by Ted Wood
I filled her in quickly and she gasped. “One day you're arrested, next day you're the sergeant. Hell, Reid, it's like a game of Snakes and Ladders.”
I gave her a quick kiss on the cheek. “It's good to be working again. I have to check some things out. Don't wait up—I'll probably be most of the night.”
She clung to me for a moment and I kissed her and left, leaving Sam with her. Then I was on my way, debating priorities. Did I need to check on Ferris's movements, or to talk to Berger? I still hadn't worked out why he and Ferris would have set me up for an ambush.
FOURTEEN
There were half a dozen cars at the Headframe. I parked and went in. Business was slowing, there were only three knots of drinkers at tables and a couple of men at the bar. The same thin barman was on duty. He stared at me curiously but said nothing, just turned away to look at the big TV, which was showing an old Clint Eastwood movie. I went up to him, feeling the eyes of all the men on me. None of them knew about my miraculous reinstatement I was still the guy who robbed whores, and they were waiting for their chance to despise me out loud.
I canceled that idea right away. “My name is Bennett, Sgt. Bennett, Elliot police. Was Sgt. Ferris in here tonight?”
I spoke loudly enough to reach the other tables, and I caught the buzz of surprise.
The barman frowned disbelievingly. “I heard you was off the job.”
“I've been promoted to sergeant,” I said curtly. “This is an investigation, so let's have some answers, please. Have you seen Sgt. Ferris in here tonight?”
The barman flopped his cloth on the bar top and swirled it back and forth, taking his time answering. “Yeah, he was in,” he said at last.
“What time?”
He shrugged and gave a sly little grin. “Hell, I don't know. I don't keep tabs on the customers.”
I trapped his hand and he looked up startled. “I'm not playing games. Ferris is dead. What time was he in here?”
That shook him. His face lost its grin, his mouth fell open. “Dead? What happened?”
“You'll read about it in the paper. What time he was here?”
He glanced up at the clock on the far wall, licking his lips. “An hour ago, something like that.”
“How long did he stay?”
The barman cleared his throat. I knew he was going to lie. “I'm not sure. Like we were busy then, you know how it is.”
“Did he talk to anybody?”
His eyes darted away from me, then back as he gained whatever courage he needed to stretch the truth. “I didn't see him talkin’ to anybody. He came in for a drink. I poured it. He sat down there, at the end of the bar.”
“How many drinks did he have?” It was easier than asking him to remember times. I'd seen Ferris drink. One per ten minutes would have been about right.
“Couple,” he said, but again it was too quick.
“How about a guy called Frank Nunziatta, Italian, around five seven, one-seventy, thirty-five.”
He frowned. “I don't remember him.”
I changed my tack. “Where's Berger?”
Now the grin came back, clouding his face like five o'clock shadow, blurring his hostility. “Out for the evening.”
“Out where?”
He widened the grin. “Now he's a grown boy, ain't he. He don't tell me everything.”
He had freed his hand and moved back a few inches from the bar, but I reached out and grabbed his shirt, tugging him forward so he was leaning over the bar, off balance, struggling to keep his feet. “Where? Tell me before I find you've been serving booze to drunks and lock you up.” I threw him away from me lightly and he staggered back, his hand at his throat, readjusting his shirtfront.
“'Re you threatening me?”
“Now you're smartening up.” I beamed at him. “Where's Berger?”
“With his woman.” He spat the word out disgustedly.
“Where?”
He opened his mouth to make some quick reply but I smiled at him and he coughed nervously. “She lives on Grackle Court. Number eighteen.”
I nodded to him. “Right. I'm going over there to see him. If, when I get there, I find him expecting me, you are going to wish you'd never come to this town. You got that?”
He didn't speak, and I stood there looking through him until he nodded. “Right.”
Grackle Court was part of the two-story enclave in town. By city standards the houses were small and unimposing, but they were the best Elliot could offer, and Number eighteen looked cared for. There were a couple of small floodlights in the snow, giving a bluish cast to the front of the house. Inside it seemed dark. If Berger was there, his R and R was underway.
I rang the doorbell and waited, standing to one side of the door. After a long pause a woman's voice called, “Who's there?”
“Sgt. Bennett, p'lice. Open up.” I clipped my name short and kept my voice gruff so that she might think I'd said Ferris. I wanted her and her date off balance.
The door opened three inches. I could see a thin slice of the woman inside. She was blond, wearing a black kimono. “What is it?” she demanded.
“I want to talk to Berger.” Politeness would be a waste of time. I kept up the pressure.
“He's not here,” she barked and moved to shut the door.
I shoved my foot against it and said, “Let me in. This is serious.”
She spluttered as she heaved her shoulder against the door. The usual irate citizen speech. Then I heard another voice behind her, and she disappeared from sight. My foot took up the extra inch of slack and then another face appeared in the crack.
It was Berger. “Bennett?” His voice went up an octave.
“Surprise, surprise,” I said. “Open up.”
He backed off a half pace and I stepped in. The pair of them stood looking at me without speaking. The woman was blazing angry but silent, Berger was trying to decide what kind of face he should be showing. He was wearing a shirt and slacks with his suspenders dangling. Both of them were barefoot.
