Hands of a Stranger by Robert Daley

Author:Robert Daley [Robert Daley]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction/Mystery and detective/Police procedurals
ISBN: 9781612308135
Publisher: New Word City, Inc.
Published: 2014-10-10T00:00:00+00:00

One day a week earlier, carrying certain photo albums he had prepared, Joe had gone back to the hotel on Fortieth Street. Peering through the grille he had seen that the same three men in shirtsleeves were at work inside the office, and he had banged on the bars to be let in. Having laid the albums out on top of a desk, he had begun turning the pages, the men standing clustered around him.

The first album contained Johnson’s picture. By now, the investigation had lasted so long that Joe’s soul was in need of confirmation that Johnson was, indeed, their former clerk - that the man actually existed. However, Joe had a second album with him that had nothing to do with Johnson.

When Johnson’s mug shot appeared, he saw the three men glance sharply at each other, and this was satisfying, but no one formally identified him.

Joe said harshly, “May I remind you gentlemen of the crime of obstruction of justice?”

Morton Bluestone began to cough. “It looks kinda like somebody used to work here, that fellow - what was his name? Johnson. Was that his name, Charlie?”

Charlie said, “I couldn’t swear to it, but it could be him.”

Bluestone cleared his throat again. So far as he knew there had been no follow-up to his original complaint to Internal Affairs, and now as he stared at Johnson’s mug shot he felt a sudden need to mollify this policeman - the police in general. “What’s he wanted for? Drugs, you said.”

Joe did not answer. He stared Bluestone down: the policeman as inquisitor. But the role did not last. Joe’s triumph ended. That album was now finished, and a different one came next, the one Joe was worried about. An album of female pickpockets with Mary’s photo hidden somewhere inside it, with perhaps some answers hidden there as well. Answers he perhaps did not want to hear. He was going to ask if anyone remembered seeing Mary come into the hotel, and if so with whom. He began turning pages.

“Female offenders,” he said.

He was turning the pages a bit too fast. Even if they did recognize Mary, probably they would remember nothing else about her. The gunman must have hustled her past them too fast. At this time, Joe still believed his wife’s story. He told himself he did. As he kept turning pages he remembered nervously how he had borrowed the album that morning from the pickpocket squad, one of the few squads with a big female clientele. Today, many dips were women. They worked the department stores. They could get their hands in and out of other women’s handbags faster than the eye could follow. This morning he had slid Mary’s face in among them. It had felt then like a disloyal act, and he would feel disloyal again in a moment when he came to her.

The three men in shirt-sleeves watched the faces flip by without reaction. Mary’s face, the only one smiling, went past them, the photo off his desk at home.

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