Shield for Murder

10

Mark Brewster called the desk the next afternoon at four-thirty. He had spent the day trying to work on his book, and trying to keep his mind off Nolan and his girl, Linda Wade. Neither attempt had been very successful. He knew that she would probably tell Nolan about their conversation; and he didn’t like to think what that might mean.

The desk had nothing for him but a message to call Linda Wade at Pennypacker 2964.

“When did that come in?” he said.

“It must have been early this morning. Thompson took it and he starts at three.”

“Okay, thanks.”

Mark dialed the Pennypacker number and she answered almost immediately.

“Hello, this is Mark Brewster,” he said. “I just got your message.”

“It’s good of you to call,” she said, rather hesitantly. “I asked the man at the paper for your home telephone, but he told me that was against some regulation or other.”

“Yes, they don’t want Hollywood producers luring us away from the newspaper business,” Mark said. He was trying to be casual because her voice was tight and strained. “What’s up?”

“I’d like to talk to you this afternoon, if I may. I believe it’s important.”

“Certainly, I’ll come right over.”

“Please hurry, Mark.”

She met him at the door of her apartment fifteen minutes later. They sat down and he saw that she seemed tired and nervous.

“Well?” he said.

She met his eyes for a moment, then glanced at the floor. “After the way I acted yesterday, this isn’t too easy for me,” she said.

“Let’s don’t worry about that,” he said. “Obviously, something’s happened to change your mind. What was it?”

“Last night Barny gave me a package to keep for him. He said it was evidence in one of his cases.”

“Oh? What was in it?” Mark said, with only a trace of excitement in his voice.

“I haven’t looked yet. I... I wanted to believe he was telling me the truth, Mark.”

“Well, supposing you get the package and we’ll see if he’s telling the truth or not.”

She hesitated, then said: “It doesn’t seem fair, somehow.”

Mark leaned back in the chair, and lit a cigarette. “What was the idea of calling me? If you’re loyal to him, I’m not the one to talk to.”

“I do feel loyal to him, but, that isn’t it, Mark. I don’t want to be involved in this at all. He may be everything you say he is, but he’s treated me decently, and I don’t want to be the one to sell him out. Can’t you understand that?”

“Frankly, no. You can’t remain loyal to him unless you’ve got a pretty undiscriminating set of loyalties.”

“That’s not fair,” she said, and her eyes met his angrily. “I’m scared and I’m mixed-up, and everything doesn’t fall into neat black-and-white patterns the way it seems to for you.”

“That’s an interesting comment on your personality type, but pretty irrelevant,” Mark said dryly. “Nolan is a murderer, and that’s a fact you can’t reassess by talking about black-and-white patterns.”

“You don’t have the slightest sympathy for him, do you?”

“I’m afraid not, Linda.”

“You’re lucky to be so sure of yourself,” she said. She seemed very vulnerable then, and he felt a tiny, annoying pang of jealousy for Nolan. “This thing might not be totally his fault,” she said. “He hadn’t had the sort of background that develops very strong moral values.”

Mark held up a hand. “Please spare me the sad songs about environmental moulding. The society we live in holds people responsible for what they do, whether they come from South Philadelphia or the Main Line. That may or may not be a just and equitable set-up, but it’s the one we have to work with. So let’s leave determinism to the professors, shall we?”

“You don’t know him at all.”

“Well, I don’t know him as well as you, obviously. I haven’t had your opportunity or, should I say, endowments?”

“That’s a sophomoric comment,” she said angrily.

Mark sighed. “I suggest we stop quibbling about it. Supposing you get the package. That will settle it pretty much one way or the other.”

She left the room and returned a few moments later with the newspaper-wrapped bundle. Mark took it from her and held it in his hands. Then he untied the knots at one end of the package and turned back the paper carefully. He could see the ends of a sheaf of banknotes.

“That’s the money, isn’t it?” Linda said in a low voice; and the words seemed loud in the stillness of the room.

“I imagine so.” Mark pulled one bill out far enough to see its denomination. Then he nodded. “Yes, this looks like the twenty-five thousand dollars that belongs to Mike Espizito. It’s the money Dave Fiest was carrying when Nolan shot him.”

“What are you going to do now?” Linda said, turning away from him and sitting on the sofa. Her face was white, and he saw a tiny pulse beating in her throat. Oddly moved, he sat beside her and took one of her hands; but she pulled it away quickly.

