The Second Talmage Powell Crime MEGAPACK™: 20 More Classic Mystery Stories
- Автор: Пауэлл Тэлмидж
- Год: 2015
- Язык: английский
- Год: Wildside Press
- Жанр: Криминальные детективы
Электронная книга - «The Second Talmage Powell Crime MEGAPACK™: 20 More Classic Mystery Stories». Краткое содержание книги:
Mrs. Cappelli stood with her fingers on the edge of the opened door. “I think I understand, Mr. Longstreet,” she said with no accusation or rancor.
“He simply denies killing the bird, ma’am. Did you actually see him kill it?”
“I didn’t see him pull the trigger.”
“Well, you see, Mrs. Cappelli, the law is black print on white paper. Mrs. Morrow isn’t home. No one else is out and about the houses close by. Without a witness or some tangible evidence I’ve done about all I can.”
“I appreciate that, Mr. Longstreet.”
He hesitated, tapping his notebook on his thumb. “He says you are a crotchety old lady who doesn’t want young people in the neighborhood.”
“He’s a liar, Mr. Longstreet. I delight in reasonably normal young people. Do you believe him?”
“Not for a moment, Mrs. Cappelli. Not one word.” He flipped his notebook open. “I checked the records briefly when I got your call, to see if he was in any of the official files. We have computers nowadays, you know. I can push a button and tell whether or not he’d been recorded in any city or county agency.”
She closed the door finally and stood leaning the back of her shoulders against it. “And what did your computer tell you?
His sharp eyes flicked between her and the notebook. “He spent two years, our Greg Morrow, in a correctional institution for maladjusted teen-agers. Committed when he was sixteen. Released on his eighteenth birthday, which was eighteen months ago. Prior to the action that put him away, he had a record of classroom disruption, of vandalism in his schools, of shaking down smaller classmates for their pocket money. He was finally put away after he assaulted a school principal.”
“The principal should have given him a sound thrashing with a strong hickory switch,” Mrs. Cappelli said. “But in that event it would have been the principal who went to jail.”
“It’s possible,” Longstreet agreed. He tucked his notebook in his hip pocket. “We’ve had complaints about Greg almost from the day he was let out, in various neighborhoods where the Morrows have lived. But other than a suspended sentence for trespassing, after a house was vandalized, nothing has stood against him in court.”
Mrs. Cappelli moved slowly to a large chair and sank on its edge, hands clasped on her drawn-together knees. “Mr. Longstreet, Greg Morrow is not merely a mischievous boy. He is the kind of force and fact from which those fantastic and gory newspaper headlines are too often drawn.”
“That’s very possible.”
His tone caused her to glance up, and she caught the bitterness in his eyes. Her sympathy went out to him for the hardness of his job.
“Don’t feel badly, Mr. Longstreet. I thank you for coming out and talking to him. Perhaps it will frighten him for a little while and help that much.”
“We simply can’t lock them up without evidence of the commission of a crime. Sometimes, then, it’s too late.”
“After the commission of a crime, Mr. Longstreet, it is always too late.” She rose to her feet to see him out.
He stood looking down on her, the small sturdiness of her. “I’ll have the police cruiser in this area increase its patrols along your street, Mrs. Cappelli. I’ll do everything I possibly can.”
“I’m sure of that.”
“Good day, Mrs. Cappelli.”
“Good day, Mr. Longstreet.”
She watched him stride down the front walk and get into the unmarked police car parked against the street curbing. He sat there for a brief time after he started the engine, looking at the Morrow house; then he drove away.
As she turned, Mrs. Cappelli saw Greg. He was standing in the Morrow yard, thumbs hooked in his belt, watching the police car move toward the intersection and turn out of sight.
Mrs. Cappelli started to close the door. Then, with a sudden impulse, she went outside and walked across to the driveway that separated the two properties.
“Greg... may I speak to you?”
He moved only his head, turning it to stare at her. “Why should I talk to an old bitch who sics the fuzz on me?”
She whitened, but held back the swift heat of anger. “I thought we might have a civilized talk. After all, Greg, we do have to live as neighbors.”
“Who says? Somebody around here could die. Old biddies are always popping off, you know.”
She drew a difficult breath. “A bit of reasonableness, Greg. That’s all I’m asking. I was happy when you moved into the neighborhood, so young and vigorous. I looked forward to some youthful activity next door.”
“Old creep. You called the fuzz.”
“You know why, Greg. Somehow I must impress on you that there are limits. Why can’t we discuss them? Observe them? Live and let live?”
He looked at her with studied insolence. “You made a bad mistake calling Longstreet, old lady. I don’t like it. I don’t like it at all. I won’t forget it, either.”
Her voice rang with the first hint of anger. “Are you threatening me, Greg?”
“Who says? Can you prove to Longstreet that I am? Just your word against mine. I know how the law works. I know my rights.”
“I don’t think this is getting us anywhere, Greg. I regret having come out and spoken to you.”
He drifted a few steps toward her. The dying sunlight marked his cheekbones sharply. His body was tense, as if coiled inside. “You got a lot more regrets in the future, old lady. You better believe it. Think about it. You won’t know when, how, or where. But I don’t like people trying to throw me to the fuzz.”
“I hope this is just talk, Greg.”
He laughed suddenly. “That school principal — the one who got me sent up. Know what happened? About a year after I got out, a hit-and-run driver marked up the punk principal’s daughter, that’s what. She’ll be a short-legged creep the rest of her life. Sure, the fuzz questioned me — but they couldn’t prove a thing.”
She could bear it no longer. She turned and started toward her front door with quick steps.
“Don’t forget to think about it, old lady,” he called after her. “And remember — nobody ever proves a thing on Greg Morrow.”
Three passing days brought Mrs. Cappelli the faint hope that Greg had thought twice and again. Perhaps his insults and threat had sufficed his ego. Usually, such fellows were mostly talk. Usually.
The fourth night Mrs. Cappelli stirred in her always-light sleep, dreaming that she smelled smoke. She murmured in her half-conscious state; and then she had the sudden, clear, icy knowledge that she was not asleep.
She flung back the sheet, a small cry in her throat, and stumbled upright, a ghostly pale figure in her ankle-length white nightgown.
“Isadora!” she cried out as she hurried into the hallway. “Isadora, lazy-head, wake up! The house is on fire!”
Isadora’s bedroom door flung open and Isadora appeared, gowned like her mistress, her iron gray hair hanging in two limp braids across her shoulders.
“What is it? What’s happening?” Isadora chattered, her eyes bulging. She glimpsed the faint reddish glow in the stairwell and began crossing herself again and again. “Oh, heaven be merciful! Mercy from heaven!”
Together the two women stumbled in haste down the stairway. The fiery reflection was stronger in the dining room.
“Quickly, Isadora! The kitchen!”
They ran across the dining room, wavering to a halt inside the kitchen. Mrs. Cappelli s quick glance divined the situation. The curtains over the glass portion of the outside door had caught fire first. They were now remaining bits of falling ash and embers. The flames had spread easily to the window curtains along the rear of the kitchen, and were now gnawing at the cabinetwork, fouling the air with the stench of burning varnish.