Doctor, Lawyer . . . (The Lt. Hastings Mysteries)

by Collin Wilcox

  Not replying, I motioned for our backup unit to pull ahead of us and park. Canelli was parking between a battered pickup truck and a dented Cadillac. Listening to the bumpers clang, I winced. I’d ordered a quiet approach.

  “What’re the plans?” Friedman asked. Downtown, I followed Friedman’s lead. In the field, he took his cue from me.

  “Unless Royce is here,” I said, “there probably won’t be any trouble. According to the FBI, Jessica Hanley stays clean. Royce does too, usually. For propaganda purposes.”

  “A government in exile,” Friedman said dryly.

  “Right.” I gave Canelli and Culligan their orders, instructing them to cover the back. They’d have one walkie-talkie, I’d have another. The backup unit—four men with shotguns—would be parked in front, tuned to the same frequency.

  I unbuttoned my jacket, loosened my revolver in its holster and questioned Friedman with a glance. He nodded, moving to the right side of the door. He held his revolver in his hand, concealed along his leg. If there was trouble, I’d go in first, breaking to the left, high. Friedman would go in on the right, low. It was something I’d done a hundred times in the past—always with a fearful dread that, this time, I’d be blown away. Friedman, I knew, felt the same.

  As I knocked on the paint-scabbed door, I caught a flicker of movement down the hallway to my left. A black boy, no more than eight years old, stood motionless, regarding me with implacable hostility. I was raising my fist to knock a second time when the door suddenly opened. From countless newspaper pictures and TV film clips, I immediately recognized Jessica Hanley.

  “I’m Lieutenant Frank Hastings, Miss Hanley. This is Lieutenant Peter Friedman. Can we come in and talk to you for a few minutes?”

  Instead of replying, she first looked me up and down, then coolly examined my ID, taking the leather folder away from me and holding it tilted for better light in the dim hallway. It was the first time I’d ever had the folder taken from me. Friedman received the same treatment. As Jessica Hanley examined our credentials, I examined her. She was, I knew, twenty-four years old—a tall, angular girl with a sharp-featured face dominated by large, intense eyes and a tight, bitter mouth. Her face was triangular, with a broad forehead, prominent cheekbones and a small, jutting chin. She wore a nondescript grey sweat shirt and faded blue Levis, both a size too large. Her feet were bare. Her thick brown hair hung loose to her shoulders, uncombed. The sweat shirt suggested pendulous, big-nippled breasts, too large for her slim, almost emaciated torso and long, thin legs. If I hadn’t known her family was wealthy, I would have guessed that she’d been an undernourished child. Watching her as she frowned at Friedman, I tried to imagine this stingy, unattractive heiress making love to Jimmy Royce, a tough, savvy ghetto black, reportedly a stud.

  “What’s it about?” she asked, returning Friedman’s ID folder. Her voice was crisp and clipped, her eyes steady.

  “We’d like to talk to Jimmy Royce.” I glanced over her shoulder, down a short, dark entryway that led into a cluttered living room. “Is he here?”

  “No.”

  “Can we come inside and talk about it?”

  “Do you have a warrant?”

  “No.”

  She stood with legs braced, hands on her hips, blocking the way. Jessica Hanley, I knew, welcomed confrontation.

  “You’re both lieutenants,” she said, looking thoughtfully from one of us to the other. Then, briskly: “What division?”

  “We’re from the Homicide Bureau, Miss Hanley,” Friedman said quietly.

  “Homicide?” The question betrayed surprise. As she looked at me, her eyes narrowed. “Both of you? Two lieutenants?”

  “Both of us.”

  “And you’re looking for Jimmy. Is that it?”

  “That’s it, Miss Hanley.”

  “What’s he done?”

  “If you let us inside, we’ll tell you.”

  She considered a moment, then abruptly turned away, walking into the living room. Her buttocks and thighs moved with taut efficiency, somehow sexually neutered.

  It was a one-bedroom apartment, with the kitchen, the bath and the bedroom all opening on the large living room. Originally the living room had probably been a dining room. An adjoining butler’s pantry had been crudely partitioned to make both a tiny kitchen and bathroom. The bedroom looked as though it had once been a huge closet.

