by Ben Benson
“Yes, sir,” I said. I went back to the bike, started it and drove farther down the road. There I saw a blue cruiser. Sergeant Neal was standing near it, looking into the woods, his head bent toward the open window of the cruiser, listening for radio calls. His holster flap was unbuttoned.
For the third time I heard I was late. Then Neal said, “There’s a riot gun for you on the back seat. Take it and go down the road until you see Ludwell. He’s just around the bend. Take your post fifty yards beyond him. Get it? Podre is in the woods we’re facing. The Andover troopers are over the other side of the woods on 97. The bloodhounds have picked up a scent from the station wagon and they’re following Podre’s trail. All right, take off.”
I grabbed the shotgun and trotted down the road. I came by Wisnioski, then Swanson and Costello. Each was spaced fifty yards apart, each watching the woods. Then I saw Podre’s abandoned station wagon with two troopers in plainclothes working over it. One of them was a tech sergeant from the Framingham Barracks whom I knew. I stopped. “Did you find anything?” I asked.
The tech sergeant turned his head. “Soot from a stove,” he said. “And a little bit of cash money. Fifty thousand bucks under the front seat. Dondera has that.”
“Podre went into the woods here?”
The tech sergeant pointed. “They tell me he went in over there. The dogs and two Andover troopers went in after him about a half-hour ago.”
I trotted down the road again, turning the bend and seeing Ludwell. His face was tense and grim and he was carrying a Thompson submachine gun. I stopped. I heard, for the fourth time, that I was late.
I said, “They told me to take my post fifty yards from you.”
He nodded. “Keep going until you’re able to see the Boxford police car. Stop there and keep your eyes on the woods. If you spot anything holler out for me.”
“Sure,” I said. “But I hope I didn’t run all the way down here for nothing.”
“Why?”
“Well, I’ve got a personal reason, but I’d like to take Podre myself. The way they’re driving him toward Route 97, he won’t show back here.”
“Don’t kid yourself,” Ludwell said, his eyes very bright. “Why do you think I picked this spot? Podre knows by now we’ve got the bloodhounds working.”
“How would he know? He can’t hear them. The dogs don’t make a sound.”
“He’s smart enough to know we’d call in the dogs,” Ludwell said, wetting his lips. “He might not be able to hear them but he’ll hear those two troopers who are with the dogs. No matter how careful they are they’re bound to make a little noise in the brush.”
“That’s another reason he won’t come out here,” I said. “He’ll hear the dogs behind him and he’ll keep going until he walks right into the men stationed on 97.”
“Maybe,” Ludwell said. “But maybe he’s going to think he can outsmart them. He may try to circle around and double back on his own tracks. Thinks he’ll confuse the dogs. The smart ones always try to double back. They’re the easiest ones to take.”
“How else would you do it?”
“Me, I wouldn’t,” Ludwell said. “If I knew bloodhounds had my scent and were after me I’d sit down and wait for them because then I’d know the show was over.”
I shook my head and left him, turning the final arc in the bend and seeing the snout of the Boxford police car ahead. Beside it was a short, stocky officer in a dark blue uniform. He was watching the woods, too.
I stopped, checked the shotgun, loaded a shell into the chamber and set the safety. Then I faced the woods. I kept looking for something to move. Every once in a while I would see Ludwell as he stepped back on the road for a glance at me.
Time passed. It was very quiet. In the distance I heard church bells, reminding me it was Sunday morning. The sun rose higher.
Then, suddenly, a bird flew up in the woods and screeched angrily. I watched the spot, listening intently. I thought I heard the faint crackle of a twig.
I released the safety of the shotgun and peered into the tangled underbrush. The sound had come from near Ludwell’s sector but now there was silence again. I relaxed.
Then, close to the same spot, I heard a swish as though a tree branch had been released and had scraped another. I turned and moved along the road toward it. Silence again. I stopped and waited. Then, a footstep on dry leaves.
I came off the road. There was a slight decline of ground from the shoulder of the highway and I stopped at the bottom of it. The underbrush there was up to my waist. Nothing moved. But I saw a pale yellow-tan patch mingled with the green. I brought up the shotgun and sighted at it.
