Cop Hater

by Ed McBain

  "Where is he?"

  "Gone," Dr. Russell said.

  "How..."

  "I called as soon as I saw the wound. I excused myself, went out to my private office and placed the call. When I came back, he was gone."

  "Shit," Willis said. "Want to tell us from the beginning, doctor?"

  "Certainly. He came in ... oh, not more than twenty minutes ago. The office was empty, unusual for this time of day, but I rather imagine people with minor ailments are curing them at the seashore." He smiled briefly. "He said he'd shot himself while cleaning his hunting rifle. I took him into the Examination Room—that's this room, gentlemen— and asked him to take off his shirt. He did."

  "What happened then?"

  "I examined the wound. I asked him when he had had the accident. He said it had occurred only this morning. I knew instantly that he was lying. The wound I was examining was not a fresh one. It was already highly infected. That was when I remembered the newspaper stories."

  "About the cop killer?"

  "Yes. I recalled having read something about the man having a pistol wound above the waist. That was when I excused myself to call you."

  "Was this definitely a gunshot wound?"

  "Without a doubt. It had been dressed, but very badly. I didn't examine it very closely, you understand, because I rushed off to make the call. But it seemed to me that iodine had been used as a disinfectant."

  "Iodine?"

  "Yes."

  "But it was infected nonetheless?"

  "Oh, definitely. That man is going to have to find another doctor, sooner or later."

  "What did he look like?"

  "Well, where should I begin?"

  "How old?"

  "Thirty-five or thereabouts."

  "Height?"

  "A little over six feet, I should say."

  "Weight?"

  "About one-ninety."

  "Black hair?" Willis asked.

  "Yes."

  "Color of eyes?"

  "Brown."

  "Any scars, birthmarks, other identifying characteristics?"

  "His face was very badly scratched."

  "Did he touch anything in the office?"

  "No. Wait, yes."

  "What?"

  "I had him sit up on the table here. When I began probing the wound, he winced and gripped the stirrups here at the foot of the table."

  'This may be a break, Hal," Carella said.

  "Jesus, it sounds like one. What was he wearing, Dr. Russell?"

  "Black."

  "Black suit?"

  "Yes."

  "What color shirt?"

  "White. It was stained over the wound."

  "Tie?"

  "A striped tie. Gold and black."

  "Tie clasp?"

  "Yes. Some sort of design on it."

  "What kind?"

  "A bugle? Something like that."

  "Trumpet, hunting horn, horn of plenty?"

  "I don't know. I couldn't really identify it. It only stuck in my mind because it was an unusual clasp. I noticed it when he was undressing."

  "What color shoes?"

  "Black."

  "Clean-shaven?"

  "Yes. That is, you meant was he wearing a beard?"

  "Yes."

  "Well then, yes, he was clean-shaven. But he needed a shave."

  "Uh-huh. Wearing any rings?"

  "None that I noticed."

  "Undershirt?'

  "No undershirt."

  "Can't say I blame him in this heat. Mind if I make a call, Doc?"

  "Please help yourself. Do you think he's the man?"

  "I hope so," Willis said. "God, I hope so."

  When a man is nervous, he perspires—even if the temperature is not hovering somewhere in the nineties.

  There are sweat pores on the fingertips, and the stuff they secrete contains 98.5 percent water and 0.5 to 1.5 percent solid material. This solid material breaks down to about one-third of inorganic matter—mainly salt—and two thirds of organic substances like urea, albumin and formic, butyric and acetic acids. Dust, dirt, grease cling to the secretion from a man's fingertips.

  The perspiration, mixed with whatever happens to be clinging to it at the moment, leaves a filmy impression on whatever the man happens to touch.

  The suspected killer happened to touch the smooth chromium surfaces of the stirrups in Dr. Russell's office.

  The tech crew dusted the latent fingerprints with one of the commercial black powders. The excess powder was allowed to fall on a sheet of paper. The prints were lightly brushed with an ostrich feather. They were then photographed.

