“We’re going to your new home, until we can figure this out.”
“What is it, a house?”
“No, it’s something you’re not going to like.” A beat then, “If you want to live you’re going to need to be strong. I’ll help you all I can but most of it’s going to depend on you.”
52
Alabama had big news when she returned from the library. “You’re like a monkey pecking at a typewriter,” she said. “Sooner or later you were bound to spell a word.”
Wilde smiled.
“So what word did I spell?”
“Connection.”
“Connection?”
Right.
Connection.
Wilde scratched his head. “I’m glad I did it pecking then because I’m not sure I could do it on purpose.”
She handed him a printout of a newspaper article.
“Read it and weep,” she said.
It was a short article dated August 14, 1949, about a 30-year-old woman named Brittany Pratt who was found at the bottom of a six-story office building in lower Manhattan yesterday morning. Police were investigating to try to determine the cause of the fall.
“This happened three years ago,” he said.
“Right.”
“That’s a cold trail,” he said. “There’s nothing in here about whether she was wearing a dress or not.”
“She was,” Alabama said. “It was red, too.”
“How do you know?”
“I can tell.”
“How?”
“The same way I can tell that you want to see me naked,” she said. “Instinct.”
Wilde smiled.
“I’ve already seen you naked,” he said. “Besides, that’s a totally different analogy. The reporter’s name is Michael Hyatt. Call the paper and see if he’s still there. If he is, find out if he knows anything that isn’t in the article. Maybe he did a follow-up investigation or kept in touch with the police.”
“That can be arranged.”
“Good.”
“I’m talking about seeing me naked,” she said.
“I thought you were saving that for Robert Mitchum.”
“I’m saving that for you,” she said. “Mitchum’s just a fill-in until you come to your senses.”
“Call the reporter.”
“Now?”
He handed her the phone.
“Yes, now.”
“What are you going to do while I’m doing that?”
He lit a cigarette.
“Smoke.”
Sometimes the universe works the way it should. Not only was the reporter still with the paper but he actually had something to say.
“It’s so funny that you ask whether she was wearing a dress,” he said. “She was. A red one.”
“Short or long?”
“Short,” he said. “It was up around her waist.”
“Was she wearing panties?”
Yes.
She was.
“White.”
“How do you know?”
“I was the person who found her.”
“You’re messing with me.”
“I’m not. I was out walking and there she was,” he said. “I’ll never forget it, not as long as I live. At first I thought she’d just passed out or something. There wasn’t as much blood as you’d think. Then when I got closer I could see the blood under her head and matted in her hair. The back of her skull was crushed like an eggshell.”
He talked to the woman’s neighbors and friends afterwards.
“Not a one of them thought it was suicide,” he said. “It was either an accident or murder. My money was and still is on murder. The funny thing is, though, she was squeaky clean in every way. No one had a motive to kill her, not even a tiny little one. Believe me, I checked. Being the one who found her, the whole thing became pretty personal for me.”
“Was she pretty?”
“Very,” he said. “Here’s the bad part about it. She had a five-year-old daughter. She was a single mom. The kid-her name’s Mandy-ended up in the orphanage right down the street from where her mom was killed. She’s still there. I go by every day and take her a candy bar.”
“That’s nice of you.”
“The truth is that I do it as much for me as for her,” he said. “What’s your interest in her?”
Alabama explained.
They might have a related case.
“I’ll help any way I can,” he said. “I’d give my right nut to catch the guy especially now that I know he did it again.”
“Thanks for the visual.”
He chuckled.
“I have more if you need ’em.”
“No, that one will be enough.”
She almost hung up.
“Hey, you still there?”
He was.
“Where was she, the night she got dropped?”
“She went out to a bar.”
“Alone?”
“As far as I know.”
“What bar?”
A beat.
“I’d have to pull my notes and get back to you,” he said. “I’m drawing a blank. Give me your number.”
She did.
They hung up.
