Cop Out

by Ellery Queen

  “I don’t know.”

  “I thought you considered me your friend.”

  “You’re a policeman.”

  “I’m also a husband and a father. You ought to know me better than that.”

  “I don’t know anything any more.”

  “Do you want me to leave?” the chief asked.

  They waited for a long time. Finally Ellen’s mouth loosened and she said, “John, we don’t know what to do, where to turn.”

  “That’s why I’m here, Ellen. I want to help.”

  “Sure,” Malone said. “Get me that money.”

  “Ask me something that’s possible, Wes. Anyway, I think there’s something we can do.”

  “Without the twenty-four thousand?” Malone laughed. “Furia thinks I’ve lifted it. You figured out a way to convince him I didn’t?”

  “I’ve been thinking over what you told me, I mean about what you did on your own.” Secco seemed to be picking his way through the available words and choosing only the finest. “Maybe when they rented that cabin at the Lake last summer they at the same time rented a second cabin as a backup just in case. I thought it worth a try.”

  Malone raised his head. “I never thought of that.”

  “Only they didn’t. I’ve spent the day so far doing another check of the real estate offices.” He added quickly, “Don’t worry. I didn’t tip the hand.”

  Malone slumped back. Ellen just sat there.

  “All the other possibilities were either vacated as of Labor Day or they’re rented the year round by people who are known. So wherever they’ve dug in this time it’s likely not at the Lake. It could be anywhere, out of the county even. It would take a hundred men-”

  “You mustn’t do that!” Ellen cried.

  “Ellen, I told you. I wouldn’t take chances with Barbara’s safety.”

  “All I know is I want my baby back.”

  “Isn’t that what we all want? Look. Wes, you listening?”

  “I’m listening,” Malone said.

  “This woman who hijacked the payroll, Goldie. She could be working with Furia against the other man, Hinch, to squeeze Hinch out. They could be both putting on an act for Hinch’s benefit.”

  “Damn,” Malone said. “I never thought of that, either.”

  “But I doubt it. From what you told me about the way Furia acted when they were here in your house, it’s likelier she’s doublecrossing the two of them the way you doped it.”

  “Round and round we go,” Malone said.

  “No, listen.” Chief Secco leaned forward in his effort to hold them, they slipped away so easily. “The way you described this Hinch, Wes, he seems to be the weak sister of the three, a dumb character.”

  “He hasn’t a brain in his head.”

  “The dumb ones of a gang are the ones to go after. In this case, from what you say, the groundwork with Hinch has already been laid.”

  “How do you mean?”

  “You told me that the first time they came here-when they first took Barbara-Furia told Hinch to meet them at the cabin and Hinch was upset, you got the impression he was worried they might run out on him.”

  “So?”

  “You also said that the second time they came, after you got Barbara back, when you told them the money’d been stolen from the house and Ellen accused Furia of having been the one, Hinch seemed half convinced it was true. That’s what I mean by the groundwork being laid. He doesn’t trust Furia. He’s already got his doubts. Suppose we could convince him.”

  “That Furia took the money? But he didn’t, John. Goldie Vorshek took it.”

  “We know that and the Vorshek woman knows it, but Hinch and Furia don’t.” There was nothing in the chief’s voice or manner to suggest that he was about to sell something, he was being very careful about that. “If we can get Hinch to believing that Furia is playing him for a sucker, even a bear of little brain like that is going to start thinking of his own hide. It’s a cinch he’s in this thing for his cut of the loot. If there’s no cut for him he’s going to want out. The only way Hinch could get out now is by making a deal with us, in his own interest and to get back at the partner taking him for a ride. He’ll make contact. He’ll tell us where they’re hiding.

  He might even help us when we close in. That’s the way I figure it.”

  “And that’s the way my Bibby would get killed,” Ellen said. “Absolutely no.”

  “Ellen,” Secco said. “Would Barbara be in more danger than she’s in right now if they got to distrusting one another? She might even be in less, because if the plan worked out Hinch would have a personal interest in seeing she stays safe. He’d know what would happen to him if he let Furia hurt her.” Secco took out his pipe and fiddled with it. He put it back in his pocket. “Look, I’m not saying this is guaranteed. There are a lot of ifs when you’re dealing with dangerous morons like these. But as things stand, Furia won’t give up Barbara without the money, if then-I have to be frank with you, Ellen-and we don’t have the money to give them. You’ve got to accept how things are, not how you’d like them to be.”

