Vice Cop

by Deming, Richard

  Dr. Quigley said to Sharon, “Well, it was a success, young lady. Lieutenant Wynn is phoning the district attorney right now to institute proceedings for your release.”

  Sharon’s eyes started to glow. Looking at me, she suddenly cast aside the pillow, bounced off the bed and ran to throw her arms around my neck. Apparently she didn’t mind the doctor seeing her bare body.

  “Oh, Matt,” she said. “How can I ever repay you?”

  I thought of a way, but I didn’t want to mention it in front of the doctor.

  CHAPTER XXIV

  WHEN FULLER returned with Sharon’s clothing, I met him at the top of the stairs and took it from his hands. I think he would have liked a last peek into the room, because he stood eyeing me undecidedly for a moment, as though wondering what gave me the privilege of delivering the clothing to her. I eyed him back until he abruptly turned and went downstairs again.

  Dr. Quigley and I left Sharon alone to dress and went downstairs together. We found both Homicide officers and the lawyer in the front room.

  Quigley said to Fuller, “I guess we’re through here, Mr. Fuller. Ready to leave?”

  Apparently the lawyer had come in the doctor’s car. He nodded, then said to Wynn, “Thanks for being so helpful, Lieutenant. And for phoning the district attorney.”

  “You’re welcome,” the homicide detective told him glumly.

  As my car was parked in the driveway behind the doctor’s Cadillac, I had to go outside to move it so that Quigley could get out. I parked it on the street in front so that I wouldn’t have to move it again in case either of the other cars wanted to get out before I was ready to leave.

  When I got back inside, Sharon had come downstairs fully dressed. Apparently she had gone to the study for the clothing Dr. Quigley had made her wear for the experiment, for she was carrying the folded green formal gown and the transparent slippers she had worn Wednesday night.

  Smiling at me, she said, “The lieutenant says I have to go back to jail, Matt, but that I should be free in a matter of hours.”

  “I know,” I said.

  Lieutenant Wynn went over to open the front door. He said to the policeman on the porch, “You can take Miss Manners back to the women’s jail. She’s going to be released in a few hours, so you don’t have to exercise precautions with her.”

  “Yes, sir,” the man said.

  “Incidentally—” Wynn said in a sharper tone, then seemed to change his mind, for after a pause he said sourly, “Forget it.”

  He had been on the verge of bawling the man out for letting me in, I knew, then decided the hell with it.

  Sharon went off to the squad car with the policeman. This time Hank Carter had to go out to back the F car out of the way. Wynn led me back into the front room, flopped on a sofa and lit a cigarette. Moodily he eyed the row of bottles on the backbar in the corner.

  “Want me to mix you a drink?” I inquired.

  “I don’t drink on duty,” he snapped. “Now what’s this evidence you mentioned?”

  I sat on the arm of an easy chair. “It’s more a matter of logical deduction than of concrete evidence,” I said. “You know, of course, that my division dropped all idea of vice or narcotic prosecution against any of Wednesday night’s party guests.”

  “Yeah, I know.”

  “The captain instructed Carl Lincoln and me to follow up on one item, though. He suggested we contact all the party guests in an effort to learn Isobel’s source of marijuana.”

  “He suggested it, or you did?” Wynn inquired acidly.

  “I may have said something to plant the idea in his head,” I admitted. “Anyway, it worked out. We arrested the pusher this afternoon.”

  “Congratulations,” he said sarcastically. “What’s this got to do with the murder?”

  “Nothing, except that as long as I had to see these people anyway, I thought I’d see what they had to say about the murder while I was interviewing them.”

  “You were sticking your nose in our business, huh?”

  Hank Carter came back in the front door at that moment and I waited for him to rejoin us. He went over to lean against the bar.

  I said, “Only three people aside from Sharon had opportunity to kill Isobel the other night, Lieutenant. Howard Farrell, Ross Whittier and Joe Greco. No one else was upstairs. You’ll concede that, won’t you?”

  He gave me a glum nod. “I suppose I’ll have to.”

