Death Instinct - Jed Rubenfeld [4]
Please I need to see you. They know you’re right. I’ll come back tomorrow morning at seven-thirty. Please can you help me.
Amelia
“She never came back,” added Colette.
“You know this Amelia?” asked Littlemore, turning the note over, but finding nothing on its opposite side.
“No.”
“ ‘They know you’re right’?” said Littlemore. “About what?”
“I can’t imagine,” said Colette.
“There’s something else,” said Younger.
“Yes, it’s what she put inside the note that worries us,” said Colette, fishing through her purse. She handed the detective a wad of white cotton.
Littlemore pulled the threads apart. Buried within the cotton ball was a tooth—a small, shiny human molar.
A fusillade of obscenities interrupted them. The cause was a parade on Liberty Street, which had halted traffic. All of the marchers were black. The men wore their Sunday best—a tattered best, their sleeves too short—although it was midweek. Skinny children tripped barefoot among their parents. Most were singing; their hymnal rose above the bystanders’ taunts and motorists’ ire.
“Hold your horses,” said a uniformed officer, barely more than a boy, to one fulminating driver.
Littlemore, excusing himself, approached the officer. “What are you doing here, Boyle?”
“Captain Hamilton sent us, sir,” said Boyle, “because of the nigger parade.”
“Who’s patrolling the Exchange?” asked Littlemore.
“Nobody. We’re all up here. Shall I break up this march, sir? Looks like there’s going to be trouble.”
“Let me think,” said Littlemore, scratching his head. “What would you do on St. Paddy’s Day if some blacks were causing trouble? Break up the parade?”
“I’d break up the blacks, sir. Break ’em up good.”
“That’s a boy. You do the same here.”
“Yes, sir. All right, you lot,” Officer Boyle yelled to the marchers in front of him, pulling out his nightstick, “get off the streets, all of you.”
“Boyle!” said Littlemore.
“Sir?”
“Not the blacks.”
“But you said—”
“You break up the troublemakers, not the marchers. Let cars through every two minutes. These people have a right to parade just like anybody else.”
“Yes sir.”
Littlemore returned to Younger and Colette. “Okay, the tooth is a little strange,” he said. “Why would someone leave you a tooth?”
“I have no idea.”
They continued downtown. Littlemore held the tooth up in the sunlight, rotated it. “Clean. Good condition. Why?” He looked at the slip of paper again. “The note doesn’t have your name on it, Miss. Maybe it wasn’t meant for you.”
“The clerk said the girl asked for Miss Colette Rousseau,” replied Younger.
“Could be somebody with a similar last name,” suggested Littlemore. “The Commodore’s a big hotel. Any dentists there?”
“In the hotel?” said Colette.
“How did you know we were at the Commodore?” asked Younger.
“Hotel matches. You lit your cigarette with them.”
“Those awful matches,” replied Colette. “Luc is sure to be playing with them right now. Luc is my little brother. He’s ten. Stratham gives him matches as toys.”
“The boy took apart hand grenades in the war,” Younger said to Colette. “He’ll be fine.”
“My oldest is ten—Jimmy Junior, we call him,” said Littlemore. “Are your parents here too?”
“No, we’re by ourselves,” she answered. “We lost our family in the war.”
They were entering the Financial District, with its granite facades and dizzying towers. Curbside traders in three-piece suits auctioned securities outside in the September sun.
“I’m sorry, Miss,” said Littlemore. “About your family.”
“It’s nothing special,” she said. “Many families were lost. My brother and I were lucky to survive.”
Littlemore glanced at Younger, who felt the glance but didn’t acknowledge it. Younger knew what Littlemore was wondering—how losing your family could be nothing special—but Littlemore hadn’t seen the war. They walked on in silence, each pursuing his or her own reflections, as a result of which none of them heard the creature coming up from behind. Even Colette was unaware until she felt the hot breath