by B C Bell
“Getcher filthy hands offa me ya dirty animal!” Alice Carter suddenly roared out in a voice different from one that Julia Carter or Tommy or Larry Epstein had ever heard. It was the rough Cockney of the nastier parts of London and it came with fury and swift action.
Alice wrenched her arm free of her attacker’s grip. Her hand free, she formed her soft fingers into a fist and swung, full force, at his face. She could feel his whiskers scrape her skin as her knuckles landed against his bulbous nose. The cracking sound was audible as the nose broke and blood splashed forth from both his nostrils at once. He let out a choked groan which turned into a sharp soprano shriek as Alice brought her knee up, with no lack of anger behind it, into his crotch. He fell upon the dirty concrete of the alley and curled up into a whimpering ball of pain and helplessness. As Alice turned to walk away from the victimizer who had become the victim, she resisted the urge to completely devolve into a previous version of herself and spit on him. She could smell the sharp stench of urine as she walked away; the pain had made the ruffian lose control of his bladder.
***
“Getcher filthy hands offa me ya dirty animal!”
Alice woke up the next morning as the sunlight came in through the apartment window. She was on her familiar bed, but alone there for the first time since she had married Tommy. She was still in the clothes she had worn when she had walked there. Her hand throbbed and she looked down at it to see that she had split the flesh on one knuckle. As she looked at the now clotted wound, she remembered what had happened in the alley the night before. She remembered who she had become again, if only for those few brief seconds of violence and self-preservation. The thought of that temporary transformation made scenes from her childhood flood into her mind. She welcomed the avalanche of memories as a welcome respite from the thoughts of Tommy and his being gone that had haunted her for the last three days. She let the memories wash over her; some were good, some were bad, but they were, at least, of a time when she knew less pain than had been thrust at her with Tommy’s passing.
She saw the place she had called Home when she had been a little girl. She had never known her mother, a victim of a fever she had contracted shortly after giving birth to Alice. But her father she would never forget. Life with Daddy had been happy, joyous, and so full of love that Alice had never really felt the lack of a mother in her life. Her father earned enough from the local mill, supplemented by his Army pension, to afford a decent little cottage for him and his little girl. Village life was good, carefree as much as any life could be, and peaceful. Alice would go to school and then rush home and wait for her father. They would eat supper and then he would tell her stories of his youth, of what it was like growing up in that same little village over forty years earlier.
On Sundays, when there was no work and no school, and after morning church services, Alice and her father would make their pilgrimages into the woods. Out there, alone among the trees, Daddy would stand empty beer bottles upon old tree stumps and he would teach Alice how to shoot a pistol. She became quite a good shot for a little girl. It was an odd thing for a father to teach a daughter, but it was what Alice’s father knew and so he felt the need to pass it on to his child, regardless of whether or not it might be considered proper by those who made it their business to tell other people what was, or was not, proper.
Alice’s father had been a sergeant major before retiring and taking a job at the mill and raising his daughter in the same village where he had grown up years before. As much as his skill with a pistol amazed her, she was aware that he had been an even more expert marksman in his army days. By the time Alice had been born, he had taught himself to shoot left-handed after leaving his right arm in a trench in France during The Great War.
Those fond times in that little village were not destined to last forever and Alice would know some sorrow before she had left her childhood. When she was fifteen, her father’s heart gave out when he overexerted himself at the mill. He had always prided himself on the ability to do just as much work as those men who still had both arms to make a living with. One day, he just pushed himself too hard and that was it for him; Alice was an orphan.
She knew that if she stayed there, in the place she had grown up in, having no living relatives, she’d be sent to an orphanage, watched and controlled by rules and regulations every moment of every day and every night. She could not bear the idea of that state of captivity and so she decided to take her chances with fending for herself in the world beyond the boundaries of that little town. Before the orphan collectors came for her, she had gathered up what little money and valuables were in that little cottage and she had slipped away to try to make her way to London, where nobody knew her and nobody would try to interfere with her precious freedom.
She found London, but had no idea how quickly her little stash of money would run dry. She turned sixteen homeless and cold and hungry and alone. She wouldn’t sell herself to survive; she couldn’t bring herself to do such a dreadful thing, so she stole. That was bad and she felt a great guilt in her gut every time she took a bite from some purloined loaf or snatched apple, but it kept her alive without having to resort to an even greater sin.
On those East End streets, she learned to do other things to keep herself alive. There were always those who would try to steal what little she had, including her innocence, so she learned to quickly, efficiently, and decisively either escape from those who posed a threat, or viciously remind them that she was not one to be taken advantage of so easily. She learned to use her fists, her nails, her teeth when she had to.
For nearly three years, Alice had lived like a rat. She scraped together food, worked what small, menial jobs she could find, and just barely managed to stay alive. When she could stand that wretched existence no longer, she decided to take a chance at finding something else or, at least, something new. She used her street skills, her knack for hiding and evading detection, and her ability to survive on the crumbs and leftovers of others to stow away on a passenger ship bound for New York. She thought she would die sooner or later, probably starving or freezing to death in some slum alley, so she decided that America was as good a place as England to end up dead; at least she’d see a new land before it was all over, she convinced herself.
