Dirty Harry 11 - Death in the Air

by Dane Hartman

The reporter tried to keep up, but it wasn’t long before Harry was going as fast as he could without running. He was almost on the very edge of the platform, so there was nothing between him and the plain-looking girl.

  The reporter slowed, and watched in amazement as Callahan bore down on the oblivious schoolgirl. Just as it seemed that Harry would run right over the girl, a small, dark figure, who had been hiding behind the girl in the shadows, suddenly bolted in the opposite direction.

  The reporter’s amazement grew to confused awe as Harry instantly changed direction and took off after the mysterious man. Callahan’s quarry slipped in between the other people on the platform like some sort of weasel.

  Just as the man got to the base of the stairs, Harry unsheathed his .44 cannon. That was all it took. The sound of the big gun being emancipated from its special, leather holster was a noise the slippery man recognized. In the enclosed environs of the subway platform, the sound reverberated loudly.

  Not only was the sound enough to slow the man down, it was enough to get all of the bystanders between Harry and his target out of the way. They pushed themselves away from the tall cop in the ragged clothes as if he were a leper. They seemed to melt back into the walls, leaving a clear shot from Harry to his quarry. If there was any doubt in that quarry’s mind about his predicament, Harry put an end to it the next second.

  “Stop,” was all Callahan said. It was enough. The man froze, his hands straight up in the air.

  “Turn around,” Harry said. The man complied, slowly. His pinched, angular face held an expression of whimsical embarrassment, as if the whole thing were a mistake. But his strict posture revealed that the hands-up position was one he was all too familiar with.

  The uniformed patrolman who had been collecting evidence ran to Harry’s side, his own .357 drawn from his holster. As soon as he saw Harry’s prisoner, his mouth stretched into a knowing smile.

  “Well, if it isn’t Marshall Maggin,” he said. Maggin shrugged. He didn’t bother to say anything, because clutched in one of his upraised hands was a woman’s pocketbook. And, unless he was coming out of the closet in a big way, he was literally caught red-handed.

  The patrolman holstered his weapon, moved forward, and plucked the pocketbook out of the greasy man’s still upraised hand. He tossed the purse to Harry and told Maggin to “assume the position.” Maggin immediately spread his legs and leaned against the wall.

  While the uniformed cop searched the thief and then cuffed him, Harry checked out the contents of the purse. Inside was a tiny, blue makeup case, a round tin of imported hard candy, a packet of Kleenex, and a wallet. Inside the wallet were two dollars and thirty-seven cents, a fuzzy, wrinkled photo of a young man in jeans and a numbered jersey, a ticket stub from a Civic Center concert, and a yellowing Social Security card.

  The name on the card was Martha Joan Murray 546-894-5062.

  C H A P T E R

  F o u r

  The man who had pushed Martha Joan Murray to her death placed the clear, plastic scrambler device over the mouthpiece of the pay phone in the Abbot’s Bar booth.

  He did most of his pay phoning at Abbot’s, because it was one of the few places left in the city that actually had a phone booth. Almost everywhere else, there were these naked pay phones attached to the wall, with no privacy.

  Here he could disappear into the dark recesses of the thick, wooden walls, and if he switched off the dim, yellow light, almost no one outside could see him. And, thanks to the television set over the bar, and the usual volume of booze-lubricated conversation, no one could hear him, either.

  He dialed the necessary number, waited until the ringing turned into a high computer tone, and then dialed another five-digit number. Then he listened to the silence on the line until a voice answered.

  “The job is done?” It was not surprising that there wasn’t a hello. Only the killer had the use of this line. He also didn’t waste time trying to recognize the voice on the other end. It was being disguised automatically.

  “Yes,” the pusher replied. Even though the scrambler altered his voice so that even if he were being recorded no one could match his tonal patterns, the man on the other end recognized something different in the way the killer answered.

  “Anything else to report?” he asked cautiously.

  The pusher told him about the sudden change in victims, the appearance of the homicide inspector, and the subsequent arrest.

  “Who is this inspector?” the man asked.

