A Father's Law

by Richard Wright

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  around here in days. His eyes narrowed. Had Tommy been wearing these tennis shoes yesterday when he had come into his office? He could not recall. He lifted the shoes and looked closely at them. Mud? No. It was a whitish something sticking to the heels and soles of both shoes. Plaster? No, it was too gritty for that. Aw, I bet that this is cement. But where on earth would he be walking in wet cement? No wet cement around here. Aw, maybe it scraped off the tennis court onto his shoes? But, no, tennis courts don’t have wet cement on them. And neither was there any wet cement, that he knew of, anywhere near the forest of Brentwood Park.

  Hell, it’s nothing. He might have picked up that wet cement on his shoes anywhere.

  He jerked as the corner of his eye caught a fl ickering dart of light. Tommy was coming! He flicked out the light and fl ung the shoes back into the closet and closed the door. In a fl ash he was out of the room. Should he stay and meet Tommy? No.

  He felt too guilty to do so. Oh, yes, there was Tommy now coming toward the front door. He would duck out the back way. He went hurriedly into the hallway and down the backstairs to the yard. It was almost daylight now. Had Tommy seen the light on in his room? Damn. Ruddy walked slowly and noiselessly to the garage and looked up to Tommy’s window just in time to see the light come on. He sighed. He got quickly into his car and was about to put the key in the ignition when he felt a grittish lump on his right thumb. Aw, that cement from Tommy’s shoes had stuck to his hand. Quickly, he opened the glove compartment and took out a sheet of paper and carefully wrapped the bit of cement into it. Yeah, he’d send that wad of cement to the laboratory for an analysis—to find out if it really was cement; he might even find out where it came from, the type of cement and sand used. Hell, I’m crazy, he said bitterly. This is no way to act.

  As he drove out of the driveway, he felt thoroughly ashamed of

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  himself for having probed about in Tommy’s room, yet all the while he was wondering where had Tommy been coming from at this hour of the morning. Was he trying to find Tommy guilty?

  No, he was searching for peace of mind. But suppose his peace of mind could come only as a result of his fi nding Tommy guilty?

  He shook his head, rolling through quiet dawn streets toward police headquarters. I’ve got to settle this one way or the other, he told himself. Can’t do any harm to find out defi nitely.

  And, Jesus, what a pathetic letter Marie had written to that boy! A letter like that must have driven him almost crazy. But it wouldn’t make a man kill, would it? Frankly, he did not know.

  Anything might make a man kill under certain circumstances.

  He passed the policeman on duty at the night switchboard and went directly to his desk and began to pore over an immense pile of reports that had been left for him. The top dun-colored folder read:

  JANET WILDER CASE, DEC’D

  UNTRACED, ANONYMOUS, UNIDENTIFIED

  TELEPHONE CALLS

  APRIL 14TH, 19—

  11:02 P.M.:

  An unidentified male voice reported from Kenwood region seeing a man fleeing with what appeared to be a woman’s red handbag at 39th Street and Drexel Boulevard. Informant said that the “suspect” had a wildly suspicious look and is certain that the “suspect” was involved in the Janet Wilder slaying.

  11:06 P.M.:

  An unidentified woman’s voice reported seeing a man in Huggins’s Poolroom at 51st Street and Giles Avenue wearing a blood-stained shirt and coat, with trouser legs torn, as though they had been ripped or shredded in fl ight.

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  11:30 P.M.:

  An unidentified woman’s voice reported from far South Side that her twelve-year-old daughter had seen a man at 42nd Street and St. Lawrence Avenue walking with a pronounced limp; informant’s daughter is convinced that this “limp” was simulated by the “suspect” and is certain that the man was wearing a disguise and might be the “suspect” sought in the Janet Wilder case.

  01:23 A.M.:

  An unidentified woman’s voice with Southern accent reported seeing two young Negroes, at 91st Street near the Penn-sylvania Railroad tracks, in a scuffle over an object that resembled a wallet, and informant is certain that the wallet came from the handbag of Janet Wilder. Informant reported seeing the two Negroes vanish in the direction of the Fat Man’s Tavern.

