Case of the Silent Partner

Chapter 11

Lieutenant Tragg and Detective Copeland sat in the back room of the drugstore. Bill Copeland was reading one of the True Detective magazines he had filched from the newsstand. An old-timer, Copeland took everything in stride. He frequently said, “I’ve seen ’em come, and I’ve seen ’em go. I’ve been publicly praised for catching ’em, and given hell for letting ’em slip through my fingers. It’s all in the day’s work, and you can’t work yourself into a stew over it. You gotta take ’em as they come.”

Lieutenant Tragg was nervous. At frequent intervals he peered through the square of colored glass which enabled the prescription clerk to look out into the brightly illuminated store. Tragg carefully studied every customer, and between times nervously paced the floor or stared at the doors as though he could entice his prey simply by visual concentration.

The drug clerk, putting up an order of capsules, said, “No need to worry, Lieutenant. I know him personally. If he comes in, it’ll be for a prescription. You’ll have all the time in the world.”

Bill Copeland looked up from his magazine, surveyed Tragg with the expression of interrupted contentment with which a grazing cow studies a moving object. He seemed utterly incapable of understanding Tragg’s nervousness.

For the second time within five minutes, Tragg consulted his wrist watch. “Well, I can’t waste time waiting here. After all, it’s just a hunch.”

Copeland marked his place in the magazine with the nail of a stubby, thick forefinger. He said, “I’ll handle ’m, Lieutenant. Keep in touch with a phone, and you’ll know it within thirty seconds of the time I get him.”

Tragg said wearily, “I guess I’ll have to do that. I did want to...” He broke off as a man in a pinstriped, double-breasted blue suit walked quickly into the store, shook his head at the young woman who moved up from the cigar counter to wait on him, and said, in a voice plainly audible to those in the back room, “I want the prescription clerk.”

Tragg said to the clerk, “Take a look at this, will you?”

The clerk looked over Tragg’s shoulder, then gently pushed him aside in order to get a better view.

“That’s your man,” he said simply.

Tragg released a long-drawn sigh. Copeland started to close the magazine, then thought better of it, and laid it face down on a corner of the table used for filling prescriptions, leaving it spread open at the page he had been reading.

Tragg gave his orders quickly. “I’ll slip out the side door. Give him his prescription right away. Don’t keep him waiting. As soon as he starts for the door, Bill, you come out from behind here and start following. You have your car outside. I have mine. Between us he shouldn’t get away, but don’t take any chances. As soon as we get an idea where he’s headed, I’ll move on ahead. If he sees you, or starts acting as though he was suspicious, toot your horn twice. At your signal, I’ll swing in front, and we’ll grab him for the pinch.”

Copeland said, “Okay.”

The drug clerk walked out to the counter, came back in a few moments with the number of a prescription. “This is a refill on a powerful heart stimulant. He’s in a hurry, says it’s very urgent.”

Copeland adjusted his tie, straightened his coat, and patted the bulge over his hip. The prescription clerk said, “Take that magazine along if you want, officer,” and Copeland picked it up quickly. He rolled it up, shoved it under his left arm, holding it clamped against his side, and said, “Thanks.” Lieutenant Tragg slipped out of the shipping door into the alley, and walked around to the front of the drugstore, and got in his car.

He had less than two minutes to wait. His man jumped into a Buick sedan, and stepped on the starter. Behind him, Copeland, carrying his magazine clamped under his arm, appeared in the door of the drugstore, walked over to the curb, and wormed his broad shoulders in behind the steering wheel of a close-coupled coupe.

Tragg was the first away. In the rear-view mirror, he saw the Buick pull out next, and from the manner in which the car edged over to the left, decided the driver was going to make a left-hand turn.

Tragg gave a left-hand signal, and ventured timidly into the intersection, waiting for oncoming traffic to get past. This brought the car behind him up close to his bumper, and he saw his man hold out a left arm. Behind the Buick, Bill Copeland, plugging along in his light coupe, made the turn without bothering to signal.

Bob Lawley was in a hurry. He kept trying to get ahead of Tragg’s car, and at last Tragg let him go, following along closely behind. Copeland, taking his cue from the changed conditions, tagged along behind Tragg’s car.

Tragg, watching the man in the car ahead, saw that he apparently gave no thought of being followed. A dozen blocks down the street, Tragg had an opportunity to pass again. Lawley fooled him with an abrupt right-hand turn shortly after that, but Tragg, heading on down the street, saw that Copeland was tagging right along behind their quarry.

