“Ha,” I said sardonically. “Important, huh?”
“That’s what the cops said. They seem to feel it is, too. Looks to them like attempted murder.”
“No kidding. Stolen car, right?”
“Right. They found it a few blocks away, with the keys still in it.”
That was standard. Get duplicate keys, steal a car. Run over the lucky man, then ditch it. A juvenile delinquent will then steal the car, if you’re lucky, and you will be nothing but a figment of his imagination as far as the cops are concerned. Assuming, of course, they ever catch the delinquent in the first place.
“There was a witness, too,” Harris told me. “Guy closing up his store said the car really chased Marty around before it got him. Practically drove up onto the sidewalk to get him. That’s a wide street—plenty of room to avoid a pedestrian if you want to, especially at that time of night.”
“Right,” I said, but I wasn’t giving Harris my whole attention. I was thinking what a nice coincidence it was for Mr. Roger Sparn that he had told me about his visit to Marty’s office. Now, when the police went through the file of Marty’s appointments and came to Mr. Sparn, I would be there to tell them it was all aboveboard. After all, I knew all about the Network-ComCab problem, didn’t I?
I told Harris about Roger Sparn and described him. “Find out about this guy.”
Harris said, “How soon?” Harris never doubts he can do anything.
“As soon as possible,” I told him. “If the New York cops are that desperate to talk to me, it won’t be long before they sic the cops up here on me. The sooner I have some idea what’s what, the better off I’ll be. Call Sally and tell her to go home.”
I hung up. I debated skipping the second half of the session and going up to my room so I could be easy to find, but I didn’t want to look as if I had anything on my conscience.
By three o’clock that afternoon, I was starting to get offended. Here I was, ready for them, and they weren’t coming. I decided they were letting me stew and waiting to see if I would make a break for it.
There was a recess—one of the committee members had to go wash his hands or something—and I took a walk to the lobby to see what was going on. I didn’t notice any cops, but I did see a familiar face. It was Les Tilman, a reporter for Mr. Whitten’s newspaper.
I called him over. Les was a youthful-looking guy who was born to be a reporter. He carried his typewriter spread and round little potbelly the way a knight would carry a lance and a shield. He always leaned his head forward on his neck, the better to poke his nose into things.
Les squinted at me and brushed with an ink-stained hand at two or three of the sixteen longish hairs that allowed him to believe he wasn’t bald.
“Matt Cobb,” he said. “Former basketball star. And debating team star. It is you. I saw your name on the list of speakers, but I wasn’t sure.”
“You’ve got a good memory.” I hardly remembered I’d been on the debating team. “Covering this for the paper?”
“Doing somebody a favor. Our stringer got sick.” He decided to shake hands with me. “So you work for the Network now.”
I admitted it. Les asked me if I had any news for him.
“No, just going to say my piece and hang around until your boss’s daughter gets married.”
“Uh-huh. And I suppose that explains why the chief of the local police has been giving you the old hairy eyeball for the last five minutes?”
I was surprised. I whirled around trying to see who he was. Amateur night. That’s right, I told myself, be inconspicuous.
“Don’t worry,” Les was telling me, “you’ll meet him in a second. He’s walking over now. Hello, Chief,” Les called over my shoulder.
I turned again, and this time I saw him. I would never have tagged him for a cop. He wore a red plaid jacket, corduroy pants, and hiking boots. He also wore a corduroy face—it was seamed and wrinkled like an old man’s. But his hair was dark brown, and he walked lightly and fast. I decided he was about ten years older than I was, despite the face. I asked Les; he told me I was right and that the face was partially explained by the fact that Police Chief Merce Cooper had slept outdoors every night since 1966. He liked it that way, Les said.
Right now, as Les introduced us, though, I didn’t know if I was ready to believe any of this. Merce Cooper was just one tough-looking dude who wanted to talk to me.
“What about?” Les asked.
“Get lost, Tilman,” the policeman said. “I’d like you to come with me, Mr. Cobb, if you would.” His voice made me want to clear my throat.
