The Throat

The letter explained that April Ransom had become interested in writing a paper that would touch upon the Blue Rose murders of forty years before and hoped that Chief Vass would give her permission to consult the original police files for the case.

I turned over the next letter, dated two weeks later, expressing the same desire in somewhat stronger terms.

Beneath this was a letter addressed to Sergeant Michael Hogan and dated five days after the second letter to Arden Vass. April wondered if the sergeant might assist her in her research— the chief had not responded to her requests, and if Sergeant Hogan had any interest in this fascinating corner of Millhaven history, Ms. Ransom would be most grateful. Sincerely yours.

Another letter to Michael Hogan followed, regretting what might seem the writer's bad manners, but hoping to make amends for them by her willingness to spend her own time trying to locate a forty-year-old file in whatever storage facility it was kept.

'Hogan knew she was interested in the old Blue Rose case,' I said. John was reading the letter over my shoulder. He nodded. 'He plays it pretty close to the vest, doesn't he?'

John stepped beside me and turned over the next sheet, also a letter. This was to Paul Fontaine.

Dear Detective Fontaine: I turn to you in something like desperation, after failing to receive replies from Chief Vass and Sergeant Michael Hogan. I am an amateur historian whose latest project concerns the history and origins of the Horatio Street bridge, the Green Woman Taproom, and among other topics, the connections of these sites to the Blue Rose murders that took place in Millhaven in 1950. I would very much like to see the original police file for the Blue Rose case, and have already expressed my absolute willingness to search for this file myself, wherever it may be stored.

Detective Fontaine, I am writing to you because of your splendid reputation as an investigator. Can you see that I too am talking about an investigation, one back into a fascinating time? I trust that you will at least give me the courtesy of a reply.

Yours in hope,

April Ransom

'She was jiving him,' John said. 'Yours in hope? April would never say anything like that.'

'Do you think she might ever have taken a look at the Green Woman?'

He straightened up and looked at me. 'I'm beginning to wonder if I was ever qualified to answer questions like that.' He threw up his arms. 'I didn't even really know what she was working on!'

'She didn't either, exactly,' I said. 'It was only partly a historical paper.'

'She couldn't be satisfied!' John said, stepping toward me. 'That's it. She wasn't satisfied with being a star at Barnett, she wasn't satisfied with doing the same kind of articles anybody else would write, she wasn't…' He clamped his mouth shut and looked moodily at the manuscript file. 'Well, let's get downtown before the damn march is all over.' He threw open the door and stormed outside.

As soon as he was in the car, he bent over, placed a hand on my thigh and his head on my knee, and reached under my seat. 'Oh, no,' I said.

'Oh, yes.' John straightened up, holding the revolver. 'I hate to say it, but we might need this.'

'Then count me out.'

'Okay, I'll go alone.' He leaned back, held in his stomach, and slid the gun into his trousers. Then he looked back at me. 'I don't think we'll need a gun, Tim. But if we meet someone, I want to have something to fall back on. Don't you want to take a look at the place?'

I nodded.

'This is just backup.'

I started the car, but did not take my eyes off him. 'Like at Writzmann's?'

'I made a mistake.' He grinned, and I turned the car off. He held up his hands, palms out. 'No, I mean it, I shouldn't have done that, and I'm sorry. Come on, Tim.'

I started the car again. 'Just don't do that again. Ever.'

He was shaking his head and hitching the jacket around the curved tusk of the handle. 'But suppose some guy walks in when we're there. Wouldn't you feel easier if you knew we had a little firepower?'

'If it were in my hands, maybe,' I said.

Wordlessly, John opened his jacket, pulled the gun out of his trousers, and handed it to me. I put it on the seat beside me and felt it press uncomfortably into my thigh. When I came to a red light, I picked it up and pushed the barrel into the left side of my belt. The light turned green, and I jerked the car forward.

'Why would Alan buy a gun?'

John smiled at me. 'April got it for him. She knew he kept a lot of cash in the house, in spite of her efforts to get the money into the bank. I guess she figured that if someone broke in, all Alan had to do was wave that cannon around, and the burglar would get out as soon as he could.'

'If he was just supposed to wave it around, she shouldn't have bought him any bullets.'

'She didn't,' John said. 'She just told him to point the gun at anyone who broke in. One day last year when she was out of town, Alan called, all pissed off that April didn't trust him enough to give him bullets, he could handle a gun better than I could—'

'Is that true?' Alan Brookner did not seem like a man who would have spent a great deal of time firing guns.

'Got me. Anyhow, he chewed me out until I gave up and took him to a shop down on Central Divide. He bought two boxes of hollow points. I don't know if he ever told April, but I sure didn't.'

As I drove down Horatio Street, distant crowd noises came to us from the direction of Illinois Avenue and the other side of the river. Voices shouting slogans into bullhorns rose above mingled cheers and boos.

I looked south toward Illinois at the next cross street. A thick pack of people, some of them waving signs, blocked the avenue. As gaudy and remote as a knight in armor, a mounted policeman in a riot helmet trotted past them. As soon as I got across the street, the march vanished again into distant noise.

The tenements along this section of Horatio Street looked deserted. A few men sat drinking beer and playing cards in parked cars.

'You looked through that file?' I asked.

'Funny, isn't it?'

'Well, they never did ask about who had been fired recently.'

'You didn't notice? Come on.' He sat up on the car seat and stared at me to see if I was just pretending to be unobservant. 'Who is the one guy they should have talked to? Who knew more about the St. Alwyn than anyone else?'

'Your father.'

'They talked to my father.'

I remembered that and tried another name. 'Glenroy Breakstone, but I read his statements, too.'

'You're not thinking.'

'Then tell me.'

He sat there twisted sideways, looking at me with an infuriating little smile on his lips. 'There are no statements from the famous Bob Bandolier. Isn't that a little bit strange?'

2

'You must be mistaken,' I said. He snorted. 'I'm sure I read about Bob Bandolier in those statements.'