“I went out to the house, like I said, but somebody beat me to it out there. Whoever it was, he found Cracker’s letters and pictures and he burned them all in the fireplace. By the time I got there, they was just plain ashes. I got a man out there now looking for fingerprints, but I don’t hold much hope—”
Hawaii disappeared completely. “Burned them?” Reardon took the glass of beer from Jan absently and set it aside.
“Yes, sir, that’s right. Bust in the front door, scrounged around through the house, found Cracker’s private papers—well, not his business papers, he don’t keep them home, but his others—and burned them. Most of his pictures, too. His photographs, I mean.”
“But how—I mean, who in hell could have known?” Reardon suddenly swore under his breath. “Damn that Star! And double-damn that loudmouth Gunther! I’ll have his ears!”
Curious, Holden asked, “Who?”
“Nothing,” Reardon said with disgust. “Just the bigmouth who tipped off the papers—” He suddenly frowned. “Hold it! Has there been anything in your newspapers out there about this robbery?”
“Nothing I saw,” Holden said. “I know it happened, because they had a circular on it at the Orlando Barracks, but I haven’t seen anything in the papers here. Not yet.” He sighed. “But there will be, with George in it.”
“I’d be surprised if there had been up to now,” Reardon said slowly. “A bank robbery three thousand miles away with only one cop killed. You probably have more interesting crimes in your own back yard.” He thought a minute. “So the chances are it had to be one of the gang who saw the spread in the Star and knew it was only a question of time before we identified your brother-in-law. So whoever it was got out there on the first plane and tried to get rid of any connection between George Mullin and the others in the gang.”
The more he thought about it, the better it sounded. He went on.
“Look, Sheriff, what are the chances of checking arrivals at the Orlando airport? Or, say, car rentals there? Suppose we try to figure out his approximate time of arrival there? He couldn’t have left here much before eleven-thirty or noon our time. That would be about two-three o’clock, your time—”
Sheriff Holden took a deep breath and handed out the bad news to the Florida foreigner.
“Lieutenant,” he said heavily, “five years ago the only people ever flew into Orlando in the summertime were pilots either lost or low on gas. After the first of the year, lots of people, but this time of year, none. But nowadays, with this Disney World thing? We got planes stacked up over the airport three deep twenty-four hours a day three hundred sixty-five days a year. And they come from all over, including the West Coast. And we probably got more rental cars running around than they have in New York City.” He took a breath. “I can try and check the ones in from San Francisco, the planes I mean, but I wouldn’t hold out any great hopes for it.”
Reardon started to say that California had its own Disneyland to satisfy local desire and then dropped the matter. If a Californian could drive two hundred miles for the inauguration of a new delicatessen—and Reardon knew more than one who not only could but did—then who could say what distance they would go to see a mechanical Donald Duck? And provide a screen for a criminal at the same time?
“What about your brother-in-law’s friends? Or the Elks? Did he say anything to anybody before he left?”
“If he did we haven’t heard so far, and we’re looking.”
“Damn!” Reardon said, and swept his hand, nearly knocking over the beer. He set it right and went back to the phone. “My feeling is the whole gang, the four of them, gave fake excuses at home when they got together to do this job. And that they didn’t talk about where they were going any more than necessary.” He shrugged helplessly. “So you can’t help me.”
“I didn’t say that,” Holden said quickly, stung. “I was just getting around to it. My wife has a snapshot Cracker sent her from the war. It’s got the whole crew on it, all four of them.”
Reardon hadn’t realized he was holding his breath until he released it. He honestly hadn’t been expecting any help from the sheriff at all. “How soon can you get it on the wire to us?”
“I have to stay home with Marie, but I’ll send somebody down to the Orlando Barracks with it right away,” Holden said. “Before I do, though, I thought you might be interested in the fact that each one of the four signed his name on the back, with his home town—”
It couldn’t be possible! Luck like this didn’t happen to Reardon.
“You wouldn’t kid me, would you?”
