Badge of Evil

by Whit Masterson

  The press room stood opposite Administration. A man was sitting on the edge of a desk, talking on the telephone. When he saw Holt through the open doorway, he hung up and came out to intercept him.

  “You’re Holt, aren’t you?” he said. “From the D.A.’s office. I’m Barker. I handle the police beat for the Sentinel. That was a good job you did on Buccio.”

  “Thanks. But I had a lot of help.”

  “I just got a buzz from the paper. The word is you’re going to do the same thing on this Linneker killing.”

  Holt raised his eyebrows, surprised. Adair hadn’t wasted any time informing the newspapers. “Well, hardly that. The police are in full charge. I’m just acting as liaison for the district attorney’s office, actually.”

  “You must have some ideas on it, though,” the reporter persisted. “Something I can hang a story on to keep my editor happy. You know, some angle the cops have overlooked, that sort of thing.”

  Holt shook his head. “Sorry I can’t help you out, but I don’t know a thing worth printing.”

  There was a heavy tread of feet along the corridor behind him and Holt swung round to see three men approaching from the direction of the chief of police’s office. Captain Troge, the homicide head, he recognized; they had worked together before. The other two men were strangers to him but Holt guessed that this was the famous team of McCoy and Quinlan, though he wasn’t sure which was which. The bigger of the two carried a cane and walked with a deep limp.

  The reporter knew them well. He barred their path cheerfully. “Well, now that I’ve got the whole brains trust all together, somebody ought to be able to tell me something. How about it, Captain Mac? What’s new on Linneker?”

  The man he addressed was the smaller of the two strangers, lean and leathery, with a wiry shock of white hair like bleached fleece. His face was lined and stern but there was something fatherly about it, too. McCoy was about sixty, Holt judged, give or take a year either way. He just smiled and shook his head at the reporter, but the man with the cane — who must be Quinlan — growled, “Don’t push the captain, Barker. When we get something, you’ll know it.”

  “Don’t get edgy, Hank,” the reporter told him. “I’m just doing my job. And I thought that with the new special investigator from the D.A.’s office here, you might want to prove how hardworking you are.”

  McCoy and Quinlan stared at Holt as if noticing him for the first time and Troge made the introductions. They said they were glad to meet him but Holt was inclined to doubt it. He didn’t blame them; to the police officers it must look as if he had brought the reporter with him. Nobody likes a publicity hound.

  McCoy confirmed his suspicions by saying, “I believe I saw your picture in the morning papers, Mr. Holt. The Buccio case. Congratulations.” He had a pleasant melodious voice with a slight hint of brogue to it.

  “Thanks,” said Holt uncomfortably. “I suppose you know why I’m here.”

  “The chief just told us,” Troge said. He glanced at his watch. “I’m late already. It’s all yours, Mac.” He included Holt in this responsibility-shifting statement, nodded and hurried away in the direction of Homicide.

  The three men, with the reporter alertly on the fringe, were left standing in the middle of the corridor for an awkward moment. Holt said, “Is there somewhere we could talk, Captain?”

  “Hank and I were just going across the street for a bite of lunch.” McCoy hesitated. “Be glad to have you join us.”

  Holt accepted the unwilling invitation and went off along the corridor with the two policemen, leaving the reporter behind. Barker called after them, “I’ll be waiting for a statement, Captain.”

  “Don’t hold your breath,” muttered Quinlan. “Damn all newspapers and their readers, anyway.” McCoy chuckled but Holt thought it better not to comment, since the imprecation could be interpreted to include him.

  They crossed the street to the corner lunch room and settled into a booth in the rear. While they studied the menus, Holt examined his companions more closely. Though a team, they were nothing alike. McCoy was obviously the thinker, Quinlan the doer. The sergeant weighed at least fifty pounds more than his superior and was half a head taller. Quinlan scowled where McCoy smiled but Holt decided that both expressions hid the same thing — a cold and competent determination. They were cops, first and foremost, with a cop’s hard bold stare. McCoy hid his behind a twinkle and Quinlan wore rimless spectacles, but it was still there. It was a look that all manhunters acquired.