I shoved him in the chest with a forefinger. “Shook up, huh? Thought you'd seen the last of me.”
“What is this?” The woman spoke first. She was short, her forehead came only as high as my chin, but she had more guts than Berger. “Who in hell d'you think you are?”
“I have to talk to your friend,” I said. “In private. I can do it here or I can stand him outside in the snow.”
Berger looked at her, smiling weakly. “It's all right, Belle. This won't take long.”
She swore but she flounced off into a bedroom and banged the door shut behind her.
Berger tried to get his act going. “What's this all about?”
“It's about sending a boy to do a man's job.” I said. “Your friend Nunziatta blew it. I arrested him and locked him up.”
“Nunziatta?” He shoved his fingers through his hair openmouthed. “What's going on.”
“Why did you send him?” I moved in on him, crowding him, making him aware how ridiculous he looked in his thrown-on clothes.
“Send him?” He tried to sound baffled, but I shoved him through the open door of the living room and followed him in, switching on the light at the door. “Sit,” I ordered as if I were giving a command to Sam.
He looked startled but he did it without arguing.
“Right,” I said. “Now I want some honest answers and I want them fast. Why did you send Nunziatta to shoot me?”
“Honest to God I don't know what you're talking about.”
“Right. Let's take it one step at a time,” I said. “My lawyer came to you with a request for a meeting between me and you. Is that right?”
“Yes, that's right.” Now his words tumbled out. “I wasn't sure what to think. I asked him what for and he wouldn't say, said you had a proposition for me. That could have meant anything at all.”
“So what did you do?”
“I didn't know what to do. Then Sgt. Ferris came into the hotel and I told him what had happen
ed. He asked what time the meeting was supposed to be and where.”
“You'd already picked the spot. Remember? A nice discreet little spot for a back shooting. Don't con me, Berger. I want the truth. And for a start, I know that Ferris came into the bar after nine, after he'd spoken to Nunziatta.”
He ignored the second part of my statement; he was still working on his own involvement. “For Chrissakes, I knew you wouldn't want to be seen with me, in case Ferris was having you watched. That's why I picked the clearing. Where else could we meet?”
“What's wrong with your office? What are you hiding, Berger?”
He made a move to stand up, but I put my hand on his head and shoved. He swore but subsided. “It's complicated,” he said.
“That was yesterday.” I grunted a laugh. “Today it's worse than that. You've got an attempted murder charge standing against you.”
“Attempted murder? Who of?” His voice was as shrill as nails on a blackboard. He was stretched to breaking point, but I didn't let up on him.
“Of me. If Nunziatta was better at his job I'd be dead. Instead of that he's inside explaining who sent him.”
“It wasn't me.” His voice had the same screech, but I read the double meaning in it.
“No. It was your buddy Ferris. Is that why you went down to the police station and blew his brains out?”
“What?” He almost whispered it. “What did you say?”
“I came down here from sweeping his brains off the guardroom floor.” It was deliberately brutal. I wanted him horrified.
He sat and looked up at me, struggling to make sense of the news. “The sergeant's dead?”
“Thirty-eight through the head will do that to a man,” I said. “But don't worry. The department carries on. I've been reinstated, with the rank of sergeant.”
“Jesus Christ, I don't know what's going on.” He jammed both hands through his hair.
“I do,” I said. “I know that you set me up to be killed. What I want to know is why.”
He opened his mouth to speak but I overrode him. “You're paying off the police department. I want to know details. How much are you paying and who's getting the money?”
“I don't know where you got that idea,” he said. He smoothed his hair with his fingers, getting control of himself again. Maybe it was the mention of money, but he was becoming what he had been in his own office, the big frog in a little pond, the kind of guy that small-town people have to tiptoe around.
“Talk fast, “I said.
He smoothed his hair with his hands. I noticed for the first time that the roots were slightly lighter than the even darkness of the rest of it. Then he spoke, his voice composed. “I can understand how you feel, but I had nothing to do with it. Nothing.” He waited to see if I was going to question him, then went on. “What I've told you is the truth. I was surprised when your lawyer wanted to set up a meeting. But he sounded like it was important so I said ‘sure.’ I knew you were in trouble for taking that woman's money so I suggested a private place.”
“Smooth as silk,” I sneered. “Then you set up the guy with the gun.”
He shook his head and his voice was reasonable, unshaken, the way it would be on the witness stand. “No. It wasn't anything like that. I began to worry. You're under investigation for a pretty bad crime. I'm a respectable businessman. I started to worry, like I said. Then Sgt. Ferris came in and I told him about my concern and he said he would see to it.”
“Beautiful. All I need is violins and I'll cry,” I said. “And then you went around to the police station and blew the sergeant's brains out with his own gun and all your troubles are over.”
His face was expressionless. He looked out of his pale blue eyes and said nothing. He was practicing for court, and I was beaten.
I made the best move I had left. “A couple of days ago you gave me to believe that you were paying off the police in town. I want to know if it's true.”
“Are you trying to shake me down?” He was in full control now, the surprised citizen.