As the ship sailed into New York Harbor and Alice gazed out through the porthole of the empty cabin she had hidden in, the sun rising over the vast and proud city, she felt her heart come aglow with wonder and she vowed that she would survive there in that Promised Land, making a fresh start and leaving behind the life of just barely scraping by that had gotten her through since her father’s death.
Once in Manhattan, she engaged in one last use of her thieving skills, taking just enough money from a shopkeeper who looked away from his cashbox for too long, just enough to buy a decent set of clothes and rent a small room for a few weeks. She even returned the money, dropping it in the shop’s doorway a few minutes before she knew the owner would be opening up for the day, once she had made enough on her own to repay the unwilling loan. Once she had the clothes to look presentable, she had found a job. It wasn’t anything spectacular, just a position in a factory that made handbags, but it was respectable enough and for the first time in her life on her own, Alice had felt human again.
She worked hard at the factory, saving some pennies when she could and working on shedding her accent and speaking like a real American girl and blending in with her adopted surroundings. One evening after a long day’s work, she was asked to go to a local college football game by Joanie Watkins, a friend from the factory. She accepted and soon found herself sitting in the bleachers watching a game she didn’t understand at all. She was quite bored until her eyes happened to fall on the sight of the quarterback, of the winning team, taking off his helmet after the final play of the game. It was then, at the moment she first caught sight of Tommy Carter, that her life had changed forever. He was ta
ll, broad-shouldered, blond and blue-eyed. To Alice, Tommy Carter was America. Once she had seen him, she knew she had to have him.
Two years later, the two were married. She never told him about her adolescence on the streets of London’s East End. She never told him how she had stolen and sneaked and scraped for dear life. Tommy knew that his young bride had been born in England, but he knew little else of her life before she had sailed to America. He loved her, and she loved him, and nothing else mattered.
Tommy had always wanted to be a detective. He graduated the Police Academy and started his term of duty as a patrolman, hoping to make the Detective’s Bureau before too much time went by. Alice would never forget how handsome he had looked the first time she had seen him in his brand new uniform, strong chest decorated with shiny buttons and a brilliant, brand new badge. She watched him clean his revolver and shine his shoes and hang his uniform hat on the hook by the door of their little apartment and then Officer Carter, her husband, her beloved, celebrated his graduation and his new place on the city’s police force by making love to his wife.
Alice’s heart swelled with love and pride as she watched him leave in the morning to go and walk his beat. He left the same way every morning for the next two years: with a kiss and a smile and a little twirl of his nightstick. Every day for those two wonderful years, Alice Carter watched her husband, her Tommy, her Mister America head out into the streets to guard the innocent, bring the guilty to justice, and always do what was right. And then, one dark evening, he was gone forever.
***
The funeral day arrived. Alice walked to the gravesite with Tommy’s mother beside her and Larry Epstein, who had been Tommy’s closest friend on the force, on the other side. She looked through her black veil; the scene was blurred by her tear-filled eyes and she barely heard a word the minister said. By the time it was over and the police band’s bagpipes had blasted out their final wail, Alice was exhausted. Larry drove her and her mother-in-law back to Julia’s house and Alice sat in Tommy’s old room wondering what she could do now, a widow at twenty-three, with just an elderly mother-in-law and no formal education.
Months passed by. Alice’s meager saving ran out and she had to give up the apartment. She moved in with Julia. The older lady was happy to have company, but Alice felt like a freeloader, a parasite. Every day she would check the newspaper, hoping and praying that someone had been arrested or questioned or that some progress had been made in the investigation of Tommy’s death, but no such article appeared. Day after day, week after week, month after month: nothing.
A year to the day after the darkest day of her life, Alice picked up the telephone in Julia’s kitchen and called the police department. When the desk sergeant answered, she asked for Officer Epstein.
“Oh…you mean Detective Epstein, do you Miss?” said the Irish-brogue on the other end of the line. “The lad got himself promoted just the other day, sure enough he did! Please stay on the line and I’ll connect you to his office.”
An hour later, in a small corner diner a few blocks from the house where Alice had been staying with her mother-in-law, the bell above the door jingled as a trench-coated man walked in and made his way over to the booth where Alice was already seated, slowly sipping a cup of coffee that had been too hot to drink when it had first been delivered by the waitress five minutes earlier.
Detective Larry Epstein took off his fedora, unbuttoned his coat, sat down across from Alice, and lit a cigarette. He offered one to Alice but she shook her head, having never taken up smoking.
“How are you doing, Alice?” Epstein asked after his first long drag.
“I’m managing, Larry. Thanks,” Alice said between sips of coffee. “I’m doing all right, I suppose. Julia’s all right too; she’s got a lot of energy for a lady her age. I don’t know what I’d do without her. I’ve been looking for a new job; I don’t want to go back to the factory work I did before…before I married Tommy. Congratulations on the promotion, by the way.”