“No, sir,” Holden said. “It’s true. Like them old short-snorter bills, remember? Anyways, for what they’re worth, here they are. Got a pencil? Okay. Will Gilchrist, San Mateo, California; Max Glass, Prescott, Arizona—that’s halfway between Flagstaff and Phoenix, me and Marie drove out to see the national parks one year.…”
Friday—10:45 P.M.
“—Al Grube, Torrington, Connecticut; and George-Cracker—Mullin, Bartlesville, Florida,” Reardon said into the telephone, pleased with himself. “That’s the bunch. There they are, Captain. And my guess is that they may still be in the neighborhood. At least I’m sure they still were this morning.”
“You mean when they dropped the car into the bay?”
“I mean a lot later,” Reardon said. “The Star came out with that story of our finding the car and the body in an extra. It hit the streets at ten o’clock on the button, because I checked. All right—that’s when the gang knew we had the body, and they knew it was only a matter of time before we got a positive indentification through his fingerprints. I don’t know what made them suspect we’d tie the four of them together through the army, but apparently they weren’t taking any chances. One of them was given the assignment to get out to Florida and get rid of any correspondence, of photographs, that could lead to them. They’re cagey. They didn’t know about the picture Holden’s wife had—which is probably lucky for her, because they also seem to play rough.” Reardon looked at his wristwatch. “Well, I’ll get right down to the Hall and start sending out telexes. A pity, but I don’t suppose there are many chiefs of police I can call directly at this hour.”
“Telexes for what?” Captain Tower asked calmly.
Reardon stared at the telephone in amazement. “To pick up those three jokers, Captain. What else?”
“On what charge?”
Reardon frowned at the instrument in his hand. Despite his knowledge of the captain’s ability to flay subordinates alive, he could not keep the sarcasm from his voice.
“I was thinking of homicide one for a starter,” he said, “followed by bank robbery. We have photos of the sidewalks—maybe we can get them for spitting—”
Tower was neither surprised nor perturbed by the lieutenant’s reaction. “You’d hold them about as long as it would take a first-year law student to spring them,” he said reprovingly, “which would be roughly three minutes. You don’t have a case. All you have is a few related suspicions.”
Reardon couldn’t believe it. He shook his head incredulously and said, “Captain, on the record, do you have the slightest doubt that these four men, each coming from almost the exact place the sound lab predicted from their voice-graphs, are the men we saw robbing the bank in that replay tape? The ones involved in Tom Wheaton’s murder? Well, I don’t!”
“You’re only one man, not twelve,” Tower said calmly. “You don’t have to convince either one of us. You have to put a case together that will convince the district attorney to take it to a jury with a better than fifty per cent chance of convicting. Let me point out that the sound lab also said you can’t expect to get anywhere taking those voice-graphs into court. And what else do you have? The fact that the four men served together as a helicopter gun-crew in Vietnam, and that the bank job looked like a military operation? I can hear a defense attorney taking off on that!”
Reardon ran his fingers through his hair in desperation. “But, goddamn it, w
hy would they rush down to Florida and break into Mullin’s house and burn those papers—?”
“What papers?” Tower asked. “You know what was burned in that fireplace?”
Reardon remained silent. Tower went on inexorably.
“You don’t have fingerprints. You don’t have identifying witnesses. You don’t have the slightest identification. You have a car you fished out of the bay, and your own witnesses give six different descriptions of the car used in the bank robbery. You have a man down in the morgue who was dressed like the people in the TV tape who robbed the bank—I’ll give you that. But he could well have been put in the getaway car by the real robbers, dressed as they were, to throw you a mile off the track. And he’s a respectable, wealthy businessman. Can you explain what a man like that might be doing robbing a bank?” Tower waited a moment. “Well? Can you?”
Reardon remained silent. Where was the euphoria of that Hawaii beach? “No, sir.”
“And as for tying the other men you mentioned into the robbery,” Tower went on, “you haven’t even seen the picture from Florida yet. The one from this Holden. You don’t know if the men in it are eight feet tall or all midgets. You don’t know whether or not the men you suspect can furnish explanations for their whereabouts at the time of the robbery—”
It was too much! Reardon interrupted, his voice stubborn, angry.
