Grim Reaper Alley on Fright Night

The velvet glove brushed my cheek and held me spellbound. I looked down the dark alley apprehensively, after just dropping my books in the book bin. Was there no one except the “glove” and myself about? Such things happened only to others to be discovered later in the newspaper.
“So,” said the gentleman, “You’re taking a risk, you know, a woman, out here after hours.”
“I suppose I am,” I agreed, “but the books were due today, and I had forgotten until I looked inside the covers.”
I tried to remain calm and to act as though the stranger was merely interested in my welfare. At least, I would feign such an attitude.
He lit his pipe after snapping on his lighter. I saw his face, which looked somehow familiar, although I couldn’t place it. There was something unsettling about it, though.
“So, what do you think the distraction was?”
“Distraction?”
“You seem like a level-headed, responsible woman. One would hardly think you would cut such a thing as books due so close.”
“Well, no distraction, really.”
“No?”
“ It was just one of those slipups.”
“Perhaps your memory could use some refreshing then.”
I felt my hair stand on end and my stomach sink.
“Do you recall,” he continued, “ that there was a rather tall sort of fellow, taking his grandson out on this Halloween night?”
“There were many parents and grandparents, sir.”
“I’d say,” he went on as if not noticing the remark, “he was probably, yes, close to my height. You engaged him in conversation, and the child went off with his grandmother, you engaged him so well. You then gave him an extra piece of fudge just for himself.”
“H-h-how did you know all this?”
He lit a match; the face was beginning to strike a greater sense of recognition.
“Yes,” he went on, “some people work in plain clothes.”
He, then, removed the fedora he was wearing to reveal a police patrol hat.
”We’ve been looking for you a long time, Kathy, ever since those many reports on Maxwell Street, reports of poisonings. Some children almost died. Perhaps, you need to keep those books for something to fill the time. There’ll be a long time in prison,” he said quietly, as he clasped the cold handcuffs around my wrists.