“Where? To ask me questions about what?”
“You’ll find out when I ask them.”
I didn’t even respond to that directly. Instead, I turned to Les and asked him who the best lawyer in town was.
“Jack Wernick, but you can’t hire him.”
“Why not?”
“He’s the new district attorney. He wants to be President someday.”
“Tilman, I’m warning you—”
Les was enjoying this a lot more than I was. True, I wanted to show Chief Merce Cooper that I was the kind of troublemaker who wants to carry his Constitutional rights around with him, even when he travels, but I also wanted the name of a good lawyer, just in case.
“Okay,” I said, “who’s the second best?”
“E. R. Bowen. A broad, but smart as a whip. She had the chief here on the stand one time—”
I learned then how Cooper slept in the wild without being eaten by bears—he glared at them. Les scampered away after two seconds of a glare that could burn the tarnish off a copper pot.
Then he turned it on me, softened a little but still pretty hot. “I would like you to come to police headquarters with me, Mr. Cobb. At the request of the New York City Police Department I am going to ask you about a co-worker of yours, a Mr. Martin Adelman, who was nearly murdered last night. Okay?”
“Why didn’t you say so? Let’s go.”
I preceded him from the building, but I could feel his glare on my back.
CHAPTER 8
“There’s room for only one
tough bird around here—
and that’s me!”
—Frank Perdue, Perdue Chicken commercial
THE SEWANKA POLICE DEPARTMENT had its headquarters in the basement of City Hall. There was plenty of room—City Hall was a huge pile of native limestone carved into the rough semblance of a Greek temple. It was big enough for a city five times the size of Sewanka, but it was built during the Depression with WPA money, and nobody was about to complain.
The cellar was all desks and pillars. I followed Cooper’s zigzag course across the room to his office.
Cooper was still giving me the silent treatment; he hadn’t said a word since we’d left the hotel. No, that’s wrong. He ordered me to fasten my seat belt when I got into the all-terrain four-wheel-drive vehicle he drove.
The silence ended once we were inside the partitioned-off corner that was his office. I noted with interest that he closed the door behind him but didn’t let the latch catch. A claustrophobic cop. I’d never met one of those before.
When he was satisfied with the door, he turned to me. “Listen, Cobb. I don’t like New York City. I don’t even like the idea of it.”
“See, I do like it. Lucky for both of us this country is so big.”
“I don’t like New York City cases messing up my business, and I especially don’t like New York City smartass. You start cooperating right now, or I’ll haul your ass up before a judge and start wiping out any fond memories you may have of this town.”
I looked at him. “Chief—I mean this in all respect: Where the hell did you come from?”
“State Police, two years ago. This job opened up—I always liked the woods around here—I put in for it, and I got it. You gonna answer any questions for me?”
I didn’t answer him for a few seconds. I was reflecting on the remarkable number of quaint characters I�
��ve run into during the course of what has so far passed for my adulthood. There was one guy ...
Cooper broke into my thoughts. “I’m waiting,” he said ominously.
“Waiting for what?” I’d been waiting for him to ask me the questions he was so hot for me to answer.
“Waiting,” the chief said, “for you to tell how you’re in tight with the Whitten family and how they run this town. How I’d better watch my step or I’ll be sleeping in the woods, and not from choice.”
How do you like that? I thought. He really does sleep in the woods.
I got indignant. “Why the hell should I bring the Whittens into this?” I demanded.
“It’s the usual pattern. You mean to tell me you’re not going to run off to the old man and tell him to write an editorial about how the chief of police was rude to you?”
“The day I need somebody to ... Listen, Chief, you may have noticed that I’ve been rude to you right back. That’s my usual pattern.”
The lines in the corduroy pinched back into what eventually became a smile. “So you have. Okay, want to start over? I spoke to the New York cops about you. They gave me a Lieutenant Martin, who knows you fairly well. He says you’re okay, but you have a weird sense of humor. I don’t. Have a sense of humor, I mean. I don’t find one damn thing funny about police work.”
