Free Nocturne by Ed McBain Page A

Carella said, “we realize it’s early in the morning …”
    “Yeah, yeah, whut is it?”
    “But we’re investigating a homicide …”
    “Yeah, yeah.”
    “And we’re trying to track the murder weapon.”
    Jackson looked at them.
    He was a tall, rangy, very dark man, wearing a robe over pajamas, his eyes still bleary from sleep, his mouth pulled into
     a thin angry line. Man had a right to the sancty of his own home on Sunday morning, he was thinking, thout these motherfuckers
     comin roun. Murder weapon my ass, he was thinking.
    “Is this about that damn gun again?” he asked.
    From somewhere in the apartment, a woman asked, “Who is it, James?”
    “It’s the
po
-lice!” one of the children shouted gleefully. “Can Daddy make pancakes now?”
    “The police?” she said. “James?”
    “Yeah, yeah,” he said.
    “It’s about the gun again, yes,” Hawes said.
    “I tole Pratt I dinn see no damn gun in his car.
Nobody
seen that damn gun. You want my opinion, that gun is a fiction of Pratt’s imagination.”
    No one had yet invited them into the apartment. Mrs. Jackson came down the hall now in a robe and slippers, a perplexed frown
     on her face. She was a tall woman with the bearing of a Masai warrior, the pale yellow eyes of a panther. She didn’t like
     cops here scaring her kids, and she was ready to tell them so.
    “What’s this,” she said, “five o’clock in the mornin?”
    “Ma’am,” Carella said, “we’re sorry to be bothering you, but we’re working a homicide and …”
    “What’s anybody in this household got to do with a homicide?”
    “We’re simply trying to find out when the murder weapon disappeared from the owner’s car. That’s all.”
    “What car?” she asked.
    “Caddy was in for service,” her husband explained.
    “You work on that Caddy?”
    “No. Gus did.”
    “Then why they botherin you?” she said, and turned to the cops again. “Why you botherin my man?”
    “Because an old lady was killed,” Carella said simply.
    Mrs. Jackson looked into their faces.
    “Come in,” she said, “I’ll make some coffee.”
    They went into the apartment. Jackson closed the door behind them, double-bolted it, and put on the safety chain. The apartment
     was cold; in this city, in this building, they couldn’t expect heat to start coming up till six-thirty, seven o’clock. The
     radiators would begin clanging then, loud enough to wake the dead. Meanwhile, all was silent, all was chilly. The children
     wanted to hang around. This was better than TV. Mrs. Jackson hushed them off to bed again. Husband and wife sat at the small
     kitchen table with the two detectives, drinking coffee like family. This was five a.m ., it was still pitch-black outside. They could hear police sirens, ambulance sirens wailing to the night. All four of them
     could tell the difference; sirens were the nocturnes of this city.
    “That car was a headache minute it come in,” Jackson said. “I’da been the night man, I’da tole Pratt go get a tow truck, haul
     that wreck outta here, more trouble’n it’s worth. Had to turn away two, three other cars the next day, cause Gus had that
     damn Caddy up on the lift. When I finely figured we were done with it, I come in yesterday mornin, the car’s a mess. Man’s
     coming in to pick it up at ten, it’s a mess like I never seen before in my life.”
    “What do you mean? Was there still trouble with the engine?” Carella asked.
    “No, no. This was
inside
the car.”
    Both detectives looked at him, puzzled. So did his wife.
    “Somebody musta left the window open when they moved it outside,” Jackson said.
    They were still looking at him, all three of them, trying to figure out what kind of mess he was talking about.
    “You see
The Birds
?” he asked. “That movie Alfred Hitchcock wrote?”
    Carella didn’t think Hitchcock had written it.
    “Birds tryin’a kill people all over the place?”
    “Whut about it?” Mrs. Jackson asked