‘The one you turned back into Property,’ McCorkindale said impatiently. ‘They’d marked it wrong, though.’
‘Who had?’
‘Morgue.’
‘Are you talking about a twenty-two pistol?’
‘That’s right. Cute little thing.’
‘It was used in a murder.’
McCorkindale laughed. ‘No way, Ben.’
‘Why not?’
‘Because it was missing from Property,’ McCorkindale said. ‘That’s where it came from. Same serial numbers. It was the only weapon that was missing when I was logging everything in a few days ago.’
Ben felt his body rise almost involuntarily. ‘Missing? You mean it had once been in Property?’
‘That’s right,’ McCorkindale said. ‘Confiscated in a holdup.’
‘Who made the arrest?’
‘Breedlove,’ McCorkindale said casually. ‘Good old Charlie Breedlove.’ Then he flipped off the lights.
THIRTY
The heat was still hanging like a thick web in the air as Ben pulled up just across the street from Breedlove’s house. It was dark, with the shades drawn tightly down over the windows, and not so much as a lone porch light to relieve the surrounding night. The plain gravel driveway was empty, and because of that, Ben knew that Breedlove was not at home. Like almost everyone else in the city, he lived by his car, and when it wasn’t at home, neither was its owner. He looked at his watch. It was almost midnight. He leaned forward slightly, wrapping his arms loosely around the steering wheel. The windows of Breedlove’s house were tightly closed, despite the heat, and Ben wondered if it was possible that Breedlove’s family, his wife and young son, were also gone.
For a long time he simply sat in his car and watched the house. Slowly, the long day’s weariness began to overtake him, a heaviness in his legs and arms that seemed to press him down in the seat. To relieve it, he stepped out of the car, lit a cigarette and walked for a while down the narrow, tree-lined street. All the houses were dark, their windows staring toward him like bruised eyes. The world was asleep, it seemed to him, but only fitfully. The tension in the city had not been washed away by the water hoses, and as he continued down the winding, cracked sidewalk, Ben tried to imagine what the next step might be. He could see the Chief’s white tank as it circled Kelly Ingram Park, and Black Cat 13 as it prowled the back streets of the Negro district like a marauding beast, slow, sullen, sniffing the air for prey. It was as if something had gone so deeply wrong in the past that it was no longer recoverable, and so the old weight only grew heavier with each day, sinking the city with it, drawing it down forever.
He made a right, walking silently, then another and another until he found himself back at the car. He pulled himself in behind the wheel, sighing heavily with the heat and his own still unrelieved exhaustion, and fixed his eyes on the house until the first hint of early morning light began to gather around it, betraying its flecked paint and torn screens, its pitted driveway and bleak, untended yard.
The light was still barely visible in the air when the first car came up the street only a few minutes later. Ben sat up, rubbed his eyes quickly and watched as it nosed around the far corner, moved slowly up the street, then halted in front of Breedlove’s house.
Ben leaned forward and rubbed the dewy mist which had gathered on the inside of the windshield with the sleeve of his jacket.
The car was black and dusty, like so many others, and Ben didn’t recognize it at all until he saw Luther pull himself out from behind the wheel, then walk hurriedly up the walkway, linger for a moment on the porch, his shoulders hunched over, his back to the street. He knocked several times, but the door remained closed.
Ben checked his watch. It was five-fifteen. He rolled the ache out of his shoulders, rubbed his slightly burning eyes again and glanced back at the house. The door was still closed and the windowshades remained securely drawn.
For a while Luther remained on the porch. Then he turned back toward the street, glanced left and right and finally stepped off the porch and headed hurriedly toward his car. He had already opened the door when he saw Ben coming toward him. For an instant he froze, his eyes fixed intently on Ben’s face.
‘What are you doing here?’ he asked sternly.
Ben stepped up onto the walkway beside him. ‘I was waiting for Breedlove.’
‘Why?’
‘That gun, the one that killed the little girl,’ Ben told him. ‘It came out of the Property Room. It was taken in a robbery. Breedlove’s case. I thought he might know whose gun it was.’
‘How do you know it was missing from Property?’
‘McCorkindale did some kind of inventory a few days ago,’ Ben told him. ‘He logged everything. It was the only gun that was missing.’
Luther continued to stare at Ben expressionlessly. ‘Is that all?’
It seemed an odd question, but Ben answered it anyway. ‘Yes.’
‘And you’ve been waiting here all night?’
‘Most of it.’
Luther thought for a moment. He took a deep breath. ‘All right, Ben. Since you’re here, you might as well come with me.’