“Come on out, Carl,” I said softly.
The tan patch came closer. I could see Podre now, his pale face streaked with dirt and sweat. The tan patch was a pigskin leather brief case which he carried in one hand. In the other hand he held an automatic pistol. He was no more than twenty-five feet from me.
“Ralphie,” he whispered hoarsely. He moved up a few feet and stopped behind a thick clump of juniper. Now only his head and shoulders were visible. “Ralphie,” he said. “I was looking for you. I kept moving along in line with the road, seeing troopers all along the way, hoping I’d spot you out here. Geez, am I glad to see you.”
“I’m glad to see you, Carl.”
“It’s a terrific break. The best break I ever had in my life. Let me through, Ralphie.”
“Carl, drop everything you’re carrying. Then walk straight toward me with your hands up.”
He stared at me. “You’re kidding, Ralphie. Let me cross the road. Let me get over to the other side. That’s all I ask.”
“Don’t try it,” I said. “This shotgun will tear you apart.”
“A break,” Podre whispered raspingly. “For my kid brother’s sake. For his grave in Korea. Do this one thing for him, Ralphie. This one thing for Paul.”
“Your brother’s dead,” I said. “Don’t disgrace him by playing off on his memory. You can’t ride on Paul’s death forever.” I shook my head and my finger tensed on the trigger. “Once more, Carl. Drop the gun and the bag and raise your hands high.”
“They’ve got it all wrong, Ralphie. I had nothing to do with the murder of those two kids. It was Swenke and Hozak. I swear that on Paul’s grave. All I did was cover up for them.”
“That doesn’t buy you a thing, Carl.”
“So I’m an accessory. They don’t burn you for it.” He came out of the juniper bushes, moving three steps forward. “Look, we’re old pals from the same neighborhood, Ralphie. You don’t turn in an old pal.”
“There was a bank robbery, too, Carl. Add that to the score.”
“That’s it, kid,” he said, talking swiftly, urgently. “Fifty thousand in this brief case. Half of it’s yours. Twenty-five grand to let me cross the road. It’s no skin off your nose. You didn’t see me. Twenty-five thousand. It would set you up perfect with Amy Bell.”
“If I wanted to buy a wife I’d go live in Africa in a mud hut. Come on out, Carl. You’ve done all your talking.”
He was silent for a moment, his head cocked sideways. “Those bloodhounds have turned and they’re coming back this way. I’m going through you, Ralphie, and nothing’s going to stop me. This automatic holds eight rounds.”
“But you won’t use it,” I said. “Somebody else has always done your shooting for you. Your brother, Paul, in Korea. Swenke and Hozak. Always somebody else, Carl. Now, you do either one of two things. Fire that gun or drop it. Because I’m going to start shooting.”
It was odd the way he did it. He dropped the pistol quickly enough. But he held onto the bag for ten seconds before he let it slip through his fingers. Fifty thousand dollars, and he hated to let go of it. He stood there looking down at the bag, then put up his hands and waded through the brush toward me.
I backed out into the middle of the road. When he came up to the edge of it, I told him to turn around with his back to me. He did. Now the Boxford officer had
seen us and came running heavily down the road, his police revolver in his hand. When he came up I handed him the shotgun and brought out my service revolver.
I moved in behind Podre. With my free hand I opened my handcuff case, brought down one of his arms and snapped the bracelet on. Then I brought his other hand behind his back and locked both wrists together.
“Thanks,” I said to the Boxford officer, taking back the shotgun.
By then Ludwell had seen us and came pelting up. He was so angry that his lips were foam-flecked.
“Damn you,” he said, patting Podre’s clothes for more weapons. “I told you to holler out.”
“Didn’t have time, Keith,” I said. It was a lie, of course, because I had wanted to do it alone. One more pinch wasn’t going to put a halo over my head. I would be transferred out, anyway. This one had been for Amy Bell.
23
WHEN I RODE UP ON THE MOTORCYCLE, she was in the Danziger yard putting a suitcase into her convertible. I climbed off the bike and set it on its kick stand. She was wearing a black whipcord suit and pinned above her breast, gleaming dully, was the silver cobweb.
