Rough Justice

'Am I scary-looking?'

Mary appraised her. A yellow knit ski hat, fringe of wet blond bangs, canary parka, and snowpants. 'No, you look like a banana.'

'Maybe I need a new rap. Begging isn't working. You got any ideas?'

'How about 'Prize Patrol!' '

'You're no help.' Judy turned and lumbered through the snow to the next house. Mary followed, hoisting the slippery skis and poles up. A ski slid down into the snow, and Mary bent over to retrieve it. It was maddening trying to keep the skis in order. They were the wire hangers of sports equipment.

Judy climbed the stoop of the next house, 412. The two front windows had a brown curtain in them. She knocked on the front door, and a kid's face popped up under the hem of the curtain. A small, black boy with a smooth head. Judy waved at him, and he waved back.

Mary watched from the sidewalk as Judy waved at the boy again and he waved back again. It was cute, but it wasn't progress. 'Jude, you know sign language for 'open the door'?'

'Can you open the door a minute?' Judy called out, knocking, but the curtain dropped and the boy vanished.

Damn, Mary thought, and wiped her nose on the sleeve of her borrowed parka. Suddenly the door opened a crack and a woman stood there in jeans and a sweatshirt, with her hand shielding her face against the blowing snow. The little boy hugged her knee and buried his face in her thigh.

'Excuse me,' Judy said, 'I hate to bother you. Did you know Heb Darnton or Eb Darning, the homeless man who was killed here last spring, under the bridge?'

'No, I didn't know him,' said the woman irritably, from behind her hand.

'Well, maybe you can help me anyway. My name is Judy Carrier and I'm trying to find out about Heb. Did anybody around here know him? This is where he hung out. This corner, this street.'

Mary remained eye level with the boy, who smiled at her shyly. She waved at him, and he waved back, his palm half hidden behind his mother's leg. 'Momma, I want to go out and play,' he said in a robust voice, but his mother found his shoulder with her hand and patted him.

'I don't know the man,' the mother answered.

'Do you know anybody who did?' Judy asked.

The woman shook her head. 'Listen, it's cold. I got to go now, I'm losin' heat with the door open.'

'Momma?' shouted the boy, but the front door shut quickly and was locked, then bolted.

Judy sighed and trudged back down the stairs. 'Well, it wasn't a total waste of time.'

'Yes it was,' Mary said. She picked up the skis from the snow, where they had fallen like pickup sticks.

'No, it wasn't. That little boy liked you. You made a friend.'

'Kids hate me, and I don't need a friend. I need to know who Eb Darning is.'

'You can always use a friend, Mare.'

'Oh, please. Help with the goddamn skis, would you, California?'

Judy helped gather the skis, and the two women went from house to house in the blizzard, down the streets they thought the homeless man had frequented, checking the neighborhood around the crumbling bridge. Only a handful of people answered their doors, and none of them said they knew Heb Darnton or Eb Darning. The lawyers circled the block and ended up, discouraged, in the middle of the street they had started on. The storm had worsened and Judy's feet had grown cold even in the insulated ski boots. Her ankles were soaked because there'd been only one pair of gaiters and she'd lent them to Mary. 'Even I have to admit this is not going well,' Judy said.

'We can't just give up.'

'We won't, but maybe there's another lead we can follow.'

'I don't know any, do you?'

Judy thought a minute. 'Maybe we could go to Green Street, where Darning used to live. Try to find some people who knew him before he became homeless. Green Street is right in town, in Fairmount, on the other side of the Free Library.'

Mary's mouth dropped open and snow blew inside. 'That's on the other side of town. You want me to ski back across town, past your apartment, all the way to Green Street?'

'We can stop at my apartment. Get some hot chocolate.'

'Who are you channeling? My face is about to fall off. My contacts are frozen. The only part of me that's dry are my ankles and that's because of those plastic things you gave me.'

'The gaiters.'

'Whatever. We can't do it, Judy. We'll be Popsicles. Twin pops. The kind that are supposed to break down the middle and never do.'

'What?'

'Forget it.' Mary squinted against the snow. 'It wasn't a bad idea, though. Why didn't you say something before?'

'I didn't think of it.'