“According to Layne,” the story went on, “Kolchak, who had been drinking during the meeting, could hardly take his eyes from a bikini-clad model in the apartment at the time. Later, Layne said, Kolchak became dissatisfied with the progress of the business discussion, flew into a rage, and threatened to strike the photographer…”
I put the paper down.
“It seems,” I mused, “all my chickens are coming home to roost. It’s open season on me for every bastard with a grudge, isn’t it. Okay, Harry. I apologize for acting like a snob. If you’ll still have me, you’re my lawyer. I’m learning things. I guess if Ordway wanted to be my lawyer, he’d have been down here hours ago.”
“You’re getting what’s called the treatment,” Bagwell replied easily. “Obviously, Nesbitt doesn’t like you for some reason, and Nesbitt’s publisher is feuding with the CGL. The publisher is a friend of the mayor’s, and thinks the CGL meddles in politics too much. But don’t let it rattle you. Nesbitt’s publisher is a sick, dying old man, and Nesbitt is a professional character assassin who would have been fired from any other newspaper in the United States years ago. You’ll survive.”
“I thought Nesbitt was a friend of yours.”
Bagwell grinned. “All reporters are my friends. Nesbitt is a particular friend. He killed a story once that would have got me disbarred. I’ve been paying off ever since, with exclusive news tips and with booze. But let’s hear your troubles.”
Briefly I recounted the events leading up to the moment I found Irma unconscious on the floor.
Bagwell nodded. “I see. You willing to take a lie test?”
“Any time.”
“Fine. When the girl comes to she’ll probably clear you anyhow. But let’s not depend on that. Ware’s an idiot. However, the state’s attorney and Ware’s superiors uptown are not idiots. They’ll drop what little case Ware has against you if you pass a lie test. You saw nobody else going in or out of that office building?”
“Nobody. How’s Irma? Grimes wouldn’t say.”
“According to the boys in the pressroom, still under sedation. But she’s in no danger of dying. Apparently, she wasn’t hit that hard. You know, I can’t understand Ware coming down here personally tonight. After you called the precinct, who was in charge of the crew that went up to your office?”
“His name was Leary. But after twenty minutes, a man named Conover came in and told Leary to go back to the station. Conover said it was Captain Ware’s orders.”
Bagwell frowned. He lit a cigarette. “This gets screwier by the minute. Leary is a good man. But Conover—if Conover weren’t Hiram Schell’s nephew, he’d be on permanent school-crossing duty where there’s no traffic. His regular job is driving Grimes around while Grimes collects payoffs from whores and bartenders for Captain Ware. Grimes collects so much loot he needs a bodyguard, in case some crooks try to hold him up. Twenty minutes, you say. Van Doyle must have been running the precinct when your call came in. Who’d you talk to?”
“Some desk sergeant.”
“That would be Olcott. Another of Ware’s hand-picked stooges. You identify yourself to Olcott?”
“I gave him my name, yes.”
“Uh-huh. Five gets you ten, after he dispatched Leary’s squad and called for an ambulance, he telephoned Captain Ware. Your name is well known in the Clay Street Precinct. Olcott is smart enough to know Captain Ware would want to be informed about any case involving you from the beginning. And then for some reason Ware took personal charge and sent Conover out to relieve Leary. Where’s Doyle?”
“Grimes said he was on some other assignment.”
“That dumb bastard Ware. He’s so anxious to build a frame around you he’s not even trying to find other suspects. He’s buried Doyle somewhere and he’s letting Conover flounder around with a sincere but hopeless investigation. What’s Ware got against you?”
“I have a theory. At your party, Hiram Schell pulled me aside for a talk. An editorial in the Beacon disturbed him. The Beacon publisher is a CGL director. And Ware is Schell’s appointee.”
