Free Case Pending - Dell Shannon by Dell Shannon Page A

guessed most of the guys around
here felt the same about Danny, and Danny sort of bossed them around,
and they let him.
    The figures in the window glass weren't sharp, just
shapes like, but just the way the smaller one moved you'd know it was
Danny, didn't have to really see his sharp straight nose and the way
his forehead went up flat, not bulgy, into black hair that was wavy
like a girl's with a permanent, or his eyes that moved a lot and were
bluer than most blue eyes.
    "Say, Marty, why'd you run off las' night?"
Danny was asking. "At the show, alla sudden—we hadden seen it
right through yet either. You scareda your ole lady, hafta get home
when she says?"
    "I didn't so sudden," he said quickly.
Danny and a lot of the guys around here, they thought that was
funny—both kinds of funny; they sort of needled you if your mother
said a certain time and you did what she said. "I just decided
to," he said. "It wasn't a very good pitcher anyway."
    "You kiddin'? It was—"
    "I seen it before," said Marty,
desperately.
    Danny just looked at him. Then he said, "You
been down t' see where the murder was?"
    Something moved a little, dark and uneasy, at the
very bottom of Marty's mind. "What murder?"
    "Jeez, don't you know anything happens? Right down at Commerce 'n Humboldt, you know where that
house burn down across from the wop store. It was some girl, an' boy,
was she a mess, blood all over an' one of her eyes punched right
out—whoever did it sure musta been mad at her—I dint get there
till after they took her away, but you could still see some o' the
blood, oney the rain—"
    Marty's stomach gave a little jump. He put his right
hand over that place on the left sleeve of the blue corduroy coat,
where the mark was. It wasn't a very big spot, but it showed dark
against the light blue and it was stiff. It hadn't been there this
time last night when he put the jacket on; he'd noticed it this
morning.
    I got it in the theater last night ,
he told himself. Of course it wasn't blood. Something on the seat in
there, it was.
    Empty lot where a house had burned down. All of a
sudden he remembered how it had been, in the dark last night:
something tripping him, hard squarish cement something when he felt
of it, like what was left when a house was burned. A lot of grass
around it.
    No, it wasn't , he said in
his mind frantically, it wasn't like that, I
must remember wrong . His mind said back at
him, Like you remembered wrong before?
    Danny was going on talking but he couldn't listen. Please, oh, please, it can't have happened
again . It never did happen, nothing happened
before, you just remembered wrong is all. You can't ever be sure in
the dark, and it was night then too, of course it had to be, it was
always night when—When things happened. A light green shirt that
time because it was hot, it was summer, and the mark didn't come out
when she washed it, you could still see where it'd been. That wasn't
blood either, acourse it wasn't, how could it be?
    He said louder than he meant to, "I-I got to go
home, I better not be late for supper," and walked away fast as
he could. He didn't want to hear any more about it, or he might
remember too much. There wasn't anything to remember, he was just
making up stories in his head to try and scare her, because he—
    There were long times when he never thought about it,
but when he did, it was all right there sharp and clear, more like it
pounced at him instead of him remembering. That other night. The
first time . Wet red mark on the green shirt
and her scolding—because it was late. The big doll with the pink
dress and goldy hair. And next day people talking about—what had
happened—to that colored girl.
    He was almost running now, trying to run away from
the voice in his mind, and he blundered into a man walking the other
way. The man said something and put out a hand to steady him on his
feet, but Marty pulled away and dodged round the corner into Graham
Court. He leaned on the