Innocent Bystander

by Craig Rice

Almost dully, Ellen replied, “Nothing. We had a beer after we danced. Then he took me home.”

  “The hotel?”

  “Uh-huh! O’Mara was waiting for me there!”

  “What did he want?”

  “Oh!” Ellen paused before continuing. “He asked me a lot of questions about you.”

  “What did you tell him?”

  “What do I know?”

  How about Smith? What had she told him? Was she trying to avoid it? What had she told him? He asked her.

  The strain of the evening’s happenings hit her. “I didn’t tell him anything!” she cried out. The tears welled up over her eyes. “Why do you keep on bothering me about it? Nothing! I told you. Nothing!”

  She began to cry softly into her hands.

  Tony wanted to draw her close, comfort her. He steeled himself.

  “Why didn’t you tell him?”

  She stared at him. “I haven’t anything to tell.”

  He led her down the walk to the very edge of the beach. For a moment they stood there in the fog in a world of their own. From the distance came the sound of the Merry-Go-Round waltz music, as though from another world. Surrounding them, beating ceaselessly against the wall of their private world, came the sounds of the wash of the waves on the beach and the mournful dirge of the buoy.

  Tony knew that he couldn’t wait any longer. Every hour, every minute made the danger to him closer.

  He took one step closer toward the beach. Suddenly she wrested her arm away from his grasp, slipped away, and was gone. He ran blindly after her through the fog.

  “Ellen—Ellen—”

  Chapter Eighteen

  UNTIL PROVEN GUILTY

  Art Smith was as sore as hell when he woke up the next morning. He tried to rub the fog out of his eyes and his brain. It usually took him a long time to wake up, but now, when he opened his eyes and saw the bottle of Scotch on the end table, the remembrance of the night’s happening came back to him with a flash.

  His first thought was for Ellen.

  Leaping off the couch, he ran to his bedroom. It was empty. The bed had not been slept in. Half-heartedly he sniffed for a coffee aroma, hoping she was in the kitchenette, preparing breakfast.

  He walked into the kitchen. Empty.

  Somehow at that moment his whole life became empty. All meaning seemed to have drained out of it. Details of what had happened came back to him. He had fallen asleep. Like a damn fool. Falling asleep with the girl he was trying to make.

  She had laughed at him.

  No wonder. What else could you do with a man who fell asleep on you?

  She’d let him pick her up down on the beach. She’d gone to the dance hall with him. She’d been more than willing to come home with him, drink with him, let him take her in his arms and kiss her. And then, like the big dumb fool that he was, he’d gone to sleep. And she’d gone away.

  Smith filled the coffee pot and put it on to boil. He sat down at the kitchen table and lighted a cigarette. The dreary little apartment seemed more unattractive than ever.

  Fool, he told himself. Acting like a school kid because a little tramp had done just what he should have expected her to do. A little tramp who was in some way mixed up with a particularly nasty murder.

  The trouble was, he couldn’t quite convince himself. Something bothered him, and he wasn’t sure what it was. Something about Ellen that didn’t quite fit what he was telling himself about her.

  He had been a cop for a good many years, coming up slowly but determinedly from his first appointment as a rookie policeman, finally making head of Homicide. As a cop he’d almost invariably encountered people under the worst possible circumstances, either as victims or criminals.

  Everything from petty offenders to murderers. Burglars, con men, juvenile delinquents, shop-lifters, sex offenders, drunks, wife beaters—hell, the whole works.

  But Smith always found himself seeing them at their possible best. He couldn’t help it.

  Time and time again he’d gone back to his lonely little room and told himself, “You’ll never be a good cop.” But he was one.

  Perhaps it was because he could not lose that basic feeling of—oh, he couldn’t have put it into words—goodness, perhaps. People were good. If they committed crimes, they were still good. They committed them because of something they couldn’t help.

  There was another thing tucked away somewhere in the back of his mind. Something that had been said to him when he was very young and very impressionable. “A man is presumed innocent until proven guilty.”

