Late Payments

by Michael Z. Lewin

  Powder was chatting to the deputy chief’s secretary when Ferguson came in. He was a tall, muscular man in his late fifties who had moved to Indianapolis from Atlanta in the middle of his career. Ferguson and Powder had had little to do with each other over the years, but both had departmental reputations that allowed respect.

  They settled in the deputy chief’s office and Powder recounted everything he had done since his first meeting with Jules Mencelli.

  Ferguson expressed no approval or disapproval. He listened carefully and took notes. He asked for and received full details of Powder’s actions in and around John F. Baldine’s house, although Powder said nothing of Ricky and Peggy’s presence.

  When Powder finished, Ferguson leaned back in his chair and fixed Powder’s eyes with his own.

  “You don’t know Forensic’s preliminary findings, do you?” he said.

  “No.”

  “They found a twenty-two slug in the wall behind where you said you were standing. And one of yours each in the ceiling and the deceased, Mencelli. The deceased, Baldine, had three twenty-twos in his chest and one in his stomach. He didn’t die immediately, but he was probably unconscious most of the time it took. It wouldn’t have been more than an hour or two. He’d been dead for something like forty-eight hours.”

  Powder nodded.

  “So,” Ferguson said, “it all confirms what you’ve told me.”

  Powder nodded again.

  “Let’s assume that the final reports all confirm your story.”

  “They will.”

  “Where will that leave us?”

  “If you just talk to Tidmarsh and then let—”

  Ferguson interrupted. “I’ll have a talk with Tidmarsh all right, but I don’t think—”

  Powder raised his voice, interrupting back. “You must let Tidmarsh loose with his machines so he can find out, once and for all, whether people are being murdered out there.”

  “Lieutenant Powder,” Ferguson said with ferocity, “I will make my own decisions about how to handle this purported conspiracy to kill, what, three or four hundred people a year?” Ferguson took a short breath. “I won’t ignore it, and you may count on that. But you may also count on the fact that you will not be involved in whatever happens from here about it.”

  Powder waited.

  Ferguson continued. “You have, on your own responsibility, already conducted a highly questionable investigation. One having nothing to do with your assigned role in this Department and without any reference to or guidance from officers whose full-time job is investigation. It could easily be argued that your involvement led to both deaths.”

  “There was no—”

  Ferguson held up a hand.

  Powder stopped.

  “Perhaps not, but whatever one feels about that and your entry into Baldine’s house, it will be very difficult not to conclude that you have had some very serious lapses of judgment. Along with everything else, I shall have to give serious consideration to what options are available concerning your future around here, Lieutenant.”

  Powder left Ferguson at twelve-fifteen. Because the deputy chief’s office was not attached to the Detective Day Room, Powder was able to slip into the stairwell and leave Headquarters without running into Inspector Mountjoy.

  Powder drove to Robert Sweet’s house.

  The boy opened the door quickly, expectantly. But it was clear that it was not Powder he expected to see on the step.

  “Hello, Robert,” Powder said.

  The boy stood blinking.

  “At the ball game you said your mother was coming about noon today, didn’t you?”

  “I ...Yeah.”

  “She’s not here yet?”

  “No.” Robert Sweet shuffled from foot to foot.

  “You didn’t think I’d forgotten about you, did you?”

  “That’s OK,” the boy said. “You want to come in?”

  “I’d like to, but I can’t stay now.”

  “Oh.”

  “I’ve got important work to do. But I’d like you to pass a message on to your mother for me. Will you do that?”

  “I guess. Yeah.”

  “Tell her I would like to talk with her. I will try to come back about seven if I can, but otherwise I’ll be here as soon as I get my work cleared. Tell her it’s important, but if she can’t be here at seven she should tell you how I can contact her. Have you got that?”

  “Sure.”

  “Robert,” Powder said, “even if she wants you to come with her, I don’t think you should go with her today.”

  “I’m not going anywhere,” Robert Sweet said. “What would happen then if my dad came back?”

