A crowd had gathered on the sidewalk. This was still only eight o'clock on a balmy Friday night, a lot of people were still in the streets. The ambulance attendants went past Mrs. Davis and the two detectives. Mrs. Davis watched them as they slid the stretcher into the ambulance. She watched them as they carried another stretcher back into the store. Patrolmen were shooing back the crowd now, making sure everyone stayed behind the barriers. Mrs. Davis felt privileged. Mrs. Davis felt like a star. She could see some of her neighbors in the crowd, and she knew they envied her.
"I can't believe this," she said. "They looked so cute."
"How many were there, ma'am?" Carella asked.
Mrs. Davis liked Carella. She thought he was very handsome. The other detective was bald, she had never favored bald men. Wait'll she told her daughter in Florida that she'd witnessed a murder—two murders—and had talked to detectives like on television.
"Oh, just a handful of them," she said.
"How many would you say?" Meyer asked.
"Well, they went by very fast," she said. "But I'd say there were only four or five of them. They all jumped out of the station wagon and ran into the store."
"It was a station wagon, huh? The vehicle?"
"Oh, yes. For certain."
"Would you know the year and make?"
"I'm sorry, no. A blue station wagon."
"And these kids ran out of it with guns in their hands, huh?"
"No, I didn't see any guns. Just the shopping bags."
"No guns," Carella said.
"Not until they got inside the store. The guns were in the shopping bags."
"So when they got inside the store, these little boys pulled the guns and…"
"No, they were little girls."
Meyer looked at Carella.
"Girls?" he said.
"Yessir. Four or five little girls. All of them wearing these long dresses down to their ankles and little blonde wigs. They looked like little princesses."
"Princesses," Carella said.
"Yes," Mrs. Davis said. "They had on these masks that covered entire faces, with sort of Chinese eyes on them—slanted, you know—well, maybe Japanese, I guess. Well, like your eyes," she said to Carella. "Slanted, you know?"
"Yes, ma'am."
"And rosy cheeks painted on the masks, and bright red lips, and I think little beauty spots near the mouth. They were absolutely beautiful. Like little Chinese princesses. Or Japanese. Except that they were blonde."
"So they had on these Chinese-looking masks…"
"Or Japanese…"
"Right," Meyer said, "and they were wearing blonde wigs…"
"Yes, curly blonde wigs. Like Little Orphan Annie, except she's a redhead."
"Curly blonde wigs, and long dresses."
"Yes, like gowns. They looked like darling little princesses."
"What kind of shoes, ma'am?" Carella asked.
"Oh. I don't know. I didn't notice their shoes."
"They weren't wearing sneakers, were they?"
"Well, I really couldn't see. The gowns were very long."
The ambulance attendants were coming out with the second body now. The M.E. was still inside, talking to Monroe. Mrs. Davis looked down at the body as it went past. Before tonight, she had never seen a dead body except in a funeral home. Tonight, she'd just seen two of them close up.
"So they ran into the store," Carella said.
"Yes, yelling 'Trick or treat.' "
"Uh-huh," Carella said. "And pulled the guns…"
"Yes. And shot Mr. Agnello and the man who was in the store with him."
"Shot them right off?" Meyer said.
"Yes."
"Didn't say it was a stickup or anything, just started shooting."
"Yes. Mr. Agnello and the man with him."
"What happened next, ma'am? In the store. Did you keep watching?"
"Oh, yes. I was scared to death, but I kept watching."
"Did you see them clean out the cash register?"
"Yes. And one of them took a bottle of whiskey from the shelf."
"Then what?"
"They came running out. I was standing over there, to the left, over there, I'm not sure they saw me. I guess maybe they would've shot me, too, if they'd seen me."
"You were lucky," Carella said.
"Yes, I think I was."
"What'd they do then?" Meyer asked.
"They got back in the station wagon, and the woman drove them off."
"There was a woman driving the car?"
"Yes, a blonde woman."
"How old, would you know?"