“I don’t want to be comforted,” she said, half-angrily.

“Okay, okay,” he said. He re-wrapped the bundle of money, tied it securely and dropped it into her lap. “You’d better put it away,” he said.

“Aren’t you going to take it to the police?”

“I don’t know what to do,” he admitted. “This money is conclusive evidence as far as I’m concerned, but it wouldn’t be enough for a murder indictment. You see, Nolan could deny having given you the money, for one thing. Secondly, even if we could establish his possession of the money, that wouldn’t establish the fact of murder. He could conceivably wriggle out of it by saying he had taken the money but hadn’t had a chance to report it. That would stink to high heaven, and the Civil Service Commission would grab him, but it still wouldn’t prove he murdered Dave Fiest.”

Linda lit a cigarette with trembling fingers. “I can’t see him again, Mark.”

“You’ll have to, I’m afraid. You can’t let him suspect that anything has happened to change your relationship.”

“I wish you’d stop implying that we’ve been sharing a love nest,” she said irritably.

“Any way you want it,” he said, and shrugged.

They were silent a moment. Then she smiled faintly at him and shook her head. “I’m sorry,” she said.

“Forget it,” he said, but wished she’d stop jolting him off-balance with her reactions. “What did you tell Nolan about my visit here?”

“I lied to him about it, Mark. Something about him frightened me last night. I started to tell him the truth, and then, almost without realizing it, I told him that you had run him down and then asked me for a date.” She colored slightly. “That was all I could think of.”

“Well, that will probably satisfy him,” Mark said. He glanced at his watch and got to his feet. “I really don’t know what the hell to do next. Just sit tight, I guess.”

She came with him to the door. “Won’t I be able to see you again?” she said. “I suspect you think I’ve acted like a fool. But I’ll need someone to talk to, Mark.”

“That wouldn’t be smart,” he said, and, perversely, found himself enjoying her disappointment. Hell, he thought. “Okay, I’ll call you tonight, here, after your last show. We’ll have to be careful about how we get together.”

“Thanks, Mark.”

He patted her shoulder and left.

The District was quiet, Mark learned at the Sixty-fifth. He checked through the accident reports and chatted with Sergeant Brennan a while before going upstairs to the detectives division.

“Hi, ya, Scoop,” Smitty called to him as he walked around the counter. Sergeant Odell nodded at him over his paper. Lindfors and Gianfaldo were arguing about the details of a shooting that had occurred seven years ago, and Nolan was standing at the window, staring down into the street.

Mark sat on the edge of an empty desk. “Everything quiet?” he asked Odell.

“Yeah, nothing much doing,” Odell said, and went on with his careful, lip-moving perusal of the paper.

The room was hot and smelled of stale cigarette smoke, and the unshaded overhead fights revealed the cracks in the green shades, the scratches on the furniture, and the shine on Gianfaldo’s blue suit. It was, all things considered, Mark thought, a hell of a place for a man to sit around six or eight hours a day in order to make a living. He couldn’t help comparing it with Linda’s apartment.

Nolan turned from the window and walked over to him.

“I want to talk to you,” he said.

“Sure,” Mark said. He lit a cigarette and inhaled deeply. “What’s up?” He knew what was coming.

Nolan stared at him, his eyes shining and cold. “What the hell is your interest in me?” he said. “Yesterday you were out at the Forty-first checking behind me, and last night you were with—” he paused, and made an angry, impotent gesture with his hand. “You were up to the same thing with another party. What’s it all about, snoop?”

Silence had settled over the room. Odell was looking at them over his paper, his mouth opened slightly, and an expression of blank amazement on his face. Smitty and Lindfors and Gianfaldo were studiously gazing in other directions.

“I’m not sure I get you,” Mark said, easily. “I was out in Germantown yesterday, all right—”

“Yeah, I know damn well you were. And talking about me and Dave Fiest, weren’t you?”

“So were half the people in the city. It was a page one story,” Mark said.

“You and Spiegel had some ideas about the shooting, I hear,” Nolan said. “Why don’t you come to me with ’em, snoop?”

“Who’d you get this information from?” Mark said.

“I’ll ask the questions. What is it you want to find out, snoop?”

Mark saw that Nolan was setting himself to swing. He had worked himself to a point that demanded physical release; and Mark shifted slightly to get himself into position to roll with the blow.

“Hey, how about both of you guys relaxing?” Sergeant Odell said.

