Ellery Queen’s Double Dozen

Borden Deal Tough Cop

Miss Millie had been his old schoolteacher, ’way back in the tenth grade, and now she had been brutally murdered... Mr. John was glad he was a tough cop.

I’m tough enough, though it’s not anything to brag about. It’s part of my job — like being a good typist for a secretary or liking people for a politician. I catch most of the dirty work, not just because I’m tough but because I look tough. That’s part of my natural equipment, too.

It doesn’t bother me. I can look into the mirror every morning and shave that ugly mug of mine — with the underslung jaw and the little eyes and the nose that got broken twice when I tried to do a little boxing in my younger days — without worrying that I’m not Tony Curtis. There’s a lot of satisfaction in knowing that you’re good at the work you do. My face and my big hands and my hulking shoulders are just as much a part of my equipment as the gun on my hip.

I do a lot of the interrogation. So I wasn’t surprised to get a call from the jail asking me to come down and question a suspect in the Miss Millie Burden killing. I was still out at the Burden house, watching the younger fellows go through the routines they learned at the F.B.I. school. The body was already gone by then, and there was really no use in my hanging around there any more.

But I did. I’d known Miss Millie for a long time. A small town like ours, you know everybody. Miss Millie had taught me in the tenth grade at school. She was a little sprite of a woman with a sharp kindly face, one of the toughest teachers in the school, the kind of tough teacher that you either like a lot or you hate the guts of. I’d always liked her. And now she had had her brains knocked out of her head all over her kitchen floor.

She lived alone. It was the big old house the Burdens had always lived in. They were all gone now but Miss Millie. She’d retired from teaching long since, of course, living on her social security and the little bit of Burden money that was still left — nobody knew how much or how little it was — and puttering around in her garden all day every day.

I looked around the kitchen one more time after I put down the phone. “They’ve got somebody down at the jail,” I said to the eager bloodhounds.

They stopped hound-dogging and looked up at me, their faces blank and somewhat disappointed because the suspect had been picked up by the old police routine instead of being detected by their new methods.

“Found any fingerprints?” I asked them.

One of them shook his head. “Whoever did the job was careful,” he said. “No prints here but Miss Burden’s.”

I nodded. “I’m going down to the jail,” I said.

I walked through the hall of the big silent house and out onto the porch. I went down the walk to my car and got in. I looked back toward the house, wondering what was going to happen to it now. It was a shame. Some people you expect to die violently — but not Miss Millie. I shook my head and went on.

I was at the jail in ten minutes. I walked into the office and looked at the Sheriff and the Chief of Police. They were both big men, but the Chief had a pleasant face, full of smiling. The Sheriff was a grim and impressive man. The Chief had been on the force nearly as long as I had been, and the Sheriff had been in and out of office almost as long.

“Have you got him?” I said.

“We haven’t talked to him yet,” the Sheriff said. “We were waiting for you, Mr. John.”

I nodded. “What’s the deal?”

“He was picked up out on the highway, trying to hitchhike out of town,” the Sheriff said. “We got him on a routine sweep of strangers and suspicious characters as soon as we heard about Miss Millie.”

I nodded again. “It figured to be simple,” I said. “Let’s go look at him.”

The Sheriff picked up his hat. “I’ll check my men,” he said. “No use me hanging around here. You can handle it from here on.”

“Sure,” I said. “See you.”

He bobbed his head and went out. I led the way back to the cells. The kid was sitting on a bunk, staring down at the floor between his feet. He looked up when I stopped in front of the cell door.

“Searched him yet?” I said to the policeman guarding him.

“No, sir, Mr. John,” he said. “The Sheriff shook him down for weapons. But we waited for you.”

I nodded. That was the way I liked it. There’s an art to interrogation. If I was going to do the job, I didn’t want anybody messing up the field beforehand.

I opened the cell door. “What’s your name, kid?”

He looked up at me. He was young. He was scared and defiant at the same time. “Billy Roberts,” he said.

