The Black Hearts Murder (5 page)

“Then how did he know it wasn't Harlan James himself?”

“James has been on TV enough so that Cordes would have recognized him, he says.” The glacial eyes bored into McCall's. “But you can't be in Banbury about this James business, McCall. What's the governor hot and bothered about?”

“He's worried about possible race trouble, Chief Condon.”

The chief said coldly, “We're capable of maintaining law and order without interference from the capital.”

McCall's smile said, “Of course.” Aloud, he said, “You don't think there's any danger of violence, then?”

“Some of the uppity blacks may try to start something. I don't plan to let it develop past the attempt-to-incite stage.”

“Oh? What's your plan to avert it?”

“Good old-fashioned riot control, McCall,” the chief drawled. “Whatever force is necessary to maintain or restore order.”

“Tear gas? Riot guns?” McCall asked with the same smile. “Mace?”

“Sure. If necessary.”

McCall slid down in the chair with his feet stretched out before him. “Have you read the report of the President's Commission on Violence, Chief?”

“I read news accounts of it.”

“Then you might have missed the part where they suggest that curing the causes of unrest among minority groups was a more sensible approach to riot prevention than the knee-jerk reaction of meeting mob violence with police violence. Of course, from a long-range point of view, this will involve solving the tough problems of poverty and rotting slums, but the Commission pointed out that riots are often touched off by avoidable incidents. Arresting LeRoy Rawlings on this conspiracy charge, for instance. Do you really have any evidence that Rawlings helped Harlan James go underground?”

“I didn't obtain the warrant, McCall,” Chief Condon snapped. “District Attorney Volper did. Ask him what his evidence is. For your information, the function of police is to collect and preserve evidence for the district attorney's use, and to make necessary arrests. It's not up to us to pass on the validity of evidence. It's the district attorney's job to judge whether evidence is sufficient to ask for an indictment or to file information.”

“I have a degree in law, Chief,” McCall said dryly. “I'm quite aware of the constitutional limits placed on the police. But another role of the police, too often neglected, is to prevent crime. In that role you have every legal right to demand of the district attorney just what evidence he has for ordering this arrest, on the grounds of its possible incitement to public disorder. That one simple move on your part might keep a lot of people from getting killed.”

In an iceberg voice the police chief said, “We run this city by our rules, McCall, not Sam Holland's. You can tell the governor that we appreciate his interest in Banbury but we don't need his advice.”

McCall looked at Condon for several seconds. Then he pulled his legs up and got to his feet. “I'll tell the governor what you said, of course, Chief. But I suggest you keep his phone number handy. You may need it one of these nights.”

“That'll be the day.
Or
night.” The briefest smile lifted the corners of Condon's lips. But then he said, “What for?”

“To ask him to call out the National Guard. Nice meeting you, Chief. You're everything I've heard.” And McCall gave Condon a friendly smile and wave and walked out. Policewoman Beth McKenna looked quickly at him as he left the chief's office, and he raised his eyes heavenward and left.

But then he stuck his head back in. “Remember,” he said. “Tomorrow night.”

Isn't this where I came in? he thought.

FIVE

McCall took the elevator to the second floor. The detective bureau was directly across the hall from where he stepped out. An arch took him into a long hall that ended at the door to the bureau's squadroom. On the left side of the hall stood a counter behind which sat a uniformed sergeant, male this time. A door across the hall was gilt-lettered
CHIEF OF DETECTIVES
.

McCall flashed his gold shield, dazzled the sergeant, and asked if LeRoy Rawlings had been brought in yet.

“No, sir. Unless they took him to central district for booking first. Want me to check?”

“Please.”

The sergeant called downstairs and was informed that the Black Hearts vice president had not yet been brought in. He left word for the arresting officers to notify the detective bureau if they did show up at central district.

“Now we'll catch them no matter where they check in, Mr. McCall. By the way, Mrs. Franks is here. Another team brought
her
in.”

“Who's Mrs. Franks?”

“Isobel Franks, Harlan James's sister. He lives with her, or did until he jumped bail. She's a widow a good fifteen years older than he is. She took him in after their father and mother died, when he was a teenager. He's not married.”