“How in hell are they going to furnish any explanation for their whereabouts when they were at that bank at that time?”
“Prove it,” Captain Tower said calmly. “That’s what I’m talking about. Prove it. That’s what it’s all about.”
Reardon looked around the room in desperation, but Jan was still watching the mummery of the clowns on TV. He found the beer, but suddenly didn’t want it. Hawaii was a long way away.
“All right, Captain,” he said. “I will. And even if I can’t pick them up, I’m going to see to it they’ll be tailed until we can nail them. They won’t be taking any plane to Brazil with that quarter of a million bucks!”
“Brazil doesn’t let them stay any more,” Tower said conversationally. “Especially not bank robbers. They ship them right back in irons.”
“Well, dammit, wherever,” Reardon said sullenly. “And I’m still going to telex every home-town police chief where they live and get a full story on each and every one of them! One of them—or all of them—are bad apples. Maybe with records in the army. They robbed that bank and they shot Tom Wheaton, and I’m going to prove it!”
“That’s all I asked in the first place,” Tower said quietly. “What I’ve been trying to say is that if you’re right, and these are the men, then if we arrest them, we have to bring them to trial. And if we bring them to trial on what we have now, they’ll go free. And if they shot Tom Wheaton, we don’t want them to go free. It’s that simple.”
Reardon was quiet a long time. At last he sighed.
“Sorry to be so thickheaded, Captain. You’re right. I’ll get proper telexes off tonight.” He hung up and turned to Jan. “I’m going to call Dondero and pick him up. Do you want to stay here, or do you want me to drop you off at your place?”
Jan leaned over and brought the volume of the television up again.
“I’ll stay here,” she said with a smile. “I’m too comfortable to go home. Besides, I have a better-looking lieutenant of police than you right there.” She pointed to the screen.
“Noisier, too,” Reardon said with a grin, and bent to kiss her good-by.
Friday—11:15 P.M.
Reardon stopped at a phone booth before picking Dondero up. He slid his dime in the slot and dialed. The phone was answered almost at once. There was the deafening sound of a party going on in the background. Porky sounded his usual cheerful self.
“Whoever you are, come on up. Dancing girls and celery-tonic in abundance.”
“Porky? You told me at lunch that if I could give you the names of the three lives ones, it would help even more. Remember?”
“If I said it—and I do not doubt your word—I meant it. You have them so quickly? Very good work, Mr. R. I predict great things for you.”
“Shut up and listen,” Reardon said pleasantly. “Here they are: Will Gilchrist, Albert Grube, and Max Glass. One thought occurs to me—if they had any outstanding markers with any gamblers, they’re now in a position to honor them. Do you understand?”
“Perfectly. It’s a good thought. Unfortunately,” Porky said, “I am not in a position at the moment to commit things to paper. Let me have those names again.”
“Gilchrist, Grube, and Glass.”
“Alliterative, if nothing else,” Porky said. “They sound like a particularly grubby—with a G—law firm. But I have them engraven upon my heart.”
“Let me know as soon as you can. You ought to be able to check out any of the locals in a hurry, even tonight. As a matter of fact, call Vegas tonight, too. I want this in a hurry.”
“It will mean leaving the party for a brief period,” Porky said, “which is not the chore you may suppose. My eardrums are beginning to get corns. I’ll be in touch.”
“Do that,” Reardon said pleasantly, and hung up.
CHAPTER 12
Friday—11:45 P.M.
Dondero came into Reardon’s office carefully balancing two cardboard containers in one hand and a couple of plastic-wrapped sweet rolls in the other. He unloaded on Reardon’s desk and sat down. He removed the lid from one container and sipped as he listened to the lieutenant. Reardon looked up from the telephone without pausing in his dictation, nodding his thanks for the refreshments.
