Roy Carroll - Manhunt. Volume 1, Number 4, April, 1953

She seemed to remember her manners all at once. “Yes, please,” she said. “Please do.” Her voice was stronger than her body looked, and I wondered if she were really as old as she seemed. A widow, one son killed in the war. Death can sometimes do that to a person. Leave them more withered than the corpse.

“We’re sorry to bother you, ma’m,” I said, feeling foolish as hell, the way I always did in a situation like this. “The law requires us to make a routine check, however, and...”

“That’s quite all right, Mr. Willis.” She moved quickly to the couch and straightened the doilies. “Sit down, won’t you?”

“Thank you, ma’m.” I sat down with Ed on my right. Connerly stood near the radiator, his hands behind his back.

Ed took out his pad, and cleared his throat. I took that as my cue and said, “Can you tell us exactly what happened, ma’m?”

“Well, I... I don’t really know, exactly. You see, I was in the kitchen baking. This is Wednesday, and I usually bake on Wednesdays. The boys...” She hesitated and bit her lip. “The boys like pie, and I try to bake one at least once a week.”

Yes, ma’m.

“I... I was putting the pie into the oven when I heard this... this noise from the attic. I knew the boys were up there playing so I didn’t think anything of it.”

“What are the boys’ names, ma’m?”

“Jeffrey. He’s my oldest. And... and...”

“Yes, ma’m?” I swallowed.

“Ronald.”

“Was Ronald the boy who was shot, ma’m?”

She didn’t answer. She simply nodded her head. I got up because I was embarrassed as hell, and I began walking around the room. On top of the upright piano, four photos in silver frames beamed up at me. One was of an older man, obviously the dead Mr. Owens. A second was of a young man in an Army uniform, with infantry rifles crossed on his lapel. The other two were of the younger boys.

Mrs. Owens blew her nose in a small handkerchief and looked up.

“Which one is Jeffrey?” I asked.

“The... the blond boy.”

I looked at the photo. He seemed like a nice kid, with a pleasant smile, and his mother’s dark eves. “Is he in the house?”

“Yes. He’s upstairs in his room.”

“I’d like to talk to him, ma’m.”

“All right.”

“If you don’t mind, I’d like to see the attic first.”

She seemed about to refuse, and then she nodded. “Certainly.”

“You needn’t come up, Mrs. Owens,” Ed said. “The patrolman can show us the way.”

“Thank you,” she said.

We followed Connerly up the steps, and he whispered, “See what I mean? Jesus, this is a rotten business.”

“Well, what are you gonna do?” Ed philosophized.

The attic had been fixed as a playroom, with plasterboard walls and ceiling. An electric train layout covered one half of the room. In the other half, covered with a sheet, lay young Ronald Owens. I walked over and lifted the sheet, looking down at the boy. He resembled the older Jeffrey a great deal, except that his hair was brown. He had the same dark eyes, though, staring up at me now, sightless. There was a neat hole between his eyes, and his face was an ugly mixture of blood and powder burns. I put the sheet back.

“Where’s the gun?” I asked Connerly.

“Right here, sir.”

He fished into his pocket and produced the Luger rapped carefully in his handkerchief. I opened the handkerchief and stared at the German gun.

“Did you break it open, Connerly?”

“Why, no, sir. A patrolman isn’t allowed to...”

“Can it,” I said. “If you broke it open, you’ll save me the trouble.”

Connerly looked abashed. “Yes, sir, I did.”

“Any shells in it?”

“No, sir.”

“Not even in the firing chamber?”

“No, sir.”

“One bullet, then. That’s strange.”

“What’s so strange about it?” Ed wanted to know.

“A Luger’s magazine fed, that’s all,” I said. “Eight slugs in a clip. Strange to find only one.” I shrugged, handing the pistol back to Connerly. “Let’s see what else is around here.”

We started rummaging around the attic, not really looking for anything in particular. I think I was just postponing the talk I had to have with the young kid who’d shot his own brother.

“Bunch of books,” Ed said.

“Mmmm?”

“Yeah. Few old newspaper clippings.”

“Here’s something,” Connerly cut in.

“What have you got?”

“Looks like a box of clips, sir.”

“Yeah? For the Luger?”

“Looks that way, sir.”

I walked over to where Connerly was standing, and took the box from the shelf. He had carefully restrained from touching it. The box was covered with a fine layer of dust. There were two clips in the open box, and they too were covered with dust. I lifted one of the clips out, running my eyes over the cartridges. Eight. The second clip had only seven cartridges in it.

“Only seven here,” I said.

“Yeah,” Connerly said, nodding. “That’s where the bullet came from all right.”

“Anything else there, Ed?” I turned to where Ed squatted on the floor.

“Just these loose newspaper clippings. Nothing really... hey!”

“What’ve you got?”

“That’s strange as hell,” Ed said.

“What? What is so strange?”

He got to his feet and walked over to me, holding a clipping in his big hand. “Take a look at this, Art.”

The clipping was scissored from one of the tabloids. It was simply the story of a boy and a girl who’d been playing in their back yard. Playing with a Colt .45 that was a war souvenir. The .45 had gone off, blowing half the girl’s head away. There was a picture of the boy in tears, and a story of the fatal accident.

“Some coincidence, huh, Art?”

“Yeah,” I said. “Some coincidence.”

I put the box of clips back on the shelf. “I think I’d better talk to the kid now,” I said.

We left the attic, and Connerly whispered something about the way fate sometimes works. He called Mrs. Owens, and she came up to lead me to the boy’s room on the second floor of the house.

She rapped on the door and softly called, “Jeffrey?”

I could hear sobbing beyond the door, and then a muffled, “Yes?”

“Some gentlemen would like to talk to you,” she said.

The sobbing stopped, and I heard the sound of bare feet padding to the door. The door opened and Jeffrey stood there, drying his face. He was thinner than the photograph had shown him, with bright blue eyes and narrow lips. His hair hung over his forehead in unruly strands, and there were streaks under his eyes and down his cheeks.

“You’re policemen, aren’t you?” he said.

“Yes, son.”

“We just want to ask a few questions,” Ed said.

“Come in.”

We walked into the room. There were two beds in it, one on either side of the large window. There was one dresser, and I imagined the two boys shared this. Toys were packed neatly in a carton on one side of the room. A high school pennant, and several college pennants decorated the walls, and a model airplane hung from the ceiling.

Mrs. Owens started into the room and Ed said gently, “If we can talk to him alone...”

Her hand went to her mouth, and she said, “Oh. Oh, all right.”

Jeffrey walked to his bed and sat on it, one leg tucked under him. He stared out of the window, not looking at us.

“Want to tell us how it happened, son?”

“It was an accident,” he said. “I didn’t mean to do it, honest.”

“We know,” Ed said. “We just want to know how it happened.”

“Well, we were upstairs playing with the trains, and then we got sort of tired. We started kidding around, and then I found Perry’s... that’s my other brother, who was killed in the war... I found Perry’s Luger and we started foolin’ around with that.”