Tony said, “To what do we owe this honor, sir?”
“Let’s speak privately,” Mr. Blackberry said.
Tony brought us to his study. “Please, sir, sit down. I trust you have news?”
Mr. Blackberry laughed. “As I always do!” He sat on the sofa, then his demeanor sobered. “I’m dreadfully sorry to have taken so long to reply to your request. He gestured at me. “When your man told me you were anxious to hear back, I made plans to come here at once.”
Blitz must have gone to him on his own. “Thank you, sir.”
Mr. Blackberry opened his briefcase, taking out a thick folder. “My cousin did indeed recall the case, and the investigation surrounding it. Many suspected a young boy for the deed.”
Tony said, “A child?”
Mr. Blackberry nodded. “The neighbors in the area had seen the boy, a lad of ten or so. They didn’t know where the boy came from, only that when he was around, animals turned up dead. Cats, small dogs. All strangled.”
That was fairly disturbing. “And did any of them know his name?”
“Unfortunately, no,” Mr. Blackberry said. “Just descriptions: hair and skin of a medium to light brown. And thin. One thought he might have come from the lower slums, as he was dirty and not dressed nearly well enough for the weather.”
“Or even the Pot,” Tony said. “I remember seeing children like that the one time I was there.”
I nodded. Back when we were twelve. “It’s certainly possible.”
Mr. Blackberry opened the folder, took out mimeograph copies of news clippings and spread them upon Tony’s low coffee table. “I found several more reports of children strangled in the Spadros slums in the ten years after. A few were found hanging; these were thought to be suicide. But they had wounds which indicated they fought before they died.” He glanced at me. “Perhaps I best not —”
I said, “And they were violated.”
Tony gasped.
Mr. Blackberry blinked. “It took me an hour to get that out of my cousin. It’s something that’s been kept back from the public.”
“A policeman who witnessed the first crime scene told me so.” Then I sighed. “And now he’s dead.”
“Sad to say, my cousin’s dead too.”
Tony and I gaped at him.
But Mr. Blackberry waved us off. “He was old and sick. He died in peace, with his family around him. How he lived as long as he did is beyond me. But he did want me to thank you, Mrs. Spadros. Trina Bower’s death was a case he hoped might be solved one day, and —”
“Wait,” Tony said. “Bower? I’ve heard that name before.” He turned to me. “Is this child related to your investigator friend, the one who worked for Mr. Pike?”
“His daughter. And Peedro Sluff was the officer I spoke of.”
Tony clapped his hand to his forehead. “Good gods. So that’s another who might have wanted Sluff dead, if he thought we were onto him.”
Mr. Blackberry said, “So you think this is still going on.”
Tony pointed at the last murder, some five years back. “A boy of twelve. Not much younger than the boy who got strangled a year or so later. We had terrible trouble with that one: the father’s one of our Associates, and he suspected a police officer had something to do with the boy’s death.”
Mr. Blackberry leaned forward. “Really.”
“Well, he and the boy got into a quarrel. The officer threw a brick at the boy. The boy got his friends together with some bricks then beat the man and his partner senseless. Then the boy ends up dead. He didn’t kill the boy — the man was in the hospital at the time. But I had to banish him from the quadrant.” He turned to me. “Long story.”
“I see.” It was starting to come together. “This boy is now a man. And this man is calling himself Frank Pagliacci. Who knows what his real name is. But I believe he’s the Bridges Strangler.” I gestured across all the news clippings. “And he’s not going to stop until someone stops him.”
Mr. Blackberry nodded. “And your assertion is that the Mayor knows this.”
A laugh burst from me unbidden. “He’d have to know. Why else put a fake suspect on trial and execute him?”
“Well, he could be deceived,” Mr. Blackberry said. “He could have been putting pressure on the police to give him a suspect, so they gave him one.” He shifted in his seat. “I can’t print a story about the Mayor without proof he knew they had the wrong man.”
And that would be difficult to do. “The police would know.”
Mr. Blackberry laughed. “Yeah, if you could find one who’d actually tell you the truth of it.”
Hmm, I thought. Reina Bower said her Constable knew her daughter. And that he was a good man. “I might know one motivated enough to find out.”