by Deaver Brown
“They’ve picked up the punk who broke into NOBBY,” he announced. “The dumb slob never realized he was getting involved in a murder until he saw the headlines the next day. He’s been holed up, scared to death, and now he’s singing his heart out.”
“Between the tape and the witnesses, you’ve got plenty to tie your man to the killing even if he doesn’t show up here.”
“Yeah, but we can put a hell of a lot more pressure on him if we arrest him on the spot. You can take him right down to the slammer and I can give him the good news that we’ve heard the tape. That’s enough additional leverage to make this stakeout worthwhile.”
“Oh, I see the benefits, but do you think he’ll really come?”
Reardon shrugged. “This guy has already killed one woman and hired a thug who sent another to the hospital—all because of that tape. I think he’s too rattled to sit still now, but you never can tell. The thing is, I’ve got no idea what time he’ll choose.”
It was a problem on which the chief was happy to expand. “Well, he’s got to come by car. If it was me and I didn’t know the area, I’d pull into town during rush hour and pick up a local map at a crowded store. Then I’d locate this house and case the immediate area. Since you can’t park around here and walk away without attracting attention, I’d leave the car in that shopping strip on the main drag three blocks over. Then I’d wait until it was dark enough so I couldn’t be easily recognized but still early enough so a man walking alone isn’t conspicuous. After that it’s a piece of cake. With all these trees and bushes I’d slip through the shadows and pray there’s an unlocked window.”
“Well, we’ve left one open for him so he won’t have to break anything. But if you’re that sure of what he’ll do, we ought to have someone at that shopping strip.”
The chief produced a thin smile. “We do.”
“Then all we have to do is wait.”
The chief, however, was still coining refinements for his perfect burglary. “You know, if this guy had enough time to prepare, it wouldn’t be a bad idea to bring a beagle along. You can walk on these streets anywhere, at any time, if you’re just on the end of a leash.”
Kindly but firmly Reardon ended this fantasy. “I don’t think he’s had enough time to equip himself.”
At eight o’clock the chief’s authoritative certainty was more than justified with a phone call from the shopping strip. Their suspect had just pulled into the supermarket parking lot. Upon hearing this, Reardon congratulated himself on the caliber of his ally and, with an early-warning system now in place, went so far as to don headphones and tune his transistor to the game at Yankee Stadium.
But as the late-spring evening progressed, his attention wandered more and more to the changing patterns of light. The pools of shadow were gradually lengthening, at first striping the lawn with a brilliant motley of green and black under the clear azure sky. With the blue steadily darkening, however, the colors were soon leached from the scene, leaving only a spectrum of grays. The last squeals of nearby children playing in their yards died away, the street lamps suddenly came on and the final roseate glow in the western sky sank below the horizon. By nine-thirty the house was engulfed in a sea of unrelieved black.
At ten the police chief stirred impatiently. “What’s he waiting for? Do you think he’s got cold feet?”
“He didn’t drive all this way to spend the night outside a supermarket,” Reardon argued. “Maybe he’s decided to try it in the small hours.”
“Then he’s crazy. If he waits until one or two he’ll have the local crime watch flooding the station with calls.”
Momentarily distracted by this insistence on constant suburban alertness, Reardon tried to imagine a New York City where every law-abiding citizen called the police upon observing a stranger in the area, an unfamiliar car parked on the street, a lone pedestrian after midnight. But even this daunting prospect could not hold him. With nerves increasingly on edge he tracked the almost imperceptible advance of the minute hand on his watch to ten-fifteen, to ten-thirty, to beyond.
Finally the phone chirped again.
“Yeah? . . . And high time! . . . What’s that? . . . I’ll be damned . . . Well, you stay in position until you hear from me.”
Turning to Reardon, the chief reported, “Your guy’s on his way. And whadda you know? He’s figured out a substitute for that beagle.”
“What’s he come up with?”
