Police Blotter

by Fish, Robert L. ;

  “So-so,” Kaproski said. His tone indicated his continuing irritation that he had not been allowed to finish the business of the park muggings. “Did the nasty boys give you any trouble?”

  Garcia grinned at him. “None that I couldn’t handle. But I’m afraid I lost what might have developed into a great friendship—young Warnicki thinks I’m a rat-fink.”

  Kaproski eyed him coldly. “And you think you’re not?”

  Garcia’s grin widened. “I’ll tell you all about it at the Policemen’s Matches,” he said. He raised a hand in good-by and walked out of the room. Clancy turned to the others.

  “Well,” he said quietly, “let’s get back to work. Let’s kick this Willie McFadden thing around again.” His eyes came up, almost brooding; his fingers picked up a pencil, twiddling it. “What do we do? Forget the thing? File it in the dead letter office?”

  Kaproski dragged a chair over to the wall, sat down, and tilted it backwards into his favorite position for thinking. Stanton pulled the other chair around and sat down on it, folding his arms over the back. There was complete silence.

  “Well?” Clancy’s voice was beginning to tinge with irritation. “Say something. Anything.”

  Kaproski started to scratch his nose, saw the lieutenant’s eye on him and hastily desisted, as if the action might have been construed as comment. Clancy swung his head toward Stanton. The hatchet-faced detective shrugged helplessly.

  “You tell us, Lieutenant. I don’t see what else we can do we haven’t done. No prints, no weapon, no witnesses, a million things in the house but not a one of any use to us …”

  “Maybe we ought to put a tail on Henry, day and night,” Kaproski suggested, more for lack of anything else to say than for any other reason. “He still makes more sense than anyone else. Hell, there ain’t anybody else. If Henry’s got a girl friend, or if he’s sneaking off to a floating crap game, eventually we’d catch him at it.”

  “And just what good would that do?” Clancy asked sourly. “Guys a lot broker than Henry have girl friends. And also gamble. And pretty soon he’ll be able to indulge himself, anyway.” He shook his head and then flipped his pencil away in irritation. “You can’t hang a man on a hunch; proof is what we need …”

  Quiet fell again in the small room. A short dark figure passed silently in the hallway outside; it caught a corner of Clancy’s vision, bringing with it a memory. He turned to Kaproski, nodding his head slightly in the direction of the door.

  “Which reminds me. How’s the Martinez kid doing?”

  Kaproski’s eyebrows went up at the change of subject, but he was not averse to it. “I ain’t seen him today,” he said, “but I checked him out last night. In fact, I even took him home.” His blue eyes crinkled at the corners; he looked pleased. “He ain’t doing bad; he catches on fast. Personally, I think he’s even beginning to like it. And the boys haven’t been rough on him. He ain’t so hard-mouth like he was at first.”

  Stanton made no attempt to repress a disgusted snort; Clancy paid him no attention.

  “How much is in the kitty?”

  Kaproski had to straighten his chair to reach his wallet. He pulled out a piece of paper, replaced the wallet, and then consulted the paper even as he tilted the chair backwards again. “As of late last night, we had a little better than fourteen bucks, which ain’t too bad for only two days. Of course, there’s still the outfit to pay for—that was three-forty, you got the receipt, Lieutenant—plus the fifty-five cents for Tuesday and another sixty-five from yesterday.” He looked up. “He said he was going to bring some sandwiches today.”

  “Good,” Clancy said. As if in answer to the conversation, the young head poked itself in at the doorway, and encouraged by the silence came further in. He was carrying a new shoe-shine box.

  “Lieutenant,” he said softly. “Can I get you now?”

  “What? Oh, sure,” Clancy said. He swiveled his chair, pulled up one trouser leg, and slid one foot on top of the new box. He looked down at it. “That’s a pretty nice new outfit you’ve got for yourself there. Where did you get it?”

  The boy grinned; it lit up his whole face. It was evident that he was proud of the box. “I made it in woodworking class.”

  “Not bad,” Clancy said. “Getting to like shining shoes, eh?”

  The grin disappeared as if wiped away by a brutal hand.

