“I’m afraid so.”
“I wish somebody had killed her.”
“What?”
“I wish somebody had killed her. I wish it hadn’t been an accident. Then I could put the fucker that did it between my hands and squeeze the life out of him like pus out of a boil, and maybe some of the pus that’s building up in me would get squeezed out, too. But I can’t do that. Instead, she’s just dead and there’s not a goddamn thing I can do about it.”
“Charley, is that niece of Wilma’s around? I’d like to talk to her.”
“She’s over at the house. Across the street. She was with me when I found the body. Took it pretty hard. Why do you want to talk to her?”
“Just want to express my sympathy.”
10
The house sat on a big open yard, a few pathetic bushes clustered around the front steps, but that was all; no trees were anywhere in sight, except way off in the back, in some other yard. It was a vacant lot with a house on it, plopped down there by an Oz-like wind, maybe, a two-story white clapboard with a front porch with a swing and if you looked close enough you might find Norman Rockwell’s signature in the comer. The girl was sitting on the swing. She was not swinging. Not today, anyway.
The porch was not enclosed so I could walk up the steps and sit across from her on the ledge of the porch without seeming a total intruder.
“I don’t think I know your name,” the girl said. Her voice was young-sounding. It had sounded young last night, too. But even younger now.
“I don’t know yours, either,” I admitted.
“But you-know who I am.”
“Yes. Do you know who I am?”
“A customer at my aunt’s.”
“Yes.”
“More than that, really. She liked you. She always smiled real big when she saw you coming.”
“She smiled at everybody.”