  I moved to the bedroom door and looked inside. The room was empty; the door of a cheap hardboard wardrobe gaped, revealing a tangle of women’s clothing. Unless he was under the bed, Royce wasn’t there. Somehow I couldn’t imagine Comrade Cain hiding under a bed, and Friedman apparently agreed. He moved directly to the room’s single overstuffed chair, sinking down with his customary grateful sigh. The contest was about to begin.

  “As you can see,” Jessica Hanley said, “Jimmy isn’t here.”

  “Does he live here?” I asked.

  “No.”

  “When was the last time you saw him?”

  “I don’t remember.”

  She sat on a low wooden bench, legs crossed, back straight, arms folded, eyeing us alternately with the same narrow, cool appraisal with which she’d met us at the door. I felt my eyes fall uncertainly away. Incredibly, she was beating me at my own cop’s game, staring me down.

  To cover, I reached into my inside pocket, withdrawing a manila envelope. “I’d like to show you a few Xerox copies, Miss Hanley.” I sat on a rickety straight-back chair, flopping a copy of today’s newspaper account of the Ainsley murder on the bench beside her.

  “Did you see that story?” I asked. “It ran in today’s Sentinel. On the front page.”

  She glanced at the clipping, then nodded. But as she looked at me this time, her eyes were narrowed; her thick, unplucked eyebrows were drawn slightly together. Had I touched a nerve? I couldn’t decide. I reached into the manila envelope again, withdrawing a copy of the extortion note.

  “If you read the story in the Sentinel,” I said, “you didn’t read anything about this note. We decided to keep the contents secret until we had a chance to identify the murderer.” As I watched her gingerly pick up the note, curious in spite of herself, I added: “That was tucked down beside the body.”

  She’d obviously had time to finish reading, yet she kept her eyes down. She was thinking—hard. When she looked up, she was chewing at her lower lip. Her teeth, I saw, were small and evenly spaced, possibly the result of expensive orthodontics. But the teeth were also dull and stained, more in the image of a revolutionary.

  “So why’re you here?” she asked Friedman. She spoke quietly, guardedly.

  “We’re here,” Friedman said, “because Ballistics can prove that the bullet found in Dr. Ainsley’s body came from a .45-caliber automatic pistol that we found near the scene of the crime. And Intelligence has sworn testimony linking that pistol to Jimmy Royce.” Friedman sat complacently in the easy chair, his hands folded easily across the mound of his stomach, his smooth, broad face sunk deep into the jowly flesh of his neck. As he stared at Jessica Hanley with his slightly protuberant eyes, Friedman reminded me of an outsize bullfrog.

  “It’s a government-issue .45-caliber Colt automatic,” I said. “It was stolen from an armory in Seattle, six months ago.” I paused for emphasis. “We can trace that pistol day by day from the time it was stolen until now—until it was used to murder Dr. Ainsley.”

  Slowly she was shaking her head as she stared at me. Her expression was supercilious, mocking me.

  “You must be crazy,” she said finally. “If you think that Jimmy would do anything like that, you’re just plain crazy. You—”

  “Contrary to popular opinion,” Friedman interrupted blandly, “detectives don’t waste time theorizing. The D.A. isn’t interested in theories. He wants—”

  “It’s a frame-up,” she suddenly flared. “It’s a goddam frame-up.”

  “No,” Friedman answered gently. “Cops don’t frame people, either. Contrary to—”

&nb
sp; “Bullshit they don’t frame people. What’s your so-called ‘sworn testimony?’” she asked bitterly. “How much did you have to pay for it, anyhow?”

  “That’s another misconception,” Friedman cut in smoothly. He was goading her with an elaborate show of patronizing patience. Ridicule is the perfect weapon against a hostile intellectual, and Friedman could use it expertly. “If a cop paid for every bit of information he got,” he continued, still speaking with the same subtly insulting patience, “he wouldn’t have enough money left to—”

  “Deals, then,” she spat out. “Excuse me. Forget about money. Let’s talk about deals. Or, if you’re in the White House, let’s call it plea bargaining. What’d you do, find some poor wino who’d thrown up on the sidewalk and offer to dismiss charges if he’d connect Jimmy with that .45?”

  “No,” Friedman answered genially, still lolling belly up, hands clasped easily across his stomach. “No, as a matter of fact we found a gun dealer holding. He decided he’d give us Jimmy Royce, if we’d put in a good word for him with the D.A. And the D.A. has promised to talk with the United States Attorney.”