Nolan turned on him angrily. “How about you keeping your big trap shut.”

Sergeant Odell’s beef-red face went one shade darker as he hoisted himself from his chair and strode around in front of his desk. He pointed a finger the size of a banana at Nolan and roared: “You keep your mind on who you’re talking to, Nolan.”

Lieutenant Ramussen came out of his office and took in the scene with his cold bright eyes. “What’s all the noise about?” he asked.

Odell walked back and sat down heavily at his desk. “Nothing much, Lieutenant.” He hesitated a moment, then said: “Mark seems to be bothering Nolan somehow, and Nolan was just straightening him out.”

Ramussen glanced at Mark with a puzzled expression. “We don’t want to be bothered by reporters, Mark,” he said. “You boys are welcome here, and you get good cooperation on the news, I believe. Isn’t that right?”

“Sure,” Mark said. He met Odell’s eyes, and the sergeant reddened slightly and looked away. Mark didn’t blame him for putting him in the dog house. Every man in the room would stick for Nolan, regardless of the circumstances or their personal feelings. That was an ingrained part of their thinking. Mark surmised that most of them knew by now that Dave Fiest had been carrying twenty-five thousand dollars when he was shot; and that the money had disappeared. But blinded by an unhealthy loyalty, they’d look the other way unless forced to do something about it.

“Let’s not have any more of this sort of thing,” Ramussen said to Mark. “Understand?”

Mark glanced at Nolan who was again standing at the window; and then he nodded to Ramussen. “Sure thing, Lieutenant,” he said, and walked out of the room.

Downstairs, the hearings were just starting and the roll-call room was crowded with defendants, complainants, people in all sorts of trouble, and witnesses, lawyers, bondsmen and cops. Mark walked behind the bench and nodded to the Magistrate. He glanced down the complaint sheets but saw nothing that looked like a story. There were a few family rows, and a non-support case, an accident, and one assault and battery by milk bottle, in addition to the vags and drunks.

A Negro in incredibly tattered clothes and a uniformed patrolman stood before the bench, and the cop, tired and bored, was testifying.

“I observed this man at five o’clock this morning, Your Honor, walking east on Eleanor Street with this object in his hand.” He held up a brick.

Mark turned over the scene with Nolan in his mind, realizing with some satisfaction that the detective was edgy and nervous. One or two more bits of pressure and he might blow wide open.

The magistrate silenced the Negro by slapping the desk with his hand. “You’ll get a chance later. Officer, did he give you any trouble?”

“No, he was all right. Drunk.”

Glancing at the hearing sheets, the magistrate said: “Jeremiah Green, no address. What were you doing out at five in the morning?”

“I was mix up, Jedge. I look for my friend, Jimmy, mos’ the night, and I lucked up on him kind of late and he gimme a drink.”

“What was the brick for?”

“Fo de rat.”

There was a murmur of laughter, and the Negro bobbed his head and smiled tentatively.

“What rat?” The magistrate, who had a reputation for wit, leaned back in his chair and regarded the Negro with raised eyebrows.

“De rat is where I sleep, Jedge.”

“I thought you told the House Sergeant you had no address?”

“It ain’t got any address, Jedge. It’s a box and I move it ’roun. The rat comes in a hole, and I’se chockin’ it wit de brick.”

There was laughter from the crowd which the magistrate indulgently allowed to continue. He was laughing himself. Mark put his copy paper in his pocket, stepped down from the bench and walked into the empty corridor. He felt tired and depressed, partly because of the brush with Nolan, and partly because people like the old Negro always made him wonder what in hell was wrong with this best of all possible worlds.

Richardson Cabot came in the front door of the station, his cigarette holder cocked at a jaunty angle. He was wearing a blue suit with a blue polka dot tie, and a dark Homburg. Every inch the gentleman of the Fourth Estate, Mark thought.

“How’re things, Mark?” he said. “All quiet?”

“Looks that way. There’s nothing at the Hearings.”

“Fine, let’s go upstairs and see what the brains have cooking?”

“You go ahead, Cabot. I’m persona non grata at the moment. I had a little row with Nolan.”

“Well, I’ll be damned,” Cabot said. He flipped ashes on the floor and scowled. “You know what we used to do in the old days when one of those jug-heads got down on a reporter?”

“No,” Mark said. “What did you used to do?”

“Why we’d boycott the Division, every one of us,” Cabot said. “They’d come around after a while, begging us to put their two-bit stories in the papers, and then you know what we did?”

