Hit on the House Read Online Free Page B

Hit on the House
Book: Hit on the House Read Online Free
Author: Jon A. Jackson
Pages:
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street?” Mulheisen asked. He was fairly certain that Yakovich was packing a large pistol in a shoulder holster.
    “I didden go down to the street,” Yakovich said. “Just down the drive a liddle. I dunno why. I just all of a sudden it was like I knew the boss was in trouble. I ran oudda the door, and I seen Sid's car at the gate, with all the doors open. I seen Mickey on the ground. And then I seen the boss in the street. There wasn't nothin’ to do. I come in the house to see if Mrs. Sid and Liddle Helen was OK. Then the cops came.”
    It was a nice compact statement. Mulheisen admired it. It was hewn out of granite, too, not a seam showing.
    “Who else did you see?” Mulheisen asked. “Did you recognize the gunman?”
    “I didden see nobody, just a car smashed into the fence and some kid trying to get out. I thought I better see about Mrs. Sid and Liddle Helen.”
    “No other car?” Mulheisen asked. “What about Sid's car? Who was with him?”
    “Mickey,” Yakovich said.
    “You said the car doors were open,” Mulheisen said. “All the doors?”
    Roman frowned as if focusing his thoughts. “Well, most of ‘em, anyways.”
    “Most of them? Which doors were open?”
    Yakovich's frown faded. He had decided what he'd seen. “All the doors was open except for the passenger door in the front. That's right. The boss always sits in the back.”
    Mulheisen digested this. “So who opened both the back doors? Sid didn't get out both doors.”
    Yakovich shrugged. “Maybe it was just the driver's door and the back door on the right . . . or the left.” He frowned and looked down at his hands. “The back door on the left, if you was looking at the car from the front.”
    “Not both back doors, then?” Mulheisen said.
    Yakovich looked uneasy. “I think so, but I dunno. I guess not.”
    Mulheisen nodded. “Little Helen,” he said, “is she always so, ah, feisty?”
    Roman grinned. “She gotta temper, eh? But she don't mean nothing by it. Liddle Helen is an angel. She must of said something, eh? She's mad, I guess. So would you.”
    “What's your theory, Roman? Who did this? One of the Serbs, maybe? Carmine?”
    Roman's face had set like concrete on a dry August day. He shrugged. “Who knows. Kids, maybe?”
    Mulheisen didn't know whether to laugh or spit. “OK, Roman, let's go.”
    “Go? Whadda you mean? To the precink? Who's gonna look after Mrs. Sid?”
    “The angel,” Mulheisen said.
    Downstairs Mulheisen stuck his head into the living room. Jimmy was still holding onto Helen Sedlacek, though not by the hair. He stood to one side behind her, grasping her firmly by the arm to avoid any kicks to the groin.
    “Roman is coming over to the precinct with us,” Mulheisen said. “Miss Sedlacek will have to stay and look after her mother. You can let her. go . . . as soon as I'm out the door.”

Three

    T hey called the precinct doorman Jellybelly, and Hal could see why. He had an enormous belly, and his name tag read Lovabella. He was an amiable man and quite capable, treating the prisoners and witnesses with an admirable combination of efficiency and simple, if rough, courtesy. He didn't yell at the prisoners, he didn't buddy up to the detectives and the patrolmen, he didn't ignore you if you had a legitimate question, and he paid no attention if you were just being a pain in the butt. But he was tremendously busy. Hal wondered if all Sunday nights were like this; he wouldn't have thought so. The little booking room of the Ninth Precinct was bustling, however, and from the adjacent holding pen Hal was able to observe the whole process.
    This business engrossed him and served at least two purposes. It stirred him from a dangerous passivity, which had set in the minute he had been picked up, and it engaged him in the necessary process of escape. It had the further virtue of preventing the onset of anxiety. That's the way Hal saw it. Perhaps some of these reactions were the normal result of killing another

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