The Silver Cobweb

by Ben Benson

  “Yes, Sarge,” I said.

  Neal leaned forward on the desk. I noticed his light blue uniform shirt was tight at the seams. Some sergeants, when they are promoted from the activity of patrol work to the desk, have a tendency to put on weight. Especially those who make frequent trips to the convenient kitchen. He said, “How are you getting along with Ludwell?”

  “Fine.”

  “You’ll learn a lot from Keith. He knows his stuff and he’s a lot of help to me here. Some of the boys around here say he’s a shaper. I don’t see anything wrong with a man being a shaper. I want my men to be shapers—but good shapers. Understand?”

  “Yes, Sarge.”

  “I always say look in the mirror before you go out on patrol. Your reflection is the public’s impression. I like the way Keith looks all the time. And I like the way he goes by the book. Sometimes a new boot thinks he can try short cuts. I know every short cut that’s ever been tried. Don’t do it, Ralph. Don’t get careless and don’t ever dog it on me.”

  “I’ll try not to.”

  “You dogged it today. Don’t do it again, Ralph.”

  I felt my face flush. “When was that, Sergeant?”

  Neal said coldly, “You had the Pond Road patrol. You gave us a Signal 5 at 3:30. That was from the Derechy house. Where did you go then?”

  “Continued on patrol until I came to the pond.”

  “Sure. I don’t need any spies. I know every inch of this territory and I know exactly what you did. You came up the hill to the bluff. The hard road ends there. All you have after that are a couple of dirt tracks along the pond. You didn’t drive up those tracks, did you?”

  “No, I didn’t.”

  “Your book doesn’t show any violation slips after that. So unless you were parked up on that bluff for a half-hour, where the hell else were you?”

  “I guess I was parked on the bluff, Sergeant.”

  “Did you go in for a swim?”

  “No, I didn’t.”

  “Maybe you didn’t. In my time I’ve ridden patrol there and I’ve sneaked a swim, too. So any trick you think you’re pulling has been pulled before. Don’t try to fool us, Ralph. You’ll wind up behind the eight ball.”

  “I won’t try it again.”

  “Keep it clean. Don’t get a big head because you’ve made a lucky pinch, and maybe, some day, you’ll be a good trooper. You going home now?”

  “Yes, I am.”

  “Give my regards to your father. Any time you feel you can bring him out here, I’d like him to have lunch with us.”

  “Thanks. I’ll tell him, Sergeant.”

  I went upstairs to my bare, austere room, undressed, showered and changed to civilian clothes. I had a short-barreled S&W revolver which I used as my pocket weapon when I went off duty. I put it in the little holster and strapped it to the side of my belt. Then I went downstairs again to the parking lot. As I passed the garage I saw Pellegrini finishing up with his cruiser. I went over to him.

  “Tony,” I said, “what’s your definition of a ‘shaper’?”

  He squeezed water from a cloth and eyed me curiously. “What’s the matter, kid? You’ve heard the word before.”

  “Sure,” I said. “I’ve heard talk. But I’ve never seen one.”

  “They’re rare birds,” Pellegrini said, leaning against the car. “You have to look close for them. A shaper is a bandbox, a trooper who’s extra sharp about his appearance. He uses Simonize on his boots and usually carries a polishing cloth in his pocket. He’s not satisfied with the fit the troop tailor gave his uniform, but has it recut to give it extra flair. Some of them have their silver uniform buttons dipped in chrome finish.”

  “I don’t see anything wrong with that, Tony,” I said. “I’ve done some of those things myself. The Division is always after us about being proud of the uniform.”

  “Who says it’s wrong?” Pellegrini said, putting the cloth down. “‘Shaping up’ is good if it ends there. This is a semimilitary outfit and smart-looking troopers are important. In fact, this is the most military semi-military outfit I’ve ever seen, and I’ve done my share of soldiering, so I know. But I’ll tell you when it gets bad, kid. It gets bad when the uniform becomes more important than the work. There’s where your bad shaper comes in. He likes the authority and the prestige of the State Police uniform because it helps make a hit with the girls. And who suffers? All the other troopers. They take the abuse.”

