Police Blotter

by Fish, Robert L. ;

  Clancy took a deep puff on his cigarette and allowed the smoke to trickle from his lips. “Well,” he said philosophically, “it’s never too late to learn.”

  “What do you mean?” The suspicion in the young voice owed everything to fear of being made fun of. Clancy disabused him of this notion at once; both his words and tone cleared the matter up decisively.

  “I mean what I say,” he said coldly, and crushed his cigarette out in the ash tray as if to add to the finality of his statement. “I mean you’re going to earn back the money you swiped from your grandfather. By shining shoes. All the shoes in this precinct.”

  The boy stared at him wordlessly, his black liquid eyes pools with endless depths. Clancy pulled the folder of reports toward him, opened the top one and reached for a pencil. The eyes of the boy followed every move.

  “Sit back and relax,” Clancy said, “while I do some work. One of the men went out to get you some equipment and he’ll be a while getting back.” He bent to his papers.

  The boy wet his lips, stared about the small room for several moments, and then concentrated on his feet. Ten minutes ticked slowly by before Kaproski came in with a bundle; the kid looked at it as if it might contain dynamite. Kaproski placed the package on the desk, handed Clancy the receipt, and stepped back. Clancy studied the receipt a moment and then tucked it into his shirt pocket. He shoved aside his pile of folders and unwrapped the bundle; a moment’s verification to make sure it was complete and he pushed the contents across the desk towards the boy.

  “You’re in business.” He glanced up at Kaproski. “Our young friend here is going to earn back the dough he borrowed from his grandfather by shining coppers’ shoes. I think you’d better be the cashier. I’m not so sure he has a good head on him for financial matters.”

  “How much do we charge?” Kaproski asked, interested.

  “Twenty cents,” Clancy said.

  The boy started to say something and then had to stop and clear his throat. His black eyes were steady in his glance at Clancy. “The old—I mean, my grandfather gets twenty-five cents for a shine. And tips.”

  Clancy looked at him coldly. “Your grandfather knows how to shine shoes.” He thought about it a moment and then came to a conclusion. “On the other hand, if you don’t do them right the first time, you’ll just have to do them over. We’ve got some pretty fussy men in this precinct, and I’m the fussiest.” He glanced up at Kaproski and nodded. “All right. I’ll go along with the twenty-five cents. But no tips.”

  The boy got to his feet slowly, pulling the open bundle closer to him. His liquid black eyes came up, expressionless, fathomless. “What do I do about school?”

  “You’ll go to school the same as always,” Clancy said. “This job is going to be moonlighting. You’ll come here right after school each day until you’ve made up the dough you swiped.”

  “How about today?”

  “Well,” Clancy said with a faint shrug, “since you’re already here, you might as well get started. Detective Kaproski, here, will introduce you to the squad-room.”

  The kid picked up the cans of polish and the two brushes wrapped in a clean cloth. He looked about for a waste-basket and then dropped the crumpled wrapping into it as Clancy watched. Without another word he turned toward the door. Clancy’s voice caught him.

  “By the way, is there anywhere we can get in touch with your grandfather and let him know you’ll be getting in late tonight?”

  The boy looked at him blankly. “He never expects me before midnight, anyway.” He paused uncertainly, as if wondering how to bring up the next subject. “He usually leaves me something on the table to eat when I get back from school. Can I go home to eat?”

  “I’ll send out for a sandwich for you,” Clancy said. “And milk. That’ll be another fifty, sixty cents.” He sighed deeply, shaking his head, his gray eyes sad. “You keep borrowing at this rate and you’ll never get out of debt.”

  “I’ll see to it he gets something to eat, Lieutenant,” Kaproski said. “You want me to get you a sandwich, too?”

  Clancy looked up at him with a smile. “Not tonight, Josephine. I’ve got a date tonight.” He sounded pleased with himself. “My fourth decent meal in a week. And my second today.”

  The boy stood like a rock watching the two men; it was impossible to tell what he was thinking. Kaproski looked at his superior wisely. “A date? With Mary Kelly, Lieutenant?”

  Clancy nodded. “With Mary Kelly.”

