Burke read Smalls’ final response over again. He had asked two questions. And both appeared to have within them an element of surprise. He studied the last question, focusing on a single word She. It seemed clear that Smalls believed that the little girl who’d been murdered was the same one who’d been frightened by a man in the playground, and clear, too, that the news of
her murder had surprised him. Of course Smalls’ surprise could be a ruse. What better way to suggest his innocence than by pretending to be surprised by a murder he had himself committed?
With that caution firmly in place, Burke turned the page.
| COHEN : | So, if you know anything more about this guy, the one in the playground, the one who scared one of the little girls, you need to tell us. |
| SMALLS : | I don’t know anything else. Just that she was afraid of him. |
| COHEN : | Where did you see this little girl? |
| SMALLS : | I was sitting on a bench. She came up the path from the playground. She sat down on the bench across from me. |
| COHEN : | Could you see the playground from where you were sitting? |
| SMALLS : | No. |
| COHEN : | Okay, this guy. The one in the playground. Did this little girl tell you who he was? |
| SMALLS : | No. |
| COHEN : | Did she describe him? |
| SMALLS : | No. |
| COHEN : | When did this happen? |
| SMALLS : | Two days ago. |
| COHEN : | Okay, what did the little girl do after you saw her? |
| SMALLS : | She went back to the playground. |
| COHEN : | Why? If there was a man there she was afraid of, why would she go back to the playground? |
| SMALLS : | I guess he’d left the playground by then. |
| COHEN : | How much time elapsed between when she saw this guy and when she went back to the playground? |
| SMALLS : | I don’t know for sure. |
| COHEN : | Come as close as you can. |
| SMALLS : | I don’t know. Five, maybe ten minutes. |
| COHEN : | So this guy must not have stayed very long. |
| SMALLS : | No, I guess he didn’t. |
| COHEN : | What did you do after the girl left? |
| SMALLS : | I went to the playground. |
| COHEN : | Why? |
| SMALLS : | I go there sometimes. I sit outside the fence. I don’t go in. I don’t bother anybody. I just watch the children. |
| COHEN : | Watch the children? |
| SMALLS : | I don’t go in the playground. There’s a sign. I’m not allowed. You have to have a kid with you, or you’re not allowed. |
| COHEN : | Okay, about what time was it when you went to the playground? |
| SMALLS : | I don’t know. I don’t have a watch. |
| COHEN : | Was it morning or afternoon? How long did you stay? |
| SMALLS : | Until after dark. |
| COHEN : | That’s a long time. |
| SMALLS : | I stay until the children leave. When it’s just me at the playground. Or other men. |
Other men.
What, Burke wondered, could Smalls have possibly meant by that, save that these other men were the ones he was on guard against? He returned to an earlier exchange:
| COHEN : | What do you do in the park? |
| SMALLS : | Nothing. |
| COHEN : | Just sit around? All alone in that tunnel? |
| SMALLS : | I have to be on guard. |
| COHEN : | Against what? |
| SMALLS : | Other men. |
| COHEN : | What other men? |
| SMALLS : | The ones in the park. |
| COHEN : | You mean other guys like you? Jay? Did you hear my question? |
| SMALLS : | Yes. Other guys like me. |
Burke studied Cohen’s final questions.
Other guys like you?
Jay?
Did you hear my question?
From the transcript it seemed clear to Burke that prior to this exchange Smalls had answered Cohen’s questions quickly, directly, with no need of prompting. Then a question had suddenly stopped him:
Other guys like you?
Had Smalls answered the question immediately, Cohen would have had no need to add the next
one: Jay?
This question suggested that Smalls had not replied, that he had hesitated. The third question in the series made this even more obvious:
Did you hear my question?
Only then, at this second prompt, had Smalls answered:
| SMALLS : | Yes. Other guys like me. |
These other men were the ones Smalls had to guard against. But who were they? They were men who came to the park. And they were, in Smalls’ words, “like me.”
Like me
, Burke repeated in his mind.
But how?
12:47
A.M.
, Ragtag Bar
Blunt slid his large frame into the booth. “Okay, I’m here,” he said gruffly.
“How’s it going, Ralph?” Dunlap tried to smile but failed. “You okay, you doing all right?”
Blunt took a draw on his cigar and stared at Dunlap. “This ain’t no social call, Harry.”
“Yeah, I know,” Dunlap muttered. Nervously, he turned toward the bar and lifted his hand. “Hey, Pete, bring us a couple of beers, huh?” Back to Blunt. “Schlitz okay?”
“Who gives a crap?”
A quick, tentative smile spasmed across Dunlap’s face. “So, everything okay with you, Ralph?”
“What’s on your mind, Harry?”
“Well, to tell you the truth, Ralph, I was wondering about that guy that got picked up in the park.”
“What guy?”
“The one you picked up about the little girl. You know, the kid who got killed. I was wondering about that guy.”
