 It was a dirty trick. Why did they have to send me? There were lots of other fellas on the force they could have sent around the teller. Fellas who were impartial, who had no feeling about the case one way or the other. But no, they had to send me. I remember riding over there in the prowl car that night. Jack Hurley was driving. I said, Oh, look, Hurley, why don't you go up and tell her? Not in zone, Norris. The old man said you. Oh, but you haven't any connection with the case. No, but it happens to be one part of the job that always makes my stomach crawl too. Oh, come on. No, thanks, Norris. This is your party. From mixing the cake to blowing out the candles. What'd you say the number of the house was? Uh, 6427 Locust Drive. Let me shoot the spot around and see if we can catch the house numbers. That'll be pretty close to it. Can you read what the number on that door says? Uh, 6411. Must be that third house in the corner. Okay, Norris, there she is. 6427. I'll wait here for you. Uh, Hurley, is it worth it five for you to go in and tell her? My friend, they haven't started making money and denominations big enough to make me say yes to that job. Sorry. I didn't say any more. I just opened the car door and stepped out onto the sidewalk. I stood there a moment looking at the house. It was a stucco affair that looked as if it were made of some bilious blue confectionery. Black windows stared out of me like blind eyes. I swallowed and then I moved toward the house. Heavy footed, I plotted up the three stone steps to the door. I listened as the bell shattered its fullness inside. I waited. Then a light flashed on upstairs. I listened. Padded feet thumped down the stairs. The whole light came on and the feet padded toward the door. Then the gnar rattled and the door swung out. It was small and frail and had arbor and hair that was piled high on her head. Although at first I didn't see any of those things. The first thing that hit me were her eyes. They were big and brown and filled with a sort of dread anticipation the moment they clamped onto my uniform. In fact, it may sound ridiculous, but her eyes screamed when they saw me. I could hear them scream just as if the sound came from her throat. I swallowed again and felt my scowl. Tighten at the back of my neck. Like someone had just laid a nice handful of icicles there. She made it easier for me in a sense because she spoke the first word. Yes. What is it? Something's happened to John. You're Mrs. Miller? Mrs. John Miller? Yes. Yes, I'm Mrs. Miller. What's happened to him? You better brace yourself for a shock, Mrs. Miller. What's happened? He... had an accident. He's not. Yes, Mrs. Miller. He's dead. Oh! Oh! No, maybe you better go back into the house and sit down. Better sit here in this easy chair. Thank you. How did it happen? Car fell? Ma'am, you're sure you're okay to listen? Of course. Well, it isn't very pretty, Mrs. Miller. Maybe something of a shock to you. What are you trying to tell me, Austin? Your husband was shot. Shot? How? Where? In a hold-up, ma'am. A hold-up? Oh. At Stover's warehouse. Oh. Did you catch the man? Who would want to hold him up? I'm afraid, ma'am. He was on the wrong end of the hold-up. Can't be not John. I'm sorry, ma'am. Well, there must be some mistake. You don't know John. Recognize these papers, Mrs. Miller? What? John Miller? Why, yes, that's his old private license. He was going to get it renewed. And this is a photostatic copy of his discharge papers, right? Yes. Yes, those are his. They were taken off his body, Mrs. Miller. Those and this blank application for unemployment insurance. Yes. He was going to fill it out and file it if he didn't find something to do by the end of the week. He wasn't working? No. That's where he went this afternoon, left home quite late. Said he wouldn't be back until very late. Told me not to wait up. If it's John, maybe... Maybe there's been a mistake. Maybe, ma'am. But you'll be able to tell for sure in the morning. In the morning? Yes. You'll be asked to go to the morgue to identify him. But I... Well, I wouldn't hold out too much hope, Mrs. Miller. Why? Oh, and then he matches the description on that driver's license to a T. You better get back upstairs to bed and try to grab off some sleep. Tomorrow will be a bad day for you. Yes, I'll see you to the door. If there's anything I can do to help. Thank you. You've been very kind. Well, good night, Mrs. Miller. Good night. I was very kind. That's what she said. Very kind. Yes, I was very kind. I was very kind until tomorrow morning when she found out that I was the guy who killed her husband. I never figured they'd give the story such a big spread. I figured on a third of a column, maybe on the inside pages, but no. The thing happened to break when they were fresh out of visiting generals and strikes and major accidents. So they splashed assorted details all over the front page. There was a three-quarter view cut of me and my uniform and kept smack in the middle of page one. The caption read, The hero shoots gunman in warehouse robbery. Went on to tell my story. I saw a light flashing in the warehouse, crept to the door and