  “You better watch out, Lieutenant …”

  “Why?” Clancy asked. Only a part of his querying tone was in banter.

  “Because you’ll get fat, all them meals, Lieutenant,” Kaproski said with a grin, and herded his charge out of the door.

  7

  The rain finally came Tuesday night. It came like an avenging army, brutal and ruthless, attempting to sweep all before it in a seething explosion of blind power. Sheets of churning water, forged on the black anvils of the angry sky, battered the ramparts of the city, determined on victory, slashing at the traffic lights swinging wildly in a vain attempt at escape, roaring down on the canyons of the city, drumming in mad frustration at the locked windows of the buildings. It stormed down in wave after wave, whipping its own froth from the cringing streets, clattering through gutters and bubbling violently as it fought the twisting tunnels leading to the river. The river took it all in stride, remaining calm. It had seen worse storms before and would again.

  However, for the time of the storm, at least, tragedy left the streets, but only the streets. In a borrowed tenement flat, two fifteen-year-olds—opposed by their parents in their love affair—lay fully clad upon a bed, their hands clasped tightly, their eyes locked one with the other. The steady hiss of gas was lost in the noise of the storm.

  When they were found in the morning, the rain had settled down to a steady drizzle, and the temperature had fallen almost twenty degrees in less than twelve hours. It was necessary to break their fingers in order to separate the two thin bodies.

  Wednesday–11:10 A.M.

  Stanton came into Clancy’s office, shaking water from his raincoat. He took off his hat and swung it in a violent arc; Kaproski, from his tilted stance on a chair against the wall, nearly lost his balance in attempting to avoid the spattering drops. He glared at Stanton balefully; Stanton merely grinned and replaced his hat on his head.

  “A beautiful day,” he said. “For scuba divers.”

  “A beautiful day for policemen,” Clancy said. “If this rain keeps up maybe we can get caught up a bit.” He spoke in the tone of one who had been indoors that morning long enough to get dried out. “What’s new at the house over on the Drive?”

  Stanton stripped off his raincoat and hung it from the top edge of the open door. He drew up a chair and straddled it, brought out his notebook but made no attempt to open it.

  “I haven’t been out there this morning,” he said. “I was downtown like you said. But I talked to Keller. He’s finished with the telephone books. Nine hundred and some-odd bucks, not counting the four hundred and twenty I brought in yesterday. Keller’s starting on the magazines, but so far they look clean. My guess is the newspapers are a waste of time; I can’t picture even a nut like Willie ducking money in newspapers.”

  “How about stamps and coins?” Clancy asked.

  “I asked him. He hadn’t run into any more stamps, but when he gets through with the magazines he’ll start hitting the rest of the junk. On the coins he says no dice. At least so far.”

  Clancy frowned. “What about the stamps you found yesterday?”

  Stanton opened his notebook, flipping through a few pages. “Junk. Pretty paper. The boys downtown haven’t had a chance to go through them in detail, but the first run-through sure didn’t impress them.” He looked up, his finger tucked into his place in the notebook. “You want the rest of the stuff I dug up downtown?”

  Clancy nodded and leaned back. Stanton started to shove his hat further back on his
head from force of habit, grimaced at the damp feel, and returned his attention to his notebook. He flipped another page and found what he wanted.

  “Well, to begin with, Records says the house was in Willie’s name, free and clear. Taxes are paid every year from the estate by a law firm downtown—Ryder, Blasius, and Gordon. His father set up the deal in his will, way back in 1918.” He looked at the other two with attempted innocence, anticipating their reaction to his next announcement. “Remember yesterday when I said I couldn’t figure Willie for a guy anybody would try to borrow from?” He waited for their answer, his eyes bright.

  “We remember,” Clancy said at last, weary of waiting.

  “Well,” Stanton said, “it just goes to show how wrong a guy can be. For your information, Willie had a slight bank account—of a little better than six hundred thousand bucks.” Kaproski whistled in disbelief. Stanton nodded, pleased with the anticipated result. “Yeah. Six hundred grand. He was a real nut, living like a bum with all that scratch in the bank …”

  Clancy frowned. “Did he leave a will?”