“What about him?”
“Like if it was going anywhere. Nailing him, I mean.”
“They keep at him,” Blunt said indifferently.
“Are they getting anywhere?”
“What do you give a shit if they’re getting anywhere, Harry?”
Dunlap knitted his fingers together, his thumbs twirling. “I got an interest, you might say.”
“What kind of interest?”
Dunlap leaned forward. He lowered his voice. “We’re cousins, Ralph, you and me, we can talk, right? I mean, we used to do a little business, and so—”
“Shut up about that business,” Blunt snarled.
Dunlap blinked rapidly. “Yeah, okay, Ralph. No sweat. History, I know.”
“I don’t want to hear nothing about that business,” Blunt warned.
“Okay, sure, Ralph. No sweat, like I said. So, okay, about this fucking pervert they picked up. I was thinking maybe I could help out a little.”
“You mean you know something?”
“I mean help
you
out.”
“I don’t need no help.”
“Sure you do, Ralph. Everybody needs help. And us being cousins and all. One hand washing the other, you know what I mean?”
Blunt’s eyes narrowed. “What’s on your fucking mind?”
The bartender stepped up to the table, slapped down two beers. “Six bits.”
“Run a tab, will you, Pete?” Dunlap said cheerfully.
“No way,” the bartender said.
“Jesus, Pete. It ain’t like I ain’t good for it.” He dug into his pocket, paid for the drinks. “There, feel better now?”
“Six bits better,” the bartender told him as he turned and shuffled away.
Dunlap took a sip, winced, then said, “Okay, Ralph. It goes this way. I had some dealings with this fucking loony, the one they picked up. Nothing big, you understand. He’d bring shit in, you know? To sell. Junk mostly.”
“What kind of junk?”
“Just the shit he brings in. Boxes of crap. Keeps it all in that tunnel where he lives.”
“You been there, where he lives?”
“Yeah, couple times. Looking through whatever crap
he’s got. Jesus, what shit, you know? Fucking busted up, all of it. Toys and crap. Rubber balls. Busted up, like I said.” Dunlap took another hasty sip of beer, swallowed hard, and tried to offer his cousin a pair of sorrowful eyes. “Anyway, the thing is, he fingered me, Ralph.”
“Fingered you? To who?”
“The cops. He give the cops my name.”
“How do you know that?”
“I know ’cause not long after the killing two of ’em came over to my place, asking questions, you know, did I know this wacko. I told ’em, ‘Fuck, no, I never heard of the fucking creep.’ But he give ’em my name, like I said, so they got to wonder how he come up with it. I mean, I told ’em I don’t know the fuck, but you know how it is, no cop ain’t ever believed me. Even when I tell ’em the truth, they don’t believe me.”
“So what happened?”
“They go on a tour of the place. At least the young one does. Pierce. The other one, his partner, he just asks questions.”
“That fuck’s full of questions.”
“He busted me before, you know. The bastard. Anyway, I told him I never heard of this guy they picked up. I didn’t know how he got my name. They left, and I ain’t heard nothing since.”
Blunt took a long drink. “So how come you’re so fucking spooked? Some nut says he knows you, you say he don’t. That’s the end of it. Who gives a shit whether Pierce and that fucking kike believe you or not?”
“Yeah, I don’t give a shit about that. But there’s a problem, you know, more to the story.” He glanced around, his fingers drumming the table. “You hungry, you want a burger?”
Blunt glared at Dunlap. “What the fuck’s the matter with you?”
“Nothing, it’s just that I don’t want to go over it here.” Dunlap released a nervous laugh. “The walls have ears, you know. So, what I’m saying is, maybe have a burger, then we’ll go to my place.”
Blunt thought Dunlap’s suggestion over, the wheels turning slowly. “Okay,” he muttered finally, “why the fuck not.”
Why do you live this way?
12:53
A.M.
, Seaview, Fairgrounds
Cindy Eagar’s story had been a long, somewhat rambling but ultimately harrowing tale of a boy whose mood had become steadily more withdrawn from the age of fourteen. He had left school at sixteen, but even before that he’d more or less stopped attending. Instead, he’d sneak back to the midway to burrow beneath it, sitting alone all day, listening to the steady drum of the foot traffic overhead. He’d been found repeatedly by truant officers and returned to school, only to flee it again at the first opportunity. Then, at the age of eighteen, he’d vanished altogether.
“But as far as him hurting somebody,” she said when she’d finished her story, “I never had no reason to believe he’d do nothing like that.”
Pierce looked up from his notebook. “So he never acted violently toward anyone?”
“Not that I know of. He just stopped talking or having anything to do with people. He had this look in his eyes. Not faraway, like a kid on dope or something. More like he always had this bad taste in his mouth.”
“But he never gave you any idea of what he was thinking about?”
Cindy shook her head. “All I know is, it must have been bad, ’cause it eat on him so much, he finally tried to kill hisself.”