Authors: Whit Masterson
“Incredible,” muttered Adair.
“Not so very. McCoy and Quinlan are human. They’ve got a lot of pride in their reputations, as well they should. And since they knew Shayon was guilty, what was the harm? That’s a reconstruction from their point of view, of course.”
“I’m not ready to dignify it with that term yet.”
“Let me make another point. Whoever put the dynamite in Shayon’s closet knew the right brand to plant. When I talked to McCoy last Friday, I brought that up. He told me that the brand name — Black Fox — had been in the papers. Well, I just finished reading our office scrapbook on this case and that brand name was definitely not mentioned in the papers, at least not soon enough to count. The police evidently didn’t release that detail to the reporters until after Farnum’s arrest. So the dynamite had to be planted by somebody on the inside of this case.”
“Exactly. Ernest Farnum.”
“But if not Farnum, certainly not an outside crackpot such as McCoy suggested. Black Fox is a common brand, sure, but not the only common brand. The odds against an outsider picking the right brand are tremendous.”
Adair made a negative gesture as if brushing aside cobwebs.
Holt continued, “Of course, Farnum’s confession left McCoy and Quinlan out on a limb. That planted dynamite had to be accounted for. I think that they went to see Farnum for that purpose. They probably scared holy hell out of him, told him that if he didn’t confess to that, too, all sorts of terrible things would happen to him. Farnum’s impressionable, rather childlike. There’s something about being locked up in a cage, at the mercy of other people, that does strange things even to a strong man. Look at what happened to our GIs in Korea, for instance.”
“Let me be sure I understand this. Is it part of your theory that McCoy and Quinlan have some personal involvement in the Linneker case?”
“Aside from their reputations being at stake, no.”
Adair nodded and sat down behind his desk. He made a tent of his fingers and regarded them soberly. Holt waited, not sure what attitude Adair intended to adopt. It might be complete agreement or total opposition. Adair chose a middle course. “Mitch, while I’m not saying you’re wrong about this, let’s consider the facts on the other side, too.”
“By all means. This is a case where I’d rather be wrong.”
“First, the dynamite. McCoy has a ranch and undoubtedly has a genuine use for it. I think that’s obvious since the dynamite was purchased long before the Linneker murder. So that doesn’t prove anything.”
“Except that it was the same brand and that it was available.”
“Secondly, the visits to Farnum. Neither you nor I know what was said or wasn’t said. But it does seem natural that both McCoy and Quinlan would have an interest in Farnum since they were working on the case.”
“It’s circumstantial either way.”
“What looms largest in my thinking is the character of the men themselves. These aren’t any ordinary beat cops. McCoy and Quinlan are veterans, the top of the heap. I find it hard to swallow that men with their reputations would stoop to such a thing as faking evidence.” Adair shook his head. “It just doesn’t equate.”
“You’re not saying anything that I haven’t already said to myself,” Holt admitted. “But against that you have Farnum’s peculiar off-again, on-again confession.”
“I’ll come back to what I said originally. The man’s a psychopath.”
Holt sighed. “A real mess, isn’t it? Who you going to believe?”
“Understand, I’m not ruling out the possibility that you’re right. Anybody can get over-confident and it’s possible that’s what happened here. But I’m extremely dubious about rushing headlong into something we’ll be sorry for later.” Adair considered. “Mitch, I think I’d better handle this myself. I’ll drop over and have a friendly chat with Chief Gould and sort of let him know how things look to you. Gould might have a talk with McCoy and Quinlan. You know, deal with the matter in a quiet sensible manner.”
“Anything you think best,” agreed Holt, not at all reluctant to turn it over to other hands, now that he had brought the discrepancies out into the open.
“I think that’s the best way. It might improve methods over at headquarters, in case they actually have gone off the deep end. Sometimes cops forget that it isn’t their job to dispense justice.” Adair rose with a relieved smile. “Whatever we do, we don’t want to upset the Linneker apple cart now that it’s rolling. And we mustn’t forget the main point — we’ve got our man.”
“Yeah,” said Holt, rising too. “That’s one certain fact in an uncertain world.”
W
HEN
he left his office at noon, Mitch Holt left his responsibilities behind also. This included any remaining doubts and worries about the ramifications of the Linneker case. He had done his job and what he hadn’t attended to personally he had passed along to others equally capable. All he took home with him was his brief case, reassuringly flat and empty now. After informing Connie briefly of how things stood, he told her he wanted to hear nothing more of a business nature for the next two weeks. She was happy to oblige.
Connie had nearly completed packing — ”Going on a vacation is like moving an army, Mitch, honestly!” — but she had left out their hunting rifles for his final inspection. She was a good shot and knew guns, perhaps even better than her husband did, but she felt that such affairs were ultimately a masculine province.
“Papa always let me shoot with his rifles,” she told Holt, “but he insisted on being responsible for them himself.”
“Well, he’s a real professional when it comes to hunting,” said Holt, recalling Papa Mayatorena’s trophy room at his ranch, a large lounge lined with mounted heads of antelope and mountain sheep with a few jaguars and bears mixed in. It was quite an impressive display to anyone who liked hunting and Holt had marvelled over it often. He sighted wistfully down the barrel of the rifle he was packing. “Connie, do you suppose I’ll ever be the shot your father is?”
“I don’t see why not. You’ve got the gift. Papa says so.”
“What I don’t have is the time. Maybe it’s just as well.” Holt gestured around the living room. “Can’t you imagine how this place would look with a collection like your father’s staring at us all the time?”
Connie giggled and looked mischievous. “Mitch, if I tell you a family secret will you promise not to breathe a word to anybody about it? Particularly not Papa.”
“You know the ethics of the attorney.”