  McCoy was gazing out the window while they waited for their order to be taken. “Clouding up. Going to rain, Hank?”

  “According to my knee,” Quinlan agreed, indicating his left leg which stuck stiffly out into the aisle. The sergeant had been badly wounded in a gun battle three or four years ago, Holt recalled hearing. Had he been anyone else he would have been retired on disability. But McCoy had wangled him a desk job to allow him to serve out the remainder of his active duty which now had only a year or so to run.

  Holt earnestly desired to establish amiable relations with the two veterans. When the waitress had taken their orders, he said bluntly, “I want to make my own position very clear. As you know, the district attorney has made me a special investigator for this Linneker case. I’ll be working with you from here on in.”

  “So we understand,” murmured McCoy with no expression whatever.

  “To me, that simply means that I’m available to give you two any help you might need from the district attorney’s office. That’s all it means. I’m a lawyer, not a cop, and I’m not going to pretend to be anything I’m not. I was assigned to the case for about the same reason that you were — to demonstrate that we’re all doing our best to solve it. But you’re still running the show.”

  McCoy, packing a scarred old pipe, didn’t say anything and Quinlan’s red-faced scowl didn’t alter, but Holt sensed a lessening of their hostility. Finally McCoy said, “Sounds reasonable. What do you think, Hank? Shall we let Holt play on our team?”

  “Always room for one more,” Quinlan replied. He peered towards the kitchen. “What takes these people so long to open a couple of cans I’ll never know. Hey, Alice, step on it — this is a working day.”

  “Relax,” McCoy advised, winking at Holt. “You’ll live longer.”

  “Who wants to? I just want to get up to Seacliff and back before the rain sets in.”

  Seacliff was a small beach community about twenty miles to the north but still within the county. McCoy interpreted for Holt’s benefit. “Seacliff is where they bought the dynamite for the Linneker job.”

  “They?” repeated Holt, fastening on the key word. “Sounds like you’re on to something.”

  The waitress brought their order at that moment so McCoy didn’t reply to the question. Instead, he looked at the bowl of chili Quinlan had ordered and gave a mock shudder. “How can you subject your stomach to bile like that? Haven’t you got any respect for the insides the good Lord gave you?” Quinlan merely grunted and began to eat. McCoy’s own lunch was on the bland side, soup and a salad. Before eating, he took a white pill from a small medicine bottle. After a few bites, he said to Holt, “This is not for general circulation as yet, but we think we’ve got this thing about sewed up.”

  “Well, good deal,” said Holt. The job was going to be even shorter than he had supposed. He might still get away on his vacation by the end of the week. “Can you tell me what you’ve found?”

  “It was the daughter,” said McCoy, between bites. “Tara Linneker and her boy friend, Shayon. Nothing complicated about it. They wanted to get married. The father didn’t approve, threatened to tighten the purse strings if she didn’t behave. So he got blown to kingdom come and now Tara has both her boy friend and the money. Open and shut.”

  “Sounds logical all right,” Holt admitted. “How much of it can you prove?”

  Quinlan, hunched over his bowl of chili, snorted. “Just give me a free hand in the interrogation and I’ll prove it, a
ll right.”

  “The proof will come,” McCoy said imperturbably. “When you know you’re right, it always does. It’s just a question of looking in the logical places.”

  “It’d come a lot faster if we didn’t have to stew around with lab reports and IBM machines,” said Quinlan. Holt was not surprised that the beefy sergeant should take a dim view of scientific crime detection; many old-time police officers did. “People did the job. People’s what you should concentrate on.”

  McCoy was more moderate. “The lab analysis and the statistical work are just an extension of man’s intuition, Hank. That’s the important thing. Everything else follows from the original intuition.”

  “Well, speaking only as a prosecutor,” Holt said, “it seems to me that evidence is the most important thing.”

