Deacon King Kong(85)

“He was even wearing an umpire’s costume,” Potts added, “which I’m told he wears sometimes.”

“That’s him.” She nodded, but then she thought it through. Even though she saw Sportcoat hand that ID over to Sausage with her own eyes, it would likely take the cops weeks to figure out that the real Thelonius was Hot Sausage and not Sportcoat. Is it possible, she thought, that the two switched the ID again after Soup’s party, on the chance that if the cops arrested Sausage, it would give Sportcoat a chance to run? She decided against it. No. Sportcoat wouldn’t do that. He’d be too drunk. He’s too lazy to think that far ahead. Still, her hopes glimmered a bit. If Hot Sausage was still too woozy to tell them what had happened and who was who, there was a chance.

“That umpire’s vest saved Mr. Ellis’s life,” Potts said. “The bullet hit from the side and the chest protector slowed it. Otherwise, he would have been cooked. Thing is, he was kinda woozy and garbled in his talk. He wasn’t all there. So we’ll go back in a day or two and check with him again, when he’s feeling better.”

“Okay.”

“Oh yeah, and he was talking about a woman. What’d you say his wife’s name was?”

“Hettie.”

“No, it wasn’t Hettie. Something about a Denise Bibb.”

“Sister Bibb?” Sister Gee felt another spark go off in her mind. She stared at the ground, working hard to keep her face blank. “She’s the organ player at our church. Minister of music is her real title.”

“Your Sportcoat said a woman was the shooter, and he mentioned this woman several times. Denise Bibb. Why would he do that? I thought his wife was dead.”

Sister Gee bit her lip. “I reckon he had to be out of his head. You said he was woozy, right?”

“Very much so. Pretty gone, actually. He said some strange things about Mrs. Bibb. Something about her being a killer. A grinder. Strong as a man. A machine gunner. That kind of stuff. Did she have anything against him? You think she might have been involved in some way?”

Sister Gee felt the spark in her head turn to fireworks. I knew it! she thought. Sausage and Sister Bibb had a thing going! She kept staring, willing her face to stay emotionless, before she tried to speak.

“Sister Bibb wouldn’t hurt a fly,” she managed to croak.

“It’s called evidence. I have to ask.”

“It’s called, ‘when you get old, all’s you got is your imagination,’” Sister Gee said. She tried to make her face take on a grim smile but was having trouble. The smile now was real.

Potts stared at her. That smile, he thought, is like a rainbow. He tried to keep his voice even, official. “No other reason to think that this Sister Bibb of yours might have had a grudge against Sportcoat? Lovers’ quarrel maybe?”

Sister Gee shrugged. “There’s plenty tipping going on in church, just like in anyplace in this world. People got feelings, y’know? They get lonesome, even when they’re married. There’s love in this world, mister. It don’t stop for nothing or nobody. You ain’t never seen that?”

She looked at him with such desire that he had to stifle an urge to raise his hand like a third grader in a classroom waiting to be called on—and reach for her hand. She had unmasked him. She didn’t even know she’d done it.

“Of course,” he managed to say.

“But I don’t think there’s nothing between them,” she said. “Whyn’t you ask Sister Bibb herself?”

“Where is she?”

“She’s in Building Thirty-Four. But today being Saturday, she mostly works Saturdays at her job. She cooks in a cafeteria in Manhattan.”

“Did you see her last night?”

“No.” That was the truth. She’d seen her three minutes ago. In the cheese line. But he didn’t ask that. Sister Gee felt a little better. At least she wasn’t “wholesale lying,” as her mother would say. Besides, would he ever know? She found herself hoping he would. It meant he’d likely have to come back and she’d see him again, and again and again. I’ll keep lying, she thought, just to fold into that big shoulder and see him smile and tell a joke in that heavy, pretty voice he got, the way he did that first day in church. Then she felt acid creeping into her throat. Ain’t I a dreamer, she thought bitterly. He’ll be gone when this is all done. Maybe I’ll see him sometime outside Rattigan’s joking with his buddies while I’m sweeping their bottles off the curb. Thinking of it made her miserable.

Potts saw her face fall and was not sure why. “We’ll come back later and check with her,” he said.

She smiled, a sad, genuine one this time, and felt her heart fall to earth as she said the words that brought light to his heart every time he heard them. “Come on back then. Hurry back, if you wanna.”

Potts forced himself to check his emotions. He would have slammed the door on them if he could. He was at work. People were dead. There were families to notify. Detectives to check up on. Paperwork to fill out. They’d rattle this case around the Seventy-Sixth Precinct till somebody got tired of it. The best he could get out of it was standing right in front of him, as gorgeous and kind a woman as he’d ever seen. He sighed deeply, offered a small smile, then glanced at the line at the basement door as his fellow officers waited.