purposes.
“Tony Dimaggio,” said a man in captain’s uniform, hand out to Carmine. “A sixteen-year-old black girl named Margaretta Bewlee was snatched during the night. Mr. Bewlee seems to think through the bedroom window, but I haven’t let any of my guys near it for fear they’d destroy evidence – this is way out of our league if the Monster’s got her. Come inside,” he said, preceding Carmine. “The mother’s a basket case, but Mr. Bewlee’s holding up.”
“I’ll be there as soon as I take Dr. O’Donnell to the outside of the window. Thanks for your forbearance, Tony.”
The family was blue-black: father, mother, a young teenaged girl and two boys coming up toward their teens.
“Mr. Bewlee? Lieutenant Delmonico. Tell me what happened.”
He was that shade of grey that spoke of extreme travail in dark-skinned people, but he managed to control his feelings; to lose hold of them might mean all the difference to Margaretta, and he knew it. His wife, still in robe and slippers, sat as if turned to stone, eyes glazed over.
Mr. Bewlee drew a breath. “We toasted the New Year, then we went to bed, Lieutenant. All of us – no night owls here, so we could hardly keep our eyes open.”
“Did you drink something alcoholic, like sparkling wine?”
“No, just fruit punch. This isn’t a drinking house.”
His face was clouding; when he couldn’t seem to grasp what came next, he gazed at Carmine imploringly. Help me, help me!
“Where do you work, Mr. Bewlee?”
“I’m a precision welder at Electric Boat, due for a pay raise in a couple of weeks. We’ve just been waiting for the raise to move house, buy something bigger.” The tears flowed and he halted.
“Introduce your children to me, Mr. Bewlee.”
Their father collected himself, sure he could manage that. “This is Linda, she’s fourteen. Hank’s eleven, Ray’s ten. We have a little guy, Terence. He’s two and sleeps in our bedroom. Linda took him next door to Mrs. Spinoza. We figured he didn’t need – didn’t need -” He broke down, buried his face in his hands, battled to compose himself. “I’m sorry, I can’t -”
“Take your time, Mr. Bewlee.”
“Etta – that’s what we call her – and Linda share a room.”
“That’s right, Lieutenant. There’s two of them in there. We didn’t get up real early, but when my wife started making us some breakfast, she called out to the girls. Linda said Etta was in the bathroom, but it turned out the boys were, not Etta. So we started looking for her, couldn’t find her. That was when I called the police. All I could think of was the Monster. But it can’t be him, can it? He’s not due yet, and Etta’s like the rest of us –
How could he answer that? Carmine turned to Etta’s sister. “Linda, is that right?” he asked, smiling at her.
“Yes, sir,” she managed, weeping.
“I’m not going to say, don’t cry, Linda, but you can help your sister best if you answer me, okay?”
“Okay.” She mopped her face.
“You and Etta went to bed at the same time, right?”
“Yes, sir. Half after midnight.”
“Your daddy says all of you were sleepy. Is that true?”
“Whacked,” said Linda simply.
“So you both went straight to bed.”
“Yes, sir, soon as we said our prayers.”
“Does Etta mind saying her prayers?”
Linda’s eyes dried; she looked shocked. “No, sir, no!”
“Did you talk any after you were in bed?”
“No, sir, least I didn’t. I was asleep soon as I lay down.”
“Did you hear any noises during the night? Wake up to go to the bathroom?”
“No, sir, I slept until Mom called us. Though I did think it was funny that Etta was up ahead of me. She’s a real tiger for sleeping in. Then I thought she must have snuck off to beat me to the bathroom, but when I banged on the door, Hank answered.”
The child had a beautiful face, liquid dark eyes, a perfect skin, very full lips that would drive a dedicated monk to break his vows, with their clean-cut margins and a turn to them that always whispered to Carmine of tragedy. A black girl’s lips, dark maroon shading to pink where they met in that heart-rending fold. Did Margaretta have this same face?
“You don’t think that Etta could have snuck out, Linda?”
The big eyes grew bigger. “Why would she?” Linda asked, as if that was an answer in itself.
Yes, why would she? She’s as sweet and docile and lovely as all the others. She still says her prayers at bedtime.
“How tall is Etta?”
“Five-nine, sir.”
“Has she got a good figure?”
“No, she’s thin. It depresses her because she wants to be a star like Dionne Warwick,” said Linda, who showed every evidence that she too would be tall and thin. Tall and thin.
“Thank you, Linda. Did anyone else hear a noise last night?”
Nobody had.
Then Mr. Bewlee produced a photograph; Carmine found himself gazing at a girl who looked just like Linda. And like the others.
Patrick came in on his own, carrying his bag.
“Which door down the hall, Linda?”
“The second on the right, sir. My bed’s on the right.”
“See anything to say that he came in the window, Patsy?”
“Not a thing, except that both the inner and the outer set have ordinary window locks that weren’t engaged. The ground outside is frozen solid. Grassy in summer, but died right back at the moment. The sill looks as if it hasn’t been touched since the outer windows went on last October, or whenever the insect screens were removed. I left Paul out there to make sure I didn’t miss anything, but I don’t think I did.”
They entered a room barely large enough to accommodate two burgeoning young women, but it was extremely neat and well cared for; pink-painted walls, a braided pink mat between two single beds, one to left and right of the window. Each girl had a closet beyond the foot of her bed. A big poster of Dionne Warwick and a smaller one of Mary Bell were tacked on the wall above Margaretta’s bed; Linda’s bed was provided with a shelf that held a half dozen teddy bears.
“Quiet, sound sleepers,” said Patrick. “The bedclothes are hardly disturbed.” He moved to Margaretta’s bed and bent to put his nostrils a scant millimeter from the pillow. “Ether,” he said. “Ether, not chloroform.”
“Are you sure? It evaporates within seconds.”
“I’m sure. My nose is good enough to go into the perfume trade. It got trapped in this fold, see? Gone already. Our pal clamped a pad soaked in ether over her face, picked her up and took her out through the window.” Patrick went to the window and pushed the inner one up with a gloved hand, then the outer one. “Listen to that – not a sound. Mr. Bewlee takes care of his home.”
“Unless our pal did the lubricating.”
“No, my money’s on Mr. Bewlee.”
“Jesus, Patsy, he’s cool! A girl who measures five-nine in bare feet, would weigh one-ten, and her sister sleeping not three yards away – if Linda had woken -”
“Kids sleep like the dead, Carmine. Margaretta probably never really woke up, looking at the bedclothes – no sign of a struggle. Linda slept through it, oblivious. He would have done the whole thing in two minutes, tops.”
“Then the question is, who left the windows unlocked? Did Mr. Bewlee not check them regularly, or did our pal pay a visit ahead of time and do it?”
“He visited ahead of time. I figure Mr. Bewlee locks them at the start of the real cold weather and then doesn’t
