by J. T. Edson
Silence lay heavily on the room. Big Pat Rafferty’s breezy brogue did not sound, nor did his partner, Tom Chu, use his Hollywood ‘B’ movie Chinese accent. For once Tony Valenca forgot to bend everybody's ear with comments on the latest television show and huge Lars Larsen slumped in his creaking chair, drumming fingers the size of well-developed bananas on the desktop.
Woman Deputy Joan Hilton came to her feet and walked to meet Brad. Catty comments from the Bureau of Women Officers claimed Joan’s blonde hair depended on bottled aid to hide the gray streaks. Certainly her face showed signs of middle-age when seen close-up, but her figure, clad in a uniform blouse and khaki skirt, while plump, looked firm. More than one drunken hooker, ‘b’ girl or female crook had learned to her sorrow that Joan’s arms and legs packed hard muscles and could move with surprising speed when necessary.
‘Sorry to hear about it, Brad,’ she said. ‘I’ll fetch a cup of coffee for you, if you like.’
‘Thanks, Joan,’ Brad replied.
Shortly after Joan left, her opposite number on Brad’s watch entered the squad room. Woman Deputy Alice Fayde’s face held a fixed, schooled expression, but grief-lines showed on it. Her red hair, done in a flip-style which looked neat and stylish while being easy to keep that way, framed a face which if not ravingly beautiful bore a rich, warm charm. Not that Alice was a crow. On any street one might find a few better looking girls, but there would be many far less attractive. She stood five foot seven in height and for the rest, in movie star terms, went thirty-seven, twenty-five, thirty-five. A uniform blouse, official slacks and pumps clothed her rich, shapely body, she carried her tunic over her left arm. Hung over her right shoulder, a Pete Ludwig policewoman’s bag carried the normal feminine items, plus her ID wallet, handcuff pouch and holstered Colt Cobra .38 Special revolver.
She had been Tom Cord’s niece and practically raised by the deputy after the death of her parents. Although she now lived in an apartment at the Chadwick Building on the fringes of Lasher Division, Alice rarely missed a weekly visit to her aunt and uncle’s place in Evans Hill.
‘Hello, Alice,’ Brad greeted, watching her hang up the coat.
‘Brad,’ she replied, her voice carrying an attractive Southern drawl. ‘Joan called me, I called in my place to change before I came over. Has anybody gone to tell Aunt Mavis?’
‘Jack and his missus.’
‘Good,’ she breathed, knowing how capably Mrs. Tragg could handle such a delicate matter. ‘What’s been done?’
‘Come and sit down, I’ll tell you.’
Taking seats at the desk Tom and he used, Brad began to put Alice in the picture, knowing she could understand every move made. In fact Alice probably knew more about the routine than Brad did. She had been a member of the G.C.P.D.’s Bureau of Women Officers for seven years, from her twenty-first birthday, rising to detective sergeant before transferring to the sheriff’s office six months ago. Since her arrival she had proved herself to be a highly competent and efficient officer with a thorough knowledge of all the office’s routine. Brad knew her to be a black belt at judo, competent in karate, able to handle herself in a rough-house. She also shot ‘Expert’ on the County’s exacting qualification course; which included combat work far more than formal target popping.
Just as Brad finished filling Alice and the listening deputies in, the main doors opened and three men entered. Brad put aside the coffee Joan brought him and turned his attention to the trio of men who ran the office. At the forward point of the human triangle stood Jack Tragg. On his left, tall, gaunt and craggy, First Deputy McCall gave the impression of having stepped out of the portrait of a Highland shepherd. A Stetson sat on his head. Nobody in the office could recall having seen him without a hat—rumor held not even McCall’s wife had as he slept in it. With or without headdress, McCall was a shrewd lawman and a damned good watch commander.
To the right, seeming dwarfed by the other two, First Deputy Ricardo Alvarez, night watch commander, looked like a Latin matinee idol and moved with the grace of a bullfighter. In a sense that was an apt description, with his knowledge of judo and karate, Alvarez had tamed bulls of men. Unlike the other two, he wore khaki uniform and a .45 Colt Commander automatic pistol rode in a combat bikini holster at his right side.