  “How?” I asked.

  “I’ll tell you how,” Pellegrini said. “You have two men riding patrol together. One of them is a shaper. Say there’s an accident. The shaper leaves the dirty work to the other man while he struts up the road to divert traffic. When newsmen arrive he’s the one who says he’s in charge of the investigation, while his partner is grubbing through the wreck and making out reports. In motor violations the shaper is always looking for the big cars, especially if he sees a girl driving. His partner is given the trucks and small cars. A shaper always likes to stop where there are a lot of people around. That way they can see him in action. You getting the picture now, Ralph?”

  “It’s coming to me.” I grinned.

  “Good,” Pellegrini said. “You have to watch out for a shaper. He can be pretty tricky. He’s the eager beaver of the barracks. I don’t mind a guy being eager. I’m eager myself lots of times. Everybody’s got to pitch in and help. But it’s one thing to be helpful and another thing to offer your personal car to the sergeant when the sergeant goes on a day off. The shaper is always sucking up to the brass. He always manages to be around when the inspecting staff sergeant or lieutenant shows up. That’s where he shines. He’ll point out little flaws for the good of the service, dropping a hint here and there about all the good he could do if he had stripes on his sleeves. If he’s a cutthroat shaper he’ll hint that the corporal is doing a lousy job. Not that he has anything personal against the corporal, understand? He happens to like the corporal as a friend. But, for the good of the service, he could handle the job better.”

  “I’ve got it,” I said. “Thanks, Tony.”

  “What made you ask me, kid?”

  “Nothing.”

  Pellegrini nodded. “Anyway, I’m glad you asked me. To tell the truth, I was going to get around to giving you a briefing on shapers myself. Keep your eyes peeled for them, kid. They’ll do you no good.”

  I left him and got into my ’46 Ford coupe. I waved to Pellegrini, drove out onto Route 1 and headed south for Cambridge.

  As I drove I was thinking of a shaper named Keith Ludwell. There had always been a lot of kidding about shapers, but we had had none at the Concord Barracks, nor at the barracks in the western part of the state. I had never seen one until I met Ludwell. I remembered now that, as far as Ludwell was concerned, there wasn’t the usual warm comradeship at the Topsfield Barracks. The other troopers were friendly but a little distant to him. Yet not one of them had ever made a single derogatory remark to me about Ludwell. That was understandable, of course. A cop usually never talks against another cop. Rightly or wrongly, they have a certain clannish code about those things. You had to find out by yourself.

  The trouble was, sometimes you found out about them a little too late.

  7

  I ARRIVED HOME IN CAMBRIDGE IN TIME FOR SUPPER. My mother made her usual fuss over me and the usual remark that I was getting thinner, although I had gained two pounds.

  My father was sitting quietly and patiently in his wheel chair, his hands pale and blue-veined on the little coverlet. Beneath the coverlet were his useless, paralyzed legs. Every time I came home my heart gave a little wrench because I could see he was failing and becoming more aged and haggard-looking.

  Before supper I wheeled my father out onto the front porch. His eyes had a happy little glint in them as he said, “You made a good pinch yesterday, Ralph.”

  “Plain luck and you know it,” I said, sitting down in the glider near him. “I happened to be out there on patrol, that’s all.”
/>   “But you didn’t fumble it,” he said. “In a way, everything is luck, son. It was luck that you came home from Korea alive and Paul Podre was buried there.”

  I knew what else he was thinking. It was luck that he had been shot in the back by a drunken wife-beater when he was corporal at the Andover Barracks many years ago. With Trooper Ed Newpole, he had gone out to make an arrest. After my father had been shot down, Newpole, coming from the rear of the house, had killed the wife-beater. Today Newpole was a detective-lieutenant and my father was a broken old man in a wheel chair. It might have happened the other way around, depending on who had taken the front of the house and who had the back. That was luck, too.

  “I met Carl Podre last night,” I said. Then I told him about it.

  My father’s face grew thoughtful. “I’d keep away from Carl, if I were you. He’s a wrong one. I had him tabbed as a wrong one a long time ago.”

