The Last Brief

Accident Report

There was a blanket thrown over the patrolman by the time we got there. The ambulance was waiting, and a white-clad intern was standing near the step of the ambulance, puffing on a cigarette.

He looked up as I walked over to him, and then flicked his cigarette away.

‘Detective Jonas,’ I said.

‘How do you do?’ the intern answered. ‘Dr. Mallaby.’

‘What’s the story?’

‘Broken neck. It must have been a big car. His chest is caved in where he was first hit. I figure he was knocked down, and then run over. The bumper probably broke his neck. That’s the cause of death, anyway.’

Andy Larson walked over to where we were standing. He shook his head and said, ‘A real bloody one, Mike.’

‘Yeah.’ I turned to the intern. ‘When was he hit?’

‘Hard to say. No more than a half-hour ago, I’d guess offhand. An autopsy will tell.’

‘That checks, Mike,’ Andy said. ‘Patrolman on the beat called it in about twenty-five minutes ago.’

‘A big car, huh?’

‘I’d say so,’ the intern answered.

‘I wonder how many big cars there arc in this city?’

Andy nodded. ‘You can cart him away, Doc,’ he said. ‘The boys arc through with their pictures.’

The intern fired another cigarette, and we watched while he and an attendant put the dead patrolman on a stretcher and then into the ambulance. The intern and the attendant climbed aboard, and the ambulance pulled off down the street. They didn’t use the siren. There was no rush now.

A cop gets it, and you say, ‘Well, gee, that’s tough. But that was his trade.’ Sure. Except that being a cop doesn’t mean you don’t have a wife, and maybe a few kids. It doesn’t hurt any less, being a cop. You’re just as dead.

I went over the accident report with Andy.

My eyes skipped down the length of the card, noting the date, time, place of occurrence.

I kept reading, down to the circled items on the card that told me the body had been taken to the morgue and claimed already. The rest would have been routine in any other case, but it was slightly ironic here.

I read the rest of the technical information about the direction of the traffic moving on the lights, the police action taken, the city involved, and then flipped the card over. Under NAMES AND ADDRESSES OF WITNESSES (IF NONE, SO STATE) the single word None was scribbled. The officer who’d reported the hit and run was Patrolman P. Margolis. He’d been making the rounds, stopped for his usual afternoon chat with Benson, and found the traffic cop dead in the gutter. There were skid marks on the asphalt street, but there hadn’t been a soul in sight.

‘How do you figure it, Andy?’ I asked.

‘A few ideas.’

‘Let’s hear them.’

‘The guy may have done something wrong. Benson may have hailed him for something entirely different. The guy panicked and cut him down.’

‘Something wrong like what?’

‘Who knows? Hot furs in the trunk. Dead man in the back seat. You know.’

‘And you figure Benson hailed him because he was speeding, or his windshield wiper was crooked? Something like that?’

‘Yeah, you know.’

‘I don’t buy it, Andy.’

‘Well, I got another idea.’

‘What’s that? Drunk?’

Andy nodded.

‘That’s what I was thinking. Where do we start?’

‘I’ve already had a check put in on stolen cars, and the lab boys are going over the skid marks. Why don’t we go back and see if we can scare up any witnesses?’

I picked my jacket off the back of the chair, buttoned it on, and then adjusted my shoulder holster. ‘Come on.’

The scene of the accident was at the intersection of two narrow streets. There was a two-family stucco house on one corner, and empty lots on the other three corners. It was a quiet intersection, and the only reason it warranted a light was the high school two blocks away. A traffic cop was used to supplement the light in the morning and afternoon when the kids were going to and coming from school. Benson had been hit about ten minutes before classes broke. It was a shame, because a bunch of homebound kids might have saved his life — or at least provided some witnesses.

‘There’s not much choice,’ Andy said.

I looked at the stucco house. ‘No, I guess not. Let’s go.’

We climbed the flat, brick steps at the front of the house, and Andy pushed the bell button. We waited for a few moments, and then the door opened a crack, and a voice asked, ‘Yes?’

I flashed my buzzer. ‘Police officers,’ I said. ‘We’d like to ask a few questions.’

The door stayed closed, with the voice coming from behind the small crack. ‘What about?’

‘Accident here yesterday. Won’t you open the door?’

