Badge of Evil

by Whit Masterson

  “I can’t blame Quinlan too much,” said Adair when Holt finished telling of the stormy midnight interview. “Understand, Mitch, I don’t blame you either. Actually, I blame myself for letting you go off the deep end.” In his magnanimity, Adair permitted himself a smile. “You can be darn persuasive, you know.”

  It was a clear invitation for Holt to confess error but he didn’t accept it. “I don’t think that that quite ends it.”

  “Don’t you?” Adair toyed with his letter opener. “Gould said a bizarre thing yesterday. He suggested that maybe you have political ambitions now that your picture has been in the papers. I scouted the theory, of course, knowing you.”

  Holt sat stunned. He hadn’t seen this coming. Now he began to understand the overnight shift in Adair’s position. Adair’s foremost fear was not the problem itself but that he might be nurturing a rival for the district attorney’s job. This, despite his familiar protestations of his dislike for politics. In a strained voice, Holt said, “That’s ridiculous. I’m not running for office. Sounds to me like Gould was trying to create a diversion and that he may be really worried.”

  “Only about our sanity, I gathered. But that’s neither here nor there.”

  Holt looked at his boss in a new light, wondering why he had taken him so much on trust. He looked around at the antique western décor of the office and began to believe that the pre-eminent purpose of Adair’s hobby was to provide himself with a political colouring as romantically stalwart as the semi-mythical frontier days. He said, “All I ask is a fair investigation of my findings. I don’t ask that I conduct it personally.”

  Adair was busy straightening his desk accessories, his signal that the discussion was closed. “The matter’s been taken care of and that’s that. When you leaving on your vacation, Mitch?”

  “I don’t know.” Holt put his brief case on the desk and unzippered it. “I’d like you to look over these notes.”

  Adair weighed the heavy sheaf of papers uneasily. “Looks pretty formidable,” he said. “Anything here that can’t wait? I’m due at city council meeting at ten.”

  “Then let me summarize it for you,” said Holt. He knew he was being baulky but, against Adair’s evasion tactics, he didn’t know any other way to proceed. Holt was determined that Adair face this problem squarely. “I spent all afternoon and most of last evening down in the Hall of Records, digging into the superior court files over the past ten years. I didn’t cover them all, by a long shot, but I did make a dent in the homicide trials.”

  Adair sat back with an expression of pained patience. “What on earth for?”

  “I took notes, or had them taken, on all homicide trials where the principal circumstantial evidence was uncovered by McCoy and Quinlan. I also extracted the judge’s instructions where it was indicated that this particular circumstantial evidence tipped the scales for conviction. There’s quite a few of them, as you can see. In each case, the defence denied the existence of this evidence — and in each case, there’s only the testifying officer’s word that the evidence is valid.” He began to leaf through the sheaf of papers. “For instance, in the Whitman case, there was the murdered girl’s lipstick. In the Mortimer case, it was the pliers — ”

  “Now hold on a minute,” Adair interrupted him. “Never mind the inventory. Just what are you getting at, anyway?”

  Holt drew a deep breath. “McCoy and Quinlan planted the dynamite at Shayon’s apartment. There’s no other way to account for it. It’s my belief that maybe this wasn’t the first time they faked the evidence to make an arrest.”

  Adair stared at him as if he had suddenly announced that he was Jack the Ripper. “Mitch,” he murmured, almost pityingly. “For crying out loud!”

  “I said maybe,” Holt emphasized. “But if McCoy and Quinlan would fake evidence today — and they did — why wouldn’t they have done it last year, too? Or ten years ago, or twenty years ago? It’s my belief that these two men at some point became the victims of their own reputations. Possibly they never were as good as the newspapers made them out to be and they found themselves in a position where they had to produce — or else. A question of pride.