I paused, studying him for a moment. His face was dirty but it was the open, friendly kind of face you can like right off the bat. There was nothing to him of the television juvenile delinquent — his hair was cropped close to his head in a crew cut and he didn’t wear any of the television-type clothing. He had on a pair of shabby pants and a fairly new sports shirt. His hair was sandy, with a touch of red in it, and if he ever washed his face you’d probably see freckles there. I thought of Miss Millie. Just the kind of guy she’d bring into her kitchen to feed him a meal.

“Come along,” I said. “And bring that.” I motioned to the battered suitcase resting against the bars on the outside of the cell.

I turned my back and walked along the corridor. I didn’t look back to see if he followed. That was the job of the patrolman. I was already working on the interrogation procedure, you see, and I had to let just enough of my toughness show to make him uncertain about his own stamina.

The Chief came along, too. I led the way to the Interrogation Room. It’s a plain room with a table in the middle where we drink — coffee, usually — but all that had been cleared out for this job. I stopped and turned around.

“Empty your pockets,” I said.

His voice was high, jerky. “I didn’t do anything,” he said. “I tell you.”

I kept on looking at him. “Empty your pockets,” I said again in a reasonable voice.

He jerked his hands toward his pockets and began turning them out. There was a small penknife, a book of matches, a package of cigarettes, a wallet, a few coins. That was all.

I picked up the wallet in my big hands and looked inside. There was a dollar in the bill compartment. I began probing the card sections with a thick finger, taking out his driver’s license and photographs, all the junk everybody carries around. Then I hit paydirt. In the last compartment, folded thin, I found some bills. There were a good many of them, mostly fives and tens, with two or three twenties. I guess there was maybe a hundred and fifty dollars all told.

“Where did you get the money?” I said.

His face closed up tight and stubborn. I stood watching him for a moment, holding the bills. They were old bills, worn and crumpled, and they felt gritty under my fingertips. I looked at them closely, then shook them against the table. Tiny white crystals shook off onto the surface. I thought about the sugar bowl in Miss Millie’s kitchen. It had been smashed on the floor, the white sugar spilled out of its brokenness just like her brains had spilled out of her broken head.

“Where did you get the money?” I said.

“It’s mine,” he said in his high jerky voice.

“Sure,” I said. “But where did you get it?”

“I was working for a circus,” he said. “Up until a week ago. Cosmos Brothers. They were about to fold, so I blew the lot before they started skipping paydays. That’s the money I saved.”

“What did you do?”

“I was an elephant man,” he said. “You know...”

“An elephant man with a circus can save that kind of money?”

His face closed up again. He reached for the cigarettes and fumbled one out of the pack. I waited until he had put it into his mouth and had reached for the book of matches.

“Leave the cigarettes alone, kid.” I said.

He looked at me without believing. I took the cigarette out of his mouth and put it into my own. I lit it, slowly, watching his face hungry for the steadying assurance of the tobacco. I puffed the smoke at him.

“Let’s see what’s in the suitcase.”

The Chief and the patrolman watched as the kid lifted the suitcase to the table and opened it. I poked at the jumbled clothing inside — another pair of pants, two shirts, and some underwear. I tumbled it out, dropping it on the floor piece by piece as I went through.

Then I turned my attention to the suitcase itself. In one pocket there was a toothbrush and a razor and a bar of soap wrapped in toilet paper. In the other was a watch. I took it out, looked at it, and laid it on the table.

I heard the Chief’s breath suck in. It was an old-fashioned lapel watch, like ladies used to wear. Miss Millie Burden had worn it when she taught me in the tenth grade. I could still remember her gesture when she’d tilt it with one finger and look to see if the class period was nearly over.

I turned to the kid again. “You didn’t have to kill the old lady,” I said in my slow even voice. “You could have robbed her without that, an old lady like her.”

His face paled. His eyes wavered away from my face and he looked desperately around at the other men. “I didn’t kill anybody,” he said. “Honest. I didn’t even know that was why I was picked up.”

I watched him for a moment. Then I winked at the Chief when the kid wasn’t looking at either one of us.

“We’re fixing to find out about that right now,” I said.

“Mr. John,” the Chief said in a nervous voice, picking up his cue.

I ignored him. I went to one of the lockers and opened it. I took out a soiled white kid glove with heavy ridges on the back. I took out a length of rubber hose and a pair of lemon squeezers. I brought them to the table and laid them down.

