Deadline, 2 A.M.

Chapter 12

Tuesday — 9:00 A.M.

The rain had finally won the battle with the fog, and magnanimous in victory had swept off to the east, leaving the morning clear and cool. Lieutenant Reardon, pushing through the heavy glass doors of the Hall of Justice, glanced in the direction of the corner desk hoping for some message, received a negative shake of the head from the sergeant there, and continued on his way to the elevators. He walked into a waiting car, punched the button for the fourth floor, and rubbed his face wearily as the cab dutifully began its silent climb. He had slept not at all, lying in bed fully dressed, instead, waiting for the telephone to ring and to hear that sardonic voice, no longer smiling, inform him that their little ploy had failed, and that if they didn’t stop fooling around and put the real Vito Patrone on the bridge at two the next morning, there would be two dead cops, and not one.

But there had been no call, and the elaborate equipment that had been hurriedly installed to trace any such call had apparently been wasted. Either Dondero was getting away with the bluff, at least for the time being, or the sardonic man had become a bit leery of a trap, which was not surprising. The kidnapper, whoever he was, was far from stupid; and he never seemed to contact the police with his messages twice at the same place.

The elevator stopped, the doors moved obediently back, and Reardon stared blankly out into the corridor, remembering where he was only when the doors began to close. He reached out in time to send them sliding back with a reproving hiss, and walked from the car shaking his head. Man, he thought, I’d better wake up before I step into an open manhole!

Stan Lundahl was shrugging himself into his jacket, happy that his extended graveyard shift was finally over, when Reardon walked into the office. Stan pulled his jacket straight, tugged his necktie into a semblance of respectability, and nodded.

“Hi, Lieutenant. How’s it going?”

“Don’t ask,” Reardon said, and yawned deeply. He finished by stretching elaborately and considered Lundahl. “What’s new around here? No meeting scheduled for this morning?”

“Not that I heard of. Nothing to meet about, I guess.” Stan dug into a jacket pocket for cigarettes, pulled a pad of matches from his shirt pocket, and put the two of them together. “My guess is that the brass figure Pop is long gone, and more meetings won’t bring him back. They’d just interfere with the work of getting the bastard who did it.” He picked a shred of tobacco from his lip with a fingernail and looked at Reardon speculatively.

Reardon frowned. “What’s the long look supposed to mean?”

“Nothing.” Lundahl changed his look to one of curiosity. “Aren’t you going to ask me about Dondero?”

Reardon woke up. “Oh. That’s right. Anybody hear anything?”

Lundahl quit playing games. He had been waiting for the lieutenant to arrive in order to spring his news, and had just about given up when his superior had entered the office. He sank back into the chair behind his desk, prepared to spend a little bit more of his overtime.

“He had a boat, did you know that?” He went on before Reardon could perjure himself. “Yeah. A small fisherman he must have bought cheap and fixed up. Kept it down in Burlingame.”

Reardon merely grunted. He walked over and sat down behind his desk.

“Yeah. Way we heard about it,” Lundahl went on expansively, “the guy who sold it to him has a brother-in-law on the force. Patrol officer named Garrity, works out of Park Station. Anyway, Garrity mentioned it to the guy when the two met about four this morning to go fishing, because the chief has cut out time-off until we get somewhere on this case, and Garrity was supposed to be off today, but instead he’s got to be back on at nine, but he still wanted to get in some fishing...” He paused and frowned in a puzzled manner. “Can you imagine getting up at four o’clock in the morning just to catch a lousy fish?”

“Some guys do, I guess.”

“Yeah. Anyway, this guy remembers about Dondero and the boat. Garrity called it in around five this morning. Said he hadn’t been near a phone before. Probably waited until he caught his first swordfish, or whatever.”

“And?”

“Well, anyway, it never occurred to this jughead Garrity that he was a police officer and maybe he should go down to Burlingame to check it out — hell no, he had to go fishing!” Lundahl shook his head at the idiocy of some people. “So, anyway, it filtered down to me a little after six this morning. Nobody else around, so I took a drive down there. Just got back, matter of fact.”

Reardon tried to sound curious. “What did you find?”

“Well” — Lundahl paused to light a fresh cigarette from the old butt before continuing — “somebody’s been using the boat mighty recently, and it stands to reason it was Don. He wasn’t there, but he had to hang out someplace, didn’t he?”

“I guess.”

“Yeah, And the hatchway was locked with a padlock, and no sign of any break-in,” Lundahl went on, “that is, until I pried the hasp off to get in, of course. It’s his boat, all right — owner’s certificate in the cabin, framed on the wall, fishing license tucked in the corner of the frame. Anyway, to get back to this morning, there were wet footprints on the hatchway steps, and the same wet prints down in the cabin. They had to be from last night because it hasn’t rained in a week, and they would have dried up by now if they were old ones, don’t you think?”