“So that’s it.” Bagwell seemed genuinely startled. “I should have known. Schell is getting uncommonly sensitive in his golden years. I imagine he left standing orders with Ware to give you a hard time if and when the opportunity arose. The rape was Ware’s opportunity—and he’s gone overboard trying to please his master. But basically Schell’s a fair man. It will be a pleasure to rout him out of bed. Hell listen to me. I think I can convince him to order Ware to let Doyle get going on the case, and send Conover back to his crossword puzzles. Schell won’t underwrite an out-and-out frame. Anyhow, the halo’s already been knocked off your head. That’s all Schell wants, I’m sure. Even if Doyle finds the wino who raped that girl before the night is out, things will never be the same for you in this town.”
“I don’t think,” I said slowly, “Irma was attacked by a wino.”
“You don’t? That’s what I think, taking you at your word it wasn’t you. That’s what everyone else is going to think—that the girl was attacked by a vagrant who snuck in there and hid until everyone left, so he could break into offices and commit some minor burglaries. It happens on Clay Street often enough. This vagrant saw the girl alone and took advantage of his opportunity.”
“Harry, I think Irma was attacked because she was helping me look for Ed.”
Bagwell stubbed his cigarette out. “That’s an interesting notion. But Doyle will regard it as pretty farfetched. Unless you can prove it.”
“What’s to prove? It was an obvious frame from the beginning. Sam’s car wouldn’t start. Someone pulled the distributor wire loose to delay me. Someone left whisky and dirty pictures in the office. It’s all too nice and neat.”
“Plenty of Clay Street bums carry whisky and dirty pictures. After you left the girl alone up there, that’s probably what inspired the guy to attack her. A deserted Clay Street office building at night isn’t the safest place in the world, you know. And a wire came loose from the car. You said yourself that if you’d been sharp enough to spot the loose wire right away, the delay would have been less than a minute. If someone wanted to delay you, they’d have let the air out of a tire. Who else knew you were using the office with that girl?”
“Max Fuller. He arranged the rental for me. Sam Alban. Those are the only people I told, and I assume Irma didn’t tell anyone. But tonight was our fourth stake-out. Irma or I or both of us could have been seen going in or out of the building earlier. Or we could have been followed. I stopped looking for tails months ago when Doyle pulled his detectives off me. Irma—anyone could follow her and she wouldn’t know the difference. Anyone watching either of us would have known I left the building first, got the car, and waited for Irma at the fire plug. My security precautions were lousy. I should have varied them each time, instead of falling into a routine…”
“Don’t start blaming yourself. It’s all your imagination anyhow. Doyle will probably have a confession from the bum who raped that girl before you eat breakfast. He’s a good copper—and so are most of the other guys at this precinct, Captain Ware, Grimes, and that clown Conover notwithstanding. I’ve already spoken to several of the detectives who watched Grimes interrogate you. They told me they’re ready to go out on their own time, if necessary, to look for evidence supporting your story. If you’re innocent, they won’t allow you to be railroaded. Ware’s just making the most of his opportunity while he can. I’ll get working on Schell and I’ll set things up for a lie test, but unless the girl comes to and clears you, I’m afraid you may have to spend the remainder of the night here. I could seek a writ…”
“A few more hours here won’t kill me, if you think we can clear this up early in the morning.”
“We can. Sign your statement, but don’t answer any more questions.” Bagwell rose. “By the way. I’m professionally curious. Who were the prominent attorneys Nesbitt�
�s story said you had Max Fuller investigate?”
“There was only one of real prominence. You.”
“That,” Bagwell said, “was what I thought.”
I read the morning papers while eating breakfast in a cell. In its final edition, the Journal kept Nesbitt’s story in the lead position but killed the irresponsible side-bar yarn quoting Ronnie Layne about my visit to his studio. Nesbitt must have slipped that one through the desk when nobody was looking.
The rape was on page one of the Beacon, too, but not in the lead position. The lead story, filed from the state capital, concerned an announcement from the state highway commission of the route for a new limited access expressway. The expressway would completely encircle the city and would connect with all freeways leading out of the city, including the Capitol Freeway. The Beacon had reproduced a four-column map showing where the connections would be made. The connection with the Capitol Freeway, I noted, would be about nine miles beyond the turnoff leading to the ravine where Ed’s possessions had been found. Acquisition of land for the new expressway was to start immediately and construction of the road would begin in three years.