surprised the thief, John Miller. How he drew and tried to plug me in, how in the gun fight that followed, I shot and killed him. It all sounded just like something out of a dime detective story with me, the big hero. What I didn't like was the way it played up that he was an ex-serviceman, honorably discharged, out of a job. A victim of a time. A Joe who had distinguished himself in combat, only to come home to find himself a forgotten hero. Even brought out how he used the German Luger he'd brought home as a souvenir to stage the robbery. But, of course, the important thing was everybody said I was right. They all agreed that I had no way of knowing that the guy was an ex-serviceman. One reporter said, when a guy has a gun, he's about to use it. You don't walk up and say, please, may I see your discharge papers? Of course, the boys at the station saddled me with that hero stuff and rode me all over the place, kidded me about how it felt to be a celebrity and swooned at myself on the front page. When I left the station to go on my regular tours, I guess I must have had my picture snapped fifty times. Seems everybody wanted to get into a shot with him. When I got back from tours, the captain left word at the desk for me to go right into his office. Come in, come in. Sit down. Oh, thank you. Well, you're quite a hero, Norris. First chance I've had to talk to you about it. I never figured it would draw as much attention as it has, Captain. Captured to a lot of people's imagination. A lot of important people. Important people? Including the commissioner. The commissioner? Yeah. He called me today. Norris, how would you like to be transferred to the detective division? Plain clothes, hmm? This was too much. If he only knew how long I'd wanted to change into plain clothes and join the detective squad. If he only knew how long and hard I'd worked for it. And now he laid it right in my lap. Yes, it was quite a day. Quite a day. But if I thought it was over, I had another guess coming. That night I went to Mike's place for dinner. I usually ate dinner at Mike's, mainly because he served the best mess of food 75 cents could buy. Only tonight when I came in he said... Tonight, Pete, is it dinner as he is under me? Oh, never let it be said. Pete Norris argued with a guy about buying him a meal. Just the one thing, Pete. Well, I figured there was a catch in it, Mike. What do you want? Oh, please, please. I would like you to autograph this menu, huh? Well, talk about you believer or not. Here was a man I'd known for the past too many years. And now, just because I shot a man and got my picture on the front page, he was all excited about getting my autograph. Well, I scribbled my name on the menu for him and anchored one of the tables in the back and sat down. First chance I'd had all day to... Well, to be alone and really think. As I dug into the plate of spaghetti Mike served me, a pair of brown eyes suddenly snapped on in my brain. It wasn't the first time since last night that I'd thought of those eyes, or the person they belonged to, but I'd always been able to close them out because so much was happening. Now, they've stayed with me. I couldn't rightly tell whether they were accusing or just hurt. Then an incredible thing happened. A voice that matched those eyes spoke and... Hello, Officer Norris. Oh, Mrs. Miller, I... Well, I was just... I'm sorry if I'm bothering you, Officer Norris, but you were so kind last night when you came to tell me I... Well, I... I just wanted to ask you a few more questions. Of course, Mrs. Miller. Well, sit down, sit down, please. Thank you. Uh, you eaten? Yes, yes, thank you. Or coffee maybe? No, thank you. I... I just want to talk if you don't mind. Well, of course I don't mind, but you certainly read the papers. Papers? I mean... You know I'm the one who... Yes, I know. I'm not blaming you, Officer Norris. Pete, if you don't mind, everybody calls me that. I'm Betty. Pretty decent of you not to blame me, Mrs. Miller. I mean, Betty, a lot of women wouldn't feel that way. It was your duty. You saw someone robbing the warehouse and... Well, it was your job to stop them. But... But what? I can't believe John would do such a thing that... There must be a mistake someplace. A mistake? Yes. Probably... Probably John saw the light flashing the same as you did. Maybe he went to find out what was happening too. John was like that. You mean... Maybe I shot the wrong person? It's possible. Maybe the other person who it was fired the first shot and then ducked. You maybe thought it was John and he thought it was you. Can't you see, Pete, I've got to believe that's what happened? Yes. Yes, it would make things easier for you. No. No, not for me, Pete. The jigger. Jigger? My son. Oh. I didn't know you had a son. Three years old. Born a few months after his daddy sailed for Europe. You see now why I've got to believe that way for his sake? Why I've got to prove that John didn't really go there to rob and kill? Well, believing it, that's okay, Betty, but proving... Oh, that's a different thing. That's not going to be so easy. No, it's not going to be easy, Pete. But I've got to do it. That's