Tragg swung his car to the right at the next intersection, went to the first cross street, looked up and down the street, saw no sign of the cars he wanted, drove another block, and saw Copeland’s coupe parked in the middle of the block. There was no sign of the blue Buick.

Tragg swung his car into a sharp turn and drove up on the other side of the street, parking his car almost directly opposite the coupe.

Copeland got out and sauntered across.

“Get him?” Tragg asked, trying to keep nervousness out of his voice.

Copeland said casually, “He’s in there.”

“Where?”

“That bungalow. He swung his car into the driveway, and drove up to the garage. I stopped my car fifty feet back and waited to see if he was wise. I don’t think he was.”

“Where’d he go?”

“Inside, through the back door.”

It was that quarter hour after sunset when cool shadows merge imperceptibly into gathering dusk. Here and there in the block, lights had been switched on, but there were no lights showing in the windows of the little bungalow.

Tragg said, “Take the rear. Knock on the door, and tell him you want to look at the wiring. Say you’re from a radio station, and there’s a leak somewhere in the neighborhood. I’ll go to the front door and ring the bell hard just about the time you’re doing the talking. That should bring him up to the front. He’ll probably leave the back door unlocked. You walk in. If I have any trouble, grab him, and when you grab him, make a good job of it.”

“Okay,” Copeland said.

Tragg gave him ten seconds, then walked down the sidewalk, climbed the steps to the porch of the dark bungalow, and listened. He could hear steps and thought he could hear the rumble of voices in the back.

Tragg pressed the bell button, waited a second, then pressed it again, long, insistent rings.

Steps approached the door. Tragg loosened the gun in his shoulder holster. He was adjusting his tie when the door opened and Bob Lawley said, “What do you want?”

“You’ve just moved in, haven’t you?”

“That’s none of your business.”

“Oh, yes, it is, brother. I’m from the assessor’s office.”

“Well, this place is furnished, and was rented furnished. I don’t want to be interrupted, and...”

Tragg looked past Lawley, saw Bill Copeland cat-footing down the corridor, just a few steps away.

“I haven’t any time to talk now,” Lawley finished, and started to close the door.

Tragg put out a foot, nodded over to Copeland, and said, “All right, Lawley, you’re under arrest.”

The man recoiled, then, as Tragg pushed through the door, turned to run. The maneuver brought him up against Bill Copeland’s thick bulk. Copeland clamped his arms around Lawley, holding him as in a vise. “Okay, Lieutenant,” he said without emotion.

Tragg slid handcuffs from his hip pocket, and, as Bob struggled to free himself, snapped them about his wrists.

At the bite of cold steel on his skin, Bob Lawley flung into a wild, hysterical struggling, and Tragg, grabbing the chain of the handcuffs, gave it a jerk which brought a bone-crushing pressure to bear on his prisoner’s wrists.

As Lawley subsided, white-faced with pain and futile rage, Tragg said, “Let’s be reasonable about it, Lawley. Where’s your wife?”

“In... in the bedroom.”

“All right,” Tragg said, “let’s go talk with her.”

“What are you going to say to her?”

“I want to ask her some questions.”

Lawley was panting from his struggle. His eyes were sullenly defiant. “You can’t.”

“Why not?”

“She... she can’t talk with anyone.”

Tragg thought for a moment, then said, “I’ll tell you what I’m going to do with you, Lawley. I’m going to give you a break.”

Lawley’s face showed sneering disbelief.

“I’m going to take these bracelets off you,” Tragg went on, “and we’re going into that bedroom. You’re going to introduce Copeland here and me as a couple of buddies of yours you happened to meet while you were gone for the medicine. You’re going to tell her that I’m a man who can help you out of your scrape, and then you’re going to keep quiet, and let me ask questions.”

“What do I get out of it?”

“I’ll see that you get a square shake, no framing, and no rough stuff.”

“That’s not enough.”

“All right, I’ve offered you the easy way. I’ll do it the hard way if I have to.”

“How’s that?”

“You’ll find out. You aren’t in any position to drive a bargain.”

Bill Copeland stooped down to pick up the detective magazine which had fallen to the floor when he circled Lawley with his arms.

Lawley cursed, launched a savage kick at Copeland’s face. Copeland took the kick on his shoulder, started to straighten up, then changed his mind, picked up the magazine, and doubled his right fist.

Tragg stepped between them. “Not now, Bill. Just watch him. Keep him quiet.”

Copeland sighed, let his fist turn into fingers which brushed off the shoulder of his coat, and said, without rancor, “Okay, Lieutenant.”

He shoved Lawley back against the wall, hard. Tragg took the package of medicine from Lawley’s pocket.

“What are you going to do?”