  McCoy pushed aside his plate and relit his pipe. “When you’ve been in this business for a while, Holt, you develop a certain feel for it which I’m willing to call intuition. It’s like Hank and his bum leg. I see the clouds but I can’t be sure it’s going to rain. Hank can always tell you, though, because his leg tells him. My intuition tells me that Tara Linneker and Delmont Shayon did this murder.”

  Holt grinned. “Exhibit A — Captain McCoy’s intuition.”

  “Don’t get me wrong. We’re not stopping with that. Now we’ve got to prove that we’re right. You got the pictures, Hank?” While Quinlan dug an envelope out of his coat pocket, McCoy said, “The dynamite that did the Linneker job was bought in Seacliff two months ago, the first week in December. Black Fox brand, which is fairly common. The man who bought it gave a phoney name and address — you have to sign for explosives, you know, just like poison — and that’s what gave us our lead. We’d been on to it sooner except that we had to start checking here in the city and work outwards. The rough description we got of the purchaser fits Shayon.” He took the envelope from Quinlan, removed several photographs and selected one. “This is Shayon.”

  Holt examined the picture, a head-and-shoulders portrait of a young man in his middle twenties. It was a weakly handsome face, white-skinned under curly black hair. At first glance, Delmont Shayon didn’t look capable of such a brutal action as dynamiting an elderly man into oblivion, but the eyes that stared out of the photograph were moody and secretive. Holt didn’t believe that character could necessarily be read in such an easy manner, however, so he handed the picture back to McCoy. “Looks normal enough to me.”

  McCoy shuffled it among the others. “We’re going up to Seacliff now and get a positive identification. These other pictures aren’t Shayon — just some John Does to make it fair.”

  “What happens if you don’t get the identification?”

  “Care to make a little bet on it?”

  Holt shook his head. “Hardly. But I have to look at it as the guy who’s likely going to have to prosecute the case. I’m wondering if that picture of Shayon hasn’t been in the newspapers.”

  “Maybe,” admitted McCoy, studying him. “Why?”

  “Well, that might make an identification subject to doubt.”

  Quinlan wadded up his paper napkin and cast it aside with a disgusted sound. “You figuring on prosecuting Shayon or defending him, Holt?”

  Holt flushed, but McCoy said amiably, “Back up, Hank, and don’t let that chili ruin your disposition. We’re all on the same team. Holt’s got a good point. Even if we do get a positive in Seacliff — and I’m betting we will — that’s only the first step. But it will show we’re on the right road. Fair enough, gentlemen?”

  Quinlan shrugged to indicate no offence and Holt was willing to forget it. He didn’t hold grudges. “Don’t blame me for thinking like a lawyer. I warned you I wasn’t any cop.”

  “Maybe you’d like to take a run up to Seacliff with us now and see how this thing operates,” McCoy suggested, preparing to rise. “Glad to have you.”

  This invitation was genuine but Holt declined it. He had decided that his logical first step was to acquaint himself with the background of the Linneker case. Otherwise, he would be out of his depth in dealing with future developments.

  They said goodbyes on the curb and Holt watched the two officers drive away in a black squad car, headed north. He stood there a moment, thinking about what he had been told. He wished he could be as assured about his own cases as McCoy seemed to be, but this apparently came from years of experience. McCoy’s reputation justified such assurance. He knew his business.

  As Holt crossed to police headquarters, the first raindrops were moistening the sidewalks. Quinlan had been right. “Score one for intuition,” Holt said aloud. He felt a little sorry for Delmont Shayon and for Tara Linneker, too, with men like that in pursuit. He was glad he hadn’t taken McCoy’s bet.

  CHAPTER THREE

  AT the end of an hour, Holt knew as much about the Linneker murder as there was to know. From the police files, he read the report of the investigating officers, the statements of witnesses, the conclusions of the physical evidence detail and the findings of the autopsy surgeon. The file was detailed and complete; all it lacked was a conclusion.

  It was easy to see why McCoy had fastened upon Tara Linneker and her fiancé as the logical suspects. Motive, opportunity, lack of an alibi, familiarity with the scene … all of them fit. Rudy Linneker had no known enemies and the first week of the investigation had turned up no one else who could be classified, even remotely, as a suspect. No wonder the two manhunters were so sure. It was less intuition than elimination. Only a confession — or circumstantial proof that would stand in place of a confession — was needed to wind things up.

