Ed McBain - Another Part of the City

“I don’t want to hear you talk about dying,” she said.

“We’ve all got to go sooner or later.”

“Not you.”

“No?” he said, smiling. “What’ll you do? Have me stuffed and put me in the living room?”

“Don’t joke about it!” she said angrily.

“There’s what I mean, Livvie. The Kidd iron, the Kidd temper. We’re alike, you and I, peas in a pod. God help anyone who ever tries to stand in your way.”

She came to him, put her arm around his shoulders.

“Shall I pour you some hot tea?” she asked gently.

“No, I think I’d like to rest now,” he said.

She adjusted the blanket on his lap.

“I love you, Daddy,” she said.

“Yes, yes,” he said, patting her hand. “My darling girl. My dear darling girl.”

The jury in the Jurgens case came in at eleven o’clock that morning.

Reardon, sitting at the prosecutor’s table with Koenig, watched the faces of the twelve men and women as they filed into the jury box, trying to read what was on them. Judge Abrahams turned to them as soon as they were seated.

“Ladies and gentlemen of the jury,” he said, “have you agreed upon a verdict in this case?”

“We have,” the foreman said.

“Please return the papers to the Court,” the clerk said.

“Madam Foreman,” Judge Abrahams said, “what is the jury’s verdict?”

“We find the defendant not guilty,” the foreman said.

Harold Jurgens broke into a wide grin.

Reardon turned to Koenig at once. “Poll them,” he said.

“What for?” Koenig said.

“I want them to realize what they’ve done. I want them to feel individually responsible.”

Koenig sighed and rose.

“Your Honor,” he said, “may I respectfully request that the jury be polled?”

Abrahams nodded to the court clerk.

“Juror number one,” the clerk said. “Alice Louise Phillips. How do you find the defendant?”

“Not guilty,” the foreman said.

“Juror number two, Arthur Horwitz, how do you find the defendant?”

“Not guilty.”

“Juror number three, James Kreuger, how do you find the defendant?”

“Not guilty.”

“Juror number four, Miriam Hayes, how do you find the defendant?”

“Not guilty.”

“Juror number five, Martha Sanderson...”

She rose. Brown hair cut shoulder length. Simple brown dress with a brooch at the neckline.

“How do you find the defendant?”

Her eyes turned toward the prosecutor’s table. Her eyes found Reardon. She pulled back her shoulders, lifted her head defiantly, brown eyes boring into him.

“Not guilty,” she said, and nodded for emphasis.

Her eyes held his.

“Juror number six,” the court clerk said, “Alan Lehman...”

He was waiting for her in the corridor outside. This one he wanted to talk to personally. That fucking look she‘d given him, this one he wanted to inform and educate. As she came out of the courtroom, he fell into step beside her. For an instant, she didn’t know she was being paced, and then she turned to him with a startled little gasp and stopped dead in the marbled corridor.

“Are you proud of yourself, miss?” he said.

“What?” she said. The brown eyes opening wide, one hand coming up to the brooch at her neckline, protectively. Here she was, face to face with the maniac who’d beaten up a poor defenseless innocent man.

“It’s okay, you can talk to me now,” Reardon said, “it’s all over and done with.”

“Listen, mister...” she said.

“No, you listen,” he said. “You’ve let an animal loose on the streets again, do you realize that?”

“I don’t have to account to you, Detective Reardon, for the unanimous verdict of...”

“Took us six months to catch him, do you know that? He raped four women in that time. We finally got...”

“Listen, why don’t you...?”

“... a positive ID. plus his fingerprints all over the lady’s handbag...”

“Then why’d you have to beat a confession out of him?”

“You really believe that, don’t you?”

“I believe it. yes,” she said.

“You’re wrong.”

“I don’t like what you stand for, Detective Reardon,” she said. “If one citizen’s rights are violated, then every citizen’s...”

“Nobody’s fucking rights were violated,” he said heatedly. “The man’s a habitual offender, a rapist who...”

“Tell it to the judge,” she said in dismissal. “And watch your fucking language.”

She moved away from him swiftly, high heels clattering on the marble corridor, little ass swinging indignantly in the simple brown dress.

Under his breath, he muttered, “I hope you’re his next victim.”

An hour and a half to get here, speeding all the way, hoping his detective’s shield would serve him well if a zealous New Jersey highway patrolman stopped him, and too late to take her to lunch, anyway. “She’s already had lunch,” Kathy’s mother informed him, and then made it clear that he was not welcome to sit around the house chatting with his own daughter, this despite the fact that the temperature outside had dropped to eighteen degrees and the wind was howling.

Where do you take a six-year-old kid who’s already had lunch? He’d be working the four-to-midnight this afternoon, he had to leave Jersey no later than two-thirty, and it was already one o’clock. Could you sit in a Baskin-Robbins for an hour and a half, eating ice cream cones while outside it looked like Siberia? He settled on a roller-skating rink not far from her grandparents’ house.

Organ music filled the vast auditorium. He had not been on skates since he was eleven or twelve, but it came back to him almost at once. Elizabeth was an ace. The image of her mother, straight blonde hair and intensely blue eyes, button nose, and freckles all over her Irish phizz, wearing now a plaid skirt and a blue sweater, little Peter Pan collar showing above its crew neck. They moved well together, danced like a famous Spanish ballroom team on wheels. She was telling him about Grandma and Grandpa. Organ music swelled behind them, a tune from the forties.

“They’re okay, you know,” Elizabeth said, “it’s just that they’re so old. Dad.”

“Well, they’re not that old, honey.”

“No? I’ll bet Grandpa’s at least forty. ”

“At least,” Reardon said, smiling.

“They don’t like to do anything, you know what I mean? We just sit around on our asses all day.”

“Watch the language, honey.”

“What’d I say?”

“Skip it.”

“So why do I have to be here?” Elizabeth asked. “I’m missing school and everything, Dad. I mean, did Mommy have to go back to work?”

“It’s what she wanted, Liz.”

“Are you out of money or something?”

“No, we’ve got enough money.”

“ ’Cause I thought we were rich and everything. I mean, detectives make lots of money, don’t they?”

“Millions,” he said.

“Well, not millions maybe. But hundreds and thousands of thousands.”

“From the graft alone,” Reardon said.

“Sure,” Elizabeth said. “So why’d she have to go back to work?”

“Honey...” he said, “let’s get a hot chocolate, okay?”

They skated to the railing, and then through the opening onto a carpeted floor. At the concession stand, he ordered a hot chocolate for Elizabeth, and asked her if she wanted anything else. She said she was still stuffed from lunch. He was ravenously hungry, that damn court appearance this morning, that little twerp Samalson or whatever her name was. He ordered a cup of coffee, two hot dogs, and a side of French fries. They sat at a table with benches, near the concession. The organ player was attempting rock now, a bad mistake. The place was virtually empty at this hour; Reardon guessed it wouldn’t fill up until school broke.