The Frightened Ones

by Melba Marlett

  The fat was in the fire then, with a vengeance. No one denied Avery something without explaining why. He rattled questions like a machine gun until the chief, cut off from evasion, confessed his impending resignation. The admission was not enough. Avery wanted reasons, probed for them, got nowhere, reached for his hat. “I’m going up to your house and have a talk with your wife,” he said. “She’s probably just as sore about this thing as I am. She’ll talk.”

  Reluctantly Cap unlocked the desk drawer and brought out the Frescatti folder. “For your own information, then. Otherwise, this is in strictest confidence.”

  By eight o’clock he had told the whole story, citing chapter and verse, and Avery sat immobile, mulling it over. When he finally spoke his voice was respectful. “They put it over smooth as clockwork, didn’t they? The people in town who’d buck the thing won’t hear about it until it’s too late. Very clever. Lots of brains behind a scheme like this.”

  “Mike’s.”

  “I suppose. He’s a real spellbinder, that boy. Has the mayor in his pocket obviously.”

  “I’m not so sure about that. Haynes is trying to be fair. The way he stalled off my resignation shows—”

  “What a babe in the woods you are!” said Avery cynically. “Stop trying to attribute fine, righteous motives to politicians. They don’t have ’em.”

  “He knows I’m against the deal, but he wants me to keep on being police chief anyway. How do you explain that if—”

  Avery slapped a hand down on the desk. “I’ll tell you how I explain it! Haynes wants you to resign, all right, but not now, not till the whole thing’s ironclad. He’s keeping you under wraps because he’s afraid of you! You’re well thought of. Too many people know you’re a square shooter. What if you were to open your face and spill all this stuff you’ve told me? Do you think this precious deal would go through then? No, sir. And the mayor knows it.” His shrewd eyes softened a little as he stared at the older man. “Though if he knew you just a bit better he’d be resting easier. You’re not the kind to raise a public stink. Even a healthy public stink.”

  For the second time that day Cap felt that he had been weighed and found wanting, and indignation boiled up in his voice. “One person isn’t enough to stop this thing. Suppose I went around to the men’s clubs, the way Mike did, do you know what they’d say? Paul Cassidy’s afraid he’s going to lose his job and he’s out hustling to keep it.’ That’s all the effect I’d have, and they’d grin behind their hands. No, thanks. I’m not going to make a martyr or a laughingstock out of myself, either one!”

  “Well, don’t get sore at me,” said Avery mildly. “I’m not telling you what to do. If I owned the newspaper I’d give you a helping hand. As it is, I can’t even talk about it to anyone. Hoiles would fire me in a minute and right now I need the job.” He stood up, buttoning his overcoat. “Funny, the things that keep people in line. I’m afraid of losing my job. You’re afraid of being laughed at. Two of a kind.”

  “For God’s sake, Avery, you’re talking as if we were a couple of cowards! There’s such a thing as common sense, you know!”

  Avery winked at him. “Well, if you decide not to be sensible and go on a crusade, let me know. I’m feeling a little reckless these days. I might join you just for the hell of it.”

  The chief resisted a childish impulse to hurl the folder against the door that Avery closed behind him. Fuming, he threw it back into the drawer and wished that he had a milk of magnesia tablet. His stomach, usually an amiably efficient organ, could not digest this silly talk about crusading.

  Joe, the night dispatcher, came in. “New bulletin on that escaped convict. The Michigan police report that he tried to get a girl to drive him here. She got away and he made off in her car. They think he might be making for our depot, to board a train for Chicago.”

  With action in the offing, he became excited and absorbed. He sifted every fact out of the new report: the old red sweater Norris was wearing, the make and license number of the car, the exact spot where the girl had abandoned it. While Joe called some of the day men back to duty, Cap plotted the road blocks and alerted his patrol cars. “Norris may have left the Ford by now and be on foot or hitching a ride. Stop any man who answers his description. Better to bring in ten innocent men than to let him slip by. He was unarmed at last report, but he is dangerous. Don’t fool with him. Stop him.”

  He telephoned the ticket agent at the railroad station. The train for Chicago made up at Winnipeg, Canada, cut across the northern edge of Minnesota, pulled into Wentworth at ten-thirty, was on its way again at ten-thirty-five. Tonight it was running dead on schedule.

  Cap took his gun from the top of the filing case and strapped it on under his suit coat. It had been a long time since he had worn it, and it felt good. “I’ll cover the depot myself,” he said to Joe. “If they should nail Norris beforehand, call me there.”