“He’s wearing a jogging suit and running shoes. That’s pretty smart. We’ve got a lot of people in town who do a couple of miles every day.”
Sensing some obscure criticism of city dwellers, Reardon said, “We have joggers too. You should see Fifth Avenue at six in the morning.”
“Out here some of them do it before bedtime.”
Reardon did not feel called upon to explain that sensible New Yorkers avoided solitary workouts late at night. Instead he reached for one of the dusty cassettes. “I’ll just slip this dummy into the recorder. If possible, I’d like to slap the cuffs on him while he’s got it in his hands.”
With this preparation complete, the two men took up stations in the hall outside the study and achieved practiced stillness. In the unnatural silence they became aware of an insect banging into a screen, of a late bus rumbling along a distant street. Filtering out these minor disturbances, they waited with straining ears for the sounds that finally came—running steps on the street outside approaching in steady rhythm, then slowing appreciably, finally faltering as the runner tired.
No one would think twice about those sounds. The mind’s eye would create its own picture of an exhausted figure leaning against a support, then limping noiselessly home. Even with every sense on the alert, the invisible watchers barely heard the faint rustling in the shrubbery that told of a circuit to the rear of the house. After that the intruder’s movements were preordained. The faint metallic ping of a door handle being tested was followed by a duller resonance from the kitchen window. There remained only one more window facing the backyard, the one in the study that had been carefully left unlatched.
More in imagination than in actuality Reardon traced the soft footfalls covering those last fifteen feet and waited breathlessly for the welcome whoosh as the lower half of the window was raised. The dim light reflected from a distant street lamp was barely sufficient to disclose the shapeless form clambering over the sill. Then, startling to eyes accustomed to the stygian interior, a hooded flashlight clicked on. Its narrowed beam traversed the floor, picking out the furniture, seizing on the kneehole desk. After a gentle slither of approaching movement the small ray of light played along the clutter, capturing a pile of memos, moving to the jumble of correspondence, catching a corner of the discarded tape recorder. Then it circled back to center on its target. A hand moved into view over the recorder just as Inspector Reardon threw the wall switch operating the large lamp on the desk.
“Hold it!”
For a bare second the figure in a blue-and-silver running suit froze. Then the heavy flashlight sailed through the air directly toward Reardon’s face while the other hand swept the tape recorder across the lamp, plunging the room once again into darkness.
Instinctively ducking, Reardon collided with an end table to stumble and fall full-length on the floor. From this foreshortened perspective he saw a gigantic black shroud briefly obscure the window and then disappear. As he scrambled to his feet and hurled himself toward the window to half-fall through it, he involuntarily yelped in pain. Furious at the triumph slipping through his fingers, he ignored his twisted ankle to crash around the side of the building, so absorbed in his pursuit that he was barely conscious of an approaching din.
Once he reached the front, however, he was brought up short by an astonishing spectacle. Pounding around a corner into the street directly ahead came a disorganized array of twenty-five or thirty men. The pad, pad, pad of their feet was the only sound as they bore down on the house, menacing in their single-minded intentness. For one confu
sed moment Reardon wondered if this anti-crime community regularly unleashed bands of vigilantes.
Then the leaders passed into a patch of light and he saw they were wearing shorts and singlets, steadily pumping muscles already glistening with sweat. Even as he identified them as innocent joggers, a blue-and-silver figure slipped from the last shrub on the driveway to join the pack and disappear with it around a curve in the road.
Hampered by injury, encumbered by street clothes, Reardon was in no condition to give chase. He had not even managed to cry out in the few seconds required for the phantom apparition to sweep by. He was still cursing in mortification when the police chief emerged from the front door and advanced at an unhurried pace.
“Not to worry,” he said affably. “He’ll peel off that mob and circle around to his car. I sent some backup over there.”
It was the wrong note to strike with Reardon at that particular moment.
“What the hell was going on out there?” he demanded with an enfeebled wave at the now empty street.
