Walsh didn't know yet why Mendoza was asking him about that D.-and-D. call; he was doing his best to be helpful, but it had been such a routine thing…
'I don't want to prompt you. But just visualize it in your mind-a big blacktopped area with apartments on two sides and across the rear. The one where the drunks were was Number Three, that's in the front of the second building on the right as you drive in. It was about seven-thirty, and it was raining. It was the landlady called in, and she was waiting for you-'
'Funny little fat lady in a man's raincoat,' said Walsh suddenly. 'Yeah, I got it, Lieutenant. We pulled up where she was, I guess it'd be in front of her place, she was waiting there on the porch, I remember that-and we both got kind of wet going across to the drunks' apartment-left the car where it was, see, it was just a step really but it was coming down pretty steady then.'
'Yes, go on.'
'Well-I don't know just what you want, sir. There wasn't anything to it. It's funny how just the sight of the uniform'll quiet 'em down sometimes. There was this big bruiser of a fellow and a little blonde woman, going at it hammer and tongs-you could hear 'em half a block away, the landlady needn't've come out to tell us where. Soon as Joe knocked and said who we were, they stopped and the man let us in. We talked to 'em a few minutes, you know the sort of thing: hadn't they better quiet down, have some consideration for the neighbors, and that's all it took really.' He stuck again there, and was prodded on. 'Well, let's see-Joe gave me the nod, I knew what he meant, and I went out to the car to report in. See, Joe figured, and I guess he knew from experience-he was a good cop, Lieutenant, the best for my money-'
'I know he was.'
'-He always said, about a deal like that, where they aren't really slum people who just naturally distrust cops, that you don't have to go acting tough, and a lot of times they'll listen to a good stiff talk from a man in uniform where they'd just get mad with somebody like the landlady or the neighbors. That's what he meant, see. We could see they wouldn't make any more disturbance, and so like I say I went back to the car to report in, and Joe stayed to talk to 'em, so maybe they'd think twice the next time.'
'Yes. And then?'
'Well-that's all,' said Walsh blankly. 'I sat in the car and waited for Joe, and pretty soon he came out-with the landlady-she'd stayed in the drunks' apartment with him-and she thanked us and we got back on our route again.'
Mendoza made a few marks on paper, shoved the page across the desk. 'Look, here's the set-up, let's get it clear. The apartments numbered Five and Six are in the building across the end of this court. The landlady lives in Number Six. Numbers Three and Four are in this second building from the street, at right angles to that. Show me where your squad car was in relation.'
Walsh hesitated, finally pointed. 'I'd say just about in front of this rear building. I mean not in front of either of the apartment doors there but sort of in between them.”
'Damn it, I don't want to force this,' said Mendoza softly, 'if there is anything… When you both got out of the car, you went straight across to Number Three? Bartlett was with you?'
'Why, sure, of course.' Walsh stared.
'He was in Number Three how long?'
'I guess about fifteen, twenty minutes-no, say eighteen. Altogether.'
'You'd gone back to the car and reported in what it had turned out to be. How long did you sit there waiting for him?'
'About ten minutes, I guess. I remember I smoked a cigarette, it was just about finished when Joe came. I don't get what this is about, Lieutenant, it was just a routine-'
'Yes. Now when Bartlett came out of Number Three, did he come straight across to the car?'
'Yes, sir-at least, I'd think so. Wouldn't have any reason to do anything else, would he? I guess if you pinned me down I couldn't say I know he did, because I had my back to that side of the court, you know-he just came up and got in and said, ‘O.K., Frank, let's go.' The landlady came up behind him, with that funny raincoat over her head, and hopped up on her front porch and yelled ‘Thanks' at us and-well, that was that.'
Mendoza sighed. 'And if Bartlett didn't come straight from Number Three to the squad car, the landlady would know… ' He could ask, but he had the feeling this was a dead end. Call it what, a minute, two minutes, for Bartlett to have seen something, heard something? ' Que va! ' he muttered to himself vexedly. 'Can you think of anything else at all, Walsh, no matter how trivial it struck you at the time, that happened during the whole twenty minutes you were at this place?'
Silence. Walsh was looking nervous and perplexed. 'I don't know what you're after,' he said. 'I just can't think- Well, a couple of the neighbors on each side of the drunks' apartment came out-I think one couple was out when we drove up, I seem to get a picture of them standing there on their front porch under the porch light. That'd be, I guess, Number Four-end apartment… What, sir? I think that was the only porch light on except the landlady's. Then when I came back g to the car, I saw the people on the other side-that'd be Number Two, in the first building-had come out on their porch. Wanted to see if we were going to take the drunks in, I guess, but there wasn't any need for that… I don't remember seeing anybody else out. I guess if it hadn't been raining they would have been-you know, the drunks making such a racket-but the way it was, it was just the people from the closest apartments to them who were outside-though probably everybody else was looking out their windows… I don't know what else I can. .. Oh, and just before Joe came up, somebody did open the door of the apartment next to the landlady's. And that's all I-what, sir? No, I they didn't come out on the porch, maybe when they saw it was raining so hard-'
'They,” said Mendoza, excluding any excitement from his tone.
'Two people, three, or what?'
'Oh-well,' said Walsh vaguely, 'I don't know. I said ‘they' because I couldn't see whether it was a man or woman who opened the door. The porch light wasn't on there. I think there was a light inside but not in the living room, maybe, not right by the door or behind it-I seem to I get that impression. I couldn't see-I don't know if anybody else was there besides who opened the door. I just, you know, sort of registered it in my mind, the door opening… This what you want, Lieutenant, about that? Well, let's see… I remember thinking, they've finally tumbled something's going on, and're looking out to see what-but I didn't notice whoever it was-and it was just a minute before the door shut again. Tell you the truth,' said Walsh a little shamefacedly, 'I was looking at the lightning really, I just kind of saw that door open out of the tail of my eye. I get a kick out of electric storms, and we never used to get them out here much, you know, it's only the last ten or twelve years… I was waiting for the thunder… '
'Yes,” said Mendoza. 'Now, think about this one carefully. Someone was standing in the open door of Number Five-by the way, wide open?'
Walsh thought, shook his head. 'I don't know. I don't think so, but I can't say for sure.'
'O.K. Someone's there, and there's lightning in a flash-big stroke?'
'Pretty close. Lit up the whole sky-it was fine.'
'Yes. And about that time Bartlett was, maybe, on his way to the car from Number Three? Could it be that whoever was standing there saw Bartlett by that big flash, and thought Bartlett might have seen him-or her?' But that was really reaching for it, surely, he added to himself. A flash of lightning. One little moment-to fix in mind the nondescript features of an ordinary cop-and an hour and a bit later, catch up to him and kill him? And Bartlett would probably have had his head down against the rain; whoever was in that doorway would also see that he couldn't be noticing…
Walsh's expression took on the glazed look of one trying to recapture a past time in photographic reproduction. He said almost at once, 'No, sir. I got that piece clear, just remembering it by the lightning, now. This is how it went, see: there's the lightning, just after the door opened there-and I looked up, and kind of automatically started to count seconds, the way you do, you know-and it was close, it wasn't quite three seconds until the thunder-and then that door closed. And right after that-yes, I've got it now, funny how little things come back to you-I heard the other apartment door close, and that was Joe and the landlady coming out of Number Three. And almost right away, Joe opened the car door and got in beside me and said, ‘O.K., let's go.' ' Walsh looked at Mendoza triumphantly, anxiously. 'Is that the kind of thing you want, sir? I don't see what it has to do with-'
