Judge Me Not

by John D. MacDonald

  “No. I didn’t kill her.”

  “Was she out at your camp last night with you messing around with her?”

  “No.”

  “She gave you any little keepsakes that could tie the two of you together?”

  “No.”

  “They liable to find anything of yours among her stuff?”

  “Not a thing.”

  He pulled himself slowly out of the chair. “I don’t condemn you on moral grounds, Morrow. Better men than you and me have done like that little old dog on the railroad tracks. I just think it was damn poor judgment for a man in your position to fediddle the Mayor’s wife.”

  “I know that, now.”

  “I think they’ll try to hurt Dennison through you. Hurt what he’s trying to do. I don’t like having that car planted outside your place. Might be, they’ll haul you in on suspicion and beat the hell out of you. Do you think you can take it?”

  “I think so.”

  “They’ll want you to talk about everything Dennison is planning to do. No man can take it for too long. So after I arrange about this car, I’m going to talk to Armando Rogale. He’s a tough little wop lawyer and a fighter. And he knows his way around. Soon as you drop out of circulation I’ll figure they’re hiding you in one of the precincts, and I’ll sick Armando on ’em. Anybody asks you, he’s your lawyer.”

  “What are you going to do about the car?” Morrow asked.

  Captain Leighton looked at him blandly. “Why, I’m going to check this whole place and see if I can find out who left it there. With any luck I’ll cover the whole area before it’s officially found. And then I’ll phone it in myself. If they jug you and Armando can’t get you out, Ritch here will sick the Times on the force. So figure that all you have to do is keep your mouth shut for not more than six or eight hours of pummeling. They won’t be stupid enough to try to charge you with her murder. Isn’t enough to go on.” He ambled slowly out, pulling the door shut behind him.

  “Like him?” Seward asked.

  “He’s an odd man, isn’t he?”

  “He wears very damn well, Teed. He settles a lot of department disputes, because they know he’s square. He knows a surprising amount about a surprising number of people, and he never forgets anything. I saw him drunk only once. That was the day three men he’d caught were electrocuted. He talked about murder. He said, ‘No human ever kills another human without also killing himself.’ I questioned that. I told him that a lot of people got away with it. He just gave me that tired smile and said, ‘And there’s a lot of dead people walking the streets.’ I guess in his own way he’s both a sentimentalist and an amateur mystic. I’m glad you told him the truth. He would have found out, and when he did, nothing you or I could say would make him lift a finger for you. He hates a liar.”

  “He’s a tough man to lie to, I imagine.”

  “And a tough man to kill,” Seward said, almost with awe. “He’s got the lead that’s been dug out of him. He keeps it in a glass dish on his mantel. Enough lead so that when you first see it, it looks like a little dish of candy.”

  “Have lunch with me, Ritchie. Then you’ll get an eyewitness report on the way I’m picked up.”

  “Maybe you ought to tell Powell Dennison that you might be picked up. Maybe he’ll jump the gun on all the data you people have collected.”

  “And how would you know about that?”

  “Dammit, Teed, this is my town. The same way it’s Herb Leighton’s and even Lonnie Raval’s. Everybody knows that you and Dennison are hiding in your fort making up a pile of snowballs. A lot of us hope you’re going to have rocks hidden in the snowballs. As long as you come out fast, you’ll have people on your side. When you start to weaken, you two will be almost all alone. One thing in your favor—that’s Andy Trim, the D.A. He’s all wind and ambition. He’s played along with Raval because that has made sense so far. If he sees a chance to dump Raval in a way that will give him a reputation all over the state, he’ll do it. Come on. I’ll wait while you check in with Powell, and then we’ll have some food.”

  He followed Teed in his car on the way back to the Hall.

  Chapter Five

  After lunch with Ritchie Seward, Teed went back to the office and tried to work. Dennison had procured abstracts of the sheets from the Assessor’s records. The current project was to check the private-home assessments of the politically faithful against the rebels. For years the Board of Assessors had been one of the most potent weapons of the Raval clique. Step on the wrong toe and you start paying taxes on an assessed valuation of fifteen thousand rather than the previous five thousand. Grievance Day had become a farce.

