Free Rhode Island Red by Charlotte Carter Page A

said, was born in the Dominican Republic.
    â€œYou told the officer you heard something going on in here the day the blind girl was murdered.”
    â€œThey killed her dog, too, didn’t they?”
    â€œThat’s right.”
    â€œI liked that dog. She used to let him come in the shop sometime. Sometime I give him a bone to—”
    Sweet cut him off. “What did you hear that day?”
    â€œMusic.”
    â€œWhat kind of music?”
    â€œI don’t know.”
    â€œWhat do you mean, you don’t know? It was her playing the sax, wasn’t it?”
    â€œNo,” he said defiantly. “Not that. I’m not talking about that. This was a man’s voice, singing. Like he was here singing to her. It could have been a tape, I guess.”
    â€œAin’t nothing in here to play a tape on, man.”
    â€œWell, maybe the radio. But I don’t think so. It didn’t sound Like that.”
    â€œWhat did it sound like?”
    â€œI told you, I don’t know! It coulda been that country stuff.”
    â€œCountry—you mean that C&W shit—like red neck, white socks, and Blue Ribbon Beer? ”
    Diego didn’t get it.
    â€œWhy don’t you just tell me what you heard,” Sweet said.
    â€œHe said his eyes was red from the road.”
    â€œCome again?”
    â€œHis eyes are red in the song. He said something about the road and eyes lined red. It didn’t sound like any music I heard before—more Like just talking. Except his voice was loud. And he kept saying it over. ‘road … eyes … lined … red … road … eyes … lined … red.’ It wasn’t like the way people talk, man. It was like a song.”
    â€œShit, you telling me somebody was in here singing a stupidass truckers’ lullaby to that woman before they offed her?”
    Again, Diego seemed to be having trouble following the thread of Leman’s questions. I wondered if it had occurred to Sweet, as it just had to me, that Diego was a little stoned. Great. Just the complicating factor we needed.
    Sweet kept at it with the boy, but it was no good. The kid had not seen who was “singing” to Inge. Finally he was allowed to return to his work downstairs in the flower market.
    Not me. Sweet was as good as his word. He dragged me to the station house, where I was questioned and deposed and warned and ’buked and scorned, whatever that means.
    By the time Sweet released me, I was so tired I wasn’t sure if I could stand on my feet and walk home. I got as far as the corner of the block where the station house was located before I broke down. I lay the sax in its case against the side of a building and cried for about ten minutes. Nobody bothered me.
    Then I dried my eyes, walked over to the payphone, and called Henry. My words came out in a torrent of fear and sorrow. I was telling the story this way and that, all out of order—Inge and the dog and Wild Bill and Sig and Kurt Weill and yellow roses and Leman Sweet.
    He listened patiently and then, rather than trying to parse it out there, told me to wait at the phone booth, that he was coming to pick me up.
    No, I said, No. I had to get out of there. I couldn’t stand the thought of running into Leman Sweet again. I just wanted to get home.
    Good idea, said Henry, almost as if he were speaking to a mental patient. And I couldn’t blame him, really. I must’ve been hysterical. Go home directly, Nanette, he instructed. I’ll meet you there—All right, darling?
    My place is quite a switch from Henry’s high-rise love nest. From the landing, I watched him as he climbed the stairs, each step bringing his mournful, befuddled little face into sharper focus.
    â€œAre you all right?” he said, arms out.
    I opened my mouth to answer, but nothing much came out. “Oh,” was all I could say, “Oh, O’Rooney.” I had taken to calling him by the