  Ellen was giving her head little stubborn shakes.

  “But, of course, you’ve got to make the decision. I don’t have the right to make it for you. Even if I had, I wouldn’t.”

  “The answer is no,” Ellen said.

  “Ellen.” There was a hint of life in Malone’s eyes. “Maybe John has something. God knows we don’t. Maybe such a trick… “

  “No.”

  “Wait. John, how would you get to Hinch? What do you have in mind?”

  “Wherever they’re hiding out it’s a sure thing they’ve got a radio. So that’s our channel of communication. Manufactured story, some cooked-up announcements on the air, I don’t know, I haven’t laid it out yet. But the point is, if we can get the right message through to him-”

  “But Furia and this Goldie would hear it, too.”

  “Let them. It would make her more jittery than she already is, a doublecross inside the gang is the last thing she wants the other two to start kicking around. And as far as Furia’s concerned, it puts him on the defensive with Hinch and that could make them go for each other’s throats. It’s a tactic that’s broken up a lot of gangs. But as I say, I can’t make the decision for you people. She’s your flesh and blood.”

  “It’s up to you, Ellen,” Malone said. “What do you say?”

  “Oh, God.”

  Secco got up and went to the window. He took out his pipe again and sucked on it emptily. His back said he wasn’t there.

  “Loney, help me, help me,” Ellen moaned.

  “Do you want me to make the decision?”

  “I don’t know, I don’t know.”

  “You’ve got to know. There’s no time for this, Ellen. Do I decide for both of us, or do you, or what?”

  “They’ll murder her, Loney.”

  “They may murder her anyway.”

  She stiffened as if he had struck her.

  Ellen, Ellen, how else do you prepare yourself?

  “Well?”

  He could just hear her. “Whatever you say.”

  “John,” Malone said.

  Secco turned around.

  “We go for broke.”

  * * *

  It turned out that the chief had Harvey Rudd waiting in the wagon. “I brought Harvey along in case you said yes,” Secco said. “He’ll have to be briefed, Wes. I told him nothing.”

  Harvey Rudd was The Voice of Taugus Valley. He was an ex-Maine news broadcaster who had passed up a top job with a New York network to start an independent radio station, WRUD, in Tonekeneke Falls. He owned it, programed it, edited its news, sometimes took its mike, and he had been known to sweep it out. He was a fortyish Down Easter with a long Yank nose and a short Yank tongue.

  Ellen said one thing in Rudd’s presence. She said it to Chief Secco. “Can this man be trusted?”

  When the chief said, “Yes,” Ellen nodded and went upstairs, not to
be seen again during the afternoon.

  Rudd didn’t say anything, not even with his eyes, which were northern ocean blue and looked as if they belonged in a four-master’s crow’s-nest. They did not even express anything at the sight of the plaster on Malone’s hair and the welt on his jaw. He set his surprising Texas-style white Stetson on the sofa beside him and waited.

  Malone told the story leaving out nothing. The radio man listened without a word. When Malone was finished Chief Secco told about using WRUD to get to Hinch. “Will you do it, Harvey?”

  For the first time Malone heard Rudd’s voice.

  “I have two children of my own.” Malone had expected a voice like a cheap guitar, like fellow-officer Sherm Hamlin’s, Sherm had been born in Boothbay Harbor and had served as a guard at the prison in Thomaston before following his married daughter down to New Bradford, he had never lost his whangy accent. But this voice was more like one of Lawrence Welk’s baritone saxes. “What exactly did you have in mind, John?”

  “Well, I got an idea while Wes was filling you in. You could put on the air a series of those now-what d’ye call ‘em?-like trailers, teasers, of a, say, radio drama. You know, like you were working up advance interest in a show you were going to run next week or month, give pieces of the plot. Like that. What we’d do is use the actual facts of this case, except we’d make out like the head man of the gang was double-crossing the other two. The idea is to get Hinch to worrying… No, Harvey?”

