Code 61 - Donald Harstad [112]
E. There were three identifiable footprints in the dirt under the window where they'd gained entry. Two left shoe, one right shoe, of identical pattern.
F. There were shallow trench marks about a quarter inch wide and deep, and about three feet long, in the ground under the window. They indicated that either a box or a crate had been placed under the window to permit the suspect(s) to climb high enough to effect entry.
G. There was a heavy-duty, blue plastic milk crate across the blacktopped alley, that proved to have similar dirt on the top edges. As would be expected if it had been inverted for use as a step.
All this was very positive, and I was pleased. The icing on the cake, however, was provided by one Rosalind O'Banion, a sixty-eight-year-old white female, who lived across the street from the funeral home, and who had shuffled over to watch the excitement. She was wearing a blue and white checked bathrobe, with a raincoat over it, and a gray stocking cap on her head.
“What's going on, Bingo?” she said, addressing Byng.
“Never mind, Rosy.” He was pretty short, I thought. I didn't think that she'd come all the way across the street, dressed like that, just to stare. Her house offered a fine view, and she could have sat down with her coffee and watched from there in comfort.
“We've had a little incident here, ma'am,” I said. Like I say, burglaries are my thing, sort of, and I knew from much experience that witnesses were worth their weight in gold. Rosy might have a bit of potential. “Can you tell me anything about it?”
“No,” said Rosy.
Well, so much for that.
“If you do remember anything, or hear anything, would you let us know?” Not quite a brush-off, and it left the door open.
Rosy looked at me closely, and I figured that since I wasn't in uniform, it really hadn't sunk in that I was a law enforcement officer. “Aren't you the cop who busted Quentin Pascoe a while back?”
The worst sexual abuse case I'd ever worked. “Yep, that was me.”
“The son of a bitch,” she said, “is my brother-in-law.” She thought for a moment, and then said, “Well, it probably don't mean shit, but … ” Music to my ears.
Rosy was the cleaning lady for one of the local taverns, and had just been leaving her house last night to clean the place when she'd seen somebody in the alley. He'd been coming toward her, from the funeral home direction, and just stopped cold when he saw her. He'd apparently stood stock-still, and didn't utter a sound. She walked about fifteen feet from him, following her usual path to the tavern, and he still hadn't moved a muscle, nor said a word.
“I didn't speak nothin' either,” she said. “Just walked by him like he wasn't there.”
“Did you recognize him?”
“I think so. I can't put his name on my tongue, but you know him, too. The short one.”
I'd need a bit more than that. “Uh … ”
“The short one, the one from up at the Mansion. Oh, you know…. ”
“Male or female, Rosy?”
She snorted. “He's a male, I think,” she said disparagingly. “Comes into the tavern once in a while, I think for no good. You know the one, with the thing in his nose,” she said, and pointed to the bridge of her own nose. “Right here.”
I looked at Hester, who was grinning widely.
“Kid named Toby?” I asked.
“Yeah, sure. Toby. Toby, uh, Chalk or something, oh, it'll come to me … ”
“Gottschalk?”
“No, that's not right. Is it? Maybe it is,” she said, reflecting. “Maybe so.”
“But you know him to live up at the big house on the bluff, south of here, right?” I had to make sure, but there was no doubt in my mind who she meant.
“Hangs about with that Huck girl, and the other, smaller one, a lot. Him.”
“Did you see anything else?” interjected Byng, trying to be helpful.
“You're the one with the shiny badge, Bingo,” she said. “How much help you need?”
“Thanks, Rosy. Thanks a whole lot,” I said. “Big help, but now, don't tell anybody you talked to us, okay?”
“Quiet as a mouse,” she said.
“Promise?” I smiled.
“On a stack of Bibles,