  02:30 A.M.:

  An unidentified, high-pitched man’s voice informed us that for $5,000, he will be willing to reveal the name and address of Janet Wilder’s slayer. Reported he would call back in half an hour after we had considered his offer and would tell us where to meet him. No call came.

  02:39 A.M.:

  An unidentified man’s voice reported from the near North Side of having seen a mysterious light in an abandoned warehouse window at 12th Street and Roosevelt Road. Squad Cars 144 and 96 went immediately to the scene and found nothing suspicious.

  Ruddy grunted impatiently and then leafed hurriedly through the rest of the reports of anonymous telephone calls.

  “Crackpots,” he muttered. It was funny how people got all worked up over a murder that had been reported in the press.

  Ruddy recalled that one day last year Ed Seigel had cynically

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  suggested that a mythical murder be printed in the press just to see how many innocent people would swear that they had caught a glimpse of the fleeing murderer! “That’s why we can’t let these fools enter a plea of guilty to fi rst-degree murder,”

  Ruddy said out loud. “Hell, innocent people would be slitting one another’s throats for a chance to sit in the electric chair.”

  Knowing the delusions of people, the law had wisely demanded that no unsubstantiated confessions for murder in the fi rst-degree could be accepted!

  “Ed, what in hell makes people do that?” Ruddy had once asked.

  “They’re projecting out their own buried guilt feeling,” Ed had explained.

  “But I thought that most people hid their guilt,” Ruddy had contended.

  “Not all of ’em, and not all the time,” Ed had said. “The burden of guilt that some people carry is too much for them to bear. They yearn to confess but don’t know what to confess to until something is suggested to them in the press. After they have confessed, they have some peace.”

  “But don’t they know that they run the risk of being punished?”

  “Not all the time. They feel that the suffering that they’ve had to put up with is more dangerous than the risk of punishment,”

  Ed explained. “And you’ll notice that each time they meddle in our crime cases, they manage to keep their identities hidden.”

  “I don’t understand that kind of guilt,” Ruddy had mumbled. “I don’t get people who poke their noses into killings that don’t concern them.”

  “Those killings do concern ’em,” Ed had insisted. “You see, the killings that they read about in the papers evoke in ’em a mood of guilt that was repressed long, long ago. And, for a few

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  hours, they can’t tell the difference between the actual killing that they have read about in the papers and the mood of guilt that that killing brought on.”

  “We ought to have a law against that,” Ruddy had said.

  “That would only make it worse,” Ed had contended.

  “You’d get even more meddling with the law. What we need is more crime novels, crime movies.”

  “Then, goddamnit, let’s lock up everybody,” Ruddy had yelled in hot anger.

  “Fewer people than you think would object,” Ed had told him.

  And, deep in his heart, Ruddy knew that that was true.

  “People are nuts!” he had spat.

  “In a human sort of way, yes,” Ed had agreed.

  The office door swung open and Ed sto
od revealed in it.

  “Think of the devil,” Ruddy called out.

  “You get some sleep?” Ed demanded.

  “Yep.” Ruddy tapped the dun-colored folder. “I wonder do people realize how much of their own money they toss away when they make us officers go through crap like this?”

  “Oh, that,” Ed said, pulling off his cap. “If that’s got you down, wait until you hear some of the confessions to the Janet Wilder murder I’ve got for you.”

  “No kidding?”

  “Murderers everywhere,” Ed sang, “but not a goddamn criminal.”

  “Well, I’m in a mood to listen to one of ’em,” Ruddy said, smiling.

  “Ring the ’pen and tell ’em to bring ’im in, Andrew Gordon,”

  Ed suggested impishly. “You’ll learn something from him.”

  “What kind of gag is this?” Ruddy countered.

  “It’s no gag,” Ed said. “It has nothing to do with this murder but with murder in general.”

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  “Ring the ’pen yourself,” Ruddy said.

  After Ed had phoned for Andrew Gordon, Ruddy asked,

  “Any new developments?”