“Are you paying off the police department?” I kept my voice even, staring at him, but he just looked back, blandly.
“What gives you that idea?”
“Just say I'm psychic.”
He took his eyes off me and began doing up the buttons on his cuffs. “I have an excellent relationship with the police in this town.”
“Where were you before you owned the Headframe?”
He frowned now, another courtroom gesture. Whatever he was, this guy was used to acting honest for an audience. It was the most damning thing about him, and it meant nothing to anyone but me. “How do you mean?”
“Where did you come from, to buy the Headframe?”
“I previously owned a hotel down south. I've been in the business for twenty years. Why?”
“When did you buy this place?”
“It came up for sale in July after the previous owner died. I bought it then.”
He had beaten me. I had nothing on him but the fact that he had told Ferris about our meeting. It was enough to make the hair on my neck stand up, but in a courtroom it was no more than conversation. I cut my losses. “I'll be in your office at nine in the morning to get a full statement. You can go back to bed until then.”
His poise slipped one degree as he said, “I'll be there.” His tone was pushy; he was exulting in his win.
I left. He followed me to the door and saw me out without saying another word. I was off balance. I'd been certain I had all the answers to the puzzle, but none of them fit the slots I'd expected. Ferris's death had changed everything. Before that I had known what to do. I could have charged Ferris and let him put everything together for me in his plea bargaining. Now he was gone and Berger had closed ranks with the chief. I had no doubts about their relationship. The mystery was, why was Berger so anxious to maintain it?
There was nothing to do but trail back to the station and check what was happening there.
Walker was in the guardroom with the chief and Nunziatta. The chief was examining a plastic bag of grass, a pretty small bag, I thought, for the only dealer in town.
“Is this all he had in his stash?” I asked.
Walker nodded. “Yeah, this an’ some pills.” He held up another bag that was lying on a chair. It was filled with plastic envelopes of pills. “Uppers an’ downers.”
The chief looked at me. “Any idea what the street value of this is?”
“Not much,” I said, picking up the grass. “What were you charging, Frankie?”
“Ten,” he said. He was nervous and quiet.
“About four hundred bucks for this, about six hundred for the pills,” I told the chief. “Are you charging him with trafficking?”
“Of course.” Harding nodded briskly. “I dislike drugs more than just about any other form of crime.” He could have modeled for a recruiting poster for honest lawmen.
Nunziatta squawked, “I got a deal goin’ with Mr. Bennett.”
“My deal with you is that I'll drop the charge of attempted murder. Aside from that, you're on your own.”
He swore, but under his breath. I looked at him sharply. He was rolling over too easily. It gave me the feeling that there was a conspiracy here that was outside my knowledge.
“Where was the stash?” I asked Walker.
“In the boiler of the old pulp mill,” he said.
I frowned. “There must have been a trail through the snow a blind man could follow. Sounds like a dumb place to leave drugs.”
“That only led to the door.” Walker said. “Inside there's a thousand places you could've hid something this size. Naah, it was safe enough.”
Harding said nothing. His silence bugged me. He should have been taking charge, ordering the investigation.
“Okay, book him, if that's what the chief wants. I've got work to do.” I nodded to Harding and went through to the guardroom and took out the evidence bags with Ferris's gun in it. I got the fingerprint kit and went over th
e gun, lifting one set of prints. They were Ferris's.
Harding had come through and he watched me as I compared them.
“What do you see?”
“The sergeant's prints are the only ones on the gun,” I said and he nodded.
“Figures. It's his gun. Looks like he did it himself. No question.”
I didn't say anything. To me the prints meant something else. A policeman handles his gun every day. There should have been a jumble of prints on the weapon. Instead I had just one textbook set. It looked to me as if someone had wiped the gun, then wrapped Ferris's dead fingers around it. It was the indication I needed that he had been murdered.
FIFTEEN
I broke the gun and printed the rounds. They were hollow points. One of them could have caused that wound to his head.
I put everything back in the evidence bags. The gun I kept. The rounds I gave to the chief to lock in his safe. He was in the front office with Walker, who was typing. “I'm going down to the hospital to check the body,” I said. “I want to search the pockets and then search his house. If you could come with me, please, chief, I need a witness.”
Harding shook his head. “I'll stay here. The media will be all over us when word gets out. Take Walker with you.”
It was another cop-out but I nodded to him and spoke to Walker, who was sitting at the typewriter, head hunched forward, rattling away with two fingers. “Okay, Jeff, we're on. Can you come with me, please?”
He nodded, pulled his arrest report out of the typewriter, and got his parka, not saying anything. Harding broke the silence. “Do a thorough job,” he said. “I'll check the properties. See you when you get back.”
Walker didn't talk as we walked out together. My promotion was rankling. I almost wished I could tell him that it was temporary, that I would be off down the highway as soon as my assignment was completed and by that time the chief's job would probably be up for grabs. But there were more important things at stake than my popularity, so I kept my mouth shut.
There was an elderly porter on duty at the hospital. He looked as if he had been born for the job. He was thin and paper-white and silent. He recognized Walker and nodded to him, ignoring me. Walker said, “This is Sgt. Bennett. Where's the doctor?”
