And one other thing: an envelope addressed with “Mrs. Esther Grant” scrawled on it. Inside was a note, similarly hasty: “Had to move bags in a hurry as report came in on radio—Girl next door looked funny—Couldn’t wake you—Stay here and I’ll call you when I can.”

On a bureau was a brown cloth purse and in it was $2,500 in twenties and tens, and another note, folded in half: “Stay where you are baby. I will see you in short order. Tell them you are not well and they will bring you food. Just say your husband was called away unexpectedly.”

I got a pad from my sport coat and jotted down a dozen of the serial numbers, then returned the money to the purse.

Mrs. Grant seemed to be rousing a little. I went over and sat on the bed by her. She groaned and so did the mattress—not a Beautyrest. Nor was Steve’s “Bonnie” a beauty at rest. She had a contusion over her left eye and a red streak across the bridge of her nose. Her dark hair medium length and unkempt, she reminded me of a dissipated version of Patsy Kelly, the movie comedienne you used to see in the thirties and early forties with Thelma Todd or maybe the Ritz Brothers.

Round-faced with a weak chin, narrow wide-set eyes and, spookily, the same kind of cupid lips as Steve, she had probably been good-looking once or nearly so. Her nose was red and it didn’t take my detective skills to figure why, though the stench of booze aided and abetted.

I helped her sit up in bed and her eyes tried to focus and her busty, not quite fat frame worked to right itself.

“You’re Bonnie?”

She frowned at me, as if to say, Am I?

“Tell me about the boy. The little boy.”

She seemed like she might cry but never got there. “It’s…it’s all hazy.” Words were hard for her. Her lips, tongue and teeth just weren’t working in tandem. “I’m so hazy on things…I don’t remember.”

“Try, Bonnie.”

Her voice had traces of emotion, but her face was a putty mask. “If you’d been drunk as long as me, you’d understand.”

“Understand what?”

“It does something to your brain. I travel around in a haze most of the time.”

“Did Steve give you those marks? Did he hit you?”

“Steve…you mean…Carl?”

CAH.

“Yeah, Bonnie. I mean Carl.”

Her shrug was in slow motion. “We fight sometimes. I didn’t like this place. I said it was a dump. He didn’t like that.”

“Tell me about the little boy.”

“I picked him up at school. Carl told me he was the boy’s father, custody thing. He took the boy off somewhere. Then I saw in the paper it was a kidnapping and thought maybe Carl wasn’t really his father. I asked him what he did with the boy and he told me to mind my own business.”

“And he hit you then?”

She swallowed, nodded. “Yeah…I been looking like hell ever since. I…I don’t remember how I got here. We were in K.C. and this is…St. Louis, right? Look, I started drinking after I saw the papers. So it’s hazy, like I said.”