“And he admitted it, you say?”
“Yeah. I’m only sorry there wasn’t time to get it down on paper.”
“No, no,” the woman sobbed.
“Not in front of you, no,” Brown said gently. “He didn’t want you to know. But he admitted it as soon as I got him out of the house, away from you.” He turned back to the captain with modest remorse. “I’m sorry, Cap.”
“Sorry?” the captain roared. “If everyone else on this squad had as much to be sorry for as you, my worries would be over! Look after this woman, Greeley,” he added. “Take her back to her house. Call in one of the neighbors to stay with her.”
Greeley left Bill Brown being symbolically, if not actually, hoisted high on their shoulders in triumph. He guided the newly made widow back along the footpath. He got her back to the house somehow. She was in pitiable condition. She caught at his sleeve with both hands, clung to him pleadingly, as if he could bring the dead back to life. “No, no,” she kept moaning, “he murdered him. He murdered my husband, out there in the darkness. He never resisted. Dick went with him willingly. Oh mister, you’ve got to listen to me! I was there when he took him! He purposely wanted to get him outside the house, where I couldn’t see what happened. Dick said, ‘Sure I’ll go with you. Take me there right now. I’m ready to answer any questions they want to ask me. I know I can clear myself.’ Those were his very words! He went like a lamb.”
Joe Greeley’s face was whiter than it had ever been before. “Did he have a gun? Did he own a gun?” He said it so low she could hardly hear him. Afraid to speak his thoughts too loudly, even to himself.
“Yes, yes.” She nodded readily. “Oh, it was an old leftover from his army days. But he didn’t take it. This man of yours took it. He put it in his pocket before he took Dick out of the house with him. I saw him do it!”
“Which pocket?”
She patted her hip. “Here.”
That was a careless place to put it, on the side nearest the prisoner. And he hadn’t used a manacle. Why, Greeley wondered, hadn’t he used his manacle? That was something they’d forgotten to ask him. Did he want the prisoner to break and run for it? Was he looking for an excuse to shoot the man down, to distinguish himself even further than he had already? Or had something even worse happened out there on that dark empty lot, with no one watching the two of them but the weeds and stars?
Joe got her a glass of water, but he needed one himself. “How many shots did you hear?” he whispered.
“Two.”
“One right after the other, close together, right on top of each other?”
“Not awfully close together. One, and then the other pretty soon after, but not right away.”
Maybe... maybe just long enough for a man to change guns. That is, throw down the first, unlimber a second, doff his own hat — and deliberately fire through it, his “assailant” already dead on the ground.
“And the money?” he asked after a long hideous time. “Where did he find the money?”
“Behind the radio, between it and the wall. He stuck his hand down, and it came up holding it.” She rocked back and forth, hands pressed to her eyes. “I cleaned there right this morning, and it wasn’t there!” Then she said the most horrible of all things she’d had said yet. “He seemed to know right where to look for it.” Greeley flinched as though he’d been cut. “Dick didn’t hide it there. I could tell by his face. He didn’t know it was there any more than I did! He murdered my husband. He’s not a policeman, he’s the murderer!”
He got out of there fast. But the talk followed him along the quiet sidewalk outside, ringing in his ears. He could still hear it all the way down at the next corner — or thought he could: “He murdered my husband! He shot him down in cold blood!”
Joe didn’t go back to the precinct house to share in Bill Brown’s Roman holiday. Instead he shut himself up in a booth and called the Crosby woman again. His voice was harsh and relentless. “This is Greeley of the detective division. I want to know just one thing out of you. (Jive me a straight answer, and you’ve got nothing to worry about — it won’t go any further. Try to cover up, and you’ll be on your way to the lockup before the night’s out!”
She drew in her breath in sudden fright for an answer.
“Who was the guy, the man before me, you made a ‘mistake’ with, like you tried to with me tonight?”
“I don’t know his name, honest I’m not kidding you I don’t!”
“Tall, good-looking guy, snappy dresser?”
“Yeah,” she said reluctantly.
There was only one man on the squad that applied to.
“How much?”
She lowered her voice uneasily. “Three hundred.”
He banged up, but he forgot to leave the booth right away. He seemed to see things in it, vermin on the wall. Three hundred dollars wouldn’t buy Bill Brown a promotion. But properly invested — pinned on a badly wanted murderer pulled out of his sleeve — it could get him one. And he’d still be seven hundred ahead on the Sol-Ray Company’s thousand dollar reward.
No, he told himself — and it was as much in desperation as conviction — Bill Brown took a bribe from a source that had nothing to do with the work he was assigned to. All right. That’s not my speed, but it’s not my business either. Other men have done it before him and other men’ll do it after him. But beyond that — that’s all I know. That’s all I want to know. That’s all there is to know.
V
His name was Danny Halpern, he’d been wanted for a killing in a poolroom, and after about three weeks they caught up with him and brought him in.
No, of course he hadn’t done it. He hadn’t been near the poolroom in question that night. If they said he had they were lying. He hadn’t been near it any other night either. He’d never been near it in his life. He’d never killed anyone, he was as innocent as a newborn babe, he was being unjustly accused, he was being framed, he had an alibi a yard long. And so on.
So they went to work on him. Greeley was allowed to participate in the questioning of suspects by this time. They needed everyone available in this one particular case, anyway; they worked shifts, sent in by relays as the suspect wore them out.
They called Greeley in to take a hand, at about midnight. It had been going on since noon the day before. He passed Brown on the basement stairs, coming up all wilted, with his coat off and looking sore as a pup. “Take him apart and find out what keeps him going,” he muttered. “My knuckles are all swollen.” Brown wasn’t so good at this protracted grilling stuff. He didn’t have the patience. It was more in Greeley’s line. Tricky questions, in Halpern’s case, did no good; he had been born tricky. Knocking him against the walls didn’t get them anywhere either; he’d been taking hard knocks all his life. But his vitality was flickering now, and that was all that had been keeping him going.
It was a pretty brutal scene, but he had taken a human life and that had been a pretty brutal scene too. Whether he confessed or not, he couldn’t bring that life back again. Moreover, he was no novice. He was suspected of a long string of other crimes. He’d never shown mercy, given a break; he wasn’t getting one now.