Reardon

Chapter 4

Tuesday — 10:45 P.M.

Lundahl was waiting in the small glass-enclosed anteroom to Reardon’s office when the stocky lieutenant returned to headquarters. The big man tilted his head toward the open door of the office; Crocker could be seen inside, sitting rigidly on a hard chair beside the empty desk. His face was expressionless; he seemed to be looking at a calendar on the wall across from him without seeing it. Reardon found this hard to believe; whoever had posed for the picture on that calendar certainly did not expect to be overlooked. The tall, thin man’s hands were folded in his lap, the knuckles white.

“He wanted to call a lawyer,” Lundahl said. “I suggested he wait until you got back here. I told him if he called now he wouldn’t even know what to tell the guy.” He remembered something else. “Oh yeah — We let him blow into the bottle; I told Wilkins I’d take care of that for him. The lab says zero. I didn’t even fill out an Alcohol Influence Form.”

Reardon nodded and walked into the room. Crocker swung around on his chair, his voice exasperated, as if he had reached the limit of his patience. His former nervousness seemed to have disappeared now that he was no longer in the street with the body.

“Now, see here, Lieutenant, what goes on here? Your man here won’t even let me call my lawyer!”

Reardon shed his jacket, hung it on a hook back of the door, and dropped wearily into his chair. He shifted his belt holster a bit so it wouldn’t bite into his hip, and fished the driver’s license from his pants pocket, studying it silently. When he was through he tossed it on the desk and looked at the sullen face before him.

“Mr. Crocker, you have every right to call your lawyer. If you want to call him, go ahead. But my honest suggestion would be that you let us put you up for the night and call him tomorrow, because a judge has to set your bail, and no judge is available at this hour to do it. Tomorrow afternoon in Municipal Court — it’s down on the second floor of this building — at two o’clock — you can be represented by as many lawyers as you want. In the meantime—” He shrugged, his voice trailing off.

Crocker stared at him.

“Bail? What bail? It was an accident, Lieutenant! My God! Some absolute stranger, probably drunk, steps in front of my car and I’m in trouble! It wasn’t my fault, I tell you! Why should I even be held at all, let alone asked to go bail?”

“Because whether it was an accident or not, you killed a man,” Reardon said flatly. “You took a man’s life, and there are no witnesses as to the circumstance under which you took it.” He held up a hand to prevent the flow of rebuttal from Crocker. “Technically, you could be booked on a manslaughter charge right now, and if you insist on it, I’ll be glad to do it. So you can call your lawyer or a dozen of them, but you’ll spend the night here in any event. Is that clear? I’m just trying to make it easy on you, but if you want it the hard way, be my guest.”

He shoved the phone across the desk. The thin man reached for it, hesitated a moment, and then withdrew his hand. Reardon waited a moment and then tugged on the cord, pulling the phone back to its original position.

“Is there anyone else you want to call? Your wife? Your family? Anyone expecting you anywhere?” He raised an admonitory finger. “Just remember, you’re not being denied the telephone.”

“Nobody,” Crocker said dully. “I have no family.”

Reardon looked at him steadily. “I’d like to ask you a few questions if you don’t mind, and then I’d suggest you get some rest. Everything will work itself out tomorrow. All right?”

Crocker looked up. “I told that accident man at the scene everything he needed for his report.”

“Well, some of this may be a repetition, then, but some of it won’t. Okay?”

Crocker merely nodded. Reardon leaned back in his chair; Lundahl straddled a hard chair on the side of the desk opposite Crocker. Reardon picked up a pencil and brought a pad closer to him.

“First of all, where do you live?”

“The Martinique Apartments over on Second between Harrison and Folsom.”

“Lived there long?”

Crocker shrugged. “Year now, I guess. Why?”

“Just curious. Don’t worry about the questions, just answer them. What do you do for a living?”

“I’m not working just now.”

“What did you do when you did work?”

“I was a salesman.” He hesitated. “Door to door.”

“I see.” Reardon thought a moment and then looked up. “You say you stopped over on Army Street for a sandwich and a cup of coffee. Do you remember the exact place?”

“Of course I remember the place. It’s called the Mess Hall — probably because it’s on Army Street, I guess. It’s a block down from Missouri. I left there at eight-thirty on the button; I remember looking at my watch. And I cut over to Indiana and this guy—” He stopped dead. “Anyway, I called in as soon as I saw the phone booth, but it wasn’t any more than five minutes after I left the restaurant.” He looked bitter. “If there had been a policeman anywhere around...”

