Death of the Black-Haired Girl

29

SALMONE HAD COME TO THE house while Brookman was idly driving from one end of town to the other. Ellie had asked the detective to leave. Then she had telephoned him at the police station, gone in and made a brief statement describing what she had seen on the night of Maud’s death.

“What did he say when you asked him to leave?”

“Well,” Ellie said, “he didn’t like it. He said he might have to ask me more formally for a statement later.”

“Wonder what he meant by that.”

While Brookman was sorting his thoughts, Salmone called and declared that he would like to come over.

“Shall I come in instead?” Brookman asked.

“Why don’t you do that,” Salmone said.

Brookman went out in the cold rain and walked to the police station. As soon as he saw Salmone’s face he reflected on the interview Ellie must have provided. He was certain she had no idea how to favorably impress a sensitive, older, working-class detective.

He was right. Salmone was not happy with what Brookman’s wife had told him. Obviously, the lieutenant thought, she had believed what she’d said. But her loyalty and composure, rendered with imperious reserve, did not make him like either Brookman any better.

“Have a seat, sir,” Salmone said.

He let Brookman go through the details he recalled of the night in question without interrupting. He watched Brookman closely, letting him know he was being watched.

“Is it a fact, Professor, that you did time in a federal correctional institution?”

“I was a crewman on a crab boat. I was just out of the Marine Corps. Our boat was MV Water Brothers, out of Homer. We were over the limit on size and maturity. There were shoulder-seasonal changes I guess we weren’t aware of.”

“How come jail time?”

“We had a little petty grab-ass with the Coasties and I was up front. So I did three months in a converted prefab Air Force barracks outside Richardson. It was all fishery workers in there. They’d applied federal laws for years and then the state changed a lot of them.”

“Too bad. You’re a young kid practically. You were a veteran just out.”

“Yeah. Sentences were way excessive. Everyone says that.”

“Tough. But you did OK in later life. Here you are…”

“Yeah.” Brookman had the sense that Salmone was speaking to him more as an apprehended perpetrator than a college professor.

“Very sad about this young lady. Do you have some more to tell us?”

“How would I?”

“I don’t know, Mr. Brookman. Maud Stack comes to your house. It’s a blizzard outside. She’s troubled and intoxicated. But you don’t let her in. Why?”

Brookman looked at him a while before he answered.

“She was there to intimidate me. And my family.”

“Really?”

“That’s right.”

“You didn’t think you could help her?”

“Only by suggesting she leave.”

“You figured you could help her by suggesting she leave?”

“Yes.”

“Did you shove her out?”

“Shove her? Of course not.”

“Guide her back in the street?”

“I didn’t touch her.”

“I’m sorry, Mr. Brookman. We have cell phone videos. You’re touching her. You’re actively touching her.”

“When we were in the street and the traffic was coming I tried to pull her back on the sidewalk. That’s what you have a record of.”

“Myself, I’m surprised you forced her out on the street in the weather.”

“I didn’t force her out on the street. I told her to go home. If she’d done what I told her, she’d have been all right.”

“But you lost your temper?”

“I didn’t lose my temper, Lieutenant Salmone. I did not lose my temper. I asked Miss Stack to go back to her dorm because I have a child in the house who I thought might be frightened.”

“You could have called us.”

“There was no need.”

“Maybe there was. Maybe she oughta have called us.”

“Nobody needed the police then. It was personal. It was not violent. We didn’t require cops.”

“Maybe it was a lovers’ quarrel, huh? Because everybody in this place knows you were in bed with this girl. Sounds like she was in your way big-time. Maybe she should have called us.”

“Are you accusing me of pushing her in front of a car?”

“What if I tell you I have people saw you do that?”

“You can’t, goddamn it! What people saw was me trying to get her out from in front of the traffic! Both our lives were in danger.” He rose from his chair. Salmone backed his own chair away. “What bullshit are you people trying to sell? Is this the college you’re working for or what?”

“It’s against the law to sleep with your student.”

“It is not against the fucking law, Salmone! Adult-on-adult sexuality is not illegal. As yet.”

“It’s against the college rules.”

“That’s not your problem, sir!”

They glared at each other across the desk.

“Hard-ass,” Salmone said. “Aren’t you, Professor?”

“Too hard for you, Mr. Cop. If you try to make some kind of killer fiend out of me, I swear I’ll sue you, your city and anybody who I catch collaborating with you in such a scheme.”

Brookman settled in his seat and put his elbows on the desk. There were a few other city cops working in the station and they stopped to listen. A few of them moved closer to Salmone’s office.

“Maybe I should have driven her home,” Brookman said. “Obviously I should have driven her home.”

Salmone said nothing.

“Are we finished?” Brookman asked.

Salmone stood up.

“Who do you think that driver was?”

Brookman stared at him in surprise.

“I hope you find him.”

“We always do,” Salmone said. “You have anything more to tell us, Professor, you have my card. Don’t hesitate. You gonna be around?”

Brookman thought about it for a moment. His not being around was an idea that had not occurred to him.

“Well,” Salmone said. “We’ll be here.”

Brookman decided to engage a lawyer the next morning.