“No, what did you do then?”

Cabot laughed cheerfully. “We’d mix up all the detectives’ names. You see, if it was Nolan, say, who had a case, we’d have the newspaper credit it to Lindfors. We’d claim the rewrite men got things fouled up, but that brought ’em into line pretty fast.”

Mark felt sorry for Cabot, re-living this manufactured past.

“You’d better go on up there and cover for both of us,” he said.

“To hell with ’em,” Cabot said stoutly. “If they don’t want you around, I’ll stay down here.”

“No, you go on up there,” Mark said.

Cabot looked longingly at the stairs leading to the Division. He wanted with all his soul to be there with the phones, the radio, and detectives who could keep him informed. Mark knew that so he patted him on the arm and said: “You can cover for both of us, Rich. Go ahead.”

“Well, all right then,” Cabot said. He looked up the stairs and straightened his hat with a defiant gesture. “I won’t stay up there though, damn it.”

Lieutenant Ramussen came down the stairs as Cabot was going up. He nodded to Mark. “I’d like to talk to you. Got a few minutes?”

“Sure.”

Ramussen looked into the street sergeant’s office and saw that it was empty. “Let’s step in here; okay?”

Mark went in and the lieutenant closed the door. They both lit cigarettes and Ramussen put his foot on a chair and glanced at Mark with his strange pale eyes. “Now, if it’s not something personal, I’d like to know about the trouble between you and Nolan. I didn’t ask you upstairs, Mark, because, as you’ll understand, I had to presume that Nolan was in the right. But I’d like to have your version of the story.”

Mark wondered how much he could tell the lieutenant and decided not very much. “Nolan’s quick-tempered, and I seem to rub him the wrong way. That seems to be it.”

“I see.” Ramussen drew on his cigarette for a few seconds, his expression thoughtful. Then he said: “You and I have been friends for quite some time, Mark. Why aren’t you leveling with me now?”

“You wouldn’t like it if I did, Lieutenant.”

“Supposing you let me decide that.”

Mark hesitated a moment and then, with the feeling that he was making a mistake, said: “Okay, I’ll tell you the truth. I think Nolan’s a murderer. I think he murdered Dave Fiest. Nolan’s guessed that, I believe.”

Ramussen looked at Mark, and his eyes were cold and angry. “Has it occurred to you it’s none of your business?” he said.

“Unfortunately, I don’t see it that way.”

“Since you’re taking over our work, Mark, suppose you tell me why you think Nolan’s a murderer?”

“He didn’t need to shoot Dave Fiest.”

“That’s the department’s decision,” Ramussen said, and now there was no mistaking the anger in his eyes. “Every time a cop uses his gun there’s a certain element that yells for his scalp and calls him a blood-thirsty fascist. If that group had their way, the police would have to catch criminals with a butterfly net.”

“You know that isn’t my attitude.”

“I’ll be damned if I know what your attitude is.”

Mark shrugged. “I said you weren’t going to like this. I’m going ahead at your insistence, remember. There’s talk about money, Lieutenant. Twenty-five thousand dollars’ worth of it that was on Dave Fiest when he got shot.”

“That’s just talk so far. Have you seen the money?”

Mark had known from the start that he’d be on his own attempting to prove anything against Nolan. The police would act on evidence, all right, concrete evidence, without a loop-hole in it, but because they were drilled to work as a unit and think of themselves as a tight-knit pack against the world, they weren’t likely to dig up the evidence against one of their own men. That was the flaw in most cops’ minds; and that was what protected a bad cop.

And so he stared at Ramussen and said: “No, I haven’t seen any money, Lieutenant.”

Ramussen put a hand on his shoulder and shook him gently. “We shouldn’t be yapping at each other, Mark. We’ve been together too long for that. But I’ve got to say this much more: Leave the police work to us. Nolan won’t get away with anything because he’s a cop. But neither is he, or any other man of mine, going to be crucified because he is a cop. Do you understand that?”

“Yes, I think so.”

“Fine. So lay off him, understand? Let him go his own way and you go yours. Do you want me to have a talk with him, and tell him the same thing? I’ll do that if you like.”

“No, I think it would be better to let it ride.”

“All right.” Ramussen smiled at him and opened the door and went back upstairs.

Mark stared at his cigarette for a moment or so and then dropped it on the dusty floor and ground it out slowly with the heel of his shoe.