  But Teed could not keep his mind on what he was doing. He remembered the way he had awakened from the Sunday afternoon nap, content and self-sufficient. Just forty-eight hours ago. Now that precious detachment was lost and he missed it. He realized that for too many years he had been like a man in a crap game using somebody else’s money. Now he was being forced to gamble with his own money, and he didn’t like the sense of participation, the feeling of risk and potential loss.

  He had taken pride in being able to do an honest and workmanlike job at his specialty. But always the job had been something he could toss over his shoulder at five o’clock. And smacking down the crooked ones had been a pleasure not so much from any innate sense of righteousness, but rather from joy in a good scrap. Detachment had been his armor and maybe, he thought, things had come a bit too easy. Maybe he was a very special type of flawed hero, a guy who could turn the last card without a tremble merely because nothing really important was at stake.

  In that moment he envied Powell Dennison. Dennison believed with all his heart in what he was doing. And he felt guilt that Dennison presupposed a similar dedication in his right-hand man. Powell would never sell out. Teed had thought he would never sell out, either. And now… if the price were high enough… if safety were the price? The old saw was that a man has to live with himself. But if the choice is to either live with someone you can’t respect, or stop living entirely…

  He recognized the potential danger of that train of thought, and tried to push it out of his mind.

  At three o’clock Miss Anderson told him that a Mr. Armando Rogale was here to see Mr. Morrow.

  Rogale came bustling in. He was about thirty, a small, stocky, swaggering man wearing a beautifully cut gabardine suit. His face was pale and, except for the snapping black eyes, as expressionless as an egg. From the small, thin-lipped mouth came a rich and astonishing baritone.

  He shut the door behind him, shook hands briskly, plumped himself down in the chair and stared at Teed with both amusement and speculation in the dark eyes.

  “I appear to be your attorney, Mr. Morrow, according to that Leighton spook.”

  “I don’t really know whether I’ll need a lawyer, Mr. Rogale.”

  “We’ll call this preventative medicine.”

  Teed studied him. “How come you’re willing to be unpopular?”

  Rogale inspected manicured nails. “Good question. This town is a jungle. The jackals run in a pack. You want to be a jackal, you can get along O.K., if you listen to the boss jackal. I’m a porcupine. Every once in a while a jackal takes a slap at me and gets a noseful of quills. Just say I’ve got a porcupine temperament, Morrow. Too sharp to be swallowed. You ever see a skinny porcupine? They live pretty good.”

  “Rebellion for the sake of rebellion?” Teed asked.

  Rogale gave him a sharp look. “What do you want from a lawyer? An emotional strip tease? I grew up in Deron. My old man was a carpenter, an immigrant, a professional patriot. Bill of Rights. Constitution. You know what I mean. In our ward there was a code of behavior. No matter how bright you were, you were supposed to ask for help when you voted, just like you were illiterate. Our ward always threw every vote to the machine. My old man went to night school. He did his own voting and kept splitting his ticket. Bad example to the others. They beat him up three times, and the third tim
e they accidentally cracked his skull and he was in a coma for three weeks before he died. After I passed the bar I tried to set up in Utica, then in Syracuse. No dice. I had to come back here. Now I’m a minor irritant. Someday I want to be some sort of avenging angel—or maybe demon. Cross-examine?”

  “No, thanks.”’

  “You and Dennison are on the hot spot. Want to hear a theory?”

  “Sure.”

  “Felice Carboy was a bitch. And a pretty bright gal. She tried to make a trade—her body for hubby’s immunity. No dice, I imagine, from what Leighton told me. So she wanted to add a little more to her side of the scales. Something juicy. Something that would help you and Dennison. It might have been good enough so that you would be willing to make a deal with her. She actually knew more about the Raval operations here than Mark Carboy does. Maybe she trusted the wrong guy. Anyway, somebody found out. She’s potentially dangerous, playing around with you. So kill her and implicate you. Two birds with one thud.”