“I think,” Reardon said, his face expressionless “Go ahead. You’re doing fine.”

“Yeah,” Lundahl said, and leaned over to flick ashes toward the wastebasket. He leaned back and continued with his story. “Matter of fact, there were two sets of footprints; the ones from the wet shoe, like on the steps, and some sneaker prints on top of them in a couple places, and also on the linoleum of the cabin floor. The sneakers were there over to one side, like they were kicked off, you know. They had Don’s name inside them marked in ink.”

“Maybe he made both the prints,” Reardon suggested. “Maybe he changed shoes before he went out. He may have come back for something — a raincoat, maybe — and managed to make both sets of prints. After all, nobody would go out in sneakers on a night like last night, not if he had anything else to wear.”

“No, sir.” Lundahl shook his head. “The sneakers and the shoes were different sizes. There was a pair of dungarees on the floor, too, like he changed clothes. Also, funny thing — there was his raincoat there, hanging up on a hook. Not that he couldn’t have two raincoats, of course, but this one was the one he always wears around here. And another thing that makes me sure somebody else was there last night; there were two glasses out for liquor. Only one had been used, but the glasses were regularly kept in a little cabinet in swivel holders, so they wouldn’t slide and break, and somebody had taken out two glasses and left them where they could have fallen and broken. Just a miracle they didn’t. No, my guess is that Don was holing up in his boat, and last night after it started to rain he had a visitor, and for some reason or other he went off with the guy, leaving his raincoat behind. I know it sounds crazy, but that’s the way I read it.”

One of these days, Reardon thought, Stan Lundahl will be getting a promotion, if he isn’t careful. He considered the other man steadily as he thought of a proper response.

“He went out without a raincoat in that weather last night?”

“I know.” Lundahl shrugged. “Every time I’ve seen him with a raincoat it was the one I saw on the boat, so I figure it was the only one he had. I’ve only got one.”

“But why would he do it?”

“He must have had a good reason,” Lundahl said cheerfully, and crushed out his cigarette. “No sign of violence in the cabin. He just changed clothes and went off with this guy.”

“In whose car?”

“The other guy’s,” Lundahl said. “Don’s car’s still in the garage at his apartment. I figure he went out to the boat by bus, or something, hung around there until this other man came. It had to be after midnight, because that’s when it really started to rain. Washed away any tracks of the car, but that’s how they had to leave. The last bus that passes that part of the road in Burlingame passes at midnight, sharp.”

Reardon nodded. Lundahl had done a good job. “Anything else?”

“Yeah,” Lundahl said slowly. “Those glasses that were out for drinks; I handled them real carefully. In the light you could see there were fingerprints on the two glasses, and even without equipment you could see they were different.”

Reardon looked at Lundahl speculatively. “Fingerprints, eh?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Did you bring them in?”

“Of course,” Lundahl said. “They’re in the side drawer of your desk.”

Reardon frowned in surprise. “My desk? Why didn’t you take them down to the lab?”

“Lieutenant,” Lundahl said quietly, “if I’m wrong, all you have to do is send those glasses down to the lab yourself. But if I’m right, then you knew all about that boat of Don’s, because he tells you about everything; and you were out there last night and you and Don have something cooking between the two of you, and if you wanted me to know what it was, you’d tell me.” He looked Reardon in the eye. “Right?”

Reardon’s expression didn’t change in the least. “You’re telling the story.”

Lundahl shook another cigarette free, considered it a moment, and then shoved it back into the pack. “I’m smoking too much,” he said, and came to his feet. He considered his superior a moment. “I’m all through telling any stories, Lieutenant. I’ve been on duty a long time, and I’m going home to get some rest.” He raised a hand. “Have a good day, Lieutenant.”

Reardon watched the tall angular man walk from the room. He sighed. Here was Dondero off on a wild-eyed scheme he should have been stopped from touching with a ten-foot pole; and now Lundahl was joining the club. Department rules were taking a beating, and those rules had been promulgated for good and sufficient reasons. Nor was it even faintly possible that any discipline committee would ever accept good intentions as an excuse for violating all the sacred precepts of the department. Even worse, it was very doubtful that the flaunting of the rules would get them one step closer to Pop Holland’s kidnapper. In fact, they had probably made things worse by letting Dondero have his head.

Still, he had to admit with a touch of pride in his group, Lundahl had done a very nice bit of thinking on the job, and should have been complimented. And then had his head handed to him for not having put his suspicions on paper and seen that they were distributed throughout the Hall...!