why I came here to ask you to help me. Of course I'll help, but where do we start? There isn't a single clue to go on. We've got to find a clue. How? I don't know. I don't know, Pete. I haven't the faintest idea of what even began like looking for it here in an ocean. But you will help me, won't you? I tried to say no. I wanted to say no because I knew it could all lead to only one thing. But her eyes big and brown and full of pleading grabbed at my heart. It wasn't just pity that made me say, yes, I've been in harness too many years to let anything like that sway me. This was something stronger. Something that had never happened to me in all my years. Something I told myself never would or could happen to me. Last night I felt it when she first opened the door. But I managed to fight it off then. Now it was too powerful, too overwhelming to fight off. Besides, I didn't want to fight it off. Yes, I was in love with Betty Miller. I was in love with the wife of the man that I'd killed. Officer Peter Norris, and this was a hero. A play well calculated to keep you in suspense. Strange when you're in love with someone you don't want to sit and talk to them about death. Death is something that seems very far removed from life. Love is just another way of saying life, of saying you're glad to be alive. At least that's how I felt about it. But Betty, she wanted to talk about death. The death that had thrown us together. The death she said she wanted to prove was an honorable one. So we sat there in Mike's and talked about it. There are several things I don't understand, Pete. And they are? Well, first of all, John wouldn't take anything that didn't belong to him. Well, a man will do a lot of things he never did before if his wife and child need something. But the fact that he didn't even want to take the unemployment insurance if the state was willing to give him proves how proud he was. Well, sometimes a man can hide his pride and not let anyone know. Besides, he did have a gun on him, a German Luger. Yes, I know, but that only strengthens his case. Well, how come? Well, he took that gun within to pawn. It was a souvenir that he brought back with him from Germany. He figured he could easily sell it. But he didn't. But that's just it, Pete. He said if he got the job, he went after he wouldn't pawn it. Now, wait a minute. Maybe this is important. In other words, you think he got the job. Oh, Pete, if we can prove that, maybe we can prove he had no reason to rob the warehouse. Because if he had a job, certainly John never would have done such a thing. Never. If I can find out that much, I'll prove he died honorably. I'm telling you, Pete, I'm not going to let this thing rest. You... You know what job he was after? No. No, I just never thought of asking. How did he hear of it? Read it in the paper. Oh? What paper? The Evening Globe. You still got it? I know. He took it with him. And he went to see about the job late in the afternoon? After four o'clock. Why? Oh, no reason. Well, I saw Betty home. I had full intention of leaving her at the door, but she insisted I come in and meet Jigger, her son. Betty's sister was there. A kid about 16. She'd been minding Jigger and had put him to bed, and we went upstairs to the bedroom to see him. He was sitting there in his bed in some kind of kid's nightclothes with the feet and hands sewed in. On one side of him was a big fluffy floppy ear dog, and the other side was a big pink and blue elephant. I'll never forget the way his little eyes fastened onto my face. I felt like turning and bolting back down the stairs. But I knew he had no way of knowing that I was the guy who had killed his father. In fact, Betty had told me that he'd seen so little of his father that he hadn't had time to even get used to him. I knew as soon as he crinkled the corners of his mouth in a smile that I was foolish for thinking the way I did. I knew too that this was something I'd missed. Some part of life that had passed me by. Something I suddenly wanted more than anything else in the world, but did I dare take it? I finally shook hands goodnight with a little fella, said so long to Betty and her sister and left. I took the bus back downtown. I found a newspaper stand that had a copy of last night's evening globe. Turning to the classified ad section, I went through a list of help wanted. Under Car Washers Mail, I found an ad placed by a guy named Crown who ran the city garage on Maple Street. Now, Maple Street wasn't too far from the warehouse where I shot John Miller last night. In fact, you had to pass the warehouse to get to the bus line. Half an hour later, I was talking to Al Crown while he squirted a hose on a muddy blue-black sedan. Yeah, I'm the guy that put the ad in the paper. We're all a good at it. Guys are the wicker here. Guys can't get a job, everybody says. Eh, nuts, I says. How long did you run the ad? Uh, a whole week I run the ad. What happens? Three guys answers it. Three guys? Yeah, one a night. That's all they last. Oh, what happens? Al Crown's got to climb into a pair of rubber boots and clean cars his self. Al Crown, the guy that owns the jet has to do this. Oh, hand me that sponge, will you? Yeah. Oh, thanks. Did you hire anybody last night? I say, did you hire anybody last night? Last night? Last night? Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, last night. Yeah, I found me the answer to a garage owner's prayer. He was a sweetheart. The guy washed more cars than the eight hours he worked and the other two guys washed together. Remember his name? Eh, wait a minute, I ain't so good on remembering. Johnny. Yeah, Johnny's something. A nice looking kid with blonde curly hair and glasses. Said he was coming back tonight. Never figured he'd stand me up. Oh, yeah, I remember. Miller. Johnny Miller, that was it. Oh. But I guess the roller like collects you seven bucks and blows. You haven't read today's papers. Look, I was washing cars with this here Miller guy till midnight. Anybody come in? Huh, after five o'clock at night this place is dead in underneath the satin pillars of a casket. So Miller left here at midnight? On the noggin. And I spent the rest of the night fixing flats, changing earl and scraping plugs. Didn't hit the sack till almost nine this morning, just got up an hour ago. Now you tell me what time do I have to read papers? And why? Another woven declared? Or did some brain find something to split the thing that split the atom, huh? The next morning I picked up the paper and on the second page I see a picture of none other than Al Crown the fella I spoke to last night. There was a one word caption over his photo. Murdered. Below was the picture, picture was the story. Someone had stolen into the garage last night and beat the garage owner to death with a heavy jack handle. It looked like a murder robbery job the paper said because the cash drawer was rifle and things in the office were scattered all over. Well, as soon as I had breakfast I called Betty. I told her I had the morning and most of the afternoon off and I'd like to see her. There was suddenly a lot of things I wanted to talk to her about. She said okay, so I grabbed the bus out to a place. Maybe I was imagining things, but I had a peculiar feeling that something was wrong the minute she opened the door. I don't know what it was, but there was something about her eyes. Aren't you coming in, Pete? Oh, thanks. I don't have to report until late this afternoon thought maybe you and I and Jigger could go someplace. Oh, I'm sorry, Pete. I let Jigger go with my sister. She's promised to take him to the zoo for so long. Oh, well... I'm sorry, Pete. Well, it's okay. Maybe it's just as well anyway. There's some things I'd like to talk over with you. You found out something? Let's go someplace else and talk, shall we? Pete, you don't like this house? Well, maybe it's remembering how and why I first came here. Well, I'll get my hat, Pete. I'll only be a second. She turned and walked into the next room to get her hat. She couldn't have been much more than across the threshold when I clapped my eyes on it. He was lying right there on the end table on top of a couple of books. A copy of the Evening Globe. I grabbed it up in my hand. The date on it seemed to leap off the paper and smash into my brain. Wednesday, October 24th, the night before last, the night her husband was murdered. It was the copy of the paper she said she didn't have. The page the paper was open to was a classified ad section, and halfway down the first column was the item. Car washer, mail. It was the same ad I had read, and it was circled with red lipstick. I blacked out completely for about 30 seconds. I couldn't move, couldn't think, couldn't see. Everything before me was just a black curtain, and then from the doorway... So, so you found it? I don't know what I did first. I don't know whether I tried to turn or hide the paper or tried to speak, but when I did turn, I saw her eyes. Wide, fierce, murders stabbed out of them and fastened on the paper in my hand. Well, Pete, what now? Oh, you know where he went? Yes. You know he got the job? Yes. You read this morning's papers? Yes. Well, Betty... I'm sorry. You are? Yes, Betty. I am. Really, I am. What are you going to do to me? What is there left to do? Only one answer. You're... you're going to kill me. Like it killed John and the garage owner. Yes. Then you did kill him. Yes. You're the one who was actually robbing the warehouse, and John surprised you and you killed him and then turned the story around, made yourself a hero. Too bad you found out, Betty. I've grown very fond of you. I wanted to marry you, Betty. I wanted to make you my wife. You're mad you wanted to marry me, the wife of the man you murdered. I'd have made it up to you and to Jigger. I'd have given you the things John Miller never could have given you. No. Too bad, Betty. No. But you know too much to stay alive. No! No! All right, all right, all right. Hello, Captain. Well, I suppose you heard it all. Yeah, yeah, we were hiding upstairs now. Mrs. Miller called us as soon as she read about our crown's murder this morning. We were coming to get you, but decided it was better to have you come here, as Mrs. Miller suggested. Okay boys, take care. Come on, Nora. This is the Armed Forces Radio Service.