  Stanton returned to his notes. “The law firm says that Willie never bothered to make a will. They were trustees for the old man, Willie’s father. Willie got one hundred dollars on the first of every month. I guess when his old man set that up it looked like a lot of money; anyway, it was never changed. The lawyers say that Willie never asked for any more.”

  “The economical type,” Clancy said dryly. “What else?”

  Stanton flipped a page, studied his scribbling and then looked up. “A little more on Willie, for whatever good it does. He’s been a pack rat all his life, ever since he was a kid. If Henry and him ever did a lot of things together when they were young, it must have been scavenging. The lawyers say he was a typical recluse. They can’t figure out what started him—they say he came from a good home, orphaned early, but his old man always had dough.” He looked down. “Let’s see—what else? Oh—he never went with women that they know of; never went with anyone, as a matter of fact. A lone wolf.”

  He turned another page; a note caught his eye. “Oh; and this in interesting. The lawyers happened to mention that his brother-in-law Henry was down there a couple of weeks ago asking them if there was a statute of limitations on contesting a will.…”

  Clancy sat up straight. “And?”

  Stanton shook his head. “They told him to forget about it. He was trying to claim that Willie didn’t deserve it, that he was a slacker in the war, and a lot more crap like that. Actually, the lawyers said that the draft board had turned Willie down for being too old, in bum health, and also because he was slightly nuts. They didn’t use those words, but that was the gist of it.”

  “Henry should talk,” Kaproski said derisively. He brought his chair down and leaned forward. “I been checking on him. A phony. He managed to get a soft desk job in the war with some pretty fancy wire-pulling, hitting up pals of Willie’s old man through his wife. And that famous war wound of his, his old lady was talking about? That’s a real laugh.” Kaproski didn’t sound amused; he sounded disgusted. “He got that in London. He was run down by a bread truck during a blackout. They did a bum job on his leg and it left him crippled.”

  Stanton suddenly stared at him. “Crippled? Does he use a cane? Or a crutch?”

  “A cane. He …” Kaproski suddenly saw the light. He swung to Clancy. “A cane could have done it, Lieutenant.”

  “Sure,” Clancy said, agreeing. “Sure a cane could have done it. Also a pool cue. Or a drum-major’s baton, or a hoe handle.” He sat thinking deeply, his fingers drumming nervously on the desk. Beyond the streaked window the rain matched his rhythm, splattering from the garbage can tops in the dim areaway. “If it was Henry, why did he wait thirty years before he did anything?”

  Stanton shrugged. “Maybe he didn’t need the dough until now.”

  “His old lady,” Kaproski said thoughtfully. “Did you take a good look at her? That dyed rabbit she had around her neck from the year one, and the fact her hair ain’t seen a beauty parlor in a long time …” Clancy stared at him, amazed as always at the things that Kaproski saw and mentally noted. “She sure didn’t look like they’ve been in the chips for a long, long time.”

  “And not only that,” Stanton said. “She comes into the dough. He died intestate, and his estate will have to be probated, but when it’s finally cleaned up, she gets the whole ball of wax. Less what Uncle Sam knocks off for commission, of course. I checked that out with the lawyers.”

  Clancy frowned. “It makes a nice story, but you can’t hang a man on suspicion only.” He shook his head. “If we could even place him in the neighborhood anywhere around the time of the killing …” His eyes came up, staring at Stanton intensely. “Are you sure that none of the neighbors saw anything? Nobody? Nothing?”

  “We can check them out again,” Stanton said. “Maybe that reward will goose some of them, but up in that neighborhood, most people would rather give five hundred bucks the go-by rather than get involved with the police. Especially in a murder case. We can try them again, though.” He grinned suddenly, almost savagely. “I’d laugh like hell if the old lady put her dear husband Henry on the spot with that reward gimmick.”

  “Yeah,” Clancy said absently. He had been trying to put the pieces together. He looked up. “Well, you’ll have to go over the neighbors again, Stan. And also anybody that works around there—maids, delivery boys, janitors … And Kap, while Stanton’s busy with that, I want you to try and find out about Henry’s bank account. Maybe Willie’s lawyers can give you an idea of where to start. Henry may have developed a taste for blondes late in life. Or horses. Or dice.”

