Streets of Fire

by Thomas H. Cook

  The little girl’s eyes shifted over to Ben.

  ‘Hi,’ Ben said softly.

  ‘Hey.’

  Ben sat down on the grass just inside the fence. ‘I know you probably want to go play,’ he said. ‘I won’t keep you too long.’

  The girl shifted nervously on her feet.

  ‘I hear you played with Doreen from time to time,’ Ben said.

  Ramona nodded.

  ‘Did you play with her last Sunday afternoon?’

  The little girl stared at him blankly.

  ‘I’ll bet you go to church on Sunday night, don’t you?’ Ben asked.

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘Just before you went last time, did you see Doreen?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘Where’d you see her?’

  Ramona pointed to the field. ‘Over there, behind them trees.’

  Ben looked in the direction she indicated. There were three large trees in the far corner of the field, a rope swing had been hung from one of them, and it swayed very slowly in the early evening breeze.

  ‘I was swinging,’ Ramona said. ‘That’s when she come up.’

  ‘About what time was that, you got any idea?’

  The little girl shrugged gently.

  ‘Was it close to suppertime?’

  ‘Right before.’

  ‘So that would have been around five, something like that?’ Ben asked.

  ‘Right before supper,’ Ramona repeated. ‘My mama come to call me.’

  ‘Was Doreen with you when your mama called?’

  ‘No, sir.’

  ‘Where was she?’

  ‘She done left for home.’

  ‘How long did she play with you?’

  ‘Not long.’

  ‘An hour, something like that?’

  ‘She come across the field,’ Ramona said, this time pointing to the right, toward the opposite end of the ballfield.

  ‘She came from that direction?’ Ben asked.

  ‘Yes, sir,’ Ramona said. ‘I seen the light flashing, and I looked, and then I seen Doreen.’

  ‘Flashing? A light?’

  ‘From the police car.’

  ‘You saw a police car?’

  ‘Yes, sir. It done stopped somebody.’

  ‘Another car?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘What did the police car look like?’

  ‘It was the Black Cat car.’

  ‘Why was it stopped?’

  ‘They was writing a ticket to somebody.’

  ‘They’d stopped a car?’

  ‘Yes, sir, they had,’ Ramona said. ‘And they was over leaning in the window, writing him a ticket.’

  ‘Both of them?’

  ‘They calls them the Black Cat boys,’ Ramona said, ‘them two brothers. Ever-body in Bearmatch knows who they is.’

  Ben leaned toward her slightly. ‘What about the other car? Do you remember what kind it was?’

  ‘No, sir.’

  ‘What’d it look like?’

  Ramona shook her head. ‘Just black, or blue or something like that.’

  ‘And that’s when you saw Doreen?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘Where was she?’

  ‘She was walking across the field right toward me.’

  ‘Was she alone?’

  ‘She was by herself, yes, sir,’ Ramona told him. ‘She didn’t have nobody with her.’ She smiled tentatively. ‘She looked real happy. She was sniggering to herself. She always sniggering. She can’t talk, you know.’

  Ben nodded.

  ‘But she sure do snigger a lot,’ Ramona added with a smile.

  ‘And so she came across the field, and you two played for about an hour, is that right?’ Ben asked.

  ‘Played till she left.’

  ‘Which direction did she go in when she left?’

  ‘Right toward her house,’ Ramona said, once again pointing toward the opposite end of the field. ‘Right down that way.’

  Ben nodded slowly. ‘Now this may seem like a funny question, but do you know where the rubber plant is?’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ the little girl answered immediately. ‘My daddy work there.’

  ‘It’s over there, isn’t it?’ Ben asked as he pointed in the opposite direction. ‘Are you sure Doreen didn’t walk toward the plant?’

  ‘Oh, no, sir,’ Ramona said loudly. ‘She walk toward her house.’ Again, she pointed in the direction opposite to the plant. ‘That way, just like always.’

  Ben smiled quietly. ‘You didn’t happen to see anybody else around the ballfield that afternoon, did you?’

  ‘People was walking through it, like they always is.’

  ‘You ever heard of a man named Bluto?’

  ‘No, sir.’

  ‘He’s very big.’

  ‘Never heard of him.’

