In a flower box I did. Mama transplanted a geranium once. I like the smell of geraniums.”

“You’ve never smelled clover, have you? Or buttercups or even dandelions. You’ve never seen the worms wriggle deep when you’ve turned them out with the spade. I’ll bet you’ve never seen a frog or a grasshopper, you’ve never seen the trail of baby pheasants after their mother, you’ve never seen a robin’s egg or a lightning-bug. Have you ever seen an anthill?”

“We’ve got red ants in the basement.”

He leaned back on the bench. “Oh, Katie. I loathe and despise the city. Every time I sit on a park bench I feel like I’m chained to it. My feet are stuck in the cement. Every time I go into a room I feel like there’s bars on the windows and a padlock on the door. This time I was sure I was going to get away from it.”

“Why didn’t you go?” she asked, fearful of the answer and yet needing to know it.

He looked at her reproachfully. “You know why. I had to wait for one more sight of you this morning. Then I’d have had to wait until tonight. Your mother was right …” His words were bitter. “I’d have come back. I’m a coward and a fool and there’s something wrong with me far beyond either one.”

“Don’t say that, Tim.”

“It’s the truth. I know it all the time, only I don’t always understand it. What’s in your own mind seems natural to you. Right. You say there’s something terribly wrong, but when it’s wrong with you, you don’t really believe it’s wrong. It’s wrong for somebody else maybe, but right for you.”

“Tim, we must go home. Mama will be getting up at a quarter to seven. She doesn’t even know I’m out. I’d rather she didn’t. Not right now.”

“Good intentions aren’t enough,” he said not hearing her. “Maybe they’re good enough for a person himself, but when he lives with another person they aren’t enough at all. You’ve got to know yourself.”

“Come on, Tim. I’ll go as far as the back door with you. Then you’ll go up to your room just the same as if you never went away. I’ll go to church …”

“Know yourself. Know thyself …”

He got up and followed her through the square, turning over in his mind new hope, new resolution, new faith.

“We’ll figure something out, Tim,” she was saying. “But just now don’t mention to mama I was looking for you. Just let her think you came back. We won’t always have to stay in the city. But we need a little time right now. Just try and see that. I’d love the country. Don’t you think I would, Tim? I’d like the flowers …”

“You are the flowers,” he said then.

As Tim and Katie passed through the gate of the Square, the two tramps got up and stretched, their eyes the eyes of scavengers. After a moment’s wary subterfuge, they both sprinted for the bench on which Tim had spent the night. The more nimble of them got the tool kit.

G
OLDSMITH SHOWERED AND SHAVED
at headquarters. He had spent the night there, catching a couple of hours’ sleep toward daybreak. When Holden arrived he was waiting for him, the map spread out.

The lieutenant looked at the shaded area. “He’s in there, huh? Village poet. I thought those days were gone forever.”

“I’m pretty sure of it, chief.” He pointed to a mark on the map. “That’s a branch library. He was borrowing books there a couple of months ago.”

“There’s a lot of city in there, Goldie. And he’s committed murder since. And he did that outside your magic circle.” He pointed to Gebhardt’s apartment.

“I know. And probably confessed it to a priest on Ninth Avenue.”

“On his way home, no doubt.”

“I shouldn’t be at all surprised.”

“What else, Goldie?”

“I’d like you to read these two complaints, one McCormick dug up, and one I’ve sketched together this morning out of a couple of calls from Cleveland. They aren’t full and documented by a long ways. But they’re clear murder on the books.”

Holden read the papers. “Can you pin these on him?”

“Maybe, if he co-operates. But they tell his story, chief. He was saving souls by getting them out of the world.”

“And Gebhardt? She came off pretty well in this upstate affair.” He motioned to McCormick’s paper.

“That was before she fell from virtue—in Brandon’s eyes. But in the end the pattern fits her, too. Some time in there he got wise to her profession. Remember the hotel clerk’s story—the young men she brought home with her now and then?” Holden nodded.