  “I’m afraid I—ah—deliberately let all three know that I was making an independent investigation of the murder and was making some progress. In fact, in each case I rather strongly hinted that I thought I could prove Sharon innocent and tag the real killer. I didn’t mention it to you last night down on the dock, because I thought you wouldn’t appreciate my meddling in your case, but I’m pretty sure that’s why Gloff and Edwards were rushed here from Chicago to put me away.”

  “Who?” Wynn inquired.

  He hadn’t seen the wire from Chicago yet, I remembered. “The kickback on those mugg shots and prints came in after you left,” I explained. “The skinny guy was named Herman Gloff and the one with the top of his head missing was Harold Edwards. They both had records too long to quote, and both were suspected of being currently associated with some murder-for-hire outfit. Since they were flown here from Chicago in the middle of the night, which suggests a certain amount of urgency, doesn’t it seem likely that one of the three suspects brought them to town?”

  “I suppose,” Wynn conceded. “If it was just somebody with an old grudge, they probably wouldn’t have been in such a hurry. But I still haven’t heard any evidence pointing to any specific one of the three suspects.”

  “As I said before, it isn’t concrete evidence so much as logic. You have any idea how much the services of a pair like Gloff and Edwards costs?”

  “Plenty, I suppose,” Wynn said dourly. “I wouldn’t know. I always do my own killing. The last guy I killed was a cop who dragged out his report too long.”

  “I have to build it up a step at a time in order to make it clear,” I said. “Not only do guns such as Gloff and Edwards come high, it’s strictly a cash business. Half in advance, the other half on completion of the contract, is the usual rule. In short, the person who hired them had to have money.”

  “So what? All three are loaded, aren’t they?”

  I shook my head. “The guy I like least of the three, the one I’d really enjoy tagging with the kill, is dead broke. Howard Farrell. He gets a little monthly insurance money, but he lives way beyond his means. He was into Isobel Whittier for almost two thousand bucks in personal loans. He also owes Sharon, and I guess most everybody else in his social set. He couldn’t scrape together enough cash to hire some kid to throw a rock at me, let alone pay the freight for a couple of pro killers. And outfits such as this kill-for-hire group don’t work on credit.”

  After considering this, Wynn said reluctantly, “If Farrell’s broke, I guess it reduces to Greco and Whittier. Does your logic carry you any farther?”

  “Uh-huh. Both men had identical motives. Both were in love with Isobel. Whittier was trying to get her back, Greco was considering asking her to become his wife. Neither had any idea she was engaging in dope and sex orgies. Greco was telling the truth when he said it was the first of her parties he’d attended. And he had no idea it was going to be the sort of affair it turned out to be. Both men were completely revolted by what they saw. It was enough to put either one ino a killing rage.”

  “So which do you think it put there? Or don’t you know?”

  “I know,” I said. “What I have isn’t good enough to prove it, though. It proves it to my satisfaction, but it isn’t anything which would stand up in court.”

  “Well, spill it,” he said impatiently. “We’re not in court.”

  I told him who I thought the murderer was and why I thought so.

  The lieutenant brooded over what I had to say for some time. Eventually he said in a begrudging voice, “You worked th
is out very logically, Rudd. We ought to have you in Homicide. We could use somebody with brains.”

  He looked across at Hank Carter, whose sad face only turned a little sadder.

  Wynn turned back to me. “Now that you’ve proved you’re so brilliant at deduction, let’s see how you are on routine police work. Where do you suggest we get the evidence to convict our man?”

  “From him,” I said promptly. “He fell hard enough for one bluff to try to have me killed. Maybe he’ll fall for another.”

  “Like what?”

  “I have an idea I can get an admission out of him if I approach him alone. Of course that would be valueless without substantiation, because it would just be my word against his. But this should take the place of a substantiating witness.”

  Pulling aside the flap of my coat, I drew the miniature tape recorder from my pocket, then unbuttoned my shirt enough to expose the flat chest microphone. “We used this today when we arrested Isobel’s pusher,” I said. “But there’s about twenty-five minutes of tape left on it. That should be enough.”