“Mr. John,” the Chief said again, this time in a tighter voice.

I looked at him then. “I’m going to find out,” I said in a quiet voice. “Miss Millie was my teacher in the tenth grade. She was a fine old lady.”

“Don’t get personal about it, Mr. John,” he said. He motioned toward the equipment on the table. “I’ve warned you about these things.”

“If you don’t like it, fire me. But just give me half an hour,” I said. “I’ll know by then.”

The kid was looking at the Chief’s kindly face. He watched the Chief’s eyes waver away from mine, saw him turn his back. “I’d better go see how the men are doing,” he said, muttering the words as he hurried out of the room.

It was pretty much of a standard routine that we’d worked out over the years. It made me the villain of the piece and later on, if need be, the Chief could come back and be buddy-buddy with the suspect. Usually he didn’t have to work that part. Not after I got through.

Now, I’m not fond of the third-degree method, even if I am tough enough for my job. I’ve always considered it a failure when I had to lay a hand on a guy. It’s all in the atmosphere. If you can shake the bravado out of him you’ll generally get close enough to the truth. Lots of guys you can hurt and never find out a thing. Most guys can stand hurting a lot better than they can stand the thought of hurting.

I nodded at the patrolman and he went out too. Then I looked at the kid again.

“Let’s start telling,” I said.

He was as pale as clay. His hands lying on the table were trembling and he knotted them together. “There’s nothing to tell,” he said. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

I picked up the rubber hose and bounced it off the palm of my hand. I kept on bouncing it and his eyes followed it, hypnotized, as it moved limberly in my hand.

“That old lady was lying up there on the kitchen floor with her head bashed in,” I said in a quiet voice. “You didn’t even do it until you’d eaten the meal that she gave you, there on the end of the kitchen table. Or maybe you killed her and then ate the meal. I don’t know. Then you searched the house. You found the money. You took the lapel watch off her body. Then you left. Like an idiot, you started right out of town on the highway, where you were picked up. Didn’t you know you’d be picked up? Wasn’t that kind of stupid of you?”

“I didn’t kill her,” he said. His voice was low, hopeless. But it was insistent.

“Take off your shirt,” I said.

His hands flew to the buttons as though he was glad to please me with something. He fumbled at the job and it took him a while to get the first three buttons undone. Then he stopped.

“All right,” he said. “I’ll tell you about it.”

“Talk,” I said, not easing the pressure at all.

“There was a guy,” he said in a fast voice. “I met him out by the railroad tracks, where I was planning to spend the night. He was drunk and he offered me a drink. He had two pints of Cabin Hollow com whiskey. We had some drinks together. After a while he passed out.” He looked up at me. He had some of his defiance back. “So I rolled him. That’s where I got the watch and the money. He had all that money on him.”

“That’s a pretty good story,” I said. “Too bad it’s not the truth.”

“It is the truth. He was already drunk when I got with him. He passed out in fifteen minutes.” He wrinkled up his face. “And that com whiskey — it was awful...” His voice ran down.

“Describe the man.”

“He was tall, shabbier-looking than me. He had a long face and real big hands. His skin was dead-white and he was nearly bald. His feet were big, too, I remember them.”

I put the rubber hose down on the table. I sat down in a chair. I looked at the boy. I hadn’t really looked at him before. You don’t want to look too deep into a guy you’ve got to get tough with. Just let him be a face where you can see the reactions moving through him, see whether you’re succeeding or not.

But I really looked at him now. He had a friendly kind of face. There was the kind of toughness there you pick up when you’re on the road young. But it was an open face, too, in spite of being frightened and nervous. You could tell he’d been picked up in strange towns before.

When you’ve been a cop as long as I have, you go on instinct more than you go on fact. That’s why I don’t have much use for these young fellows and their F.B.I.-taught methods — they don’t leave any room for a cop’s instinct.

The kid’s story had the feel of truth in it. Looking at him, I just knew in my bones he was the kind that was perfectly capable of rolling a drunk. But the capability in him didn’t reach as far as cold-blooded murder. There were no real facts to pin it on, only his bald statement — except that he’d described very accurately our town drunk. But I knew that I had hold of the truth now, like holding one end of a string.

