Ellery Queen's Double Dozen, page 14
I heard the Chiefs breath suck in. It was an old-fashioned lapel watch, like ladies used to wear. Miss Millie Burden had worn it when she taught me in the tenth grade. I could still remember her gesture when she’d tilt it with one finger and look to see if the class period was nearly over.
I turned to the kid again. “You didn’t have to kill the old lady,” I said in my slow even voice. “You could have robbed her without that, an old lady like her.”
His face paled. His eyes wavered away from my face and he looked desperately around at the other men. “I didn’t kill anybody,” he said. “Honest. I didn’t even know that was why I was picked up.”
I watched him for a moment. Then I winked at the Chief when the kid wasn’t looking at either one of us.
“We’re fixing to find out about that right now,” I said.
“Mr. John,” the Chief said in a nervous voice, picking up his cue.
I ignored him. I went to one of the lockers and opened it. I took out a soiled white kid glove with heavy ridges on the back. I took out a length of rubber hose and a pair of lemon squeezers. I brought them to the table and laid them down.
“Mr. John,” the Chief said again, this time in a tighter voice. I looked at him then. “I’m going to find out,” I said in a quiet voice. “Miss Millie was my teacher in the tenth grade. She was a fine old lady.”
“Don’t get personal about it, Mr. John,” he said. He motioned toward the equipment on the table. “I’ve warned you about these things.”
“If you don’t like it, fire me. But just give me half an hour,” I said. “I’ll know by then.”
The kid was looking at the Chief’s kindly face. He watched the Chief’s eyes waver away from mine, saw him turn his back. “I’d better go see how the men are doing,” he said, muttering the words as he hurried out of the room.
It was pretty much of a standard routine that we’d worked out over the years. It made me the villain of the piece and later on, if need be, the Chief could come back and be buddy buddy with the suspect. Usually he didn’t have to work that part. Not after I got through.
Now, I’m not fond of the third-degree method, even if I am tough enough for my job. I’ve always considered it a failure when I had to lay a hand on a guy. It’s all in the atmosphere. If you can shake the bravado out of him you’ll generally get close enough to the truth. Lots of guys you can hurt and never find out a thing. Most guys can stand hurting a lot better than they can stand the thought of hurting.
I nodded at the patrolman and he went out too. Then I looked at the kid again.
“Let’s start telling,” I said.
He was as pale as clay. His hands lying on the table were trembling and he knotted them together. “There’s nothing to tell,” he said. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
I picked up the rubber hose and bounced it off the palm of my hand. I kept on bouncing it and his eyes followed it, hypnotized, as it moved limberly in my hand.
“That old lady was lying up there on the kitchen floor with her head bashed in,” I said in a quiet voice. “You didn’t even do it until you’d eaten the meal that she gave you, there on the end of the kitchen table. Or maybe you killed her and then ate the meal. I don’t know. Then you searched the house. You found the money. You took the lapel watch off her body. Then you left. Like an idiot, you started right out of town on the highway, where you were picked up. Didn’t you know you’d be picked up? Wasn’t that kind of stupid of you?”
“I didn’t kill her,” he said. His voice was low, hopeless. But it was insistent.
“Take off your shirt,” I said.
His hands flew to the buttons as though he was glad to please me with something. He fumbled at the job and it took him a while to get the first three buttons undone. Then he stopped.
“All right,” he said. “I’ll tell you about it.”
“Talk,” I said, not easing the pressure at all.
“There was a guy,” he said in a fast voice. “I met him out by the railroad tracks, where I was planning to spend the night. He was drunk and he offered me a drink. He had two pints of Cabin Hollow corn whiskey. We had some drinks together. After a while he passed out.” He looked up at me. He had some of his defiance back. “So I rolled him. That’s where I got the watch and the money. He had all that money on him.”
“That’s a pretty good story,” I said. “Too bad it’s not the truth.”