  “The stationmaster called him Callahan,” the pusher replied. There was a short pause, on the other end.

  “Could this Maggin have seen anything?” the other voice finally said.

  “I can’t make any guarantees,” the pusher replied. There was another pause, during which the killer smiled. He had already guessed what his superior’s reaction would be. He had initially dreaded making the call, because it had appeared that his usefulness to the Program was at an end. But now, with the intervention of the thief and the cop, the killer could still accomplish some good.

  “We cannot afford to take chances,” the man on the other end said. “We shall see what the computer comes up with on Maggin and Callahan. Wait thirty minutes, and then return to your office. Instructions will be waiting for you there.”

  “Very good, sir,” said the killer. “Thank you, sir.”

  The killer hung up, removed the special mouthpiece, left the booth, and had lunch at the bar. Afterward, he leisurely made his way back to the run-down, four-story brick building in the shadow of the Bay Bridge. As he walked up the warped steps to his second-floor office, he heard the comings and goings of the buses at the nearby Bay Bridge Terminal through the dirty, smoked windows.

  From all appearances, his office was exactly as he had left it. In fact, even his crude security device—the hair he had glued to the edge of his closed, locked door—was still in place. But when he unlocked the door and entered the simple, windowless, corner room, there was a bulky manila envelope on the large, chipped, wooden desk that hadn’t been there before.

  The killer closed and locked the door behind him. He walked around the desk once before sitting in the one padded, metal chair. After making a rudimentary, almost unconscious examination of the envelope to make sure it wasn’t a letter-bomb, he opened the package.

  Inside was a thin, small hypodermic gun with a metal vial screwed into it. The only other thing was a coded message written on flash paper. The killer translated the complex code into a simple message.

  Maggin would be taken to the hospital. He wasn’t to leave it alive. If Inspector Callahan could have an accident in the process, all the better.

  The killer leaned back, producing a thin lighter from his pocket. With a touch, a small flame appeared. Like a practiced magician, he barely touched the edge of the paper with the flame, and the message disappeared. Only a single tiny ash fell to the desk. That was why they called it flash paper.

  The killer nonchalantly wiped the ash away and leaned back, smiling.

  Halfway to headquarters, Maggin started getting a serious case of the shakes.

  “Aw, shit,” said the uniformed patrolman who had identified the pickpocket in the first place.

  “What?” Harry opened one eye to ask, remaining slumped in the passenger seat.

  The patrolman hooked a thumb toward Maggin, who vibrated in the caged back seat. “Marshall must’ve lifted the pocketbook to get money for a fix,” the cop replied. “It looks like he was too late.”

  Harry sat up and looked over his shoulder. Sure enough, Maggin was showing the unmistakable signs of a loser on withdrawal.

  “We’re never going to get him back to the station in that condition,” the uniformed cop, who had introduced himself as Jim Petrillo, said. “Any lawyer worth his salt could make a case for ‘cruel and unusual punishment’ if we bring him in like that.”

  “Head for the hospital, then,” Harry suggested, hunkering back down in his seat, trying to catch one wink, let al
one forty.

  “I guess well have to,” Petrillo agreed. He took a fast right off of Market Street, away from the Justice Building, and onto Tenth—toward San Francisco General Hospital.

  As the patrol car sped south, Callahan thought about what Petrillo had told him. Maggin was a well-known purse snatcher, pickpocket, and small-time thief in the precinct. Petrillo himself had arrested Marshall at least twice, and almost every beat walker had a Maggin story to tell back at the locker room.

  But because of the insanity of the legal process, Maggin was still waiting for the third delay on his first rap trial to clear up. And while he was waiting, he was out committing his second through twelfth. Harry’s arrest was Maggin’s thirteenth rap, and Petrillo hoped it would be the guy’s unlucky one. Maybe now, the patrolman figured, they could make a case for Maggin being an undesirable, and get him exiled to Angel Island or something.