  Watching Jessica eye Friedman with baleful disgust, I wondered whether she would stare him down too. I watched their silent contest continue through an interminable minute, then said, “We figure that the P.A.L. has given up bank robbery for murder and extortion, Jessica. And that’s what a lot of other people are going to think, when the facts come out.”

  Her thin lips curled as she turned on me. “Whose ‘facts’ are you talking about, Lieutenant? Why don’t we talk about the truth, for a change?”

  “All right”—I spread my hands—“let’s talk about the truth. What is the truth, as far as you’re concerned?”

  About to retort angrily, she hesitated, plainly struck by some sudden thought. Her eyes lost focus as she stared off across the dingy room. Her long, narrow hands, prematurely blue-veined, were clasped into fists, one fist on either thigh. Secretly she was deciding something. Finally: “The truth is—” she answered slowly, speaking in a dry, hard voice, “the truth is that Jimmy Royce is out of the P.A.L. You won’t believe that, I know. I don’t give a damn.”

  Friedman and I exchanged a quick glance. “The public might not believe it, either,” Friedman said quietly.

  “I don’t give a damn about that, either.”

  “You should, though, if you’re interested in the P.A.L.’s image,” I said. “Bank robbery has an appeal to the masses. You soak the rich and give to the poor. Great. But we’re talking about murder—about shooting some innocent person in the back, and leaving an extortion note. To me, that doesn’t sound very heroic.”

  “Very clever, Lieutenant,” she said sardonically. “A little elementary, maybe. But clever, nevertheless.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Except that I’m not going to tell you where to find Jimmy. If I knew—which I don’t—I wouldn’t tell you, despite the fact that he jerked me around and ripped off the P.A.L.” She spoke in a low, venomous voice. Her eyes were balefully bright; her whole body was suddenly taut. She was unable to suppress her sharp, sudden fury. Yet her anger, I felt, was directed at Royce, not at us. “Was it Floyd Ferguson who copped?” she asked suddenly.

  Neither Friedman nor I answered, but the truth must have been plain. Once again, she’d caught us by surprise. Then, without warning, she got wrathfully to her feet and stalked to the door, yanking on the knob. The interrogation was over.

  Minutes later, we were in the dim, dank outside corridor, watchfully walking to the front door of 2314 Scott Street.

  “You know something?” Friedman said thoughtfully.

  “What’s that?”

  “I feel a little sorry for her. I get the feeling that she’s hung up between two worlds, with no place to go.”

  “Either that, or Jimmy Royce has given her a case of the empty bed blues.”

  “Yes,” he answered. “Yes, that’s a point, too—maybe a better point than mine, come to think about it. Those stringy-type girls with the hard mouths are pretty hard losers, sometimes.”

  “Maybe that’s why they make good revolutionaries.”

  Five

  TWENTY-FOUR HOURS LATER, Friedman and I were seated side by side on the long leather sofa in Chief Dwyer’s office. At sixty years of age and a slim, trim hundred and seventy-five pounds, Dwyer was the silver-haired image of the successful big city politician. He sat behind his huge walnut desk with an erect, alert air of complete authority. His thick, expensively barbered hair was trimmed a carefully calculated quarter-inch longer than the length he approved for his subordinates. His complexion glowed with ruddy good health, his jowls were firm. His glasses were aviator style, with silver frames that complemented his hair. His quick, shrewd eyes were crystal blue. His mouth was decisive, his forehead broad, his chin sculpted to the clefted contours of command. His voice was resonant.

  “As I understand it,” Dwyer said, “we’ve got nothing. Is that it?”

  “That’s about it,” Friedman answered. “We’ve got some good, clean fingerprints, but so far they’re unclassified.”

  “Are Royce’s prints classified?”

  “Yes, they are.”

  “Then the prints aren’t Royce’s.”

  “No, they aren’t. And they aren’t Ferguson’s, either.” Friedman spoke slowly and steadily, meeting Dwyer’s gaze with no appearance of discomfort. I was grateful that he’d fielded the first question. Friedman had been a homicide lieutenant for six years. I’d been on the job less than a year. In that time, I’d only been in Dwyer’s office twice: once to be welcomed to command, once to be thoroughly, efficiently chewed out for an error in judgment.

  “Are Jessica Hanley’s prints on record?” Dwyer asked.

  “No.”

  “I wish,” Dwyer said, “that you’d been a little quieter about that Jessica Hanley interrogation.”