She watched me, smiled a little hopelessly and wearily and held her wrists out. “It’ll be handcuffs, of course,” she said tremulously. “You’re taking me in, aren’t you?”
I grinned. “They do want to see you, Amy.”
“Why did I expect you to act differently?” she said tonelessly. “I should have known better.”
“Known what, Amy?”
“You were going to give me a break. Don’t worry about it, you said. You’re on our side. Remember saying those things?”
“I had to speak to them about it, Amy. I had to. Do you understand? You never know about those things. A problem like that needs an older, wiser head than mine.”
“I always knew you were all cop, dear,” she said bitterly. “Will the newspaper boys be waiting? If they are, I’ll change to a real tight sexy dress and dangle a cigarette from the corner of my mouth. I want to look like an authentic gun moll.”
“You’re all wrong, honey. There’ll be no newspaper men. Nobody is going to know. They’re pretty decent people. You’ll go to the barracks and talk to the captain and a detective named Newpole and a man from the D.A.’s office. Nobody else will be there. All they’ll want is your name and address, in case they ever want to reach you. Maybe a few questions.”
“Nothing more?”
“Nothing more. You see, Derechy was picked up in Connecticut during the night and Carl Podre was taken this morning. The case is boxed in tight with no loose ends. What you did last summer has nothing to do with it now. It will never come out.”
“You’re sure, dear? Are you really sure?”
“Yes, they told me so.”
“And I aged ten years worrying about it. Silly of me, wasn’t it, dear?”
“Yes.”
“How long will the interview at the barracks take?”
“Shouldn’t be more than ten minutes. You’re actually leaving now, Amy?”
“Yes, I have another bag to get inside.”
I went into the house with her. There was a rich old Oriental rug in the center hall. On it was a white leather suitcase.
“Why do you have to go?” I asked her.
“I have no more job here, dear. And I do want to get to New York today to see my agent.”
“You still have that engagement in Salisbury.”
She smiled but her eyes were wet. “It would be too close to you. I’d be looking out beyond the spotlights every night, searching for your homely face. I’d be all shivers. I’d look terrible in an off-the-shoulder gown and goose pimples. Besides, you really don’t want me, dear. I’m a little tarnished around the edges for a person like you.”
“We’re all tarnished in some way or other, Amy.”
“No, dear. Let me have my chance. Let me go away. Maybe it’s out there for me, maybe it isn’t. But I have to find out.”
“How long will it take?”
“One year, possibly two or three. If it doesn’t go, I’ll come back.”
“You won’t come back,” I said. “You’ll never come back.”
“Would you wait?”
“No, Amy,” I said. “Because I know you’ll never come back.”
Her eyes filled again. She put her arms up to me. “I want to kiss you good-bye, dear.”
I bent and kissed her. The tears ran down as she stood on her toes and clutched me hard.
She released me. “Good-bye, dear.”
“Good-bye, Amy,” I said. “I’ll carry your bag out.”
We went down the three steps of the portico to the car. I put the suitcase into the trunk. She stood there watching me.
I turned to her and touched the silver cobweb. “I see you’re wearing it.”
“Sort of a gift from you,” she said. “Maybe it will bring me luck.”
“I hope so,” I said. “Good-bye, Amy.”
I went back to my motorcycle and kicked down on the starter. I was thinking of another kind of silver cobweb, one made of bright lights and tinsel and fame and adulation, and Amy Bell was caught in it forever. The motorcycle engine started and I drove off. There was no need for me to look back. I knew that was the end of it.
Keith Ludwell wasn’t in the dining room for lunch. I went upstairs to look for him, to check if we were going on patrol together. I didn’t see him around.
I came down and went into the duty office for my assignment. Sergeant Neal was behind the desk. He said, “I wanted to talk to you, Ralph.”
So that was it, I thought. Ludwell had gone off on patrol without me because my transfer had come through. Thank you, Trooper Lindsey, you made a couple of lucky pinches but that alone won’t put you on the side of the angels. Let some other barracks have the headache with you until your investigation is completed.
