Blood Relatives by Ed McBain Read Free Book Online Page A

killed her cousin. Do you want us to do that, Mr. Donatelli, or do you want to tell us where you were on Saturday night between ten-thirty and eleven-thirty?”
    “Well, I…I wasn’t at the bowling alley,” Donatelli said.
    “Where were you?”
    “With a girl.”
    “What girl?”
    “A girl I know.”
    “Betsy?”
    “No. I made Betsy up.”
    “Then what girl?”
    “Well, what’s the use?” Donatelli said.
    “Who’s the girl, Mr. Donatelli?”
    “It won’t help me. If I tell you who she is, it won’t help me.”
    “Why not?”
    “Because she’ll lie. She’ll say she doesn’t know me.”
    “Why would she do that?”
    “It’s what I told her to say. I told her if ever anyone asks her about me—her mother, her father, a policeman, anyone —what I want her to say is she’s never even heard of me.”
    “Why’s that, Mr. Donatelli?”
    “Well,” Donatelli said, and shrugged.
    “How old is this girl?” Carella asked.
    “Well,” Donatelli said.
    “How old is she?”
    “She’s pretty young,” Donatelli said.
    “ How young?”
    “She’s thirteen.”
    Carella turned away, walked toward the far end of the narrow room, and then came back to where Donatelli was sitting.
    “Were you with her Saturday night?”
    “Yes.”
    “Where?”
    “Her house.”
    “Where were her parents?”
    “They went to a movie.”
    “What time did you go up there?”
    “At about ten.”
    “And what time did you leave her?”
    “At a quarter to twelve.”
    “What’s her name?”
    “It doesn’t matter,” Donatelli said. “If I give you her name, and you ask her about me, she’ll say she doesn’t know me. She knows I can get in trouble for being with her, she knows that. She’ll lie.”
    “What’s her name?”
    “What difference does it make?”
    “What’s her goddamn name? ”
    “Gloria Hanley.”
    “Where does she live?”
    “831 North Sheridan.”
    “How long have you known her?”
    “I met her six months ago.”
    “How old was she then?”
    “Well, I…I suppose she was twelve.”
    “You’re a very nice man, Mr. Donatelli,” Carella said.
    “I love her,” Donatelli said.
    The object of Mr. Donatelli’s affections was eating a peanut butter and jelly sandwich when she opened the door to the apartment on North Sheridan. Gloria Hanley was a tall, angular girl with tiny breasts, boyish hips, green eyes, a dusting of freckles on her cheeks, and sun-washed blonde hair cut in a Dutch Boy bob. They had announced themselves as police officers, and she had asked them to hold up their shields to the peephole before she would open the door. She stood in the open doorway now in jeans and short-sleeved blouse, studying them with only mild interest.
    “I was just having lunch,” she said. “What is it?”
    “We’d like to ask you some questions,” Carella said. “Would it be all right if we came in?”
    “This isn’t about that dope thing, is it?” Gloria said.
    “What dope thing?”
    “At school. Some kids were caught smoking dope in the toilet.”
    “No, this isn’t about that.”
    “Well, sure, come on in,” Gloria said. “I hope you won’t mind my eating while we talk. I go to school at the crack of dawn, you see, the bus picks me up at six-thirty, would you believe it? But I get home early, too, so I guess it’s not all that horrible. The thing is I’m positively starved when I get here. Would you care for something to eat?”
    “Thank you, no,” Carella said.
    They followed her into the kitchen. Gloria poured herself a glass of milk and drank half of it before she sat down at the table. “My mother should be home any minute,” she said, “if this is anything she ought to hear. She works part-time, usually gets home a little after I do. What’s this all about, anyway?”
    “Gloria, I wonder if you can tell us where you were last Saturday night between ten and midnight.”
    “Huh?” Gloria said.
    “Last Saturday night,” Carella said. “That would have been