  “How so?” Friedman asked. As he spoke, I expected to see a faint gleam of mischief in his eyes, asking the seemingly innocent question. He was, I knew, subtly baiting the police chief; I could catch the almost imperceptible note of irony in Friedman’s voice. But nothing showed. Friedman’s expression was perfectly neutral. He was sitting respectfully erect. His collar was buttoned, his tie knotted neatly. Friedman was playing it straight.

  “Because this whole P.A.L. thing is dynamite,” Dwyer answered. “Whatever we do, someone screams. If we go after the P.A.L., the radicals scream that we’re persecuting the people. If we don’t go after them, the establishment screams. And whenever we go after Jessica Hanley, she comes after us, with a half-dozen of her goddam long-haired lawyers.”

  Neither Friedman nor I responded.

  “And whichever way we move,” Dwyer finished, “we’ve got the goddam press to worry about. All they’ve got to do is write ‘P.A.L.,’ and they sell papers. Which is the reason that I wish you’d been a little quieter yesterday—taken fewer men along, maybe.”

  “We had to figure that Royce might’ve been at the Scott Street address,” I said. “And if he killed Ainsley, then eight men would have been about right.”

  “No argument,” Dwyer answered. “However”—he lifted a file folder, looked at its contents for a moment, then distastefully let it fall to his desk—“I’ve just read Royce’s jacket, cover to cover. And I just can’t see him committing premeditated murder. Hot-blooded murder, yes. But not the other way.”

  “Still,” Friedman said, “we’ve got to talk to him.”

  “Again, no argument. Find him. Talk to him. But don’t make a production number out of it. Do I make myself clear?”

  “Yessir.”

  “Good. Now, what about Royce? Any word on him?” This time, Dwyer looked at me.

  “We’ve got a tip that he’s in Hunter’s Point somewhere,” I answered.

  “Are we getting the information we need? Are we squeezing everyone we can?”

  “Everyone.”

  “All right.” He nodded. “Keep me posted. I
f this Masked Man blows a lawyer away, we’re going to have a hot potato, whether the P.A.L. is involved or not.” Aware that Friedman was doing the same, I nodded agreement.

  “I’m putting the two of you in charge,” Dwyer said. “Everyone is to report to you. Intelligence might not like that, and I can’t say that I blame them. But this thing started with a homicide, after all. So they’re just going to have to live with it. However—” Dwyer stood up. Friedman and I also rose, waiting for Dwyer’s final words: “When you talk to the media, I want you to make absolutely sure that you give Intelligence credit. Full credit, and more. Clear?”

  “Yessir.”

  “Good.” As he nodded, Dwyer’s decisive mouth curved to a pat politician’s smile. He pressed the button on his pulsar watch, then glanced from us to the door. In unison, we turned and left his office. As I nodded to Dwyer’s receptionist, I heard Friedman stifle a groan. A young man sat slouched in one corner of Dwyer’s comfortably furnished outer office. He was dressed in a mismatched corduroy safari jacket, bell-bottom blue jeans and thick-soled engineer’s boots. His sport shirt was expensive but badly wrinkled. His dark-blond hair hung in a ragged, uneven line just below his ear lobes. Like his clothing, the young man’s hair was not quite dirty, but not quite clean. His sallow face was acne-blotched, his thin lips were colorless. His mouth was uncertain, momentarily taking one shape, then twisting into another. His pale, intense eyes moved restlessly—evasively. In the idiom of the young, the visitor’s appearance was uptight, strung out. In police parlance, he looked like he could be trouble.

  “Hello, Irving.” Friedman reluctantly turned to face the youth. “This is Lieutenant Hastings. Irving Meyer, Frank.”

  “Oh—yes.” I forced a smile. For months I’d been hearing about him: Chief Dwyer’s stepson—a maladjusted, ill-mannered nineteen-year-old who’d once been a ward of the juvenile court. Dwyer’s second marriage was barely two years old, and reputedly already in trouble. His wife was neurotic, according to gossip, and his stepson was incorrigible. But, the gossip continued, the wife was rich. Lately, Irving Meyer had taken to materializing at the Hall of Justice in odd places, at odd times. Speculation about his visits centered on rumors that Meyer had stolen a motorcycle, and that Dwyer had made a deal with the judge involving closer parental supervision in exchange for a dismissal of charges.