Insofar as anyone could determine, Sally Cox had been born three weeks ago, when she had made a bank deposit, rented a furnished apartment and taken a driver's test. She had lived a short life and there was little evidence that it had been happy.
When the Crime Lab crew arrived, Sammy left.
He walked down to Ney and caught a bus into town. It wasn't like Cantrell to leave any of his men without transportation. But nobody had been like nobody this morning. Or last night, for that matter.
Off the bus, he headed for the garage under the big white police–department building and then changed his mind. It wasn't much farther to the morgue.
“Cox,” he said, “Sally M. Cox.”
The attendant led the way. It was cold in the morgue. Quiet.
“Don't often get a looker,” he said. He pulled back the covering from her head and shoulders. “Right pretty,” he said. “If you forget what was done to her. A few years ago, I bet she was something terrific.”
Sammy glanced at the attendant, coming out of his study of the face before him. “What did you say?”
“I just said that a few years ago ...”
“Where's your phone?”
“Back there on the desk where you came in.”
Sammy swung away from the man and headed out.
“Put her away?” the attendant shouted after him.
“You stay put,” Golden said over his shoulder. “Both of you,” he added rather needlessly. “Jack York'll be right down,” the detective said when he returned. York was the best artist on the force.
“You onto something, Sergeant?” the attendant said.
“I don't know,” Sammy said honestly.
“You think the priest had anything to do with it?”
Golden's right hand flashed out and caught a fistful of shirt front. His eyes were bleak. “Where did you hear anything like that?”
“Say, who do you think ...” The man's voice trailed off suddenly frightened.
“I asked you a question.”
“I don't know nothin', just what the night man told me when I come on.”
Sammy let go of the shirt. “Your friend's got a lousy mouth.”
“Sure, Sergeant, sure. Say, I just remember, you and that priest ...”
“That's right,” Sammy agreed quietly, “me and that priest ...”
Officer York arrived with pencils and pad.
Sammy grinned crookedly. “You bring some imagination, Jack?”
“What's on your mind?”
Sergeant Golden nodded at Sally Cox. “Can you do her face as though she were twenty pounds lighter, seven or eight years younger and wearing her hair loose to her shoulders?”
York frowned and studied the full, sensuous, sleeping expression. Then, rapidly, he went to work. Before he was halfway through, Sammy sighed. Then his expression grew thoughtful. In twenty minutes, the sketch was complete.
The police artist held it up for inspection. “Somebody you know, if I may ask?”
“Sari Angel,” Sammy said softly. “The Naked Angel.” He stared down at the mortal remains on the table. Good afternoon, he thought; good afternoon and goodby. There was a certain justice in her final violence.
Sammy took the picture from York. “You can put her to bed,” he said to the attendant. The two officers left together.
“Naked Angel,” York said.
“A stripper once. Sensational. Also the girl friend of a guy named Gerald Dempsy. He had his wife killed because of her. Father Shanley brought him back from Mexico single–handed. We sent him up. ...” Sammy paused, frowning.
“I don't get it,” York said.
“Neither do I,” Golden admitted.
Captain William Cantrell made the call to Folsom Prison from his office.
Gerald Dempsy had been released five weeks ago after serving seven years and nine months. He had been a model prisoner. He had corresponded with a Sara Engel while he was there and a woman who had identified herself as the same had visited him a number of times during the last two years.
“That would be after she stopped being the Angel,” Sammy said. Cantrell nodded, his burned–out eyes watching the sergeant. Sammy switched from the girl then and came back to Dempsy. “And he did hate Father,” he said. “He had more reason to than any other human being.”
“But he wouldn't kill her,” Cantrell growled.
“Eight years of hating,” Sammy said grimly, “is a hell of a long time.”
“No proof.” Cantrell threw his cigar at a basket in the corner.
“We'll get it.”
“How?”
“Find Dempsy.”
“Sure.” The Captain's voice was sour. “In a week, a month, a year. He's a smart boy. He's not broke. He'll be a thousand miles from here.”
“He wasn't when he made that phone call this morning.”
“That was a Mexican woman.”
“Sure,” Sammy said, “she did the talking. But Sally Cox was created to frame Father, to disgrace him.”
Cantrell slapped his hands hard on the desk before him. His voice was rough. “You did a good job identifying the Angel – I'll give you that. And we'll get an all–points out on Dempsy – I'll give you that, too. But we've got a murderer to find, not a two–bit lousy frame. Now you take the night off and go on home. You've done a day's work and I'll pull somebody in to handle your spot on the night watch.”
Sammy's nails bit into the palms of his hands. He relaxed them with an effort. “Where's Father, Bill?”
“Down the hall having a talk with Dan and Ed Haggerty – a long talk.”