  Ben took out the morgue photo and showed it to her. Ramona studied the picture carefully. ‘He asleep?’ she asked finally.

  ‘Yes, he is.’

  Ramona’s eyes dropped back toward the picture. ‘He look like he sick or something.’

  ‘Have you ever seen him?’

  ‘No, sir, I ain’t seen him,’ Ramona said, her eyes still staring curiously at the photograph. ‘He kin to Doreen?’

  ‘No,’ Ben said. He slipped the picture from her fingers.

  Ramona looked at him quizzically. ‘Who he is?’

  ‘Just a man,’ Ben said as he tucked the photograph back into his pocket.

  ‘He hurt Doreen?’

  ‘He might have,’ Ben said. He got to his feet, then stood a moment, poking the tip of his shoe into a ridge of dusty earth. ‘You got any idea if somebody else might have seen Doreen after you did?’

  Ramona shook her head. ‘None as I know of.’ Her eyes drifted over to the far edge of the field. ‘’Cept maybe for them police boys and that fellow they was writing a ticket to.’

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  Knots of firemen still lingered outside Police Headquarters as Ben pulled over to the curb, got out and headed slowly up the stairs. Some were still dressed in their black slicks as they stood alone, or huddled together, talking quietly as the air darkened steadily around them.

  Lamar Beacham slumped against the front of the building, his long, slender body propped like a bamboo fishing pole against its granite façade.

  ‘What happened today?’ Ben asked as he reached the top of the stairs.

  Beacham smiled thinly. ‘Where you been – Mars?’

  ‘Working a case.’

  Beacham dropped his cigarette to the steps and crushed it with the tip of his boot. ‘They brought us into it, the Fire Department.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘Just lined us up across the street,’ Beacham said. ‘And the Chief says, “Turn on the hoses.”’ He shrugged helplessly. ‘So we did.’

  ‘You sprayed the demonstrators?’

  ‘Yeah, we sprayed them,’ Beacham said. His face twisted with disgust. ‘We sprayed them good.’ He shook his head. ‘Shit, Ben, that water comes out of them hoses at a pressure of a hundred pounds per square inch. You got any idea what that does when it hits somebody?’ His eyes darted away, and he lit another cigarette. ‘It makes me sick, what the Chief made us do.’

  ‘Is that how the rest of them feel?’

  Beacham looked at him. ‘A lot of us.’ His eyes turned back toward the avenue. A single red fire engine could be seen in the evening light. ‘The Chief, he better watch what he asks the firemen to do. We’re not like the cops. Lingo’s men, either. We’re not like them. It’s different with us.’

  ‘How long did this go on?’

  ‘Seemed like forever,’ Beacham said. ‘I was holding the nozzle. That fucking thing is heavy. After a while I felt like I was holding up a car or something. And the way the water was shooting through it, it was like wrestling a bull.’ He laughed. ‘You know Jim Pointer, don’t you, Ben? Little guy with a mustache?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘
Well, he was my backup, you know, holding up the hose,’ Beacham said. ‘Finally he just let go of it. Said, “No more, Lamar. They can get me to go in a burning building, but this ain’t my job and I’m through with it.”’ Beacham stared at Ben wonderingly. ‘And he just walked off. Just took off his helmet and walked right off. Can you beat that?’

  Ben did not answer.

  Beacham’s voice took on a grim note of warning. ‘Chief better watch it. He’s pushing too hard, and he’s going to find hisseif with nobody but the trash around him. Lingo’s men. Shit, half of them ought to be in the pen themselves.’ He shook his head despairingly, then eased himself from the side of the building. ‘Well, take it easy, Ben,’ he said as he moved down the stairs. ‘I got to go home, but Lord knows I dread it. My wife’s going to kill me for this.’

