Vice Cop

by Deming, Richard

  Carl came over with Penny trailing after him. “Ten of them, all right,” he said, peering into the bag. “Fifty cents a stick.” He looked at Wood. “Get up that fin she gave you, buster.”

  Wood reached into his pocket and drew out a five-dollar bill. Carl turned it over to display two sets of initials: C. L. and P. D.

  He said to the girl, “Do you identify this as the bill we each marked with our initials, Penny?”

  “Yes,” she said distinctly, staring at Amos Wood with dislike.

  For the first time the man realized the girl had set him up, and hadn’t merely accidentally been caught in a raid on the establishment. He gave her a wounded look.

  Others in the place were beginning to have reactions, too. The few customers in booths stopped eating to watch what was going on. The young cook and the three girls behind the counter looked on wide-eyed. They seemed more fascinated than surprised to see their boss under arrest, though. Probably they had been expecting it to happen eventually.

  Carl folded the brown paper bag closed and held it for me to seal with some Scotch tape I drew from my pocket. He had Penny and himself initial the bag as evidence.

  “Do you identify this bag as the one you received from Amos Wood here in return for the marked five-dollar bill?” he asked her.

  She nodded. “Yes, I do.”

  The formal nature of Carl’s questions were for the benefit of the tape recorder, and not because any such ritual is necessary in making an arrest I shut the recorder off. I hadn’t used more than five minutes of the tape, but we had all we needed.

  A search of the kitchen turned up a cache of over a hundred reefers in a sugar canister. We took canister and all along as evidence.

  On the way out of the restaurant, with the proprietor in handcuffs, we carefully stopped to pay our checks. The waitress who took the money stared at her boss with saucer-sized eyes as she rang the register.

  In a discouraged voice Wood said to the girl, “I don’t know how long I’ll be gone, Nell. Think you and the others can handle the place on your own for a while?”

  “Sure, Mr. Wood,” she said in a scared voice.

  “Just handle food while he’s gone,” Carl suggested. “If any of his special customers come in, we’d appreciate a ring”

  “Yes, sir,” the girl said, obviously having no intention of ever phoning us even if half the town came in and asked for marijuana.

  Downtown we spent the rest of the afternoon grilling Amos Wood. At first he didn’t want to tell us anything, but eventually we wore him down enough to get the name of his supplier. This gave us one more target in the never-ending war against marijuana. We’ll never completely win the war, because a new target appears every time we knock one down. But we do manage to keep enemy forces small and scattered, so that they can do a minumum amount of harm.

  At five P.M. we took Wood downstairs, booked him and had him put in a cell. Then we went back upstairs and checked out. Carl went home, but I went up to make another call at Homicide.

  A homicide cop named Jack Barton was alone in the squadroom. I asked him if Bob Wynn and Hank Carter had checked in yet.

  “They checked in at four-thirty,” he said. “But they signed right out again.”

  “Oh. Any news on the two guys who tried to tag me?”

  “Yeah, it just came in.” He walked over to another table and picked up a telegram. “We sent their mugg shots and prints to Chicago by telephoto this morning. Wynn hasn’t even seen this reply. He left before it came in.” He handed me the wire.

  The Chicago police identified my assailants as a couple of ex-cons with long records. The skinny guy had been Herman (the Ladder) Gloff, the grinner had been Harold (the Comedian) Edwards. Both were suspected of belonging to a mafialike group which specialized in murder for hire. Chicago had no information about any contacts either might have in St. Cecilia.

  “Looks like another dead end,” I said.

  “Yeah,” Barton said. “These pro outfits don’t leave much to sink your teeth in when they make a hit.”

  Leaving Homicide, I took the elevator back down to the Felony Section. The sergeant on the booking desk told me that Sharon had been checked out under guard by Lieutenant Wynn and Hank Carter about twenty minutes to five.

  “Know where they went?” I inquired.

  “Yeah. Out to the house where she killed that woman,” he said. “They’re going to run some kind of experiment.”

