“Though Brentwood Park’s been messy, from a policeman’s point of view, we had more or less kept track of all their crazy doings until about a year ago,” Bill went on. “Then a crime wave struck the place, and we’ve never been able to figure it out. You recall the kidnapping of Roberta Southern?”
“Sure.”
“That was never solved. The child was found dead—like they always are. We still suspect that that was an inside job, for the ones who did it got cold feet and never did try to get the ransom, even when it had been left for ’em.
“The next ‘snatching’ was plainly a professional job,” Bill recited. “We knew it the moment we entered the case. It was done in a workman-like manner and we anticipated every move. The ransom letter came; the money was picked up; the body of the stockbroker, Symons Jordan, was found dead—just as we expected. But he was killed to prevent identification, we suspected. And he was. We traced the ransom bills and finally caught up with the couple who pulled that job. They were executed.
“You see, no doubt the Roberta Southern idea was proving contagious. But it took professionals to carry the crime to its conclusion,” Bill analyzed. “Now come three crimes, the last ones committed, for which we do not have a single clue. I don’t believe in perfect crimes. Yet so far we seem to have three on our hands, and Branden professed himself completely stumped. This time all indications point to its being a Brentwood job, or the crimes were committed by somebody who knew Brentwood well.
“Last March a Protestant clergyman, Ernie Hindricks, was killed. Try as we might, we could not scrape up one iota of a motive for that murder. Hindricks had no enemies. Even the Catholics in the area admired and emulated his tolerance. This is one of the cases we need you to focus on.”
“I recall the case,” Ruddy said, frowning. “It was followed shortly afterward by the murder of Father Byrnes—”
“And not a single clue,” Bill asked. “We want you to concentrate on these cases we cannot afford to close—and another one as well.”
“What’s the population ratio out there, in terms of Catholics and Protestants?” Ruddy asked.
“About equal, give and take a bit,” Bill said. “We exhausted that angle, and it led us nowhere. As in the case of Hindricks no hint of a motive, as we know and understand them. We combed the political radical groups and could get nothing. Stools were sent into that Brentwood area on all levels and could get absolutely nothing. Rewards were offered but to no avail. Father Byrnes was killed in June. Three months lapsed between the two killings. We waited. There seemed to be a kinship between the two murders, and if so, we could expect a third one. We tried to speculate upon whom would fall the next blow. Since two men of the cloth had been done in, we wondered if the killer would not next choose a man who had donated much money to both religious causes in terms of aiding their charities. But nothing happened in that direction. It was as though the murderer was watching us, following our line of reasoning. Then, in October, he struck again—at the son of one of the detectives investigating the two crimes. That baffled the hell out of us.
“You would have thought that it would have been the detective himself who would have been the target,” Bill argued. “And when the news came in, we actually construed that such had happened, and it was only hours later that Detective Heard called us himself and said that it was his son, and not he, who was the victim.”
“Do you think that they could have been trying to scare Heard away, that the murderers felt that he was getting warm?” Ruddy asked.
“We thought that once,” Bill said sadly. “But Heard said no. He had no notion as to who could have done it, and had anybody thought he was ‘warm,’ they would have gotten him, not his son. We went into Charles Heard Jr.’s death—he was shot with a .38—as we’ve never gone into the killing of anybody and we got nothing.”
“But you feel that the three crimes were linked, maybe committed by the same person or persons?” Ruddy asked.
“Exactly,” Bill admitted. “But that is only a hunch, an intuitive guess.”
“It’s mine too,” Ruddy said.
“Now, the psychologists are arguing that this is a new kind of murder,” Bill said, with a rising inflection of voice, an inflection that showed irritation. “I don’t know what they mean; I don’t understand ’em. They contend that the motives in these three crimes are extraordinary. Maybe they are. But a murdered man is a dead man, and that started with Abel.”
“What kind of motives did they dope out?” Ruddy wanted to know.