  “Furthermore, you said yesterday that cops sometimes forget that their job isn’t to dispense justice. They become judge and jury as well. McCoy and Quinlan believe that they’re infallible. I can’t picture either of them setting out to frame an innocent man. But if they were sure the man was guilty — just like they were sure about Shayon — they might well feel that they were helping justice along, making certain that the guilty man didn’t wriggle out of paying, for lack of evidence. And maybe they were right most of the time — maybe even ninety-nine per cent of the time. But no man is infallible. We proved that right here with the Linneker case. I hate to think what might have happened to Shayon — and Tara Linneker — if Farnum hadn’t confessed when he did. That planted dynamite — faked evidence — would have been darn near incontrovertible in any jury’s eyes.

  “Right now, there’s no way of proving that this sort of situation ever happened before. Maybe every single case in the files is perfectly genuine. I don’t know. I haven’t had time yet to check very far. But there’s certainly a reasonable doubt raised and a shadow cast on every case that McCoy and Quinlan had anything to do with. In the interests of justice, I don’t see that we have any other alternative but to go back and investigate them all.”

  Adair had listened to him in silence but now both his face and his voice were stony. “That’s quite an edifice of conjecture that you’ve erected. I admire your imagination if not your conclusions. I’d like to point out one flaw, however. Everything rests on your contention that McCoy and Quinlan faked the dynamite evidence.”

  “They did,” said Holt positively.

  “I believe you’d have a hard time proving it. You certainly haven’t proved it to me. So there goes your entire case.”

  “But if I could prove that McCoy and Quinlan planted the dynamite?” asked Holt. “That would suggest something, wouldn’t it? If Farnum will consent to a lie detector test — ”

  “He’s already refused. Besides, the man isn’t a competent witness.”

  “Farnum refused because he was intimidated. If you’ll transfer him up to County Jail where he’ll be out of McCoy and Quinlan’s reach — ”

  Adair said emphatically, “I don’t intend to do any such thing. I’m at a loss to know where you’ve gotten these melodramatic ideas all of a sudden. We’re not running a side show here. I’m certainly not going to take a chance on blowing our case against Farnum skyhigh just because you’ve got a crazy yen to go raking over dead ashes. You haven’t got a shred of anything to go on and you should be the first to realize it.”

  “The same thing could have been said about the Buccio case. But Emil Buccio is now in prison.”

  Adair flushed “You said something about a man becoming a victim of his reputation. Don’t let it happen to you.”

  “All I want is a chance to prove I’m right — or wrong.”

  “The case is closed,” announced Adair coldly and pushed Holt’s brief case back across the desk. With an effort, he adopted a more friendly note. “Mitch, you’re under a strain and that’s understandable. You’ve been working too hard. You go ahead and take your vacation — stay as long as you like, I’ll arrange things — and when you come back you’ll see how foolish this whole hypothesis really is.” He glanced at his watch. “Good God, I’m late already.”

  Holt zippered his brief case and rose. He was angry but he tried not to let it show through. “My vacation can wait. This is more important.”

  “And if I say it isn’t?” Adair inquired icily.

  “I suggest that we get together again tomorrow morning. You’ll have had time to think it over by then.”

  “That sounds like you’re giving me a deadline,” said Adair and there was no pretence of friendliness between them now. They faced each other across the big desk like duellists. “I don’t like ultimatums f
rom people who are supposed to be working for me.”

  “Maybe that’s our trouble.” This time Holt couldn’t keep the anger out of his voice. “I thought I was working for the law.”

  Deep in disgust, Holt returned to the Hall of Records. Caution and scepticism he had expected, but not outright opposition. Adair’s refusal even to consider his findings embittered and enraged him. Another man in Holt’s present position might have thrown up his hands. But opposition only made Holt more determined. Or pigheaded, he conceded bleakly. Only time would tell.

  He requisitioned the same three stenographers from the pool and took up where they had left off the previous evening. He drove them hard, yet not as hard as he drove himself. But today he allowed them to leave at the regular quitting time.

  As they were going, one of the girls couldn’t restrain her curiosity any longer. “We were wondering, Mr. Holt, since you only gave us two names to hunt for, two men and not a subject heading … Is this Grand Jury stuff you’re working on?”

