Hard Case Crime: Honey in His Mouth Read Online Free Page A

investigated by somebody—the F.B.I. or a detective or someone. I ain’t run into this investigator myself, as yet, but I’ve heard tell.”
    “It must be a mistake.”
    “Well, maybe and maybe not. I heard about it, and I’m going to look into it. I’ve already been looking into you, Harsh. And let me tell you, I got the stuff on you. You’re one of these packs of jack-leg grafters who are traveling around our small towns skinning the people out of their money. That’s what you are, and we been having trouble with your kind. Complaints, that’s what. We been wanting to lay our hands on one of you skunks.”
    “Officer, shouldn’t you be looking for the guy who sideswiped me? Isn’t he the real criminal, not me?”
    “Never mind that. Where is the rest of your pack of crooks?” The officer was scowling. “You birds work in gangs. Where’s the rest of your outfit?”
    “Officer, under the circumstances, I guess I got to give you the right answers.”
    “Well, what is the right answer?”
    “To hell with you, you son of a bitch.”
    The officer started back. Anger came over his scrubbed and shaven face. “You are a dumb one, Harsh.”
    “I must be, if you think you can walk on me.”
    “We already located your gang, Harsh. One of them anyway. Over in Edina, east of here. A young woman named Vera Sue Crosby. Miss Vera Sue Crosby. She said it was Miss, and I would say it was Miss. You know it is Miss Vera Sue Crosby, don’t you, Harsh?”
    “Officer, as you say, I’m pretty dumb, I don’t remember.”
    “Maybe you would like us to speak of her as Mrs. Walter Harsh, your wife. That’s how she’s registered in this hotel in Edina. Mrs. Walter Harsh. But she admits her name is Miss Vera Sue Crosby. You see what I got on you, don’t you, Harsh?”
    “What you haven’t got, Officer, is somebody to show you how to do your duty, to kick your fat ass into finding that hit-and-run driver who smacked into me.”
    “Miss Vera Sue Crosby, of Quincy, Illinois. You get it, Harsh. Quincy, Illinois. Edina, Missouri. A state line is in between those two towns, Harsh. You see now what I got? Statutory rape.”
    “How was that last?”
    “Statutory rape. You’ve had it, mister.”
    “I may be dumb, but Mrs. Harsh never raised any kid dumb enough to have that hung on him.”
    “I’m talking about what the law says, Harsh. Here is a fifteen-year-old girl, and you bring her from Illinois into Missouri, which is across a state line, and you shack up with her. That is violating the Mann Act. That is statutory rape. That is up to twenty years in the Jefferson City pen.”
    The sides of Harsh’s face felt like china saucers. The officer had not frightened him appreciably until he brought in the thing about Vera Sue being fifteen years old. Good God, she could be fifteen years old, although she had told him she was twenty-three and he had chosen to believe her. If she was fifteen and she had lied, and if they scared her into getting up in court and admitting some other things, then the cop was right, he’d had it.
    The officer watched him. “What’s the matter, Harsh? Don’t you want to call me another dirty name? You brought a fifteen-year-old girl across the state line for immoral purposes, and that makes you the kind of a rat I like to hear call me names. That’s the way I feel, only it ain’t really half the way I feel.”
    “I’m a sick man, officer. I got an arm broken all to hell. You come back after I get some strength, I’ll tell you about how I feel. I’ll spit in your eye while I do it.”
    “I accept your invitation, Harsh, to come back. I’ll bring a pair of handcuffs, too.”
    “You do that, while I save up spit.”
    “You want to tell me who this stranger is who’s fishing around about you?”
    “There is no such guy, and you know it.”
    The officer opened the door to leave. “Fellow, you are in a real mess. I hope you can see that.” He went out, and Harsh lay for several minutes