“Well, as close as I could understand ’em,” Bill related, “they felt that these crimes were semiphilosophical.”
“Bullshit,” Ruddy spat.
“Right. But in the absence of anything else, we had to go on that,” Bill complained.
“What kind of so-called philosophy did they talk about?” Ruddy demanded, wrinkling his brow.
“Well, they claimed that the murderer was killing because he had never killed—”
“Jesus Christ!”
“That was the theory,” Bill affirmed. “They further contended that he was to be found right in Brentwood—”
“That’s possible,” Ruddy said. “But what about the killing of Heard’s son? Did they say that was because the killer had never killed? Why he had killed two men before that.”
“Well, about that they had an even crazier idea,” Bill reported. “The psychoanalysts contended that the man who killed Heard’s son did so because he wanted to be caught for the other crimes.”
“Brother, deliver me from those screwballs,” Ruddy railed.
“Ruddy,” Bill said, rising and flipping the dossier toward him, “those three killings are your first task. See what you can unearth about ’em. I don’t say that it’ll be easy, but your coming in from the outside might give you a new slant on ’em. The machine that Branden has set up out there ought to be able to take care of the run-of-the-mill stuff. So you are free to go after the big fish.”
“You mean the whales,” Ruddy said.
“Of course, when you catch this whale, you’ll find that he is a guy five feet tall, with a tendency to blushing and sweaty palms. And, above all, he will have sent beautiful cards to his mother on Mother’s Day.”
“And he’s going to expect that we kiss him and forgive him.” Ruddy sneered.
“I’ll forgive ’im,” Bill wailed. “I’ve give ’em twenty thousand hot volt right up his rear end.”
“Make it forty—the extra twenty’s from me,” Ruddy said. He stood and looked off. “I’d like to phone home, Bill.”
“I was expecting that.” Bill smiled. “Tell Agnes the big news.” He strode from the office, whistling under his breath.
CHAPTER 5
Dawn was breaking when Ruddy emerged from police headquarters. He bought a copy of the Chicago Tribune and saw his picture on the front page; he balled the paper into his fist and frowned. He did not wish to know what the press said; he had a job to do. Though he had promised Agnes over the phone that he was coming right home and would explain everything to her, he now was bitten by another idea. He commandeered a detective squad car and ordered that he be driven through the Brentwood Park area. He wanted a glimpse of the domain that he was to rule in the name of the law.
He was alone in the car with a police chauffeur. The car was unmarked, and he sat up front where he could get a good look at this fashionable area.
The chauffeur grinned and weighed Ruddy out of the corners of his eyes. “Glad to have the honor of driving the new chief out to his area.”
“Thanks, fellow.”
“Looks like you’re taking over screwball land,” the driver said.
“Is that what they call it?”
“That’s it.”
“To tell you the truth, I can’t make head or tail from what I’ve heard about the place,” Ruddy confessed.
“Nobody can understand that Brentwood Park area,” the driver said. “Any particular place you want to go, Chief?”
“Right, Chief.”
They entered the shopping center, bustling with supermarkets, drugstores, three big department stores, sports stores, hardware and clothing stores, and movie houses. At the main intersection two big banks, the First National and the Brentwood Park Trust, faced each other. Northward was the dark bulk of the pine-covered Andeley Hill and southward stretched the main boulevard, flanking the wide sweep of gleaming lake sand. Eastward rose the section of immense private dwellings where the main body of the rich people of Brentwood Park lived. To the southwest were tall gleaming apartment buildings, sparkling in the early morning sun, rising ten, fifteen, and some even twenty stories into the cloudless blue sky. To the northwest were sundry scattered dwellings belonging to civil servants, doctors, and skilled and domestic workers. Opposite the railroad station stood the post office in an inconvenient location that had been the subject of many bitter local editorials. Toward the beach were side streets filled with cafés, restaurants, bars, laundries, amusement arcades, etc.
