“Captain—”
“Let me finish.” He pressed down a second finger, warming to his arguments. “Two: Five minutes after Clark hangs up, I get a call from Judge Jorgensen saying that if we’re going to get involved in Traffic, he’d like to be apprised of the fact, and also if I’m under the impression the Municipal Court hasn’t enough cases on its docket without doing each one of them twice — especially idiotic cases — then I ought to drop down to the second floor and see for myself sometimes. He said he went along with Merkel on the continuance for Crocker this time, but if there was any more horsing around on Friday, he was going to raise hell with someone. And he bangs the receiver down. And I don’t even know what in hell he’s talking about, although I’m beginning to get a strong suspicion!”
He paused, his eyes tiny, waiting for another interruption, but Reardon kept quiet. Captain Tower nodded and pressed down a third finger.
“So I call Merkel and he tells me this is the fine Italian hand of my young Lieutenant, James Reardon, not that I don’t already know that. But he doesn’t know why Lieutenant Reardon asked for the continuance.”
Reardon continued to sit silent, watching. Captain Tower released his fingers and stared across the desk at him, glaring.
“Well?”
“Well what, sir?”
Tower’s big fist formed again, this time beyond control, bouncing on the desk. His ash tray jumped.
“Don’t ask stupid questions of me, Lieutenant! I want to know what the hell goes on! I want to know why you disobey orders! You just now spoke about a ‘Cooke case.’ Well, there isn’t any Cooke case! The man stepped off the curb in front of a car and got killed. The poor slob who killed him has enough grief without your persecuting him, because that’s what it amounts to. Why, God knows! I hope not to justify your walking out of that meeting last night, because if that’s the reason, you’re in trouble. I’ve read the Wilkins report, too, you know. And after the reaming I got from the judge, I called Wilkins at home and he repeated the whole thing, practically verbatim. And Merkel told me if Crocker had had the brains to bring a lawyer into court with him, the poor dumb bastard, either he’d have walked out a free man — or driven out in his Buick rather — or his lawyer would have been holding press conferences that would have had the Board of Commissioners seeing purple!”
He frowned across the desk blackly.
“What are you trying to do, Lieutenant? Wreck the police department all by yourself?”
Reardon’s jaw tightened slightly and his gray eyes narrowed, but otherwise he kept his cool. He had decided what his defense was going to be: a good offense, and he knew this was the time to do it, if ever. The captain was plainly in no mood for nonsense. There was only one way to settle it, and that was to do it quickly.
“Captain, you want to know why I’ve done what I’ve done. I’ll tell you in one word. Murder.”
“Murder?”
“Yes, sir. Homicide, and that makes it our business. Ralph Crocker deliberately ran down Bob Cooke and killed him. It was no accident. And I’m going to prove it.”
Captain Tower stared at him a moment. He leaned back in his chair, fumbled a pipe free from his jacket pocket, and sucked on it without lighting it. When he spoke his voice was deceptively quiet.
“What do you know about this case you haven’t reported, Lieutenant?”
“Not a thing, sir. But I’m sure Cooke was killed on purpose.”
“Oh, you do, do you? Do you happen to have any evidence? Any proof?”
“No, sir.”
Tower considered him evenly, almost paternally. “That’s a nice, honest statement. Do you have any indication — I won’t even ask you for proof — that Cooke and Crocker had ever met or even seen each other before in their lives?”
“No, sir.” Reardon faced his superior calmly. “Cooke’s girl friend never heard of Crocker and never saw him before. And says to her knowledge Cooke never mentioned him. And Crocker was strictly a landlubber, as far as we know, and Cooke worked the ships. And lived in Honolulu.”
“I see. But you’re still positive it was homicide. Now,” Captain Tower continued politely, “perhaps you can tell me why a man would go to the trouble of killing a perfect stranger. Do you believe Crocker is a homicidal maniac? Do you think he’s the type who goes running around killing strangers for kicks?”
“No, sir. I think this thing was well planned.”
“But you can’t think why.”
“No, sir, I can’t. Not yet.” He leaned forward a bit, trying to explain something that was difficult to explain to himself. “I have a hunch, I suppose you might call it. Now, I don’t think hunches are anything supernatural, and I also don’t believe they are what people call ESP — extrasensory perception. I think hunches are our subconscious trying to remind us of something we’ve forgotten.”
“And what did you forget?”
The young red-haired lieutenant suddenly grinned. “That’s what I don’t know.”
There were several seconds of silence. Captain Tower put away his pipe.
“Are you all right, Jim?”
“I’m fine, Captain.”
“I’m not so sure.” Tower drummed his thick fingers on his desktop for several moments, considering the man across from him thoughtfully. When at last he spoke he sounded as if he had come to a reluctant decision.
“Jim, I want you to take a week off. You’ve plenty of time coming, and we won’t count it against your vacation time. We’ll tack it onto sick leave. How about it? Take Jan and drive down to Yosemite, or lose some money at Reno or Vegas, or just go down to Carmel and lay around the beach. How about it?”
Reardon smiled at him faintly.
“I’ll tell you what, Captain. I’ll make you a deal. Instead of a week, I’d like just two days — until Municipal Court session on Friday. And instead of sick leave you can call it vacation time or even a holiday without pay if you want; I couldn’t care less. I know I’m right. There’s just one thing; I want a favor. I want Dondero to work with me.” He thought a moment. “And Stan Lundahl, too, if I need him for anything.”
Captain Tower stared at him. He swiveled his chair to take in the view across the bay once again, again not seeing it. He swiveled back, frowning, and then looked up.
“I suppose there’s only one way to cure you, Jim, and that’s to let you cure yourself in your own way. In all fairness to you I’ll say you’ve made damned few mistakes since you’ve been in the department; but I have a feeling this one is a beauty. I’m out of my mind to agree to it, but all right.” His dark eyes studied Reardon without any expression in them. They looked almost opaque. “If your hunch just happens to be wrong — and everything points to it, or at least if there’s anything working for it I can’t see it — then I imagine you know I’m the one who’ll be on the carpet in the chief’s office. Not you. Not after this talk of ours this afternoon. I suppose you’ve thought of that?”
“I’ve thought of it, Captain,” Reardon said evenly. “I’ve thought of it a lot, and frankly, I didn’t like thinking about it. I like to take my own falls for my own mistakes.” His gray eyes firmed. “But I’ve also thought of a girl who lost a boy friend; and even more than that, I’ve thought it’s just too damned easy to kill a man with a car deliberately and get away with it.” He waited a moment in silence and then came to his feet. “If that’s all, Captain, I’d like to get to work.”