“Is this call being recorded?” the woman asked.
“Yes, ma’am, it is,” the officer said.
“Do you have caller ID there?”
“Yes, ma’am, we do.”
The officer had been instructed to tell the truth in answer to any caller’s questions. She thought this was stupid, but that was what they’d told her.
“Then it’s a good thing I called from work, huh?”
“Either way, ma’am, whatever you tell us will remain strictly confidential.”
“I don’t want to say anything to anyone but a detective,” the woman said.
“Shall I ask a detective to call you back?” the officer asked.
“Please,” the woman said.
Bert Kling spoke to her shortly after three P. M. and went to see her at home later that evening. She lived in a five-story walkup outside the Eight-Seven, on Coral Street farther downtown, near the old Regency Theater building.
Betty Young turned out to be white and thirtyish, a good-looking, darkhaired, blue-eyed woman who told him she’d just got home twenty minutes ago. When he arrived, she was still wearing the suit and jacket he assumed she’d worn to work that morning, standing at the kitchen counter, eating a Twinkie and drinking a glass of milk. She asked him if he’d care for anything, and when he declined, she invited him into the living room of the one-bedroom apartment where she sat on the sofa and he sat on an easy chair facing her. Through the row of windows behind her, Kling could see the tall smokestack of a building several doors away, dominating the skyline.
She told him she worked as a receptionist for the accounting firm he’d called, and she’d been able to make ends meet until her mother in Orlando, Florida, suffered a stroke this past August. Which was why she could sure use the fifty thousand bucks Guide’s was offering, what with all the additional medical expenses and all.
“But what I want to make sure of,” she said, “is that I’ll be protected in this thing. We’re talking about murder here, you know.”
“Yes, Miss, I know.”
“So what kind of protection would I be getting if I tell you what I know?”
Kling explained that her name would be kept confidential, that she would not be called as a witness in any criminal proceeding…
“I’m not a witness, anyway,” she said. “I didn’t actually see anybody kill anybody.”
“But you do have information that would lead us to the person or persons responsible?”
“Yes, I do. The point is, how can I be sure my name won’t be made public?”
“Well, there would be no need to do that.”
“Suppose some television reporter gets nosy, how do I know the cops won’t tell him my name? Or the Guide’s people? How can I be sure?”
“You can’t,” Kling said. “You’d just have to trust us.”
She gave him a look that said Trust you? In this city, he was used to such looks.
“And how do I know I’ll get my money?” she asked.
“Same thing,” he said. “Trust.”
“Uh-huh.”
“Or maybe… I know we wouldn’t do this if it was a police reward… but maybe the company’d be willing to put half the money in escrow to begin with and then pay the rest after arrest and conviction.”
“Arrest and conviction!” she said.
“Yes, that’s the…”
“Oh, no, wait a minute,” she said. “Suppose you arrest the guy who did the shooting and then your D.A. screws up? Why should I be responsible for a conviction?”
“Well, those are the terms of the Restaurant Affiliates offer. Arrest and…”
“The who offer?”
“Restaurant Affiliates. That’s the corporation that owns the Guide’s chain. Arrest and conviction is what they stipulated.”
“Then it’s not really a genuine offer, is it?”
“I think it’s genuine, Miss.”
“How? If some inept D.A. lets him walk, I don’t get the reward.
How’s that genuine?”
“Well, the D.A.’s Office wouldn’t bring it to trial if they didn’t think they had a strong case.”
“But they lose cases all the time, don’t they?”
“Well… no. Not all the time. I would say they win many more cases than they lose.”
“Still, where’s my guarantee? I stick my neck out…”
“Win or lose, your safety would be protected. If you identified this person for us…I’m assuming you know only one of the shooters, am I right?”
Betty looked surprised.
“What gives you that idea?” she asked.
“Well, you referred to ‘the guy who did the shooting’ and just now you said something about the D.A. letting him walk. Him. Singular. So I’m assuming you know only one of them.”
“Gee, an actual detective,” she said, a remark which in this city didn’t surprise Kling. In fact, nothing in this city surprised Kling. He plunged ahead regardless. “In any case,” he said, “I don’t want to ask you any questions until you’re ready to answer them. So…”
“I won’t be ready to answer them till Guide’s assures me I’ll get the fifty thousand if what I tell you leads to charges, never mind conviction. If there’s a catch to this, they can just forget the whole thing.”
“I can’t speak for them, of course, but I don’t think there’s a catch. I think they genuinely want to apprehend these guys. Or even one of them, if that’s all the information you have.”
She said nothing.
He looked at her.
“You could feel perfectly safe,” he said.
She still said nothing.