“Mrs. Franks is in there?” McCall nodded at the squadroom door.

“Yes, sir. With Sergeant Dixon and Officer Spera.”

The squadroom was a huge room full of plain tables and chairs. There were three phones to a table, one at each end and one in the middle.

Four men in plainclothes sat at different tables, two using phones, two studying file folders. Another pair were in a corner with a middle-aged black woman, thin and bitter-mouthed. One of the men sat on the edge of a table, swinging a foot. The other sat beside the woman. They were neither talking to nor looking at her. Just sitting. McCall knew the technique. He felt himself bridle, and made a conscious effort to control himself.

He went over and produced his shield case. The man seated on the table edge was big, blond, bullnecked. His partner was small and swarthy, with liquid Latin eyes. It was not difficult to decide which was Sergeant Dixon and which Officer Spera.

The big blond man grunted. “So?” he said.

Sergeant Dixon's tone was deliberately insolent, even provocative. So the word's gone out already, McCall thought. The governor's boy is snooping around, and give him the back of your hand.

“So this,” McCall said. He indicated the rigid black woman in the chair. “What's the story on this lady?”

“Her?” Sergeant Dixon said, and from the way he said it McCall could have smashed his mouth. “She's James's sister.”

“I'm aware of that. I mean why is she here?”

“The D.A. wanted her picked up. He's supposed to be along any minute.”

“What's the charge?”

“No charge,” the blond man drawled. “He just wants to talk to her.”

The thin black woman said in a toneless voice, “I have nothing to say to Pig Volper. For the tenth time, I want to phone my lawyer.”

McCall looked from the sergeant to his partner. “Are you two preventing this lady from calling her lawyer?”

“She's not a suspect,” Officer Spera said. He had a surprisingly deep voice. “The Supreme Court never said anything about witnesses who aren't charged with anything having the right to counsel. You want us to start giving their rights to every holdup witness we talk to?”

“Mrs. Franks isn't a holdup witness. The D.A. undoubtedly wants to ask her where her brother is, and her answer might well be self-incriminating. So she definitely has a right to legal advice. Why are you withholding that right?”

“Because Art Volper would skin us alive if we didn't,” Sergeant Dixon said with a grin. “Next question, Mr. McCall?”

McCall heard the squadroom door open and glanced around. Two detectives, white, were bringing a black man into the room. One of the detectives was tall and lanky and had a sad look on his bony face. The other was short and burly and harried-looking. The man between them was a six-footer, lean, very black-skinned, with an Afro hair style. All three were thirtyish.

It struck McCall that the black man answered the vague description of the messenger provided by BOKO's station manager.

The detectives led their man to the corner. The black man looked down at the black woman and said, “They got you, too, huh, Issy?”

“Hello, Roy,” she said. “They won't let me call Mr. Prentiss Wade.”

“Me, either.” LeRoy Rawlings looked around the circle of white faces. He added casually, “What do you expect of pigs?”

He uttered the invective without venom, as if it were a ritual expected of him. It brought a glare from the blond Dixon, and Spera jumped to his feet.

Neither of the detectives who had brought the prisoner in seemed disturbed. The lanky one with the mournful expression said in a bored tone, “Oh, sit down, Spera. Aren't you used to this stuff yet?”

Spera slowly reseated himself. The lanky detective looked at Isobel Franks. “Who's she?”

“Harlan James's sister,” Sergeant Dixon said.

The man stared. “Did Volper blow a fuse?”

Dixon shrugged. “I just work here, Lieutenant. He said bring her in, we brought her in.”

The lanky man shook his head and turned his attention to McCall. “The desk man said you wanted to see us, Mr. McCall. I'm Lieutenant Cox, my partner here is Sergeant Fenner.”

He offered his hand; his stocky partner followed suit. The handshakes were friendly. So not all the Banbury police danced to Chief Condon's tune. Or maybe, McCall thought, they hadn't heard the music yet.

McCall nodded toward LeRoy Rawlings. “What's the story on this man, Lieutenant?”