  “Hmm,” Wynn said. “What do you have in mind?’

  I glanced at my watch. “It’s a quarter of seven and I’m used to eating early. Do you guys ever eat?”

  Punching out his cigarette, the lieutenant climbed to his feet. “Okay. Let’s find a restaurant and discuss it over dinner.”

  CHAPTER XXV

  IT WAS a little after eight P.M. when I parked a quarter-block down the street from the apartment building. The F car parked right behind me.

  Wynn, Carter and I walked up the street abreast and entered the building. We took the self-operating elevator to the fourth floor. Apartment 5-D was up the hall to the left and around a corner. Wynn and Carter stopped just before we got to the corner.

  “We’ll wait here out of sight until you get inside,” the lieutenant said quietly. “Then we’ll move in and see if we can hear anything through the door. If you have any trouble, make some noise.”

  “I won’t have any trouble I can’t handle,” I said.

  Moving around the corner alone, I rang the bell at 5-D. After a short wait, the door opened.

  “Oh, hello, Sergeant,” Joe Greco said with a slight frown. “What’s up?”

  “Like to talk to you,” I said.

  He stepped aside to let me into a broad front room comfortably furnished with deep leather chairs. Slipping my hand into my side pants pocket, I flipped the recorder switch. The politician waved me to a chair, took one himself and gave me an inquiring look.

  I asked, “Did you hear about the pair of high-powered hoods from Chicago who tried to tag me last night, Mr. Greco?”

  “I saw it in the paper,” he said. “You were very lucky.”

  “Uh-huh. In a couple of ways. Remember my mentioning to you my plan to have Sharon hypnotized?”

  Greco nodded.

  “We pulled the experiment the afternoon out at Isobel’s home. A psychiatrist named Dr. Myron Quigley hypnotized her. Maybe you’ve heard of him. He’s in the Medical Building.”

  “I think I’ve heard the name.”

  “Wynn and Carter of Homicide, a lawyer named Max Fuller and I were there as witnesses,” I said. “It was an interesting experiment.”

  He raised his eyebrows. “Was it successful?”

  “Partially,” I said. “It established Sharon’s innocence. Fortunately it didn’t put Wynn and Carter any closer to the real killer.”

  “Fortunately?” he inquired. “Don’t you mean unfortunately?”

  “Depends on your point of view. Would you like to hear the experiment described?”

  “It sounds interesting,” he said on a note of caution. “But I don’t quite understand why you made a special visit here to tell me about it.”

  “You will,” I assured him. “What Quigley did was have her re-enact the other night. He had her dress in the same clothing she wore at the party, laid the letter opener back on the writing desk in the study and put her into a hypnotic trance. Then he told her it was last Wednesday night, she was at the party and had just entered the study. It was kind of eerie watching her. She went through exactly the same motions she had last Wednesday.”

  “Oh?”

  “First she stripped, just as though no one were watching, then she picked up the letter opener and went upstairs. We had all the lights on, but she moved just as though it were pitch dark. She felt her way clear down to the end of the hall, turned around and came back as far as the second door. The one next to Isobel’s, you know. The room in which I found her passed out.”

  He gave me a noncommittal nod.

  “She walked into the room, then stopped as though she had bumped into someone. Dr. Quigley pushed me in front of her to play the part of that someone. Anyway, to cut a long story short, her behavior indicated that she thought this person was me. Seems she had been hunting for me in the dark because she wanted to show me the letter opener. In her high state its glitter had appealed to her as a toy would to a child, and she wanted to show me the pretty thing she had found. She put it into my hand, then passed out on the bed.”

  Greco said in a calm voice, “Presumably this person she bumped into was the real killer, then.”

  I gave him an amiable smile. “Seems obvious, doesn’t it? And since Wynn and Carter know only you, Howard Farrell and Ross Whittier were upstairs at the time, they know one of you is the killer. Trouble is, they have no idea which.”

  “I see. But you do. Is that what you’re trying to get across?”

  “Uh-huh. I think you’re beginning to understand the reason for my visit.”

  “Not quite,” he said. “Maybe you’d better clarify it a little.”

