Little Deaths(32)

He bit into his hamburger. “Those apartment buildings: they’re packed in so tight no one can squeak in there without the whole neighborhood knowing. If a car came along and parked by the building, or a stranger was there that night, someone would’ve seen them. Would’ve heard something. No doubt.”

Horowitz waited. He pressed his foot against Pete’s, warning him to keep quiet, and sure enough Devlin spoke again.

“There’s something wrong with the mother.”

“Something wrong with her?” It slipped out before Pete could think about it, and Horowitz winced, but Devlin didn’t seem to notice. He chewed slowly, nodding.

“The apartment was a mess. It was full of empty liquor bottles, letters from men. A lot of men.”

He shook his head.

“Soon as I saw her, I knew there was something wrong. The way she looked: makeup an inch thick, hair just so, clothes that showed everything the good Lord gave her. That’s not a grieving mother. That’s a woman who wanted to get rid of her children because they got in the way of her partying and her drinking. Of her men friends.

“And that’s not all. Her statement’s wrong too. There’s discrepancies in her times. We got a couple of witnesses who contradict things she said. She claims she was home all night, other than for twenty minutes when she took the dog out. That was just after midnight. I got a witness who called her at midnight, and then again at two a.m.—the second time he called, no one was home.”

His face was flushed.

“I took one look at her and I knew we had a problem, and everything I’ve found out since just confirms that.”

He shook his head, took another gulp of iced tea.

“You know, this job makes me sick sometimes. The dirt you dig up makes you want to go home and take a hot bath before you sit down at the table with your own kids.”

The pressure on Pete’s foot had eased up, which he guessed meant he could ask questions—but he couldn’t think of a single thing to say.

Then Horowitz surprised Pete.

“You sure about this? About her?”

“Arthur, I’ve been doing this job for over twenty-five years. You get a sense. Ask any cop. You get to know how to smell guilt. And I smell it on her like cheap perfume.”

Pete leaned forward. “Are you going to charge her?”

Devlin looked him in the eye for the first time since they’d sat down.

“I want to. Believe me, there ain’t nothing I want more than to see that bitch behind bars. I’m under a lot of pressure on this one. But we don’t have enough yet. I need a witness.”

“To the murders?”

Devlin snorted. “Right. I should be so lucky. No—more like someone who saw her with the kids after midnight. After she said she put them to bed.”

He ate the last of his fries and said, “I need evidence to break her story. We’ll get it. We’re doing a public appeal for information. I got guys going over every statement that’s come in so far. We’ll get something.”

Then he swallowed the last of his iced tea and stood, bulky against the bright windows. Eyeballed Pete.

“For the record, Mister Wonicke, we have several promising leads and you’ll be the first to know when we make an arrest.”

He hitched his belt up, straightened his tie.

“And now I’m off to crack that whore,” and he was gone, leaving the ring of that final word reverberating around the booth like a slap.


The next morning, Pete woke early. He lay in bed and thought about Ruth Malone. About how she’d appeared trapped behind the window. About how she’d looked at him. He couldn’t get the memory of her face out of his mind: her lowered eyelids, her red lips. His skin felt hot and his chest ached as he thought about her.

Then he thought about Devlin’s determination to find a witness. He seemed so certain about her. So confident. Pete felt anything but sure about her.

Eventually, he got out of bed, dressed, and drank a glass of milk. Then he went back to 72nd Drive, knocked on Mrs. Malone’s door again, and again got no reply. He scribbled another note for her and put it in her mailbox with his business card, then sat in his car and watched her building for over an hour. No one went in or out, and there was no movement at the windows on the first floor. He looked at the drop between the windows and the ground, thought about what Quinn had said: that Frank believed the kids had climbed down themselves.

That got him thinking about Frank. If he couldn’t get an interview with Mrs. Malone, maybe he could speak to her husband. He drove back to the office and called the airport, and after getting passed around between supervisors, learned that Frank’s shift finished at four. Pete was in the parking lot by three-forty, waiting for the doors to open. Eventually he saw Frank emerge, and jogged over to intercept him before he could drive away.

“Mr. Malone?”

“Yeah?” Frank put his hand up to his face, to shade his eyes from the sun.

“I’m Pete Wonicke, from the Herald. Can I have a few moments of your time?”

Frank dropped his hand, looked around him.

“Here?”

“I’d like to buy you a cup of coffee. How about we head back toward Kew Gardens Hills and stop somewhere on the way?”

“Well . . . sure. I guess that would be okay.”