home."

"I wouldn't put it that way,"although she almost had. "She only dropped out of sight for the onesummer, and she was working all the time. She had a job with a newspaper inChicago. Then she started in at the University, and she let me know where shewas. It was just her father—" She cut this sentence off short. "Iused to help her out of my housekeeping money until we went into theNavy."

"What was the trouble between her andher father?"

"It had to do with his professionalwork. At least that was what the final big battle was about."

"When Helen called him a crookedstormtrooper?"

She turned in the seat to look at me."Helen told you that, eh? Are you—were you her boy friend or somethinglike that?"

"We were friends." I found thatI could say it with some conviction. We had spent a single angry hour togetherbut her death had turned a light on it which hurt my eyes.

She leaned closer to study my face. "What elsedid she tell you?"

"There was murder involved in her quarrel withher father."

"That's a lie. I don't mean Helen waslying, but she was mistaken. The Deloney shooting was an accident pure andsimple. If Helen thought she knew more about it than her father, she was deadwrong."

"Dead" and "wrong"were heavy words to lay on the dead. Her black-gloved hand flew up to hermouth. She rode for a while in hunched and fearful silence, a thin dry cricketof a woman who had lost her chirp.

"Tell me about the Deloney shooting, Mrs.Hoffman."

"I don't see the point of doing that. I nevertalk about my husband's cases. He doesn't like me to."

"But he isn't here."

"In a way he is. We've been together so long.Anyway it's all past history."

"History is always connected with the present.That case may have something to do with Helen's death."

"How could that be? It was twentyyears ago, longer than that, and it didn't amount to anything at the time. Theonly reason it made an impression on Helen was that it happened in ourapartment building. Mr. Deloney was cleaning a gun, and it went off and shothim, and that was the whole story."

"Are you sure?"

"Hoffman said so, and Hoffman doesn'tlie." It sounded like an incantation which she had used before.

"What made Helen think he waslying?"

"Imagination pure and simple. Shesaid she talked to a witness who saw somebody shoot Mr. Deloney, but I say shedreamed it. No witness ever turned up, and Hoffman said there couldn't havebeen a witness. Mr. Deloney was alone in the apartment when it happened. Hetried to clean a loaded gun and shot himself in the face. Helen must havedreamed the other. She had a bit of a crush on Mr. Deloney. He was agood-looking man, and you know how young girls are."

"How old was she?"

"Nineteen. That was the summer she lefthome."

It was full dark now. Away off to theright the lights of Long Beach, where I had spent my own uneasy youth, werereflected like a dying red fire from the overcast.

"Who was Mr. Deloney?"

"Luke Deloney," she said."He was a very successful contractor in Bridgeton and throughout thestate. He owned our apartment building and other buildings in town. Mrs.Deloney still owns them. They're worth a lot more than they were then, and eventhen he was close to a millionaire."

"Deloney has a surviving widow?"

"Yes, but don't go jumping toconclusions. She was miles away, in their main house, when it happened. Surethere was a lot of talk in town, but she was as innocent as a newborn babe. Shecame from a very good family. She was one of the famous Osborne sisters inBridgeton."

"What were they famous for?"

"Their father was the U. S. Senator.I remember when I was in grade school, back before the World War One, they usedto ride to hounds in red coats. But they were always very democratic."

"Good for them." I brought herback to the Deloney case. "You say Deloney was shot in the building whereyou had your own apartment?"

"Yes. We were in an apartment on theground floor. We got it dirt cheap because we used to collect the rent for Mr.Deloney. He kept the roof apartment for himself. He used it for a kind ofprivate office, and a place to throw parties for visiting firemen and so on. Alot of big men from the state house were friends of his. We used to see themcoming and going," she said in a privileged way.

"And he shot himself in this penthouseapartment?"

"The gun shot him," she corrected me."It was an accident."

"What sort of a man was Deloney?"

"He was a self-made man, I guessyou'd say. He came from the same section of town Hoffman and I did, which ishow we got the job collecting rent for him, and that helped, in the depression.The depression didn't faze Luke Deloney. He borrowed the money to start his owncontracting business and came up fast on his own initiative, and marriedSenator Osborne's oldest daughter. There's no telling where he might have gotto. He was only a young man of forty when he died."

"Helen was interested in him, you

© Alexander Sviyash, 2009