“I’ll suppress myself,” I told him. The chief scrutinized me, trying to decide if that was supposed to be funny, then decided to let it pass.
He asked me his questions; I answered them. It was a refreshing experience. Many has been the time I’ve lied to the police or held something back, but this time I upended the bag and shook it.
Marty had been worried about ComCab. He’d had a meeting with Sparn a few weeks ago. Now Marty was broken up, practically dead. Draw your own conclusions. It was ironic that Marty’s death might help grease the skids for the outfit he was so anxious to stop. It wasn’t funny, just ironic.
What was funny was Chief Cooper’s reaction to my story. The more I told him, the more he looked as if he wished I would shut up. All of a sudden, he had (unless the cops downstate came up with the hit-and-run driver very soon) a large-scale investigation of some very prominent local individuals—namely, the Sewanka Committee on Telecommunications.
He said as much. “But I’ll do it, dammit. I’ve got some good men.” He gave me that glare again. “But quietly, Cobb, you got that? Don’t go talking this up. I’m taking your word for it for now because it’s too damn dirty to ignore, but you don’t have anything that could pass for hard evidence in a cave at midnight.”
“Except Marty Adelman’s injuries.”
“Yeah, except that. That’s evidence of something, not necessarily what you been talking about. Keep quiet.”
I said I would. He asked for my word of honor on it, and I was so flattered I gave it to him. He even shook my hand before I left him.
CHAPTER 9
“... The worst is yet to come!”
–William Dozier, “Batman” (ABC)
AS THE AFTERNOON ROLLED around and I began to try to think of some way to beg off that dinner, I soon realized there was no reason to. I didn’t have a single useful thing to do. It was a hell of a situation—an important Network employee attacked, and I had very neatly taken myself right out of the action.
It wasn’t that I got a big thrill out of poking around murders or attempted murders; it was guilt. This sort of thing was my job, a nasty one, but somebody has to do it, etc., etc. I should have been out doing it. The way things were arranged now, Harris Brophy was working on the New York end (along with the cops there, of course), and Chief Cooper had his men following up the only leads I had been able to think of.
I began to wish something would happen so that I could have something to do besides sit on my ass and watch. I made the wish once; during the days that followed, I took it back approximately nine thousand times.
Still, Wednesday evening I was feeling restless and dissatisfied. I fit right in with the gathering. The only person who seemed animated at all was Spot, who had proven himself so lovable he’d been promoted to the post of House Pet, even though he liked his kennel fine. It was a rare honor. The Samoyed pranced over to me and grinned; I knelt and scratched behind his ears as he licked my face.
It was a lot better than I got from anybody else. I got a relatively cheerful hello from Brenda, an ill-tempered grunt from the old man, and zombie faces from both Debbie and Dan.
Uh-oh, I thought. There has been a Scene. Dan shot his bolt, and nobody knows what to do about it. After a second, though, I realized that couldn’t be it. Dan might have been stupid enough to have tried to scuttle the marriage in the presence of A. Lawrence Whitten, but A. Lawrence Whitten was not the type to have let him hang around after making the attempt
“What’s the matter, everybody?” I asked. “Do I offend?” I didn’t know if I did, but I was irritated enough to take a good try at it.
“No, Matt, of course not,” Debbie said. “Come in.”
I took a second to glance at Dan; he gave me a shake of the head I felt relieved.
“Debbie and Grant had another tiff,” Brenda announced.
“Brenda!” her father snapped.
“Well, I’m sorry. We invited Matt and Dan for supper, and Grant gets so offensive, even you can’t stand him. And Daddy, you have to admit, that’s pretty offensive, the way you feel about Grant.”
“That’s enough,” the old man said.
“Well, it’s true! I heard the whole thing and I couldn’t even tell you what the fight was about! And I don’t think any of you can either.”
