“Christ, I don’t know. My lawyer told me I wasn’t to answer any more questions if he wasn’t there.”
“Sidney Margolis is protecting your interests, as he should. But we’re trying to keep this as informal as possible. To keep you from having to go to Mr. Margolis’s office, or ours.”
“Yeah, I know. But…”
“Let me suggest this, Mr. Atchison, to save us both time and inconvenience. I give you my word that if you find any of my questions are in any way inconvenient, if you have any doubt whatever that you shouldn’t answer them without Mr. Margolis’s advice, you simply say ‘Pass,’ and I will drop that question and any similar to it.”
“Well, Sergeant, you put me on a spot. You know I want to cooperate, but Margolis said…”
“The decision, of course, is yours. And I will understand no matter what you decide.”
Atchison hesitated a moment and then swung the door open.
“What the hell,” he said. “I want to be as helpful as I can. I want whoever did what they did to my wife and Tony Marcuzzi caught and fried.”
“Thank you very much,” Washington said. “There’s just a few things that we’d like to ask your opinion about.”
“Whatever I can do to help,” Atchison said. “Can I have the girl get you some coffee? Or something stronger?”
“I don’t know about Matt here, but the detective in me tells me it’s very likely that a restaurateur would have some drinkable coffee in his house.”
“I have some special from Brazil,” Atchison said. “ Bean coffee. Dark roast. I grind it just before I brew it.”
“I accept your kind invitation,” Washington said.
“And so do I,” Matt said.
“Let me show it to you,” Atchison said.
They followed him into the kitchen and watched his coffee-brewing ritual.
Washington, Matt thought, looked genuinely interested.
Finally they returned to the living room.
“Sit down,” Atchison said. “Let me know how I can help.”
Washington sipped his coffee.
“ Very nice!”
“I’m glad you like it,” Atchison said.
“Mr. Atchison,” Washington began. “As a general rule of thumb, in cases like this, we’ve found that usually robbers will observe a place of business carefully before they act. And we’re working on the premise that whoever did this were professional criminals.”
“They certainly seemed to know what they were doing,” Atchison agreed.
“So it would therefore follow that they did, in fact, more than likely, decide to rob your place of business some time, days, weeks, before they actually committed the crime. That they (a) decided that your establishment was worth their time and the risk involved to rob; and (b) planned their robbery carefully.”
“I can see what you mean,” Atchison said.
“Would you say that it was common knowledge that you sometimes had large amounts of cash on the premises?”
“I think most bars and restaurants do,” Atchison said. “They have to. A good customer wants to cash a check for a couple of hundred, even a thousand, you look foolish if you can’t accommodate him.”
“I thought it would be something like that,” Washington said. “That’s helpful.”
“And I never keep the cash in the register, either, I always keep it downstairs in the safe. You know that neighborhood, Sergeant, I don’t have to tell you. Sometimes, when there’s a busy night, I even take large amounts of cash out of the register and take it down and put it in the safe.”
“In other words, you would say you take the precautions a prudent businessman would take under the circumstances.”
“I think you could say that, yes.”
“We’ve found, over the years-and I certainly hope you won’t take offense over the question-that in some cases, employees have a connection with robberies of this nature.”
“I guess that would happen.”
“Would you mind giving me your opinion of Thomas Melrose?” Washington asked. “He was, I believe, the bartender on duty that night?”
“Tommy went off duty before those men came in,” Atchison replied, and then hesitated a moment before continuing: “I just can’t believe Tommy Melrose would be involved in anything like this.”
“But he was aware that you frequently kept large amounts of cash in your office.”
“Yes, I guess he was,” Atchison said reluctantly.
“How long has Mr. Melrose been working for you?” Washington asked.
“About nine months,” Atchison replied, after thinking about it.
“He came well recommended?”
“Oh, absolutely. You have to be very careful about hiring bartenders. An open cash drawer is quite a temptation.”
“Do you think you still have his references? I presume you checked them.”
“Oh, I checked them, all right. And I suppose they’re in a filing cabinet someplace.”
“When you feel a little better, Mr. Atchison, do you think we could have a look at them?”
“Certainly.”
“Mr. Melrose said that business was slow the night of this incident.”
“Yes, it was.”
“He said there was, just before he went off duty, only one customer in the place; and that when that last customer left, you took over for him tending bar.”
“That’s right. I did. You have to stay open in a bar like mine. Even if there’s no customers. There might be customers coming in after you closed, and the next time they wanted a late-evening drink, they’d remember you were closed and go someplace else.”
“I understand.”
“The one customer who left just before you took over from Mr. Melrose: Do you remember him? I mean, was there anything about him? You don’t happen to remember his name?”
Atchison appeared to be searching his memory. He shook his head and said, “Sorry.”
Washington stood up. “Well, I hate to leave good company, and especially such fine coffee, but that’s all I have. Thank you for your time, Mr. Atchison.”
“Have another before you go,” Atchison said. “One for the road.”
“Thank you, no,” Washington said. “I think Mr. Melrose said the customer was named Frankie. Does that ring a bell, Mr. Atchison?”
Atchison shook his head again. “No. Sorry.”
“Probably not important,” Washington said. “I would have been surprised if you had remembered him, Mr. Atchison. Thank you again for your time.”
He put his hand out.
“Anything I can do to help, Sergeant,” Atchison said.
“Cool customer,” Jason Washington said with neither condemnation nor admiration in his voice, making it a simple professional judgment.
“You gave him two chances to remember Frankie Foley,” Matt said.
“It will be interesting to see if Mr. Foley remembers Mr. Atchison,” Washington said, and then changed the subject: “Did your father really leave you in durance vile overnight?”
“Swann told you, did he?”
“Your father’s wisdom made quite an impression on Lieutenant Swann,” Washington said. “And you haven’t been behind bars since, have you?”
“No,” Matt said, and then thought aloud: “Unless you want to count the time those Narcotics assholes hauled me off the night Tony the Zee got himself hit.”
“I’m not sure you have considered the possibility that the Narcotics officers were simply doing their job.”
“Taking great pleasure in what they were doing.”
“Well, the tables have turned, haven’t they?” They thought they had a dirty cop. And now you’re going to see if it can be proved that they are dirty.”
“Am I going to work on that?”
“You and everybody else. Compared to coming up with something on the Narcotics Five Squad that will result in indictments, bringing Atchison before a grand jury will be fairly easy.”
“How come?”
“We have a crime scene on the Inferno job, and other evidence. We have two good suspects. I think we can get a motive without a great deal of effort. A good deal of shoe leather may be required, but it isn’t a question of if we will get Atchison, but when. So far as the Narcotics Five Squad is concerned, we don’t know what they have done, only that they have done it, and we don’t know what ‘it’ is, except the Widow Kellog’s definition of ‘it’ as dirty.”