  Yes, that was it. That was why—

  Right now Ellen was innocent until proven guilty. That was the whole trouble.

  He pulled himself to his feet, staggered into the bathroom, and splashed cold water on his face.

  Innocent until proven guilty!

  Innocent of what?

  Of everything save having been at the scene of the crime.

  Oh, sure, she’d made mistakes in her life. A lot of them. But you couldn’t blame her for that. Not with the kind of childhood she’d had. He’d seen plenty of girls like that. He’d seen many, so many of them, settle down and live happy, ordinary lives.

  It could be like that for Ellen. And he, Smith, was the man who could make it turn out that way. He knew just how to do it, too.

  He undressed and took a hot and cold shower, whistling merrily as the cold water stung him. Life slowly crept back into his body. He grinned when a thought struck him. What the hell was he so happy about?

  With clean underwear on him and the pressed pants of his old suit, he gulped down his coffee and took deep, satisfying puffs at his cigarette.

  What was it Dickson had said about getting himself a wife? What would that big ape say if he knew who that was going to be? God, he thought, she’d stand out from the wives of those other guys like a chorus girl in an old ladies’ home!

  He was anxious to get down to work and tell Dickson.

  First his blue-striped shirt. Then the new tie Dickson had given him last Christmas that he had saved for a special occasion. Like this. Then his coat. As he stood at the mirror behind the door of his bathroom, he surveyed himself minutely.

  Not bad, he thought. Not too old-looking, either. A few gray hairs. But what the hell! There was still a helluva lot of life in the old boy. He started to button his coat to make his figure appear trimmer.

  The button was now secured firmly.

  She had fingered it idly last night, he remembered.

  Now it was sewn on. She had done it. For him!

  When he saw the reflection of the broad grin on his face, he felt like a kid. He’d have to move out of this dump. Get himself a house. Maybe in the hills. With a lot of land. Grow some fruit trees. Maybe kids.

  He was radiant as he started off to work.

  “What’s come over you, Art?” Dickson wanted to know.

  “I took your advice.”

  “Grinning like an ape!”

  Smith strode the carpet in front of Dickson’s desk. He was impatient to get away. To see Ellen.

  “What’s new on the McGurn case?”

  Smith told him of the two New York hoods he had flushed at McGurn’s place, told him of their reason for coming out—to get the hot money they’d furnished McGurn.

  “There’s a motive for murder,” Smith said.

  “Money, huh?”

  Smith nodded.

  “You don’t think those New York boys bumped off McGurn?”

  Smith shook his head. “Nope. McGurn had his dough hidden out in a safe-deposit vault. They’d never kill the goose that could lay a fifty-thousand-dollar golden egg.”

  “Who then?”

  “Tony Webb.”

  “Why him?”

  “Money. Revenge for being framed.”

  Dickson brooded as he picked nervously at the bit of skin on his lip. “What makes you think Tony’s in on it?”

  “His motives are—” Smith started to say.

  Dickson cut
him short. “The D.A. can’t prove a case in court with motives. He’s got to have more than that. And we’ve got to give him more.” He hesitated for some time before continuing. Then, with a sigh, he asked, “What have you got against Tony?”

  Smith stopped pacing and looked across the desk at his superior. He sensed something rotten in the wind. What the hell was Dickson getting at? Sitting there on his fat ass, throwing around hints of suspicion.

  “Tony’s my hottest suspect.”

  “You’re not framing a rap on him?”

  Smith’s face grew white. “If you’re trying to say something,” he said coldly, “stop beating around the bush and say it.”

  “That girl’s got you buffaloed,” Dickson said slowly.

  “Keep her out of this!” Now the color rose into Smith’s face and reddened his cheeks. “If it’s anything to you,” he continued, “I’m going to ask her to marry me. This afternoon.”

  “What?” Dickson’s mouth fell open.

  “Many,” Smith said, “m-a-r-r-y. Remember? That’s what happens when a couple of people decide they’re in love with each other.”

  Dickson groaned. He reached across his desk and flipped the lever on his intercom. “Send O’Mara in!” he said curtly. Then he flipped the lever back.