The Beacon’s account of the attack on Irma was considerably more restrained than the one in the Journal. Bill Totten’s by-line was on the story. He emphasized that detectives said my attitude was cooperative. He observed that the official investigation seemed marked by confusion. Detective Sergeant Leary had commanded the team responding to my call, Leary was replaced at 9:05 p.m. by Detective Sergeant Conover, who ordinarily handled administrative affairs, and Conover was replaced at 1:40 a.m. by Lieutenant Doyle, who ordinarily ran the precinct at night but had been ordered at 9:18 p.m. to check beatnik joints for liquor law violations. Totten buried a brief résumé of what Ware found in my apartment in the last three paragraphs.
After breakfast I took a lie test. Bagwell and an assistant state’s attorney had completed arrangements for it while I slept. The operator was a civilian, a college-trained interrogation specialist who worked for a private polygraph service. I answered ten yes or no questions which the operator and I decided on in advance. The key questions demanded direct answers to whether I had attacked Irma or had any knowledge of who did.
Bagwell and Van Doyle were waiting outside in the hall when I left the testing room. Doyle’s trousers were rumpled for once. The detective’s eyes were half-shut. He must have been on his feet all night.
The operator announced, “As far as I’m concerned, this man had nothing to do with the rape of that girl.”
“Okay, and thanks,” Doyle said. He turned to me. “That test might not be needed any more. But I’m glad you volunteered to take it. It will stop a lot of nasty rumors.”
“You found the man who did it?”
“No,” Bagwell said, “but they found a witness who saw you walk out of the building, and saw Irma Bronson combing her hair upstairs in that office at the same time. An old man who lives in a hotel across the street. On hot nights he has nothing better to do than sit around in his undershirt and look out the window. He recognized you because he’s seen you on Clay Street dozens of times. He was watching you and the girl all afternoon, in fact. He said after you left, he got up to go to the can and when he returned the light in the office was out. He figured the girl had left. He claims he went to bed and dozed off and when he heard the sirens later he thought it was just another Clay Street brawl.”
“Actually,” Doyle added, “that reporter Totten of the Beacon found him first. This morning we canvassed the occupants of every room overlooking the office building. But Totten thought to do that last night, after he phoned in his story. This old guy denied seeing anything. But he seemed nervous. Totten observed that the old man’s chair was beside the window, and an ash tray on the sill was full of butts. So Totten tipped me off before he went home to question this old guy with extra care. After half an hour, I got the old man to admit what he’d seen. A helluva note, when a guy who could clear an innocent man doesn’t want to take the trouble because he doesn’t like policemen. But that’s Clay Street…”
“There’ll be a few formalities,” Bagwell said, “but you’ll be free inside of an hour. Feel up to a visit to the pressroom?”
“Definitely not.”
“I’d advise otherwise. Your image could stand rebuilding. But it’s your decision. I’ll go announce the results of the lie test, so it can make the next newscast…”
Bagwell hurried off. Doyle led me to an office. He opened a closet and hauled out a large cardboard box full of documents.
“Your junk,” he explained. He sat down and lit a cigarette. “I’m sorry about that. And I hope you’re not judging all the men in this precinct by what you’ve seen of Captain Ware. He had no business taking this stuff from your apartment. I can’t figure what made him go up there in the first place.”
“Maybe,” I mused, “he knew what he was going to find.”
“Seeing more spooks in the corner? Bagwell told me that you think the girl was attacked because of her association with you.”
“How is Irma?”
“I got a call from the hospital while you were on the lie box. The doctors allowed a couple of our men to talk to her briefly. She recalls she had her back to the door when the light went out. Someone must have opened the door from the hall, reached in, and flicked the switch—it’s right beside the door. Then the man hit her on the head. She started to come to later, when her clothes were wrapped around her face, and he hit her a couple more times. She never saw the man. He didn’t say a word. She couldn’t even swear it wasn’t you. The doctors say she won’t suffer any lasting physical damage. It’s the emotional damage they’re worried about.”