  “I like making money,” the boy said sullenly, almost harshly. “My own money.” He got to his knees, withdrawing rags and polish from a small drawer in the box. Clancy opened his mouth to say something and then closed it abruptly. He looked up to find both Kaproski and Stanton watching him.

  “Well, all right,” he said half-angrily. “Let’s get on with it. Where were we?”

  Kaproski cleared his throat. “We weren’t any place, Lieutenant,” he said. “We were stuck.”

  “Damn it,” Stanton said, frowning. “It could have been anyone in the city of New York. Hell, as far as that goes it could even have been his sister. Henry’s not the only one in that family that gains.”

  “Hitting him with what?” Clancy asked sarcastically. “Her purse? Her shoe? Or that rattletrap fur she was wearing?” There was a prod at his foot; he automatically switched shoes on the shoe-shine box, swiveling his chair to accommodate the movement. “Or did she bend over and butt him in the chest with her frizzled hair? Or borrow Henry’s cane while he was sleeping?”

  Stanton stared at him curiously over the back of his chair. “You’re really hipped on the question of what weapon was used in the killing, aren’t you, Lieutenant?”

  “Yes,” Clancy said. “I am.”

  “Why?”

  Clancy suddenly paused. “I really don’t know,” he said at last, slowly, honestly. “It’s just something that itches at me; something that sticks in my mind that I can’t get rid of. A feeling. A hunch.”

  He felt a professional tap on his shoe, lifted his foot free, and glanced down, admiring the gleam. “That’s a mighty good job, son,” he said, trying to put into his tone an apology for his previous ill-thought statement. He reached into his pocket, fumbled some change loose, extracted a coin and handed it to the boy.

  The young face fell. “Aw, shucks, Lieutenant,” the boy said. “Not twice!” He sounded more sorrowful than angry. “I’ll never get off the hook that way …”

  Clancy looked down in surprise to see what the complaint was. He saw that he had inadvertently handed the boy the Brazilian cruzeiro found in Willie McFadden’s vest. With a smile he started to take the coin back when his hand suddenly stiffened.

  “Not twice?” he said slowly. “What do you mean, not twice?” He looked down at the pouting brown face steadily. “What do you mean, not twice? Who slipped you the other one?”

  The boy froze. There was a moment of hushed silence; then both Stanton and Kaproski saw the light. Kaproski’s chair came down with a thud; Stanton came to his feet swiftly.

  “Who gave you the other one, kid?” Kaproski asked softly.

  The boy sat there, biting his lip. “I can take it,” he mumbled.

  Stanton exploded. “Damn it! Who gave it to you, you little punk?”

  The boy cowered back under the assault, his eyes fixed on the floor. “I ain’t squawking.… I can take it.…”

  Stanton reached over, taking the small figure by the shoulder and shaking it violently. “What kind of an answer is that?” he roared. His voice mimicked the boy’s savagely. “‘I can take it! I can take it!’” The mimicry disappeared, replaced by a blast. “What kind of a damned fool stupid answer is that?”

  Kaproski brushed Stanton’s clenched hand from the boy’s hunched shoulder. “Let me do it, Stan,” he said. He leaned over quietly. “Look, son—nobody’s trying to pin anything on you. It actually hasn’t anything to do with you. We just want to know one thing—who gave you a coin like this one? It’s very important, son.”

  The boy looked up, probing Kaproski’s steady eyes, hesitating. “One of the cops,” h
e finally said. His eyes dropped back to the floor again. “I figured he was trying to give me the needle, so I kept my mouth shut.” His face hardened; his voice became defiant. “I don’t care; I ain’t squawking. I can take it.”

  “Which one of the cops?” Kaproski asked, still in the same quiet voice.

  “I don’t know his name,” the boy said sullenly. “A big one. With freckles, and red hair.”

  There was a moment’s silence as the three men looked at one another.

  “Timmons!” Clancy said in a harsh voice, smashing his fist violently down on his desk. His eyes were alive, but there was an icy anger in their depths that was frightening. “It wasn’t a cane or a crowbar or anything else—it was a patrolman’s night-stick! And of course he walked out of the house with the weapon in his hand, and of course nobody thought a thing about it!” He swung around to Stanton, his voice tight. “Where is he now?”