“Sorry about that,” the chief replied offhandedly. “They’re having a Ten K on Saturday for the hospital. One of the local clubs scheduled a practice run tonight. They had it posted all over town.”
“You mean you knew about this all the time?” Reardon choked.
“I forgot,” the chief said, his thoughts elsewhere. Then, complacency in every syllable, he exclaimed. “I’ll bet that’s why the guy waited as late as he did. He must have seen the announcements too. They even had a diagram of the route.”
Gritting his teeth, Reardon tried, and failed, to remember the necessity for cordial relations with fellow police departments.
“We may have blown the whole operation,” he snarled.
“What’s the big deal? The guy can’t walk all the way to New York. He’s got to go back to the supermarket.”
“All you can think about is cars.”
“Cars are what matter around here.”
“If you know so goddamned much about around here, why didn’t you tell me about this practice run?”
They could have argued in circles forever. Nothing was capable of placating Inspector Reardon—nothing except the news that arrived fifteen endless minutes later.
Congressman Harry Hull had been arrested in the parking lot, still clutching Madeleine Underwood’s tape recorder.
Chapter 26.
Capping It Off
Early-morning television told the world the next day that Harry Hull had been charged with murder, enabling the other subjects of recent police attention to breathe sighs of relief. Thereafter, however, reactions varied. Dean Kichsel and Alec Moore, without a second thought, caught the first plane home to plunge into their neglected duties. Elmer Rugby was not far behind them, pausing only long enough to say, “That guy never had the balls to be a Texas politician. What gave him the idea he could get away with being a killer?”
But at NOBBY they were unable to put the past behind them so speedily. They had questions by the score, and because one good turn deserves another, they had the right to demand some answers.
“After all, we’re the ones who set up the trap,” Peggy Roche said as soon as Charlie Trinkam ushered the NOBBY delegation into Thatcher’s office.
“And did it very well,” Thatcher congratulated her warmly.
“But Elmer Rugby was the real star,” Sean Cushing conceded. “I didn’t expect him to make my taking Iona’s place in New Jersey sound suspicious. He almost got me rattled.”
Iona’s systematic mind wanted to start at the beginning. Moreover, she was still offended at not having been included in the play-acting at the Rugby settlement.
“I think Mr. Thatcher should explain how he came to suspect the congressman. This is all a surprise to me,” she said, gently underlining the last word. “In Washington I realized Harry Hull could simply walk away from the whole Quax issue whenever he wanted to. He seemed to have the least to lose.”
“You made the same mistake we all did,” Thatcher began. “Because the fundamental issue was a struggle for market share, we thought in those terms. Even the police were sucked into that overly rational approach. But Mrs. Underwood was the central figure and she didn’t see her cause in that light at all. In front of Rugby’s she made her views very clear. Quite simply, her enemies were money-grubbing exploiters while NOBBY was inspired by sheer altruism.”
Suddenly Thatcher turned to Sean Cushing for a personal aside. “That of course was the reason she resisted knowing details of corporate contributions. The recognition that there were commercial interests on her side too, would have destroyed the dream vision.”
“Well, I always figured it was something like that,” Cushing agreed. “Madeleine was full of that sort of baloney.”
Both Peggy Roche and Iona Perez, feeling the need to justify Madeleine’s role at NOBBY, burst forth with reminders of her valuable services.
“We have over ten thousand members,” Peggy declared, “and almost every one of them joined after exposure to Madeleine.”
“Whenever she spoke it was a shot in the arm to the volunteers,” Iona chimed in. “I could always count on a rush to sign up after one of her speeches.”
Thatcher nodded. “Oh, she knew how to be effective. Until shortly before her death she was careful to present her program so that it was attractive to the people she was recruiting. After the riot it may have been expedient for you to emphasize NOBBY’s irreproachable history, but it was still the truth.”
“And she never intended to start a riot at Rugby’s,” Iona continued the defense. “I was furious at her irresponsibility but I did realize that her idea, however insane, simply involved blocking the entrance.”