  “Sure, Lieutenant.” Kaproski started to come to his feet and then paused. “By the way, what did you find in that bundle I brought in the other day, Lieutenant?”

  “Bundle? What bundle?”

  “The one Jimmy at the morgue said you were in such a rush about.” Kaproski held his hands about two feet apart to demonstrate, and then dropped them. “I put it in your drawer like you said.”

  “Christ!” Clancy struck his forehead. “I forgot all about it! There are just too many damn things to try and keep track of at the same time!” He bent down and pulled out the bottom drawer of his desk, withdrawing the hastily wrapped package Jimmy had prepared for him. He pushed the papers on his desk to one side and placed the bundle in the center of the cleared space, ripping open the top and folding back the torn paper. There was an envelope neatly placed on top of a folded sweater and colorful vest. Clancy slid the envelope to one side for the time being, removed the clothing, and crumpled the wrapping paper, tossing it into the waste-basket. He picked up the sweater first, spreading it open, and then looked at the other two men.

  “These are the things that Willie McFadden was wearing, up on top, when he was killed. I had them sent up from the morgue.”

  Stanton nodded in recognition. “I remember them. There’s the blood up on top around the front of the turtle-neck sweater, from his busted nose.” He looked at his superior curiously. “What did you want them for, Lieutenant?”

  Clancy frowned. “Doc Freeman doesn’t think he could have been hit by a crowbar, because the type of bruise on his chest doesn’t check out. But I figured if he was wearing both a sweater and a vest—and thick winter underwear, according to Jimmy—the clothes could have softened the blow. But maybe still show something …” He leaned forward suddenly, his eyes bright, his finger poking at the fluffy surface. “And this sweater’s been torn.…”

  Kaproski bent over to look; his tone of voice denied the lieutenant’s contention. “That ain’t been torn, Lieutenant. Not recently, anyways. You can see where he passed a crochet needle through the knit-rows above and below to catch the ends and bring them around. That was yarn-sewn. He sure didn’t do that after he was hit.”

  “Crochet needle?” Clancy looked at Kaproski in astonishment.

  “Knit-row? Yarn-sewn?” Stanton asked, smiling wickedl
y. “Well, well! Old Mother Kaproski!”

  “Well, sure I know about knitting,” Kaproski said defensively. “I had over eight months in a Naval Hospital, and you don’t do that physical therapy junk, they beat your brains out.” He bent back to the sweater, abandoning his explanation. “Anyways, that’s an old tear.”

  Clancy sighed, accepting the truth of Kaproski’s statement. He turned the sweater around for a last look, and then put it almost reluctantly to one side, to pick up the vest. It was, as Jimmy had described it, an old-fashioned type, with a brocaded design woven into the fabric, with button-down pockets, patched under one armhole with a neat square of non-matching cloth, but otherwise intact and clean. Clancy studied the front carefully and then, with a sigh, tossed it to one side to join the sweater.

  “Well,” he said slowly, almost hopelessly, “for all the use that was, that bundle could have stayed in my drawer for another month.” He shook his head unhappily. “I’d certainly like to know what Willie was killed with. I’ve a strong feeling it would help.” He rolled the sweater and vest into a crumpled bunch and stuffed them back into the bottom drawer, closing it upon his disappointment. He reached for the small envelope and opened it, upending it. Two coins rolled out; he neatly trapped them and slid them to the center of his desk for inspection.

  “An English penny. And what’s this? One cruzeiro? That’s Brazil.” He lifted it. “Feels like tin.” He spun it with his fingers, watched it come to a teetering halt, and then pushed the two coins together. He looked up at the other two men. “So? What do we know?”

  “Not much,” Stanton admitted. “We know he was a nut. We also know he’s dead. And that’s about all we really do know …”

  “He may have been a nut,” Kaproski said warmly, as if in defense of the dead man, “but he was a rich nut.”

  “Yeah,” Clancy said. “He was a rich nut and that may still be the answer. Only we have to have a little more to go into court.” He glanced at his wristwatch. “Anyway, it’s time for lunch. And afterwards, Stan, you go over and start on those neighbors again.”