  As he pulled his car out of the deserted police garage, the clock on the dashboard registered nine-forty. Usually a couple of his men sat near the entrance, swapping stories and trying to keep their feet warm while they waited for emergency calls. Tonight they were all out, patrolling the town, looking for a tall thin man in an old red sweater. And if they missed him it was up to the chief to provide the final, insurmountable barrier to the fugitive’s escape. The way he figured, it was only fitting and proper that the last responsibility should be his.

  The station platform was long and floodlights lit the center portion of it in front of the main entrance to the old-fashioned inadequate building. The pavement here was of ancient brick with a raised curb marking the twelve-inch drop to the railroad tracks. As he parked his car in the fringe of darkness, where two empty taxicabs stood, he was in the position of a man sitting in a theater and looking up at a lighted stage where players moved about. In this case the players were a group of teen-agers, milling and laughing, their coats open to the wind, their heads bared to the snow. There were a dozen of them and he heartily wished them a thousand miles away. If Norris came, these too-emotional girls and these incautious boys were the very kinds of bystanders to make things tough. They would have to be protected, not only from gunfire, but from their own reckless impulses. He debated sending them home, but he’d have to give them a reason. Then give them five minutes to get to the Sugar Bowl or the nearest telephone, and half of the town might come trooping down! No, he’d have to let them stay.

  They came to greet him the minute he stepped into the lights. He knew them all and his banter was knowing and friendly. He pretended to believe that they were all skipping town at once, and while they explained that they were only waiting to meet two “real cool” Canadian boys who were coming in on the ten-thirty, his eyes surveyed the waiting room through the station window and discovered no one but the two cab drivers, also known to him, warming their hands at a radiator. “Have to talk to the ticket agent a minute,” he said. “If anyone shows up out here while I’m inside—anyone you don’t know—come in and tell me, will you? I’m expecting to meet a man here.”

  He was talking to old Mr. Gillis at the ticket window when young Louise Rickard stuck her head in at the door. “Man’s here,” she said.

  He was at the door in three leaps before he heard their laughter and knew it was a joke. There was a man, but it was only Avery. “This is a stranger?” he said to them, and allowed Avery to pull him off to one side.

  “Went back to headquarters on the off chance and hit the jackpot,” Avery said. “Nothing doing here yet, I take it?”

  “No. Chances are, there won’t be.”

  “Pessimist! I’ve been talking long distance to the Michigan authorities and I’ve got quite a story ready to roll. This boy Norris can’t fail me now.”

  “When a man’s working by trial and error, as he is, you can’t count on anything.”

  “Is there anywhere north of us where he could get this train?”

  “No.”

  “Any place where it slows down and he could rid
e the rods or something like that?”

  “Gillis says the train is small until they add on some cars farther south, and the crew police it pretty well.”

  “But if he managed to get aboard and they didn’t know who he was, he could buy a ticket from the conductor?”

  “Yes.”

  Avery looked at his watch. “She’ll be along in ten minutes. I think I’ll go call your office again. Something new might have come in.”

  “Help yourself.”

  He decided to make a brief turn of the far end of the platform where he had not been. The high school kids were standing out near the tracks now, facing the way the train would come, and they did not notice him. He walked along close to the building and then halfway around it, looking into every shadow, peering behind each crate. Satisfied, he took his hand off his gun, leaving his overcoat open. There was a place where, standing in darkness, he could look down the entire length of the platform. A good enough vantage point for waiting.

  Under his feet the pavement trembled, and far away the train whistled. Expectancy animated the entire depot. The two drivers came out and went to their cabs. Avery appeared and looked around. He was followed by a clerk carrying a leather mailbag, and the two of them stood and talked. The oncoming train grew noisier and the girls shrieked and put their hands over their ears. The chief, leaning toward the light, watched them all.

  He saw the black shiny car drive up and park neatly beside his own. A Lincoln. Not new but well kept. No one got out. Someone waiting to take a passenger home with him? Still, he didn’t know anyone in town who owned a black Lincoln like that one. From this distance there was no chance of identifying the driver. Inconspicuously, he began edging his way down the platform, using the din of the nearing locomotive as a time signal.

  The train rushed into the station, enveloping everything in a smoky haze. A Pullman porter swung out and set a wooden platform in place for the disembarking passengers. The conductor appeared, waving the converging young people back. There was a confusion of sounds and voices, and the little crowd, having received the new arrivals, began bearing them away by slow inches. Ensconsed in a dark angle near the parking area, Cap cursed their lack of speed. Couldn’t they walk and talk at the same time? When the conductor called out, “All aboard!” they were still on the platform, all screaming and giggling at once.

  The door of the Lincoln opened and a tall thin man in a respectable overcoat and a felt hat, tipped against the wind, got out. He moved purposefully toward the train, and so rapidly that Cap had just time to intercept him. He lunged forward and let the man run into him. “I’d like to see your driver’s license,” he said.

