Baltimore Noir

She didn’t come that time, and not ever again.

I had trouble sleeping that night because I was thinking about Birute and about what Knucks had said about her. She was pretty, beautiful maybe, but not like a movie star because she didn’t wear makeup. I wouldn’t mind having a girlfriend like her, but after “Buack, buack, buack,” what chance did I have? Maybe she didn’t come down Herkermer Street because she was embarrassed to know me.

In the middle of the night, I heard a police siren and the dogs in the backyards started to bark. They did that two or three times a week, usually when somebody walked down the alley.

I had a dream about Birute Ludka and me doing what Knucks said. When I awoke, I changed my jockey shorts and hoped my grandmother would wash them without seeing the stains.

On the way to school, a couple of girls on the trackless trolley were talking about a D.P. girl who was killed in the Carroll Park playground.

“What D.P. girl?” I asked.

“The tall one that lives on Carey Street,” one of them said. They were both wearing the white Seton High uniforms that made them look like nurses or waitresses.

“Birute?”

“No. Ludka something.”

My face went hot. She couldn’t be dead. But I thought about the police car in the middle of the night and the dogs barking.

“You know her?” one of the Seton girls asked.

“No,” I said. I had said hello to her, but I didn’t really know her.

I guess because she was Lithuanian, there was some talk in school about the murder. I didn’t join in, but I paid attention. One of the nuns asked me if I knew her since she lived in my neighborhood. I said that I didn’t. I was scared because of my dream, but also because of what Knucks had said: “Old enough to bleed.” I didn’t think that “old enough to butcher” meant murder though.

When I got off the No. 27 coming home, I walked up Carey Street and saw Knucks was sitting on a set of steps. As I approached, he got up. Then he walked along with me. “You didn’t see me talking to her,” he said.

“No,” I said. I did see him, though, and I saw him start to follow her.

“Keep it that way.”

“Sure,” I said. I turned at the corner and he walked up Carey Street toward the bridge.

I wondered what that was all about. It didn’t make sense until the police came to my grandmother’s door and asked to talk to me.

One was a police detective named Kastel. When my grandmother came downstairs, he talked to her in Lithuanian much better than I could. I had never seen him before, but the uniformed policeman with him was Girardi, who walked the neighborhood beat.

“Did you know Birute Ludka?” Kastel asked. He pronounced Birute better than anybody I had ever heard except my grandmother.

“Not very well,” I said.

My grandmother was wringing her hands in her handkerchief while Detective Kastel asked me questions. From time to time, he would explain something to her in Lithuanian. She understood some English but she could not speak it.

“But you knew her?”

“I always said hello.”

“Did you talk to her yesterday?”

“Just to say hello.” I was nervous as I answered his questions about where and when. I was particularly nervous when he asked if my name was Walter.

“Who was with you when you saw her?”

“Nobody,” I said. “I was just coming out of the store and she was going in.”

I didn’t want to talk about Knucks, but Cooper the Cop knew about it. I wanted to correct myself, but I didn’t. I could be in trouble for that, but if I told, I could be in bigger trouble with Knucks. Cooper would probably tell them anyway.

“You didn’t see her after that?”

“No, sir,” I said.

“And nobody was with you?”

“No,” I said. Old enough to bleed.

“I thought I saw you talking to some other boys on the corner,” Girardi said.

“No, sir,” I said. I knew he was fishing because I had only talked to Knucks. I would stick to my story unless Cooper, who was on the other corner, confronted me later.

“You hear anything about her?” Detective Kastel asked.

“On the No. 27 this morning. Some girls were saying she was murdered.”

“And raped,” Officer Girardi almost yelled at me.

“I didn’t hear about that,” I said. I wasn’t even sure what rape meant. I would look it up in the dictionary later.

“Did you see her last night?” Kastel said.

“No, sir.”

“Mister Butler says you left just before she came into his store.”

“I did,” I said. “It’s when I said hello.”

“Then what did you do?” Kastel asked.

“I went home.”

“You weren’t planning anything?” Girardi said.

“Nothing,” I said. Old enough to butcher.

Detective Kastel talked about me to my grandmother in Lithuanian and my grandmother started to cry. I didn’t understand much of what they said because they were talking too fast. I did hear my grandmother say “Vladas” several times, which was Lithuanian for Walter.

After Kastel left, my grandmother talked to me in Lithuanian. I spoke back to her in English. We spoke slowly and we understood a lot of what we said, but neither of us could speak the other’s language very well.

I just kept saying no when she asked if I knew anything about Birute. From time to time she would say, “Dieva mano, Dieva mano “ spread her hands, and look up. It meant, “My God, my God.” I never could figure out if it was an actual prayer or just some kind of cursing.

My grandfather came home later and she started the Dieva mano’s all over again. He didn’t understand English, so didn’t talk much, but she explained to him about Birute Ludka.

I did all of my homework and looked up the word rape in the dictionary. I was afraid to go out. I just stayed home and listened to the radio, but I did not pay much attention to it. I was thinking about Birute in my dream. It had nothing to do with murder but it was kind of like rape, because she never said anything. She just said, “Hello,” like yesterday, and we did that thing, and she looked up at me with no expression on her face.

It felt good, but I felt rotten too, because she didn’t smile.

We did not get the newspaper at my house so I read the Evening Sun at a friend’s house to learn more about what happened.

“You didn’t have anything to do with it, did you?” my friend’s father asked.

“Me?”

“You seem to be reading about it a lot.”

“It happened in our playground,” I said. I decided I would not read his paper anymore.

I wanted to go to the funeral home to see her laid out, but I thought about murderers returning to the scene of the crime and I did not want anyone to think that I might be a killer.

The next day, I bought the Baltimore News-Post from the American Store on Washington Boulevard, where the trackless trolley stopped on my way home from school. The paper said that the police found her buried in the sandbox in the playground at about the same time her mother reported her missing. Whoever did it had covered her up in a hurry, the paper said.