  “I don’t think he has a record,” I said.

  “He can’t beat the odds forever. Keep away from him, Ralph.”

  “I don’t intend to be friendly with him,” I said. I wasn’t lying about it. If I was planning to visit The Red Wheel again it wasn’t because of Carl Podre. Amy Bell was there.

  “How are they making out with the Fedder case?” my father asked.

  “They’ll get a conviction,” I said. “Nobody is worried about that.”

  “But a conviction won’t end it,” my father said. “You’ve got to see a case like this all the way through. You just don’t convict a hired gunman for killing a young girl and let it rest there. You have to dig in and find out what caused it, who was standing behind the curtain pulling the strings.”

  “They’re working hard on it,” I said. “So far they’ve run into a stone wall. The girl has no bad past. She was graduating as a physical education instructor at Simmons, and she was going to be married in two weeks. She was a quiet girl. No men in her life except Russell Westlake.”

  “What about him?”

  “Nothing. No other girl friend. Nobody who could be jealous because he was marrying Mary Ann. He’s as clean as a whistle. Twenty-two years old, graduated from Lowell Tech last year and now working as an engineer in a cotton mill in Salem. Neither of them had much money. They were planning to live with the Fedders, and the girl was going to be a gym instructor for a couple of years until they got a nest egg saved. Funny thing about the girl. I always pictured physical education instructors as being horse-faced, beefy women. Mary Fedder was small, blonde and pretty. And there’s no way she could have met Whitey Swenke, either. Most of the year she was at school, and she never went out.”

  “She did meet him,” my father said. “Otherwise he wouldn’t have killed her. He didn’t pick her name out of a hat.” He looked thoughtfully down the street and ran a hand over his fine-spun gray hair. “The question is how and where and why.” His hands moved restlessly over the coverlet. “How had she been up to the time she was murdered? Happy?”

  “Oh, yes. She was busy all morning with her wedding things. There was to be a church rehearsal in the afternoon. She had lunch with Rodna Dryden, one of her bridesmaids. The Dryden girl says that Mary Ann didn’t seem to have a care in the world. She left the Dryden house at twelve-thirty. Well, you know the rest of it. She was murdered at two o’clock in her own house.”

  “In that hour and a half she may have met Swenke for the first time in her fife. The farthest she could have been away from home is a three-quarters of an hour ride.”

  “Which takes in a lot of territory,” I said.

  “Isn’t Ipswich less than three-quarters of an hour away?”

  “Yes, Pa. They’re checking all through there.”

  “And Swenke had chased her car. Why was he driving a rented truck?”

  “We don’t know. He got it in Boston earlier that day.”

  My father shook his head. “The girl must have witnessed something. The question is what.”

  “There’s no record of anything, Pa. It happened to be a quiet day for crime.”

  “Nothing in the Ipswich area?”

  “Nothing anywhere. One gas station holdup in Haverhill. But they were two young punks and were grabbed by the Haverhill police.”

  “No missing persons reported?”

  “No. And another thing. The girl had a packed suitcase in her car. Go figure that out.”

  “It’s a tough one,” my father said, kneading his fingers. “You’ll find Ed Newpole will do a good job, though. How do you like Topsfield?”

  “Fine.”

  “It’s liable to be a little noisy. The trucks coming down the hill on U.S. 1 backfire a lot. You’ll have to get used to sleeping there.”

  “I sleep like a log,” I said. “By the way, Sergeant Neal sends his regards. He’d like to have you come out for lunch some day.”

  “That’s mighty nice of Neal,” my father said. “Mighty nice. I’ve been a little tired lately. When I feel stronger I’ll be glad if you’ll drive me out, Ralph. I’d appreciate it very much.”

  “I’ll be happy to do it, Pa. How would next week be?”

  “I hope next week will be fine. You going out on a date tonight?”

  “I’ve got some tentative plans.”

  “Anybody local?”

  I shook my head. That was a tender subject between us. I had been engaged to Ellen Levesque, who lived only two houses away. At the last minute it hadn’t worked out. Ellen was seeing somebody else these days.

