The Devil's Own Rag Doll Read Online Free PDF Page A

Bobby, I was walking into a mess. I just shrugged and put my hat back onto my head. She’s gone, I thought. All the way gone.
    Since the heat of the day hadn’t yet settled in like it would later in the summer, the evening had brought a cool breeze off Lake St. Clair. I thought that maybe the moneyed folks here in Grosse Pointe had managed somehow to bring the cooler weather with them when they moved out of Detroit. Downtown, the high buildings and parking lots and wide paved streets seemed to trap the heat in a way that the lush lawns of the Pointes did not. I was not envious, exactly, of the big homes and the fancy automobiles. It was too much work and trouble to maintain all of it. But I’d take the money without the mess; money would let me live like I wanted to.
    We walked over the cobbles of Hardiman’s drive and up the steps to the vestibule. Bobby lifted a shaky hand toward the knocker. The doors opened inward suddenly, and a well-dressed man with a medical bag brushed past us. He didn’t even have to look at us to decide that we weren’t worth looking at. Inside, a colored servant woman looked at us with bright eyes.
    â€œMay I help you?” she said.
    Bobby said, “We’re—”
    â€œLet them in, Louise,” boomed a deep voice from within.
    She stepped back from the door and dropped her head a bit, but stole an oddly curious glance at my face as I passed. When I turned to look at her, she met my eye and smiled a little with her mouth—but kept the same look of bright interest in her eyes, like she was looking to remember. In truth, since I’d never had a servant, I didn’t know how to take it. Was a servant supposed to look you in the eye like that? So I gave her the dead-eye and turned away.
    I took in the place all at once. This is what she had to think of as a home, I thought. The glittering chandelier, the wide, sweeping staircase, the dark wood paneling, and the rich leather furniture made me think it was a put-on, a mockup like a set from Gone With the Wind. But I knew that this house was the real thing, and much older than the motion picture. She couldn’t even put her feet up in a place like this without worrying about wrecking something.
    â€œStep this way, detectives,” said Roger Hardiman, who stood at a set of double doors leading to his library.
    As Bobby and I stepped through the doors, I looked Hardiman over. He was like an aging Ivy Leaguer, his blond hair gone to dull straw and traces of gray, pushed back in pretty waves from his forehead. His skin was red from too much drink and, I guessed, too much worry about getting somewhere. He was not quite as tall as Bobby but cut a better figure. His suit was cut precisely to his flat shoulders, and the trousers broke neatly over his shiny wing tips.
    We all walked to a circle of leather armchairs and sat down. Hardiman sat down, too but got up immediately and walked to a cabinet to fix himself a drink.
    â€œSo,” he said, “Swope, maybe you can tell me how I’m going to explain all this to my wife.”
    â€œWell, sir, first let me say that you have my most heartfelt sympathy, and I—”
    â€œSwope, you ass, you’re not a friend of mine! I don’t look to you for sympathy! What I want to hear is how, in a city like this, with all the law enforcement we have, and with all the legal apparatus in place, all the industry and all the commerce, how could such a thing have happened to that little girl?”
    â€œWell, I—”
    â€œYou understand that Jane was our only daughter and the youngest of our children. My wife and I still have our two sons, whom we love dearly, but a girl—try as you might not to have favorites—Jane was the apple of our eye.” Hardiman raised his tumbler and sipped, keeping a steely glare on Bobby.
    I set my jaw and sank back in my chair, watching intently. That was how they got you. From the moment you walked in the