“They’re the ones Brandon was protecting. And that fine gentleman, Mr. Winters: on the phone that night she asked him how old he was. I think that was for Brandon’s benefit. And when the old boy got playful with that ‘over twenty-one’ routine, I’m pretty sure he delivered Dolly to her death.”

The lieutenant studied Goldsmith’s face a moment. The sergeant was sure of himself and his way to the man he was after. His every faculty was keyed to it. “How do you want to do it, Goldie?”

“I’d like a few precinct men alerted, chief. Ready to move. But I’d like to go through there alone today.”

“Why? Why take the chance?”

“Because he may have another sinner on his list. If he gets the idea we’re closing in on him, he might want to take care of her while he has the chance.”

Holden walked to the window and back before giving his answer. “Don’t move alone, Goldie. And check with us every hour. If you corner him, get help to bring him in.”

Goldsmith grinned. “Don’t worry. I’m no hero.”

M
RS. GALLI WAS GETTING
breakfast when Katie returned from church. The girl set the table without speaking. Now and then her mother glanced at her. This was not like her daughter, she thought, this coldness and silence. She could think of no words to break it.

“You were at Mass?” she said finally.

“Yes, Mama. Six-thirty.”

“So now you are praying for the special intention?”

“I often go to Mass in the morning.”

“I’m not saying you don’t. It’s easier going to church than making the breakfast.”

“How many times have I offered to make breakfast, Mama?”

“Water for coffee, eggs like stones. No wonder I have to get up. Who was at church?”

“I didn’t look. Mrs. Fuselli. I met her coming out.”

“She’s getting old,” Mrs. Galli said. “She used to go every morning at five o’clock.”

Katie kept her eyes down. It might have been the earlier Mass at which she had seen the neighbor—when she went in to look for Tim … Her mother visited Mrs. Fuselli every day …

“You’re spilling the milk,” Mrs. Galli snapped.

Katie got the rag from the sink. Either her mother did not know yet that Tim had returned, or she was waiting to catch her off-guard with the information. The web of deception was growing thicker, and now it was becoming a film over her mind. She could think of nothing else. She wasn’t any good at deception. She ached to be free of the fear and shame of it. You couldn’t pray decently out of a lie. All you could do was make a resolution that if you got something you’d make up for the sin. It was almost like asking God to help you do something wrong. And it became harder all the time to face God. You began not even to want Him at all.

“He’s back,” her mother said.

“What, Mama?” She did not look around.

“I said he’s back. Your dime-store poet is back. I told you. Like a cur dog comes home when it’s hungry.”

Katie sunk her teeth into her lip. She would say nothing to provoke her mother. She would listen to the abuse and make no defense of Tim. Taking it out in talk on her, her mother would be easier on him. But this couldn’t go on long. She would burst with it if she had to hold in her pride of him.

“Did you see him, Mama?”

“I heard him up there. Bumping around like a rat in a cage. I’ll see him, don’t mistake. He’s going to” the basement where he started. The first thing somebody comes looking for the room, they get it. Down he goes.”

“Shall I beat up the eggs, Mama?”

“Beat them. Six of them. I’ll put in the milk. You don’t know how much to put in so they go further. Eggs, the price they are—oatmeal should be enough for them. And I’m warning you, Katerina. I’m watching you. Let me see one bit of fooling around making love—and he goes farther than the basement.”

Katie threw her chin up. “I don’t want to make love with Tim, not the way you say it.”

Her mother looked at her incredulously. “What do you want to do with him? Tell me. Wash his hair?”

Katie turned to her, near tears. “Mama, please stop teasing me.”

Mrs. Galli came toward her. “I’m not teasing you, Katerina. Never in all my life was I so serious. I’m trying to figure out what kind of a girl are you.” She caught the girl’s chin in her hand and forced her to look into her eyes. She let go then and shook her head. “The things a mother cannot tell to her own daughter.” The words were more to herself than to Katie. “Leave the eggs and sit down to your breakfast. I’ll make them.”

Katie did as she was told, forcing down the tasteless lumps of oatmeal. While the boarders were at breakfast she made her own bed and her mother’s, not even pausing outside Tim’s closed door.