  Teed said slowly, “That same sort of idea has been growing in the back of my mind. Her call to me came through the switchboard here, the call where she said she had something hot to tell me.”

  “That could be it.”

  “Her name wasn’t used.”

  “Nevertheless, if the girl on the board at that time recognized the voice and reported it, that girl will be a little queasy right now. It’s something to work on. Look, Morrow. I’m your lawyer. It’s a confidential relationship. The more I know, the more I can help. I want to be awful damn certain you didn’t kill her.”

  “I didn’t.”

  “Is there anything I should know, then?”

  Teed got up and walked to the windows. He looked out on the parking lot, at the office-building windows across the way. He came back to his chair and sat down. With an effort he kept his voice steady. He told Rogale every detail of the previous evening.

  After he finished Rogale let the silence grow for long minutes. He bounced out of the chair, walked over to the wall and drove his fist against it.

  “Mother of God!” he said. “Sangre de Cristo! Of all the fatuous idiots in the wide world, I have to offer my services to the clown prince.”

  “Now, listen, Rogale! Maybe my reaction wasn’t too bright, but…”

  “Shut up! Let me think. Mortimer Snerd masks, yet. Imported talent. Guys who probably hit town Sunday and are gone now.” He held out his hand. “Give me the key to that camp.”

  Teed meekly took the key off his ring and handed it over. “What are you going to do?”

  “Clean up after you. Rinse your diapers. What do you think?”

  “I checked it pretty carefully, Rogale.”

  Armando heaved a great sigh and sat down. “Look. So help me, I believe you. I believe that it happened exactly the way you said it did, and only the fates kept Seward from barging in while you were still snoring. So, let’s be practical. There’s maybe five hundred nice clean fingerprints out there. Hers. Even if you tried to remove them, you wouldn’t know where to look. Inside of the bathroom medicine cabinet. Thumbprint on the underside of the John lever. Maybe I’ll just go out and burn the son of a bitch down. Arson, added to all my other crimes. Look, you got a girl you can take out there?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “If they don’t pick you up this afternoon, you get yourself a girl and get out there. Play house. Settle down. I’ll be through by then. She better be a girl with nothing to hide, a girl who doesn’t care if the cops lift her prints. The more stuff she leaves around, the better. Lipstick, panties, hair on the hairbrush. You got one, or have I got to rent you one?”

  “It seems pretty cold-blooded.”

  “So is the way they electrocute a man. If they cut you when they shave your leg, they even put iodine on it. It’s as cold-blooded as can be.”

  “You don’t have to try to scare me, Rogale. I’m already scared.”

  “Can you get a girl?”

  “On that short notice, no.”

  “Stay here. I’ll use an outside phone. I’ll be back.”

  Rogale was back in fifteen minutes. He said, “This is a line of business I never thought I’d be in. A good thing I got contacts. It will cost you a hundred bucks. She’ll be in the cocktail lounge at the Hotel Deron at five o’clock, ready to take off. Look in the booths on the left for a tall girl. They told me she has brown hair and her name is Miss Heddon.”

  “Is she pretty?”

  Armando looked at his watch. “I better get going. You should care if she looks like a hop frog, Morrow. Don’t get her out there until about six-thirty. That’ll give me time.” After Rogale had left, leaving Teed feeling dazed, he went out and cashed a check. When he got back Miss Anderson said that a Captain Leighton had phoned, and had left a number to call.

  Leighton said, “You get a little reprieve, Morrow. Two kids who know you because you played catch with them one Saturday afternoon happened to notice the guy who left the car. They say it wasn’t you. To kids all grownups look alike, except the ones they know, so there’s no description. You’re off the hook until they figure that out.”

  When Leighton hung up, it was five minutes to five. Teed went in and told Powell that he was going out to the lake again. Powell looked disappointed. “I wanted you to go over some stuff with me tonight, Teed.”