  Rudd was shaking his head. “In the first place, John, WRUD doesn’t run dramatic shows, they went out a long time ago on radio, so it would sound phony straight off to anybody who does any listening at all. Second, if this Hinch is as stupid as you say he is you’re not going to get anything through his skull with subtlety. Third, from what Mr. Malone says, there’s no time to prepare anything elaborate. What-ever’s done has to be started right away-today, if possible.”

  “Then how would you handle it?”

  “I’d do it on a straight news basis. It’s something even a halfwit would understand and it would have the added advantage of sounding legitimate.”

  “You can’t do that, Mr. Rudd,” Malone said.

  “Why not?”

  “Because Furia would hear it, too. And he’d know that the only way such information could have gotten out was through me or my wife shooting our mouths off. That would spell curtains for my little girl. He warned us to keep quiet or else. He’s dangerous, Mr. Rudd, maybe even psycho. He means it. At least I can’t take the chance that he doesn’t.”

  “We can handle it so you and Mrs. Malone are put absolutely in the clear.”

  “How?”

  “You leave that to me.”

  Malone’s chin flattened. There was a pulse beating in the bruise. “I don’t know. I’d have to think about it.”

  “Will you let me work on it, Mr. Malone? I promise not a word will go out over the air without your okay. Have you got a typewriter here?”

  “No.”

  “Then just some paper,” Rudd said easily, “I can’t type worth a damn, anyway.”

  Malone went hunting for paper while he listened for a sign of life from upstairs and heard it, the creak-creak of the rocker in Barbara’s room.

  * * *

  The kid was acting up again and Furia said give the little puke some more juice but Goldie said any more and she might get poisoned you want her alive don’t you. She came up with a bottle of Sleep-Tite tablets she found in one of the upstairs bathrooms, so that problem was solved.

  Furia ordered a top sirloin roast for his Saturday night dinner and Goldie had it thawing all day. The Thatchers had obliged by installing an electric spit in the old kitchen fireplace and Goldie built just the right fire, a slow one, to do the roast over. Furia spent a good twenty minutes watching it go round and round. I picked me a real cool broad, he said, fondly pinching her behind, I ought to set you up in the chow business, Goldie, I’ll have that banana ripple ice cream for dessert they got in the freezer. Then he went back to the living room where Hinch was nursing an Old Crow on the rocks like a grudge, Furia had put him on short rations after the broken mirror, Hinch wasn’t taking it as well as usual. Furia turned on the radio, which was set at WRUD, and stretched out on the sofa while Hinch brooded over at him.

  There was the national news, then the news from the state capital, and Furia said to the radio come on, come on. Finally the announcer, who had a voice like a saxophone, said: “And now for the Taugus Valley news.

  “First Selectman Russ Fairhouse urged residents of New Bradford today to support the Jaycee cleanup campaign, Operation Civic Pride. ‘Please join your neighbors,’ Mr. Fair-house pleaded, ‘in picking up gum wrappers and such and ridding our town of unsightly junk like abandoned old cars and washing machines and any other thrown-out items that may be laying around your property causing eyesores. Your administration is doing its part repairing the highway signs defaced mostly by teenagers the past summer, please do yours and impress on your children that in the end the cost of such vandalism is borne by you, the taxpayer.’

  “A two-car accident on The Pike one mile north of Tonekeneke Falls today took the life of nineteen-year-old Alison Springer of Southville and sent three other teenagers to the New Bradford Hospital with critical injuries. State police say that the cars were engaged in a drag race.

  “There has been no progress in the statewide hunt for the two holdup men who shot Thomas F. Howland to death and stole the Aztec Paper Products Company’s payroll Wednesday night, according to Colonel Doug Pearce of the state police. ‘It’s my belief,’ Colonel Pearce told WRUD today, ‘that they made it out of the state. An All Points went out to authorities in adjoining states yesterday.’ “

  “Aha,” Furia said with a grin. “They sure freaked out. Hear that, Hinch?”

  “So what,” Hinch grumbled. “We ain’t got the bread.”

