Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 7, No. 9, September 1962

“I didn’t know anything about that,” Sally said, wide-eyed. “Honest. Ziggy said, ‘Let’s go in the dime store, I want to buy something for Ma’. I didn’t know those boys were stealing things.”

She was lying. I was well aware of that. But I also knew she would stick to her story no matter what. And that the boys, true to the juvenile sneak-thief’s code, would back her up.

“Ziggy,” I sighed, “is the boy you got in trouble with the last time. When he broke into the empty house.”

“I just ran into him today by accident. In front of the dime store. I was on my way to the Recreation Center.”

“Well, I’ll do the best I can. McMahon and all the other men in the precinct houses are on your side, Sally. They know what happened to your folks and what you went through, and they’ll give you another pass. But sooner or later, if you’re not careful, you’ll go too far. You’re still a ward of the court. If the judge ever learns about the scrapes you’ve been getting into, he’ll take you out of your foster home with me and lock you up in a reform school.”

McMahon agreed, as I knew he would, not to book Sally. He lectured her for a few minutes and then sent her home in a squad car. I went back to the Recreation Center and found Jake Greb there, watching Bill Barlow referee a basketball game.

I nodded and showed Greb to my office. I wasn’t angry with him any more. After all, he was only doing his job. Any newspaperman in town would be in line for a fat bonus for turning up new evidence in the Smallwood murders.

Greb settled in a chair. “First,” he said, “I want to apologize. I got a little arrogant with you earlier today. I guess it’s this miserable heat. That and the fact I don’t really enjoy reminding the little blonde about... you know.”

“That’s all right. I was on edge myself.”

Greb lit a cigar. He leaned back, blowing smoke, and his eyes narrowed. “She’s been living with you and your wife almost all the time since the murders, hasn’t she?”

“We applied to give her a foster home as soon as it was learned the grandparents wanted no part of her. With my record as a social worker, we had no trouble getting her. She used to hang around the Recreation Center before her parents were murdered, and we already knew her well. She was a pitiful little thing even then. Her father had absolutely no love for her. He’d get drunk and throw things at her. And the stepmother... well, everyone in the neighborhood knew how she mistreated the girl. She ruled Sally with an iron hand.”

“Sally ever say anything to you? About that day?”

“Not very often. My wife and I never ask.”

Greb shook his head. “I dunno. There’s something about Sally. I got a feeling for these things. Her story was that she came home from a movie and saw a bloody man run out of the shack carrying an axe. That she never got a look at his face. That she went inside and found the bodies... what was left of them... and sat down on the floor, paralyzed, too shocked to move or anything. That’s how the cops found her. I was the first reporter there and I saw her then too. ‘A bloody man with an axe’. That’s all she ever said. Then or since. But somehow I always figured she knew more than she was saying.”

“I don’t think so,” I replied slowly. “That experience, plus the miserable life she was living while the Smallwoods were still alive... it’s made her kind of a wild girl, I’m afraid, and she does tell lies. But I don’t think she was lying about that.”

“Maybe not consciously lying. But look at it this way. As you pointed out, Smallwood didn’t love her and her stepmother was abusive. So I don’t imagine she liked the Smallwoods either. Subconsciously, she was probably glad to see them dead.”

“Just a minute...”

“Hold on. I’m not leveling any accusations against Sally. Anyhow, it took a strong man to wield that axe. But there are plenty of kids, who, if their parents neglect and abuse them, would be glad to see their parents dead. This could be true of Sally. Despite the horror of the situation, maybe she was glad, inside, that the Smallwoods were no more. And maybe, subconsciously, she refuses to admit to herself that she knows who killed them, because she’s grateful to the killer. Maybe she even got to the shack earlier than she said... early enough to see both murders.”

“It’s kind of a crazy theory,” I said.

Greb shrugged. “All murder is crazy. The police don’t even know why the Smallwoods were killed. They’ve got two theories about that, each as good as the other. One, that the murderer was after the money Smallwood kept in a strongbox under his bed. He bragged about the money every time he got drunk in a tavern... the insurance money he received when his first wife, Sally’s mother, was struck and killed by a truck. The whole neighborhood knew where he kept the money. The other theory involved the stepmother... what was her name?”

“Amy.”