Badge of Evil (13 page)

He requisitioned the same three stenographers from the pool and took up where they had left off the previous evening. He drove them hard, yet not as hard as he drove himself. But today he allowed them to leave at the regular quitting time.

As they were going, one of the girls couldn’t restrain her curiosity any longer. “We were wondering, Mr. Holt, since you only gave us two names to hunt for, two men and not a subject heading … Is this Grand Jury stuff you’re working on?”

He hadn’t projected his thoughts that far. He didn’t really know where the search would ultimately carry him. “No,” he answered slowly. “Not yet, anyway.”

A
FTER
a few years of marriage, a man and a woman will generally discover that they are sharing more than bed, board and bank account. The sharing also extends to intangibles, such as moods. It is seldom that one frowns while the other smiles and vice versa, although such might make for a better balanced existence. But if a man is peevish, his wife will likely be also. And add to this life’s uncanny knack of stockpiling annoyances for the moments when they are least capable of being met; a man seldom loses his job and comes home to a joyous account of how well Junior is doing in school. Usually he is greeted with the news that the water heater has exploded.

Mitch Holt wasn’t given to extremes of disposition as a rule. Ordinarily he was the most even-tempered of men. But his disappointment in Adair had curdled his entire day and he took its sourness home with him.

There he received no comfort from Connie. “I absolutely refuse to call Papa and tell him again that we aren’t coming,’’ she stated, almost before Holt had taken off his hat.

“I don’t see any way out of it.”

“Well, I do. This time we’re going — tomorrow morning — just like we planned, and that’s that.”

Despite her conclusive tone, Connie was not past reasoning with or cajoling and, another time, Holt would have done it. But not tonight. He was in no mood for persuasion and Connie’s use of Adair’s favourite tag-phrase — ”that’s that” — only made him bristle. “I can’t leave tomorrow and if you insist on going then, you’ll have to go alone”

“Well, maybe I will,” she snapped and flounced off to the kitchen to prepare their dinner with a good deal of unnecessary pan rattling.

Neither Connie nor Holt meant it and they both knew it. They were merely following the conjugal pattern of expending their irritations on each other. They would inevitably apologize and heal the breach and it would be forgotten. But until that moment the atmosphere was one of frosty politeness. During dinner, with their daughter to act as neutral and intermediary, the strain might not have been noticeable to an outsider. But when Nancy had been tucked into bed and man and wife were alone in the living room there was no denying its existence. They each hid themselves away behind their reading matter, emerging only now and then to throw the other a questioning are-you-still-mad glance. But neither was yet ready to make the initial overtures and the quarrel might have continued to bedtime if it hadn’t been for the interruption.

Holt heard the automobile stop in front of the house but the sound didn’t stir his curiosity enough to make him turn his head toward the big picture window. Cars stopped nearby all the time and only once in ten did the fact have anything to do with him. He wasn’t expecting any callers tonight — let’s see, he’d paid the paper boy for this month and …

The blast, especially startling in the library quiet of the living room, nearly threw him out of his chair with surprise. The room seemed to reverberate and Holt was stung by tiny bits of glass. His first thought, natural for a Southern Californian, was that of earthquake. He shouted at Connie, something unintelligible that had to do with grabbing their daughter and getting out of the house before another shock brought it down on top of them. But before he could follow his own instructions, panic fled and reason returned. It hadn’t been an earthquake. Earthquakes didn’t make that sort of noise, they … In the distance, Holt heard another sound, the screech of automobile tyres as they rounded a corner at high speed.

Connie came running back from the bedroom, half carrying and half dragging the groggy figure of Nancy. The little girl was crying with fright she didn’t understand. Connie said, “Mitch, quick! Help me carry her — ”

“It’s all right now.” He went to meet them and put his arms around both of them. “We don’t have to run.”

“But the earthquake — when the second one — ”

“There’s not going to be a second one. Not right now. Let’s get Nancy back to bed.” Over their child’s head, their eyes met. “It wasn’t an earthquake, Connie.”