The door swung wide, and a thin young kid in his undershirt peered out at us. His brows pulled together in a hostile frown. ‘You got a search warrant?’ he asked.

‘What have you got to hide, sonny?’ Andy asked.

‘Nothing. I just don’t like cops barging in like storm troopers.’

‘Nobody’s barging in on you,’ Andy said. ‘We want to ask a few questions, that’s all.’

‘All right, what do you want?’

‘Were you home this afternoon?’ I said.

‘Yeah.’

‘All afternoon?’

‘Yeah.’

‘You hear any noise out here in the street?’

‘What kind of noise?’

‘You tell me.’

‘I didn’t hear any noise.’

‘A car skidding, maybe? Something like that?’

‘No.’

‘Did you see anything unusual?’

‘I didn’t see anything. You’re here about the cop who was run over, ain’t you?’

‘That’s right, son.’

‘Well, I didn’t see anything.’

‘You live here alone?’

‘No. With my mother.’

‘Where is she?’

‘She ain’t feeling too good. That’s why I’ve been staying home from school. She’s been sick in bed. She didn’t hear anything, either. She’s in a fog.’

‘Have you had the doctor?’

‘Yeah, she’ll be all right.’

‘Where’s your mother’s room?’

‘In the back of the house. She couldn’t have seen anything out here even if she was able to. You’re barking up the wrong tree.’

‘How long you been out of school, son?’

‘Why?’

‘How long?’

‘A month.’

‘Your mother been sick that long?’

‘Yeah.’

‘How old are you?’

‘Fifteen.’

‘You better get back to school,’ Andy said. ‘Tell the city about your mother, and they’ll do something for her. You hear that?’

‘I hear it.’

‘We’ll send someone around to check tomorrow. Remember that, sonny.’

‘I’ll remember it,’ the kid said, a surly look on his face.

‘Anybody else live here with you?’

‘Yeah. My dog. You want to ask him some questions, maybe?’

‘That’ll be all, son,’ I said. ‘Thanks.’

‘For what?’ the kid asked, and slammed the door.

‘Lousy little snot-nose,’ Andy said.

There were thirty-nine cars stolen in New York City that day. Of the bigger cars, two were Buicks, four were Chryslers, and one was a Cadillac. One of the Chryslers was stolen from a neighbourhood about two miles from the scene of the accident.

‘How about that?’ Andy asked.

‘How about it?’

‘The guy stole the buggy and when Benson hailed him, he knew he was in hot water. He cut him down.’

‘If Benson hailed him.’

‘Maybe Benson only stuck up his hand to stop traffic. The guy misunderstood and crashed through.’

‘We’ll see,’ I said.

We checked with the owner of the Chrysler. She was a fluttery woman who was obviously impressed with the fact that two policemen were calling on her personally about her missing car.

‘Well, I never expected such quick action,’ she said. ‘I mean, really.’

‘The car was a Chrysler, ma’m?’ I asked.

‘Oh, yes,’ she said, nodding her head emphatically. ‘We’ve never owned anything but a Chrysler.’

‘What year, ma’m?’

‘I gave all this information on the phone,’ she said.

‘I know, ma’m. We’re just checking it again.’

‘It’s brand new.’

‘The colour?’

‘Blue. A sort of robin’s egg blue, do you know? I told that to the man who answered the phone.’

‘Licence number?’

‘Oh, again? Well, just a moment.’ She stood up and walked to the kitchen, returning with her purse. She fished into the purse, came up with a wallet, and then rummaged through that for her registration. ‘Here it is,’ she said.

‘What, ma’m?’

‘77T8458.’

Andy looked up. ‘That’s a Nassau County plate, ma’m.’

‘Yes. Yes, I know.’

‘In the Bronx? How come?’

‘Well... oh, you’ll think this is silly.’

‘Let’s hear it, ma’m.’

‘Well, a Long Island plate is so much more impressive. I mean... well, we plan on moving there soon, anyway.’

‘And you went all the way to Nassau to get a plate?’

‘Yes.’

Andy coughed politely. ‘Well, maybe that’ll make it easier.’

‘Do you think you’ll find the car?’

‘We certainly hope so, ma’m.’

We found the car that afternoon. It was parked on a side street in Brooklyn. It was in perfect condition, no damage to the front end, no blood anywhere on the grille or bumper. The lab checked the tires against the skid marks. Negative. This, coupled with the fact that the murder car would undoubtedly have sustained damages after such a violent smash, told us we’d drawn a blank. We returned the car to the owner. She was very happy.

