Free Juvenile Delinquent by Richard Deming

“When the police wouldn’t give out any information, she hung up.”
    She sat back in the seat again, but this time didn’t assume a provocative pose. She merely sat with her hands in her lap, brooding.
    She continued to brood as I turned right at Eighth, right again at Tamm and cruised slowly back toward her home. Possibly I should have been more tolerant of the fickleness of a very young girl whose premature physical development probably got her so much male attention, she could hardly be blamed for some of it going to her head. But I couldn’t resist experiencing a mildly sadistic satisfaction at having touched her vanity. She had written Joe off, but it upset her to think she might not have been the only girl in his life.
    When I parked, she snapped out of it enough to turn to me. “You don’t know this girl’s name, huh?”
    I shook my head.
    “Well, I guess it doesn’t matter, long as she didn’t get to see him anyway,” she said philosophically. “You want to come in for a while?”
    “I don’t believe so, thanks.”
    “What am I supposed to call you?” she asked. “Mr. Moon?”
    Despite my growing irritation at the girl, I couldn’t help grinning at this obvious attempt to put our relationship on an adult-to-adult basis. “Mr. Moon, Uncle Manny, plain Manny. Take your choice.”
    “I’ll call you Manny, if you don’t mind,” she decided. “Will you come take me for a ride again sometime?”
    “Sure,” I said.
    “Some evening?” she asked inquiringly.
    “Sure,” I said again.
    She got out of the car, closed the door and leaned down to the window for a moment to give me a lingering good-by smile. “Bye, Manny.”
    “Good-by, Ruth.”
    As I drove away I couldn’t help feeling vaguely uneasy about Ruth Zimmerman’s probable future, even though her attitude toward Joe had irritated me. I was twice her age, yet she had deliberately insinuated she wouldn’t be averse to going out with me. She wouldn’t have to insinuate that to many older men before she found one unscrupulous enough to take her up.
    I was glad I didn’t have a daughter.

9
    M Y NEXT stop was one I didn’t look forward to, but had to get over sometime. And since I knew the police couldn’t have released Bart Meyer’s body from the morgue yet, as an autopsy is routine in murder cases even when the cause of death is obvious, I thought I’d better get it in today. While the boy’s mother undoubtedly would still be stunned by grief, I was afraid if I waited another day I might interrupt her in the midst of funeral arrangements.
    Mrs. Meyers lived on Third only a block from where Ed Brighton lived. Her flat, like his, was a two-room walkup on the second floor of a building which looked as though it should have been condemned years ago. I found her at home and alone.
    The woman was only about thirty-five, which meant she must have borne Bart when she was only eighteen. She was thin, but not unattractive in an undernourished sort of way. Her features were a trifle pronounced and her narrow shoulders a little bony, but she had a clear complexion, neatly waved black hair and an erect posture which made her thinness less evident.
    When I told her who I was and that I was a friend of Joe Brighton’s, she invited me into her kitchen and asked me to have a seat. The place had all the earmarks of poverty : worn linoleum, an old-fashioned gas range on legs such as has not been manufactured for over twenty years, and an ice box instead of a refrigerator. But it was scrubbed spotless.
    She sat across from me at the kitchen table, folded her hands in her lap and dully waited for me to speak.
    I said, “I know you must not feel very kindly toward Joe, Mrs. Meyers, but he claims he didn’t kill your son and I’m inclined to believe him. I’m trying to find out who did, if Joe didn’t, and I’d appreciate your help.”
    For a time she just continued to sit there. Then she said, “Joe Brighton’s been in this house lots of times.