  He hadn’t projected his thoughts that far. He didn’t really know where the search would ultimately carry him. “No,” he answered slowly. “Not yet, anyway.”

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  AFTER a few years of marriage, a man and a woman will generally discover that they are sharing more than bed, board and bank account. The sharing also extends to intangibles, such as moods. It is seldom that one frowns while the other smiles and vice versa, although such might make for a better balanced existence. But if a man is peevish, his wife will likely be also. And add to this life’s uncanny knack of stockpiling annoyances for the moments when they are least capable of being met; a man seldom loses his job and comes home to a joyous account of how well Junior is doing in school. Usually he is greeted with the news that the water heater has exploded.

  Mitch Holt wasn’t given to extremes of disposition as a rule. Ordinarily he was the most even-tempered of men. But his disappointment in Adair had curdled his entire day and he took its sourness home with him.

  There he received no comfort from Connie. “I absolutely refuse to call Papa and tell him again that we aren’t coming,’’ she stated, almost before Holt had taken off his hat.

  “I don’t see any way out of it.”

  “Well, I do. This time we’re going — tomorrow morning — just like we planned, and that’s that.”

  Despite her conclusive tone, Connie was not past reasoning with or cajoling and, another time, Holt would have done it. But not tonight. He was in no mood for persuasion and Connie’s use of Adair’s favourite tag-phrase — ”that’s that” — only made him bristle. “I can’t leave tomorrow and if you insist on going then, you’ll have to go alone”

  “Well, maybe I will,” she snapped and flounced off to the kitchen to prepare their dinner with a good deal of unnecessary pan rattling.

  Neither Connie nor Holt meant it and they both knew it. They were merely following the conjugal pattern of expending their irritations on each other. They would inevitably apologize and heal the breach and it would be forgotten. But until that moment the atmosphere was one of frosty politeness. During dinner, with their daughter to act as neutral and intermediary, the strain might not have been noticeable to an outsider. But when Nancy had been tucked into bed and man and wife were alone in the living room there was no denying its existence. They each hid themselves away behind their reading matter, emerging only now and then to throw the other a questioning are-you-still-mad glance. But neither was yet ready to make the initial overtures and the quarrel might have continued to bedtime if it hadn’t been for the interruption.

  Holt heard the automobile stop in front of the house but the sound didn’t stir his curiosity enough to make him turn his head toward the big picture window. Cars stopped nearby all the time and only once in ten did the fact have anything to do with him. He wasn’t expecting any callers tonight — let’s see, he’d paid the paper boy for this month and …

  The blast, especially startling in the library quiet of the living room, nearly threw him out of his chair with surprise. The room seemed to reverberate and Holt was stung by tiny bits of glass. His first thought, natural for a Southern Californian, was that of earthquake. He shouted at Connie, something unintelligible that had to do with grabbing their daughter and getting out of the house before another shock brought it down on top of them. But before he could follow his own instructions, panic fled and reason returned. It hadn’t been an earthquake. Earthquakes didn’t make that sort of noise, they … In the distance, Holt heard another sound, the screech of automobile tyres as they rounded a corner at high speed.

  Connie came running back from the bedroom, half carrying and half dragging the groggy figure of Nancy. The little girl was crying with fright she didn’t understand. Connie said, “Mitch, quick! Help me carry her — ”

  “It’s all right now.” He went to meet them and put his arms around both of them. “We don’t have to run.”

  “But the earthquake — when the second one — ”

  “There’s not going to be a second one. Not right now. Let’s get Nancy back to bed.” Over their child’s head, their eyes met. “It wasn’t an earthquake, Connie.”

  Connie looked at the shattered picture window, strips of glass hanging crazily from the frame, and then across the room. The stucco of the opposite wall was pitted and pocked. Slowly, she murmured, “Why, that looks like — ”

  “Yes. Get Nancy back to sleep. I’ve got a phone call to make.”