By the end of the week, we’d recovered all but one of the stolen cars. None of them checked with what we had. The only missing car was the Cadillac. It had been swiped from a parking lot in Queens, with the thief presenting the attendant with a ticket for the car. The M.O. sounded professional, whereas the car kill looked like a fool stunt. When another Caddy was stolen from a lot in Jamaica, with the thief using the same modus operandi, we figured it for a ring, and left it to the Automobile Squad.

In the meantime, we’d begun checking all auto body and fender repair shops in the city. We had just about ruled out a stolen car by this time, and if the car was privately owned, the person who’d run down Benson would undoubtedly try to have the damage to his car repaired.

The lab had reported finding glass slivers from a sealbeam imbedded in Benson’s shirt, together with chips of black paint. From the position of the skid marks, they estimated that he’d been hit by the right side of the car, and they figured the broken light would be on that side, together with the heaviest damage to the grille.

Because Andy still clung to the theory that the driver had been involved in something fishy just before he hit Benson, we checked with the local precinct squads for any possibly related robberies or burglaries, and we also checked with the Safe, Loft and Truck Squad. There’d been a grocery store holdup in the neighbourhood vicinity on the day of the hit and run, but the thief had already been apprehended, and he was driving an old Ford. Both headlights were intact, and any damage to the grille had been sustained years ago.

We continued to check on repair shops.

When the Complaint Report came in, we leaped on it at once. We glossed over the usual garbage in the heading, and skipped down to the DETAILS:

‘You can damn well bet it’s still active,’ Andy said. ‘This may be it, Mike.’

‘Maybe,’ I said.

It wasn’t. The tyre was a very popular seller, and the mail order house sold thousands of them every year, both through the mails and over the counter. It was impossible to check over-the-counter sales, and a check of mail-order receipts revealed that no purchases had been made within a two-mile radius of the hit and run. We extended the radius, checked on all the purchasers, and found no suspicious-looking automobiles, although all of the cars were big ones. There was one black car in the batch — and there wasn’t a scratch on it.

But Mrs. Dalley’s house was about ten blocks from the scene of the killing, and that was too close for coincidence. We checked out a car and drove over.

She was a woman in her late thirties, and she greeted us at the door in a loose housecoat, her hair up in curlers.

‘Police officers,’ I said.

Her hand went to her hair, and she said. ‘Oh, my goodness.’ She fretted a little more about her appearance, belted the housecoat tighter around her waist, and then said, ‘Come in, come in.’

We questioned her a little about the fence and the iris bed, got substantially what was in the Complaint Report, and then went out to look at the damage. She stayed in the house, and when she joined us later, she was wearing tight black slacks and a chartreuse sweater. She’d also tied a scarf around her hair, hiding the curlers.

The house was situated on a corner, with a side street intersecting Barnes Avenue, and then a gravel road cutting into another intersection. The tyre marks seemed to indicate the car had come down the gravel road, and then backed up the side street, knocking over the picket fence when it did. It all pointed to a drunken driver.

‘How does it look?’ she asked.

‘We’re working on it,’ Andy said. ‘Any of your neighbors witness this?’

‘No. I asked around. No one saw the car. They heard the crash, came out and saw the damaged fence, but the car had gone already.’

‘Was anything missing from your house or yard?’

‘No. It was locked up tight. We were on vacation, you know.’

‘What kind of a car does your husband drive, ma’m?’

‘An Olds. Why?’

‘Just wondering.’

‘Let’s amble up the street, Mike,’ Andy said. ‘Thank you very much, ma’m.’

We got into the car, and Mrs. Dailey watched us go, striking a pretty pose in the doorway of her house. I looked back and saw her wave at one of her neighbours, and then she went inside.

‘Where to?’ I asked Andy.

‘There’s a service station at the end of that gravel road, on the intersection. If the car came up that road, maybe he stopped at the station for gas. We’ve got nothing to lose.’

We had nothing to gain, either. They gassed up a hundred big black cars every day. They didn’t remember anything that looked out of line. We thanked them, and stopped at the nearest diner for some coffee. The coffee was hot, but the case sure as hell wasn’t.

It griped us. It really griped us.

