Free Hot-Wired in Brooklyn by Douglas Dinunzio

questions.
    “When’d the body come in?”
    “Coupla nights ago.”
    “Who found it?”
    “Beat cop.”
    “Where?”
    “Alley off Sands Street, by the bridge.”
    “Find the slug?”
    “Sure. Didn’t go far when it came out.”
    “Any other wounds?”
    “Naah,” said Pickle. “Hey, the little lady’s awake.”
    Caroline sat up and scowled as if she’d caught Pickle looking up her dress. When she spoke to him, her words were clear and
     hard, her eyes full of venom. “I’m certain that the young man in there is my brother, JamesHutchinson, but you’ll need more than just my word. Will the finger and toe prints from his birth record be adequate?”
    “Them’ll do,” said Pickle.
    She gave Pickle her address on Sutter Avenue, the address of a funeral home in Brownsville when the coroner was ready to release
     Jimmy’s body, and then we left.
    “Some detectives from the 84th precinct will probably want to talk with you,” I explained as I drove her home. “The body was
     discovered on their turf. If you don’t want to deal with them by yourself, you can call me. I can also bring a lawyer.” She
     didn’t respond, so I kept silent all the way back to Brownsville.
    It was past midnight when I pulled up outside her building. “Would you like some tea?” she asked. I didn’t have an exit line,
     so I just nodded and said, “Okay.”
    The apartment was empty when we arrived. I assumed that Charlotte was out tearing up the town somewhere, and it was probably
     better that way. No infusions of wild abandon to break the perfect funereal mood that Caroline had set. After ten minutes
     of silence broken only by the sound of a tea kettle, she finally spoke.
    “Do you take sugar?”
    “Sugar?”
    “In your tea. I seem to have forgotten if you had a preference.”
    For a moment, our eyes met and held. Her face had turned sickly pale. Her voice was still steady, but hollow, like the sound
     of a Dictaphone. That part of her that was machine had taken over, mercifully, I guess.
    “I don’t usually drink tea,” I answered. “I take my coffee black, if that’ll help.”
    “Plain, then,” she said absently, and went on with her preparations. A minute later she set the cup and saucer down in front
     of me. We’d taken the same seats as before, she on the couch with the afghan, me in the chair. She sipped her tea once and
     centered the cup on its saucer.
    “How’d you know?” I asked. “About your brother.”
    “His elbow. A bad scar he’d had since he was seven. He fell off his bicycle in the street. He needed stitches, but we couldn’t
     afford a doctor, and I wasn’t trained as a nurse yet. It healed, but it left a jagged scar.”
    “That answers another question I was going to ask.”
    “Oh?” She took another sip.
    “That was pretty gruesome stuff at the morgue.”
    “Yes.”
    “But you didn’t even flinch. Not until you saw…”
    “The scar on his elbow.”
    “When’d you go into nursing?”
    “During the war. My husband was in the service. I was working as a file clerk during the day and studying nursing at night.”
    “What branch?”
    “Branch?”
    I realized I’d lost her and tried to apologize in my tone. “Of the military. What branch was he in?”
    “The Marines,” she said. “He died on the beach at Tarawa.”
    “I’m sorry.”
    “And you?”
    “Hundred and First Infantry. Airborne.”
    “A hero of Bastogne,” she said with an ironic half-smile.
    “Yes, ma’am.”
    “Ma’am?”
The word carried a chill.
    “Sorry. Just trying to be polite.”
    “I see. Are you deferential to war widows in general, or just to me?” I didn’t answer, she let the question hang icily in
     midair, and the thin-shelled eggs I’d been walking on all evening felt like they might be cracking. She walked back into the
     kitchen with long, deliberate strides and lifted the kettle off the stove.
    “More tea?” she asked flatly.
    “No, thanks. You said before your name was