Only on her way to work did she find relief from the oppression. And only then could she again begin to plan. This was to be her first payday.

G
OLDSMITH CRUISED DOWN ONE
Village street after another, stopping at each Catholic church, waiting interminably and then showing Brandon’s picture. Some of the priests thought they had seen Brandon, but they were not sure. When, near ten o’clock, he caught sight of Father Duffy in the rearview mirror entering a church the detective himself had just left, he decided to abandon that part of the search to the priest. For all the need for haste, there was no greater urgency now than there was each day since the Gebhardt murder. The chief pressure he had feared was from Holden, and that had been withheld.

He began a canvass of the area on foot. As he walked and made his guarded inquiries, he went over in his mind the kind of places Brandon might have worked. He stopped once and called the Building Service Employees’ union. He expected nothing of the call, and got nothing. Brandon worked for his keep if he worked at all, and picked up an odd dollar handout.

The detective tried then once more to figure out the man’s attitude toward his crime. He felt guilt toward it, part of the time at least. Otherwise he would not have gone to the priest. Being aware of guilt he must be aware of the consequences of the crime where the police were concerned. He must know that he is wanted, he reasoned. At such times, he would be cautious about looking for work. Suppose he needed a dollar? If he were desperate for it, what would he do? What did he have to sell besides his labor? Poems? The five-dollar check was in Goldsmith’s pocket. Certainly not a quick buck. A handful of secondhand books? Possible. But Brandon would have to be absolutely desperate to sell his books. His tool kit. That would go first. Complete with hammer.

The detective called headquarters then to have every patrolman in the area check the pawn and junk shops on his beat.

M
RS. GALLI ATE HER
own breakfast after the boarders were gone. She sat over it a long while and then got up and piled the dishes in the sink. She went from one chore to another mechanically, wiping the oilcloth and folding it, cleaning the stove, the dust from the window sills. Upstairs Tim was pounding his heels on the floor as he moved back and forth across the room.

She needed advice now badly, desperately. If it weren’t for her own guilt with him, she would go to the priest. Katerina was more important to her than anything in the world. She was the beautiful, sensitive child of her father. With a father in the house everything would have been different. Katerina was stubborn, secretive. But the hurt in her eyes that morning was not to be endured. And all this was her fault, the mother reasoned. She was a dirty old woman, looking for a man and her own lost youth. Stupid and full of lust, getting notions from alley-cats. Her stomach turned over with the thought of it.

She took the trash box from beneath the stove out to the refuse can at the basement door and emptied it. Bits of paper had stuck to the bottom through many emptyings. She plucked them loose with her fingers, grocery lists and coupons. She noticed figures on a scrap, and held it up to the sunlight. Fifteen had been subtracted from twenty-two dollars and fifty cents. The seven-fifty had been multiplied by four, coming to thirty dollars.

She put the paper in her pocket and went into the house. Katerina was supposed to be earning fifteen dollars a week.

Mrs. Galli washed her hands and face at the sink, not that she cared whether she was clean or dirty. But the water was cool and she could think better. Only once she glimpsed her face in the mirror, pale and hard and old-looking. No matter. She went upstairs, leaning on the railing with each step. Her breath was coming heavily. In her own room, she sat by the window for a few minutes, the breeze in her face. Now and then she glanced behind her at the dresser where her husband smiled confidently from his picture. Outdoors, a rag picker went by, a peddler with his fruit wagon. She had meant to buy some apples. No matter. A police car … If only she had renewed her license for the rooming house in July … No matter.

She got up and went to Katerina’s room. Tim’s books were still on the dresser. The room was no different than on other days. She opened one drawer and then another. Her daughter’s clothes were neatly folded in their places, her knickknacks scattered in the top drawer, her rosary in a box at one corner. There was a letter from a girl friend who had gone to Montreal for the summer, the dance program from her graduation night, a postcard from a boy with a picture of a steel mill: “Wish you were here to help me. Ha! Ha!”