  Connie nodded; she wasn’t the type who went to pieces in an emergency. All she said to her husband was, “Maybe you’d better turn out the lights.” Then she led Nancy away, soothing the child’s frightened questions with, “It was just an accident, chiquita, there’s nothing to be afraid of — Mother and Daddy are here …”

  Holt didn’t turn out the living room lights. He didn’t think it was necessary now. Whoever had fired through the big window — the pockmarks indicated it had been a shotgun blast — hadn’t intended to kill. The angle of the shot proved that — and Holt had been sitting in plain view of any would-be assassin. The shot had been scare tactics, a warning, nothing else. Holt telephoned police headquarters.

  He was impressed with the speed the police demonstrated. The first prowl car arrived within three minutes of his telephone call, siren moaning. As Holt went out to greet the cops he saw his neighbours on both sides of the street, peering from their porches and doorways. It was a quiet residential district and not used to violence.

  The prowl car team, uniformed officers, knew Holt by reputation. They heard the bare outline of his story and one of them tramped away to survey the yard for possible evidence while the other remained inside to inspect the damage. He confirmed Holt’s guess that a shotgun had been the cause.

  “Bird shot,” he commented, measuring the spread of pockmarks on the stucco. “Probably wouldn’t have killed you even if the fellow had been a better shot.”

  Holt thought that the marksman had probably hit what he intended but he didn’t speculate on this aloud. “I guess we’re lucky, though.”

  “You get any idea what make of car he was driving?” the officer asked, filling in his report form.

  “I didn’t see a thing,’’ Holt admitted. “Everything happened pretty fast.”

  “They usually do.” The other officer came back with the information that his first search had turned up nothing. “Probably fired from inside the car. Which would account for no shell being left. He’d have a clear shot right across the lawn, all right. Where’s your phone, Mr. Holt?”

  Connie came into the living room while the officers were phoning headquarters. Holt drew her aside. Low-voiced, he told her, “Connie, I want you and Nancy to take your car — thank God you’re already packed — and get down to your father’s ranch. Right away, tonight.”

  “But what about you, Mitch? If that was a shot — ”

  “It was a shot. And it may not be the last. I can take care of myself but I’ve got to get y
ou and Nancy out of here.”

  “Are you trying to scare me?”

  “Yes,” Holt said frankly. “There’s enough to be scared about. I didn’t think that anything like this would happen. But now that it has, I can’t take chances with your lives. Next time he might shoot at us, not over us.”

  “He? Do you know who it was?”

  “I can guess.” Holt glanced over his shoulder, not wanting the cops to hear him. “Connie, I can’t talk about it now. Just trust me and do what I say.”

  Connie kept her voice low but it shook with concern. “This job that you’re on — you haven’t told me anything about it — but is it important enough to risk your life, Mitch?”

  “Yes,” he said soberly. “I think tonight proves it is.”

  “Then if it’s important to you, it’s just as important to me. I’m not going to leave you.”

  Holt put his arms around her. Both of them had long since forgotten their previous estrangement. “I know how you feel, Connie. But you’ve got to do as I say. It will help me more to know that you’re safe. And we’ve got to think about Nancy. If anything should happen to her …”

  Connie stared in the direction of their daughter’s bedroom. He could sense the struggle going on inside her. When he felt her shoulders slump, Holt knew she would do as he directed. “All right,” she whispered. “For Nancy’s sake.”

  The detectives arrived while Connie was throwing the last minute items into her suitcase and trying to rouse the sleeping child for the second time. The plain-clothes men had been trailed out from headquarters by reporters, but they kept the newsmen temporarily at bay while they conferred with Holt.

  “Things like this are almost impossible to follow up,” one of them confessed, after hearing what facts Holt could give him. “Especially since you didn’t see the car. Even if you had, it would be tough. Well, maybe some of the neighbours might help.” The uniformed cops were sent away to see what they could learn. “Any ideas who might be responsible for this, Mr. Holt?”