her… her life here. I knew about Boone, yes, but I really thought he was in Arkansas. Have they found him?’
‘Not yet. They have the kids in a shelter. Maybe you should go to them. They need someone.’
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘What will happen to them and Boone?’
‘That depends on Boone and the state,’ I said. ‘Okay, you suspected abortion. Why report her missing? The noble sister trying to stop her?’
Her chin came up, and I saw a little of Anne’s boniness in her face. ‘No, not noble. Jealous. Plain female fury. I wanted to make trouble-for both of them.’
‘Anne and Ricardo Vega?’
‘Ted Marshall. I was sure Ted was the man.’
‘He dumped you for her?’
‘I thought we had… something. I met him in acting class when I first came here. I burned to be an actress, and I liked Ted. I suppose I still do. Then Anne met him. He never called me again. Not once! I quit everything, took a safe job.’
Her lustreless eyes looked like mud. I was getting the first real clue to the drabness inside Sarah Wiggen. A body full of dead dreams. Anne’s dreams had been alive, vivid.
‘What did you expect the police to do, Sarah?’
‘Catch them, prove the abortion, send Ted to jail. I don’t know. When she didn’t call Sunday evening, I was half scared for her, and half hoping she was sick and Ted would be caught.’
‘All right,’ I said. ‘What about Ricardo Vega?’
‘I don’t care about him.’
‘The baby was his, almost sure. Anne didn’t say anything about Vega, a deal, maybe a payoff?’
‘No, but she wouldn’t have told me about Mr Vega.’
‘Think! That last call, when she talked of going home. She said nothing about plans, hopes, her future?’
‘She just said she was tired, wanted to go home to rest. She did say she’d have a suprise for me, would pay my fare. She seemed anxious to have me go. But I-’
‘A surprise? money? Nothing more?’
‘I wasn’t going. I didn’t think about it.’
‘Anyone been here? Vega? Friends of his?’
Only Mr Foster. He offered to go to Anne’s and get some things I wanted. When you rang I thought it was him.’
‘He hasn’t been back yet?’
‘No, he-’ The downstairs buzzer rang. ‘There he is.’
She went to release the street door, and waited at her door as footsteps came up slowly, limping. Footsteps are distinctive, conjure up a mental picture of the man, and the steps coming up didn’t make me see Emory Foster. I went for the door.
Sarah Wiggen was staring out.
I pushed her aside. He stood at the top of the stairs. Tall, stooped, his work clothes crusted with gutter grime, his pale eyes watery and red with booze and, maybe, grief. The gaunt man from the cafeteria. He tried to run, but he was shaky, weak. I got my hand on his arm, enought to ruin his balance, and he slipped, fell, crashed down the stairs to the next landing. I jumped down after him. Groggy, he tried to get up. I kicked him in the stomach. He fell back, gasping, and stared up at me. I put my hand into my pocket, held a foot aimed at his chin.
‘Call Captain Gazzo, Sarah.’ I gave her the number of Gazzo’s private office. ‘Tell him I found Boone Terrell.’
Chapter Twelve
Graffiti covered the walls of the Interrogation Room. A generation of janitors had tried to scrub them off. They had given up, and settled, puritanically, for scratching over the obscene ones. It left plenty of reading: Johnny Knucks, I’ll never learn… Little Sal been here and gone… You’ll be back, Sal… Rory Connors, a bum rap… I’m sorry, Marge, I’m sorry…
Gazzo said, ‘Tell us where you’ve been, Terrell. ’
Boone Terrell sat in the chair under the light. Gazzo half-sat on the bare table. Three other detectives in shirt sleeves, guns prominent for intimidation, stood spaced around at the edge of the circle of light. I leaned on a wall, read graffiti, and listened to Gazzo work.
‘Drunk, Captain,’ Terrell said. ‘I drink some.’
Terrell’s voice had the shakiness of a bad hangover, very bad. Under the hangover it was a firm voice, with a strong regional twang of the South, but without any whine. The voice of a decent farmer. His big hands shook, but that was booze, too. He sat like a man who didn’t scare easily, a slow rock against threats or danger, the hands stuck out of his sleeves again, as if he never could find clothes that fit. His face was paler than ever, but not flabby, and his sunken eyes seemed more stunned than worried. He continually brushed at the caked grime on his clothes as if ashamed to be seen so dirty.
‘I guess you do,’ Gazzo said. ‘A routine binge?’
‘The weekend, Captain. You know how that is.’
‘Don’t we all? Why’d you go to Sarah Wiggen?’
‘You know, family an’ all. I ran out of money.’
‘Did you know we were looking for you?’
‘Hell, no, Captain. I sure didn’t.’
‘Don’t you want to know why we were looking?’
Terrell brushed dirt. ‘I guess I know.’
‘You guess you know,’ Gazzo said. ‘Then why didn’t you come in? No, never mind for now. We checked you out, Mr Terrell. You drink, sure, but you don’t binge. Your local Queens pals say Boone Terrell he drinks, but he never goes on a binge. No sir! Boone Terrell has two kids, he takes care of his kids. Oh, sometimes he’ll tie one on over a Friday or Saturday night, but never any longer. His wife comes out from somewhere on the weekends, so sometimes he gets drunk, but not often. No, Boone Terrell he watches his kids, stays with his wife.’
Preacher Gazzo, Captain Mouth. They say, the thousands who have faced his verbal barrage, that when he starts talking, lawyers plead guilty. Boone Terrell only looked at him.
‘I guess it’s true? My Annie’s dead?’
Gazzo walked away into a corner. Terrell’s eyes followed him. That’s one of the tricks, the walkaway. Prisoners, or witnesses, want to please their interrogator. Deep down, somehow, they all want to please, as if that will make them safe. Sergeant Jonas took Gazzo’s place. Jones is the hard questioner.
‘You’re saying you’re not sure she’s dead?’
‘I guess I just don’t want to be sure,’ Terrell said.
‘Then how did you know? You sneaked out there Saturday, right? Sure; your wife, another man’s kid in her. You helped her out, gave her some extra pills, killed her!’
‘Anne died from pills? I never did hold with pills,’ Terrell said. ‘Saturday? The kids was all alone-with her?’
I said from my wall, ‘Sally Anne took good care.’
Terrell nodded. ‘Sally Anne’s a good kid.’ He wiped at his face with his big hand. ‘Word got around to me. From the Queens saloon. Fellows told fellows to tell me.’
‘When did word get to you?’ Jonas asked.
‘About morning.’
‘You mean today? Why did you stay away Sunday, even Monday? Your wife always went back to Manhattan on Sunday night. You stayed away, left your kids alone? Why? Because you knew she was dead, you were afraid to go back even for your kids?’
‘You got it wrong,’ Terrell said. Hangover or not, he had an odd dignity. ‘Annie, she come early Friday. Said she was goin’ down to Carolina with the kids, but not with me. We had us a fight. I walked out. I didn’t go back