  The man stepped back from the collision, glancing obliquely from beneath the hatbrim. “Listen, I’m in a hurry. Some other time.”

  Cap produced his badge, keeping his other hand on the gun in its holster. “The driver’s license. Now.”

  The man’s two hands came out of his pockets. In one was a sheaf of money, in the other a gun. “Which’ll it be?” he said. “Take your choice.”

  Cap stared down at the weapon, marveling at his own stupidity. He hadn’t expected such boldness and, in spite of his warnings to his men, he had counted too heavily on the authority of his badge. Now there was only one way out and he sighed, regretting the way, regretting many things.

  The train’s wheels gave a preparatory jerk. Norris trembled with impatience, but he was careful to keep his face away from the light and the chief’s bulk between himself and the chattering kids. “You don’t have to worry about taking the dough,” he urged. “Some of my friends passed me the word this is a safe town. That’s why I made for it. Play ball, for God’s sake! Be smart.”

  With one hand Cap reached for the money. With the other he drew his gun and shot Norris a careful three inches above the heart. The convict fell, and the wind lifted the paper bills and swirled them after the departing train.

  Cap turned and looked at the young people, huddled in dismay. “Go on home,” he said gently. “Everything’s going to be all right.”

  Avery came running up, delirious with excitement. “What happened? I went back in to the phone, and I heard the shot—” He stared down at the gun in the convict’s relaxed hand. “Did he pull a gun too? Did he use it?”

  “He tried to. I don’t know what happened that he didn’t. Something wrong with the gun, maybe. Call the Meyersville ambulance, will you? I’ll stay here till they come.”

  “You bet.” He took a few steps and returned, to shake the chief’s hand. “You’re a real hero, Cap. I’m proud to know you.”

  “Wait until tomorrow. The real heroics start then.” He touched Norris lightly with his foot. “We can’t have this. I’ve made up my mind.”

  “Crusading?”

  “Yes.”

  “Count me in.”

  “Thanks.”

  A safe town. Win or lose, he was going to try for that.

  * * * *

  Newspapers everywhere printed the story of the capture. The following, taken from one of the Detroit papers, is as accurate as any.

  WENTWORTH POLICE CHIEF STOPS CONVICT

  FUGITIVE WOUNDED IN GUN BATTLE AT DEPOT

  Jake Norris, convicted thief and suspected murderer, who escaped from the Altman Prison Farm yesterday, is in Meyersville Hospital recovering from a wound incurred in a gun battle with Paul Cassidy, chief of police of the city of Wentworth. Norris, supposedly unarmed, drew a gun first and attempted to fire. Later, police discovered that his gun, though otherwise in good condition, contained very old ammunition. The source of the gun has not yet been traced.

  Norris was apprehended as he was about to board a train for Chicago. Mayor Haynes of Wentworth later issued a statement of commendation of Chief Cassidy “whose brave action saved the lives of our townspeople and prevented a menace being let loose on the country at large.”

  The first report of the route of the fleeing Norris came from Mrs. Elizabeth Stevens, a widow, at whose Michigan farm Norris seized a sweater and a bicycle. His attempt to take some money was foiled by Mrs. Stevens’ son John, who forced the convict to flee.

  Later Norris stopped a car driven by Miss Ella Mack of Black Corners and demanded to be driven across the state line to Wentworth. Miss Mack escaped and notified the police. Her car, with two flat tires, was discovered ten miles further on, parked on the shoulder of Route 62 in the lake area.

  When Norris arrived at the railroad station he drove a black Lincoln sedan. Its license plate was missing and mud had been rubbed on the back of the car to conceal this. Police believe he secured the car from a house whose owners were away. No such car has been reported as missing. Doctors say it will be several days before Norris can be questioned.

  “Norris is a thoroughly bad character,” says Lieutenant Harris of the Michigan State Police, “We are fortunate that his attempted escape had no serious consequences, except to himself.”

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  In the 1940s and 1950s, Melba Marlett (1909-1994) gained wide distinction as an author of mystery novels, plays, and in the general field of literature and education. Three of her most popular books are Escape While I Can (1944), Tomorrow Will Be Monday (1946), and Death Is in the Garden (1951).

  Regarding her writing career she once said, “In spite of seven published books, there are times when I am in despair about my writing. Then, in order to cheer myself up, I look myself up in various reference books. There it says I am a writer.”

  Wildside Press is working with her family to reprint all of her classic works.

  Contents

  COPYRIGHT INFORMATION

  THE FRIGHTENED ONES

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Landmarks

  Cover

  Table of Contents