  “I’d rather not go. But this is orders from my lawyer.”

  “Care to explain?”

  “Not quite yet Powell. I’m sorry. I’m just trying to get off the hook on this car business.”

  “Tomorrow then. How about the assessment survey?”

  “I’m just no good today. I didn’t do over a tenth of it.”

  Powell shrugged and smiled. “O.K., I won’t push you.”

  Teed got into his car and drove to the hotel. He found a parking space in the middle of the next block. He felt an odd flutter of excitement that ran up his spine, tingled at the nape of his neck. He could see the sense of Rogale’s idea, but the artificiality of the situation bothered him. He was both repelled and intrigued by the idea of the coarse, cold-eyed creature who would be waiting for him.

  The cocktail lounge had a sidewalk doorway and he walked in quickly. The bar was thronged at this hour. There were six booths along the wall at the left. Four were empty. There were three men in one of the booths, a girl sitting alone in another. She was a tall girl, and her hair was brown, but nothing else matched his conception. She wore a dark-green tailored suit, a silver fox fur, a pert green hat with a veil. Her face had a look of fragility, delicacy, and breeding.

  He paused uncertainly and turned slowly toward the bar. Then, with a mental shrug, he walked quickly to the booth. “Miss Heddon?”

  Calm, deep-blue eyes and a slow smile. “How do you do. I’m Barbara Heddon.”

  He sat down awkwardly. “Teed Morrow, Miss Heddon. I’m a little late, I guess.”

  “Not very. Shall I hurry this, or do you want to order yourself a drink, Teed?”

  “I’ll have a drink, Barbara.” He signaled the waiter, ordered a stinger.

  She was completely at ease. Her brown gloves lay across the green purse that matched her suit. Beside her cocktail glass was a silver combination cigarette case and lighter. She accepted his cigarette gravely, leaned forward for the light, holding the veil out of the way of the flame. She did not touch the rest of her cocktail until his came, then lifted her glass as he did, smiling across the rim at him.

  “If you’ll excuse me a moment, Teed, I have a phone call to make.”

  “Of course.” After she walked away, into the lobby, tall and with a certain flair, a certain elegance, Teed sat down. He wondered if the long arm of coincidence had produced two Miss Heddons at the same time and the same place. Her tone of voice, her accent, matched her look of assurance and breeding.

  She was back quickly, slipping into her side of the booth as he tried awkwardly to get to his feet.

  “Another drink, Barbara?”

  “Yes, t
hank you.”

  She looked at him with a pretty frown. “Teed, we aren’t getting acquainted, are we? We’re acting like a pair of European diplomats.”

  “Well, you took my breath away, Barbara. God knows what I expected. Certainly not you. You’re very lovely.”

  For a moment there was a slightly bitter twist to her mouth. “And you’re quite willing to be seen in public with me, I suppose.”

  “Sorry. I did sound pretty stuffy, didn’t I?”

  She smiled. “For that touch of sympathetic imagination, Mr. Morrow, I shall tell you about my phone call. I give myself an expensive luxury. It’s called selectivity. I phoned to say that I was not going to develop a headache.”

  “Now we’re both flattered.”

  “A society for mutual admiration, Teed. And thank you for not being Mr. Smith. Thank you very much for not being a Mr. Smith. Very truly yours, Barbara.”

  “Now a question. Is it a… oh, a customary thing for you to be willing to go out of town like this?”

  “Hardly. But you were vouched for. Highly recommended, I suppose is the right way to say it.” She smiled, and then her mood changed with surprising rapidity. “And, of course,” she said, “I am also filled with curiosity. You look like one of those precious and indomitable males who go around swelling out their chests and telling their less favored brethren that they never have to pay for it.”

  It was the first hint of coarseness, but the shot was very well aimed.

  “Ouch,” he said. “One of that same type must have bitten you once upon a time.”

  “Now I say ouch,” she said. “Never lead with your right, Barbara.”

  “We better call a truce before somebody gets battered. Ready?”