Pete looked at him, at his narrowed eyes, his set jaw, at his hand on the table. His fist clenching, unclenching.
Quinn finally left to go back to the station house and the statements. Pete stayed where he was, stirring his coffee, thinking about Mrs. Malone. About the letters Quinn had mentioned, the liquor bottles in the garbage. It seemed pretty clear she was worth investigating. His first big story, and maybe it would be over before it had begun.
Then he shook his head, gathered up his notebook and headed for the door. Even if it fell out that this was an open-and-shut domestic—no big mystery, no front-page headlines—he still had a job to do. He could still follow Friedmann’s guidelines, could still learn something here. And maybe he could start to carve out a name for himself as a half-decent reporter.
With that in mind he followed Quinn back to the station house. There was a different guy on the front desk to the one who’d given him the name of the coffee shop. This one had mean eyes and a twist to his lip that made it look like a permanent sneer and when Pete asked to see Devlin, he just raised an eyebrow and said, “Who wants him?”
“My name’s Wonicke. It’s about the Malone case.”
The guy yawned and scratched his armpit, then reached for the phone. “You got some information?”
“Uh . . . yeah. Yeah, I do.”
The hand paused and the guy looked him up and down.
“Why don’t you tell me and I’ll make sure it reaches him.”
Unable to think of a lie fast enough, Pete flushed.
“It’s . . . I just need to speak to him.”
The hand drew back from the phone and the guy pulled a pile of paperwork toward him.
“Well, Sergeant Devlin is pretty busy right now, what with the case and all. He can’t just see everyone who drops by. You change your mind, Mr. Wonicke, or you . . . remember what you wanted to pass onto him, you come back and let me know.”
He turned his attention to the papers in front of him. Pete gave up, went outside. He lit a cigarette and looked at his watch. His deadline was coming up: he’d have to work with what he had. Devlin could wait.
HELICOPTERS JOIN SEARCH FOR BOY, 5, IN QUEENS ABDUCTION
By Staff Reporter Peter Wonicke
QUEENS, July 16—A search by hundreds of police officers yesterday failed to turn up any clues to the whereabouts of 5-year-old Frank Malone Jr. The boy disappeared along with his 4-year-old sister, Cindy, from their Queens apartment early on Wednesday morning.
Cindy was found dead in an abandoned lot about one mile from her home at noon on Wednesday. Tests are being carried out to determine the cause of death.
Three police helicopters joined the search for the boy yesterday, hoping to spot from the air the white T-shirt he was wearing when he disappeared.
The children lived with their mother, Mrs. Ruth Malone, a 26-year-old cocktail waitress. Her husband, Frank Malone Sr., an airline mechanic at Kennedy International Airport, has been living apart from the family since the couple separated last year.
A senior police official said yesterday that hope of finding the boy alive was fading. “This hot weather means that dehydration is a real risk, the longer the search goes on.”
The children’s father spent yesterday with detectives at the 107th Precinct Station in Fresh Meadows, waiting for news of his son.
Mrs. Malone, slim, red-haired, and wearing a fashionable black dress, was escorted to the station house yesterday afternoon by detectives. She was questioned for over two hours and then returned to her home.
Neighbors of Mrs. Malone said they knew very little about her. Her children had played with other children in the neighborhood, but their mother “kept to herself.” One neighbor volunteered that Mrs. Malone often worked long hours, especially at night, and that her lifestyle was “chaotic” as a result.
“We certainly never had no trouble like this around here before now,” said a mother of three preschool children, who wished to remain anonymous.
The wake for Cindy was held on July 19 at O’Rourke’s Funeral Home. On one side of the room, Monsignor Contri presided, his wrinkled brown face placid under a halo of white hair, his voice a soft murmur. Cindy was in Heaven now, her soul was at peace. On the other side, Ruth stood tall wearing her new black dress and half-veil, black heels, and straight-seamed stockings, the best part of an eighth of vodka inside her and a trembling cigarette in one hand. To everyone who came to offer their condolences, she put out her other hand, her amber eyes bright and unblinking through black chiffon, her voice harsh from smoking and from the effort of keeping the tears back.
She wanted to break down. To fall to her knees, to scream, to beg, to bargain.
“They’re all I’ve got. You can’t have them both—they’re all I’ve got!”