“—all information regarding past police record, recent and present whereabouts, detailed personal data on an Albert or Alfred Grube—that’s G-R-U-B-E. Our guess is the suspect is under thirty years of age, about five foot eleven in height, roughly one-seventy in weight. That’s all the description we have. If it fits more than one man, tell them he was a member of a helicopter gunship in Vietnam in 1970, if that helps. Maybe they can check him out through the VFW or the Legion.” He thought a moment. “Better also tell them to check any extraordinary spending or any signs of suddenly acquired new wealth. And stress that we don’t want him picked up or even aware of the inquiry. That’s important. Now, that one goes to the chief of police in Torrington, Connecticut. Better read it back.”
Reardon pried open the lid of his coffee container as he listened to a reprise of his message. He sipped, made a face, and went back to the phone.
“That’s it. Same telex to the chief at Prescott, Arizona, regarding a Max Glass, G-L-A-S-S. In both cases request reply soonest. In fact, let them send whatever they have right away and let the rest follow.”
“Yes, sir,” Communications said. “Same description, though?”
“It’s close enough,” Reardon said. “Get them off right away.”
“Yes, sir,” Communications said, and hung up.
Dondero said: “I hope you didn’t get me down here at this hour of the night just to act as your personal coffee-bearer. Who’s this guy Grube? And Glass?”
Reardon tried his coffee again and gave it up as a bad job. Heat it had, which was nice, but unfortunately it also tasted like crankcase drippings. He put it aside and started to unwrap the sweet roll.
“Albert—or Alfred, because all we have is Al—Grube is the man who ushered Michael Krysak, the bank guard, down to the vault where he relieved Mr. Clarence Milligan of close to a quarter of a million dollars, thus putting a black mark on Mr. Milligan’s previous spotless record. Max Glass is the gentleman who drove the black Chevrolet involved in the robbery.” He smiled gently. “Does that answer your question?”
Dondero was staring at him, his coffee container in hand. Suddenly its heat communicated itself to him through the cardboard and he set it down on the desk hurriedly.
“Where did all of this suddenly come from?”
“Good police work,” Reardon said with a modest smile, “plus just the slightest bit of luck.”
&n
bsp; “Like a ton?”
“That’s about it. Let me go on. The man who shot Tom Wheaton, as we know, was a Mr. George Mullin, of Bartlesville, Florida, at present down in the morgue. The fourth member of the gang, the boss, the one who sported the submachine gun, is named Will Gilchrist, and lives in the neighborhood. San Mateo, to be exact. In about a half-hour at the most I expect to have a picture of all four of them. And the reason you are down here is not to act as coffee-bearer—if you care to call that stuff coffee—but to tackle the problem of Mr. Will Gilchrist.”
He took a bite of the sweet roll and studied the remainder suspiciously, wondering who had the temerity to try poisoning the police department. He managed to swallow the one bite, but the remainder went into the wastebasket. He leaned back in his chair and opened his, desk drawer, rummaging until he had unearthed a Peninsula phone book. He opened it, found the proper page, and ran his finger down the list. It stopped.
“You see?” he said. “It isn’t hard. He’s even in the phone book.”
Dondero came over wonderingly to peer over Reardon’s shoulder. He shook his head. “I don’t get it,” he said. “If you’re so sure these are the guys, what’s this about not letting them know? Why not just put the arm on them?”
“I’m sure,” Reardon said, “but Captain Tower just got through pointing out to me in no uncertain terms that my being sure isn’t enough to convince a jury. He would like some proof. So that’s what we’re going to get.”
“I see,” Dondero said. “So what do I do about this what’s-his-name?”
“The first thing you can do,” Reardon said, “is remember his name. It’s Will Gilchrist, and you can start by writing it down. Then take a copy of the picture when it gets here and go down to San Mateo and talk to the cops down there. If he’s got a police record, which is more than possible, it may ease Captain Tower’s conscience to a point where he’d let us pick him up and ask him some personal questions. You heard what I said in those telexes—well, that’s what I want you to get me about Gilchrist. Talk to anyone you want—his pastor, if he has one, for all I care. Just don’t let him know, is all.”
Bank Job Page 14