Thomas Cook - Sacrificial Ground

“We’re going to be working together on the Devereaux case.”

“Well, that’s real nice, Frank, but I’m pretty damn busy already.”

“Your cases will be reassigned.”

Caleb frowned. “Who’s going to get them?”

“Gibbons is getting mine,” Frank told him. “I don’t know about yours.”

Caleb shook his head resentfully. “You know what’s the matter with this department? They don’t ever let you get rooted in anything. They’re always shifting things around. Half the time, there’s no sense to it at all.”

“That’s the way it is,” Frank said dryly.

“Five people get axed to death in a holdup, they’re liable to hand it over to robbery detail.”

Frank handed him the lab report. “Read this.”

“I already have,” Caleb said. “You know that.”

“Read it again.”

“Why?”

“Because things jump out at you,” Frank said. “Things you didn’t notice before.”

“Not in this one,” Caleb insisted. “I know the answer to this case.” He dropped the file on Frank’s desk. “Here’s the way it happened. A pretty rich girl got pregnant by a pretty rich boy. Nobody wants this kid. Lots of bullshit involved, maybe even some very pissed-off parents, the kind that take away your new car, along with all those big plans for college.”

“So the father of the child killed Angelica?”

“If she was murdered,” Caleb said. “It could have been just what the lab boys said, a bungled abortion.” He blew a column of smoke past Frank’s head. “What have you got on it?”

“I brought her sister down to identify the body.”

“She tell you anything?”

“Not much. They lived together. A big house on West Paces Ferry.”

“Anything else?”

“I didn’t try to press her,” Frank said. He took out his notebook. “She did tell me that Angelica had just come into a lot of money. Before that, it was all handled by her guardian.” He flipped another page. “Arthur Cummings. He’s with some big law firm.”

“A real big firm,” Caleb said. “Didn’t he think about running for mayor a few years back?”

Frank nodded. “Yes, I remember that.”

“But he never tossed his hat in the ring,” Caleb said. “Hell, it wouldn’t of mattered if he had. Old money. White money. They got the power, but they don’t get the office anymore, not in this town.”

“I was thinking of going to see Cummings this morning,” Frank said.

“Want company?”

“No. I want you to get copies of Angelica’s picture to give out on the canvass.”

“You won’t get a thing from that,” Caleb said confidently.

“Try it anyway,” Frank said. “Headquarters would want that covered.”

Caleb tugged wearily at his drooping trousers. “This shit’ll take all day, you know.”

“Let me know what you find out.”

“Yeah,” Caleb said, as he turned heavily and trudged out the door.

Frank pulled the telephone book from his desk and looked up the Cummings law firm. It was in one of Atlanta’s glittering midtown towers, and he quickly wrote the address and phone number in his notebook. Then he glanced at his watch: nine-thirty. If Cummings were like most ambitious, hard-driving Southern lawyers, he’d have already been in his office for two hours.

He was on his way toward the door when Gibbons suddenly came through it.

“Hey, Frank,” Gibbons said, slowing as he came nearer. “Got a late start this morning.” He smiled cheerfully. “Anything on the night beat?”

“Nothing.”

Gibbons straightened his bright yellow tie. “No untimely deaths, huh?”

“No.”

“What about that girl they found over on Glenwood?” Gibbons asked. He shifted his own personal volume of the FBI Uniform Crime Report. “That a kill?”

“We don’t know yet,” Frank said.

“If it’s a kill, it’s a prime collar. You still on it?”

“Yes.”

A glimmer of surprise passed over Gibbons’ face, and Frank suspected that someone at headquarters had already tipped him off that the case was going to be shifted to him. Gibbons always had a jump on everybody else when it came to knowing what was coming down from the top floor. He played tennis with the chief of detectives and handball with the head of Vice, and on Sunday, he ended up at the Mount Pyron Church of God wailing for salvation from the same pew as two members of the city council. There wasn’t a wheel of government he hadn’t greased, and because of it, information flowed down to him like manna.

“Well, let me know if you need an assist on this one,” Gibbons said cheerfully. “I mean, we’re all in this together.” He smiled thinly, and just behind his lips, Frank thought he could see the pale, starving features of his soul.

7

It was almost ten when Frank got to the offices of Arthur Cummings. They spread out across the top floor of one of the city’s most elegant towers, and as he stepped into its spacious reception area, Frank could almost hear the rustle of the hundreds of briefs and motions and appeals which had paid for it. The carpet was scarlet, and very thick, and the paneled walls were decked with a lavish display of paintings. A brass chandelier hung from the ceiling, and its bright light fell over an array of flowers and potted plants.

The receptionist sat behind a large wooden desk, her fingers moving nimbly over a bank of phones. She was dressed in a skirt and blouse that were almost as red as the carpeting, and she had the pliant, yet calculating look of a woman who knows that she is surrounded by rich and powerful men.

“May I help you, sir?” she asked as Frank stepped up to her desk.

Her tone was a bit stiff, and Frank noticed that her eyes gave him a quick, dismissive glance, the sort that falls on all the wrong things, the slight stain on his tie, the unpolished shoes, the suit from so many seasons past that she seemed to be surprised that such relics still survived in her more modem world. It was the kind of look that reduced one kind of man while it exalted another, and under it, Frank felt himself utterly reduced, a ragamuffin cop with a swollen eye and a pocketful of loose change.

“You wish to see someone?” the woman asked.

“Arthur Cummings,” Frank said crisply.

“Mr. Cummings?” the woman asked doubtfully.

“Yes.”

“Do you have an appointment?”

“No.”

“Well, I’m afraid you’ll have to make one.”

Frank shook his head. “I don’t have time for that.”

The woman stared at him lethally. “What was that?”

“Is Cummings here?”

The woman did not reply. Instead, she looked at him as if she knew quite well that any further discussion would be held in the lobby between Frank and the building’s largest security officer.

“As I mentioned,” she said in a cool, measured tone, “Mr. Cummings does not see anyone without an appointment.”

Frank took out his badge and waved it in front of her face.

The woman leaned forward and looked at it closely, checking to see if it were authentic, or just some tin star he’d bought at a novelty store.

“You’re with the Atlanta police?” she asked finally.

Frank nodded. “Badge number one one four seven, if you want to take it down.”

The woman sat back stiffly. “That won’t be necessary.” She paused a moment, her eyes checking him out once again. “May I know what this is about?”

“No,” Frank said, “I think that Mr. Cummings would want that to remain confidential.”

“Very well,” the woman said. “Please be seated. I’ll see what I can do for you.” She stood up quickly, then walked back into one of the suites of offices at the rear.

Frank turned slowly and strolled around the room. The paintings drew his attention and he walked from one to another, carefully looking at each in turn. They were all of places in what Frank took to be Paris, street scenes of cafés and expansive boulevards, huge arches and sweeping parks. The colors were bright, even garish, and he didn’t like them very much. There was too much peace and gaiety pushing out the facts of life as he saw them, and for a moment he tried to imagine why anyone would hang only such pictures. He wondered if Cummings himself had selected them, and if so, why? To relieve the gray monotony of corporate law, perhaps, or to present a view of life which seemed possible for him once he’d won enough cases, garnered enough fees and could then sit back and sip a glass of wine in a street cafe exactly as thousands of far less wealthy and distinguished people did quite absently and without a thought every single day.