Silently, Sergeant Golden turned to walk from the room.
“And you leave 'em alone,” Cantrell shouted.
“Sure,” Sammy said, “sure, Bill.”
He knew what Cantrell had said with never saying a word about it. Identifying the Angel and proving Dempsy was loose hadn't helped Father. If Dempsy had murdered his girl friend, it had to be proved. And if it were not ... Booze on the priest's coat, torn nylon stockings hidden in a drawer ...
He got off the elevator opposite RECORDS.
He signed for two photos from the Dempsy file.
He started with the Biltmore Hotel. Dempsy had always lived high. Dempsy had money. Dempsy had been a tipper.
After the Biltmore, he hit the Statler. It was seven–thirty in the evening when he walked into the CarltonPlaza. There was no Dempsy on the register. The registration clerk wasn't “very good about faces.” The bell captain started to shake his head, and then hesitated.
“Seven, eight years older,” Sammy said quickly. “Probably has put on weight. None of the tan that's in these shots. Been in prison.”
The man nodded abruptly. “I'm not certain,” he said. He didn't mean it. They started through the bellhops. The third bellhop said, “That would be nine eighteen, sir. I took his bags up myself.”
The hotel detective's name was Grierson. They rode up together. Outside nine eighteen Grierson glanced up and down the hall and then slipped a snub–nosed .38 from a shoulder holster into his right jacket pocket. He used his left hand to insert the pass key into the lock. The door opened silently.
A single lamp was burning beside the easy chair. Newspapers were scattered around it. The big man on the bed had an arm cocked across his face. He was not aware of them until they were in the room with the door closed behind them.
“All right, Dempsy,” Sammy said.
The big man swung his legs from the bed and sat up. When the light hit the planes of his face, his cheeks were shining. He stared at the two men with swollen eyes.
Lord, Sammy thought, he's been crying like a baby. It wasn't the victory Sammy'd expected. It was somehow shameful, somehow embarrassing. There was a framed photograph on the chest of drawers. The slim blond girl in it looked like an angel. It had been taken many years ago.
Grierson broke the strange charade. “This your man?”
“This is the man,” Sammy repeated. He crossed th
e room to the phone. Cantrell was still in his office.
“I've picked up Dempsy,” Sergeant Golden said. “We're in room nine eighteen at the Carlton Plaza.” His own voice sounded hollow.
Eight–thirty, nine–thirty, ten–thirty. Gerald Dempsy talked. All the hatred Sammy had guessed came spilling out. A nursed hatred, a nurtured hatred, all aimed at one man. It had coiled and grown through the prison years, it had blossomed with the invention of Sally Cox. Two individuals getting even for the wasted years. For the years Father Joseph Shanley had lost them when he captured Dempsy. Sari Angel and Gerald Dempsy, planning, scheming, thinking, forming an antichrist out of a man most considered nearly a saint.
But it hadn't worked, Dempsy said, hadn't worked, because Sari Angel was dead.
And he wept again.
It was a closed–door session. The captain and the sergeant together in Cantrell's office.
“The man's a psychopath,” Sammy said viciously.
“Is he?” Cantrell rubbed at the corners of his burning eyes.
“You don't believe him, Bill?”
“Somebody killed the Angel.”
“Dempsy.”
“You sure he did, Sammy?” Cantrell worked the cellophane wrapper off a cigar.
“God,” Sammy said, “I don't know.”
“We've sent Shanley home,” Cantrell said, his rough voice almost gentle. “I think you'd better go and pay him another call.”
“Me!” Sammy raised a tortured glance. “I've crucified him already.”
“Sure,” Cantrell agreed. “I can send Prouty and Mendez. We have to talk to him again.”
“I'll go.”
“Dan Adams better go with you.”
“Alone,” Sammy said. He took a deep breath. “It's better that way.”
“Yeah,” Bill said. He watched Sergeant Golden walk to the door. It was a damned long walk. The truth was hard to come by sometimes. Golden took his own car. He drove out West Ney in the backwash of the big east–west freeway through the dirty shirttails of the city.
I could use a drink, Sammy thought. He kept driving. The Chino Poblano was just three blocks from the parish house.
Sammy parked in front of the joint. After tonight, he thought, I'm going to get drunk and stay drunk. It would be better than thinking. Anything would.
It was an old bar, shiny from a thousand damp cloths, worm–eaten with the marks of careless cigarettes. The light inside was dusty and the electric fan made a quiet music. The men spoke mostly in the gentle cadence of their native tongue and even at this late hour there was a table of dominoes. Sammy ordered a double shot with a water chaser.
The bartender brought his drink. Sammy paid.