I know that a man can kill his mother and smile and smile and keep smiling. But I could feel the innocence in this kid, and that was why I’d been uneasy ever since I’d first laid eyes on him, why I’d had to push myself through the routines of the questioning. Hell, I liked the kid. If he had really murdered old Miss Burden, I just couldn’t have liked him.

He began to get more and more nervous as I sat staring at him. He couldn’t look directly at me, and he couldn’t look away.

“Where are you from, son?” I said finally. “What are you doing on the road, anyway?”

“I’m from Canton, Missouri,” he said. He tried to smile but he didn’t make much out of it. “I’m on the road because I just like to travel, I guess.”

“Where did you pick up the description of the man you said you rolled?” I said. “Did you see him on the street somewhere?”

He made a brave show of looking straight into my eyes but he couldn’t manage it. “I met him out by the railroad yards,” he said. “Like I said.”

I got up from the chair. I went to the door and called the patrolman. “Take him back to his cell,” I told him.

I watched the two of them go down the corridor. The boy, from the back, had a good pair of shoulders, leaning down to narrow hips. He’d never be a slob like me. I’ve always been big-hipped, even when I was a kid. Well, a man gets used to his own ugliness, I reckon — especially when it’s useful in his work. I went to the office. The Chief looked up from his desk when I came in. “Is he ready for a statement?” he said. He motioned toward a patrolman. “Sam here is waiting to take it down when you’re ready.”

“No,” I said. “He’s not ready.”

The Chief lifted his head again, looking at me sharply. “What’s the matter, Mr. John?”

“Maybe there won’t be a statement,” I said. “Maybe the boy is innocent.”

“Oh, for Pete’s sake,” the Chief said. “You expect us to start believing in miracles? He’s a road kid. He’s got the money on him and he’s got the watch. I figure it would take a jury about fifteen minutes. What more do you want?”

I could feel the stubbornness coming up in me. The same kind of stubbornness that the boy had shown. “I don’t doubt that,” I said. “Nobody would feel very bad about hanging Miss Burden’s murder on him. The Prosecutor could rant and rave to his heart’s content. The Judge could be wise and legal. The jury could be self-righteous as hell. A good time would be had by all.”

“What’s the matter with you, anyway?”

I laid my hand flat on his desk, leaning on it. “I tell you he’s not guilty.”

He drew away from me. I kept on looking at him. I was on the force before he was. He was Chief now and I would never be Chief — never in a million years. But he knew me. I was Mr. John.

“What makes you think so?” he said in a respectful voice.

I relaxed. “He’s got a good story,” I said. “A pretty good story. Told me how he got the money and the watch. He found Peanuts Morgan drunk and he rolled him.”

“How do you know it was Peanuts?”

“Described him to a T. You couldn’t mistake him for anybody else.”

The Chief sat still for a moment in thought. Peanuts Morgan was the town character. An alcoholic, he was dim-witted in an amiable sort of way. He lived in an old shack out across the railroad tracks, making his living and his drinking money by shining shoes on the Square, by running errands, and by begging. Once in a while we had to pick him up and dry him out People remembered when he was a star basketball player — that was a lot of years ago — and once in a while they’d give him enough money or whiskey to really tie one on.

“Peanuts isn’t exactly an upright citizen,” the Chief said. “But he’s always been as harmless as they come.”

“He murdered Miss Millie,” I said violently.

“How do you figure that? Just because the kid... Why, that kid would lie in his teeth to get out of this rap.”

I was breathing hard. “He wasn’t lying,” I said. “And it would be easy for Peanuts. You know Miss Millie fed him now and then because she taught him in school. She wouldn’t pay any attention to him. Maybe while he was eating she took the money out of the sugar bowl for some reason. He took one look and went crazy in the head, thinking about how much liquor all that money would buy.”

The Chief sighed. “All right,” he said. “We’ll pick him up.”

“I’ll pick him up,” I said. “And when I get him I’m going to learn the truth.”

“Sure,” the Chief said soothingly. “We’ll work the same game.”