  “Nothing—not so far.” Ed shook his head. “Captain Snell called in after you left. He was at a building site on the far South Side. Seems that a piece of gun handle was found in a concrete mixer and—”

  “What? A .38?”

  “Don’t know yet.”

  “They can’t identify it?”

  “It’s only a fragment . . . not enough to defi nitely establish what caliber. The foreman in charge of making the concrete called in about four this morning,” Ed explained. “It’s an eighteen-story building going up, and three shifts are being used. They’re working around the clock. Seems that the concrete mixer got stuck, and when they stopped it and poked around in it, they came across a part of a revolver—just a piece of the butt. The foreman thought that it ought to be reported.”

  “I want to see that piece of gun when it comes in,” Ruddy declared, alert to the fact that the cement mixer was reminding him of the cement he had discovered on Tommy’s tennis shoes less than two hours age. Ought he to tell Ed of that now? No.

  Ed would think that he was batty. He’d wait until he saw what Captain Snell reported. And there certainly was no sense in his getting as worked up as those untraced, anonymous telephone callers had been. Yet he could not defend himself against a certain nervous tension that gripped his hands.

  The intercom whirred and crackled.

  “Lieutenant Parrish speaking.”

  “Yeah. What is it, Parrish?”

  “Your son’s here, Chief.”

  Ruddy rose and frowned. “So early?”

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  “It’s nearly eight now,” Ed said.

  “Oh! Oh, yes, send ’im in,” Ruddy ordered.

  Goddamn! What was the boy doing? One thing was certain; that boy had not slept a wink last night.

  “Hi, Dad!” sounded as the door was flung open, and Tommy, smiling confidently, sailed into the room. “Oh, hello, Mr. Seigel!”

  “Hi, Tommy,” Ed said, shaking hands with Tommy.

  “When do you sleep, boy?” Ruddy asked curtly.

  “Dad, guess what?” Tommy said breathlessly. “I think I got something for you on the Heard murder and—”

  “What are you saying?” Ruddy demanded.

  “Really?” Ed exclaimed.

  “Look,” Tommy said, seating himself and looking importantly from one pair of policeman’s eyes to the other. “Last night I spent five hours talking to Charlie’s parents. You know, Dad, something was overlooked in that Heard case. It seems that Charlie’s father had three revolvers—a .22, which he let Charlie use for target practice now and then; a .38; and a .45.

  Well, last night I asked the Heards to look and see if all three of the guns were in the house. The .38 was missing.”

  “No kidding?” Ed asked.

  “Good God, how could we have overlooked that?” Ruddy asked.

  “This just might be the first real break in this case,” Ed said slowly.

  “What made you think to ask about that?” Ruddy asked his son.

  “Yesterday you mentioned finding a hole from which a gun had been taken,” Tommy said, his voice eager but natural. “I knew Charlie. I thought I’d ask them.”

  “When you were playing tennis yesterday?” Ruddy asked, eyeing Tommy sharply.

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  Tommy laughed. “I didn’t get to play tennis,” he said.

  “Oh.” Ruddy scratched his head. “Where did you go?”

  “Oh, all round,” Tommy said.

  “But do the Heards know when that gun was missing?” Ed demanded. “Was it stolen?”

  “Gosh, I forgot to ask ’em,” Tommy said in a lame, apologetic voice.

  “It won’t help us much if that gun was missing after Charlie’s death,” Ed reminded Tommy.

  “I see,” Tommy said.

  “Hunh.” Ed grunted. “If that piece of gun found in that concrete mixer turns out to be a .38, and if a .38 was missing from Heard’s home before Hindricks was killed, or before Father Byrnes was killed, and if it turns out that a .38 was buried in that hole in the Brentwood forest, then we might really have something.”

  “A gun was found in a concrete mixer?” Tommy asked, eyes round with surprise.

  “Yeah. Seems like it,” Ruddy spoke crisply.

  “Gee. Things are popping. Do you think they might be the same gun?” Tommy asked.

  “We don’t know yet,” Ruddy said coldly.