  The inside of Police Headquarters was less crowded than Ben had seen it in weeks. The lines of makeshift cots were empty, and only a few stragglers remained in the detective bullpen. The Chief’s office was dark, and the only light in the corridor came from under Luther’s tightly closed door. It was as if a strange emptiness had overtaken everything, an eerie vacancy that could be felt in the nearly deserted hallways, the unoccupied meeting rooms, even the thickening night beyond the windows. There was an odd, unworldly quiet in the air, and as Ben moved from one room to the next, he could sense that some part of the raging tumult which had been swirling in the city for so long had finally run its course, become exhausted, and simply slumped away, like a wounded beast into the enveloping brush. He did not know what part it was, but as he headed toward the dark office door of Property and Records, he sensed that it was somehow vital to the rest, a fire guttering out, one that left in its wake only the faintly acrid smell of defeated anger.

  ‘What are you doing up here?’

  Ben turned and saw a tall figure, backlit in the doorway at the opposite end of the corridor.

  Ben stared in his direction. ‘Who’s that?’

  The man stepped out of the shadows, his face now half-illuminated by a slant of light.

  It was Breedlove, and his body seemed taut and catlike, poised to leap.

  ‘Most everybody’s gone home,’ he said.

  ‘Yeah,’ Ben said. ‘It looks that way.’

  Breedlove smiled coolly. ‘You weren’t with us today, were you, Ben?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘How come?’

  ‘I’m still working on a case.’

  ‘That little girl, right?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Breedlove stared intently into Ben’s eyes. ‘You got some kind of special interest in that?’

  ‘Maybe.’

  Breedlove took a single step toward him, his whole body now plainly visible in the hall light. ‘Why is that, Ben? Why are you so interested in that case?’

  ‘She was a little girl,’ Ben said flatly, ‘I don’t like what happened to her.’

  Breedlove smiled. ‘Course, it happens all the time, don’t it?’

  ‘Too much, yeah.’

  ‘You always work them this hard?’

  ‘Always,’ Ben said bluntly.

  Breedlove laughed thinly. ‘I admire your dedication,’ he said, suddenly forcing some lightness into his voice. ‘I really do.’ The edge was now entirely gone from his speech. It had been replaced by something else, a strained friendliness. ‘Well, good for you, old buddy,’ he said, his body relaxing visibly. ‘Nothing like a good cop to straighten out the world, ain’t that right?’

  ‘I guess so,’ Ben replied curtly.

  Breedlove scratched the back of his neck casually. ‘Well, I got to get home like everybody else. You coming?’

  ‘No. I want to check a few things.’

  Breedlove’s face clinched slightly, then relaxed again. ‘All right then,’ he said. ‘See you tomorrow.’

  Ben stood silently in the corridor until Breedlove had disappeared down the stairs. Then he turned quickly, walked into the Records and Property Room and switched on the light.

  Rows of gray metal filing cabinets lined the back wall of the room, and Ben walked over to the group marked ‘Traffic Citations.’ The citations were arranged by the date the summonses had been written, and Ben immediately began flipping through them, edging backward, closer and closer to the Sunday of Doreen Ballinger’s disappearance.

  It was a slender stack, held together by a single rubber band, and it did not take long for Ben to find the few summonses that had been issued by either Tod or Teddy Langley. One had been given in the downtown area at around two in the afternoon. A second had been issued to an illegally parked car just inside the borders of Bearmatch. A third had been issued to a speeding car at about three in the afternoon. The fourth had also been issued as a speeding violation. The time was recorded at a quarter after five, and the location was 21st Street and Second Avenue, the southwest corner of the old ballfield. It had been issued to a man named Norman Siegel, whose address was listed as 2347 Williams Street, Mountain Brook.

  It was nearly eight at night by the time Ben turned onto Williams Street. He drove slowly, craning his neck to see the addresses as he passed one modest wood-frame house after another. He finally spotted the one he was looking for. It was a light-blue wood-frame house with an enclosed garage, and as Ben pulled into the driveway, he noticed the large assortment of toys which dotted the recently mowed lawn.

  The door opened after the second knock, and Ben could see a short, middle-aged woman through the silvery screen mesh.

  ‘Is this the Siegel residence?’ he asked.

  The woman nodded. ‘Yes.’

  ‘Does Norman Siegel live here?’

  ‘Yes, he does,’ the woman said.

  Ben took out his police identification. ‘It’s nothing serious, ma’am,’ he said, ‘but I’d like to talk to Mr Siegel if he can spare the time.’

  The woman looked at him worriedly. ‘All right,’ she said, her voice somewhat strained. ‘Come in, please.’