  All Maggin himself had to say, however, was that he knew nothing, saw nothing, and did nothing but pick up this pocketbook which was lying on the platform with no owner. He didn’t know this Murray girl, and he didn’t know that what was left of her was under the BART train. He had come in after the subway had run her down.

  Callahan knew he would have to hold off rest for a while longer, since they were heading for the hospital. At least back at his office he could catch some Z’s at his desk or curled up on Lieutenant Bressler’s couch. No such luck at S.F. General, unless he wanted to be mistaken for a patient.

  “Hand me the radio, will you?” he asked the patrolman, without opening his eyes. He felt the mike being put into his outstretched hand. Since patrolmen had been reduced to one to a car in an attempt at economizing, Petrillo didn’t mind Harry’s company or demands.

  Callahan got a clear channel to Homicide and asked for Sergeant Frank DiGeorgio. Soon, his longtime backup man got on the line.

  “I thought you’d be back home and in bed by now,” the heavy, Italian police vet greeted him.

  “Don’t rub it in,” Harry replied. “I’m in car number—” He looked at Petrillo.

  “Seventeen,” the cop informed him.

  “—Seventeen,” Callahan continued, “heading for the emergency ward at S.F. General.”

  “You all right, Harry?” another voice asked with concern. Callahan recognized the rough tone of his immediate superior.

  “I didn’t know you cared, Lieutenant,” he told Bressler. “Yeah, I’m fine. We just got a package of cold turkey in the back of the car here for delivery.”

  “So what’s the call for?” Bressler asked. “We know you don’t need a chaperone.”

  “I need DiGeorgio to meet me there with the files from this BART thing,” Harry replied.

  “Yeah,” said the Sergeant. “I heard about Fulton Station, already. That’s tough, Harry. It’s the third accident, but the first death.”

  “That doesn’t mean it was murder,” Bressler interrupted. “Let the detectives handle it, Harry. That’s their job. I need you back on the Goldfarb bust.”

  Hiram Goldfarb was a Hassidic Jew who was also one of the best jewelry men in the state. That didn’t keep him from winding up on a morgue slab, however, with two and one-half million dollars worth of diamonds missing. Bressler had gotten a line on his killers, but he wanted an experienced homicide team in on the arrests in case of trouble.

  “That ready to go yet?” Harry inquired. He had started the subway stakeout only because the Goldfarb thing needed some more legwork done.

  “Soon,” Bressler promised.

  “All right,” retorted Callahan. “In the meantime, give DiGeorgio the files and have him meet me at the hospital.” Without waiting for a reply, Harry signed off, hooked the mike back in place, and leaned back.

  Petrillo smirked, shaking his head in amazement. “Like pulling teeth to get anything done around here.”

  Without opening his eyes, Harry replied, “Just remember that, and you’ll go far. Always keep your pliers nearby.”

  San Francisco General Hospital was a venerable institution which had had several modern additions built onto it—looking like black-glass leeches sucking up to classic stone.

  Patrolman Petrillo followed the labyrinthian arrows which led them to the emergency entrance, where he and Harry unloaded a positively quaking Marshall Maggin. Maggin had already chewed his lower lip into bloody pulp, and he was groaning as if all his bones had suddenly sprouted thorns.

  “I can take it from here, Inspector,” Petrillo assured Harry. “I’m used to it. You can wait for your partner at the front desk.”

  Harry thanked him and started on his way to the lobby. He got lost twice in the maze of different-colored corridors with different names, so, after he reached his destination, it was only a few minutes before DiGeorgio appeared through the revolving doors. The stout, crew-cut partner was glancing at a stapled stack of papers in his hand.

  “You’re in luck, Harry,” he said. “Second victim was Betty Ann Lowry. She managed to jump to the other side of the tracks before the train got to her. She couldn’t say whether she was pushed or fell. She had just come from a long lunch period of playing handball, and was feeling pretty weak. Anyway, she was treated for a bruise or two, and then released.”

  “I don’t feel any luckier,” Harry retorted, in slight confusion.