  So Max Fuller had managed to arrange matters with Lieutenant Wynn after all, I thought

  I decided to take a run out to Isobel Whittier’s home.

  CHAPTER XXIII

  IT WAS a quarter of six when I arrived at 1132 Crystal Drive. Three cars were parked in the driveway there. The first was a black-and-white squad car, the second a two-year-old Plymouth sedan and the third a new Cadillac with M. D. license plates. Glancing in the front seat of the Plymouth, I saw the radio mike hanging on the dash and knew it was a felony car. All of the department’s F cars, which are used by detectives on official business, are ordinary automobiles without police marking.

  A uniformed policeman sat in the squad car monitoring the radio. His partner stood on the front porch guarding the door. As I went up the porch steps I noted that the window drapes both in the front room and the dining’ room were drawn tightly closed, and that the small drapes at the upper glass pane of the front door were also closed.

  I showed the policeman in front of the door my badge and said, “Sergeant Rudd of Vice, Gambling and Narcotics.”

  He frowned. “Lieutenant Wynn said not to let anyone else in,” he said uncertainly. “You think he meant even police officers?”

  “Hardly,” I said with a smile. Stepping past him while he was still considering the matter, I opened the door, moved inside and closed it behind me.

  Drapes had been drawn over all the downstairs windows, and all the lights were on. Tall, redheaded Hank Carter was alone in the front room. He gave me a surprised look.

  “How’d you get in?” he inquired

  “Showed my badge.”

  “The lieutenant issued orders not to let anyone else in,” Carter said. “Somebody’s going to catch hell.”

  “Somebody’s always catching hell from your lieutenant,” I told him. “Where’s everybody?”

  “In the study. Some headshrinker is hypnotising the Manners girl in an attempt to get her to re-enact the other night. He wanted as few people present as possible, so the girl wouldn’t be distracted. I got frozen out. The lieutenant and the girl’s lawyer are in there with the doctor and the girl. You better not let Wynn see you.”

  “The hell with him,” I said roughly. “I don’t shake in my boots for any rank less than captain. I have an interest in this case, too.”

  The red-haired sergeant shrugged. “It’s your funeral. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

  From the center hall there came the sound of a door opening. Then Sharon appeared in the archway and walked into the front room. Stark naked, she moved in the manner of a sleepwalker, the nine-inch letter opener in her hand held straight out before her.

  She paid no attention to us, moving past us toward the front windows as though we were invisible. Hank Carter was staring at her as though he were a member of a burlesque show audience, I noted, his eyes moving avidly up and down her beautifully proportioned body. He must have felt the coldness of my gaze on him, for he suddenly turned fire red and fixed his eyes on the letter opener.

  Plump little Dr. Myron Quigley came skipping along immediately behind Sharon. His gaze was fixed on her too, but his expression differed from Hank Carter’s. He was examining her with the clinical interest of a doctor observing a patient. I don’t think he was even aware of the girl’s physical beauty. He was concerned solely with her actions, and he was so absorbed, he was no more conscious of our presence than Sharon was.

  Lieutenant Wynn followed the doctor. When he saw me, he gave me a ferocious glare. He didn’t say anything, though. Dr. Quig
ley must have issued instructions to maintain complete silence, for the lieutenant looked on the verge of a stroke from suppressing the desire to bawl me out on the spot.

  Last came a tall, bushy-haired man of about, fifty, whom I assumed was Sharon’s lawyer, Max Fuller. He had a long, intelligent face and wore horn-rimmed glasses. He was making an effort to maintain the same clinical detachment as the psychiatrist, but: he was having trouble doing it. He couldn’t seem to keep his gaze off the provocative sway of Sharon’s rounded hips as she moved across the room.

  When Sharon reached the windows, she made a precise leftface and headed for the entry foyer. Hank Carter and I fell in at the tail of the procession.

  When she reached the foyer, Sharon suddenly began to behave as though it were darker there, although the light was on and it was as brightly illuminated as the front room. She felt for the stair post as though she couldn’t see it, and groped for the first step with a bare right foot. Then, still holding the letter opener thrust out before her, she slowly went up the stairs.