“It is the truth. He was already drunk when I got with him. He passed out in fifteen minutes.” He wrinkled up his face. “And that corn whiskey—it was awful. . .” His voice ran down.
“Describe the man.”
“He was tall, shabbier-looking than me. He had a long face and real big hands. His skin was dead-white and he was nearly bald. His feet were big, too, I remember them.”
I put the rubber hose down on the table. I sat down in a chair. I looked at the boy. I hadn’t really looked at him before. You don’t want to look too deep into a guy you’ve got to get tough with. Just let him be a face where you can see the reactions moving through him, see whether you’re succeeding or not.
But I really looked at him now. He had a friendly kind of face. There was the kind of toughness there you pick up when you’re on the road young. But it was an open face, too, in spite of being frightened and nervous. You could tell he’d been picked up in strange towns before.
When you’ve been a cop as long as I have, you go on instinct more than you go on fact. That’s why I don’t have much use for these young fellows and their F.B.I.-taught methods they don’t leave any room for a cop’s instinct.
The kid’s story had the feel of truth in it. Looking at him, I just knew in my bones he was the kind that was perfectly capable of rolling a drunk. But the capability in him didn’t reach as far as cold-blooded murder. There were no real facts to pin it on, only his bald statement—except that he’d described very accurately our town drunk. But I knew that I had hold of the truth now, like holding one end of a string.
I know that a man can kill his mother and smile and smile and keep smiling. But I could feel the innocence in this kid, and that was why I’d been uneasy ever since I’d first laid eyes on him, why I’d had to push myself through the routines of the questioning. Hell, I liked the kid. If he had really murdered old Miss Burden, I just couldn’t have liked him.
He began to get more and more nervous as I sat staring at him. He couldn’t look directly at me, and he couldn’t look away. “Where are you from, son?” I said finally. “What are you doing on the road, anyway?”
“I’m from Canton, Missouri,” he said. He tried to smile but he didn’t make much out of it. “I’m on the road because I just like to travel, I guess.”
“Where did you pick up the description of the man you said you rolled?” I said. “Did you see him on the street some where?”
He made a brave show of looking straight into my eyes but he couldn’t manage it. “I met him out by the railroad yards,” he said. “Like I said.”
I got up from the chair. I went to the door and called the patrolman. “Take him back to his cell,” I told him.
I watched the two of them go down the corridor. The boy, from the back, had a good pair of shoulders, leaning down to narrow hips. He’d never be a slob like me. I’ve always been big-hipped, even when I was a kid. Well, a man gets used to his own ugliness, I reckon—especially when it’s useful in his work. I went to the office. The Chief looked up from his desk when I came in. “Is he ready for a statement?” he said. He motioned toward a patrolman. “Sam here is waiting to take it down when you’re ready.”
“No,” I said. “He’s not ready.”
The Chief lifted his head again, looking at me sharply. “What’s the matter, Mr. John?”
“Maybe there won’t be a statement,” I said. “Maybe the boy is innocent.”
“Oh, for Pete’s sake,” the Chief said. “You expect us to start believing in miracles? He’s a road kid. He’s got the money on him and he’s got the watch. I figure it would take a jury about fifteen minutes. What more do you want?”
I could feel the stubbornness coming up in me. The same kind of stubbornness that the boy had shown. “I don’t doubt that,” I said. “Nobody would feel very bad about hanging Miss Burden’s murder on him. The Prosecutor could rant and rave to his heart’s content. The Judge could be wise and legal. The jury could be self-righteous as hell. A good time would be had by all.”
“What’s the matter with you, anyway?”
I laid my hand flat on his desk, leaning on it. “I tell you he’s not guilty.”
He drew away from me. I kept on looking at him. I was on the force before he was. He was Chief now and I would never be Chief—never in a million years. But he knew me. I was Mr. John.
“What makes you think so?” he said in a respectful voice.
I relaxed. “He’s got a good story,” I said. “A pretty good story. Told me how he got the money and the watch. He found Peanuts Morgan drunk and he rolled him.”