Connie looked at the shattered picture window, strips of glass hanging crazily from the frame, and then across the room. The stucco of the opposite wall was pitted and pocked. Slowly, she murmured, “Why, that looks like — ”

“Yes. Get Nancy back to sleep. I’ve got a phone call to make.”

Connie nodded; she wasn’t the type who went to pieces in an emergency. All she said to her husband was, “Maybe you’d better turn out the lights.” Then she led Nancy away, soothing the child’s frightened questions with, “It was just an accident, chiquita, there’s nothing to be afraid of — Mother and Daddy are here …”

Holt didn’t turn out the living room lights. He didn’t think it was necessary now. Whoever had fired through the big window — the pockmarks indicated it had been a shotgun blast — hadn’t intended to kill. The angle of the shot proved that — and Holt had been sitting in plain view of any would-be assassin. The shot had been scare tactics, a warning, nothing else. Holt telephoned police headquarters.

He was impressed with the speed the police demonstrated. The first prowl car arrived within three minutes of his telephone call, siren moaning. As Holt went out to greet the cops he saw his neighbours on both sides of the street, peering from their porches and doorways. It was a quiet residential district and not used to violence.

The prowl car team, uniformed officers, knew Holt by reputation. They heard the bare outline of his story and one of them tramped away to survey the yard for possible evidence while the other remained inside to inspect the damage. He confirmed Holt’s guess that a shotgun had been the cause.

“Bird shot,” he commented, measuring the spread of pockmarks on the stucco. “Probably wouldn’t have killed you even if the fellow had been a better shot.”

Holt thought that the marksman had probably hit what he intended but he didn’t speculate on this aloud. “I guess we’re lucky, though.”

“You get any idea what make of car he was driving?” the officer asked, filling in his report form.

“I didn’t see a thing,’’ Holt admitted. “Everything happened pretty fast.”

“They usually do.” The other officer came back with the information that his first search had turned up nothing. “Probably fired from inside the car. Which would account for no shell being left. He’d have a clear shot right across the lawn, all right. Where’s your phone, Mr. Holt?”

Connie came into the living room while the officers were phoning headquarters. Holt drew her aside. Low-voiced, he told her, “Connie, I want you and Nancy to take your car — thank God you’re already packed — and get down to your father’s ranch. Right away, tonight.”

“But what about you, Mitch? If that was a shot — ”

“It was a shot. And it may not be the last. I can take care of myself but I’ve got to get you and Nancy out of here.”

“Are you trying to scare me?”

“Yes,” Holt said frankly. “There’s enough to be scared about. I didn’t think that anything like this would happen. But now that it has, I can’t take chances with your lives. Next time he might shoot at us, not over us.”

“He? Do you know who it was?”

“I can guess.” Holt glanced over his shoulder, not wanting the cops to hear him. “Connie, I can’t talk about it now. Just trust me and do what I say.”

Connie kept her voice low but it shook with concern. “This job that you’re on — you haven’t told me anything about it — but is it important enough to risk your life, Mitch?”

“Yes,” he said soberly. “I think tonight proves it is.”

“Then if it’s important to you, it’s just as important to me. I’m not going to leave you.”

Holt put his arms around her. Both of them had long since forgotten their previous estrangement. “I know how you feel, Connie. But you’ve got to do as I say. It will help me more to know that you’re safe. And we’ve got to think about Nancy. If anything should happen to her …”

Connie stared in the direction of their daughter’s bedroom. He could sense the struggle going on inside her. When he felt her shoulders slump, Holt knew she would do as he directed. “All right,” she whispered. “For Nancy’s sake.”

The detectives arrived while Connie was throwing the last minute items into her suitcase and trying to rouse the sleeping child for the second time. The plain-clothes men had been trailed out from headquarters by reporters, but they kept the newsmen temporarily at bay while they conferred with Holt.

“Things like this are almost impossible to follow up,” one of them confessed, after hearing what facts Holt could give him. “Especially since you didn’t see the car. Even if you had, it would be tough. Well, maybe some of the neighbours might help.” The uniformed cops were sent away to see what they could learn. “Any ideas who might be responsible for this, Mr. Holt?”

“No.”

“Shotguns are gang stuff, as a rule.” The detective was struck with an idea. “Say, didn’t you just put Old Man Buccio away? This might be the Buccios paying you back.”