  There were two good thumbprints, one for each hand where the suspect had pressed down on the top surfaces of the stirrups. There were good second-joint prints for each hand where the suspect had gripped the undersides of the stirrups.

  The prints were sent to the Bureau of Identification. A thorough search was made of the files. The search proved fruitless, and the prints were sent to the Federal Bureau of Investigation while the detectives sat back to wait.

  In the meantime, a police artist went to see Dr. Russell. Listening to Dr. Russell's description, he began drawing a picture of the suspect. He made changes as Dr. Russell suggested them—"No, the nose is a little too long; yes, that's better. Try to give a little curl to his lip there, yes, yes,

  that's it"—and he finally came up with a drawing which tallied with Dr. Russell's recollection of the man he had examined. The picture was sent to each metropolitan daily and to each television station hi the area, together with a verbal description of the wanted man.

  All this while, the detectives waited for the F.B.I. report. They were still waiting the next day.

  Willis looked at the drawing on the first page of one of the morning tabloids.

  The headline screamed: HAVE YOU SEEN THIS MAN?

  "He's not bad-looking," Willis said.

  "Pretty-Boy Krajak," Carella said.

  "No, I'm serious."

  "He may be handsome, but he's a son of a bitch," Carella said. "I hope his arm falls off."

  "It very well might," Willis said drily.

  "Where the hell's that F.B.I, report?" Carella asked edgily. He had been answering calls all morning, calls from citizens who reported having seen the killer. Each call had to be checked out, of course, but thus far the man had been seen all over the city at simultaneous times. "I thought those G-men were supposed to be fast."

  "They are," Willis said.

  "I m going to check with the Lieutenant."

  "Go ahead," Willis said.

  Carella went to the Lieutenant's door. He knocked and Byrnes called, "Come." Carella went into the office. Byrnes was on the phone. He signaled for Carella to stand by. He nodded then and said, "But Harriet, I can't see anything wrong with that."

  He listened patiently.

  "Yes, but..."

  Carella walked to the window and stared out at the park.

  "No, I can't see any reason for . . ."

  Marriage, Carella thought. And then he thought of Teddy. It'll be different with us.

  "Harriet, let him go," Byrnes said. "He's a good boy, and he won't get into any trouble. Look, take my word for it For God's sake, it's only an amusement park."

  Byrnes sighed patiently.

  "All right, then." He listened. "I'm not sure yet, honey. We're waiting for an F.B.I, report. If I'll be home, I'll call you. No, nothing special. It's too damn hot to eat, anyway. Yes, dear, "bye."

  He hung up. Carella came from the window.

  "Women," Byrnes said, not disagreeably. "My son wants to go out to Jollyland tonight with some of the boys. She doesn't think he should. Can't see why he wants to go there in the middle of the week. She says she's read newspaper stories about boys getting into fights with other boys at these places. For Pete's sake, it's just an amusement park. The kid is seventeen."

  Carella nodded.

  "If you're going to watch them every minute, they'll feel like prisoners. O
kay, what are the odds on a fight starting at a place like that? Larry knows enough to avoid trouble. He's a good kid. You met him, didn't you, Steve?"

  "Yes," Carella said. "He seemed very level-headed."

  "Sure, that's what I told Harriet. Ah, what the hell! These women never cut the umbilical cord. We get raised by one woman, and then when we're ripe, we get turned over to another woman."

  Carella smiled. "It's a conspiracy," he said.

  "Sometimes I think so," Byrnes said. "But what would we do without them, huh?" He shook his head sadly, a man trapped in the labial folds of a society structure.

  "Anything from the Feds yet?" Carella asked.

  "No, not yet. Jesus, I m praying for a break."

  "Mmmm."

  "We deserve a break, don't we?" Byrnes asked. "We've worked this one right into the ground. We deserve a break."

  There was a knock on the door.

  "Come," Byrnes said.

  Willis entered the room with an envelope. "This just arrived, sir," he said.

  "F.B.I.?"

  "Yes."

  Byrnes took the envelope. Hastily, he tore open the flap and pulled out the folded letter.