Reardon hadn’t put a note down; he was merely twiddling the pencil idly. Stan Lundahl lit a cigarette and waited, watching. Reardon reached out his hand; Lundahl gave him a cigarette and also lit it. As an afterthought he offered the pack to Crocker, but the tall man merely shook his head. Reardon exhaled and returned to his questioning.

“What brought you to Army Street?”

Crocker looked surprised. “You’ve got to eat someplace, don’t you? And I happen to know the counterman there. He’s somebody to talk to, and I don’t have too many of those.” He thought of something else. “How long are you going to hold my car? I don’t have the dough for taxis.”

“The technical squad will have to examine it, but it shouldn’t be long,” Reardon said and sighed. He crushed out his cigarette; Lundahl’s eyebrows went up at the waste of tobacco. What questions to ask? I’m tired, he thought; and I could stand some food myself. And why in hell wouldn’t Jan take two minutes and let me explain that I was trying to get there sooner, not later! He realized Crocker was waiting and brought his mind back to the affair, asking his next question almost without thinking.

“You were over on Army near Missouri, and you were going to Second between Harrison and Folsom. Right?”

“That’s right.”

“How come you didn’t take the Freeway? A block up on Army and you’re on it; it lets you off at Bryant and Fourth and you’re practically home.” Even as he asked it, Reardon’s brow wrinkled. It was a better question than he had meant to ask.

Crocker shook his head. “Because I never go on the skyways, Lieutenant. Because I don’t drive as fast as the people who use them, and frankly I don’t want an accident.” He seemed to realize his words sounded strange in the circumstances, but let them stand. “Anyway, I stick to the city streets. Up until tonight I’ve never even had a scratched fender.”

Lundahl leaned forward. “But you could have gone down Army to Iowa and caught the new extension. It would have gotten you at least to Mariposa, and there’s no traffic at all on her. That’s halfway home.”

Crocker faced this new inquisitor. “I told you. I don’t use the skyways. If it pleases you, I’m not the bravest driver in the world, and my car isn’t the newest.”

“True,” Lundahl murmured and leaned back again.

Reardon started to yawn and forced it back. He tried to think of more questions and couldn’t.

“I think that’s all for now, Mr. Crocker.”

Crocker looked properly relieved and rose dutifully. Lundahl unstraddled himself from his chair and moved around the desk.

“I’d suggest one of the trustee’s cells, Lieutenant.” He turned to Crocker. “They’re not locked.”

“All right,” Crocker said. He seemed to be too tired and dejected by the tragic events of the past few hours to argue about anything. “All right.”

“And that’s all I’ll need you for, Stan,” Reardon said. “You can go back to what you were doing.”

Lundahl grinned. “I was getting ready to go home when they caught me. I’ll be happy to go back to doing it. It’ll be a nice surprise for my family.” He left the room with Crocker; his place in the doorway was taken by Sergeant Wilkins, who stared after the two a moment and then came into the room. Reardon swiveled his chair in his direction, the pencil bobbing in his fingers, looking at the other expectantly.

“Well?”

Wilkins grinned. “You really want to get into Traffic, don’t you? Because Homicide this ain’t!” His grin faded. “Everything points to the way the man says. Skid marks are normal for an accident of that kind. The street lighting is terrible on that street — in that whole part of Potrero, as a matter of fact — and the headlights on that old Buick pull a bit to the left anyway. Which means that a man stepping off the curb without looking — especially someone wearing dark clothes—” He shook his head with genuine disgust. “One of the mysteries of life — or death — that I’ll never solve, is why people think they can be automatically seen by the driver of a car just because they can see him.” He shrugged. “A guy stepping off a curb at night is asking for it.”

“Could he have been drunk?”

Wilkins shook his head. “I was there when they finally loaded him into Danny’s taxi and I didn’t smell anything. They could check it with a blood test if you think it would make any difference, but it seems to me it would only make the driver that much more innocent.”

“True,” Reardon admitted.

“There was one thing though—” Wilkins hesitated.

Reardon looked up. “Which is?”

“Well, this character who got killed. He had a money clip on him with twenty-eight dollars in it — nothing spectacular, just normal, I’d say — but he didn’t have a wallet. What I mean, no identification.”

“What?” Reardon stared at him.

“That’s right. No wallet, no cards, no receipts, no nothing with his name on it. He’s downstairs as an Unknown.”

“What else was he carrying outside of money?”

“A handkerchief, some keys — not car keys, or at least not like any car key for an American car I’ve seen; they looked like regular door keys — and maybe a dollar or so in loose change. It’s all exact on the report. And he had some junk in his pocket. That’s about it.”

“Junk?”

“Nothing of importance. I’ll have the complete list in the report.”

