Miss Lizzie by Walter Satterthwait Read Free Book Online Page A

of color were visible, bright red splotches, clownlike, against the pallor of his face. His clothes were considerably less dapper than Officer Medley’s, and considerably less well fitting: the circumference of his shirt, in particular, lagged several inches behind his girth, and a button had popped undone at his belly to reveal a diamond-shaped expanse of taut white undershirt.
    â€œJesus-Mary-and-Joseph, Tommy!” he cried in a horrified brogue, his eyes wild. “You should see what the evil bastards done to her! Blood all over, buckets of the stuff!”
    â€œFrank,” said Officer Medley, slowly, patiently, but with a rising note of warning in his voice that even I could hear.
    The other policeman, however, was too appalled, and too excited, to listen. “Like a slaughterhouse it was! My God, Tommy, I’ve never seen the like, never in me life! They hacked her up like an old heifer , bones pokin’ through and brains spillin’ out across the bedsheets !”
    In a rush, everything came hurtling back to me—the walls, the bed, the gore, the mutilated human wreckage that had been my stepmother—and, with a gasp, I drew up my knees, wrapped my arms around them, and dug my face into the, afghan, my entire body clenched as tightly as a fist.
    I sensed, more than heard, Officer Medley spring from his crouch. “God damn it, Frank!”
    Almost simultaneously from Miss Lizzie: “You clod, you oaf ! You insensitive cretin ! How dare you?”
    â€œNow hold on there just a minute, lady,” said the second officer. Nothing brings a policeman to his senses, reminds him of his significant position within an ordered society, more swiftly than a reproach of any sort from a civilian.
    But Miss Lizzie overrode him: “Don’t you dare tell me what to do, you insufferable lout. This girl has had a dreadful shock, and you come blundering in here like some comic opera buffoon . It will not do, it will not do at all. I’ll thank you to leave my house at once.”
    â€œListen, lady, you don’t seem to understand who it is, exactly, you’re talkin’ to.” And then, growing heated as he fully appreciated the intolerable indecency of it: “I’m the police , lady, the police , and there’s been a horrible murder committed here, and if anyone’s to be doin’ any orderin’ around, it’ll be me that does it!”
    â€œ Frank ,” said Officer Medley. “Let it go.”
    â€œDid ya hear her, Tommy? Orderin’ me about like a bloody drill sergeant? I’ll have none of that from her, by God, not when likely she’s the one herself that did the old lady in.”
    â€œFrank—” said Officer Medley.
    â€œBloody, Miss Lizzie Borden , and bloody’s the name of the game all right, where Miss Lizzie Borden is involved.”
    â€œI think,” said Miss Lizzie, and her voice was chill, “that we have had quite enough of this. I am entirely aware of my rights, and of the child’s. A lawyer will be here presently, and I feel constrained to warn you that I shall be—”
    â€œA bloody lawyer , is it now!”
    â€œDamn it, Frank!”
    â€œâ€”shall be discussing with him not only the legal means requisite to protecting the interests of the child, but also such matters as harassment and, of course, slander.”
    â€œSlander! Slander , is it? Tommy, the whole world knows she whacked her ma and pa!”
    â€œ Jesus , Frank.”
    â€œUnless you propose to make an arrest,” said Miss Lizzie, “I must ask you—” She broke off for a moment abruptly, and then said in a tone that was, if possible, even more chilled, “And who , might I ask, are you ?”
    â€œDa Silva,” said a voice, an altogether new voice. “The chief of police.” And the voice was so commanding, it seemed to resonate with such absolute authority, that even Miss Lizzie was for the