The Good Friday Murder Read Online Free PDF Page B

very much about the missing Mr. Talley.
    I had a lot of work ahead of me. Before going upstairs to get ready for bed, I tidied the dining table but left my notes and microfilm copies in separate piles, neat and accessible. I had more; questions than answers. Tomorrow I would begin to ask them.

6
    I hooked up with Melanie Gross the next morning and we walked, ran, and talked.
    “I was there Tuesday night,” she said as we rounded the first corner. “Do you really think you can find out anything about a murder that happened so long ago?”
    “I don’t know, but I’ve already started and I’ve learned a few things.”
    Melanie broke into a smile. “You did? When? What have you done?”
    “I spent yesterday at the New York Public Library reading old newspapers on microfilm.”
    “That’s fabulous. Have you got anything?”
    “Just a deeper respect for the Miranda warnings.”
    “Oh?”
    “Those twins were questioned for hours without a lawyer. I’m sure you know what that means.”
    “Was there a confession?”
    “I don’t think they ever got anything out of them. I’m going to Brooklyn today to see if I can dig up the file on the case. I’d like to see whatever records there are of the questioning, and I’d like to see the autopsy report.”
    “Will you be able to read it?”
    “Probably not, but I’ll take it to Aunt Meg’s doctor, who’s also my cousin Gene’s doctor. I’m sure he’ll help.”
    “Listen.” Mel slowed her pace, and I slowed my own to stay even. It’s tough to run and talk at the same time. “I’d like to tell you how I feel about Greenwillow.”
    “Sure.”
    “If James Talley isn’t in the group, I have nothing against the house being in Oakwood. I frankly wouldn’t want it next door to me, because we’d never sell the house. But I don’t object to their buying the Aldrich property. It’s the possibility of that man being a murderer that stops me. I have children and I’m concerned about their welfare. You don’t have to have kids to understand that.”
    “Of course.”
    “If you really find that someone else did that murder—and I can’t imagine how you can do that—I’ll support the variance.”
    “Thanks, Mel.” We had come to a stop in front of my house. “I really appreciate your support. And I’m going to come back for it in September.”
    “You’ll get it. But not if there’s still a cloud over Talley’s head. Okay?”
    “Okay.” I waved as she jogged down the street to her house. It was time to start fighting clouds.
    —
    I drove down Ocean Avenue before I went to the police station. It was a wide street with old apartment houses, most of them about six stories high, and interspersed here and there with a one- or two-family house. Young mothers pushed strollers, and older men and women hobbled along with canes, walkers, or companions for support. The building the Talleys had lived in was of the same vintage as the others, probably a once grand place to live.
    I drove slowly along the great avenue, crossing Quentin Road and then Avenue R and Avenue S. They had walked up the street—I wondered on which side—forty years ago, not knowing their mother would the horribly that afternoon or evening. The autopsy report estimated the time of her death as “sometime on Good Friday,” not a very scientific conclusion. Someone even linked the brutal murder to the crucifixion. I found that hard to believe.
    A car honked behind me, and I put on some speed and found the Sixty-fifth precinct.
    —
    Outside, the police station looked like every picture I had seen on television or in the movies. (We watched TV at St. Stephen’s sometimes in the evening.) Inside, there was a high counter with a stone front, wood top, and stainless steel railing separating me from the uniformed people on the other side. One of them was a woman, and she asked politely if she could help me.
    “I hope so. I’m looking into a murder that took place in this precinct forty years