Officer Girardi spotted me coming home with the newspaper.
“Hey, you,” he said.
“Yes, sir.”
“Why you getting the paper? Your grandmother don’t know English.”
“Movies,” I said, thinking fast. “It tells what’s playing at the movies. I always go on Saturdays. That’s tomorrow.”
“Where’s your mother and father?” he asked. My grandmother had explained that to Detective Kastel, but maybe Kastel didn’t tell Girardi.
“My mother’s dead. My father’s working out of town.”
“Where’s out of town?”
“Out west someplace,” I said, but the truth was that I didn’t know where my father was. My mother died while he was overseas and I only saw him for a couple of months after the war. He didn’t want to hang around. He always said I reminded him too much of my mother.
“Did he know the Ludka girl?”
“My father?”
“Who’re we talking about?”
“He left us before she moved into the neighborhood.”
I don’t know why I said
I found out later that day that Kastel and another policeman had interrogated my other grandmother about my father until she cried. I spent time with my father’s side of the family only on holidays like Christmas and Easter and sometimes Thanksgiving.
“You saw the girl just before she was murdered,” Mr. Butler said when I went to the store. I had been there maybe a dozen times since the murder, but he had never talked about it. Now, it was like he was accusing me of something.
“You saw her last,” I said.
“You were on the sidewalk. I saw you.”
“I was gone before she came out,” I said.
“That guy called Knucks was with you, wasn’t he? The one who steals cigarettes.”
“I went home,” I said.
“They asked a lot of questions about you.”
He was getting tough with me, and I decided to get tough back. “They asked me a lot of questions about you too,” I said, though I was lying.
“Me?”
“Yeah. You.”
“Why were they asking about me?”
I lied and now he had me cornered. “How should I know? Why would they ask about me?”
“Because she said she liked you.”
“She
“She said you were a nice boy-not like the others.”
That made me feel good, but it also made me want to cry. I gritted my teeth. “Give me a pickled onion?”
“Sour?”
“You know the kind I like.”
There were only three in the big jar and he had to poke around with the tongs before he got the smallest one.
“Were you with the guys that raped her?” he asked.
“What guys?”
“You know.”
He was referring to Knucks but I didn’t know who else, and I didn’t say anything.
“Nah, a pussy like you wouldn’t hang with them.”
When I left the store, I started toward Herkermer Street. Knucks came across from the playground where Ludka was murdered and walked along with me.
“They talk to you yet? Did you give ’em my name?”
“For what?”
“What did they ask you about?”
“They asked if I knew her and I said I didn’t.”
“Did you tell ’em we were talking about her?”
“I told you I wouldn’t.”
“So you lied to ’em. Keep it up,” he said.
He ran across the street to the lot that ran alongside the coal yard and up toward the railroad tracks. It was the short way to his house from here. I was always afraid of him, but I wasn’t the only one.
I was on my way to my grandmother’s house when Officer Girardi called after me.
“Yes, sir,” I said, and stopped.
“What did he want?” He must have seen us talking.
“Wanted to borrow a nickel. I didn’t have one.”
“Not even for him?”
“No, sir.”
“Mr. Butler says he saw you two talking to her the day they got her.”
“We didn’t talk. I just said hello. I was on my way home.”
“But Knucks was outside with you?”
I didn’t know what to say, so I said, “No, sir.”
“Knucks says you were talking about banging her.”
“Me?”
“That’s what he says.”
I figured he might be trying to trick me, so I said, “I didn’t even talk to him.”
It seemed like everybody was ganging up on me: Knucks, Mr. Butler, the police. Even my grandmother was starting to ask a lot of questions.
“She was a good looking girl, huh?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Beat your meat over her?”
I felt my cheeks go hot again. I knew what that meant, but I never did it because every time I tried, it hurt.
“No, sir.”
“Come on, tell me about Knucks.”
“I don’t know anything about him.”
Girardi had his back to the coal yard. I saw Knucks standing on the railroad tracks where the cars dumped the coal, and I figured I was in trouble no matter what I said.
“Did he tell you he was gonna do it?” Girardi asked.
“He didn’t tell me nothin’,” I said. I turned away from him and started to walk toward my house. He came after me, grabbed my arm, and turned me around.
“If we don’t get him, we’re gonna get you,” he said.
“For what?”
“For raping and killing the Ludka girl.”
“I didn’t have anything to do with it.”
“You ever hear about being an accessory?”
“What’s that mean?”
“Means you’re lying to protect a pal.”
“He’s no pal of mine.”
“I guess not. Because he’s trying to pin it all on you.”