  Powder was silent for a moment. Then he took his wallet from his jacket pocket and drew out a card. On the back he wrote two telephone numbers. “If, for some reason, you do decide to go with her, try to leave me a note, will you? Saying where you’ve gone.”

  “OK.”

  He handed the boy the card. “But if that turns out not to be possible, then these are the telephone numbers to try when you get a chance.”

  The boy took the card and studied both sides.

  “The work number is on the front,” Powder said, and then he realized the boy was close to tears.

  Sweet looked up at him. He said,“Should I be scared of something, Mr. Powder?”

  “No, of course not, Robert,” he said, as convincingly as he could.

  From Robert Sweet’s house. Powder went to a pay phone.

  He called his social worker friend, Adele Buffington. But she was out of the office. He left his name.

  Then he telephoned the FBI.

  Powder spoke angrily. He insisted on talking to someone, anyone who had the knowledge and authority to discuss a man named Norman Frankling they had set up in a new life under the name of Sidney Sweet.

  Powder was given an appointment for four-thirty.

  Then Powder telephoned the Police Department and asked for Inspector Mountjoy. “I understand that you’ve been wanting a word with me,” he said.

  Chapter Thirty Three

  When Powder entered the Detective Day Room, Inspector Claude Mountjoy was waiting.

  Mountjoy was a clean-shaven dark-haired man in his mid-thirties, of medium build, with a cast in one of his bright blue eyes. He carried a clipboard and he rose as Powder approached. “I looked for you, all day yesterday,” he said.

  “I didn’t know.”

  Mountjoy’s lips tightened. “I left messages all over town.”

  “I didn’t get any of them.”

  “In your box this morning?”

  “My sergeant usually clears my box for me. Today I went straight to see Ferguson. I haven’t been to the office to see her yet.”

  “That’s Sergeant Fleetwood?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I left a message with her.”

  “I didn’t see her. Sorry.”

  “I tried to call you at home.”

  “I was out. I saw my kid and his girl friend this weekend, had a few social engagements . . . You know how it goes.”

  Mountjoy sighed tiredly. “They say you screw her,” he said.

  “What?”

  “That crippled sergeant of yours.”

  Powder pointed a finger at Mountjoy’s nose. “That ‘crippled’ sergeant is an active, capable police officer. She’s your equal or mine in everything but rank, and if you refer to her in a diminishing manner again I’ll file a formal complaint.”

  “I didn’t mean anything, Powder.”

  “If you didn’t mean anything, then you shouldn’t have said anything.”

  Mountjoy said, “Let’s just get all this business sorted out, OK?”

  Powder glared. Mountjoy led him to an interview room.

  They sat facing each other across a table. Mountjoy put his clipboard down and rested his hands, palms together, on top of it. “My case is the Billy Sorenson killing.”

  “The nightclub guy?”

 
“That’s right. Now the Night Cover man, Hal Salimbean—I think you know him, don’t you?”

  “Sure. I trained him for the job. I spent a lot of years running Night Cover, you know.”

  “Well, Hal says you were on the scene at The Blue Boot almost as soon as he was. You asked some questions and then you went away. When you came back, you had the name of a possible suspect.”

  “That’s right.”

  Mountjoy watched Powder for a moment. He said, “We arrested this Painter guy the same night.”

  “And how does he pan out?”

  “He’s it: description, motive. Except for one thing.” Mountjoy stared hard at Powder.

  “What’s that?” Powder asked.

  “He gives you as his alibi.”

  “Me?” Powder showed surprise.

  “Yes, Lieutenant Powder. You. So, you can see why I wanted to talk to you so bad.”

  “Gee, Inspector, if only I’d known.”

  Mountjoy studied Powder again, clearly not convinced by his line of stated ignorance.

  “What kind of alibi am I supposed to give him?” Powder asked.

  “Painter says that you saw him at his apartment late Saturday night. He says you saw him just about exactly at the time Sorenson was shot. About eleven forty-five.”