  “I just thought I’d ask,” my father said. “Your mother doesn’t like to keep harping on it, so she passes the buck to me. She was always very fond of Ellen.”

  “It wasn’t in the cards,” I said.

  “No, I suppose not,” he said. And just then my mother called us in to supper.

  8

  I WAS IN DORSET AT TEN IN THE EVENING. WHEN I WALKED INTO The Red Wheel I saw the place was half-empty. The stage was bare. I didn’t see Amy Bell and I began to think I had come back for nothing. It could be her night off, too.

  I went into the taproom. The bartender recognized me and asked what I would have. I was never much for drinking so I told him I’d let him decide.

  “I’ve got some good bonded bourbon,” he said. “Private stock. It’ll taste just right with a little soda.”

  “Fine.”

  He poured the drink into a small shot glass and set it beside a glass of soda with a single ice cube in it. “Mix it for you?”

  “Please.”

  He mixed it with a swizzle stick. “I’m Harry,” he said. “I’ve been here two years and been tending bar sixteen years altogether. And I’d like you to know I’ve never served a minor in my life. Not knowingly.”

  “I’m sorry about last night,” I said. “I guess I got overexcited “

  “It’s not your fault,” he said. “A cop can’t be too careful. You must see a lot of that stuff going on.”

  “I haven’t myself. But I’ve been told to watch out for it.” I took a dollar bill from my wallet and placed it on the bar.

  Harry pushed it back. “Orders,” he said. “Carl said anything you want is on the house.”

  “Well, thanks,” I said, looking dubiously at the dollar bill. “Does Carl treat all cops the same way?”

  “Just Al Rigsby, the local gendarme. He doesn’t come in here more than once a month and all he’ll have is a bottle of beer.”

  “I mean state cops.”

  “You’re the first trooper who ever came in here. Sometimes on a Friday or Saturday night there’ll be a prowl car outside watching for drunken drivers. But none of them troopers ever come in here.”

  “I feel kind of funny being the exception.”

  “Forget it. Carl says you’re an old friend of his. He tells me you went around with his kid brother who was killed in Korea.”

  “Yes, I did.” I sipped on the bourbon. It was fiery going down.

  “How’s the drink?” Harry asked. “Good?”

  “Fine,” I said. �
��Kind of quiet tonight, isn’t it?”

  “It’s a little early yet,” Harry said. “But I can tell it’s going to be a slow night. Maybe it’s the murder. The letdown comes afterwards. Last night there were a lot of townsfolks in here lapping it up, all excited, talking their heads off about it. Today they must be feeling a little ashamed of themselves.”

  “That could be it,” I said.

  “You sure grabbed that killer fast,” Harry said. “He put up a fight?”

  “Not much.”

  “I’ve got to laugh. A gangster with a big rep. A real tough guy. But you give a hyena a gun and he thinks he’s a lion. The guy must have been crazy, too. There’s a killing that had absolutely no sense to it. I was telling that to the detective who was in here last night asking questions. I said there was absolutely no sense to it. That Mary Ann Fedder was a hell of a fine girl.”

  “You knew her?”

  “No. But she come in here once to collect for a church bazaar. I sent her to Carl. You could see she was a good, clean girl. I’d like to throw the switch on Whitey Swenke myself. Those muscle guys I could never stand.”

  “Did Russell Westlake ever come in here?”

  “The boy friend? No. Those kids don’t come in here at all. They don’t have the money to spend. They can have a good time by going down the road to the ice cream stand and buying a coke or a box of fried clams.”

  I sipped on the bourbon. Harry ran a damp rag over the bar. He said, “Carl tells me you haven’t been a trooper long. How do you like the State Police?”

  “Fine,” I said.

  “Rugged, huh? Like the Army?”

  “A lot stricter,” I said. “But they make up for it in the pay. Isn’t Amy Bell singing tonight?”

  “Oh, sure. She’s around somewhere. Comes on later. Say, she’s burned up at you, isn’t she?”

  “I didn’t know.”

  “You booked her for speeding.”