  The rain was still light when Holt quitted the police headquarters for his automobile. So, instead of returning to his office in the Civic Centre, he headed north along the harbour, thinking he might as well get all the legwork out of the way at once.

  Landfall Point was a long arm of land thrown protectively in front of the city and the harbour as if to ward off the attack of the Pacific Ocean. On the seaward side there had been little attempt to improve on nature. But the side that faced the city was an area of expensive homes. They were built, most of them, high above the water, to take advantage of the view and to escape as much as possible the low-lying evening fogs. The ruggedness of the Point, laced with canyons, made each home a virtual castle, isolated and remote from its neighbours.

  As a boy, Mitch Holt had roamed Landfall Point’s canyons and dived for abalone off its sandstone cliffs, so he was familiar with its geography. He found the Linneker mansion without any difficulty. The house was built on three levels, mostly of wood as befitting the residence of a lumberman, and surrounded by a small jungle of subtropical trees and shrubs. An almost perceptible aura of expensive tastes and good living clung to it. Death, particularly violent death, seemed far removed.

  Holt did not approach the front door. Instead, he detoured around the house, following a flagstone path that led downward through a vast patio and past a tennis court. He saw and heard no one and was ready to believe the place deserted. But when he emerged abruptly on the edge of the bluff his way was barred by a uniformed cop in a yellow slicker who sat on the top step of the staircase that descended to the beach. He got up alertly but relaxed when Holt produced his credentials.

  “Sure, go ahead and look,” he told Holt. “I don’t know what I’m doing here, anyway. The joint’s not going to walk away and there’s not enough left to steal.”

  Holt was forced to agree. It required an exercise of the imagination to picture the cove below as it must have looked prior to the tragedy, a rich man’s private playground. Of the cabana, only a blackened outline remained, indicating where the walls had stood before the dynamite blast and the ensuing fire had levelled them. There was a saucer-shaped depression in the sand, dug by the dynamite explosion. The sand itself was normally white, some trick of the currents keeping it free of oil and other debris of the harbour, but for some distance around the ruins it was spotted with black smudges where the feet of the i
nvestigating officers had carried the ashes. Holt noticed also that there was an odd glitter to the sand below, even in the grey drizzle, as if someone had sprinkled it with sequins.

  “Glass,” said the cop when Holt commented on the phenomenon. “There was this big glass sliding door, see, and lots of windows. They got blown to bits, just like the old man.”

  “This the only way to get down there?” asked Holt, indicating the stairs.

  “From here, yes. But nothing to stop anybody from coming along the beach, except the fence and that’s easy climbed. And I guess you could always swim in, too, if you were so inclined.” The cop was interested in more immediate matters. “Say, if you’re going to be here a while I’m going to duck up to the house for a drink of water.”

  Holt nodded and commenced to descend the wooden stairs to the beach below. His nostrils picked up the acrid smell of charred wood, stronger even than the salt breeze. The cabana had burned to the ground before the fire department could prevent it, although, ironically, all the water in the world lapped the shore just a few yards away. Holt wandered around the wreckage soberly, thinking that it resembled nothing so much as the residue of some mammoth beach party on the morning after. But there was another smell present, an unwholesome stench of death, that did not jibe with this fancy.

  He discovered nothing significant of which he was not already aware, although he was impressed anew with the destruction that the dynamite had wrought. The blast, confined by the U-shaped cove, had even shattered the bulbs of the floodlights nestled in the cliff walls. He tried to imagine the scene as the police and firefighters had first seen it, the blazing cabana providing the only light, the flames flickering dully from the brown sandstone, like an artist’s representation of hell.

  With this macabre thought in mind, Holt began to experience the strange sensation of being watched. He glanced upward; the cop had not yet returned to his post. Yet the sensation persisted and Holt swivelled his head slowly around until his eyes found what his instinct had warned him of. He was not alone on the beach.