  Moving as lightly on his feet as a dancer, round little Dr. Quigley scurried upstairs behind her. The rest of us followed on tiptoe.

  When she reached the top of the stairs, Sharon moved down the hall between the first two doors which were across from each other. She moved slowly, the letter opener still thrust out before her, but her left hand now raised too, the palm out, as though she couldn’t see and was afraid she might run into a wall.

  When she passed the second set of doors and continued on toward the end of the hall my heart started to beat faster. Reaching the far end, her outthrust left palm brushed the drapes across the window there, which were closed just as they had been Wednesday night. Lightly she ran her hand to the right across the drapes until she touched the end wall, then felt her way to the corner next to Isobel’s room. Turning, she began to come back toward us, feeling her way along the wall with her hand. My heart began to pound when she touched the door to Isobel’s room. I was conscious of a gloating expression of triumph on Lieutenant Wynn’s face.

  Then relief flowed over me. She moved past the door without opening it and felt her way back to the door of the room in which I had found her. Her hand touched the door sill, then drifted off to press against the door itself. She paused and a puzzled expression grew on her face.

  Quickly stepping forward, Dr. Quigley reached past her to twist the knob and push the door open. Stepping back again, he said in a low voice, “Obviously she found the door open the first time.”

  Sharon’s hand groped out again and her face cleared when she met no obstruction. She moved through the doorway, then abruptly halted as though she had run into something. Her left hand groped out and she looked puzzled again.

  Dr. Quigley grabbed my arm and pushed me into the room. He directed me around in front of the girl.

  “She has run into someone in the dark,” he said quietly. “You be that someone.”

  He shoved me against her until my chest touched her naked breasts.

  Sharon’s face cleared again. Her hand touched my shoulder, moved along it and felt my cheek. “Matt?” she inquired.

  For an instant I thought my intrusion into the picture had snapped her out of hypnosis and that she had actually recognized me. Then I realized that she was staring sightlessly at me as though we were in pitch dark and that her tone was the remote one of a person talking in her sleep. I threw the doctor an inquiring look. He gave his head a violent shake in indication that I wasn’t to say anything. I stood still with my hands at my sides.

  “See what I found, Matt?” Sharon said, holding up the letter opener. Then she giggled. “You can’t see in the dark, can you?”

  I remained unmoving. She felt for my right hand and placed it on the letter opener, which she now held lying across her open palm. Closing my hand about it, I gently lifted it from her palm and threw the doctor another inquiring look.

  He motioned me to step back from her. I backed away.

  Sharon groped outward with both hands “Matt?” she inquired.

  Dr. Quigley motioned me farther away. I retreated to a corner of the room. In the doorway Lieutenant Wynn and Max Fuller were watching closely and Hank Carter was peering over their shoulders from behind them.

  Sharon took a tentative step toward the bed, halted and repeated querulously, “Matt?”

  When there was no answer, she stood still and her lower lip began to protrude in a pout. After a moment she moved toward the bed again, both hands held palm out to feel before her. She walked right into the bed, her knees striking its edge and tripping her forward to fall across it face down. She emitted a surprised little gasp as she fell.

  She lay motionless on her stomach for a moment, then raised her hips and crawled to the center of the bed on all fours. Her right hand felt for the pillows, she lowered her head to one, straightened out her legs to lie flat on her stomach, then rolled over on her back. Crossing her hands on her flat little stomach, she closed her eyes and seemed to go to sleep.

  Dr. Quigley looked at Lieutenant Wynn and said, “There you are, Lieutenant. Any questions?”

  “You ran Rudd in on it,” Wynn said “How do you know there was anyone here the other night?”

  “She obviously expected to run into someone in the dark,” the psychiatrist said. “I had to give her someone to run into in order to reproduce the situation her subconscious remembered. Under hypnosis she couldn’t have made up the conversation she had with this person. She was repeating exactly what she said the other night.”