  “Well, first let’s consider the attempt on my life Last night. You, Farrell and Whittier all knew I was still delving into the murder, and one of you got scared enough to try to stop me by drastic methods. There isn’t any question in my mind that one of you hired those killers. It was easy to eliminate Farrell.”

  “It was? How?”

  “He’s dead broke. And you don’t hire pro killers on credit. That left it between you and Whittier. I didn’t mention any of this to Lieutenant Wynn, of course.”

  “Naturally not,” Greco said dryly.

  “Then, when the boys from Chicago were taking me for a ride last night, one of them called me Rudowski. I told him my name was Rudd, and he said they’d been informed I used both names. That narrowed it down even more. Ross Whittier has no idea that my real name is Rudowski. He knows me only as Rudd. But you were aware of it, Mr. Greco. In your office yesterday you called me Sergeant Rudowski.”

  Greco studied me estimatingly for some time. Finally he said, “I don’t suppose you mentioned this to Lieutenant Wynn either.”

  I smiled at him chummily. “As you yourself pointed out to me yesterday, I’m not a member of the Homicide Division. Why should I do their work for them?”

  He smiled too, but it wasn’t a chummy smile. It was a little sour. “What do you plan to do with your knowledge, Sergeant?”

  “Forget it. My primary interest in the case was getting Sharon Manners off the hook. Now she’s off.”

  He studied me some more. “I don’t suppose you came to this decision just through the goodness of your heart.”

  “Of course,” I told him innocently. “Why else?”

  “I thought you might expect some token of gratitude,” he said in a dry tone.

  “Well, I do live rather high, Mr. Greco. And I’d like to live even higher. If you can afford to hire top-price men such as Gloff and Edwards, I thought you might throw me a bone.”

  He decided to try a bluff. In a cold voice he said, “I throw a lot of weight in this town, Sergeant. Suppose I use my political influence to keep you from being tossed off the force? Would that be satisfactory?”

  He knew it was a mistake as soon as he said it. St. Cecilia’s police department is subject to a lot of political pressure, but it isn’t owned by the politicians. We don’
t give traffic tickets to people such as Joe Greco, and we’ll hush up his presence at a sex orgy, but even the Joe Grecos don’t get away with murder in St. Cecilia. That’s why Lieutenant Wynn, who had fallen all over himself at the party to let Greco know there would be no vice or narcotics charges brought, wasn’t in the least concerned about arresting him as a murderer.

  In an unperturbed tone I asked, “Would you like to test your influence by phoning the commissioner and having us both talk to him?”

  Flushing, he stared at me silently for some time. Eventually he asked flatly, “How much?”

  “Ten thousand in a nice round figure.”

  He stared some more, then said, “Would you be silly enough to try to tap me again if I agreed to that figure?”

  “Greedy blackmailers usually end up on slams,” I told him. “I wouldn’t want to give you any reason to phone Chicago again. You can count on it that after the payoff I won’t come near you. For money, favors or anything. We’ll pretend we don’t even know each other.”

  After considering me for another period, he nodded. “I think you’re probably smart enough to keep your word. Not through any sense of honor, of course, but because you know I would phone Chicago if you became a nuisance. I suppose you prefer cash.”

  “It’s safer than a check, don’t you think?”

  “Tomorrow is Saturday,” he said coldly. “The banks are closed. Suppose you stop by my office Monday morning.”

  “Sure,” I said, getting out of my chair. “Make it all fifties.”

  He rose to walk me to the door.

  I said, “It would have been simpler just to leave her, wouldn’t it? Did you have to kill her?”

  He halted to look at me. His nostrils flared. “Have you ever really been in love, Sergeant?”

  “Not really, I guess. I’ve had a few crushes.”

  “Imagine yourself so totally in love with a woman that you look upon her as a goddess. Then imagine her performing in front of you as Isobel did the other night. What would you do?”

  “I’ve never had such an experience,” I said. “Maybe if I had a weapon laid in my hand, as you did, I’d use it. It’s too bad you ran into Sharon when you did.”