Murder on Mulberry Bend Read Online Free Page A

had to give him another nudge of encouragement.
    When he stopped howling, he said, “Old, I guess. Older than you.”
    “What color was his hair?”
    The boy screwed up his face in the effort to remember. “He had on a hat.” Frank drew back his foot again, but Danny quickly recalled, “He had some gray around here, I think,” he said, pointing to his temple.
    “You’re doing better, Danny. That’s the kind of information I’m looking for. Tall or short?”
    “A little taller’n you, maybe. Not fat, not thin.”
    “How much did he pay you to kill Dr. Brandt?” Frank asked mildly.
    “I didn’t kill nobody! I swear!” He was genuinely frightened now. Most cops wouldn’t hesitate to solve a case by arresting the most convenient suspect, and Danny was certainly convenient at the moment. “I told you, I was just a kid. All he wanted me to do was take a note to this Dr. Brandt.”
    “What did the note say?”
    “I don’t know. I can’t read!”
    This, Frank knew, was probably true. “What was Dr. Brandt supposed to do when he got the note?”
    “I told you, I couldn’t read the note. I don’t got no idea.”
    Frank shook his head in disapproval. “You’re trying my patience, Danny. You were supposed to take him someplace, weren’t you?”
    “Who told you that?” Danny demanded, the fear in his voice just a little stronger than his feigned outrage.
    “Never mind who told me. Where were you supposed to take Dr. Brandt?”
    A shadow darkened the doorway, and Frank looked up to see another boy about Danny’s age peering in.
    “Are you pinched?” he demanded of the boy on the floor.
    “Yes, he is,” Frank replied, “and you will be, too, if you don’t get the hell out of here.”
    “You come here alone, copper?” the boy asked incredulously.. He was bigger than Danny, stocky beneath his ragged clothes. “You should know better.”
    With the light behind him, Frank couldn’t make out his features, but he saw the glint of the boy’s teeth as he grinned, and almost too late he saw the flash of the knife.
    He threw up his arm to block the blow, and the blade slashed through his coat sleeve. Danny was scrambling to his feet, and Frank shoved the boy with the knife, sending him sprawling out into the alley. The knife clattered on the cobblestones, but before Frank could turn to deal with Danny, the boy barreled into him, knocking him to his knees. Frank made a grab for him, but the bare flesh of Danny’s skinny arm wrenched from his grasp as he darted out of the hovel.
    By the time Frank pushed himself to his feet, both boys were disappearing down the alley in the direction of the street. Cursing his carelessness, Frank checked his coat sleeve and was furious to see blood already staining the fabric. It wasn’t bad enough that the coat was ruined, but he’d probably need stitches. He pulled out his handkerchief and awkwardly tied it around his arm as he made his way quickly back to the street. The creatures who occupied the tenements around him could sniff out weakness like a pack of jackals. He needed to get to a safer part of town as quickly as possible.
    His mother would howl like a banshee when she saw the damaged coat, and now he was staining the handkerchief, too. The worse part, however, was that he’d let Danny get away. At least the old drunk hadn’t been lying. The boy did know something about Tom Brandt’s death. Something more than that he’d been beaten and left to die alone in an alley one dark night three years ago. Someone had hired him to lure Dr. Brandt to his death, which meant his murder hadn’t been a simple robbery as the police had determined at the time.
    Frank had known the minute he read the account of Brandt’s death in the police files that robbery hadn’t been the motive. Brandt’s black doctor’s bag hadn’t been taken, nor had his wallet or watch. Even if a thief had been frightened off before being able to gather his loot, the poor of the city wouldn’t