First Avenue (14 page)
In the mailbox marked “W,” Sam pulled out a used manila envelope addressed to him. He opened the envelope and removed the autopsy report
It was a poor copy, a copy of a copy, and he had difficulty reading it. The technical jargon meant nothing to him anyway. The words could have been describing a broken machine rather than a child. The report could simply have said that the baby died because she needed a drink of water, and after a drink of water, she needed her mother’s milk, and after the milk or perhaps before it, her mother’s care or care from anybody else who could have given it.
“You were right,”
Behind him a steel door with its mechanical closer working improperly repeatedly banged shut as cops came in to work or headed home. He looked up at the wall clock mounted above the mailbox. It was twenty seconds before
At the bottom of the autopsy report, there was another message from
The sergeant walked briskly through the door at the opposite end of the long room. He had a clipboard and pencil in hand.
Before going to the car
With everything in its proper place, he drove directly to the
Donald
Hotel
. The bar on the street level was dark, and the beer signs were turned off. He pulled the boxes out of the backseat and carried them past foul, sour-smelling garbage cans that stood in disarray on the sidewalk.
He stepped around a drunk who lay snoring inside the hotel door. He climbed the stairs and passed the manager’s office without stopping. At
Alberta
’s room, he dropped the boxes onto the floor and reached into his pocket for his keys. He unlocked the police padlock that had sealed the room since the detectives left.
The odor was no longer suffocating. Even so he raised the open windows as high as they would go. He looked around the room and planned what to take. The baby crib would stay, and there was no need to take cooking utensils or food. The detectives had taken all the soiled clothes to the laboratory, as well as the bedding, and they had taken everything that resembled a document. There was little left after that. He began by placing the two largest boxes in the center of the floor—one for
Alberta
, one for the baby. He took the clothes out of the dresser and placed them into the boxes first. Then he began looking for personal items to put on top. He found two children’s books, one in Spanish with a picture of a small boy standing beside a cactus, and one in English,
A Child’s Garden of Verses
by Robert Louis Stevenson. There was a page with a corner folded down, and he opened it to that mark.
The Swing
How do you like to go up in a swing,
Up in the air so blue?
Oh, I do think it the pleasantest thing
Ever a child can do!
Up in the air and over the wall,
Till I can see so wide,
Rivers and trees and cattle and all,
Over the countryside -
Till I look down on the garden green,
Down on the roof so brown -
Up in the air I go flying again,
Up in the air and down!
He read the poem several times while standing at the window.
First Avenue
was so close that noise from the street entered the room and sounded the same as if he had been outside. Mother and child would have to swing high to see trees, or cattle, or rivers from this window.
Although he was not sure which child should have the book, he put it into the baby’s box and, with a sense of urgency, set out to finish the job. Two stuffed toys into the baby’s, makeup and a handheld mirror into
Alberta
’s. Shoes, one pair so small they fit in the palm of his hand. Two boxes, one each, were all he needed.
He pulled the boxes gently to the door although there was nothing fragile in either of them. He opened the door and stooped away from it to pick up the boxes. Suddenly he realized he was not alone and spun around. An old man stood in the hallway peeking into the room. Without saying anything, the old man slipped inside. Sam might have demanded to know what he was doing, but the old man looked as if a raised voice or a raised anything would be enough to scare him away.
“You’re the one who was here that night, aren’t you?”
“I was here,”
“I saw you pull up in front. I should have told you when you was here before.”
“Told me what?”
“I couldn’t hear that baby crying except when I walked by. I’m down at the end of the hall. You got to mind your own business here, but if I’d known it was that bad, I would have called. I hope you can see that, mister. I would have called if I’d known it was so bad.”
Sam nodded his head and forced himself to permit the old man to tell his story. He tried to remember in which room he had seen him, but there were too many rooms to remember. The old man looked Indian or Eskimo, shaved and clean—a pensioner, perhaps, staying because of the cheap rent rather than the proximity to the taverns. He was sober on this day, anyway.
“There was a man that came here, and sometimes they would fight awful bad, him and the girl. I could hear when he was yelling. Everybody could hear that. I only saw him a few times, but I could hear him all right. He’d shout like a madman, and I don’t think that girl came out of it too good. I thought maybe you’d want to know about that. Last time he came, I didn’t see her anymore. I didn’t want to get mixed up with this mess, but with the baby and all, I thought maybe you’d want to know.”
“Yes, thank you. I appreciate that. Can you tell me what this man looked like?”
“Like I said, I only saw him a few times, and then it was just a peek. He was a white man, dark white if you know what I mean.”
“Young? Old?”
“Not too old. About like you. Forty maybe. Never shaved much. It seemed like he was always wearing a white shirt.”
“Did he wear a tie?”
“No. Just the white shirt. Long sleeves.”
Don’t lead him,
“Skinny guy?”
“No. Kind of fat. Not too tall either. About like me. Mean-looking eyes.”
“Could you hear what they were saying?”
“No. Nothing particular. A word now and then, but I don’t remember any of it. He talked funny though. Some kind of accent. He’d be a bad one to get mixed up with.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“You’re the police. You must know all about these people.”
“We’re the last ones to know anything.”
“I wish I could help you out a little more, but that’s all I know, officer.”
“I understand,”
“No, I don’t think so.”
“Did you ever hear this guy’s name, the one who had the accent?”
“Nobody has names here. That’s all I can tell you, officer.”
“You’ve been very helpful,”
The old man was surprised with the offer of the handshake, but he responded from some bygone sense of etiquette. “
“I understand,” Sam said, “I’d like to talk to you again sometime if you wouldn’t mind. Just me. Nobody else needs to know about it.”
“I guess that would be okay. I live in 408, but I’m looking for a new place. It’s hard to get any sleep here anymore. I eat breakfast down at
“If I need to talk to you,”
“No.
With that the old man was gone, opening the door just wide enough to pass through.
Sam forgot that he was in a hurry to leave and stood in the center of the room with the two boxes at his feet and thought about
He stacked the smaller box on top of the larger one and pushed both of them out the door, leaving the two empty boxes behind. He took the padlock off the hasp, stuck it into his pocket, and closed the door. Then he picked up the two boxes and walked downstairs to the manager’s room.
The door was closed; so was the window behind the bars. It was too early for business.
“It’s the police,” Sam said, referring to himself.
Ralph looked as if he were wearing the same T-shirt as before. After opening the door, he stood silently, without surprise, without the compulsion to say something trivial or proper.
“We’re done with the room,”
Ralph nodded glumly as
“Who’s gonna pay for the week?” he wanted to know.
Sometimes he wished there were such things as the vapor guns that they had in science fiction movies. “Bill the estate,”
He put the boxes on top of the car while he unlocked the trunk. Empty buses rolled past him on routes to the neighborhoods. Their big tires sounded loud and threatening on the concrete. He looked up to the still-open windows on the fourth floor where
Alberta
and the baby had lived. The light was on. He had not bothered to turn it off. He shook his head in disbelief. He believed, all right.