Reardon frowned. “No identification...” He looked up. “Did you print him?”

“I didn’t, but the morgue knows we don’t have a make on him, so they’ll probably print him automatically.” He glanced at his watch. “If not tonight, tomorrow morning.”

“And where’s the car?”

“Down in the garage in the basement, but there’s nobody around to give it a check. They’ll do it in the morning, but I honestly don’t know what you expect them to find. Those old-time Buicks were built. Hell, the bumper on this one wasn’t hardly even marked, and the hood wasn’t touched. And the headlights—?” He shrugged. “You saw them. Not a scratch let alone broken.” He sighed. “Hell, they don’t build cars that way any more. My heap, I nudge a goddamn bush, it stoves in a door.” He looked around. “By the way, where is our boy? I’d like to talk to him a couple of minutes, just to finish my report.”

“He said you asked him everything at the scene.”

Wilkins grinned. With his broken nose it made him look even more sneering than usual. “Hell, he don’t know the guy who designed the San Francisco Police Department Vehicle Accident Report. I’ve been filling them out for over fifteen years, and I never got all of the questions first crack out of the box yet. They got stuff inside of stuff. Inside of stuff.”

Reardon smiled with him.

“Well, he’s upstairs on the fifth floor in the city jail, in the trustee’s section with an open door.”

“I know it well. I won’t take up much of his time. Personally, I feel sorry for the poor bastard.” He glanced at his watch. “Then I’ll type up all of our lovely forms. The pictures I took at the scene should be ready by the time I’m through. I’ll leave copies of everything on your desk. Who knows? You may be in Traffic tomorrow.”

“You could be right.” Reardon winked at the other. “And thanks.”

“For what?” Wilkins asked and left the room.

Reardon’s grin faded; he frowned at the wall somberly for a few moments and then came to his feet. He slipped the driver’s license into the top drawer of his desk and walked over, getting his jacket, shrugging himself into it. There wasn’t anything further to be done that night regarding the case, if anything had to be done on his part at all, and he didn’t feel much like doing it even if there was. His hunger had left him but he knew a sandwich would bring it back; the big question was did he stop somewhere for one, or did he go home and make one à la Dondero. Decisions, decisions, he thought with a faint smile, looked around the office a moment as if searching for something that wasn’t there, and then shrugged. With a sigh he flicked off the lights and went out, closing the door behind him.

Captain Tower was walking in his direction.

“Hello, Jim.” His voice was deceptively friendly.

“Hello, Captain.” Reardon looked surprised. “Did the meeting last this long?”

“The meeting? No. It ended a few minutes after you left. Incidentally, how’s the Traffic Department?”

“Well, sir, there wasn’t anyone else available—”

Captain Tower looked at him sternly for a moment and then his face broke into a rueful grin. “Jim, one of these days one of your cute stunts is going to get you into trouble. Why did you do it? You didn’t even know what it was all about.”

“I knew what it wasn’t all about. It wasn’t a meeting, and that was enough.” He shook his head. “I’m sorry, Captain, but I got punished.”

“Why? Was it a bad one?”

“No,” Reardon said. “It was an automobile accident. A man stepped off the curb in front of a car and got killed. But it got me in a jam with Jan.”

Captain Tower smiled. “You get in jams with her fairly often, don’t you?” He shook his head. “Why don’t you let her make an honest man out of you, Jim?”

“One reason,” Reardon explained, “is that right now she isn’t even talking to me. And a better one is that she doesn’t think police work is the sort of thing she wants hung around her lovely neck for the rest of her life.” He put the thought to one side, changing the subject. “About this accident, Captain—”

“Yes?”

“There are couple of things that bug me about it.”

Captain Tower studied the younger man shrewdly. Lieutenant Jim Reardon was one of his best men, with initiative, understanding, and a genuine devotion to his work, and the captain knew and appreciated it. He also respected hunches, not only his own, but those of his men. True, on occasion, such as this evening, Lieutenant James Reardon had a tendency to bend the rules a bit, but it wasn’t the first time and the captain knew it probably wouldn’t be the last. Still, the lieutenant usually managed to come up smiling, and the captain didn’t believe it could all be luck.

“What’s on your mind?” He noticed the other’s hesitation, and added, “Would you like to sit down and talk about it?”

“If you’ve got the time,” Reardon said. He led the way back into his darkened office, flipping the light switch, dropping into his chair back of the desk. Behind him, through the window, the lights of San Francisco at night climbed the hills in strings of pearls. Captain Tower took a chair beside the desk, watching the younger man.

“Well?”

Reardon picked up a pencil and began to play with it absently, thinking.

