Death in North Beach Read Online Free Page B

and stubbornly refused to answer despite the torture.
    â€˜He’s not mine.’
    â€˜Mickey Warfield?’
    â€˜I know his name,’ she said.
    â€˜Thank you for coming to see me . . . on this day especially. I am very sorry for your loss.’
    â€˜I can go?’
    â€˜Yes, ma’am.’
    She stood, put on her coat.
    â€˜I won’t have to talk to you again?’
    â€˜I don’t know the answer to that.’
    â€˜There’s nothing I can tell you.’
    â€˜If you think of something . . .’
    â€˜I won’t,’ she said, leaving at more than a casual speed.
    The homicide inspector had put in a solid day’s work and it was only early afternoon. The key, he believed, was this William fellow, who might be the last person who saw the old writer alive and, just as important, had been engaged in a loud and angry argument with the victim only hours before.
    The inspector would do a little canvassing of the North Beach bars tonight. He’d talk with the bartender and the regulars, which meant he’d be out late in order to talk to the people who were out at the time of the disturbance. He decided to get out of his office for a while, grab a cup of coffee, get a bite to eat.
    Gratelli picked up a fish sandwich and a steaming cup of coffee from McDonald’s. He sat outside at a picnic table. Not much of a view – a busy street, bail bond agencies and parking lots. But he needed a moment, just a moment, to gather his thoughts. He had a few minutes before meeting with the celebrated District Attorney. This was the second high-profile case he’d had this year – this on top of nearly a dozen other homicides he was working on. He concluded he was as ready as he’d ever be to tackle the forces at play now – politics, the media and the case itself.
    The air was warm and the smell of boiling oil mingled with the scent of carbon dioxide. Eau d’Urban , he told himself.
    The two of them – Carly and Lang – looked at the crime scene. A tiny, triangular park of sorts, fenced in, was formed by the intersection of three streets – Union Street going east and west, Powell going north and south, and North Beach’s main street, Columbus Avenue, angling through them. The little park was more of a decorative median than a place to feed the squirrels.
    There were six smallish trees that shaded an oval pond that Lang estimated was about twelve feet by ten feet. Around the pond were clumps of purple flowers. Inside, small goldfish darted about.
    The area was still cordoned off by yellow crime scene tape.
    â€˜It would take some strength to get Warfield over the wrought-iron fence and into the pond unless he was chased there and his own adrenaline got him over,’ Carly said.
    â€˜An unlikely place to escape unless he thought he could hide in there,’ Lang said. There wasn’t any real place to hide, Lang thought, but if it was night, maybe Warfield thought he couldn’t be seen.
    Lang looked around, trying to figure what direction he might have come from. The answer was multiple choice. Lang walked around the small triangular park, noting that the little purple flowers had been smashed on the Columbus side. If the bar was on Grant, Warfield might have come down beside or across Washington Square Park. He didn’t know what good that kind of speculation was, but it was a start and stirred the juices.
    Carly was making her own calculations.
    â€˜It’s not a difficult fence to hop,’ she said, ‘but Warfield wasn’t a spring chicken and if his murderer was one of his contemporaries, this looks pretty challenging. What do you think?’
    â€˜Lunch. I think lunch.’
    Mario’s Bohemian Cigar Store and Café was catty-corner from the deadly little triangle (Warfield’s wasn’t the first waterlogged body discovered there). The restaurant was small and was, as far as Carly could see,