A silence that could almost be felt dropped on the room as the assembled officers waited for Jack’s orders. Yet he did not seem in any hurry to start speaking.
Standing with his left fist snapping into his right palm, legs braced apart, Jack looked across the squad room. Only he did not see the double line of desks, the filing cabinets, bulletin board, duty roster boards, the hotshot speaker over the party door leading to the watch commander’s office, or the two boxes flanking the door. Instead Jack saw the entrance hall to a stately house in Upton Heights. It had been at the end of the long fight to clean organized crime from Rockabye County and Jack had led a raid on Gus Meyer’s home. As senior member of the party, Jack had gone in first and found himself under the barrel of a Thompson submachine-gun in the hands of a hopped-up young killer on the stairs. Even as death stared Jack in the face, Tom Cord had flung himself forward, knocking the sheriff—he had been Captain of Detectives then—sideways, risking his life to save Jack. Luckily the Thompson’s lead missed and before the punk could correct his aim, Tom and Jack’s bullets had cut him down. Jack Tragg owed Tom Cord his life. A man of character, such as the sheriff of Rockabye County, did not soon forget such an act. Now Tom had fallen victim to killer’s lead and Jack did not care for the thought.
‘I want the bastards who killed Tom,’ he told the waiting room.
They waited for more, but Jack had said all he aimed to on the subject. He did not waste time telling them of the necessity of nailing a lawman’s killers, for they all knew that without needing a reminder. Nor did he make speeches about the tragic loss of a damned good man, they were all aware of the loss and did not need him to stress the point. So Jack made all the speech he considered necessary in good, old-fashioned Texan and without mincing his words.
‘Who do you want with you, Brad?’ asked McCall. As the big blond’s watch commander it fell on him to allocate a partner, but he left the selection to Brad.
Rising to her feet, Alice faced the trio of her superiors before Brad could ask for Sam Cuchilo to be transferred from the other watch.
‘I’ll work with him,’ she announced.
Every eye turned to her, yet nobody spoke for a good thirty seconds after she made her suggestion. Women deputies mainly handled dispatch work from the Central Control radio room, or attended to business concerning their own sex and juveniles. In every aspect of her work Alice had proved her competence. However, the men wondered if she could take on a homicide case, especially with an inexperienced youngster like Brad as her partner.
‘You, Alice?’ Jack finally said.
‘Why not?’ she answered, and the words came boiling hotly out of her mouth. ‘The objection is because I’m a woman, isn’t it?’ She paused, waiting for somebody to speak and when nobody did, went on, ‘I am a woman, but nobody throws it in my face when there’s a potential suicide needing a shoulder to cry on. I’m still a woman when I have to go into some stinking shooting-gallery and cut out the hopped-up girls. When some drunken hooker has to be quietened down and searched you still call me, despite the fact that I’m only a woman.’
‘This’s different, Alice,’ McCall objected. ‘You and Tom were kin.’
‘So?’ she challenged. ‘Can any of you truthfully claim he can go out of here and handle this case as impersonally as if the victim was a stranger?’ Again the men did not reply. ‘None of us can say that,’ she continued. ‘I know Uncle Tom was kin. But does that make me any less competent to handle the investigation?’
Still none of the men answered. Every heated word she spoke had truth in it. Alice had had four years practical detective work before she joined the office. An intelligent and able young woman, she knew investigation procedure and cou
ld not be faulted on her personal courage. For six months she worked undercover to help smash a narcotics ring, living in deadly peril every second of the time. Only male ego stood in the path of allowing her to take the case.
Jack swung his eyes from Alice to Brad, for the young deputy could claim a say in his choice of partners. For his part Brad studied Alice, reading quiet determination on her face. If they worked together Alice could, by virtue of her superior experience, be of great help; but she might also wish to take over the team as its senior member.
‘Where do we start, Alice?’ he asked.
Something like a low sigh left Alice’s lips. Jack Tragg nodded his head, it appeared he for one agreed with Brad’s decision. Before anybody could make further comment, or Alice managed to answer Brad’s question, a telephone buzzed. Being nearest to it, Rafferty scooped up the receiver.