  Powder thought.

  “The story is that you were visiting his landlady, a woman named Martha Miles. That he came downstairs to complain about his plumbing. That you volunteered to look at it. That you fixed it for him. The Miles woman backs him up.” Mountjoy looked at Powder. “How about it, Lieutenant?”

  “I was certainly at Martha’s about that time on Saturday night.”

  “Yes?”

  “But the only plumbing I was interested in was hers.”

  Mountjoy had arranged a lineup. Seven men, including the man Powder took for Henry Painter, walked onto the stage. One by one they stepped forward, showed both profiles, spoke. Then they marched off.

  The likeness was good. Very, very good.

  “Well?” Mountjoy asked.

  Powder said, “I have never seen any of those men before in my life.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “Yes, I’m sure. Sorry.”

  “Don’t be sorry,” Mountjoy said intensely. “It means we’re going to nail the bastard.”

  “Look,” Powder said, “I’ve got an important errand to do on another case. Is it all right if I go?”

  Mountjoy looked doubtful. “Yeah, I guess. But be sure and let Communications know where you are. In case we need you again.”

  “Of course, of course,” Powder said. He moved to leave, then stopped.

  “What is it?”

  “Just a hunch,” Powder said, “but since the Miles woman is lying about Painter being at her house, it might be worth while looking into her background. Where her son is, who the father was, that kind of thing.”

  “Think so?”

  “Hey, I got to go. See you again soon.” Powder breezed out.

  Chapter Thirty Four

  Powder arrived early at the FBI’s offices, in the Federal Office Building facing Obelisk Square across North Pennsylvania Street. The building was notable for having 672 feet of wrap-around mural, in thirty-five colors, at the bottom. This was the most colors on a mural of more than five hundred feet at the base of a building controlled by the executive branch of the federal government in the Midwest.

  Powder was shown into the office of an agent named Wensel.

  They passed the first minute of their acquaintance examining each other’s credentials.

  Then Wensel called the Police Department. He asked for Captain Gartland and then asked Gartland if he could vouch for and identify a Lieutenant Leroy Yount Powder. After waiting for a full two minutes Wensel seemed to get a description. Then, his hand over the receiver, Wensel asked Powder to take off his shoes.

  Immediately Powder complied.

  Wensel counted Powder’s seven toes. That satisfied him.

  “You’re here to talk about an extremely sensitive matter. Lieutenant,” Wensel said. “We have to be very careful who we are dealing with. ‘Sidney Sweet’ is someone who lives his entire life in a lot of danger.”

  “I understand that only too well,” Powder said forcefully. “What I want is to know where he is.”

  Wensel looked grave. “We don’t know.”

  “But you know he’s missing from home?”

  “Yes.”

  “But you didn’t know that until he’d been gone a few days, right?”

  Wensel nodded. “That’s right.”

  “Terrific!” Powder said.

  Wensel was taken aback by Powder’s acerbic tone. “That sort of attitude is not very constructive.”

  “My information is that ‘Sweet’ was a target for revenge by someone from Gary. Did you know that?”

  “No,” Wensel said sharply. “But I’d say you should damn well have warned us.”

  Powder said, “I only found out after I began investigating his disappearance. At that point I had no idea what his history with you was.”

  “I’m pleased to hear it’s not general knowledge.”

  “Not with the police,” Powder said pointedly. “I learned about it from a local gangster.”

  The two men were silent for a moment. Wensel repeated, “We do not know where he is. We do understand that he is missing from his house and that he hasn’t been to work.”

  “He hasn’t contacted you?”

  Wensel shifted in his chair and said, “If he had, and if he didn’t want us to pass that information on, I wouldn’t be able to say so in any case. We’ve got to protect these guys. And protect them good.”

  “Terrific,” Powder said. “And do you know that Sweet’s son has been alone in his house for a week?”

