Hit on the House Read Online Free

thought maybe Papa had been hit by the car.”
    “You didn't see Mickey Egan?” Mulheisen asked.
    “No. I started to go out there, but Mama . . . she started to wail. And then Roman came in and told me to take care of her and not to go out.”
    “Who is Roman?” Mulheisen asked.
    “Roman Yakovich,” she replied. “He's a . . . an associate of Papa's.” She was clenching her small fists and pacing a few steps to one side, then another. Suddenly she asked, “Would you like a drink?” The detectives said no, but when she stalked to a liquor cabinet and poured a large shot of something from a dark bottle, Mulheisen called out that just a couple of fingers would be fine. She threw a wry glance over her shoulder, her black hair flying. “It's slivovitz,” she said. “Plum brandy. How about you?” she asked Jimmy.
    “He's driving,” Mulheisen said. When she brought the drinks, he asked, “What else did Roman have to say?”
    She gulped the brandy, then closed her eyes for a second, the muscles of her jaw visibly clenching. After a moment she opened her mouth, and at first she couldn't speak, but finally she said very deliberately, “Ma wanted to know if Papa was dead. Roman just shook his head. Then Ma collapsed.”
    “Where is Yakovich now?” Mulheisen asked.
    “Upstairs, with Ma. Well, what are you going to do about this?”
    Mulheisen ignored this. “Your father was shot. You didn't hear any shots?”
    “No. Just the crash.”
    “You didn't see anybody else on the street? No car driving away? No gunman? Nobody walking?” Mulheisen asked.
    “No, no, no, for the last time, no. If I saw something, don't you think I would tell you?”
    “If you wanted to,” Mulheisen said. He drained off the brandy. He almost gasped but managed to ask, in a whispery voice, “You heard a crash?”
    “Two crashes. The second crash was the car running into the fence. It wasn't so loud.”
    “So you ran to the window, and you saw your father's car with the doors open, but you saw no one.”
    The woman shook her head, a cloud of heavy shoulder-length black hair eclipsing, then exposing, her bone-white face. “I saw Papa's car. At first I thought it was part of the accident. Then I saw the other car in the fence and the car across the street—it was knocked sideways. Then I saw someone in the street.”
    “Someone lying in the street, you mean?” Jimmy said.
    “Yes.”
    “What about Egan?” Mulheisen asked. “He was lying by the driver's door of your father's car. You didn't see him?”
    “No, . . . I don't think so. I don't recall seeing him.”
    “Do you live here?” Mulheisen asked.
    “No. I have a place in Bloomfield Hills,” Helen Sedlacek said. “I come over every Sunday, to help Ma with the food.”
    “Every Sunday?”
    “Just about. Ma insists on cooking every Sunday. Friends and relatives drop in and out all day. Some Sundays quite a few. Not so many today.”
    “How many?” Mulheisen asked.
    “I don't know . . . a dozen maybe.”
    “A dozen people drop by,” Mulheisen said. “What do they do?”
    “They eat, they talk, they watch television, and of course, with thesituation in Serbia, they argue about politics. The kids play, mostly downstairs.”
    “The situation in Serbia?” Jimmy Marshall said.
    “The war. We're all Serbs.”
    “Was your father involved in politics?” Mulheisen asked.
    “No. Well, all Serbs are interested in politics.” She sighed. “Too much. But this had nothing to do with politics.”
    “No?”
    “No. You know what it's all about. Not politics.”
    Mulheisen considered this, then looked at the woman more closely. She was about five feet tall but looked taller on account of the way she carried herself. She was really very pretty, he decided. She was compact and athletic looking, a trim figure.
    “So every Sunday you come and help your Ma put on a spread for the folks,” Mulheisen said. “Are you married?”
    “He's dead,” she replied, “a long time