“For one thing, Captain,” he said slowly, “the man who was killed didn’t carry any identification. He had money on him in a money clip, and he had keys and the normal things you carry in your pockets, but he didn’t have a wallet. He didn’t have anything with his name on it.”

“Well,” Captain Tower said thoughtfully, “I can picture one circumstance at least when a man might not have his wallet on him. Haven’t you ever gone across the street for a pack of cigarettes or a paper and not bothered taking your wallet with you? When you have change, or money like he did?”

“As a matter of fact, I haven’t,” Reardon said evenly. “My badge is in my wallet, and my I.D. card. I doubt if you ever have, Captain. But I could still understand what you mean, except this accident took place on Indiana near Eighteenth, down near the docks. It isn’t a residential neighborhood by a long shot — not a house in sight. And no stores around to buy anything. And the way this man was dressed — the victim — he looked as if he was on his way to a night on the town.” He frowned. “That’s also odd. He had twenty-eight dollars on him, plus some change. That doesn’t pay for much of a night on this town.”

“So maybe he wasn’t on his way to a night on the town. What else?”

“Well, this Ralph Crocker — he was driving the car — was on Army Street in a restaurant and on his way home to the Martinique Apartments on Second between Harrison and Folsom. Now the Skyway runs from almost where he was to where he was going, but he was driving those dark, dockside roads, full of holes and half of them blocked with construction. I asked him why, and he said he was scared of the traffic on the freeways...”

“Lots of people are, you know,” Captain Tower said.

“But at that hour they’re practically empty. Somehow it just struck me as odd. And another thing, when I finished questioning him I suggested he stay in a cell here for the night — a trustee’s cell with the door open, but a cell just the same — and not call his lawyer until after his hearing in Municipal Court tomorrow afternoon. And he agreed. Or at least he didn’t call a lawyer.”

Reardon leaned forward, putting the pencil aside, staring at the captain.

“Now, that is odd. To me, that is extremely odd. I know I haven’t been on the force half as long as a lot of others, but I’ve been on it long enough to know that no man involved in an accident — especially one where a life is lost — is not going to call for help no matter what the time of the day or night, and no matter how much it inconveniences anyone. But Crocker let it go at that.”

“Did you book him?”

“No, sir. As I said, he’s in an open cell. Just spending the night as our guest.”

“Who was on the APB car?”

“Frank Wilkins, sir. Sergeant Wilkins.”

“He’s a good man. Did he give you any reason to believe it wasn’t an accident?” He paused significantly. “In other words, any reason our department should be involved?”

“No. As a matter of fact, Frank is convinced it was an accident.”

“Do you have any reason to disagree with him?”

Reardon hesitated a moment and then shook his head. “Just the ones I’ve given you, sir.”

Captain Tower came to his feet with an air of finality.

“In that case, Jim, I suggest you release the man on his own cognizance and turn the whole business over to Traffic. They’ll have him in court tomorrow and it’s their baby.” He shook his head. “Captain Clark in Traffic is going to be unhappy enough with your sticking your nose into their business, but that’s the least of it. Some reporter fresh out of journalism school could get hold of a story like this and make a big thing out of nothing at all. A man in a cell without a charge in a case where our own accident squad sergeant says it’s a clear-cut accident — well, it’s precisely the sort of publicity the police department doesn’t need. Especially in these days.”

Reardon picked up his pencil, twiddling it.

“All right, Captain. But I’d like to see that old Buick impounded—”

“Is that the accident car? Didn’t Wilkins examine it?”

“He didn’t have time tonight. But I’d like a real checkup on that car, not just a quick one-two-three.” He caught the captain’s quizzical eye on him and smiled faintly. “No, sir; I don’t know why.”

“Jim,” Captain Tower said, “let me tell you something. First, I think you’re trying to justify doing something tonight that was against regulations; if you can make even the slightest case for anything other than accident, even if it doesn’t stick in court, you figure you’re off the hook. Well, you won’t be — not with Captain Clark nor with me. Second, I also think you’re mad at the driver because his accident managed to get you in a scrape with Jan.” The captain was serious and Reardon knew it. “Well, the first is bad police work and the second is frivolous. You send Crocker home and tell him to be here for Municipal Court at two o’clock tomorrow afternoon.”

“Yes, sir.”

“And in the morning talk to Traffic and drop it. And right now go home and get some sleep.” The captain’s voice was no longer stern; he sounded sympathetic. “You look as if you could use some.”

“Yes, sir,” Reardon said and proved the captain’s contention with a sudden yawn. He allowed it to carry into an extensive stretch and grinned, coming to his feet. “Yes, sir...”