Benny Knox had left his newsstand early; usually he didn't leave until
eleven o'clock or when he'd sold out on papers, whichever came first.
But tonight at a quarter after ten there'd been only a few papers left
and he'd decided not to wait any longer; he'd waited that long only
because Mr. Hoff had told him to finish out the evening and then go to
the police station to turn himself in. That had disappointed him; he
had hoped that Mr. Hoff and his partner would take him in themselves in
the squad car, with the siren going and the red light flashing. He had
had rides in automobiles only a few times in his life and never one in
a squad car.
Now inside the police station he stood in front of the tall receiving
desk, at which a gray-haired man was busily writing. The man hadn't
looked up yet. That is, he'd looked up when Benny had come in but then
had looked down and started writing again. Benny stood there waiting
and feeling awkward, but he didn't want to interrupt the man. Under
Benny's arm was clutched the cigar box, now with a rubber band around
it, that held his receipts for the day. One thing about the money in
it puzzled him. He'd counted it before he left the stand, because he
always did, and there were about ten dollars less in it than there
should have been. He couldn't figure out what could have happened to
ten dollars--except for a vague recollection of someone laughing at
him; he remembered feeling angry about that but he couldn't remember
who the someone had been or how it connected with the ten dollars.
The gray-haired man at the desk put down his pen but he still didn't
look toward Benny. He picked up the telephone and said into it, "Get me
Burton." And then a few seconds later, "Lieutenant, Benny Knox is here.
Shall I send him on upstairs, or--" And then, "Okay."
He put down the phone and looked at Benny. "The lieutenant wants to
talk to you, in his office." He jerked a thumb. "Down that corridor,
second door on your right."
Benny found the door and knocked on it lightly. He opened it and went
in when a voice called out for him to do so. The lieutenant with the
red hair was back of a desk.
He said, "Sit down, Benny. Officer Hoff radioed in earlier that you
want to confess to two murders. Is that right?"
Benny sat down. "Yes, sir, Lieutenant. I did kill them women, both of
them. I choked 'em to death." He held up the evidence--his hands.
The red-haired lieutenant nodded gravely. "Benny, we'll have to hold
you overnight and Doc Kranz will talk to you tomorrow. What happens
after that depends on what he says. Do you understand?"
Benny nodded. Although he didn't see where a doctor came in, that
didn't matter as long as they were going to put him in jail and punish
him. Then God and his father would forgive him and everything would be
all right.
The lieutenant said, "One thing, Benny. That woman who takes care--that
you stay with. Does she know you were coming here? If not, I'll phone
her to save her worrying when you don't come home tonight."
Benny shook his head, feeling ashamed of not having thought about Mrs.
Saddler. She _would_ worry about him. And wait up. She never went to
bed until he got home.
"Let's see," the lieutenant said, reaching to pull the phone book over
in front of him. "Her name's Saddler, isn't it? And on Fergus Street?"
"I got her number here, sir," Benny said, glad of a chance to be
helpful. He took a card from his pocket and handed it across the desk.
It was an "in case of accident or illness, notify" card with Mrs.
Saddler's name, address, and phone number on it. She'd asked him to
carry it always and once in a while asked him to show it to her so
she'd be sure he hadn't lost it.
"Thanks, Benny." The lieutenant took the card and gave the number on
it to the switchboard operator over the phone. And then he was saying,
"Mrs. Saddler? I'm phoning you about Benny--this is Lieutenant Burton
speaking--so you won't worry when he doesn't get home tonight.
"Yes, he's here and he's just confessed to two murders--the two recent
sex killings--and.... Yes, I know he didn't do them. We're not charging
him with them. But you remember what I explained to you about a year
ago--that if Benny ever confessed to anything again we'd have to hold
him until Dr. Kranz has a chance to talk to.... No, I wouldn't dare
call the doctor tonight; the chief would have my ears if I did....
Sometime tomorrow, and we'll try to get him to make it early enough so
Benny won't lose the whole day if Doc says to.... Oh, no, Mrs. Saddler,
it wouldn't do any good at all for you to come down. We wouldn't be
able to let you see him anyway, tonight. But we'll take good care of
him, and we'll phone you again tomorrow as soon as there's anything to
report. I won't be on duty then, but I'll leave a memo.... All right,
I'll tell him. Goodnight, Mrs. Saddler."
He put the phone down and smiled at Benny. "She said to tell you good
night for her, and for _you_ not to worry. You've got a fine friend
there, Benny."
Benny nodded. He did feel sorry about Mrs. Saddler and that she'd never
see him again unless she visited him in jail. She was like a mother to
him, or the nearest to a mother he'd ever known. Then he remembered
something the lieutenant had said to her.
"But, Lieutenant, sir, you told her I didn't do it. I _did_, honestly,
I remember, I choked them. You got to believe me."
"Just a minute, Benny," the lieutenant said. He picked up the phone
again. "Give me the jail--Wait, don't. Just call them yourself and tell
them to send down a couple of boys to pick up a customer, in my office.
