The Best American Mystery Stories, Volume 17 Read Online Free Page A

huge old houses, now subdivided into apartments, until we spotted the address. Most of the houses were dark upstairs, with a few lights on downstairs. We could see a group of people on Phara’s front porch. Or, more accurately, we could see cigarette glows, moving in arcs from waist level to head level, growing in intensity, then descending.
    Sandy parallel-parked a few doors down the street, which took a few minutes. We walked up the unshoveled sidewalk, snow squeaking under our shoes. We could hear conversation, laughter, even the clink of a glass from the porch. Sandy took my arm.
    The concrete steps up to the front yard were broken, uneven, without a guardrail. I took them one at a time, favoring the hip and knee I’d had replaced. I could feel the eyes on us. The conversation on the porch stopped.
    Sandy stopped at the foot of the stairs onto the porch. A small black man separated himself from the circle, crossed to the top of the stairs, and said, “May I help you?” He said it politely, usher polite.
    Sandy stood mute, so I said, “We came to express our condolences to the girl’s grandmother.”
    The man didn’t move aside but looked at me. “Do we know you, sir?” He had a subtle accent, not Western Hemisphere.
    â€œNo, I don’t think so. We were in the restaurant where the girl was kidnapped.” As soon as I said it, I realized how pathetic I sounded. Grasping.
    One of the men farther back on the porch, deeper in shadow, made a snort of derision. I could hear muttering. Sandy was studying the stairs, holding on to my arm as if it were a life preserver.
    â€œYou saw my daughter? Last night?” The man didn’t come down the steps, but he leaned forward at the waist, as if he were looking into a fish tank.
    I nodded. “This morning. About three. She came in the diner for some breakfast.”
    The muttering grew louder. “And the police have talked to you?”
    â€œSure. They were there this morning. They catch the guy yet?”
    â€œWhat guy?” he said, placing his cigarette in the corner of his mouth.
    â€œThe bald white guy,” Sandy said. “That picked her up.”
    Another man emerged from the group. He was black as well, much larger, younger, beefy with the wide head, nose, round cheeks and chin I’d come to associate with Central Africa.
    The bigger man said, “What did this guy look like?” He had no accent. He stood well apart from the first man.
    I described the bald white guy. As I talked, I could see faintly someone deeper on the porch writing on a spiral pad. The large man turned toward the porch when I was finished, said something I couldn’t hear, listened, and nodded.
    â€œMrs. Johnson’s not here. Who shall we say came to call?” He said it perfunctorily, like the kiss-off from a good administrative assistant.
    I gave him our names. He nodded, as did the smaller man. Neither seemed prone to continue our conversation or move aside to invite us in, so we nodded in return and headed back to the street. My heart was beating so loudly I could almost not make out the laughter as one voice said, “You tell ’em Phara’s back at the club?”
    â€œWell, that was a clusterfuck,” I said as Sandy started the car. I was plenty warm now, although the heater still didn’t work. I hadn’t been exactly scared, but I was certainly on edge.
    â€œHow can they laugh with that poor girl dead?” Sandy said, nose twitching again. “With her father standing there? Have they no respect? And that grandmother? What a bitch.”
    â€œWhat I don’t get is why they didn’t know about the bald guy.”
    â€œMaybe the cops are afraid they’d go after him themselves.”
    â€œMaybe they should.”
    Sandy dropped me off at home after a silent ride across town. We didn’t even say goodbye, just nodded, knowing we’d see one another again in a few hours at