“Shut up,” Copeland said, taking a handful of Lawley’s shirt near the collar, and twisting the cloth.

The second door Tragg tried opened into a bedroom. The drapes were drawn over the window, and it was dark. Tragg stood just inside the door waiting for his eyes to adjust themselves to the dim light of the room. He could hear the sound of labored breathing. A woman’s voice said gaspingly, “Bob.”

Tragg stepped forward. “Your husband asked me to rush this medicine to you,” he said.

“Where... where’s he?”

“He had to attend to some business which came up unexpectedly. He’ll be along directly, but he wanted you to have the medicine right away.”

“Yes... an emergency medicine... Took all I had last night...”

Tragg found a light by the bedside. He switched it on, and unwrapped the medicines. There were two of them, one an ampule to be crushed and inhaled, the other in capsule form. The directions said to take two and thereafter to take one every thirty minutes until six had been taken, then one every two hours.

Tragg got her a glass of water from the bathroom, gave her the capsules. She swallowed them one at a time. He found a towel in the bathroom, crushed the ampule, and held it under her nose.

For five minutes nothing was said. Tragg stood there watching her. She began to breathe easier. She smiled bravely up at him, and her mouth had the flabby-lipped look of weakness. She said, “It’s a complication of various troubles. I suppose a lot of nerves are mixed in with it. I feel better now. Thank you.”

Tragg helped himself to a chair, drew it up by the bedside. “I don’t want to bother you, Mrs. Lawley,” he said.

She looked at him in some surprise.

“I have to ask you a few questions. I don’t want you to strain yourself.”

“Who are you?”

He said, “I’m trying to get at the truth of what happened last night. I suppose you know that a warrant has been issued for your husband.”

“I–I didn’t know.”

“If your husband is guilty or if you’re guilty,” Tragg went on, “I don’t want you to talk. If you’re feeling too weak, I don’t want you to try. But if you can answer just a few questions, it will help a lot.”

“Help who?” she asked.

“Your husband, if he’s innocent,” Tragg said. “Your sister, you.”

She nodded.

“But,” Tragg hastened to assure her, “don’t misunderstand me. You don’t have to answer my questions.”

She moved uneasily on the bed.

From the hallway where Copeland was holding Lawley, there was the sound of a brief struggle, a half-articulate cry, then silence.

Tragg thought fast. “The furniture men moving in some things that your husband bought.”

“Oh,” she said, and settled back against the pillow, her eyes closed. “He shouldn’t have bought anything. He’s just an overgrown boy. Money burns a hole in his pocket.” Her face had a creamy tint to the skin, but beneath that was a faint bluish tinge which Lieutenant Tragg had seen before.

As her breathing grew easier, she seemed to sleep, and Tragg tiptoed from the room to where Copeland was holding Lawley. Lawley’s left eye was swelling shut. “Take him out to the car, Bill,” Tragg said.

Copeland took a tighter grip on the shirt collar. “Okay, buddy,” he said. “You heard what the boss said. On your way.” There was no more resistance left in Lawley. He permitted himself to be taken out to the car quietly.

Tragg went back to the room and sat down. He had been there some fifteen minutes when Mrs. Lawley opened her eyes. “I feel better now. Are you a doctor?”

“No,” Tragg said. “I’m an investigator.”

“You mean a private detective?”

“I work for the people,” he said.

She thought that over for a while. “You mean the police?” she asked.

“Yes.”

She started to struggle up to an upright position. Tragg said, “Take it easy, Mrs. Lawley. I’m only trying to find out the truth.”

“What do you want to know?”

He said, “How did it happen that you took that stock certificate from the scene of the murder, Mrs. Lawley?”

Her eyes closed again. “What murder?”

Tragg clenched his hands. He took a deep breath, hesitated for a moment, then said, “We’ve found that stock certificate in Mr. Mason’s possession. He says you gave it to him.”

She opened her eyes — coughed. “Did he say that?”

“Yes.”

“It was his own suggestion.”

“I know. Why did you take it?”

“It was mine.”

“Was Lynk dead when you walked into the house?”

“Yes.”

Her eyes opened, then fluttered closed. “I’m very tired,” she said.

“Suppose you rest for a few minutes,” Tragg suggested.

She said drowsily, “You seem like such a nice man. Clean-cut. I’d imagined the police were different... You’re... nice.”

He said, “Take your time, Mrs. Lawley.” His hands clenched until his fingers ached. Sweat made his skin moist. Damn it, he was only doing his duty. When you were solving crimes, you had to play the game according to the way the cards fell.

“A very... nice... gentleman...” the woman on the bed muttered.