She used her crutches as a prop to get out of her seat. “So just because Grant decided he had to run off to catch up with things at the office, there’s no reason we have to make Matt feel uncomfortable. Excuse me. I’m going to see how many places have been set at the table.”
She walked out, holding the crutches like a rifle over her shoulder. She was wearing jeans today, and all that showed of her condition was a slight limp.
“Well, now,” the old man said and went on to apologize. Debbie joined him, adding that she wasn’t feeling well, and that the argument with Grant had probably been her fault as much as his, and that she knew I’d be kind enough to make allowances for her. Dan sat on the edge of a chair, flexing his powerful hands and looking at me with a miserable little apologetic grin. I wanted to kick him.
Everything was sweetness and light over supper. Debbie suggested we take a walk out by the waterfall, where the wedding was going to take place. The workmen were supposed to have finished putting up the tents and the extra lights, and she wanted to see if they had.
“What about Spot?” I asked. “This is supposed to be his lucky night, isn’t it?”
“Oh, of course. I had him in the house today, and it slipped my mind.” Debbie waited while a maid brought the main course, lamb in ginger sauce and broiled sweet potatoes. “Actually, Matt, I don’t feel up to it. Tomorrow, perhaps.”
For the first time, I understood the phrase “a dog’s life.” Poor Spot, it seemed, was going to have to do the canine equivalent of taking a cold shower because some human had a headache.
“Okay,” I said, “but don’t leave it too long. He becomes an absolute beast.”
It was a long walk to the waterfall but a pleasant one. The night was warm, and the moon would have made enough light to walk by even if the path hadn’t been lighted.
It brought back memories. Debbie had had her father put in the lights on the path and over the pool so she could have moonlight swimming parties. The bottom was smooth rock, but the pool was deep enough at the waterfall end to dive into. The water was cold, but beautifully clean. It was fun to slide down the falls, too, a drop of fifteen feet or so, swept along by the foamy current of water.
Behind the falls (Whitten Falls, as if I had to tell you) was a hollowed-out place in the limestone, sort of a half-cave. Every once in a while, a guy and girl would disappear
from the general horseplay in the pool and sneak behind the falls. It was great, you and your lady groping slippery bodies behind a shimmering, luminescent curtain while the roaring of the water blotted out the rest of the world.
I was smiling at the memory of it, feeling really good for the first time since I’d gotten to town. The back of that waterfall had been one of the most enjoyable venues of my college education. I was thinking especially fondly of one time with Eve Ronkowski, my debate-team partner. Eve was another scholarship student, a high-cheekboned, red-haired girl from Buffalo. Eve had never been crazy about “the gang,” but she made an effort to fit in, to please me. That was before the spring of my senior year, when she decided she hated me.
“Wait,” Debbie said. The rest of us turned to look at her. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m not really up to this. I thought the air would make me feel better, but it hasn’t. I’m going to go back to the house to lie down. I’m sorry to have dragged you out all this way.”
I shrugged. “If you don’t feel well, you don’t feel well. If you don’t mind, though, I’ll go take a look at the waterfall anyway. It’s a pretty spot, especially at night. Heck, if you tell me what to look for, I’ll even check out what the workmen did.”
“No need to do that, Cobb,” the old man said. “I can still go out there with you. I know what to look for. I’m paying for it.”
“Thank you, Daddy. Matt. This—this whole business has been a strain on me.” I had no doubt of that. She looked tired. Her face was pale under her medicated makeup, and her musical voice was almost a dirge.
Her father saw it, too. “On second thought,” he said, “maybe I’d better take you back. I don’t want to find you later, passed out on the path.”
“Oh, Daddy, I’ll be fine.”
Dan spoke for the first time in a half hour. “I’ll walk you to the house, Debbie. Let’s go.”
He shot me a glance before the last syllable was out of his mouth, a look that said, here goes nothing, wish me luck. I thought he might have picked a better time for his Final Attempt, but I also thought the sooner this foolishness was over with, the better for everybody. I sort of shrugged and sort of nodded, and more or less wished him luck.
Killed with a Passion Page 5