Thanks."
He looked back at Benny. "Now Benny listen. Maybe you're not yet in the
mood to believe _me_, but I'm going to tell you this anyway. I like
you and I hope you get by Doc Kranz again, and I think you'll have a
better chance of doing that if I can get you started thinking straight
tonight. Then maybe tomorrow you'll realize how wrong you were thinking.
"Listen, Benny, we _know_ you didn't commit those murders, and I'll
tell you how we know. After each one of them we checked a hell of a
lot of suspects. Every man who had a record of sex offenses, any kind.
Every known psychopath, everyone known to us to be seriously abnormal
or subnormal mentally. You--uh--"
"I know I'm not very bright, Lieutenant. I don't mind your saying so as
long as you don't laugh at me. I don't like people to laugh at me."
"I'm not laughing, Benny. Listen to me, listen hard. We checked you
on both of them. On one you've got an absolutely solid alibi; you
_couldn't_ have done it. We know just when that one happened, ten
o'clock in the evening. We could rule you out without even leaving
the station, because Hoff remembered it was ten o'clock, within a few
minutes, when he picked up a paper from you at your stand, three miles
or so from where the woman was being killed. Your alibi on the other
murder isn't quite so solid, because we don't know exactly what time it
happened. But we know you were at your stand all evening till eleven
and you got home about twenty after, just the time it takes you to walk
that far. We can't prove you didn't sneak out later, of course--but you
_didn't_, Benny. Whoever killed either one of those women killed both
of them. That's for sure if anything is."
Benny looked and felt miserable. The lieutenant didn't believe him, and
neither had Mr. Hoff. That much at least of the lieutenant's speech had
registered.
He said unhappily. "But I _did_ kill them, both of them. I remember,
Lieutenant. I'm sure."
"You just think you're sure, Benny. Now before you go to sleep tonight
and in the morning after you wake up you think over what I said and
make yourself a little less sure. I--"
The door opened and two men in the uniforms of turnkeys from the city
jail on the upper floors of the building came in. One of them, the tall
one, said, "Package for us, Lieutenant? You through with him?"
The lieutenant sighed. "Yeah, I guess I'm through with him. This is
Benny Knox, boys. He'll be your guest tonight. A disposition order will
come up sometime tomorrow."
"Sure. Just in the tank?"
"Hell, no. Benny never took a drink in his life; don't put him in with
the drunks. You've got cell space, haven't you?"
"Yeah. What's with the cigar box he's got? A time bomb, maybe?"
"It's got money in it," the lieutenant said, "and be sure there's the
same amount when you turn it in."
The tall turnkey grinned. "Why, Lieutenant! Have you frisked him
otherwise?"
"No, Benny wouldn't be carrying a--Oh, I suppose we might as well
protect ourselves by following the routine. He just might get a funny
idea, at that. You take care of it."
"All right, chum," the turnkey said to Benny. "Come on; we'll take care
of you. We'll give you the bridal suite, and you can be making up your
mind whether you want a blonde or a brunette to go with it."
Benny realized that was a joke so he didn't try to answer. He went with
them along two corridors and up several flights in an elevator, then
along another corridor and through a door into an office in which there
was a desk with a young male clerk behind it.
At the desk they asked him for the cigar box; they opened it and the
clerk counted it. When he called out and wrote down the total, it was
the same amount Benny himself had counted it to be just before he'd
left the newsstand. Meanwhile the turnkeys had asked him to empty his
pockets onto the desk and he had. They patted him a few places and
then gave him back what he'd taken out of his pockets except for one
thing, a small penknife he used for cutting the rope around bundles of
papers and for cleaning his fingernails. They asked him to take off his
belt and he did. He wasn't wearing a necktie; he never wore one except
to church. And they didn't take his shoelaces because he was wearing
moccasins. Hard shoes hurt his feet and he always wore moccasins except
on Sunday.
Then they took him down another corridor, through a steel door, past
the barred doors of cells. Then they opened a cell door and the tall
turnkey said, "All right, chum, this is it. Home, sweet home."
Benny went in and they closed the door behind him. The closing door
made a loud clang and someone somewhere yelled out, "Quiet, you
bastards!" And then they went away and left him alone.
The cell was long and narrow, about six feet by fifteen. Enough light
came in from the corridor through the bars so he could see his way
around. There was a double-decker bunk bed--with no one in either the
upper nor the lower--two chairs and, back in the far corner, a commode.
That was all, or it was all that he could see now, in the dimness.
He sighed and took off his suit coat, hung it over the back of one of
the chairs and put his moccasins under the chair.
He started to get into the lower bunk and then remembered that he'd
never slept in a high bed, an upper bunk, in his life and he wondered
if it would feel any different, so he climbed into the upper and
stretched himself out.
The lieutenant had told him there was something he should think about
tonight and he tried to remember what it was. But within seconds, and
before he could remember, he was asleep.