I stopped at the door. “You can’t scare Peanuts,” I said. “He’s not bright enough.” I could feel the grimness in my mind. “But I’ll get the truth. The only way there is to get it.”

I didn’t bother to look for him downtown. I headed out across the railroad tracks toward his shack. I was driving fast when I bounced across the high railroad grade and went down the other side. I could feel the conviction riding me hard and I couldn’t wait to prove that me and the boy were right. It’s crazy when you think about it. A tough cop like me, who’s heard it all, the way I began believing that boy the minute I looked at him.

It wasn’t anything I could put my finger on. But I’ve listened to men lying for years. Most people just automatically lie to a cop. And you get to where you can feel the guilt inside of them, no matter what their face or their voice is saying. But that kind was as open as a book.

I banged on the door of the shack, then I shoved it open. Peanuts was lying on his broken-down bed, snoring. I went over to him, grabbed him by the shoulder, jerked him off the bed. He came up thrashing and yelling. I jammed him back against the wall and put the cuffs on him. I fanned him but he didn’t have a thing except a nearly empty pint of Cabin Hollow com in his front overalls pocket. I looked at it, tossed it on the bed.

“What... what’s the trouble, Mr. John?” Peanuts said in a shaking voice.

I put my face close to his. “Why did you kill Miss Millie?”

He collapsed. I could see the collapse inside his raddled face. I shoved him toward the door without waiting for an answer, stooping to pick up the pint bottle, and hustled him to the car.

In five minutes we were back in the jail. I led him into and through the Chief’s office, shaking my head when he started to rise from his desk to follow us. I put him into a chair in the Interrogation Room.

He was shaking all over. “My God, Mr. John,” he said. “Whatever makes you think I killed Miss Millie? Why, she fed me, she...”

I stared down at him. He was a wreck of a man. He’d been a star basketball center on the high school team many years ago. He’d been tall enough for the job, fast enough. For two seasons, mostly because of him, the local team was undefeated. Now he was a raddled, half-witted bum, no use to himself or anybody else.

“Where did you get the whiskey?” I said.

He brightened. “A kid gave it to me. Took it right out of his suitcase and told me I could have it. He had two whole pints and he...”

I could feel myself getting mad. He was dim-witted, all right, but not so he couldn’t think of something. They can all think of something when it’s murder.

“You’re going to confess,” I told him. I could feel the hardness in my voice. “Before I leave this room you’re going to sign a statement.”

He looked into my ugly face and shrank back into his chair from what he saw.

Forty-five minutes later I walked into the Chief’s office. I was sweating and shaking in a way I’d never been before. I’d done things I’d never done before, too.

“Go on in and take it down,” I said to the patrolman. “Tell him I said word for word, or I’m coming back in there.”

The patrolman went out with his shorthand pad. The Chief stared at me. “You mean he confessed?”

“He confessed,” I said. “It was him, just like I told you.”

I stood up, then, and picked up the key ring. I went back down the corridor to the boy’s cell. I unlocked the door and opened it.

“All right,” I said. “I got it out of him.”

I watched his face. It lit up from inside and it came all the way out, the way he was feeling. I guess my face was trying to show something, too. He stood up from the bunk and for the first time he was really shook.

“You mean... you mean I can go now? I don’t have to...”

“Not yet,” I said. “There’ll be a trial and you’ll be the principal witness. About him having the whiskey and the money and the watch. That, together with his confession... It’ll be next week, because court session starts then and this town won’t want to wait a year to see justice done.”

“Do I have to stay in jail until then?”

I thought about it. “If you won’t leave town...”

His shoulders slumped. “How can I stay?” he said. “No place to live, no money to eat on. I guess I’ll have to stay in jail.”

“You can come out to my place,” I said then. “If you want to do that.”

He looked at me and for the first time he smiled. It was a good kind of smile, that warmed you all the way through and made you grateful you’d been able to do something to bring it out.

He stayed at my place on the lake for three days. I was glad to have him because it’s lonesome out there sometimes. Besides, I liked the kid the minute I laid eyes on him. He was grateful to me for saving his neck, too, and that’s not hard to take, even when you’re a tough cop. Maybe especially when you’re a tough cop.