  “The first victim wasn’t so lucky,” DiGeorgio went on. “Although she was far luckier than that girl this morning. The fall broke her leg. She still managed to pull herself into the space between the train and the platform. She was brought here for treatment. I called up right after I got off the radio with you. She’s still here. She’s being discharged from treatment today.”

  Luck stayed with the two homicide cops as they went up to the patients’ private rooms and found the first victim packing her bags. Harry had read what they had on her on the way up in the elevator. Name: Denise Patterson. Age: thirty-two. Height: five feet, six and one-half inches. Weight: one hundred and eight pounds. Hair color: light brown. Eye color: hazel.

  She was just as impressive in person as she was on paper. The report didn’t describe her intelligent face, strong body, or fashionable style. She wore tan slacks, a maroon turtleneck, and a zip-up jacket.

  The first sight Harry had of her was from the rear, but that view was impressive enough. She was one tightly-packed lady, with no visible panty lines. He could see her musculature work slightly as she crammed the various clothes, magazines, and books into her overnight bag—remnants of a long hospital stay.

  When she turned back toward her closet, she was initially surprised by the appearance of two men in her doorway. Her attractive face was framed by a mane of shoulder-length, wheat-colored hair, but her expression was one of concern.

  “Can I help you?” she said slowly, hex voice strong and low.

  “How’s the leg?” Harry asked.

  She looked down at the shapely limb in the well-fitting slacks. “Fine,” she said with slight hesitation. Then, taking a flippant attitude, she cocked her head and said, “Who wants to know?”

  “Excuse me,” Callahan said with a smile, remembering that he was still wearing his slightly odorous drunk’s outfit. He reached into his back pocket, and, for the second time that morning, showed his identification.

  Surprisingly, Patterson reacted to the Inspector’s badge with visible relief before returning to her packing. She acted as if DiGeorgio didn’t even exist. It was obvious that Callahan was in control here.

  “I didn’t know regulations had allowed your uniforms to get so . . . casual,” she said, taking a satiny, beige nightgown and a dark-green velour robe out of the closet.

  The sensuousness of that uniform was not lost on Callahan, who couldn’t help mentally picturing the woman in the outfit.

  “I just came off of an undercover assignment,” he told her, as she folded the bedclothes on top of the other stuff. “Patrolling the subways,” he finished, seeing her flinch ever so slightly.

  A second later, her stiffe
ned shoulders relaxed, and she continued her actions as if nothing had happened.

  “I’ve already told many other officers what happened,” she said, her back to them. “I don’t see how it will help to go over it all again.”

  “I came off the undercover assignment just as a girl was run over by a BART train and killed,” Harry interrupted.

  When she turned back to them, her face was as pale as the stationmaster’s had been. It could have been that she was so sensitive that the news shocked her, Harry reasoned—or it could be something else entirely.

  “Killed?” Patterson breathed. “How horrible.”

  “Her name was Martha Murray.” DiGeorgio spoke up for the first time. “She was a high school student taking music lessons at the University. Did you know her?”

  “No,” Patterson said, after some thought. “No, I didn’t.”

  “I saw a picture of her, back at headquarters,” DiGeorgio continued. “You two looked similar enough to be sisters.”

  “Really?” the woman replied. “That’s a coincidence, isn’t it?”

  “We don’t know yet,” Harry said meaningfully, taking in the information. “But we thought we had better see you.”

  “Of course,” Patterson agreed. “But I’m sorry. I’ve never heard of Margaret Murray before.”

  “Martha,” DiGeorgio corrected.

  “Martha, was it?” the woman echoed, sitting down on the edge of her bed. “I’m sorry. It’s just . . . it’s just such terrible news. Oh, that poor girl . . .”

  Harry looked at his partner with concern. When he glanced back at Patterson, he saw that she was preoccupied with blowing on her fingertips. He had just enough time to realize that the chill in the subway wasn’t in evidence here when he heard the distant, popping sounds coming from down the hall.

  His head swiveled on his neck like a sensitive radar dish. Anyone else might have disregarded the noises. To Callahan, it was the unmistakable sound of gunfire—distant enough not to have the angry cracking, but not far enough away to be in another building.