The Black Hearts Murder (4 page)

“The messenger hasn't been identified?”

The mayor shook his head. “I talked to Chief Condon. Nobody but the station manager, Cordes, saw the messenger. Aside from being positive the man wasn't Harlan James himself, Cordes couldn't give the police much of a description.”

“Airing that speech of James's seems to me pretty irresponsible policy,” McCall said, “especially the timing. It's bound to increase the tension in town.”

“Of course, Mike. As I said, the more race tension, the greater the appeal of Horton's law-and-order pitch to the scared-to-death whites.”

“It's a hell of a way to win an election!”

“Political campaigns aren't usually conducted on the highest ethical plateaus,” the mayor remarked. “And I doubt if Gerry Horton even knows the meaning of the word. Yes, Laurel?”

The auburn-haired lovely's alto came over the intercom: “Mr. Cunningham is on line one, Mr. Mayor. He says it's important.”

“Excuse me, Mike.” The old man picked up one of his three phones and punched a button. “Yes, Marsh?”

His cottony brows came together in a frown as he listened. After a moment he took the cigar out of his mouth and barked, “If we had any doubts about the D.A.'s motives, this pretty well kicks them in the pants. Volper wants a riot, all right.… Oh? No, he wouldn't listen to me. But Mike McCall's in my office, and maybe he can do something. Thanks, Marsh.”

Mayor Potter banged the phone and flipped his cigar ash angrily in the general direction of the tray. “That was one of my staff. He just got word our eager-beaver D.A.'s engineered a warrant for LeRoy Rawlings's arrest on a conspiracy charge. This could do it, damn him.”

“Rawlings?” McCall searched his memory. Then he recalled where he had heard the name. Harlan James's lawyer, Wade, had referred to LeRoy Rawlings as vice president of the Black Hearts and James's closest friend.

“Conspiracy to do what?” McCall demanded.

“To aid a fugitive felon.”

“On what ground?”

The mayor shook his head. “Volper claims he has evidence that Rawlings not only knows where James is, he set up his hideout.”

“James's letter to BOKO said that no Black Hearts member knows where he is.”

“James is hardly a disinterested party. He would naturally want to protect his membership. Anyway, Volper chooses not to believe him. I hardly believe him myself.”

“Do you suppose the D.A. really has evidence of Rawlings's complicity?”

“I doubt it,” the old man said dryly. “I think Volper's game is to give the black community something to raise hell about, now that James has gone underground and removed their reason for rioting about
him
. Yes, sir, that's what I think.”

“Nice town you've got here, Mr. Mayor.” McCall rose. “I do believe I'll amble on over to police headquarters. What kind of reception do you expect I'll get there?”

“Distant, my boy. Oh, you'll just love my chief of police. If I didn't regularly sit on Jay Condon, he'd be running nightly patrols through the west side whooping it up with riot guns and tear gas.”

“Seems to me Banbury's biggest problem is its law enforcement personnel.”

Mayor Potter spat out a shred of tobacco. “Why do you think I'm retiring?”

Governor Holland had chuckled that Heywood Potter's reason for quitting the political arena was that he wanted more time to cultivate the boudoir. Since his wife's death, the octogenarian had been seen around town hitting the night spots with highly attractive lady companions—mature ones, to be sure, but even those half his age were in that category. The gossip was that His Honor was enjoying a second juvenescence; the late Mrs. Potter had hardly been the type, either physically or psychologically, to nourish a man's libido. Looking down on the vigorous man in the big chair, McCall could well believe it.

He grinned, waved, and walked out—to the beauteous Miss Laurel Tate, whose selection as the mayor's secretary seemed suddenly to have taken on added meaning.

Then McCall felt ashamed of himself, kissed the top of Miss Tate's startled auburn locks
en passant
, said, “Remember, six-thirty,” and left.

FOUR

It was past eleven, and McCall decided to get himself settled before visiting police headquarters. He chose the Banbury Plaza. It was in the heart of the downtown district, within a short distance of the county courthouse, the city hall, and police headquarters.

