“That’s all.” The captain’s tone was expressionless. As the door closed behind his subordinate he swiveled his chair around, staring across the low roofs to the bay and the soft hills of Oakland beyond, with tiny white houses mounting to the rounded peaks, half hidden in the late summer greenery. Jim Reardon was a good man and had been a damned fine addition to the detective force in Homicide and Captain Tower was pleased to have had the man assigned to him. He was smart, intelligent, hard working, fair, well liked, and — the captain shook his head, searching for the elusive word to complete the description.
It was “stubborn,” he finally decided. That matter settled, Captain Tower sighed heavily, swung around, and went back to work.
Wednesday — 3:45 P.M.
The police garage was in the basement of the Hall of Justice; a low-ceilinged room of vast proportions with an exhaust-stained concrete floor and supporting pillars which, Reardon had always felt, had been placed at the exact points to insure maximum damage to doors or fenders by anyone attempting to follow the direction lines painted on the floor. One bent fender had been enough for Lieutenant Reardon; now he parked either in the public lot behind the morgue — without taking a ticket from the machine — or at the curb in front of the Hall on Bryant Street on those rare occasions when the No-parking space was not filled with other interlopers.
The portion of the garage next to the office, adjacent to the ramp leading from the street, had been isolated to serve as a storage space for cars under investigation, and was protected from the balance of the garage by wire fencing and doors which could be — but never had been — closed. Reardon sighed, thinking of the old days when one, or at the most two, cars had been impounded for official reasons. Now the space was crowded with battered wrecks from which dead bodies had been hauled or had to be burned clear with acetylene torches.
He studied the area carefully; the Buick was not there. Perturbed, he walked to the office door, thrust his head inside, and bawled.
“Morrison!”
“Just a second!” The garage attendant poked his head from behind a desk where he had been retrieving a dropped coin. He pocketed it with satisfaction as he rose and slid it into a pocket. “Hi, Lieutenant.”
“Where’s that Buick?”
“Parked out in the main garage. Second row down, back up against the wall. All the way at the end.”
Reardon studied the man coldly. “Isn’t your normal practice to keep a car in the cage until the technical squad has a chance to go over it?”
Morrison looked unhappy. He wiped his hands, dusty from his search of the floor, on his buttocks.
“Sure, Lieutenant,” he said unhappily. “Only they went over it.” He raised a hand, denying culpability. “I told them what you said, but the gang came down about one o’clock and went over her then. They said it was Captain Clark’s instructions. Said they had other wrecks to go in.” He shrugged apologetically. “There wasn’t nothing I could do. Me, I’m just a guy here, runs the office.”
“I see.”
So Captain Clark had screamed about the disruption of his crew’s schedule after he had already ordered his men to check out the car! It was certainly nice to see co-operation between departments and to know one had friends in high places, Reardon thought, and put the thought of Captain Clark out of his mind.”
“What did they find?”
“Nothing that I could see, or at least they didn’t say anything,” Morrison said. “I know they dusted her for prints and went over her from top to bottom. They had the seats out, picked up the hard stuff like hairpins and coins and then they vacuumed under them and the rug too; and they had the hub caps off and all that stuff. They had the trunk open and they looked at the spare tire and took that out too. They gave it the works; a lot more than they usually do with an accident car.” He paused and then shrugged apologetically. “But it ain’t for me to say. I’m just a desk jockey down here.”
“And a damned fine mechanic,” Reardon reminded him.
“Yeah. Well, maybe I was once upon a time, but I’m flying a file cabinet now.” Morrison changed the subject. “You ought to be getting a report, Lieutenant.”
“I suppose I will, eventually,” Reardon said evenly.
Captain Clark, he thought, in addition to having a personality problem also had a technical squad that functioned under his direction and operated both efficiently and well. Oh yes — Reardon was sure he’d get a report, and so would his superior Captain Tower, and undoubtedly Assistant Chief Boynton. And the report would be as detailed as an instructed laboratory could make it, embellished by the Traffic chief, with developed fingerprints and dust analyses and eighteen type-written pages — all designed to prove what a complete waste of time Lieutenant Reardon, meddling with a department not his own, had put the long-suffering technical squad to. Not to mention the trouble Captain Clark had been forced to endure. To hell with it, Reardon thought sourly, and went on with his questioning of Morrison.
“How about the engines?”
Morrison became enthusiastic for the first time.
“I checked her under the hood myself, Lieutenant. What a lovely job!” He shook his head in admiration. “Tuned to a dime. And the body? A real old-timer. You could hit an elephant with that one. They really built cars in those days. I should be in as good shape when I’m that old!”
“You are that old,” Reardon pointed out. “Older in fact.”
“Yeah. Well, you know what I mean. Them 1940s were a dream, probably the best they made before the war. After the war, of course—” He waved a hand, putting the cars produced after the war in their proper place. “A beauty!”
“What about the radiator?”
“Not a scratch. I tell you, Lieutenant, she’s practically perfect. Leaks a little transmission oil, but what the hell! I should be in as good a shape—” He realized he was repeating himself. “I mean it ain’t bad for a car thirty years old. Even the bumper where it hit the guy, it ain’t hardly dented. Beautiful!”
“If that’s the proper word for a lethal weapon that killed a man,” Reardon commented dryly.
“That ain’t what I meant, Lieutenant,” Morrison said, his sensibilities wounded. “I just meant I wished they built them patrol cars we got like they built that Buick back about thirty years ago. Maybe then they wouldn’t be in the shop every second day.”
“I suppose you’re right,” Reardon conceded. He looked up. “Let me have a flashlight, will you? I want to take a look at her myself.”
“Sure,” Morrison said. “I’ll show you where I put it.”
He picked a flashlight from his desk, checked it to see if the batteries were alive, flicked it off and led the way down the long rows of cars fitted into the garage space like bits of a jigsaw puzzle.
“Like when I was over at Repairs,” he said. “Southern twelve. I must have put new cotter pins in the steering linkage on that bastard eight times in six months. Guy could go blind. That’s what I meant, Lieutenant.” He paused, flashing on the light, pointing with the beam. When he spoke he sounded proud. “There she is, Lieutenant.”
Reardon took the lighted flashlight and opened the rear door, sweeping the beam around the empty space, bringing it back to the floorboards and up to the roof. And what do you think you’re looking for in the first place? he asked himself sarcastically, and closed the door. It closed with a solid, satisfactory chunk. He moved to the front, opening the door, flashing the light about.
“Glove compartment’s empty,” Morrison offered. “Technical squad looked.”