She started to rise, but he stopped her.
‘No, no,’ he said, ‘sit down.’ He pulled his chair from beneath his desk and sat down. ‘I understand you’re interested in a missing person.’
She stared at him steadily, her lips tightly pursed.
‘Could you tell me a little bit about that?’ Ben prodded.
‘Everybody warned me not to come down here,’ the woman said evenly.
‘Why is that?’ Ben asked politely.
‘They said it was useless, and that it might be dangerous,’ the woman told him. Her voice was crisp and precise, despite the Southern accent, and there was a kind of flame which seemed to burn continually behind her eyes.
‘Are you from Birmingham, ma’am?’ Ben asked.
‘Not always. My family came from New Orleans.’
‘Been here long?’
‘Since I was fourteen,’ the woman said. ‘Why?’
Ben suddenly realized that his questions might seem threatening rather than casual, a way to break the ice. He shrugged, almost playfully. ‘Just wondered,’ he said.
The woman’s face suddenly grew more agitated, as if something were coming to a violent boil in her mind. ‘It’s my niece,’ she said finally.
Ben smiled quietly and took out a sheet of notepaper. ‘And she’s been missing?’
‘Yes.’
‘Since when?’
‘She’s been gone for two days.’
‘About how old is she?’
‘She’s twelve.’
Ben felt a slight tremor in his fingers. ‘Would you happen to remember what she was wearing the last time you saw her?’
‘Just a plain white dress.’
‘How about shoes?’
‘Brown shoes.’
‘Lace-ups?’
‘Buckle.’
‘Any socks?’
‘White socks.’
Ben wrote it down, then looked up. ‘And her name?’
‘Doreen,’ the woman said. ‘Doreen Ballinger.’
He knew that the two halves of her picture were in his jacket pocket, but for a moment he could not bring himself to take them out. ‘Would you say she’s about four and a half feet tall?’
‘Something like that, I guess.’
‘With her hair tied behind her in a little bun?’
The woman’s face stiffened suddenly. ‘Yes,’ she said softly. Then she leaned forward very slightly. ‘How come you knew that?’
Ben did not answer. He dropped his eyes to the paper. ‘May I have your name, ma’am?’
‘Esther Ballinger,’ the woman said immediately. ‘How come you knew about my niece’s hair?’
‘And could I have your address, Miss Ballinger?’
Her whole body grew rigid. ‘Tell me what you know about Doreen,’ she demanded.
Ben said nothing.
She shot out of her chair and glared down at him. ‘I’m not some dull-eyed, grinning nigger that you can sweet-talk and be polite to and then send on her way,’ she said fiercely. ‘Now I want to know what’s happened to Doreen.’
Ben nodded slowly. ‘Sit down, Miss Ballinger.’
She did not move.
‘Please,’ Ben said, almost in a whisper.
For a moment she continued to look at him resentfully. Then she eased herself back down into her chair.
Ben took out the torn photograph and handed it to her. ‘Is this your niece?’ he asked.
For a while she didn’t answer, but only stared silently at the photograph, her eyes growing suddenly very dark and still.
‘Yes,’ she said finally. Her eyes lifted toward Ben’s, and for an instant they struck him as intensely beautiful. ‘What happened to her?’
‘Somebody shot her, Miss Ballinger,’ Ben said.
Something seemed to collapse behind her eyes, the walls of a tiny burrow, which she instantly shored up again.
‘Do you know who did it?’ she asked resolutely.
‘No.’
‘Are you trying to find out?’
Ben could hear the accusation in her voice, and it was like an arrow going through him.
‘Yes, I am,’ he said determinedly. ‘I most certainly am trying to find out, Miss Ballinger.’
He couldn’t tell whether or not she believed him, so he simply went on according to the formula of such investigations, went on as he would in any other case.
‘When was the last time you saw Doreen?’ he asked.
‘Sunday morning.’
‘Where was she?’
‘She was in her room – getting ready for work.’
‘Work? What kind of work?’
‘She baby-sits for this family over in Mountain Brook,’ Esther told him. ‘A rich white family. She goes over there every weekend.’
‘Saturday and Sunday, both?’
‘Yes.’
‘What’s the family’s name?’
‘Davenport. Mr and Mrs Horace Davenport. My mother worked for them all her life.’
‘And the address?’
‘2407 Carlton Avenue.’
‘How did she go to work? By bus, something like that?’
‘They have her picked up,’ Esther said. ‘They have her brought home. It’s the usual thing. And they give her toting privileges.’
Ben looked up from the paper. ‘Toting privileges?’
Esther shrugged. ‘It’s an old custom among the rich white people,’ she said. ‘You bring a little tote bag to work with you, and they drop a few things in it before you leave. Soap. Maybe some flour, a few hamburger patties. Anything that’s around that they want to give you.’
Ben watched for a moment as Esther’s eyes drifted back down toward the photograph. Something of her previous energy seemed to drain into it, and when she looked up, she seemed older than herself, older than him, older than the world.
‘Did she ever bring home a ring?’ Ben asked.
She looked at him oddly. ‘A ring? What kind of ring?’
‘Sort of a cheap ring, with a big purple piece of glass in it.’
She shook her head. ‘No.’
‘Did you ever see her with something like that?’
‘No. Why?’
‘We found one in her dress,’ Ben said. ‘Large heavy thing. Way too big for Doreen.’