  “You mean it actually was Rudd she ran into?”

  “Of course not,” Dr. Quigley said. “She couldn’t see the person because it was pitch dark. But she had been looking for Sergeant Rudd. She recalled that much even before I hypnotized her. She wanted to show him the pretty object she had found. When she ran into this person in the dark, she assumed it was Rudd merely because he was the one she had been searching for.”

  “We don’t know that the guy took the letter opener out of her hand like Rudd did, though,” Wynn objected. “Rudd did that on his own. He wasn’t hypnotized. He pulled that stunt because he wants to prove she’s innocent.”

  “He succeeded, in my opinion,” the doctor told him. “What he did seemed to be what her subconscious expected. If Sergeant Rudd had done something different from what this unknown person did, her reaction would have indicated it. But there was no hesitation, no puzzlement in her subsequent performance. It’s my opinion that whomever she encountered in the dark, and mistook for Sergeant Rudd, removed the implement from her hand just as Rudd did a moment ago, and then moved away in the darkness. It’s probable that he never even spoke, or she would have given some indication that she finally realized it hadn’t been Rudd.”

  Lieutenant Wynn, argued down by the doctor, decided to vent his spleen on me. “What are you doing here anyway, Rudd?” he demanded. “This is Homicide Division business.”

  “I just thought I’d look in to see how my idea was working out,” I said.

  Wynn stared at me. “Your what?”

  “My idea. I suggested it to Mr. Fuller after talking to Dr. Quigley. We didn’t let you know because we thought you might not cooperate as well if you thought you were cooperating with me. It doesn’t matter now. The girl’s been proved innocent.”

  Wynn’s neck muscles started to swell. Before he could deliver the blast he intended, I said quickly, “The important thing is that the experiment worked, Lieutenant. You have to admit the girl must be innocent. Why don’t we try to get along with each other? I have some evidence against the real killer which you don’t even know about. Want to hear it?”

  A struggle took place on the lieutenant’s face. As much as he resented my intrusion into what he considered strictly the business of Homicide Division, he was too much cop to let personal differences interfere in the possible solution of a case. He wanted to blast me, but he also wanted to know what I meant about having evidence against the real killer. His police
instinct won out.

  “I’ll talk to you downstairs, Sergeant,” he growled. Turning to Max Fuller, he said in a grudging voice, “I guess you win, counsellor. It seems obvious that your client didn’t kill Mrs. Whittier. I’ll phone the D. A. to explain what has happened and ask him to start immediate proceedings for her release from custody. She’ll have to be returned to jail until we get an official release order of course.”

  “Of course,” the lawyer agreed. “I’ll appreciate it if you’ll phone the D. A. as soon as possible, though.”

  “I’ll phone him right now,” Wynn said shortly. He swung around in the doorway, nearly knocking Hank Carter over, and strode toward the stairs.

  Carter moved into the place Wynn had vacated in the doorway and stared at Sharon’s prone form on the bed. I looked at him steadily until he flushed and shifted his gaze to the doctor. Dr. Quigely walked over to the bed and leaned over Sharon.

  Speaking slowly and distinctly, he said, “Can you hear me, Sharon?”

  “Yes,” she said in a toneless voice.

  “When I snap my fingers, you will awaken. Do you understand?”

  “Yes,” she repeated.

  Quigley placed his hand in front of her face and sharply snapped his fingers. Sharon’s eyes popped open. After staring up at him for a moment, she sat erect, then suddenly realized she was naked. Her gaze darted from the doctor to me, then to the two men in the doorway. Grabbing a pillow, she held it before her.

  “What is this, a peep show?” she demanded indignantly. “Get the hell out of here!”

  Her words seemed to be directed entirely to the men in the doorway. Both started to back into the hall.

  In a calm voice Dr. Quigley called, “Mr. Fuller, will you bring her clothing upstairs? Never mind the formal evening dress we had her don for the experiment. Just the clothing she arrived in.”

  Max Fuller threw him a quick nod and disappeared from view. Hank Carter scurried after him.