‘It’s D.M.V.,’ he said, turning his face towards Alice and Brad. ‘They made the Plymouth. Owned by James L. Greer of two-eighty-one Dorcas Crescent, Lasher Division. There was another Plymouth Fury on their stolen car list, but it was a two-tone green and white, not dark blue.’
‘Tell them thanks, Pat,’ Alice replied. ‘We’d best check it out, Brad Don’t you think?’
The last three words clearly came as an afterthought.
‘Sure, Alice,’ Brad replied. ‘Does the name mean anything to anybody?’
‘We could run a check on our files,’ Jack suggested when nobody claimed knowledge of James L. Greer. ‘But it’ll be quicker for you to run across town and see him. Do you want any help along?’
Once again Alice spoke. ‘There’s only a slight chance of him being our man. We could have a local R.P. on hand though. If that’s all right with you, Brad.’
‘Sure,’ Brad confirmed. ‘I’ll take a corn-sheller along, might need it.’
‘Go get one,’ Jack ordered, showing no surprise at Brad’s suggestion that he took a riot gun with him. ‘I don’t want a gun battle, if you can help it.’
Which might appear something of a contradiction, yet order and statement merged together rather than clashing. A Rockabye County lawman always carried a gun, so it might strike some people as strange that a deputy asked to take an extra weapon along when he went to investigate what could amount to no more than a stolen car which had not yet been missed by its innocent owner. In fact the suggestion might be thought merely ostentatious. Yet it was not. Taking the riot gun was correct and sensible peace officer tactics. Even in the hands of a master like Brad, a handgun was a weapon of limited range and power. While one could be easily and inconspicuously carried, brought into action very fast in skilled hands and provided a readily accessible defensive weapon, a peace officer knowing he might soon be taking the offensive preferred to have something with greater range and power on hand.
If Greer had been involved in Tom’s killing, and proved to be at home when the law arrived, he would be unlikely to mildly surrender. While the psychological effect of a sudden confrontation by Brad’s big automatic might be great, the sight of the riot gun’s yawning .729 barrel would prove even more so. Another point to bear in mind was that Tom’s killer may have used a pump-action shotgun. The Winchester Model ’17 twelve-gauge riot gun Brad intended to take with him cancelled the superiority of the killer’s weapon over his automatic and Alice’s Cobra.
Crossing the room, Brad lifted the lid of one of the boxes which flanked the door to the watch commander’s office. Inside the boxes, instead of upon the traditional wall-rack, lay the office’s assault armament; Thompson submachine-guns, M.1. carbines, Winchester riot guns, a telescope-sighted, bolt action rifle, ammunition for each type of weapon and two cased Federal 235 Emergency kits containing a 37-mm Gas Gun and a variety of tear-gas bombs and projectiles. He took out the riot gun which was his special charge and dropped a box of buckshot shells into his pocket. Turning, Brad walked back to Alice’s side as she took her coat from the rack by the main doors to the squad room. After helping Alice don her coat, Brad followed her from the room.
‘Reckon we did right, letting them take it, Jack?’ asked McCall.
‘They’ll handle their end,’ Jack replied and glanced around the room. ‘All right, boys, let’s get the show on the road.’
Without needing to be told what to do, the remaining deputies started to work on different aspects of the investigation. None of them really expected the D.M.V.’s information to bring results. Even if it did, they would not regret the time spent in opening other channels.
‘I’ll start to shake through our files,’ Larsen said. He was an enormous man, six foot five in his bare feet and two hundred and forty pounds of hard muscle; yet his voice sounded mild as a servile store clerk’s when dealing with a customer.
‘Go to it, Lars,’ answered Valenca, taking up a telephone and dialing a number. ‘Sheriff’s office here. Go into the Stats. Office and start making a list of all local high-powers who use shotguns; and we’ll want the record cards of all the cases Tom Cord worked on in the past—say three years for a starter.’
Normally the Records and Information Bureau, to whom Valenca spoke, would have bitched about lack of personnel on receiving such a call late Sunday night, or complained that no Statistics Office clerk was present, but not when their assistance might give a lead to a fellow officer’s killer.
‘Shall I call I.C.R., Jack?’ asked Alvarez.
‘Not until we know a bit more.’
