Ken Kuhlken_Hickey Family Mystery 03 Read Online Free Page A

over the counter. The half gallon of coffee had lit his brain but enervated his muscles.
    The sour matron who took his request reluctantly admitted she’d gotten a call from Captain Thrapp and showed Hickey the door to a visiting room, a lime-green cubicle with a wooden table and hard chairs, an aluminum shaded bulb hanging down. Waiting for Cynthia, he used a pocketknife to clean his fingernails and scrape his pipe. He wondered if she’d still be a beauty. When she sang at his club in 1942, she could’ve charmed Rommel into giving his tanks away. He couldn’t imagine her changing. But here she came. Making her entrance, she looked like a barfly, her face caked in powder and a solid coat of eye shadow, as if she’d tried to fill in wrinkles or scars. Her waist, tied in a drawstring around the jail tunic, had thickened. Her arms looked softer, puffy. Her neck had widened and compacted, making her small mouth appear even tinier. Still, she could stop traffic. Tall, formidable as ever, she gazed straight and viciously into Hickey’s eyes, her mouth twitching, too racked with fury to speak.
    He got up and stepped close enough to touch her shoulder. As though his finger had hit the button, she snarled, “The Bitch has got Casey.”
    Hickey wagged his head. “You’re already losing me. Casey who?”
    “My son. My real son. The only reason I haven’t jumped off suicide bridge. They gave him to the Bitch. Now she’s got both of them. Casey’s as good as dead.” Her eyes looked like turquoise in the mask of a war goddess. “Unless you can save us, Tom.”
    He took her hand and led her to a chair, seated himself. He leaned toward her, across the table. “I hear you. Now, back up a ways. Who gave your kid, Casey—who gave him to the Bitch?”
    “The cops did. She fixed it, Tom, don’t you see? That’s why she killed Johnny and framed me. Now she’s got Casey. Without him, I’m dead. We’re all of us doomed.”
    “All of who?” Hickey muttered.
    She hissed, “Why in Christ didn’t you let them scrape me?” She covered her eyes. Her chest heaved. As though from fatigue, she fell into the chair across from Hickey and buried her head in her arms on the table. When he tried to take her hand, she jerked it away, clapped it against her opposite shoulder.
    “I could probably get your boy away from Laurel,” he offered. “Most likely I can find a judge who’ll assign him to Hillcrest Receiving. Then it sounds like you’d as soon I quit meddling and went home.”
    “But they’re saying I killed Johnny. You’ve got to set them straight.”
    “Uh-huh. And the way you figure, Laurel torched her own place, right?”
    “Don’t speak her name,” Cynthia snarled. “The Bitch.”
    “Yeah. And you’re saying the Bitch torched her own place, right? Burned her own husband?”
    “Sure.”
    “You got any proof?”
    “It must’ve been her. She hated him, like she hates anybody who won’t be her slave. Johnny was sharp, and his own man. She counted on breaking him, but she couldn’t. So Johnny kept playing footsy with the Jew mob, after the Bitch got cozy with Angelo.”
    “Paoli?”
    “Who else?”
    “How cozy?”
    “Cozy as it gets.”
    Hickey took out his pipe, Walter Raleigh, and a tamper, filled the bowl. “Give me a clue about the fire. A witness, maybe? A turncoat? Laurel have a confidante? Somebody she goes to the powder room with who might be the gossipy or jealous type?”
    Burying her head in her arms, Cynthia muttered, “The Bitch hates women, and she wouldn’t confide in anybody.” She lay quietly a minute; then her shoulders heaved. “Get me out of here,” she whined. “Go talk to Marty and the fellas. They’ll tell you I was at the jam session all afternoon. Is today Sunday?”
    “Yep.”
    “This’ll be the first of Marty’s jam sessions I’ve missed since last July, when Casey had chicken pox.”
    “Marty who?”
    “Eschelman.” She sat up, brushing the hair back off her face.