Epstein finished his cigarette and snuffed it out in the table’s ashtray just as the waitress brought his coffee over and refilled Alice’s cup. “Thanks, Alice, and I’m glad to hear you’re doing well enough…but I don’t think you called the precinct just to get me to come and drink coffee and catch up. What’s on your mind?”
Alice’s pleasant, conversational face shifted into a concerned, almost angry look. She was clearly frustrated. Even if Larry Epstein had not been a detective, he still would have noticed the distress on the young widow’s face.
“Damn it, Larry,” Alice blurted out, unconcerned about her swearing being perceived as unladylike. “It’s been a year, it’s a year today since Tommy died…and nothing’s been done about it. There’s been nothing in the papers, they haven’t arrested anyone. Does anybody in the police department have any idea at all what happened that day? Larry, I just want to know why Tommy isn’t here with me anymore. Is that too much to ask? Please, Larry, just tell me you have some news; any news at all!”
Epstein closed his eyes for a moment, fighting back the nervousness that was written on his face. It was obvious to Alice that she was not going to like what the detective was going to say next. Epstein took out another cigarette and lit it before speaking again.
“Alice, I’m sorry. I didn’t want to have to be the one to tell you this but…they’ve closed the case. The investigation of Tom’s death is not going to go any further.”
Alice slammed her coffee cup down on the table; the hot liquid spilled over the rim of the cup and dribbled onto the table. “What? What do you mean they closed the case? Tommy was a cop, Larry, and he was gunned down in that empty apartment! I’m no cop myself…but I know the police just don’t close a case and forget about it when one of their own is murdered! What the hell is going on, Larry! Damn it! I have a right to know; I was his wife!”
Detective Epstein stood up and began to button his trench coat. He grabbed his hat and backed away from the table. “I can’t stay here, Alice. I can’t talk about this anymore. I have to go now.”
The young detective walked out of the diner without saying another word. Alice drank the little bit of coffee that was left in her cup and went home, back to Julia Carter’s house. She sat in her room, the room that Tommy had grown up in. She sat alone through the remaining hours of the day and thought of Tommy and how much she needed to know why he had been killed and wondered how she could ever find out if she didn’t even have Tommy’s best friend to help her. It had been a year since she had lost Tommy; she thought she was getting over it, getting her head screwed back on straight. She had been wrong. She sat on the edge of the bed and cried. She didn’t come out of that room until the next morning.
***
A week later, after considering her options, Alice dressed in her best daytime outfit. She donned a new blouse, got into her skirt, pulled on her stockings and her best pair of shoes and made her way down to the police station where Tommy had been posted. She ignored the door to the detectives’ offices, having no desire to speak to Larry Epstein after he had so abruptly left her sitting in the diner.
She made her way to the topmost floor of the precinct house and demanded to see the man in charge. Ten minutes later she was let into the office of Captain Edward Stern. Stern was a career cop, in his fifties, balding and large, but not obese by any means. Alice walked into his office and found him sitting behind his desk filling his pipe with tobacco.
“Good morning, Miss,” the captain said, looking up from his pipe and not hiding the fact that he had taken notice of her skirt and the lithe pair of legs that it only partially hid from his admiring view. “The desk sergeant said you had demanded to see me. What can be so important that you’d have to barge in here and see the captain and not one of my men?”
“Captain Stern, I’m sure you don’t remember me. We only met a few times. My name is Alice Carter.�
��
Stern stood up, ignored his pipe, and smiled. “Mrs. Carter; you’re Officer Carter’s wife. I’m so sorry I didn’t recognize you. How are you? I suppose I haven’t seen you since poor Tom’s funeral. What brings you here this morning? Can I offer you anything? I can have some coffee brought in, or something stronger if you prefer.” He gestured at the liquor cabinet behind his desk.
“Nothing, Captain, but thank you,” Alice said. “Actually, sir, I have a bit of a problem. You see, the money that Tommy and I saved is nearly run dry and I can’t seem to find a job. Tommy always spoke highly of you, Captain, and I thought maybe you could help me. I just need to find some work. I was wondering if the police department had any openings for secretaries.”
Captain Stern looked Alice up and down again. He obviously liked what he saw and Alice decided to take advantage of the captain’s admiration. She smiled sweetly and waited for him to answer.
“Can you type well?” Stern asked.
“Yes I can, sir,” Alice lied. She had rarely had reason to type up to that point in her life, but she was desperate to find a way inside that police precinct so she told the captain what he wanted to hear.
“Well then, Mrs. Carter; can I call you Alice, dear? I have been thinking of adding another person to my staff. I seem to keep falling behind on my paperwork; you have no idea how busy a police captain can be. I suppose I could hire you on a trial basis, see exactly what you’re capable of. Why don’t you come back on Monday, eight o’clock sharp? We’ll see how it all works out.”
Alice repeated the smile she had flashed the first time. “Thank you, Captain. I promise I won’t disappoint you.” She left the office, walking slowly to make certain that Stern had time to admire the view as she departed. She felt a bit dirty using her looks to get what she wanted, but when she thought of Tommy and how desperately she wanted answers, the guilt flew out of her mind.
