Уильям Макгиверн - Rogue Cop

Powell nodded. “Okay, Carmody. What have you to tell us?”

“A story about a man named Dobbs. A man Ackerman is afraid of.” He gave it to them in rapid detail, his trained mind presenting each fact in its damaging order. When he finished the attitude of the men facing him had changed; Wilson was grinning with excitement, Myerdahl had hunched forward to the edge of his chair and Powell was walking back and forth before the desk with a grim little look on his face. And the atmosphere of the room had changed, too; it was charged now with excitement and tension.

“Well,” Carmody said, “is it a case?”

“It may very well be,” Powell said. “It’s a logical inference that Dobbs took photographs of Ackerman participating in a robbery and murder. The robbery isn’t important, but the murder can still send him to the chair. And I’m quite sure that Dobbs has taken every precaution to make his case against Ackerman airtight. The pictures are probably in a vault, and his attorney probably has a letter instructing him to present them to the police in the event anything sudden and fatal happens to Dobbs. Ackerman must be efficiently trapped, or he wouldn’t have paid off all these years. He would simply have shot him. So our job is to find the pictures.”

“We can get them,” Myerdahl said, thumping the desk with his fist. “A court order can open vaults. And we’ll smoke out his lawyer. Or if the letter is with his family, we’ll drag them back and make them talk.”

“It will finish Ackerman,” Powell said, turning to Carmody. “But it doesn’t touch Beaumonte or the organization.”

“I can wrap them up for you,” Carmody said.

“How’s that?”

“I’ve got a witness they won’t like,” Carmody said. “A man who knows every name, every date and every pay-off connected with the city’s rackets. He’s been on Beaumonte’s payroll for six years and he’s willing to talk. Can you use him?”

“I most certainly can,” Powell said. “Who is he?”

“Me,” Carmody said quietly.

A silence grew and stretched in the smoky room. Wilson let out his breath slowly and Myerdahl rubbed his jaw and studied Carmody suspiciously. “Well,” Powell said at last. “You’ll be an almighty big help. But since there’s a good chance you’ll go to jail, why are you doing this?”

“I’m tired of that question,” Carmody said, shrugging his wide shoulders. “And what difference does it make? If we get a case, what else matters?”

“Several things,” Powell said, smiling slightly. “The most important thing, however, is to make men like you recognize the difference between right and wrong, to make you realize that you’re responsible for understanding the distinction. We can get Ackerman and Beaumonte a good deal easier than the border-line cases who support them by a cynical indifference to their moral obligations. That’s why I’m interested in your motive. Is it just a grudge? Or is it something a little different, a little better perhaps?”

Carmody was about to speak when the phone rang. Wilson picked it up and said, “Yes, go ahead.” He listened a moment, a slow frown spreading over his face, and then he nodded and said shortly, “Let me know the minute anything else comes in.” Replacing the phone he looked at Carmody. “That might be Nancy Drake, Mike. Radio has picked up a report from a New Jersey traffic car. They’ve got an accident a mile south of Exit 21 on the Turnpike. The victim fits the description of Nancy Drake. But the identification isn’t positive.”

“It’s positive,” Carmody said slowly. “They took her out and killed her. Because she gave me the lead that may hang them.” There was no anger in him, only a cold and terrible determination. He looked from Powell to Myerdahl, breathing slowly and deeply. “You two did all the talking so far,” he said. “Now listen: while you were talking they killed her like they’d swat a fly. Dobbs will be next, then me, then any other fool who gets in their way. They know they can get away with it because while their guns are banging you sit talking and drowning out the noise. There’s no case against them here, there’s nothing but talk. And I’m sick of it. You treated me like a leper because I wanted to help and I’m sick of that, too. Now I’m going to settle this without any more conversation.”

Carmody backed toward the door and Wilson said, “Don’t go off half-cocked, Mike.”

“More talk,” Carmody said, smiling unpleasantly. “Keep it up! Mr. Powell, tell them about right and wrong and the evil in the city’s scout packs. Myerdahl, come up with some stories of your early days as a cop. Talk your heads off, but for God’s sake don’t do anything.”

“I’d suggest you relax if I thought it would do any good,” Powell said pleasantly.

“You’re suspended!” Myerdahl shouted, leaping to his feet.

“You’re suspended, too,” Carmody said. “In a big tub of virtuous incompetence. Maybe that’s why I went crooked. Because I got tired of you good little people who can’t get anything done.”

He walked out and pulled the door shut behind him with an explosive bang.

State troopers had channeled all northbound traffic into one lane to by-pass the scene of the accident. The darkness was split by the red lights of squad cars parked on the grass off the highway. Carmody pulled up behind them and walked down to the gully where a fire-blackened convertible lay upside down, its wheels pointing grotesquely and helplessly at the sky. Men were working around it, measuring skid tracks, beginning the tests on brakes, wheel alignment, ignition system. A uniformed patrolman stood beside a small, blanket-covered figure on the ground. Carmody walked over to him and said, “Has the doctor gone?”

“Yes. He couldn’t do anything. What’s your business?” he added.

“Metropolitan police,” Carmody said opening his wallet. “I want to check an identification.”

“Sure, Sarge. Go ahead.”

Carmody knelt down and drew the blanket gently away from the small figure on the ground. He stared at her a moment, his face grim and hard in the flaring shadows thrown by the police lights. The fire, rather miraculously, hadn’t touched her face or hair. She must have crawled halfway out the window before the smoke and flame got her, he thought. For half a moment he stared at the frozen, inanimate pain on her face, at the leaves and twigs caught in her tangled blonde hair. He kept his eyes away from the rest of her body. You didn’t get back to show business, he thought. You just got murdered. He put the blanket over her face and got to his feet.

“Do you know what happened?” he asked the uniformed cop.

“I heard the talk,” the cop said respectfully; the look in Carmody’s face made him anxious to help. “She was alone in the car when the first motorist got to her and pulled her out. But nobody saw the crash. She lost control about fifty yards from the bridge, judging from the skid tracks. Then she barreled down here and tipped over.”

It was phony all the way, Carmody knew. Nancy had never been behind the wheel of a car in her life.

“She didn’t have much of a chance,” the cop said, and shook his head.

“Not a ghost.”

Carmody walked up the grade to his car. The single line of traffic passed him on his left, moving slowly despite the shouted orders from the troopers. Everyone wants a glimpse of tragedy, he thought, while faces peered out of the slowly moving cars, eager for the sounds and smells of disaster. Carmody looked down the hill at the blanket-draped figure on the ground, and then he slipped his car into gear and headed back to the city.

Half an hour later he rapped on the door of Beaumonte’s apartment. Footsteps sounded and Beaumonte, in his shirt-sleeves, opened the door, the big padded roll of his body swelling tightly against the waistband of his trousers. Without a jacket he didn’t look formidable; he was just another fat man in a silk shirt and loud suspenders.