That theory presupposed, of course, that the shotgun hadn’t found its real target which Holt didn’t believe. Nor could he seriously imagine that the Buccio clan had any intention of commencing a hot war against the district attorney’s office. But since he didn’t want to voice his true opinions, he didn’t discourage the officer now. “Well, I guess it wouldn’t do any harm to check on them.”

“You bet we will. Unless you’ve got some other ideas?” The officer eyed him shrewdly. “What investigation are you working on now, Mr. Holt?”

“The Linneker case,” Holt parried. “That’s all.”

“Nothing there, then.” The detective walked over to the shattered window. “Well, I sure hope you had insurance. These babies are expensive. I know — I’m building out in the valley.” He was hailed from outside by the reporters who clustered on the lawn. He grinned at Holt. “Shall I let them in?”

“I’d just as soon you didn’t,” Holt said. The reaction was setting in and he felt too tired to answer any more questions, particularly since he couldn’t say what he thought. “Why don’t you give them the facts?”

“They don’t want facts. They want a story.”

“But — oh, I guess I might as well.” As he went out to greet the reporters, he heard one of the cops say to another, “What’s he kicking about? It’s free publicity, isn’t it?” Holt couldn’t blame them; he’d appeared on the front page so frequently recently that the police probably thought he owned a piece of the newspapers.

Holt did his best but he didn’t succeed in pleasing the newspapermen very much. As the detective had said, they wanted more than the basic facts — Why? was still an integral part of the news story, as much as Who? and When? and What? and Where? In this regard, Holt was an uncooperative witness and the reporters were too skilled at their trade not to sense it. He didn’t endear himself more by refusing to pose for pictures or to allow Connie to do likewise. Afraid of what she might inadvertently say, Holt even forbade the reporters to question her. The interview ended in a mood of general dissatisfaction all around. Holt excused himself and went into the bedroom, their protests trailing after him.

Connie was ready to depart. Nancy, fully dressed but still mostly asleep, lay on their bed. “I’ll carry her if you can get the suitcases,” Holt said. “We’ll slip out the back door.”

“Mitch,” Connie put her hand on his arm. “Come with us.”

“I can’t. Not yet, anyway.” He softened the parting. “Maybe in a day or so.”

“I don’t think I should go, either. I feel like I’m running out on you.”

“I’ll be all right.” To forestall further argument, he picked up Nancy and left Connie to follow him through the kitchen and out into the patio. One of the uniformed cops was poking around the back with a flashlight in search of nobody knew what. “Go straight to your father’s place and stay there. Don’t stop anywhere along the way. Across the border you should be all right.”

They paused in the garage for a quick and fervent goodbye kiss. Connie murmured an incongruous farewell, “You be sure to eat enough.”

“Sure.”

“And take care of yourself. Call me at the ranch.”

He agreed and put up the garage door. Then, struck by a thought, he said, “Wait a minute,” and ran back into the house. The reporters were departing reluctantly but came surging back at Holt’s reappearance. But he had no further conversation to give them. Instead, he sought out the plain-clothes men who were completing the ruin of the stucco by digging out some sample pellets with their pocket knives. “I’d like to ask you for a favour.”

“We’ll do what we can.”

“I’m worried about my family and I’m sending them — my wife and daughter — down to my father-in-law’s ranch in Mexico for a few days. They’re ready to go now. Any chance you might escort them as far as the border?”

The detectives looked at each other and finally one shrugged. “Why not? We’re about through, anyway. Want we should put a stake-out here, too?”

“No, the escort will be enough. I can handle things here.”

“Okay.” Departing, they gave him some advice. “Don’t get a shotgun mixed up with lightning, Mr. Holt. A shotgun can strike twice in the same place.”

Holt agreed, but not aloud. The next move might be more than a warning, all right. But he didn’t say this to either Connie or the officers and it was with relief that he watched the two cars, Connie’s convertible leading, disappear down the street. No, the next move might be deadlier but if it involved him alone he could meet it without fear. A man’s family was the weak spot in his armour, and with Connie and Nancy safe …