  The screen door swung open, and Ben stepped into the house.

  ‘Just have a seat anywhere,’ the woman said as she disappeared into the back of the house.

  Ben remained standing. His eyes drifted over the room. It had an exposed brick fireplace, its plain wooden mantel decked with family photographs in pink plastic frames. The carpet was reddish, with white flecks, and it was strewn with toys that looked as if they been scattered about haphazardly and then entirely forgotten. There was a brown naugahyde recliner, and opposite it, a plain tan sofa with bright red cushions.

  ‘I’m Norman Siegel.’

  He was a small man in thick glasses, and he was dressed in khaki trousers and white, open-collared shirt. ‘I was just mowing the back forty,’ he said with a slight smile. ‘Night’s about the only time I have for it.’ He offered Ben his hand. ‘Sarah said you were from the police.’

  Ben shook his hand quickly. ‘That’s right.’

  Siegel laughed nervously. ‘Gee, I can’t imagine being in any trouble.’ He shifted quickly from one foot to the next. ‘You want to sit down? You want a glass of tea, maybe something stronger?’

  ‘No, thanks.’

  ‘Okay,’ Siegel said. He thrust his hands deep into his trouser pockets. ‘So what’s this all about?’

  ‘You were given a traffic ticket last Sunday, is that right?’ Ben asked.

  ‘Yeah,’ Siegel said. ‘I’ve already put the check in the mail.’

  ‘It’s not about the ticket,’ Ben said.

  Siegel looked at him, puzzled. ‘What is it then?’

  ‘Well, not long after you were given the ticket, a little girl was seen walking in the ballfield, and not longer after that, somebody killed her.’

  Siegel drew in a long, slow breath. A little girl? Well, that neighborhood’s –’

  ‘A colored girl,’ Ben said. ‘Twelve years old.’

  Siegel’s eyes grew tense. ‘My God, you don’t think I had anything to do with that?’

  ‘Not at all,’ Ben told him quickly.
‘But I was wondering if you might have seen anything.’

  ‘When?’

  ‘While the ticket was being written.’

  Siegel thought about it for a moment. ‘I usually keep my eyes right on the road when I go through that part of town,’ he said. ‘Normally, I wouldn’t go through it at all, but I have a toy factory on the other side of that neighborhood, and so if I’m in a hurry I sometimes take a shortcut down Collins Avenue. It ends up taking me through there.’

  ‘Is that what you were doing on Sunday afternoon?’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘You were headed for your factory?’

  ‘Yes,’ Siegel said. ‘I got to it at around five-thirty. Lots of people can vouch for that.’

  ‘Were you speeding?’

  Siegel shrugged. ‘I guess. Lots of people speed m that neighborhood.’

  ‘Do you know about what time you were pulled over?’

  ‘It was five-fifteen on the dot,’ Siegel said. ‘I know, because I glanced at my watch as soon as I stopped. I was hoping to get it over with as quickly as possible and then head on over to the factory.’

  Ben nodded.

  ‘And I know exactly when I left, too,’ Siegel said. ‘Because I looked at my watch again.’ He smiled sheepishly. ‘I’m sort of time-conscious, if you know what I mean.’

  ‘What time did you leave?’

  ‘Five twenty-two,’ Siegel told him. ‘Which means that the whole thing just took seven minutes.’

  ‘Did you see a little girl around the ballfield while you were parked?’ Ben asked.

  Siegel shook his head. ‘No, I don’t – ’ He stopped himself. ‘Wait a minute, now. Well, yeah, I think I did. Way across the field. In a swing.’

  ‘How about in the ballfield?’ Ben asked insistently, realizing that the girl in the swing was Ramona Davies. ‘Maybe walking toward the swing?’

  ‘No, just the girl in the swing,’ Siegel said. That’s the only little girl I saw.’

  Ben pulled out the picture of Bluto. ‘How about this man,’ he said as he handed the photograph to Siegel. ‘Does he look familiar?’

  Siegel stared at the picture for a moment, then shook his head. ‘No.’

  ‘He’s a real big guy,’ Ben said. ‘Did you see a real big guy standing off somewhere? Maybe in the distance?’