“An artificial town,” Ruddy commented.
“An easy money town,” the driver said.
“What’s the population here now?” Ruddy asked.
“One hundred and thirty thousand when I last heard,” the driver answered.
“Wheew,” Ruddy whistled. “That many? What a jump. I would’ve said about ninety.”
“Most of ’em are up in those apartment hotels and buildings,” the driver explained. “They tell me the poor people around here complain that there’s nothing for ’em to do when they quit working.”
“There’re plenty of bars,” Ruddy pointed out.
“Too high for ’em,” the driver said. “How can a maid shell out two dollars for a sniff of Scotch?”
“They’ve got it all planned,” Ruddy commented, thinking of how such tactics had long been used against the people of his own race to keep them out of certain restricted business establishments.
“Look, Chief! See that Piper Cub?” the driver said, pointing to a plane zooming low over the town.
“Looks like it is going to land,” Ruddy observed.
“That’s right, Chief. The landing field is atop that hill.”
“Let’s get up there,” Ruddy ordered.
“Right, Chief.”
The oar turned and made down a wide side street and then followed a rising curve. At once tall pine trees flanked both sides of the road and the air felt cool. Ruddy saw many footpaths leading off the roadway into the dark denseness of the pines, some of which were even large enough to admit cars.
“Lovers’ lanes, eh?”
“Yes, sir. I expect that’s what they call ’em,” the driver said. “But you know, sir, most of the crimes committed around here were never staged in the forest.”
“They took place in the hotels and private homes, eh?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Millionaires don’t want to get their feet muddy,” Ruddy grumbled.
The trees grew darker and denser as the car mounted the narrow asphalt road, and even flecks of fog began to form on the windshield. Ruddy saw a few people wandering amid the paths in the forest, and he saw that they were well dressed.
“This town was built to give people an excuse to spend money,” Ruddy stated. “There’s nothing here they could not get in any other small town.”
“That’s right, sir,” the driver said. “But that’s our country. We’ve got to find a way to spend our money and keep busy. At the first sign of a depression, the people will start flocking out of here as though there was a smallpox epidemic.”
“Right,” Ruddy sighed.
Yes, Ruddy felt that he was on alien ground; this was no Black Belt, Irish shantytown, no Little Paris filled with jabbering Frenchmen, no make-believe Berlin choked with Germans; this was native-born America, rich, proud, free. Could he ever understand these people? At once the image of his Tommy flashed into his mind. Yes, Tommy would and could help him here. Not that he would ask Tommy to work on the force; no—he would ask Tommy questions about this place, for the studying of such areas was Tommy’s main interest in life. Aw, maybe my boy will be close to me, after all, he thought with pride.
“One more turn and we’ll be at the top,” the driver said.
Three minutes later they were rolling along a road that gave a vast sweep of Brentwood Park far below.
“Stop here, fellow,” Ruddy ordered.
“Yes, sir.”
Ruddy alighted and lit a cigarette, offered one to the driver, who accepted eagerly. Puffing, Ruddy stared down at the long strip of houses, sand, apartment hotels, and streets. Far out, the bosom of Lake Michigan gleamed and sparkled.
“Well, the main approaches are from the north and south,” Ruddy observed. “Anybody wanting to make a quick getaway would not come up here. The roads are too narrow. Of course, somebody might hide out in that forest for a time. But big-time crooks would get away by the highways, the lake, or that airfield over there.”
“Looks like the highways would be the thing,” the driver said.
“Of course, somebody on foot could come over this hill,” Ruddy said. “But I’d rule out bank robbers, kidnappers, and gangsters using these hill roads. That leaves the highways and the lake and the airfield.”
“Well, not much doing on that lake since rum-running days,” the driver said.
“Right. And I don’t see anybody pulling something and flying off in a Piper Cub,” Ruddy said. “They couldn’t get far. And the noise of the motor would be heard. And I’m sure each plane there is accounted for.”