I took him fishing a couple of times. He liked that We talked a lot, when I was off-duty and could spend time out there. He was nervous about the trial, but I assured him. I told him he wouldn’t even need a court-appointed attorney, because there wouldn’t be any charges against him for rolling Peanuts. I’d see to that.

I’d never had a visitor before. I keep pretty much to myself, anyway. I never could find a woman who could stand my ugly face and my rough ways, and most people don’t trust a cop enough to like him. So off-duty I read a good bit and I fished a lot, a lonely kind of life but all right for the likes of me.

I enjoyed having the boy around. I might as well admit it. He softened me, maybe, had from the very first, but maybe a guy needs softening once in a while. If I’d ever had a son, I’d have wanted him to be like Billy Roberts. But then if I’d had a son he’d have probably looked just like me.

On the third day Peanuts Morgan hung himself in his cell. I found out about it when I checked in. I went right back to the cabin. Billy was sitting on the screened porch when I drove up. I got out of the car and went up the steps, opened the screen door.

“Well,” I said. “There won’t be a trial after all.”

He looked up at me very quickly. “What happened?” He started standing up.

“Peanuts Morgan killed himself,” I said. “Hung himself in his cell last night, with the belt that the stupid jailer forgot to take away from him.”

Billy sat down slowly. “Now why would he do a thing like that?”

“I guess he finally sobered up enough to realize what he’d done, to understand that he was going to die in the electric chair,” I said. “Either that, or be sent to the hospital for the criminally insane.”

Billy put his hands over his face. I could see that he was shaking. “That poor guy,” he said.

“Don’t let it throw you,” I said. “It’s just one of those things.”

He looked at me in a peculiar sort of way. “I guess I’d better be on my way,” he said. “I want to thank you, Mr. John, for all that you’ve done.” He shivered. “If it hadn’t been for you, it would have been me in that cell.”

I looked into his face. “You don’t have to go,” I said. “I can find you a job here, a good job. You can stay out here with me until you get on your feet. You’ve got to quit rambling one of these days, son. It might as well be here and now. Maybe the next trouble you get into...”

His face sobered. “You’re right, Mr. John,” he said. “But I’m going home.” He lifted his head, looking at me. “I owe it to my family, Mr. John. Go back and show them I’m through with living the way I’ve been living. Maybe one of these days I can come back here.”

I hated to see him go. But it satisfied me. He went inside and packed his old suitcase. Then I volunteered to drive him out to the highway. I could have offered him money for a bus ticket, but I knew he wouldn’t take it.

We were silent in the car. There wasn’t much to say, I guess. It had been a good time, having that boy staying with me, and now it was over and I was still a tough cop in a small town.

I stopped the car at a good place for hitchhiking and got out of the car when he got out. He hefted his suitcase in one hand.

“Goodbye, Mr. John,” he said.

“Goodbye, son,” I said. “Keep your nose clean now. You might not be so lucky next time.”

I don’t know why. Maybe he just couldn’t hold it in any longer. Maybe he couldn’t bear me not knowing what I’d done. Maybe he wanted to show me how soft I’d gone inside.

“You’re right,” he said. His face did not change at all — it stayed open and friendly and handsome as all hell; the face of a nice kid that even a tough old cop like me couldn’t help but like. “It would be hard to find another cop as stupid as you are.”

It was like a blow in the face.

I shocked back an involuntary step, the way a man does when he’s hit by a bullet.

“You killed her,” I said.

“Sure,” he said. “I knocked off the old lady.”

I took a step toward him. “You...”

“What are you going to do about it?” he said. “Take me back and tell them you made a little mistake, that you beat a confession out of the wrong man and now that man has killed himself? You’re hooked, copper. You’re hooked good and solid. You can’t ever tell anybody what you did.”

He was dead-right I could never tell them how wrong I’d been. Besides, Peanuts was dead now. Dead and gone. With his signed confession that I guess any man, dim-witted and addled with whiskey or not, would have signed to stop what I was doing to him.

But my boy Billy forgot one thing. I’m tough enough for the job. For any job that comes along. He forgot that one thing.

I shot him right between the eyes. And I watched him kick and fall.