Some son of a bitch had a black car stashed away in his garage. The car had a damaged front end, and it may still have had blood stains on it. If he’d been a drunken driver, he’d sure as hell sobered up fast enough — and long enough to realize he had to keep that car out of sight. We mulled it over, and we squatted on it, and we were going over all the angles again when the phone rang.

I picked it up. ‘Jonas here.’

‘Mike, this is Charlie on the desk. I was going to turn this over to Complaint, but I thought you might like to sit in on it.’

‘Tie in with the Benson kill?’

‘Maybe.’

‘I’ll be right down.’ I hung up quickly. ‘Come on, Andy.’

We went downstairs to the desk, and Charlie introduced us to a Mr. George Sullivan and his daughter Grace, a young kid of about sixteen. We took them into an empty office, leaving Charlie at the desk.

‘What is it, Mr. Sullivan?’ I asked.

‘I want better protection,’ he said.

‘Of what, sir?’

‘My child. Grace here. All the kids at the high school, in fact.’

‘What happened, sir?’

‘You tell him, Grace.’

The kid was a pretty blonde, fresh and clean-looking in a sweater and skirt. She wet her lips and said, ‘Daddy, can’t...’

‘Go on, Grace, it’s for your own good.’

‘What is it, Miss?’ Andy asked gently.

‘Well...”

‘Go on, Grace. Just the way you told it to me. Go on.’

‘Well, it was last week. I...’

‘Where was this, Miss?’

‘Outside the high school. I cut my last period, a study hour. I wanted to do some shopping downtown, and anyway a study hour is nowhere. You know, they’re not so strict if you cut one.’

‘Yes, Miss.’

‘I got out early, about a half-hour before most of the kids start home. I was crossing the street when this car came around the corner. I got onto the sidewalk, and the car slowed down and started following me.’

‘What kind of a car, Miss?’

‘A big, black one.’

‘Did you notice the year and make?’

‘No. I’m not so good at cars.’

‘All right, what happened?’

‘Well, the man driving kept following me, and I started walking faster, and he kept the car even with me all the time. He learned over toward the window near the kerb and said, “Come on, sweetheart, let’s go for a ride.”’ She paused. ‘Daddy, do I have to...’

She swallowed hard, and then stared down at her loafers.

‘I didn’t answer him. I kept walking, and he pulled up about ten feet ahead of me, and sat waiting there. When I came up alongside the car, he opened the door and got out. He... he... made a grab for me and... and I screamed.’

‘What happened then?’

‘He got scared. He jumped into the car and pulled away from the kerb. He was going very fast. I stopped screaming after he’d gone because... because I didn’t want to attract any attention.’

‘When was this, Miss?’

‘Last week.’

‘What day?’

‘It was Wednesday,’ Mr. Sullivan put in. ‘She came home looking like hell, and I asked her what was wrong, and she said nothing. I didn’t get the story out of her until today.’

‘You should have reported this earlier, Miss,’ Andy said.

‘I... I was too embarrassed.’

‘Did you notice the licence plate on the car?’

‘Yes.’

‘Did you get the number?’

‘No. It was a funny plate.’

‘How do you mean funny?’

‘It was a New York plate, but it had a lot of lettering on it.’

‘A lot of lettering? Was it a suburban plate? Was the car a station wagon?’

‘No, it wasn’t.’

‘A delivery truck?’

‘No, it was a regular car. A new one.’

‘A new car,’ I repeated.

‘Are you going to do something about this?’ Mr. Sullivan asked.

‘We’re going to try, sir. Did you get a good look at the man, Miss?’

‘Yes. He was old. And fat. He wore a brown suit.’

‘How old would you say, Miss?’

‘At least forty.’

Mr. Sullivan smiled, and then the smile dropped from his face. ‘There should be a cop around there. There definitely should be.’

‘Would you be able to identify the man if we showed him to you?’

‘Yes, but... do I have to? I mean, I don’t want any trouble. I don’t want the other kids to find out.’

‘No one will find out, Miss.’

‘This wouldn’t have happened if there was a cop around,’ Mr. Sullivan said.

‘There was a cop,’ I told him. ‘He’s dead.’

When they left, we got some coffee and mulled it over a bit more.

‘A new car,’ Andy said.

‘With a funny plate. What the hell did she mean by a funny plate?’

‘On a new car.’

I stood up suddenly.

