Robert Alter - 100 Malicious Little Mysteries

“How much was taken, ma’am?” the officer asked.

She paused a moment, then managed to reply, “Thirty-three thousand dollars,” before losing consciousness again.

She hadn’t been able to say much, but it was enough to raise the mugging from the level of a relatively minor offense, as such things go, and give it the stature of a major crime. Four detectives were dispatched to the hospital emergency ward to be on hand when she could speak again; and an equal number of newspaper reporters and television newsmen converged upon the hospital, too.

When she was wheeled from the treatment room, Mrs. Hartman looked like a mummy. Both of her arms and one leg were in heavy casts and her head was swathed in bandages. She was awake, though, and able to answer a few more questions. Detective Sergeant Kendris, a burly man in his forties, did all the talking. The people from the news media had to make do with what they were able to overhear and the photos they could take.

“Mrs. Hartman, can you hear me all right?” Kendris asked.

“Yes,” the woman replied weakly.

“You told the officer where you were found that you had been robbed of thirty-three thousand dollars. Is that right?”

“Yes...”

“How did you happen to have so much cash with you?”

Mrs. Hartman hesitated, as though seeking the right words. Then she confessed, “I’m... I’m a foolish old woman. I don’t always show good sense. Once every year, and sometimes twice, I draw all my savings from the bank. I keep the money at home for a few days, to look at it and touch it, then put it back in the bank. This time...” her voice trailed off weakly “... I lost it all.”

“Did you recognize the thief?”

“There were two of them, but I’d never seen them before. And I’m not sure I’d know them if I saw them again. It all happened so very fast...”

At that point the sedative the doctor had administered took hold and she went to sleep.

“If you have any more questions. Sergeant Kendris,” the nurse said, “you’ll have to come back tomorrow.”

The next afternoon, Kendris stormed into the hospital, looking like an angry bear, but he didn’t get to speak to Mrs. Hartman. She slept all day, and the doctor refused to allow Kendris to awaken her.

The following day, Kendris returned again. He had calmed somewhat, but he was still visibly angry. Mrs. Hartman was propped up in bed and a high-school-age hospital volunteer was reading to her from the newspaper. Kendris asked the girl to wait outside while he talked to Mrs. Hartman.

“All right,” he demanded once they were alone, “what was the idea of lying to me?”

“I... I don’t know what you mean,” she answered.

“Come off it! You know what I’m talking about — your imaginary thirty-three thousand dollars. The robbery was all over the newspapers and television, but when I went to the bank to see if they had a record of the serial numbers on the money, I learned you’ve never had an account there. The only time they see you is when, like the day before yesterday, you stop in to cash your Social Security check. Why did you lie?”

The injured woman’s hands opened and closed and opened again in a gesture of helplessness. “I didn’t want the thieves to get away with it. I... I wanted them to pay for what they did to me.”

“But you didn’t have to lie,” Kendris persisted. “Don’t you know we’d have worked just as hard, made exactly the same effort, to recover your Social Security pension as we did for the larger amount?”

When she didn’t reply immediately, Kendris had time to examine what he’d just said and to see how ridiculous it was. As long as it had been believed that thirty-three thousand dollars had been stolen, there had been four detectives assigned to the case, and reporters to record their every move; but now he was the only one officially assigned, and that would last only until he returned to the office and put his report in the Unsolved File. At least he had the grace to be embarrassed.

“Oh, that isn’t what I meant! I’m sure the police do their best regardless of the amount lost,” Mrs. Hartman said, but to Kendris’ ears the words had a hollow ring. It made him all the more ashamed to have this beaten-up old woman show more concern for his feelings than he’d shown for hers.

“Look,” he said, cutting the interview short, “let’s just forget the whole thing.” He began moving toward the door. “If anything turns up, you’ll be notified,” he said, and then he was gone from the room.

The young hospital volunteer returned. She picked up the newspaper she’d set aside when Kendris arrived, and sat beside the bed.

“Would you like me to read some more?” she asked.

“Yes, please,” Mrs. Hartman answered. “Read the part about the murders again.”

“But I’ve already read it four times,” the girl protested.

“I know, but please read it again.”

The girl cleared her throat and then began. “Police investigated a disturbance in an apartment at 895 Seventh Avenue at about ten last night and found two men, William White and Jesse Bolt, who shared the apartment, dead on the living room floor, the result of a knife fight. Neighbors said the men had been arguing and fighting most of the day, each accusing the other of cheating him out of an undisclosed amount of money. The knife fight in which they killed one another was the climax of the day-long confrontation. Both men had long arrest records. Police are continuing their investigation.”

Mrs. Hartman smiled behind her bruised lips. “Please, read it again,” she said softly.

April 3

Dear Judy,

It’s been a whole year now, a whole long year without you. But I been a real good prisoner staying out of trouble like a cat stays away from water. They all say I’ll get my parole next April, plenty of time to put in a crop. So hang on, you and Uncle Ike. The only thing bothering me is I ain’t heard from you in so long. Why? What’s happening?

Judy, it’s not like I done anything wrong. All I did was drive that car. I didn’t know they had guns and itchy fingers, I didn’t even know them good. They was just a couple of city fellas hanging around a bar and I got chinning with them and happened to let drop I was the champeen stock car racer of Hadley County. I done a little bragging maybe. I musta told them I could just about drive a car up the side of a wall and down the other side and if they wanted to see how good I was, why come on out and look. Which they did.

Maybe I was a little stupid but when they allowed they’d pay me right then and there to take them to the bank next day and then on out to the back hills where there was no roads, which they said they wanted to do just for the hell of it — well all I did was ask how much. And when they told me I plumb near keeled over. Because it was almost as much as we needed for that mortgage payment. I figured money was money and if they were taking a lot of it out of the bank, why wouldn’t they be generous? What I didn’t know was they didn’t have no account there.

So I reckon I was real stupid. But stupid or not I sure was lucky because if I’d stayed with that pair much longer I’da got killed too. But they paid me to get them out of town and up into the hills and after I done that I took off and come straight back to you.

When Ike heard the news on the radio he knowed right off it was me at the wheel of the car. Nobody else could have outdrove and outsmarted the cops and I bet I could have got clear off to Mexico or maybe China if I’da wanted to. And if the airplanes hadn’t spotted me like they did that pair. But I done what I was paid for, so I come back where I belonged. And if they took fifty thousand like the papers said or a million I wouldn’t know. I was waiting out in the car and all the money I ever seen was what I give you. And like I said, I got it the day before and it wasn’t stolen from the bank. Not that bank anyhow.