  Had Tommy been around that concrete mixer? He wanted to probe into Tommy about his “long” walk yesterday, but Ed’s presence stalled him.

  “You weren’t at home when I left this morning,” Ruddy said.

  “No. I was with the Heards, I told you,” Tommy said. “And you had just gone out, it seems, when I got in.”

  “Lieutenant Parrish speaking,” the intercom crackled again.

  “What is it?” Ruddy asked.

  “I have Andrew Gordon. Shall I bring ’im in, sir?”

  “Yeah. Come right on.” Ruddy turned to Tommy. “This is

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  something for you to see and hear. We have a man here who is going to confess to the Janet Wilder murder.”

  Tommy shot to his feet. “No! Really?”

  “Sure thing. You just watch and listen.” Ed smiled.

  “So you’ve caught the murderer?” Tommy asked breathlessly.

  “No,” Ruddy said, looking off.

  “Then who is this confessing?” Tommy asked.

  “Just a bum with an uneasy conscience.” Ed smiled.

  “Jesus! Is that possible?” Tommy asked.

  “It’s very common, Tommy,” Ruddy said. “We get dozens of false confessions in every well-known murder case.”

  “B-but what do you do with the confessions?” the boy asked, looking from face to face.

  “We just listen to ’em, then send ’em home, or to the mental clinic,” Ed said.

  “Oh,” Tommy breathed. He sat, his eyes shining. “This is something new to me.”

  The door opened and Lieutenant Parrish led in a thin, be-draggled white man of about forty-five years of age.

  “So, you’re ready to talk, eh, Gordon?” Ed asked.

  “Yes, sir,” the man said, nodding, looking with amazement around the huge room.

  “All right. We’re listening,” Ruddy said fl atly.

  The man looked hopelessly about him, then demanded in a whisper: “Can I sit down?”

  “Sure,” Ruddy said. After Gordon had sat, Ruddy asked,

  “Anything you want?”

  “No, sir,” Gordon muttered.

  “Well, you said you had something to tell us,” Ruddy prod-ded the man.

  “I killed her,” the
man said stoutly.

  “Who? You killed who?” Ed asked.

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  “The girl whose picture’s in the papers,” the man declared.

  “Yeah? Where?”

  “In those woods.”

  “When?”

  “The other day.”

  “Do you know the name of the woods?”

  “No, sir. But it was in the woods.”

  “What did you use to kill her with?” Ruddy asked.

  “A gun.”

  “What kind of a gun?”

  “A-a rifle; it was a rifle,” the man declared.

  “Oh, I see,” Ruddy said. “Now, why did you kill her?”

  “She was no good,” the man muttered darkly.

  “What had she done to you?”

  “She broke off our engagement,” the man whispered.

  “Oh, I see,” Ed said. “Now, what did you do with the rifl e after you’d killed her?”

  “I-I threw it in the lake . . . right off Brentwood Point.”

  “Hunh hunh,” Ruddy said. “And what did you do with her handbag?”

  “I pushed it down in a garbage can,” the man said.

  Tommy was staring with glistening eyes at the man, his lips forming the man’s words as they fell from the trembling mouth.

  “And why did you violate her?” Ed asked.

  “I wanted to get even with her,” the man mumbled, looking down now.

  “That’s enough,” Ruddy snapped. “Turn ’im over to the social welfare department. He may have to go to the hospital.”

  “Oh, no sir, Mister!” the man cried, leaping to his feet.

  “You’re not going to send me to the psycho again!”

  “Take ’im out, Lieutenant Parrish,” Ruddy ordered.

  “Yes, sir,” Lieutenant Parrish said, gripping the raving

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  man’s arm. “All right, now. Come along. You’ll be all right. Nobody’s going to hurt you. Come on . . .”

  Tommy rose without knowing it as the man was dragged from the offi ce. “Dad!”

  “Yeah, Tommy?”

  “What was wrong with him?” Tommy wailed, his eyes moist with tears.

  “He’s just a lost man, son,” Ruddy said.

  “But he d-didn’t do anything,” Tommy said. “It was clear.”