Cop Out (3 page)

“I know,” Hinch said brightly. “We bury it.”

“And have the paper rot or be chewed up? Or somebody find it?” Goldie said.

“We sure as a bitch ain't throwing it away,” Hinch growled.

“Who said anything about throwing it away? It's got to be put somewhere safe till they stop searching cars. The shack would be good, but we're cut off from there till they get fed up and figure we made it out before they set up the blocks. Meantime—the way I see it, Fure—we need help.”

“The way she sees it,” Hinch said. “Who's fixing this match, Fure, you or her?”

But Furia said, “What help, Goldie?”

“Somebody to keep it for us.”

“That's a great idea that is,” Furia said. “Who you going to ask, the fuzz?”

Goldie said, “Yes.”

Hinch jiggled his bowling-ball head. “I tell you, Fure, this broad is bad news. Some joke.”

“No joke,” Goldie said. “I mean it.”

“She means it,” Hinch said with disgust.

Furia picked a sliver of steak out of his teeth. “With a farout idea like that there's got to be something in it. What's on your mind, Goldie?”

“Look,” Goldie said. “I've been keeping in touch with my family off and on through kid sister Nanette—”

“That is absolutely out,” Furia said. “I ain't stashing no twenty-four grand with a bunch of rubes.”

“Are you kidding? They'd break a leg running to Chief Secco with it. Ma's the big wheel in her church, and my old man thinks having a bottle of beer in your car is a federal offense.” Goldie laughed. “But Nanette's no square. She's looking to cut out one of these days, too. I know from her letters. She does a lot of babysitting nights and one of her steady jobs is for a couple named Malone, they had a kid Barbara. The Malones live in a one-family house on Old Bradford Road. It's one of the original streets of the town, never any traffic, and the neighbors pull their sidewalks in at nine o'clock. Well, Wesley Malone is a cop.”

“There she goes again,” Hinch said.

“On the New Bradford police force.”

“What gives with this dame?” Hinch demanded of Taugus County. “Some idea! We should park our loot with the town cop!”

But Furia was heavily in thought. “How old did you say their kid is, Goldie?”

“Must be eight or nine by now.”

“You got yourself a deal.”

“But Fure,” Hinch protested.

“That's the beauty part,” Furia said. “A cop's got to know the facts of life, don't he? He ain't going to panic and try something stupid. Okay, Hinch, get going.”

“Where to?” Hinch asked sullenly.

“This Old Bradford Road. Direct him, Goldie.”

Goldie directed him. They went back into the cloverleaf and across the bridge, past three blocks of midtown, and sharply right into a steep road called Lovers Hill, Goldie said, because there was a parking strip on top where the town kids necked. Halfway up she said, “Next right turn,” and Hinch turned in grudgingly. There were no street lights, and towering trees. It was a narrow street, almost a lane, lined with very old two-story frame houses in need of paint.

The road swooped and wound in an S. At the uppermost curve of the S Goldie said, “I think that's it. Yes. The one with the porch lit up.”

It was the only house on the street that showed a light.

“Almost,” Furia said, sucking his teeth, “like they got the welcome mat out.”

Ellen began praising the film the moment the house lights went up.

“Not that I approve of all that violence,” Ellen said as her husband held her cloth coat for her. “But you have to admit, Loney, it's a marvelous picture. Didn't you think so?”

“You asking me?” Malone said.

“Certainly I'm asking you.”

“It's a fraud,” Malone said.

“I suppose now you're a movie critic.”

“You asked me, didn't you?”

“Hello, Wes,” a man said. They were being nudged up the aisle by the crowd. “Good picture, I thought.”

“Yeah, Lew,” Malone said. “Very good.”

“
Why
is it a fraud?” Ellen asked in a whisper.

“Because it is. It makes them out a couple of heroes. Like they were Dillinger or somebody. In fact, they used some stuff that actually happened to Dillinger. You felt sorry for them, didn't you?”

“I suppose. What's wrong with that?”

“Everything. Nobody felt sorry for those punks at the time it happened. Even the hoods were down on them. The truth is they were a couple of smalltime murderers who never gave their victims a chance. Clyde got his kicks out of killing. His favorite target was somebody's back. Hi, Arthur.”