Because his work for Governor Holland had him on the road living in hotels or motels much of the time, McCall had developed a hearty distaste for the usual bedroom accommodation. He checked into a two-room suite that had a bar and a refrigerator in the sitting room.

By the time he had settled in, showered, and changed his clothes, it was half past noon. He lunched in the Revolutionary Room (they were thinking of a different revolution, he grinned to himself, when they planned its red, white, and blue décor) on mediocre steak and kidney pie, fortified himself with a couple of digestive tablets against the almost certain future, and got to the police building at 1:15.

Police headquarters occupied a square redstone of four stories, circa 1915, full of stone curlicues and chipped gilt. The lobby was narrow, high-ceilinged and dirty-tiled. An arch to the right announced itself in gilt as
CENTRAL DISTRICT
. The left displayed a long counter and a single door. The sign over the door said
PRESS ROOM
. The sign over the counter advertised
INFORMATION
. An officer in uniform presided behind the counter; he was reading a copy of
Playboy
concealed under an afternoon newspaper.

Directly ahead of McCall, at the end of the lobby, were the elevators.

It seemed a shame to disturb the officer at the information counter, so McCall walked down the lobby and consulted the building directory between the elevators. He took one of the elevators to the fourth floor.

The door to 401 was open, and McCall walked in. There was a long counter, and facing the counter there was a long bench, totally unoccupied. On the other side of the counter a door announced in the universal chipped gilt lettering:
CHIEF OF POLICE
.

Behind the counter sat a desk, a typewriter on a stand, a number of filing cabinets, and a woman. The woman was wearing a blue police uniform; she was typing. At McCall's entry she looked up, rose, and came over to the counter.

His first thought was that Banbury's bureaucrats had a remarkably discriminating taste in secretaries. His second was that her hair was the exact blonde shade of his mother's (O Freud, O Adler!). But everything else about this one was different. Her eyes were a warm blue-violet (his mother's had been a rather cold sea-water gray). Her build, what he could detect of it under the police uniform, was substantial, even generous, in all the prescribed places, and rugged-looking in a feminine way. An athletic chick, no doubt of it. Confirmed by the deep tan, which went so attractively with the very light hair. She probably swam like a dolphin, rode like a cowgirl, and went around the golf course in the low eighties.

She was also, McCall noted with deep disappointment, untouchable, at least in his book, which dot-dot-dotted any pursuit of women attached to other men by legal ties. She was wearing both a diamond and a wedding ring. And she was returning his inspection with amusement.

“At first I thought you were a vacuum cleaner salesman,” the lady policeman said, “I mean from the way you were giving me the twice-over. But now I realize you're strictly in the amateur class. Didn't you notice that the rings are on my right hand, not the left?”

“I beg your pardon,” McCall said. “I didn't realize I was being so obvious about it. I'm not usually. As for the rings, I was just about arriving at the correct conclusion.” Which undoubtedly was that she was a widow, but he did not explicate. He was feeling too good about the whole thing.

She colored; he had probably offended her. He rather liked that. “Yes, sir?” she said.

He showed her his shield case. The blush enlarged and spread into territory he could not see. “Oh,” she said faintly. “I
am
sorry. I don't know what you must …” She broke off and tossed her head. “I'm
not
sorry! I suppose I shouldn't be so touchy, Mr. McCall, but there are certain looks men give me that send me absolutely up the wall!”

“And very properly, too,” McCall said. “I apologize again. But it's something of a shock to run into somebody like you in a police uniform. Let's pretend it never happened, shall we?”

“All right,” she said. And she smiled, and he smiled back. “I suppose you want to see Chief Condon, Mr. McCall. He isn't back from lunch yet. I expect him any minute, though, if you don't mind waiting.”

“I'll wait,” McCall said. “Meanwhile, maybe you can tell me: has LeRoy Rawlings been picked up yet?”

“A few minutes ago. The chief asked Communications to keep him posted, and they just phoned that a detective team radioed in that they'd made the collar.”

“Then you don't know if they've actually brought him in?”

“I doubt if there's been time.”