“How do you know it was Peanuts?”
“Described him to a T. You couldn’t mistake him for any body else.”
The Chief sat still for a moment in thought. Peanuts Morgan was the town character. An alcoholic, he was dimwitted in an amiable sort of way. He lived in an old shack out across the railroad tracks, making his living and his drinking money by shining shoes on the Square, by running errands, and by begging. Once in a while we had to pick him up and dry him out. People remembered when he was a star basketball player that was a lot of years ago—and once in a while they’d give him enough money or whiskey to really tie one on.
“Peanuts isn’t exactly an upright citizen,” the Chief said. “But he’s always been as harmless as they come.”
“He murdered Miss Millie,” I said violently.
“How do you figure that? Just because the kid. . .Why, that kid would lie in his teeth to get out of this rap.”
I was breathing hard. “He wasn’t lying,” I said. “And it would be easy for Peanuts. You know Miss Millie fed him now and then because she taught him in school. She wouldn’t pay any attention to him. Maybe while he was eating she took the money out of the sugar bowl for some reason. He took one look and went crazy in the head, thinking about how much liquor all that money would buy.”
The Chief sighed. “All right,” he said. “We’ll pick him up.”
“I’ll pick him up,” I said. “And when I get him I’m going to learn the truth.”
“Sure,” the Chief said soothingly. “We’ll work the same game.”
I stopped at the door. “You can’t scare Peanuts,” I said. “He’s not bright enough.” I could feel the grimness in my mind. “But I’ll get the truth. The only way there is to get it.”
I didn’t bother to look for him downtown. I headed out across the railroad tracks toward his shack. I was driving fast when I bounced across the high railroad grade and went down the other side. I could feel the conviction riding me hard and I couldn’t wait to prove that me and the boy were right. It’s crazy when you think about it. A tough cop like me, who’s heard it all, the way I began believing that boy the minute I looked at him.
It wasn’t anything I could put my finger on. But I’ve listened to men lying for years. Most people just automatically lie to a cop. And you get to where you can feel the guilt inside of them, no matter what their face or their voice is saying. But that kind was as open as a book.
I banged on the door of the shack, then I shoved it open. Peanuts was lying on his broken-down bed, snoring. I went over to him, grabbed him by the shoulder, jerked him off the bed. He came up thrashing and yelling. I jammed him back against the wall and put the cuffs on him. I fanned him but he didn’t have a thing except a nearly empty pint of Cabin Hollow com in his front overalls pocket. I looked at it, tossed it on the bed. “What. . .what’s the trouble, Mr. John?” Peanuts said in a shaking voice.
I put my face close to his. “Why did you kill Miss Millie?”
He collapsed. I could see the collapse inside his raddled face. I shoved him toward the door without waiting for an answer, stooping to pick up the pint bottle, and hustled him to the car.
In five minutes we were back in the jail. I led him into and through the Chiefs office, shaking my head when he started to rise from his desk to follow us. I put him into a chair in the Interrogation Room.
He was shaking all over. “My Gad, Mr. John,” he said. “Whatever makes you think I killed Miss Millie? Why, she fed me, she. . .”
I stared down at him. He was a wreck of a man. He’d been a star basketball center on the high school team many years ago. He’d been tall enough for the job, fast enough. For two seasons, mostly because of him, the local team was undefeated. Now he was a raddled, half-witted bum, no use to himself or anybody else.
“Where did you get the whiskey?” I said.
He brightened. “A kid gave it to me. Took it right out of his suitcase and told me I could have it. He had two whole pints and he. . .”
I could feel myself getting mad. He was dim-witted, all right, but not so he couldn’t think of something. They can all think of something when it’s murder.
“You’re going to confess,” I told him. I could feel the hardness in my voice. “Before I leave this room you’re going to sign a statement.”
He looked into my ugly face and shrank back into his chair from what he saw.
Forty-five minutes later I walked into the Chiefs office. I was sweating and shaking in a way I’d never been before. I’d done things I’d never done before, too.