  "Hell!" he erupted. "Hell and damnation!"

  "Bad?"

  "They've got nothing on him!" Byrnes shouted. "God-damnit! Goddamnit to hell!"

  "Not even Service prints?"

  "Nothing. The son of a bitch was probably 4-F!"

  "We know everything about this guy," Willis said vehemently, beginning to pace the office. "We know what he looks like, we know his height, his weight, his bloodtype, when he got his last haircut, the size of his rectal aperture!" He slammed his fist into the opposite hand. "The only thing we don't know is who the hell he is! Who is he, damnit, who is he?"

  Neither Carella or Byrnes answered.

  That night, a boy named Miguel Aretta was taken to Juvenile House. The police had picked him up as one of the boys who'd been missing from the roundup of The Grovers. It did not take the police long to discover that Miguel was the boy who'd zip-gunned Bert Kling.

  Miguel had been carrying a zip-gun on the night that Kling got it. When a Senior Grover named Rafael "Rip" Desanga had reported to the boys that a smart guy had been around asking questions, Miguel went with them to teach the smart guy a lesson.

  As it turned out, the smart guy—or the person they assumed to be the smart guy—had pulled a gun outside the bar. Miguel had taken his own piece from his pocket and burned him.

  Bert Kling, of course, had not been the smart guy. He turned out to be, of all things, a cop. So Miguel Aretta was now in Juvenile House, and the people there were trying to understand what made him tick so that they could present his case fairly when it came up in Children's Court.

  Miguel Aretta was fifteen years old. It could be assumed that he just didn't know any better.

  The real smart guy—a reporter named Cliff Savage—was thirty-seven years old, and he should have known better.

  He didn't.

  Chapter TWENTY

  savage was waiting for Carella when he left the precinct at 4:00 P.M. the next day.

  He was wearing a brown Dupioni silk suit, a gold tie, and a brown straw with a pale yellow band. "Hello," he said, shoving himself off the side of the building.

  "What can I do for you?" Carella asked.

  "You're a detective, aren't you?"

  "If you've got a complaint," Carella said, "take it to the desk sergeant. I'm on my way home."

  "My name's Savage."

  "Oh," Carella said. He regarded the reporter sourly.

  "You in the fraternity, too?" Savage asked.

  "Which one?"

  'The Fraternity against Savage. Eeta Piecea Cliff."

  "I'm Phi Beta Kappa myself," Carella said.

  "Really?"

  "No." He began walking toward his car. Savage fell in step with him.

  "Are you sore at me, too, is what I meant," Savage said.

  "You stuck your nose in the wrong place," Carella 'answered. "Because you did, a cop is in the hospital and a kid is in Juvenile House, awaiting trial. What do you want me to do, give you a medal?"

  "If a kid shoots somebody, he deserves whatever he gets."

  "Maybe he wouldn't've shot anybody if you'd kept your nose out of it."

  "I'm a reporter. My job is getting facts."

  "The lieutenant told me he'd already discussed the possibility of teen-agers being responsible for the deaths. He said he told you he considered the possibility extremely remote. But you went ahead and put your fat thumb in the pie, anyway. You realize Kling could have been killed?"

  "He wasn't. Do you realize I could have been killed?" Savage said.

  Carella made no comment

  "If you people cooperate more with the press ..."

  Carella stopped walking. "Listen," he said, "what are you doing in this neighborhood? Looking for more trouble? If any of The Grovers recognize you, we're going to have another rhubarb. Why don't you go back to your newspaper office and write a column on garbage collection?"

  "Your humor doesn't..."

  "I'm not trying to be funny," Carella said, "nor do I particularly feel like discussing anything with you. I just came off duty. I'm going home to shower and then I have a date with my fiancee. I'm theoretically on duty twenty-four hours a day, every day of the week, but fortunately that duty does not include extending courtesy to every stray cub reporter in town."

  "Cub?" Savage was truly offended. "Now, listen ..."

  "What the hell do you want from me?" Carella asked.

  "I want to discuss the killings."

  "I don't."

  "Why not?"