“Where will Rawlings be taken?”

“Depends on whether they decide to book him first, or question him. Arrests are booked in central district, on the main floor. They'll probably question him in the detective bureau. That's on the second floor.”

“Thank you, Officer.” He shook his head. “I just can't get used to calling such a female-looking female ‘officer.'”

Her blonde lashes swept her cheeks. “I loathe it myself. The only thing I loathe more is to be called Fuzzy. My name is Beth McKenna.”

“Another Irisher?” McCall shook his head. “Two-thirds of the women in this town seem to be Irish.”

“Off base again,” Policewoman Beth McKenna said with a giggle. “My maiden name was Svensen. My late husband was the Irishman.”

“Late? I'm sorry.” So he had been right.

“It was five years ago and the wound's sort of healed,” she said lightly. “I can even talk about it now. He was a police lieutenant and he walked into a liquor store holdup while he was off duty. He and the bandit shot together, and they killed each other. And that was that.”

“You couldn't have been married long.”

“Seven months.”

McCall shook his head. “I don't want to keep you from your work. I'll sit down over there—”

“You're not keeping me from anything, Mr. McCall.”

“Would it offend you if I asked you to make it Mike?”

“Offend me? Heavens, no! I call half the men in the department by their Christian names.”

Just in case I had any ideas, McCall grinned to himself. He liked her more and more.

“If you hate ‘officer,' what shall I call you?”

“That shouldn't be much of a problem,” she said; she had a dimple, too! “I've just told you my name.”

“Mrs. McKenna, or Beth?”

“Depends.”

“On what?”

She looked at him very steadily. “Make it Beth,” she said suddenly. “Incidentally, two-thirds of the women in this town are
not
Irish. About forty percent are Polish, Italian, or Bohemian, and maybe twenty-five percent are black. Where did you get your statistics?”

“Personal investigation. So far I've met three women, including you. One of the other two was a Maggie Kirkpatrick.” And the other one, he thought, Laurel Tate, I made a date with for tonight. Maybe I made a mistake …

“The newspaperwoman?”

“Yes.”

“Oh.” It was a most equivocal “oh.” “She's very nice.”

“That sounds like the kiss of death.”

“Oh, no! I meant it.”

“I bet. What's wrong with her?”

“Did I say anything was wrong with Miss Kirkpatrick?”

“Of course you did.”

“Well, I didn't. I said she's very nice, and she is.”

It went that way for the fifteen minutes more that elapsed before Chief of Police Condon returned from his lunch. And just before the chief's entrance McCall proposed, and Policewoman Beth McKenna accepted, a dinner date for the following evening.

Chief Condon was a leather-tough, ramrod-backed citizen in his late fifties with a grim eye and a belligerent jaw. There was not a gray hair in his head. McCall was willing to bet that he could still take on any man in his department, regardless of youth.

Policewoman McKenna introduced McCall, and informed the chief of the call from Communications. Condon grunted acknowledgment of LeRoy Rawlings's arrest, offered McCall a regulation handshake, and pointedly led the way into his private office.

The office was larger-than the mayor's, and contained a larger desk. McCall hoped silently that this contrast did not reflect the relative importance the modern American attached to policing his community and governing it.

“Sit down, Mr. McCall,” the chief said. His high-backed swivel was bigger than Mayor Potter's, too. And it was leather, not a synthetic. “What can I do for you?”

“For Governor Holland, Chief. I'm just his errand boy.”

“A lot more than that, from what I hear,” Condon said dryly. “Look, Mr. McCall, I'm not going to debate you on tie law-and-order issue, or blacks versus whites. Tell me what you want.”

“Fair enough,” McCall said. “Are there any leads yet to that messenger who delivered the tape and letter to BOKO?”

Condon shook his head. “He walked into the station manager's office, laid it on the desk, and walked out without a word. No one else saw him, and he was gone before the manager, a man named Ben Cordes, opened the package. The manager estimates the man's height as five ten to six feet and his weight as between 170 and 190. But he could give no further description except that the messenger was a dark Negro. Says all blacks look alike to him.”