Chester Himes - The crazy kill

"I'm just trying to tell you that these people are not so simple as you think," Coffin Ed replied. "You're trying to find the murderer. All right, I'll believe anybody did it if we get enough proof."

"Okay, fine," Brody said. "Bring in Mamie Pullen."

When Grave Digger escorted Mamie into the room, he placed the chair he'd been using for a footrest in a comfortable position so she could lean an arm on the desk if she wished, then went over and adjusted the light so it wouldn't bother her.

Sergeant Brody's first glance had taken in the black satin dress with its skirt that dragged the floor, reminiscent of the rigid uniform of whorehouse madams in the 1920's. He'd gotten a peep at the toes of the men's straight-last shoes protruding from beneath. His gaze remained longer on the two-carat diamond in the platinum band encircling her gnarled brown ring finger, and rested for an appreciable time on the white jade necklace that dropped to her waist like a greatly cherished rosary with a black onyx cross attached to the end. Then he looked at the old brown face, lined with grief and worry, sagging in loose folds beneath the tight knot of short, straightened, gray-streaked hair.

"This is Sergeant Brody, Aunt Mamie," Grave Digger said. "He must ask you a few questions."

"How do you do, Mr. Brody," she said, sticking her gnarled unadorned right hand across the desk.

"It's a bad business, Mrs. Pullen," the sergeant said, shaking her hand.

"It looks like one death always calls for another," she said. "Been that way ever since I could remember. One person dies and then there ain't no end. I guess that's the way God planned it."

Then she looked up to see the face of the cop who had been so gentle with her, and exclaimed, "Lord bless my soul, you're little Digger Jones. I've known you ever since you were a little shavetail kid on 116th Street. I didn't know you were the one they called Grave Digger."

Grave Digger grinned sheepishly, like a little boy caught stealing apples.

"I've grown up now, Aunt Mamie."

"Doesn't time fly. As Big Joe always used to say; Tempers fugits. You must be all of thirty-five years old now."

"Thirty-six. And here's Eddy Johnson, too. He's my partner."

Coffin Ed stepped forward into the light. Mamie was stunned at sight of his face.

"God in heaven!" she exclaimed involuntarily. "What hap-" then caught herself.

"A hoodlum threw a glass of acid in my face." He shrugged. "Occupational hazard, Aunt Mamie. I'm a cop. I take my chances."

She apologized. "Now I remember reading about it, but I didn't know it was you. I hardly ever go anywhere, but just out with Big Joe, when he was alive." Then she added with sincerity, "I hope they put whoever did it in the jail and throw away the key."

"He's already buried, Aunt Mamie," Coffin Ed said.

Then Grave Digger said, "Ed's having skin grafted on his face from his thigh, but it takes time. It'll take about a year altogether before it's finished."

"Now, Mrs. Pullen," the sergeant inserted firmly, "suppose you just tell me in your own words what happened in your place last night, or rather this morning."

She sighed. "I'll tell you what I know."

When she'd finished her account, the sergeant said, "Well, at least that gives us a pretty clear picture of what actually happened inside of your house from the time Reverend Short returned upstairs until the body was discovered.

"Do you believe that Reverend Short fell from your bedroom window?"

"Oh, I believe that. There wasn't reason for him to say he'd fallen if he hadn't. 'Sides which, he was outside and nobody had seen him leave by the door."

"You don't think that's extraordinary? For him to fall out of a third-story window?"

"Well, sir, he's a frail man and given to having trances. He might have had a trance."

"Epilepsy?"

"No, sir, just religious trances. He sees visions."

"What kind of visions?"

"Oh, all kinds of visions. He preaches about them. He's a prophet, like Saint John the Divine."

Sergeant Brody was a Catholic and he looked bewildered.

Grave Digger explained, "Saint John the Divine is the prophet who saw the seven veils and the four horsemen of the apocalypse. The people here in Harlem have a great regard for Saint John. He was the only prophet who ever saw any winning numbers in his visions."

"The Revelation is the fortune teller's Bible," Coffin Ed added.

"It's not only just that," Mamie said. "Saint John saw how wonderful it was in heaven and how terrible it was in hell."

"Well now, to get back to this murder, would Chink Charlie have any reason to try to kill Reverend Short?" Brody questioned. "Other than the fact the Reverend was a prophet."

"No, sir, absolutely not. It was just that Reverend Short had the sense knocked out of him by his fall and didn't know what he was saying."

"But he and Chink had been arguing earlier."

"Not really arguing. Reverend Short and him was just disagreeing about the kind of people I had to the wake. But it weren't neither one of them's business."

"Is there bad blood between Dulcy and Reverend Short?"

"Bad blood? No, sir. It's just that Reverend Short thinks Dulcy needs saving and she just takes every chance to bitch him off. But I suspects he's carrying a secret torch for her, only he's shamed of it 'cause of him being a preacher and she being a married woman."

"How was the Reverend with Johnny and Val?"

"They all three respected one another's intentions and that's as far as it went."

"How long was it between the time Dulcy left the house and you went to the window and discovered the body?"

"It wasn't no time at all," she declared positively. "She hadn't even had time to get downstairs."

He asked a few questions about the other mourners, but found no connection with Val.

The he came in from another angle.

"Did you recognize the voice of the man who telephoned you after the body was discovered?"

"No sir. It just sounded distant and fuzzy."

"But whoever it was knew there was a dead body there in that bread basket?"

"No, sir, it was just like I told you before. Whoever it was wasn't talking about Val. He was talking about Reverend Short. He'd seen the reverend fall and thought he was lying there dead, and that's why he called. I'm sure of that."

"How could he know he was dead unless he had come close enough to examine him?"

"I don't know, sir. I suppose he just thought he was dead. You'd think anybody was dead who'd fallen out a third-story window, and then lay there without getting up."

"But according to testimony, Reverend Short did get up and come all the way back upstairs on his own power."

"Well, I couldn't say how it was. All I know is someone telephoned and when I said he'd been stabbed-Val, I mean-they just hung up as if they might have been surprised."

"Could it have been Johnny Perry?"

"No, sir, I'm dead certain it wasn't him. And I sure ought to know his voice if anybody does, as long as I've been hearing it."

"He's your stepson? Or is it your godson?"

"Well, he ain't rightly neither, but we thought of him as a son because when he came out of stir-"

"What stir? Where?"

"In Georgia. He did a stretch on the chain gang."

"For what?"

"He killed a man for beating his mother-his stepfather. At least she was his common-law wife, his ma, but she was no good and Johnny was always a good boy. They gave him a year on the road."

"When was that?"

"It was twenty-six years ago when he got out. While he was inside his ma ran off with another man and me and Big Joe was coming North. So we just brought him along with us. He was just twenty years old."

"That makes him forty-six now."

"Yes, sir. And Big Joe got him a job on the road."

"Waiting tables?"