  “What’s O’Mara butting in again for?” Smith demanded.

  Dickson didn’t answer. Instead he started to look through the papers on his desk. He soon found what he was looking for. “Here’s a memo O’Mara handed me this morning,” he said.

  Smith said, “I thought he was off the case!”

  “He is. But he came across something he thought I’d be interested in. After all, he’s still a cop. That’s more than I can say about you, Art. I should have taken you off when I first thought of it.”

  “You still can.”

  Dickson shook his head. “Nope,” he said wearily, “after you read this memo, I think you’ll become a cop again.”

  O’Mara entered Dickson’s office. He wasn’t too good to look at. Both his eyes were black and blue. The right eye was almost completely closed. He looked as if he’d been through one of his own goings-over. He nodded to Dickson. He avoided Smith with truculent silence.

  “Tell Art where you got this dope,” Dickson said. He held up the memo he had referred to previously.

  O’Mara continued to avoid looking at Smith. “I got a stoolie working for me downtown. Name of Meadows—Ike Meadows—Well, I turned Meadows loose on the girl and—”

  Smith’s face became livid with anger. He interrupted O’Mara’s deliberately dawdling repetition of his story. “How the hell can anyone get anything done here with everyone trying to rat on you!”

  O’Mara looked helplessly, appealingly, at Dickson.

  “Go ahead,” Dickson told O’Mara.

  “Well,” O’Mara continued, “what I wrote in that memo’s what this here stoolie turned up for me.”

  “Tell Art about it,” Dickson said.

  O’Mara took out a cigarette, lighted it, and settled down to his story. Dickson sank deeper into his creaking chair, his eyes staring down unseeingly at the papers on his desk. Smith waited tensely. He knew it had something to do with Ellen. Something bad.

  He braced himself.

  “Well,” O’Mara started off, “you see, it’s like this. This here girl—Ellen Haven’s her name—she came in last year from a little town called Melton. Some guys said she worked in a taxi-dance hall. Others said they saw her in a nautch-house off Skidrow. Anyhow, she kind of dropped out of circulation for a while. Then she shows up at her old stands sporting furs and diamond rings and stuff. Well, in her circles, that means one thing. But nobody knew who he was. She was pretty cagey about it. So was he. But my stoolie’s pretty good at digging up stuff like that. And what does he find out? Well, it seems like she was being kept on the q.t. by this guy McGurn. Nobody knew it. Not even McGurn’s pals. But, there she was, living off the fat of the land—and McGurn.”

  When he stopped talking, Smith turned to Dickson. “Is that all?”

  “Ain’t that enough?” O’Mara demanded.

  “What else you holding out?” Smith spat the words out at O’Mara with venom. “Sure there isn’t something else you’re keeping under your hat?”

  O’Mara was indignant. And at the same time somewhat discomfited. He wondered just how much Smith knew about McGurn’s dough, about what happened last night.

  “How about McGurn’s dough?” Smith continued. “Or didn’t your pet stoolie find out anything about that? And how about the safe-deposit vault he’s got it stashed away in? Nothing in the memo about that. Or are you holding that off to use yourself?”

  Dickson interrupted him. He dismissed O’Mara. When the door closed behind the big cop, Dickson began to pick at his lip skin again.

  “Well?” Smith asked.

  “Well, what?” Dickson tried to cover up his embarrassment with brusqueness.

  “When do you want me to turn in my badge?”

  Dickson got up laboriously from his chair. His jowls quivered with anger. “Nobody said anything about turning a badge in,” he said. He walked around the desk to where Smith stood, fiddling with his tie.

  “You want to?” he asked suddenly.

  Smith considered for a moment. “No.”

  “Don’t, then. Nobody asked you to. And, what’s more, you’re still on the McGurn case. It’s still yours, all yours.”

  “That means I’ve got to bring in the girl.”

  “She’s got a motive now, like Tony. She was McGurn’s girl friend. Of course, that doesn’t mean she’s involved in the job. But you’ve got to admit she’s more than just an innocent bystander. Or a material witness. She’s a suspect.”