‘What?’ Andy said.

‘A new car, Andy. A funny plate. A New York plate with lettering on it. For Christ’s sake, it was a dealer’s plate!’

Andy snapped his fingers. ‘Sure. That explains how he kept the car hidden so well. It’s probably on some goddamn garage floor, hidden behind the other cars in the showroom.’

‘Let’s go, Andy,’ I said.

It wasn’t difficult. It’s tough to get a dealer’s franchise, and there aren’t many dealers in any specific neighbourhood. We tried two, and hit the jackpot on the third try.

We spotted the car in one corner of the big garage. We walked over to it, and there was a mechanic in grease-stained coveralls working on the right headlight.

‘Police,’ I told him. ‘What’s wrong there?’

He continued working, apparently used to periodic checks from the Automobile Squad. ‘Sealbeam is broken. Just replacing it.’

‘What happened to the grille?’

‘Oh, a small accident. Damn shame, too. A new car.’

Andy walked around to the back and saw the paint scratches on the trunk. He nodded when he came around to me again.

‘Back’s all scratched, too,’ he said to the mechanic.

‘Yeah, this goddamn car’s been a jinx ever since we got it in.’

‘How so?’

‘Got a headache with this one. The day we took it out for a test, the fool driver ran it into a ditch. Sliced hell out of both rear tires, and we had to replace them. All this in the first week we had this pig.’

‘Did you replace with Allstate?’ I asked.

The mechanic looked up in surprise. ‘Why, yeah. How’d you know?’

‘Where’s your boss?’ Andy asked.

‘In the front office.’ The mechanic got up. ‘Hey, what’s this all about?’

‘Nothing that concerns you, Mac. Fix your car.’

We went to the front office, a small cubicle that held two desks and two leather customer chairs. A stout man was sitting at one desk, a telephone to his ear. I estimated his age at about forty-two, forty-three.

He looked up and smiled when we came in, nodded at us, and then continued talking.

‘Yes... well, okay, if you say so. Well look, Sam, I can’t sell cars if I haven’t got them... You just do your best, that’s all. Okay, fine.’ He hung up without saying goodbye, got out of his chair and walked over to us.

‘Can I help you gentlemen?’

‘Yes,’ Andy said. ‘We’re interested in a car. Are you the owner of this place?’

‘I am.’

‘With whom are we doing business?’

‘Fred Whitaker,’ he said. ‘Did you have any particular car in mind?’

‘Yes. The black Buick on the floor.’

‘A beautiful car,’ Whitaker said, smiling.

‘The one with the smashed grille and headlight,’ I added.

The smile froze on his face, and he went white. ‘Wh... what?’

‘Did you smash that car up?’

Whitaker swallowed hard. ‘No... no. One of my mechanics did it.’

‘Who?’

‘I’ve... I’ve fired him. He...’

‘We can check this, Whitaker.’

‘Are... are you policemen?’

‘We are. Come on, let’s have it all. We’ve got a girl to identify you.’

Whitaker’s face crumbled. ‘I... I guess that’s best, isn’t it?’

‘It’s best,’ Andy said.

‘I didn’t mean to run him down. But the girl screamed, you know, and I thought he’d heard it. He stuck up his hand, and I... I got scared, I suppose, and there was no one around, so I... I knocked him... I knocked him down. Is he all right? I mean...’

‘He’s dead,’ I said.

‘Dead?’ Whitaker’s eyes went wide. ‘Dead...’

‘Was it you who smashed that picket fence?’ Andy asked.

Whitaker was still dazed.

‘Wh... what?’ he said.

‘The picket fence. On Barnes.’

‘Oh. Yes, yes. That was afterwards. I was still scared. I... I made a wrong turn, and I saw a police car, and I wanted to get away fast. I... I backed into the fence.’

‘Why’d you bother that little girl, Whitaker?’

He collapsed into a chair. ‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘I don’t know.’

‘You’re in a jam,’ Andy said. ‘You’d better come along with us.’

‘Yes, yes.’ He stood up, took his hat from a rack in the corner, and then started for the door. At the door, he stopped and said, ‘I’d better tell my mechanics. I’d better tell them I’ll be gone for the day.’

I looked at Whitaker, and I thought of Benson. My eyes met Andy’s, and I put it into words for both of us.

‘You’ll be gone a lot longer than that, Whitaker.’