seemed—as “a perfect stranger.”
The kids knew somebody had been killed in that building on Saturday night, but this was Tuesday afternoon and the barricades the City Housing Authority had put up on either end of the block made the street perfect for stickball. It was still earlySeptember, and there’d be plenty of daylight before dinnertime. So they congregated at about 4:00, chose up their sides and chalked their bases onto the asphalt, and got down to the serious business at hand.
The boy playing center field was standing almost directly opposite the hallway in which Muriel Stark had been found. He wasn’t thinking about Muriel Stark, he didn’t even know Muriel Stark. As a matter of fact, he wasn’t thinking about murder or sex maniacs or anything but how hard and how far the batter on the other team would hit the rubber ball. They had two guys on base now, and a hit would put them ahead. This was a tense moment, much more important than who had got killed in the building on Saturday night, or who had done it. The boy saw the pitcher on his team wind up and fling the ball toward the other team’s batter. The ball bounced on the asphalt paving, came up toward the batter waist-high. The broomstick handle came around in a powerful swing, the narrow round of wood colliding with the rubber ball and sending it soaring over the pitcher’s head, and then the second baseman’s head, to bounce somewhere between second base and center field. The boy came running in, glove low. The ball was still bouncing, and he was running to meet it, the way he’d been taught—run to meet the ball, don’t wait for it to come to you. It took a bad hop some four feet from his glove, veered off to the right and rolled into the sewer at the curb.
“That’s only a double!” he shouted immediately. “That’s only a double, it went down the sewer.”
There was no argument, they all knew the rules. The batter grumbled a little about losing a sure homer, but rules were rules and the ball had rolled down the sewer and that made it an automatic double. They gathered around the sewer grating now, half a dozen of them. Two of them seized opposite sides of the grating, their hands reaching down to clasp the cast-iron crossbars,and they lifted the grating and moved it onto the pavement, and then the smallest boy in the group lowered himself into the sewer.
“You see it?” somebody asked.
“Yeah, it’s over there,” the boy answered.
“So get it already.”
“Just a second, I can’t reach the damn thing.”
“What’s that over there?” somebody else asked.
“Let me get the ball first, okay?”
“Over there. That shiny thing.”
They had found the murder weapon.
Or, to be more exact, they had found a knife near the scene of a murder, and they immediately turned it over to the police.
The blade of the knife was three and three-quarter inches long. It was a paring knife, with a pointed tip and a razor-sharp stainless-steel blade. Two stainless-steel rivets held the blade fastened to the curved wooden handle, which was itself four and a half inches long. The overall length of the knife, from the end of the wooden handle to the pointed tip of the blade, was eight and a quarter inches. The rain had washed the blade clean of any blood, but blood had soaked into the wooden handle and stained it, and it was this that the laboratory reported on. There were two types of blood on the handle of the knife. O and A. Presumably Muriel’s and Patricia’s. And presumably the killer had first slain Muriel, and then slashed Patricia, and then—instead of pursuing her when she’d run away from the building—had come down the steps to the curb and thrown the murder weapon into the sewer.
There were no usable fingerprints on the handle of the knife.
The funeral took place on Wednesday afternoon.
From the funeral home on Twelfth and Ascot, the black limousines drove out to the cemetery on Sands Spit. There were sixlimousines, and
The kids knew somebody had been killed in that building on Saturday night, but this was Tuesday afternoon and the barricades the City Housing Authority had put up on either end of the block made the street perfect for stickball. It was still earlySeptember, and there’d be plenty of daylight before dinnertime. So they congregated at about 4:00, chose up their sides and chalked their bases onto the asphalt, and got down to the serious business at hand.
The boy playing center field was standing almost directly opposite the hallway in which Muriel Stark had been found. He wasn’t thinking about Muriel Stark, he didn’t even know Muriel Stark. As a matter of fact, he wasn’t thinking about murder or sex maniacs or anything but how hard and how far the batter on the other team would hit the rubber ball. They had two guys on base now, and a hit would put them ahead. This was a tense moment, much more important than who had got killed in the building on Saturday night, or who had done it. The boy saw the pitcher on his team wind up and fling the ball toward the other team’s batter. The ball bounced on the asphalt paving, came up toward the batter waist-high. The broomstick handle came around in a powerful swing, the narrow round of wood colliding with the rubber ball and sending it soaring over the pitcher’s head, and then the second baseman’s head, to bounce somewhere between second base and center field. The boy came running in, glove low. The ball was still bouncing, and he was running to meet it, the way he’d been taught—run to meet the ball, don’t wait for it to come to you. It took a bad hop some four feet from his glove, veered off to the right and rolled into the sewer at the curb.
“That’s only a double!” he shouted immediately. “That’s only a double, it went down the sewer.”
There was no argument, they all knew the rules. The batter grumbled a little about losing a sure homer, but rules were rules and the ball had rolled down the sewer and that made it an automatic double. They gathered around the sewer grating now, half a dozen of them. Two of them seized opposite sides of the grating, their hands reaching down to clasp the cast-iron crossbars,and they lifted the grating and moved it onto the pavement, and then the smallest boy in the group lowered himself into the sewer.
“You see it?” somebody asked.
“Yeah, it’s over there,” the boy answered.
“So get it already.”
“Just a second, I can’t reach the damn thing.”
“What’s that over there?” somebody else asked.
“Let me get the ball first, okay?”
“Over there. That shiny thing.”
They had found the murder weapon.
Or, to be more exact, they had found a knife near the scene of a murder, and they immediately turned it over to the police.
The blade of the knife was three and three-quarter inches long. It was a paring knife, with a pointed tip and a razor-sharp stainless-steel blade. Two stainless-steel rivets held the blade fastened to the curved wooden handle, which was itself four and a half inches long. The overall length of the knife, from the end of the wooden handle to the pointed tip of the blade, was eight and a quarter inches. The rain had washed the blade clean of any blood, but blood had soaked into the wooden handle and stained it, and it was this that the laboratory reported on. There were two types of blood on the handle of the knife. O and A. Presumably Muriel’s and Patricia’s. And presumably the killer had first slain Muriel, and then slashed Patricia, and then—instead of pursuing her when she’d run away from the building—had come down the steps to the curb and thrown the murder weapon into the sewer.
There were no usable fingerprints on the handle of the knife.
The funeral took place on Wednesday afternoon.
From the funeral home on Twelfth and Ascot, the black limousines drove out to the cemetery on Sands Spit. There were sixlimousines, and
Similar Books
