Бретт Холлидей - Mike Shayne Mystery Magazine, Vol. 34, No. 3, February 1974

Mason hung up and then lit another cigarette, blowing the smoke about the room. He was just about to snub out the butt when there was a knock on the door. He pushed the butt into an ashtray, leaving it smouldering there and went and opened the door.

Constable Jim Bisby and his young deputy, Art Chisolm, were standing there, both of them looking grim. They sniffed the smoke-laden air drifting out and glanced at each other knowingly.

“Mason,” Bisby said. “We’d like to come in and talk with you.”

“Well, uh — couldn’t you make it later? I... I’m very busy right now.”

Bisby shook his head. “Right now, Mason. We have good reason to believe you’re breaking the law and we have a right to investigate. Move out of the way. We’re coming in.”

He moved aside and they pushed past, into the house. Bisby moved toward the cocktail table on which stood the ashtray containing butts of the three cigarettes Mason had smoked and next to it, the rolled, yellow-papered tubes of four more, still unsmoked.

“Let me have that envelope, Chisolm,” he said.

The young deputy took a folded Manila envelope from his hip pocket and passed it to the Constable. Bisby dumped the contents of the ashtray into the envelope, picked up the four unsmoked tubes and put them into the envelope, too. He then sealed it and handed the envelope back to Chisolm. Turning to Len he said, his round, good-looking face solemn:

“Leonard Mason, I herewith place you under arrest, charged with the use and possession of illegal drugs. You have the right to remain silent until you obtain counsel. Now, please come with us.”

Len Mason shook his head. “I don’t believe it,” he said.

“Your doing this to me. I wasn’t hurting anybody. What’s the point?”

“The point is, I’m an officer of the law. I have a duty to perform, regardless of who’s involved. I can’t much feel sorry for you, Mason. You were warned that this kind of thing won’t be tolerated in this town. We’re a clean town. Now, come along.”

With the one phone call he was allowed to make, Len Mason talked with Mark Cantrell, Grade’s attorney. He told Cantrell what had happened but that Gracie needn’t bother to bail him out, that he’d be free in a day or two, anyhow, as soon as the lab reports on the evidence Bisby had picked up, were returned.

“How’s that?” Cantrell asked.

“I mean, they got me on a bum rap. There wasn’t any marijuana. Just catnip, Cantrell. You hear that? Simple, harmless catnip. It looks and smells, when burning, like the real stuff.”

“Really?” Cantrell said, surprised. “I didn’t know that.”

Len chuckled. “Nor do a lot of people, including Bisby and Chisolm. But they’re about to find out, the hard way.”

“Did you tell them that’s what it was?” Cantrell asked.

“Why should I? They didn’t ask me. They assumed I was guilty of committing a crime and arrested me. They probably wouldn’t have believed me, anyhow. Bad enough being busted without seeming to be a fool, too.”

“I see. Well, I’ll check out the lab reports as soon as they come in and if what you say is true, we’ll have you out of there fast.”

“Great,” Len said. “See you later.”

He settled back to wait.

The morning after the next day, Cantrell visited Len Mason at the County Jail. He was a stodgy little man with a pursed mouth and cold gray eyes. Abruptly he said: “Those lab reports came in.”

“Beautiful,” Len said. “When do I get out?”

Cantrell drew in a deep breath. “Probably not for a long, long time. Second offense and all that.”

“What... what do you mean, man? Are you crazy? What second offense?”

“Possession.”

Len gave an hysterical laugh. “Of catnip?! You’ve got to be kidding!”

“No. Of marijuana. Two unsmoked cigarettes and one of the butts contained the stuff. The others were nothing but catnip but that makes no difference. The three genuine ones are enough to make the charge stick.”

“But that’s impossible Something’s wrong. I rolled those damned things, myself. There was nothing but catnip in any of them. Look, I’m being framed. That damned hick cop must have suspected something and switched in some real joints, just to nail me. They can’t get away with this!”

Cantrell shrugged his stooped shoulders. “That’s highly unlikely. The sworn testimony of Constable Bisby, as witnessed by his deputy, Chisolm, is that the envelope was filled and sealed at your house and not opened again until delivered to the lab at the County Center.

“Then somebody at the lab got things screwed up,” Mason shouted. “It has to be.” He felt his face getting red, his voice choking up.

“Also highly unlikely. They don’t make mistakes like that. I’m afraid you’re stuck with it, Mason.”

Len shook his head unbelievingly. “This is insane! Why would I be smoking catnip when I had the real thing right there if it was? It doesn’t make sense.”

“Constable Bisby thinks so. He thinks you were probably making comparisons to see if the catnip, in addition to smelling like marijuana, might also give you a high that would be legal.”

Mason put his face in his hands. “Oh no,” he said. “Oh no!”

“There’s one other thing, Mason,” Cantrell said. “Gracie asked me to give you a message. She said to tell you that she’s very sorry for you but there’s nothing she can do to help.”

“The hell there isn’t,” Mason told him, shrilly. “She can get me out on bond so I can try to straighten out this crazy mess, myself.”

Cantrell shook his head. “She’s not going to do that. She doesn’t want to see you any more. She’s asked me to start divorce proceedings against you.”

“Divorce? Oh, for God’s sake, Cantrell! On what grounds?”

“You will soon be a convicted felon, under sentence. We think that’s quite grounds enough. I have to go now, Mason.”

Len stared speechless after the little attorney as he got up and walked out of the interview room.

Back in his cell, Len Mason found himself trembling with rage, mixed with fear and bewilderment. He recalled now that after he was arrested by Bisby, he had felt a little stoned

but had put it down to exultation at how well his plan was working. Could it really be that one of those tubes he’d smoked was marijuana? If so, how had it and the other two genuine joints been substituted for the catnip ones? If Bisby and Chisolm hadn’t made the substitution after they left — and why should they, not knowing that he was putting a frame on them — then somebody else had before they came! And only Gracie knew...

Oh no, he told himself. It couldn’t be. Not Gracie! Yet he remembered now that after he’d rolled the catnip, he’d gone to the bathroom. Right then and there Gracie would have had plenty of time to substitute real joints.

But where would she get them? She wouldn’t even know how to roll a joint as well as he did.

Then it came to him. Bisby, as a law officer, could obtain the stuff if he wanted to. With a little practice he could learn how to roll properly. He could have made those joints and given them to Gracie to substitute for the catnip ones, when she had the opportunity.

This could only mean that after Mason told her what he was going to do, she’d gone to Bisby and told him the whole thing. Between the two of them, then, they’d figured this way to doublecross him.

But why?

Could she have been waiting for some solid, legitimate reason to divorce him? And maybe planning, later, to marry her old boy friend, Bisby?