“You’re riding with Tony Pellegrini,” Neal was saying. “He’s your senior man now. Ludwell has resigned.”
I stood stock-still. I knew my mouth gaped but I couldn’t do anything about it. “He’s what?” I finally asked.
“Resigned. Rather resign than face a court-martial. The reason for his resignation is just between you, me and the captain. You understand?”
“No, Sergeant, I don’t.”
“Now that’s too bad. I’m disappointed, Ralph. All along I thought you were smart. This was right under your nose and you didn’t see it.”
“Maybe that’s why,” I said.
“Who do you think wrote those anonymous letters?”
“No,” I said. “Ludwell wouldn’t do a thing like that.” But I was remembering now that since the second letter they had deliberately kept me away from Ludwell.
“It was Ludwell, all right,” Neal said. “Stop and think about it, Ralph. In one letter he wrote you were seen leaving a State Police blue cruiser. How many civilians call a police car a cruiser? They call them prowl cars and squad cars and radio cars and police cars.”
“Some civilians might call them cruisers.”
“Yes. But the letter said a State Police blue cruiser. He was differentiating. Only a trooper would know we distinguish between black cruisers and blue cruisers, because our black cruisers look like ordinary sedans and they carry civilian number plates. Most of them don’t even have rear radio antennas like regular police cars do. So who else would know the difference between a black cruiser and a blue cruiser?”
“Yes, sir,” I said. “But I don’t see where Ludwell could have got the information about the brawl at The Red Wheel. The first time, yes. He saw me with young Cleves. But he wasn’t with me on my night off when I had the fight with Derechy.”
“Smarten up, Ralph. He had a girl in the diner across from The Red Wheel, didn’t he? Marsha Gordioni?”
“Yes,” I said slowly.
“The divisional inspector, Captain Reilly, went there. The girl has a good pair of eyes. She was Ludwell’s eyes and she wasn’t ashamed of it, either. Told Captain Reil
ly she was kind of proud she was helping Ludwell get ahead. Well, one thing led to another, and up comes the typewriter at the diner that was used for typing menus. There it was in a nutshell. So, if you’re smart, Ralph, you’ll pick a different diner from now on. The girl might put arsenic in your coffee.”
“Ludwell actually wrote those letters?”
“The girl typed them for him. What’s the difference? She was only doing what she was told.”
“I feel sorry for her,” I said. “Honestly, I really do. She was desperately in love with Ludwell.” I shook my head. “It’s still beyond me, though. I cant understand why Ludwell would want to do it. I thought we were getting along fine.”
“He was a young and ambitious man, Ralph. Before you came here he was top man in the barracks. You were a young boot. Your father had quite a name and you came here with a good reputation. You worried Ludwell. He didn’t want you to outshine him or get any good assignments, so he simply put the skids to you. Eliminate the competition by taking out the front man.”
“All right, so he did it,” I said. “He wrote a couple of anonymous letters. So what? You can’t blame a man for being a little ambitious. I don’t know, but if I were in command, I’d bawl him out, take away some time off, or, at worst, give him a little suspension, and let it go. You’re kind of harsh with him, aren’t you?”
“Damn right,” Sergeant Neal said. “But not only me. The captain and the adjutant and the major and the commissioner. Can you go higher than that?”
“Somebody ought to speak to them.”
“You try it. Try going over my head and you won’t see a day off in the next two years.”
“But Ludwell was a good cop. One of the best. He taught me a lot.”
“Nobody’s denying he’s a good cop. Dammit, he’s one of the best troopers I’ve ever had here. But that’s not enough. If he can do this to you, he can stick it into any other trooper who gets in his way. We’re a small outfit and every man has to fit. You can’t let a man knife a brother officer. Some day, if he wants a conviction badly and the evidence isn’t too strong, he might frame a suspect. You want a cop like that working with you, eating with you, living with you? Wondering if he’ll run out on you when you’re in a tough spot? Wondering when you’ve sneaked a bottle of beer in here past the corporal that he’ll rat on you? Wondering if every pinch he’s made is a clean one, or has he framed some drunken bum for a rap that belongs to somebody else just to make his arrest record look good? Would you want to keep worrying about a man like that?”