“Great picture, Wes!” Arthur said.

“Just great,” Malone said.

“It got the nomination for Best Picture,” Ellen sniffed. “You're such an expert.”

“No expert. I just happened to read an article about them, that's all. Why kid the public?”

“Well, I don't care, I liked it,” Ellen said. But she squeezed his arm.

The Malones came out of the New Bradford Theater and made for their car. Ellen walked slowly; she knew how tired he was. And how stubborn. Loney had insisted on following their Wednesday night ritual, which involved dinner at the Old Bradford Inn in midtown and the movies afterward, even though he had not slept eight hours in the past ninety-six. It was the only recreation she got, Loney had said, flattening out his chin, and she wasn't going to lose out just because the flu hit the department and he had to work double shift four days running. He could get a night's sleep tonight, Mert Peck was out of bed and Harry Rawlson was back on duty, too.

“How about a bite at Elwood's?” he said at the car. It was a beatup Saab he had picked up for $650 the year before, their old Plymouth had collapsed at 137,000 miles. The big Pontiac special he drove on duty belonged to the town.

“I don't think so,” Ellen said. “I'm kind of worried about Bibby. Nanette had to leave at ten thirty, her mother's down sick, and I said it would be all right. But with Bibby home alone—”

“Sure.” He was relieved, she knew every pore in his body. Then she saw him stiffen and turned to see why.

One of the New Bradford police cars had torn past the intersection of Grange Street and Main along the Green, siren howling. It was being chased by several civilian cars.

“I wonder what's up,” Malone said. “Something's up.”

“Let it. You're coming home with me, Loney. Get in, I'll drive.”

Malone got in, and Ellen went round and took the wheel. He was looking back at Main Street and she saw him feel for the gun under his jacket. Ellen hated Chief Secco's rule about his men carrying their revolvers off duty.

“Lay off the artillery, bud,” Ellen said grimly, starting the Saab. “You're going nowhere but beddy-bye.”

“It's something big,” Malone said. “Look, Ellen, drop me off at the stationhouse.”

“Not a chance.”

“I'll only be a couple minutes. I want to find out what gives.”

“I'll drop you off and I won't see you till God knows when.”

“Ellen, I promise. Drop me off and go on home to Bibby. I'll walk it up the Hill.”

“You'll never make it, you're dead on your feet.”

“That's what I like about you,” he said, smiling. “You've got such confidence in me.”

Grange Street was one-way below Main and the Green, and Ellen sighed and turned into Freight Street and past the dark brown unappetizing railroad station. She had to stop for the light at the corner near the R.R. crossing. Malone was squinting to their right, across the bridge and the Tonekeneke and the cloverleaf to The Pike. Two state police cruisers were balling south on The Pike, sirens all out. Ellen deliberately jumped the light and turned left.

She made another left turn east of the Green, drove the one block up to Grange again, and swung right. The Colonial redbrick town hall stood at the southeast corner of the Green and Grange Street, extending into Grange; the New Bradford Police Department was near the rear of the building, with a separate entrance. The entrance was a little windbreak vestibule. There were two green globes outside.

Ellen stopped the car. He was on the sidewalk before she could put on her emergency.

“Remember, Loney, you promised. I'll be hopping mad if you doublecross me.”

“I'll be right home.”

He hurried inside and Ellen peeled off, taking her worry out on the Saab.

To Malone's surprise no one was in the station but Sam Buchard, the night desk man, and Chief Secco and a middle-aged woman. The chief was over in the corner at the steel desk normally used by the Resident State Trooper, and he was talking to the woman seated beside the desk. Her makeup was smeared and her eyes looked worse than Malone's. She was smoking a cigaret rapidly. Buchard was making an entry in the case log. The LETS—the Law Enforcement Teletype System out of the state capital—was clacking away as usual in its cubicle behind the desk.

Malone walked around the glassed partition to the working area. Chief Secco looked up with a disapproving glance and went back to his interrogation. The woman did not turn around. The desk man said, “What are you doing here, Wes?”

“Sam, what's up?”

“Didn't you hear?”

“I was at the movies with Ellen.”

“Murder and robbery over at Aztec.”