“That’s right, sir.”
“So whatever happens here is mostly bound to take place with all the players living right down there, barring an occasional joker creeping over this hill at night,” Ruddy said.
“That simplifies it.” The driver grinned.
“And makes it more complicated,” Ruddy growled. “Those goddamn inside jobs are a headache. Everybody seems guilty, and everybody swears they are innocent, and everybody calls on everybody else for an alibi. Well, goddamnit, we’ll see. Let’s get back down, fellow.”
“Right, Chief. Where to?”
“Take me home. 9890 Elm Street.”
“Okay, Chief.”
CHAPTER 6
Ruddy rang his doorbell and waited for Agnes or Tommy to answer. When no movement or sound came from within the house, he let himself into the front hallway with his latchkey.
“Agnes!” he called.
His voice echoed hollowly and there was silence. He took the steps four at a time, calling “Agnes! Tommy!”
He halted amid silence in the upper hallway. Agnes’s door was open. He whirled to Tommy’s door; it also stood ajar. Where in hell were they? Then his ears caught a strange sound. “Static! My radio’s on…” He descended the stairs and went into what he was wont to call his den, and there the radio crackled, emitting no voice of music. He scanned the room and finally spied what he knew he would find—a note. He snatched it up and read:
Darling:
We got the news on the radio. Tommy and I are off to look at Brentwood Park. We’ll see you for lunch! How awfully exciting it all is! Incidentally, Tommy is soaring up into the air, for he specialized in the social stratification of the Brentwood Park area last year! Imagine! He’s just dying to talk to you! Darling, congratulations and tons and tons of kisses. There’s so much to talk about.
Yours,
Agnes
So they were gone. Hell, you’d think that they had been appointed Chief of Police of Brentwood Park. They’re taking over my own job. He sighed, folded the note, and put it into his pocket, then changed his mind and laid it on his desk. He clicked off the radio and slumped into an armchair. Well, wonders never cease…he was a chief of police! How did chiefs of police feel? He did not know. But he was one and he ought to know. “How do I feel?” he asked himself out l
oud. “Well, I feel tired, and just like I felt yesterday morning. Only I’m sleepy.” He poured himself a jigger of whiskey and downed it. He’d be getting his pension and also a chief of police’s pay. He’d be on easy street, money-wise. Okay. That’s settled.
The phone shrilled. Agnes, no doubt. He picked up the receiver.
“Chief Turner…Is he there?”
He swallowed and answered: “Chief Turner speaking.”
“Chief Turner, this is Captain Snell speaking. I’ve been the acting Chief of Police until I was notified a few moments ago that you’d been sworn in,” the voice rumbled. “First of all, Chief Turner, my warmest congratulations!”
“Thanks a lot. That’s kind of you, Captain.”
“Look here. I heard from Commissioner King that you were planning to plunge right into things,” Captain Snell said. “Shall we send a car for you? Is there anything we can help you do?”
“No. Look, thanks a lot. I was planning on taking nap and dropping over tonight and—”
“I could come by later and give you a rundown on everything,” Captain Snell offered.
“Say, that’s not a bad idea,” Ruddy agreed, accepting. “It would help me to know what’s what when I get there.”
“That’s the idea, sir,” Captain Snell said. “You name the hour.”
“What about three o’clock?”
“Fine.”
“I’ll be seeing you, Chief. If you want to contact me, I’m right here on tap.”
“Are there any urgent problems pending, Captain?”
“Nothing that won’t keep.”
“Right.”
As soon as he hung up he heard Agnes’s and Tommy’s voices calling from the downstairs hallway: “Ruddy!” “Dad!”
He rushed to meet them, hugged them both at once.
“Wow!” Tommy said, jumping up and down.
“Darling, darling,” Agnes murmured, kissing him clingingly.
“Okay, okay, give me some air, folks.” He chortled, edging away and waving his hands.
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