  “And now for today’s Lighter-Side-of-the-News item,” the saxophone continued with a chuckle in it. “There’s another mystery of sorts in New Bradford that for a while today had Police Chief John Secco and his department thinking they were in the middle of a crime wave.

  “A twelve-year-old boy named Willie, who runs a paper route in the Lovers Hill section of New Bradford delivering the New Bradford Times-Press, came into police headquarters this morning to report a crime. Willie claimed that on Thursday afternoon, while he was delivering his papers on his bicycle at the upper end of Old Bradford Road, he witnessed-in Willie’s own words-’a short skinny guy with like a stocking over his head’ sneaking into one of the houses. According to Willie, he promptly hid behind a rhododendron bush across the road and watched. ‘The man came scooting out after a while,’ Willie said, ‘and he was carrying a little black bag that he didn’t have when he went in-’ “

  “What the hell.” Hinch sat up. “Shut up, let’s hear this!” Furia hissed. “ ‘-and he took off the stocking and beat it down the road.’ Willie alleges that he followed the mysterious man and saw him turn into Lovers Hill with the black bag and head for the center of town still on foot.”

  Hinch was looking at Furia with his mouth open. Furia was on his feet glaring at the radio.

  “Willie, who wears thick glasses, could give no description of the man beyond his short height and skinniness. Chief Secco was doubtful about the story on the face of it, since no housebreaking was reported Thursday and Willie, it seems, has a reputation for an overactive imagination. Nevertheless, the chief sent Officer Harry Rawlson to Old Bradford Road with the boy, who pointed out the house he claimed the man had burgled. It turned out that Chief Secco’s doubts were all too justified. It was the home of a member of the New Bradford force, Officer Wesley Malone. Officer Malone, who has been off duty for a few days, said that he and Mrs. Malone had had no visitors at all on Thursday, illegal or otherwise, and that in any event nothing was missing. Mrs. Malone confirmed this, stating that they had never owned a little black bag. ‘Willie either made a mistake about the hous
e,’ Officer Malone told his fellow-officer, ‘or he’s been reading too many mystery stories.’ A check of the other houses on Old Bradford Road produced no confirmation of Willie’s story, and he was sent home after a fatherly lecture by Chief Secco.

  “Thus endeth New Bradford’s latest excitement.

  “Funeral services will be held tomorrow at two p.m. at Christ Church, Stonytown, for-”

  Furia jabbed the radio off. When he turned around he saw Goldie standing in the doorway from the kitchen.

  “What was that all about?” Goldie said.

  “Nothing!” Furia said.

  “Thursday afternoon,” Hinch said slowly. “Small skinny guy. That fuzz and his old lady were telling the truth. I’ll be goddam.”

  “Don’t look at me!” Furia yelled. “It wasn’t me! I was in the shack, damn it. I didn’t even have the car, so how would I get into town?”

  “Neither did the skinny guy,” Hinch said. “He walked, this Willie said.”

  “So it was some local,” Goldie said, “the way Malone said. There are lots of small skinny guys in this world. Looks to me, Fure, like this really ties it. Why don’t we give it up as a bad job?”

  “No,” Furia said. ‘Wo.”

  “How do you expect Malone to get the money back when he doesn’t even know who took it?”

  “That’s his problem!”

  “You could ‘a’ walked,” Hinch said, “it ain’t that far. I hoofed it easy the night we pulled the heist.”

  “Maybe it was you!”

  “Small, skinny,” Hinch said. “Do I look small and skinny? Anyways, Fure, I wouldn’t do that.”

  “And I would?”

  Hinch did not reply. He was looking into his empty glass and frowning.

  “Well, at least Malone and his wife didn’t blow the whistle, you scared ‘em good,” Goldie said brightly. She was scratching one hand with the other. After a while she said, “The roast won’t be long now. No potatoes or I’d make you some French fries, Fure. What vedge do you want?”

  Furia told her what she could do with her vedge.

  “I still think it’s taking useless chances to hang around here,” Goldie said. “Specially now that we know somebody did hijack the payroll. What do you say we write it off, Fure? We could be somewhere opening a bank and like grabbing us a real pile, not some snotty twenty-four grand.”