  Smith turned to leave, “Okay,” he said quietly. “But I still think Tony Webb is our man.”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “We’ll see.” He left the office.

  She’s innocent, he tried to convince himself. She’s still an innocent bystander. He was sure of that.

  But not too sure.

  Chapter Nineteen

  A GIRL REMEMBERS

  The desk clerk at the hotel didn’t know where Ellen had gone. She hadn’t checked out; she just hadn’t come back last night.

  “Her room been cleaned up yet?” Art Smith said.

  The clerk referred to a chart. “I don’t think so,” he said slowly. Then suddenly, “No, not yet. It’s because we’re kind of short of help,” the clerk added apologetically.

  “May I have the key to her room?” Smith showed his badge.

  The clerk handed the key over to him. “Room 202,” he said.

  Smith walked up the stairs to the second floor. Room 202 was right off the staircase. He opened the door and walked in. It was dark. Smith stood in the darkness for a moment. The scent of her perfume still hung around the room. For a fleeting second he saw her standing in front of him, mocking him with that taunting smile.

  Then he switched on the light.

  Blood was spattered about the room.

  He’d been too late, he thought. Tony had gotten to her first.

  He sat down on the couch and tried to think things out. But no consecutive, concrete thoughts presented themselves.

  All he could think of was Ellen. Dead. With her throat slit. With the blood oozing out of her nose over her bruised mouth.

  He shuddered. Then he got up and left the room hastily.

  “Was the girl hurt in any way?” he asked the clerk.

  But the clerk didn’t know. “My relief was on last night,” he said. “I can ask him tonight,” he added helpfully.

  Smith suddenly remembered the two New York hoodlums. They’d know where Tony was, he thought. Ellen might be with him. Might have been with him last night. Before Tony—

  He found them lolling around in a downtown hotel room.

  He came quickly to the point. “Where’s Tony Webb?” he demanded.

  The smaller one laughed. “You’re
the copper,” he sneered. “You find him.”

  Smith squelched a yen to paste the punk in the jaw. That would be no way to get any information out of them. The Manual had a long section about dealing with recalcitrant witnesses. Force, it said, unless followed up with torture, which is forbidden, tends to dry up a prospective witness as a source of information. Work on the witness’s emotions. Use flattery, cajolery, sympathy, understanding.

  He decided to use his ace in the hole. “Do the Feds know you boys are here?”

  The tall one pushed the shorter one aside and stood squarely in front of Smith. “You ain’t throwing a scare in us!” he said slowly. “We ain’t in no jam with the G-boys.”

  “No?”

  “No!”

  “They know anything about the stuff McGurn was peddling for you over his crap tables?”

  “What stuff?”

  “Yeah!” the short one threw in. “We don’t know what you’re talking about!”

  Smith grabbed hold of the tall one’s coat lapels and pulled him. “You punk!” he said. “I know you guys sent McGurn hot dough. I know he passed it for you. Now either you come across with the info I want or I go to the Feds!”

  The tall one was cowed. “I tell you we—”

  Smith dropped him. “Okay, it’s the Feds.” He turned for the door. “If that’s what you want!”

  “Wait a minute!” the shorter one called out.

  Smith turned. “Where’s Tony?”

  “Barton Hotel, corner of—”

  Smith was out before the guy could get out the address. He knew where the Barton was. Small hotel. Near Fonseca.

  In the lobby of the hotel he put in a quick phone call to a contact at the F.B.I. In curt, incisive terms he told of the hot-money passers. Told them to hurry before they beat it out of town and was assured a pinch would be made as soon as possible.

  Tony wasn’t at the Barton. The room clerk thought he might have gone down to the Pier. Smith flashed his badge and got a passkey to Tony’s room.

  Smith’s practiced first glance around Tony’s room was enough to tell him he’d find nothing there. Tony obviously used it only as a place to sleep. A cursory look through the chiffonier drawers and the closet proved his first surmise. Nothing.

  He left hastily for the Pier.