“Maybe we'd better discuss it in private, Mr. McCall. Dixon, keep an eye on him a minute, will you?” He led the way to the opposite corner. His partner came along, too. Lieutenant Cox eyed McCall with what seemed to be a chronic dyspepsia.

“Mind telling us your mission in Banbury, Mr. McCall? Or is it confidential?”

McCall shook his head. “No secret. The governor is worried about possible race trouble. He sent me to try to head it off.”

The lieutenant nodded. “I was hoping that was why you're here. Maybe you can talk some sense into District Attorney Volper. This arrest of LeRoy Rawlings is stupid. The black community's going to blow when they hear about James's sister being pulled in.”

“She's not under arrest, Dixon told me,” McCall said. “The D.A. merely wants to question her.”

“That's something, anyway. Except Volper'd be quite capable of tossing her in the can if he decides she knows where her brother is.”

“Then we get to see Chief Condon's theories about riot control put into effect,” Sergeant Fenner grumbled. “Because the lid will shoot right off the west end.”

“West end, Sergeant? Is that the ghetto area?”

Fenner nodded. “Also known as Blacktown. By the same people who say ‘nigger.'”

The squadroom door opened again, this time imperiously; the plump, pink man with the gray crewcut and the eyes of a slug whom McCall had seen at the prosecution table in the courtroom that morning came in. District Attorney Volper beat them to the occupied corner by a step.

He glanced at McCall, apparently assumed he was a new member of the detective bureau, and dismissed him. McCall could have pushed his face in.

He said abruptly to Lieutenant Cox, “You get anything out of Rawlings?”

“We haven't asked him anything, Mr. Volper,” Cox said. “We just brought him in.”

Volper stared at Dixon, who had risen and was standing like a soldier. “Get anything out of her?”

Sergeant Dixon said, “We kind of figured you'd want to question this one personally, Mr. Volper.”

The D.A. nodded his approval. He turned his wet eyes to Isobel Franks. “Do you know where your brother is, Mrs. Franks?”

“You don't have to answer any pig question, Issy,” LeRoy Rawlings said. “Look here, Volper. I demand my right to phone my attorney, Mr. Wade.”

“You shut up till I get to you.”

“You forgot to say ‘boy,'” Rawlings said.

Something like life crept into the dead eyes. “One more comment like that out of you, Rawlings, and I'll have you dragged out of here and tossed in a cell!”

“And beat up?”

“I guess we better oblige him, Mr. Volper,” the big blond sergeant said with a grin.

“Shut up!” the district attorney said. “Rawlings, you going to keep your mouth shut?”

Before the black man could reply, Mrs. Franks said, “Roy. Please. Don't get yourself dragged away. I'd like you to be here.”

“Sure, Issy. Just for you, I won't call this pig a pig any more.”

Volper chose to ignore this.

“You haven't answered my question, Mrs. Franks!”

She shook her head. “I'm not answering no questions, no, sir. Not till I've talked to Mr. Prentiss Wade.”

“But you're not under arrest!”

“Then what am I doing here?” she asked quietly. “I didn't want to come. They made me.”

“Next thing you know she'll say we slapped her around,” Sergeant Dixon said. “Right, Issy?”

“My name is Mrs. Franks!” she flashed at him.

“Dixon, what did I tell you?” The district attorney's pink was now in the red range. “Mrs. Franks, do you know that aiding and abetting a person under indictment to jump bail is a felony in this state when the bail is more than a thousand dollars?”

“Pardon me,” McCall said. “That law hasn't been invoked since it went into the book. You might conceivably stick Mrs. Franks with the same charge you're bringing against Mr. Rawlings here, if you can prove she helped arrange her brother's flight, but anything else would be reaching for it, wouldn't you agree, Mr. District Attorney?”

Volper had wheeled to stare at him as if he had turned into a man-sized bullfrog. “Who the hell are you?”

Lieutenant Cox coughed. “This is Mr. McCall, Governor Holland's special assistant, Mr. Volper.”

Volper blinked. After a moment he growled, “I thought you were one of the bureau officers. Still, I don't think I need any advice about the law, Mr. McCall.”