  “He ought to be on his beat,” Stanton said. “I can check on the duty roster.” He went through the door quickly. Kaproski moved in the direction of the door as well.

  “You want me to check his locker, Lieutenant?”

  “Hold it,” Clancy said. “Let’s wait for Stanton.”

  Stanton came back into the room. “He’s due in at seven, Lieutenant.”

  Clancy looked at his wristwatch. “Good! That’ll give you two time to check his locker and his house, too.” He turned to the boy. “And you stay right here, son. You may be a valuable witness.”

  He swiveled his chair back to the waiting men. “All right, get going. And be back here by seven.” His voice hardened almost to a rasp. “We wouldn’t want Mr. Timmons to come back after a hard day’s work robbing the citizens of New York without having a proper reception committee to meet him!”

  Thursday–7:00 P.M.

  They took the big patrolman’s night-stick and service revolver away from him and walked him quickly down the hall to the interrogation room. At a gesture from the lieutenant, young Martinez slipped into the room behind them, going quietly to a corner, trying to obscure his small figure against the drab walls. Timmons’ big red face was completely expressionless; his small blue eyes watchful.

  They seated him with his broad back to the plain scarred table, and closed the door. Kaproski and Stanton took positions facing each other as well as the motionless prisoner; Clancy stood back and away, where he could watch all three. The small barred window, facing the blackness of the deserted alley beyond, attempted to reproduce faithfully the dire scene as a mirror, but it did it only waveringly. Its surface was wet, as if with tears.

  Stanton took a deep breath and began.

  “He had the coins in an old suitcase on a shelf in his bedroom,” he said, his voice low and almost conversational. He spoke as if Timmons were not in the room at all. “And over a thousand bucks, some of them that old-fashioned big bill size we found when we went through that place on the Drive.” His eyes swept over the uniformed figure contemptuously, as if it were a poorly designed bit of furniture, scarcely warranting attention. “He must have thought he had the works before he rang in to report it. Or maybe something came up that pressed him for time. I imagine he’ll tell us.” He shrugged. “And I guess he didn’t clean out his pockets so good, if he left that coin in with his other loose change.”

  Kaproski took up the recital.

  “We found a stamp collection, too,” he added. His voice was almost mechanical, a computer reciting numbers. “A regular one, in them big books, each stamp separated in little cellophane envelopes. I guess he took one look at them stamps of Willie’s in the cigar boxes and he didn’t bother with them no more because he knew they weren’t worth nothing.” His cold eyes flickered over the quiet figure as if it weren’t there. “I guess he don’t know as much about coins as he does about stamps.”

  He finished and stood waiting. Clancy looked at the silent, uniformed figure. “Well, Timmons?”

  Timmons looked at each man in turn, slowly, carefully. He wet his lips. “The old man was nuts,” he said at last, thinking before each word. “He came at me like a maniac for no reason at all. I simply walked in his front door to tell him it was open, and he went crazy. Sure, I had to cool him. It was self-defense.”

  “Sure,” Clancy said. “And, of course, once he was dead you took his dough so the rich old man wouldn’t have any trouble getting into heaven. Very commendable.”

  “So I took the dough,” Timmons said, and shrugged. “If it makes you any happier, I admit it. So what’s that? So I get kicked off the force and maybe pick up six months on top. Or a year, most. You think being a cop is such a pleasure?”

  “One thing I’d like cleared up,” Clancy said. He seemed to have traded both his anger and his sarcasm for honest curiosity. “How did he come at you? Did he have a weapon?”

  Timmons hesitated, trying to remember what the others had found.

  “No,” he said slowly, “but he had his hands, and you know how strong crazy people can get. You should have seen him. He started for me without any warning whatsoever and I put my club up in front of me for protection, and he ran right into it, smashing his nose.” His voice took on a bit of emotion, reliving the scene he was describing. “And then from the pain, or when he seen the blood, he really went nuts! He plowed at me like a crazy guy, so I poked him in the stomach to cool him.” He shrugged, leaning back, his deep voice dramatic in the quiet of the room. “He folded over, and when I looked he was dead.”

  There was a moment’s shocked silence in the room. Clancy sighed with a bitterness that was personal.