The Identification and Criminal Records Division of the Texas Department of Public Safety in Austin acted as a gathering and holding point for crime reports for the whole state, but Jack had no wish to waste their time until he could make a request for definite information.
While Valenca and Larsen began checking for possible motives and suspects, the other two teams of Tom’s watch took to the streets, prowling around, visiting informers, searching for some clue. All over the city police and deputies sought in vain, hoping to find something to help the investigation. Yet they found nothing.
In the office, deputies read through the reports of Tom’s old cases, as they came up out of the Stats. Office, brought along by a patrolman who for once made no complaint about his repeated trips. Time dragged by, normal departmental work carried on, yet at the back of every deputies’ mind lay the thought of what he, or she, might do to help Brad and Alice.
No word came from the two deputies and about forty-five minutes after they left, Sam Cuchilo held up a data card.
‘I’ve a hot one here, Jack,’ he said, his Indian face showing animation.
Taking the card, Jack read it and nodded. ‘Take it up to Central Control and put it out, Sam. I’m going to get changed, they might need some help on this one.’
Five
Neither Brad nor Alice spoke much as they rode the elevator to the ground floor. At the rear of the building they collected the Oldsmobile Super 88 deputy car always used by Tom and Brad. Taking the wheel, Brad let Alice ride shotgun and steered the car from its place in the geometrical pattern of assorted official vehicles which filled the lot.
Twice during the ride across town Alice opened her mouth to say something, then closed it again. She checked the car out with Central Control and then relapsed into silence. Brad let her stew in her own thoughts, thinking of the ways when Tom rode at his side and made dire threats of what he would do if Brad’s driving killed them both before his approaching retirement date.
‘Gordon Street,’ Alice remarked and took up the transmission microphone. ‘Unit SO is calling Cen-Con.’
‘Cen-Con by!’ replied the dispatcher at Central Control.
‘Approaching Dorcas Crescent along Gordon. Is there an R.P. car in the vicinity?’
‘R.P. 197 dispatched to rendezvous with you.’
‘It’s there, Alice,’ Brad remarked as he swung the Oldsmobile around a curve and saw a radio patrol car waiting.
‘R.P. 197 in position, Cen-Con,’ Alice confirmed. ‘Over and out.’
‘I’m pleased that the
y waited here for us, instead of driving up to the front of the house,’ Alice said as she hung up the microphone. Again she seemed to be on the verge of saying something more, but they drew alongside the waiting R.P. and halted before she made up her mind.
While Brad parked their car, Alice stepped out and walked towards the two patrolmen. Taking out her ID wallet, she flashed its contents.
‘Deputy Fayde. That’s my partner, Deputy Counter.’
She could hardly fail to notice the thinly hid relief which the R.P.’s crew showed when Brad, an obvious male deputy, swung from SO 12. Knowing that they were involved in the death of a lawman, neither cared for the idea of going to interview a possible suspect accompanied only by female deputies; no matter how cool and efficient the redhead looked.
‘We held the heap out here,’ the older patrolman told Alice. ‘I walked along the Crescent like I was foot-pounding a beat. Downstairs lights were out, the one in the upper floor went out just as I passed.’
‘What do you know about Greer?’ Alice asked.
‘Nothing personally,’ the patrolman replied. ‘Records down at the House ran a check on him. Apart from minor traffic violations he’s clean. A junior exec, at Sou-Tex Plastics. Married, no kids.’
‘Let’s go pay him a visit,’ Alice ordered.
‘Reckon I’ll leave the corn-sheller in the heap, Alice,’ Brad put in. ‘I reckon this one’s going to pan out empty.’
‘So do I,’ she admitted.
Dorcas Crescent lay off Gordon Street, being a later and slightly more expensive development. Both areas might be termed middle class, but Dorcas Crescent catered for a higher income bracket than the street. While in no way crescent-shaped, the newer development still carried the name as sounding more exclusive than a mere street. Such things mattered to the people who lived on Dorcas Crescent. The houses varied from four to eight bedroom jobs, standing in their own grounds with either a lawn or flower garden in front and patio, tennis court or small swimming pool out back. A two-car garage was a must, even if the family only owned one vehicle. The extra space indicated that the house’s owner was on his way up and would soon achieve two-car family status.