“Murder?” The last homicide in New Bradford had been four years ago when two men and a woman from downstate had decided to try some illegal night fishing off the railroad trestle over the Tonekeneke. They had been tanked up and the men had got into a fight over the woman. One of the men had fallen off the trestle into thirty feet of water and drowned. Malone and Mert Peck and Trooper Miller had fished his body out the next morning fifty yards downstream. Malone could not recall a bona-fide Murder One in all his years on the New Bradford force. “Who was murdered, Sam?”

“Howland, the bookkeeper. Shot three times in the chest. The payroll was stolen.”

Malone recognized her now. Sherrie-Ann Howland, the one the women called “the bloodsucker.” She had never even given Tom Howland the excuse of being unfaithful to him. Townspeople rarely saw her, she was said to be a secret drinker. She was sober enough now. Malone knew nearly everyone in town, its population was only 16,000.

“Any leads, Sam?”

“Not a one. The state boys have set up roadblocks throughout the area. Curtis Pickney found him by a fluke, and they say Howland wasn't dead long. So maybe the killers didn't have a chance to get away. Anyway, that's the theory we're working on.”

Malone knuckled his eyes. “Where was Ed Taylor?”

“We just found him.”

“For God's sake, did Ed get it, too?”

“No, they slugged him, tied him up, and threw him in some bushes. Ed says there were two of them. No I.D., it was too dark. They took Ed to the hospital. He'll be all right. He's a lucky guy, Wes. They could have shot him, too.”

Malone hung around. Secco was still questioning Mrs. Howland. He took the log and pretended to read it. The familiar form—B. & E. and Larceny, One-Car Accident, Etc., Obscene or Harassing Telephone Calls, Non-support, Driving under influence, Stolen and Recovered Motor Vehicles, Resisting Arrest, Destruction of Private Property, Attempted Suicide—had ghosts in it like the TV sometimes. He dropped the log and wandered over to the cabinets. Each officer had a drawer for his personal property. He opened his and fingered its contents—summons book, warning book, his copy of the motor vehicle laws, tape measure, a torn-off brass button Ellen had replaced and then found in the lining of his leather duty-jacket, a crayon self-portrait of Barbara signed
BIBBY TO MY LOVING FATHER
in multicolor curlicue capitals, a copy of a five-year-old income tax return. He shut his drawer and took a Hershey bar from the department commissary drawer, depositing a dime in the cashbox. He stripped off the paper, dropped it into the waste basket, and chewed the chocolate slowly. Chief Secco was still talking to the widow.

Ellen will have my hide …

Malone took inventory. The E & J Emergikit on the counter—resuscitator, inhalator, aspirator. The two-watt, two-channel walkie-talkie. The case with the camera and flashbulbs. Nothing changes. Only for Sherrie-Ann Howland. I hope he left some insurance. It's a dead cinch Pickney didn't pay him enough to sock anything away. The whole town knew Pickney's and Aztec's way with a buck. And there was all that talk about Howland and Marie Briggs at Elwood's. How do you kill in cold blood? A man had a right to live out his life, even a life as sorry as Tom Howland's. A woman had a right to a husband, even a woman like Sherrie-Ann.

Secco rose. Mrs. Howland got up in a different way. As if her back ached. “You sure you don't want me to have one of the boys run you home, Mrs. Howland?”

“I parked my car in the town hall lot.” There was nothing in the widow's voice.

“I could have it delivered to you in the morning.”

“No.” She walked out, past Sam Buchard, past Ma-lone, past the partition, through the vestibule. She walked stooped over like a soldier holding his guts in.

“Goddam,” Sam Buchard said.

“Oh, Wes,” Chief Secco said. “One thing. When you met Howland at the bank today and took him back to the plant with the payroll, how did he seem to you?”

Malone was puzzled. “I didn't notice specially.”

“Did he act nervous?”

“Well, I don't know. He talked his head off.”

“About what?”

“A lot of nothing. Now that I think of it, maybe he was nervous. Why?”

“All right, Wes,” Chief Secco said. “Out.”

“Chief,” Malone began.

“Didn't you hear me?”

“John, you'll need all the help you can get.”

“When you went off duty, Wes, what did I tell you?”