“It is the rubia,” the bartender said. “That is why you are here, Sergeant?”
“I'm here for a drink,” Sammy said. He tried to remember the man's name, but he had met so many of Father's people. Father's people – the phrase was like an open wound.
The bartender scowled. “Even dead, such a one makes trouble. I could have told you that from the first time I saw her.”
“In church?”
The man thumped his forefinger on the bar. “In here. Upon the same stool as the one you occupy. Before God!” The domino players had turned their heads and were watching.
“Here?” Sammy repeated. He tried to stop the excitement curling inside him.
“Pues, and why not?” The bartender shrugged. “It is the nearest place.”
“Alone?”
“That I will give her. She came alone. She left alone. In this place, that is not an easy thing. I speak in confidence, Sergeant, because you are a friend of el padre.”
“About the woman,” Sammy snapped.
“Sí,” said the bartender, “muy guapa, that one. She was not unfriendly, you understand. But she could handle men. All fire and ice. And when it was cold, Sergeant” he grinned ”it was very, very cold. Even such a pig as Miguel could see that.”
“Miguel?”
“Miguel Milpas. A fool. A chaser. Big in the stomach, bigger in the head. A big trouble in here. A bad drunk.”
Sammy leaned forward. “This Milpas, where would I find him?”
The bartender called to the domino players, “Dónde està la casa de Miguelen?” There was a quick flutter of consideration in Spanish.
“Around the corner on Mercado,” the bartender translated. “Fourth house on the right.”
“Thanks.” Sammy left his drink unfinished.
In a poor district, Mercado was the poorest street. Dark, leaning houses, broken fences. Sammy went up the walk and onto a warped and sagging porch. He knocked. He pounded. In the house next door, a child began to cry. Across the street, a window went up.
The door before him swung open. “Wha' do you wan'?” A big shadow in the greater shadow behind it.
“Are you Miguel Milpas?”
“Who wan's to know?”
“I'm a police officer. I want – ”
The door slammed toward him.
Sammy met it with his shoulder. The man was running through the house. The detective stumbled after him, following the clatter of footsteps. Then the footsteps stopped and he heard the squeal of wood against wood as when a badly fitted drawer is pulled.
It came from the left and Sammy crouched as he moved down a dark, narrow hall toward the dark room at the end. The shot exploded over his head. From the memory of the flash, he dived for Miguel. His head smashed into the gross barrel of Miguel's belly.
Sammy got up first. He lit a match, caught the gleam of the nickel–plated pistol and kicked it across the room before he found the finger switch on the old brass fixture. The light showed a fat, ugly drunk, holding his stomach and moaning.
Golden stood over him. “Get up, Milpas.”
“to Por Dios!” I am broken in two.”
Sammy grabbed a handful of hair and pulled the man's head up and back. “The blonde woman, Sally Cox, last night!”
Miguel groaned.
“The blonde woman!” Sammy repeated.
“I did not mean to. She open the door when I knock. She is angry to see me. She grab a bottle, a wild cat, gata, gatoda!” He closed his eyes and tried to rock forward. Golden let go of the man and stepped back.
“Well, now, if that isn't a picture!”
Sammy swung toward the door. Lieutenant Adams leaned against the frame, a broad grin on his freckled face. “Bill thought somebody should tag along and pick up your stitches.”
“You heard?” Sammy demanded.
“I heard.”
Golden felt his own grin growing. “Well, what are we waiting for?”
Adams jerked a thumb at the man on the floor. “For him to get well,” he said.
It was late the next afternoon when Sammy finally reached the parish house of St. Anne's. He had had ten hours sleep, a shave, a shower, and a quart of beer to celebrate rejoining the human race.
Father Joseph Shanley took him into the study with an arm about his shoulders. The priest had heard enough to know that he was clear of the tall cloud, but he had not heard the details.
“Miguel Milpas,” Father shook his head. “One of my failures ...”
“A big trouble,” Sammy quoted the bartender, “a bad drunk.”
“Nevertheless ...” the priest said.
“You were darned lucky we found him. Maybe you were even lucky he did it. Dempsy and the Angel were out to get you and get you good. The night before last you were bound for an assignation. After you arrived at the apartment you were to be doused with liquor, and she was going to run from the apartment, her clothes torn, screaming at the top of her lungs. A lot of people would have seen you. Then Dempsy was to have picked her up and they would have vanished into the night. One phone call, and the police would have found an apartment abandoned by a terror–stricken woman, witnesses and you wandering around smelling of whiskey.”
Father shuddered.
“He almost made it at that. Because even with Sar
i dead, he had enough hatred left to improvise.”
“That poor man ...” Joseph Shanley stared at Sammy Golden. “What will you people do to him?”
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