  "Jesus, you're a real leech, aren't you?'

  "I'm a reporter, and a damned good one. Why don't you want to talk about the killings?"

  "I'm perfectly willing to discuss them with anyone who knows what I'm talking about"

  "I'm a good listener," Savage said.

  "Sure. You turned a fine ear toward Rip Desanga."

  "Okay, I made a mistake, I'm willing to admit that. I thought it was the kids, and it wasn't. We know now it was an adult. What else do we know about him? Do we know why he did it?"

  "Are you going to follow me all the way home?"

  "I'd prefer buying you a drink," Savage said. He looked at Carella expectantly. Carella weighed the offer.

  "All right," he said.

  Savage extended his hand. "My friends call me Cliff. I didn't get your name."

  "Steve Carella."

  They shook. "Pleased to know you. Let's get that drink."

  The bar was air-conditioned, a welcome sanctuary from the stifling heat outdoors. They ordered their drinks and then sat opposite each other at the booth alongside the left-hand wall.

  "All I want to know," Savage said, "is what you think."

  "Do you mean me personally, or the department?"

  "You, of course. I can't expect you to speak for the department."

  "Is this for publication?" Carella asked.

  "Hell, no. I'm just trying to jell my own ideas on it. Once this thing is broken, there'll be a lot of feature coverage. To do a good job, I want to be acquainted with every facet of the investigation."

  "It'd be a little difficult for a layman to understand every facet of police investigation," Carella said.

  "Of course, of course. But you can at least tell me what you think."

  "Sure. Provided it's not for publication."

  "Scout's honor," Savage said.

  "The department doesn't like individual cops trying to glorify..."

  "Not a word of this will get into print," Savage said. "Believe me."

  "What do you want to know?"

  "We've got the means, we've got the opportunity," Savage said. "What's the motive?"

  "Every cop hi the city would like the answer to that one," Carella said.

  "A nut maybe."

  "Maybe."

  "You don't think so?"

  "No. Some
of us do. I don't."

  "Why not?"

  "Just like that."

  "Do you have a reason?"

  "No, just a feeling. When you've been working on a case for any length of time, you begin to get feelings about it. I just don't happen to believe a maniac's involved here."

  "What do you believe?"

  "Well, I have a few ideas."

  "Like what?"

  "I'd rather not say right now."

  "Oh, come on, Steve."

  "Look, police work is like any other kind of work—except we happen to deal with crime. If you run an import-' export business, you play certain hunches and others you don't. It's the same with us. If you have a hunch, you don't go around making a million dollar deal on it until you've checked it."

  "Then you do have a hunch you want to check?"

  "Not even a hunch, really. Just an idea."

  "What kind of an idea?"

  "About motive."

  "What about motive?"

  Carella smiled. "You're a pretty tenacious guy, aren't you?"

  "I'm a good reporter. I already told you that."

  "All right, look at it this way. These men were cops. Three of them were killed in a row. What's the automatic conclusion?"

  "Somebody doesn't like cops."

  "Right. A cop hater."

  "So?"

  "Take off their uniforms. What have you got then?"

  "They weren't wearing uniforms. None of them were uniform cops."

  "I know. I was speaking figuratively. I meant, make them ordinary citizens. Not cops. What do you have then? Certainly not a cop hater."

  "But they were cops."

  "They were men first. Cops only coincidentally and secondarily."

  "You feel, then, that the fact that they were cops had nothing to do with the reason they were killed."

  "Maybe. That's what I want to dig into a little deeper."

  "I'm not sure I understand you."

  "It's this," Carella said. "We knew these men well, we worked with them every day. Cops. We knew them as cops. We didn't know them as men. They may have been killed because they were men, and not because they were cops."

  "Interesting," Savage said.

  "It means digging into their lives on a more personal level. It won't be fun because murder has a strange way of dragging skeletons out of the neatest closets."

  "You mean, for example . . ." Savage paused. "Well, let's say Reardon was playing around with another dame, or Foster was a horse player, or Bush was taking money from a racketeer, something like that."