Anything But Saintly

Chapter 27

I had calmed down by the time I got to headquarters. I wasn’t even sore at Tom Ward any more. After all, he had been trying to smoke out a dangerous armed man who had wounded one cop and was shooting at others. And I certainly felt no grief for Little Artie. I began to feel a little ashamed of myself when I realized my pique stemmed solely from Artie having died before I could get a confession out of him for the murder of Kitty Desmond.

Before going upstairs, I stopped at Records on the first floor. There was no file on Donald Tupper. I gave him one by listing him in the sex-offender file as a suspect to be routinely picked up in rape cases where the assailant’s identity was unknown.

It was a quarter of five when I walked into the vice squadroom. Carl Lincoln was still there, and Ritter and Webb of the marijuana detail were also in off the street. They were playing three-handed pinochle.

All three threw me casual greetings. Carl said, “Excitement over already?”

“Yeah,” I said in a weary tone.

“What’s with you?” Carl asked. “You look like you lost your last friend.”

“Not a friend,” I said. “Just a murder suspect. Artie decided to go down with flying colors.” I described what had happened.

Ritter said, “He must have been nuts.”

“Just drunk,” I said. “Seems liquor drove him nuts. You planning to log out at five, Carl?”

“Sure. I’m not about to play pinochle on my own time. It’s your bid, Webb.”

Webb said, “I pass.”

I walked out, took the elevator to the third floor and went down the hall to a door labeled: Handwriting and Document Identification. Big, cumbersome Al Gould was just putting on his hat to go home.

“Want to hold up a minute, Al?” I asked.

“Sure,” he said, hanging up his hat again. “I was jumping the gun by a couple of minutes anyway. What you got?”

I took the sympathy card from my pocket and handed it to him. After examining it, he looked at me inquiringly.

I said, “You got a five-seven for Little Artie Nowak on file?”

A form five-seven was made out by all persons arrested in St. Cecilia except drunks and traffic violators. On the front of the card, in his own handwriting, the suspect wrote his name, address, place and date of birth, occupation, place of employment, name and address of nearest relative and the date he completed the form. On the reverse side there was a section for physical description, then spaces in which he had to both write and print the complete alphabet, first in capitals and then in small letters. There was also a space in which he had to write the numbers one to twenty.

I suspected Artie would have a card on file, because years back, before he fell under the protection of Nick Bartkowiak, he had been pulled in a number of times on gambling and soliciting charges. In St. Cecilia it was the custom for hoods who eventually gained some political influence to quietly arrange for their old criminal records to disappear from the files, but they usually don’t think of anything but the central file. There always remains an odd card or two stored in places outside the records division.

Al Gould went over to the small file drawers covering one side of the room from floor to ceiling, ran his gaze over them and finally pulled out a drawer.

“Yeah, he’s here,” he said, removing a card.

I said, “See if he matches the printing on that sympathy card.”

Gould sat at his desk with both cards before him and studied them through a magnifying glass. It took him about thirty seconds to come to a conclusion.

“Sorry, Matt,” he said with a shake of his head. “Artie didn’t do this printing.”

“You sure, Al?”

He gave me a wounded look. “This is my business, Matt. You want a technical explanation of why he couldn’t have?”

“I trust you,” I said. “I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings. Thanks, Al.”

“Anytime,” he said, putting the sympathy card back into its envelope and handing it to me.

I put it back in my inside breast pocket.

When I got back to the squadroom, Carl Lincoln was logging out and Ritter and Webb had already left.

“Who won?” I inquired.

“Nobody. We didn’t have time to finish the game. We saved the score until next time.”

I said dryly, “What dedicated cops we have around here. You won’t even play pinochle overtime.”

Carl grinned at me. “You can play pinochle in barrooms, where the surroundings are pleasanter. See you tomorrow, buddy boy.”

“Yeah,” I said. “Bring your walking shoes.”

“The factory district again?” he asked in a pained voice.

“Uh-huh. All day long. If we don’t bring in a few streetwalkers soon, the captain is going to start asking sarcastic questions about what our function is around here.”

“Sometimes I wonder myself,” Carl said.

When he had left, I took the sympathy card out of my pocket again and frowned down at it. If Little Artie Nowak hadn’t sent it, who had? I was sure it must have come from the murderer, because no one else could have known Kitty Desmond was dead at the time the card was mailed.

Then, without advance warning, light suddenly struck.

“Of course,” I breathed aloud. “It couldn’t be anyone else.”

Captain Spangler came from his office, looked around and said, “Nobody from the night trick here yet, Rudowski?”

“No, sir,” I said. “I’ll be around a few minutes if you want to leave.”

“Good,” he said. “My wife is expecting me on time tonight. We’re having guests.”

He ducked back into his office and returned wearing his hat. I was left alone in the squadroom.

I looked at the table where Carl had been seated when I left the squadroom earlier that afternoon. The slip on which I had written Doll Fenner’s phone number still lay there. Sitting down, I dialed the number.

Doll’s voice said, “Hello?”

“This is Matt,” I announced.

Her voice turned frigid. “You’ve got a nerve phoning here. And you just wait till I see Jolly. I’ll give her a piece of my mind for foisting off a cop as her boy friend.”

“Cops aren’t necessarily poison,” I said. “Besides, she did it more or less under duress. The masquerade didn’t do you any harm, did it?”

“It made me make a fool of myself.”

“How do you figure? I was all ready to take you up on that offer when we were interrupted.”

“The offer is permanently withdrawn,” she said coldly. “What do you want?”

“You still interested in seeing Kitty’s murderer caught?”

There was a period of silence. Then she said, “I don’t want to do anything that would get Artie after me.”

“Artie didn’t kill her,” I said.

“He didn’t?” she said in a surprised voice. “How do you know?”

Lieutenant Dell Hendricks, the night watch commander, walked into the squadroom. I waved him a greeting as he started to log himself in.

I said, “It’s too long a story to explain. Believe me, he didn’t kill her. I need the answer to just one question. Did Kitty tell you where her date was the other night?”

“Sure. She always told me everything about her dates. She went to the Leland.”

“I mean the second one. When she went out about two A.M.”

Lieutenant Hendricks disappeared into the captain’s office, which was also his office at night. Cutler and Wayne of the night trick arrived and logged in.

Doll said, “That was at the Leland too, only on a different floor. I asked if she wasn’t afraid to go back there after rolling her first date, but she said it was a big hotel and she wouldn’t be anywhere near the first John’s room.”

“Thanks,” I said quietly. “That’s all I wanted to know, Doll.”

“Wait,” she said. “What’s this all about?”

“You’ll read about it in the papers,” I said. “You’ve been a big help.”

I hung up.