  “No,” Wensel said, frowning. “I didn’t know that. I thought there was a wife.”

  “Little Miss Sunny Sweet dived off to sunny Mexico with a new playmate about a year and a half ago. I suppose you guys didn’t know that either?”

  Solemnly, Wensel said, “No.”

  “I’m really thrilled you take such good care of guys like Sweet, or rather Norman Frankling.”

  “Once a man has established his new life and it’s running smoothly, he doesn’t want us hanging around outside his house day after day any more than we want to do it.”

  “I suppose you have a standard procedure all worked out, you got so many crooks on the payroll.”

  Wensel said, “Do you have anything worthwhile to occupy my time with. Lieutenant, or,” looking at his watch, “can I get back to some work?”

  “Frankling’s been set up in his new life for a long time and you don’t keep in touch. But your guy ‘Smith’ went to Frankling’s wedding.”

  “He was invited,” Wensel said. “He did well by Frankling, and Frankling was grateful.”

  Powder dropped his eyes to the floor. He stood up. He looked at Wensel and slowly asked, “Has Norman Frankling talked to you in the last ten days or not?”

  Wensel shrugged. He said, “No.”

  “Do you know what’s become of him?”

  “No.”

  “Suppose he has been topped. What kind of support do you give his kid?”

  Wensel scratched his head. “I’m not quite sure.”

  “A lot, right? Money for living. Money for any kind of thing he would need. Money for college. Money for baseball gloves. Am I right?”

  Wensel tilted his head. “I can check.”

  “You do that, friend. You look it up in your rule book, because if you don’t give him that kind of support, I can guarantee that other prospective informants with families are going to be a hell of a lot less likely to step forward with their mouths open . . .”

  Wensel frowned.

  Powder lifted a finger, glowered. “. . . when they read about what hasn’t happened for the Sweet kid in all the papers.”

  Chapter Thirty Five

  When Sunny Sweet, Ro
bert’s mother, answered the door, Powder was shocked. The radiance, the prettiness, even the smallness of her wedding photographs were all gone. Only the blond hair remained and that appeared plasticky.

  “Don’t just stand there like a dummy, mister. What you want?”

  “Mrs. Sweet?”

  She sighed long and hard. “Yeah, I guess. You’re the cop, huh?”

  Powder identified himself.

  She drew her shoulders back. “I want a little talk with you. Why have you been interfering in Bobby’s life, huh? Why the hell didn’t you tell me when his old man split? Why did you leave him on his own here? What kind of cop are you, old fella? Take the kid to ball games. Give him food. Maybe I should have reported you soon as he told me about you. Pick on a lot of lonely kids, do you? Only way you can get your kicks now? Huh? Hey? I got it right?” She snorted.

  Slowly and clearly Powder said, “I want to inform you of your rights. You have the right to remain silent. If you choose—”

  The woman’s attitude changed like a switch of channels. “Hey, man, don’t do that. I wasn’t serious.”

  “I have some questions to ask you, Mrs. Sweet.”

  She twitched her head sulkily. “What questions?”

  Powder stood, silent.

  “You wanna come in, I guess.” The woman stepped back.

  Powder entered the house.

  In the front hall he asked, “Is your Dolf here?”

  “What do you know about Dolf?”

  “Is he here?”

  “No, he’s not here.”

  “Are you still with him?”

  “Course I’m still with him!”

  “So he came back from Mexico with you, but he is not in the house at the present time?”

  “Yeah, that’s right.”

  “Is Robert here?”

  “Yeah. He’s in his room.”

  Powder looked at her suspiciously.

  “He’s reading some goddamn baseball magazine I bought him. I told him I wanted to see you alone. All right?”

  “We’ll talk in the kitchen,” Powder said.

  “Oh will we?”

  Powder walked to the kitchen. Sunny Sweet followed.

  Powder took out his notebook. He dropped it on the kitchen table. It landed with a bang. He sat down. He flipped the notebook open. He headed a page with the date and address and her name.