Free Night Secrets by Thomas H. Cook

side.”
    â€œNot all of us,” Frank said.
    â€œAt least the ones I know,” Tannenbaum said. He shifted slightly in his chair. “But getting back to this Gypsy thing,” he said, “what you gave me, it’s not that much, Frank.”
    â€œIt’s all I’ve got right now.”
    â€œAnd now you want something from me, right?”
    Frank took out his pen and notebook. “What do you know about the dead woman?”
    â€œWe’ve come up with a few new things,” Tannenbaum said. “She had a driver’s license from New Jersey, and she’d been living in that place for about three months.” He looked back at Frank. “Her name turned out to be a little longer than the first one the other woman gave us.”
    â€œWhat was it?”
    â€œImmaculata Maria Salome,” Tannenbaum said. “And she was born in Hungary in 1924.”
    Frank took out his notebook and wrote it down. “What do you know about her?”
    â€œThat’s about it,” Tannenbaum said. “She’d been running mat fortune-telling gig since she moved to Tenth Avenue. She had no criminal record. She’d never been married, as far as we could tell.” He shrugged. “It’s pretty much the same with the other old lady, too.” He opened one of the drawers to his desk and pulled out a manilla folder. “I got her full name right here,” he added. “You want it?”
    Frank lowered the pen to the paper. “Go ahead.”
    â€œImmaculata Maria Jacobe.”
    â€œWhere is she?” Frank asked as he wrote down her name.
    â€œStill on Tenth Avenue, as far as I know,” Tannenbaum said. “She claims she wasn’t around when it happened.”
    â€œWhere was she?”
    â€œOver at some little storefront church on Forty-sixth Street, Saint Teresa’s,” Tannenbaum said with a shrug. “She claims it’s her regular routine. She goes around three in the morning, lights a candle, stays about an hour, then comes back home.”
    â€œDo you believe that?”
    â€œI don’t have any reason not to,” Tannenbaum said. “Who knows, maybe she’s casing the place, planning to boost the poor box and a couple of candlesticks on the way out one of these nights.”
    â€œDo you think she could have had anything to do with the …?”
    Tannenbaum shook his head. “There’s nothing to connect her to it. She went to Saint Teresa’s, and that’s it.”
    â€œAnd when she got back?”
    â€œShe found the body,” Tannenbaum said. “But she didn’t see the other woman. She just saw the body, that’s all.”
    â€œSo she called the police?”
    Tannenbaum shook his head. “The Gypsies don’t ever call the cops.”
    â€œWho did?”
    â€œA kid who was delivering groceries.”
    Frank looked at Tannenbaum doubtfully. “At four o’clock in the morning?”
    â€œThat’s right,” Tannenbaum said. “There’s an all-night grocery on Forty-third Street. They make deliveries twenty-four hours a day.” He opened the drawer of his desk and pulled out his own notebook. “Here, I’ll give you the kid’s name. You can check it out yourself.” He flipped through the notebook until he found the page he wanted. “Pedro Ortiz, that’s the kid’s name. He works at the Food Palace. On Forty-third Street, like I said.”
    Frank wrote it down, then glanced back up at Tannenbaum. “What’d the other woman say?”
    Tannenbaum shrugged. “Not much, just what she saw.”
    â€œWhich was?”
    â€œShe came home, opened the door, walked in, and there it was, the old lady on the floor.” He glanced toward the window again, then looked at Frank sympathetically. “The young one did it, Frank,” he said. “The woman, I mean. Your client, Puri Dai, or whatever she goes by. She