“Go on in and take it down,” I said to the patrolman. “Tell him I said word for word, or I’m coming back in there.”
The patrolman went out with his shorthand pad. The Chief stared at me. “You mean he confessed?”
“He confessed,” I said. “It was him, just like I told you.”
I stood up, then, and picked up the key ring. I went back down the corridor to the boy’s cell. I unlocked the door and opened it.
“All right,” I said. “I got it out of him.”
I watched his face. It lit up from inside and it came all the way out, the way he was feeling. I guess my face was trying to show something, too. He stood up from the bunk and for the first time he was really shook.
“You mean—you mean I can go now? I don’t have to. . .”
“Not yet,” I said. “There’ll be a trial and you’ll be the principal witness. About him having the whiskey and the money and the watch. That, together with his confession. . .It’ll be next week, because court session starts then and this town won’t want to wait a year to see justice done.”
“Do I have to stay in jail until then?”
I thought about it. “If you won’t leave town. . .”
His shoulders slumped. “How can I stay?” he said. “No place to live, no money to eat on. I guess I’ll have to stay in jail.”
“You can come out to my place,” I said then. “If you want to do that.”
He looked at me and for the first time he smiled. It was a good kind of smile, that warmed you all the way through and made you grateful you’d been able to do something to bring it out.
He stayed at my place on the lake for three days. I was glad to have him because it’s lonesome out there sometimes. Besides, I liked the kid the minute I laid eyes on him. He was grateful to me for saving his neck, too, and that’s not hard to take, even when you’re a tough cop. Maybe especially when you’re a tough cop.
I took him fishing a couple of times. He liked that. We talked a lot, when I was off-duty and could spend time out there. He was nervous about the trial, but I assured him. I told him he wouldn’t even need a court-appointed attorney, because there wouldn’t be any charges against him for rolling Peanuts. I’d see to that.
I’d never had a visitor before. I keep pretty much to my self, anyway. I never could find a woman who could stand my ugly face and my rough ways, and most people don’t trust a cop enough to like him. So off-duty I read a good bit and I fished a lot, a lonely kind of life but all right for the likes of me. I enjoyed having the boy around. I might as well admit it.
He softened me, maybe, had from the very first, but maybe a guy needs softening once in a while. If I’d ever had a son, I’d have wanted him to be like Billy Roberts. But then if I’d had a son he’d have probably looked just like me.
On the third day Peanuts Morgan hung himself in his cell. I found out about it when I checked in. I went right back to the cabin. Billy was sitting on the screened porch when I drove up. I got out of the car and went up the steps, opened the screen door.
“Well,” I said. “There won’t be a trial after all.”
He looked up at me very quickly. “What happened?” He started standing up.
“Peanuts Morgan killed himself,” I said. “Hung himself in his cell last night, with the belt that the stupid jailer forgot to take away from him.”
Billy sat down slowly. “Now why would he do a thing like that?”
“I guess he finally sobered up enough to realize what he’d done, to understand that he was going to die in the electric chair,” I said. “Either that, or be sent to the hospital for the criminally insane.”
Billy put his hands over his face. I could see that he was shaking. “That poor guy,” he said.
“Don’t let it throw you,” I said. “It’s just one of those things.”
He looked at me in a peculiar sort of way. “I guess I’d better be on my way,” he said. “I want to thank you, Mr. John, for all that you’ve done.” He shivered. “If it hadn’t been for you, it would have been me in that cell.”
I looked into his face. “You don’t have to go,” I said. “I can find you a job here, a good job. You can stay out here with me until you get on your feet You’ve got to quit rambling one of these days, son. It might as well be here and now. Maybe the next trouble you get into. . .”
His face sobered. “You’re right, Mr. John,” he said. “But I’m going home.” He lifted his head, looking at me. “I owe it to my family, Mr. John. Go back and show them I’m through with living the way I’ve been living. Maybe one of these days I can come back here.”