Doyle paused. He tugged at his ear. “You know, Kolchak, you haven’t done badly so far. You led us to that ravine. But I think this time you’re kidding yourself. You hope the attack on Irma Bronson means you’re closing in on the people responsible for what happened to your brother. But that’s illogical. If those people were really worried about you, I don’t think they’d hesitate to murder you, instead of terrorizing Irma Bronson. We don’t have any leads to who raped her yet, but sooner or later one of our informants will give us a tip. And it’ll turn out to be some sex-starved drifter.”
“We’ll see. I notice you said the ‘people’ responsible for Ed’s murder. You think as I do, then? That more than one person is involved?”
“I do. That fragment of your brother’s credit card blew off a garbage truck in an alley behind Clay Street. The watch turned up in a bakery seven miles away. The ring, jewelry, and clothes were in a ravine in the country, an isolated spot not many people except residents of that suburban area knew about. My own theory is, your brother’s pockets were emptied somewhere down on Clay Street. That would have taken just a few moments. Then your brother’s body, fully clothed, was loaded into the trunk of a car…”
I glanced sharply at Doyle. “Just a minute. A car had to be involved, to reach the ravine. But why are you assuming the body was transported fully clothed?”
“Oh, yeah.” Doyle smiled humorlessly. “We got our crime lab report yesterday. I was going to call you, but then this thing came up. Well, the crime lab found blood on the clothes—your brothers type. They also found a big motor-oil stain on the back of your brother’s suit coat. The suit coat was inside the bundle buried at the ravine, with the topcoat on the outside. There was no oil on the topcoat. I think your brother, still wearing his suit, was jammed into the trunk of a car in which somebody had spilled motor oil. His topcoat was probably tossed over him. Then I think he was driven to some other location and stripped. Whoever gave you that credit card told you he found it early the morning after your brother disappeared, didn’t he?”
“Yes.”
“Okay. I think the killers were anxious to get your brother’s body safely away from Clay Street as soon as possible. If it was one man, I don’t thi
nk he’d have stopped to burn credit cards. I think one person or group of persons did the burning down on Clay Street while another person or group of persons drove off with the body.”
“That motor oil could have been from a garage floor. Who carries his own motor oil?”
“I doubt that the killers would dump the body on an oil spot unless it couldn’t be avoided. Oil in the trunk of a car—they might not even have seen that until the damage was done. And lots of people buy their own motor oil. I understand it’s even available in the finest suburbs, from discount stores and other big-volume retail outlets. You can buy it cheaper that way.”
“Then it also figures,” I said, “that Ed was stripped before his clothes were taken to the ravine. Probably at the spot where the body was hidden or disposed of. I can’t see the killers stripping him at the ravine. They’d have to leave a dead body in a car parked alongside a public road while they buried the stuff. Moreover, if the killers were in a hurry, they wouldn’t go any further out of their way than they had to. The place where the body is hidden can probably be reached by driving along the Capitol Freeway. It might not be far from that ravine, in one direction or another.”
Doyle nodded. “We thought of that. A driver can make real good time on the freeway. It’s only a few hours to the state capital, since the speed limit is seventy. We’re checking every sheriff and police chief along the freeway from here to the capital, to see if any unidentified bodies turned up in their jurisdictions shortly after your brother disappeared—bums found crushed by railroad trains, that sort of thing. But so far, nothing. We’re not finished with your brother’s clothes, though. I wouldn’t discuss it with anyone yet, but we’ve shipped your brother’s suit coat to Indiana. A big oil company research lab there often gives us a hand. It’s just possible that with their facilities they can tell us more about the oil stain on that coat.” Doyle looked down at the carton of documents on the floor. “You know something?”
The Neon Haystack Page 14