Lawrence Block: Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 137, No. 2. Whole No. 834, February 2011

By this point, Muntz had gone quiet.

“After your apology, you will follow the ambulance to the hospital and you will stay with Citizen Doe until he wakes up. You will ask him what he was doing in the building and how he got in. These are important security issues. You will not leave his side until you learn the answers to these questions. And you will make no stops on the way to the hospital. Do I make myself clear?”

Powder left home early the next afternoon and he did, indeed, stop to talk with Mrs. Fredrick.

“That girl policeman came by this morning,” Mrs. Fredrick said. “She looked terrible.”

“Remorse at having been rude to you, I expect,” Powder said.

“Well, I don’t know about that. But she did apologize. I offered her a cup of coffee, or a place to lie down for a nap, but she went on her way.”

“She’s on duty again tonight.”

“I hope she manages to sleep during the day. The poor thing looked exhausted.”

“Did she tell you about the prowler?”

“She said he thought he was somewhere else.”

“A different building?”

“Chicago. He has mental problems, it seems. There was a number in his pocket that the hospital called. He walked out of a facility in Illinois. They have no idea how he got here, and your young officer couldn’t find out how he got into the building. A bit worrying, but it doesn’t sound like it’s going to happen again soon.”

Powder nodded slowly as he absorbed this information. Muntz seemed to have followed instructions. It would be interesting to see how she behaved at roll call.

“Would you like a cup of coffee, Lieutenant?” Mrs. Fredrick asked. “And I have some fresh chocolate chip cookies...”

But Powder declined the offers apologetically. He had a second stop to make. This one was at the house of Barry Haller.

Although he was in his uniform he carried his baseball cap and his clipboard, just in case it was Mrs. Haller who opened the door. They would help remind her that he’d been there before. His sunglasses were missing, but only because he’d left them on his car seat and squashed them.

As things turned out, Mrs. Haller did answer the door, but this time she was the one wearing the sunglasses. Big ones. They completely covered her eyes and the area around them.

“Oh,” Powder said. The big shades caught him by surprise.

“ You .” Her voice indicated surprise, too.

“You recognize me then?”

“I’m not a total dummy, no matter what...” She left that sentence hanging and spoke a different one. “I didn’t expect you to be coming back here, Lieutenant .”

“No? Why not?”

She frowned. Stuff was going on inside her head but all she said was, “I just didn’t.”

Today’s blue-and-white gingham pinafore was as fresh and bright as the red-and-white one was last time, but the woman herself seemed neither bright nor fresh. The disjointed way she stood in the half-opened doorway struck Powder as saying she didn’t care how she presented herself this time. Or was that too much to read into posture?

Either way, he wanted to take a look at her without the sunglasses. It was not a sunny day. “Would you take those sunglasses off for me, please, Mrs. Haller?” His best commanding tone of voice.

“No.”

“Why not?”

“I’ve got conjunctivitis.”

Did she? Or was something more anatomical swelling up in the darkness? Oh well, he’d tried, and if you don’t ask, you don’t get. “Who called you a dummy, ma’am?”

But this time Mrs. Haller wasn’t prepared to allow herself to be shifted away from her own agenda. “What do you want, Lieutenant? Got another letter to deliver? Because if you do and it has to be signed for, you can stick it where the sun don’t shine.”

Underneath the sunglasses? If he’d had an envelope he’d have given it a try. However, he said, “I’m sorry that I deceived you the last time I came to the door.”

“Me, too.”

“So it’ll be cards on the table today. I’m here because I want to speak with Barry, man-to-man and away from the prying eyes and ears we have around the station.”

“He’s not home.”

“Well, I could wait for a while.”

“He’ll be at work tonight. I don’t know if he’s coming back before then or whether he’s going to get a bite while he’s out.”

“What’s he doing?”

“I don’t know where he is or what he’s up to.”

“You don’t mind not knowing?”

“I’m used to it.”

“Not hunting?”

“I don’t know, all right?”

“Look, Mrs. Haller, when I came here the last time it was because I suspected that Barry was one of our officers who regularly takes unauthorized time off to go hunting. I no longer suspect that and I want to apologize to him.”

Powder couldn’t see if Mrs. Haller blinked a couple of times at this, but there was certainly a gap before she responded. “Well, he still isn’t here. You want me to give him the message, or what?”

“You see, quite a few of the guys and gals who work for IMPD, they like to hunt. And they like to get out there on the first day of the season, while the deer are still plentiful and haven’t been scared away from the easiest places to find them. But although Barry took the first day of the season off, I looked at his individual attendance record. And it doesn’t show a pattern of taking off seasonal starts. Not like some other officers whose records I’ve been looking at.”

Mrs. Haller waved her hand with what Powder took to be mild exasperation or confusion. “What’s all that supposed to mean?”

“Does Barry go hunting a lot?”

She considered for a moment. Deciding if she was allowed to say? Then, “Yeah.”

“Does he have a dog?”

“ What? ”

“A dog. A hunting dog.”

“No. We don’t have any pets.”

“But does he hunt between the middle of March and the middle of April?”

“How am I supposed to know that?”

“Think back, around Easter time this year?”

Powder watched as she remembered Easter. Eventually she said, “Well, yeah. I guess so. There’s always something in season.”

“That’s true. But between mid March and mid April the only hunting that’s in season is if you’re running a dog after opossums and raccoons.”

“After...?” She shook her head. “I don’t know anything about possums and raccoons.”

“Does he ever bring the game he bags back home?” When she frowned, Powder said, “You know. To eat or to skin?”

“No. Because I don’t want dead bodies lying around my house. Which he knows, and he respects my wishes.”

“Or maybe pelts from animals he’s killed that were cleaned elsewhere?”

“No.”

“How many rifles does Barry have?”

“One.”

“Just one rifle for killing deer, squirrels, rabbits, crows, turkeys, everything?”

“How many does it take? I don’t know. Maybe he has a dozen more down in the basement, next to his power tools and the ham radio. I don’t go poking around in his stuff.” After a moment she added, “And he doesn’t poke around in my stuff.”

“May I come in and take a look — at Barry’s stuff?”

She sighed and then shook her head. “No, I don’t want you in my house.”

Powder waited.

“Look, Lieutenant, I want to be helpful here, but I don’t see the point of all these questions.”

“I’ll explain in a minute. First, may I ask if you know that all the deer that are killed in Indiana by legitimate hunters must be checked at an official deer check station, within forty-eight hours of the kill?”

“I’m getting a headache now,” she said. “What are you talking about?”