"I really couldn't say. A sort of heavyset woman, she might've been in her forties."
"By heavyset…"
"Well, sort of stout."
"What was she wearing, would you remember?"
"I'm sorry."
Monroe was coming out of the liquor store.
"This the witness here?" he asked.
"A very good witness," Carella said.
"Well, thank you, young man," Mrs. Davis said, and smiled at him. She was suddenly glad she hadn't told him she'd wet her pants when she saw those little girls shooting Mr. Agnello.
"So what've we got here?" Monroe said. "An epidemic of kindergarten kids holding up liquor stores?"
"Looks that way," Carella said. "Where's your partner?"
"Who the hell knows where he is?" Monroe said. "Excuse me, lady."
"Oh, that's perfectly all right," she said. This was just like cable television, with the cursing and all. She couldn't wait to phone her daughter and tell her about it.
"Same kids, or what?" Monroe asked.
"What?" Mrs. Davis said.
"Excuse me, lady," Monroe said, "I was talking to this officer here."
"Little girls this time," Meyer said. "But it sounds like the same bunch. Same blonde driving the car."
"Nice lady, that blonde," Monroe said. "Driving kids to stickups. What kind of car, did you find out?" He turned to Carella. "What it is, the fart at the other store couldn't… excuse me, lady."
"Oh, that's perfectly all right," she said.
"A blue station wagon," Meyer said.
"You happen to know what year and make, lady?"
"I'm sorry, I don't."
"Yeah," Monroe said. "So all we got is the same big blonde driving four kids in a blue station wagon."
"That's about it," Meyer said.
"There wasn't homicides involved here, I'd turn this over to Robbery in a minute. You better give them a buzz, anyway."
"I already did," Meyer said. "After the first one."
One of the techs ambled out of the store.
"Got some bullets here," he said. "Who wants them?"
"What do they look like?" Monroe asked.
The technician showed him the palm of his hand. A white cloth was draped over it, and four spent bullets rested on it.
"Twenty-twos maybe," he said, and shrugged.
Mrs. Davis leaned over to look at the technician's palm.
"So, okay, lady," Monroe said, "you got any further business here?"
"Cool it," Carella said.
Monroe looked at him.
"I'll have one of our cars drop you home, Mrs. Davis," Carella said.
"A taxi service, they run up here," Monroe said to the air.
"Cool it," Carella said again, more softly this time, but somehow the words carried greater menace.
Monroe looked at him again and then turned to Meyer.
"Bag them bullets and get them over to Ballistics," he said. "Call Robbery and tell them we got another one."
"Sounds like good advice," Meyer said.
Monroe missed the sarcasm. He glared again at Carella, and then walked to where his car was parked at the curb.
Wait'll I tell my daughter! Mrs. Davis thought. A ride in a police car!
The patrolmen riding Charlie Four were approaching the corner of Rachel and Jakes, just cruising by, making another routine run of the sector when the man riding shotgun spotted it.
"Slow down, Freddie," he said.
"What do you see, Joe?"
"The van there. Near the corner."
"What about it?"
Joe Guardi opened his notebook. "Didn't we get a BOLO on a Ford Econoline?" He snapped on the roof light, scanned the notebook. "Yeah, here it is," he said. In his own handwriting, he saw the words "BOLO tan 79 Ford Econoline, RL 68-7210. Blue '84 Citation, DL 74-3681." The word BOLO stood for Be On the Lookout.
"Yeah," he said again. "Let's check it out."
The two men got out of the car. They flashed their torches over the van. License plate from the next state, RL 68-7210.
They tried the door closest to the curb.
Unlocked.
Freddie slid it all the way open.
Joe came around to the passenger side of the van. He slid the door open there, leaned in, and thumbed open the glove compartment.
"Anything?" Freddie asked.
"Looks like a registration here."
He took the registration out of a clear-plastic packet containing an owner's manual and a duplicate insurance slip.
The van was registered to a Frank Sebastiani whose address was 604 Eden Lane in Collinsworth, over the river.