“Which puts her right up there with the anti-abortion thugs,” Peggy muttered unforgivingly.
“She was like all those armchair generals,” Charlie expanded. “They’re always coming up with some decisive stroke that would have changed everything, but they fail to allow for some equally creative counterstroke.”
Iona wagged her head solemnly. “Madeleine never did consider other people’s reactions.”
“Nonetheless, the change in policy was unlikely to recommend itself to NOBBY’s members,” Thatcher continued his argument. “Why then did she do it?”
“She was doing a lot of things she’d never done before,” Cushing protested. “Chasing the Kichsel people and having public brawls wasn’t her style either.”
“That’s what Reardon finally fastened on—the complete reversal in tactics that made it impossible for anyone to deal with her. She may have been difficult before, but you managed to work with her for over a year.”
A reminiscent gleam appeared in Cushing’s eye. “You just had to know how to handle her.”
“That’s right,” Iona supported him. “You couldn’t criticize even the silliest suggestions. I always pretended to accept them and then modified them as I went along.”
“Same thing with her writing,” Sean said instantly. “Mostly it was garbage, but you just took it and changed it all around.”
“As long as you called it polishing, you could get away with anything,” Iona chanted rhythmically.
Sean then produced a chuckle. “It wasn’t all that hard. Even Cheryl had figured out how to do it.”
They were alternating with smooth efficiency. By now it had become a game with Iona and Cushing, to be played whenever one of NOBBY’s governors was present. Listening to them, Thatcher decided that NOBBY’s board was once again in danger of being manipulated by its hired help.
“So we had a silly, self-centered, but perfectly normal woman,” Thatcher said, returning them to the subject, “who suddenly underwent an astonishing transformation between Monday at dinnertime and the next day.”
“It had sure happened by the time she lit into me on Tuesday morning,” Sean acknowledged ruefully. “I’d never heard her like that before, claiming I’d betrayed her, that I’d undermined her position.”
Even as
he listened, Thatcher marveled that Cushing should be so deaf to the implications of his own words. Leveling a reproachful finger, he said, “And didn’t you ask yourself how she had suddenly become so knowledgeable? How did she find out?”
The first impatient reply died on Sean’s lips.
“You know, I never thought about that,” he finally admitted.
Thatcher’s sternness did not abate. “Even more important, she was alive to the consequences of SDI financing. You told the police you were surprised she had grasped the vulnerability of her position.”
“I just figured that was why she was going off like a rocket.”
“But someone had gotten through to her,” Thatcher insisted, drilling his point home. “Someone managed to puncture her self-importance.”
“Then hats off to him,” Sean riposted. “I certainly didn’t make a dent.”
“Neither did I,” Iona offered. “In the ladies’ room she was shrugging off everything I said.”
“And I assume you were both too angry to be tactful,” Thatcher suggested.
Sean’s face lit up. “I called her an incompetent bitch.”
“Then it’s safe to say enlightenment came to her in some form that abandoned the usual proprieties of conversation.”
“So what?” Sean demanded. “Until you knew who she was with Monday night, that doesn’t tell you anything.”
This obtuseness, Thatcher decided, underlined how much of a maverick Mrs. Underwood had been. “On the contrary, it tells us a good deal. At five o’clock on Monday, Madeleine was perfectly content. By the next morning she had been told the financial realities with such brutal candor that she was frightened enough to launch into totally uncharacteristic conduct.”
“Now wait a minute,” Sean objected. “What makes you think she was scared? She was acting like hell on wheels.”
“The woman’s whole identity centered on NOBBY. That was what was important to her, and that was being threatened. From then on her constant theme was betrayal. When you add the fact that every suspect was alibied for Monday night, you understand Inspector Reardon’s dismay when he learned she had been in her own home. If his suspects didn’t have an opportunity to see her in the city, they certainly didn’t have time to run out to New Jersey.”