“You don’t know a damn thing. Coming in here, tormenting me, showing me that glove! I’ve been living and dying for that man since before the war. And now he’s gone. Good god. Good god, girl . . . what will I do?”

She began to cry. I looked about for a handkerchief and passed her some scrap of hosiery, which she dragged across her nose. I focused on my notebook.

“Did Copeland have any troubles? Anything eating at him?”

“That wife of his,” she hissed. “She’s a cancer. She watched him like a prison warden. If he was two minutes late, she’d back him into a corner and give him the third degree. I saw her one time, frail old beast, but she could hit and she could scream. She kept that man in a state of living terror. The afternoons he could slip out and see me—those were the only times he was really happy. He was gonna marry me, you know. Put her right where she belonged, on the curb with all the other garbage, and make me Margie Copeland.”

“Did she know?”

“That woman was too stupid to notice the nose on her face. That’s why Galen couldn’t stand her, the stupidity. He was brilliant. He needed a partner who could match him.”

“But if she had found out . . .”

“She’d have killed him, sure as night turns into day. That woman was not too polite for murder.”

I didn’t want to hear about murder. I didn’t want to know about the crate in her storeroom. I wanted to live the rest of my life without the brand of the bloody fist dancing before my eyes, but when I tried to turn away, I felt my father tugging at my sleeve, forbidding me to leave. That damned crate. I would have to ask.

“That crate, in your storeroom. The one marked with the fist. Where did it come from?”

The tears stopped. Fournier slid past me, silent as a ghost, and closed the storeroom door. Her false French accent returned.

“If you’re not going to buy anything, miss, I’m afraid I’ll have to ask you to leave. This is our busiest time of day.”

I looked around the empty room, an eyebrow raised.

“What was he involved in?”

“Get out, young woman, or I shall have to call the police.”

“They killed him for one of those crates. They could come after you too.”

“On second thought, the police are too slow. Leave now, or I shall be forced to take matters into my own hands.”

The police didn’t concern me, not on the Westside. But she didn’t seem the type for empty threats, so I took her at her word. The shop’s bell chimed as I stepped back onto the sidewalk. As I slunk down Twelfth Street, I felt her sallow face watching me through the grime.

Four