  “God, I hate a crooked cop!” he muttered. He took two steps forward and bent down to stare at Timmons, the dark hatred of his eyes almost making the larger man quail. “Timmons, the day you burn will be a personal pleasure for me!”

  “Burn?” Timmons tried to sound scornful.

  “Burn!” Clancy said in a tight voice. “Yeah, I said burn!” He held the other man with his fierce expression, enumerating his points on his fingers. “One; there’s no jury in the world is going to believe that a cop weighing over two hundred pounds needs to use his night-stick to cool down a sick, old man. Two; he didn’t run into your night-stick; you poked him in the stomach first, knocking him out. And then—and this is what’s going to burn you—when he was helpless, dying on the floor, you smashed him across the face with your club!”

  “Who, me?”

  “You,” Clancy said with icy fury. “You! If you had poked him in the face first, the way you say it, there would have been blood on your night-stick, and some trace of it would have come off when you jabbed him in the stomach. It would have marked his sweater—but his sweater wasn’t marked!” He straightened up. “No, Timmons—you poked him in the stomach first, and then when he was down on the floor, out cold, you finished the job. You laid your club across his head.”

  “I …” Timmons closed his mouth. His freckles were dark against the pallor of his skin.

  Clancy stepped back. “Take him away,” he said tonelessly. “Take him out of my sight.…”

  Stanton dragged the shocked man to his feet. “You know, Timmons,” he said conversationally, “you’re stupid. Real stupid. If you hadn’t tried to build up a big scenario with that self-defense crap, if you had just kept your big mouth shut, it might have held us up for a while. Not long, but for a while.” He pulled the unresisting arm to the door and through it, his big fingers clamped down tightly.

  The boy had stood in the corner of the room all through the interview, taking it in wide-eyed. He came forward softly, now, and cleared his throat self-consciously. “Lieutenant …”

  “Yeah? What?” Clancy swung around, looking him over as if seeing him for the first time.

  “Is he—did he kill that old man?”

  “Yes, he killed him,” Clancy said savagely.

  The kid said softly, “I’m sorry I stole that dough from my grandfather.”

  Clancy looked at him, finally seeing him. He suddenly seemed to rea
lize the connection. “You earned it back, kid. You worked for it, and you earned it back.” He walked over and sat down in a chair, looking at the wide-eyed watchful face before him, trying to erase the last interview from his mind. “And you’re in for a reward, kid. That’s right, a reward. Five hundred dollars. What do you think you’ll do with it?”

  The boy thought carefully, this new intelligence wiping the thought of Timmons and his crime from his mind.

  “I don’t know,” he said slowly. “Will five hundred dollars pay for a regular shoe-shine stand? A big one, with chairs? Big enough for both me and my grandfather?”

  Clancy stared at him. “I honestly don’t know, son,” he said wearily. “I honestly don’t know. To tell you the truth, I don’t know what pays for anything any more.”

  The boy stood silent before him, trying to understand this inexplicable statement. Kaproski had been watching; now he drew near, clearing his throat. “Better go along, kid,” he said gently, and eased the boy from the room. He came back, standing beside Clancy. “Lieutenant …”

  “God, but I hate a crooked cop!” Clancy said bitterly.

  Kaproski nodded. His big, broad face was calm, his blue eyes understanding. “Sure, we all do. But at least you did something for that kid. If you hadn’t helped him, and in the right way, he could have ended up like Timmons. Or maybe even worse.”

  Clancy sighed. He leaned forward, looking down at the gleaming surface of his shoes. His eyes came up to those of Kaproski.

  “Yes,” he said somberly. “Maybe you’re right. I suppose you can’t lose them all.…”

  12

  So the weather changes, and the seasons come and go, marching past blindly. Clear skies follow angry storms; clouds sweep across the endless heavens, some high and wispy thin in the shimmering sunlight, some dark and lowering on black horizons, fertile with threat. Rain slashes down, warped sheets in the howling night; and mist curls lightly through forested glades, giving them ghostly brightness. Snow beautifies bare branches, furnishing ornament until spring; and ice throttles rivers and chokes lakes, weighs down masts and crashes through rigid shrouds. Wild wind tears across oceans, whipping towering waves to torment, drowning ships; and soft breezes flutter the corn tassels and lean the grass gently in patterned softness.