“Really, I’m serious. I wouldn’t want Papa to know I’d told you. But that trophy room of his with all the heads on the wall — they’re not actually all his. I mean, he didn’t shoot them all himself, the way you think.”
“No kidding?” said Holt, surprised. “Where’d they come from, then?”
“Some of them Papa shot himself. Half of them anyway, I guess. But he bought the rest.”
“What on earth for?”
“Well, you know Papa,” said Connie with the indulgent tone that grown children sometimes use in referring to their parents’ foibles. “He’s a little vain about some things. He’s a good hunter but he’d like everybody to believe he’s even better than he is. Nobody knows about this except the family, Mitch, and don’t you dare tell anybody.”
“I’ll be darned,” said Holt, chuckling. “The old fraud.”
“It doesn’t do any harm.” Connie came to her father’s defence. “The family goes along with it, and Papa himself has probably forgotten that he didn’t really shoot each and every one of his trophies. That’s why I don’t want you ever to say anything to him about it. He’d be bound to be hurt.”
“Oh, his secret’s safe with me.” And Holt shook his head with wondering amusement at the hidden quirks of human nature. Papa Mayatorena’s reputation as a hunter was basically genuine, yet he had not been above embellishing it. Everyone wished the world to consider him better than he actually was, even if that meant faking a little bit. In Papa Mayatorena’s case the fakery was harmless, merely mixing some phoney trophies among the real until he reached a point where he was fooling himself as well as the world. And the animals — the antelope and bears and jaguars — certainly were past caring, so … At this point, Holt suddenly stopped thinking about Papa Mayatorena as his mind, in one of those lightning-like jumps that the human brain is capable of, pounced on another subject altogether. It was such a large subject that he could not encompass it completely at first and he felt as if he might slide off it and lose sight of it, like a mountain enshrouded by fog. What if … That was his toehold and he clung to it. What if …
Connie said, “Mitch, what’s the matter? Don’t you feel well all of a sudden?”
“I just thought of something,” he murmured.
“Your face looked so funny. I was scared for a minute.”
So am I, he thought, scared to death. Aloud he said, “Connie, I’ve got to go back to the office, after all. Something I overlooked.” She swore in Spanish. “I know, but I’ve just got to take care of this.”
“Can’t it wait?” she asked crossly.
“It may have waited too long already.” Holt kissed her fervently to soften the abrupt parting; it worked. “I’ll be back soon.”
He drove downtown, grim-faced. He had told Connie that he was returning to his office but that was not strictly true. Holt often used “office” as a blanket term to cover the entire Civic Centre and his destination this afternoon was the Hall of Records. It was a large and cheerless vault beneath street level and when Holt entered, the immensity of the task he contemplated nearly overcame him. The county had only recently begun microfilming its records and so most of them still remained in the original document form. Rows of filing cabinets and shelves stretched away for what seemed miles. Holt almost turned and fled at the sight.
He was prevented by encountering a clerk who knew him. “Hi, Mr. Holt,” she called. “What can we do for you today?”
He had to face it. “I wanted to look up some of the old superior court records. Homicide.”
“Sure. You want to help yourself? Of if you can give me the name I can dig it out for you.”
“I guess I’d better help myself,” said Holt guardedly. He didn’t want to admit to the girl that he wasn’t looking for one particular case or one particular name or one particular anything. He wandered among the filing cabinets until he found the section he sought. The superior court cases were ranged in order of years. Holt used the eenie-meenie-minie-moe system and chose 1940. From the file he withdrew a stack of folders and carried them to the tables that were spotted strategically here and there. He sat down and began to read. Occasionally, he paused to make a note. It was slow going so after an hour of it he phoned the stenographer pool and asked them to send down any girls that were available.
Three of them arrived shortly. Holt gathered them around him like a coach instructing his team. “I’ve written these two names down so you won’t forget them. We’re going to start with the 1945 drawer and we’re going through the file up to the present. Pull out all the homicide cases. Extract all evidence introduced and testimony given by these particular men — never mind the other stuff — plus the judge’s instructions to the jury that apply to that evidence and testimony. Is that clear?”
They began. The girls were obviously curious as to the purpose of their work but Holt didn’t enlighten them. He still wasn’t sure enough himself to put it into words. He lost track of time as he worked, minutes passing with each page he turned. Quitting time came and the file clerks left but Holt worked on, oblivious, until he noticed his stenographers glancing at their watches and stirring uneasily.
He called them together for another conference. “How we doing?” They had, he discovered, made only a dent in the mammoth task. “Anybody got objections to making time and a half tonight?”
The girls didn’t have, particularly, although some explanatory phone calls were involved. However, one of them had a practical question. “Who do we put in to for our time, Mr. Holt? Usually, we have to get an authorization from the personnel office before we can work overtime.”
“I’ll take care of it,” he promised. He would, even if it meant paying the girls out of his own pocket. Anything, just so the work continued.
They went back to it. Later on, one of the stenographers went out to get sandwiches and coffee for the rest of them and Holt was abruptly reminded of his own dinner at home. He had left Connie early in the afternoon with the promise of returning shortly. And now — good Lord, where had the time gone? — it was nearly nine o’clock! Guiltily, he telephoned her.
Connie’s reaction was about what he could have predicted. After her first worried inquiries as to his health and well-being, she vented her irritation at his thoughtlessness. “Mitch, the least you could have done was to have called.”
“I know. I just got wrapped up in this job.”
“Nancy and I waited dinner for you until eight. I finally had to send her to bed.” Connie sighed. “I don’t know why I should be surprised. It’s happened so often. But it would be nice to have a man around the house”
“All I can say in my defence is that this thing is important.”
“I almost wish that you were out getting drunk or something — just for a change. I’m awfully tired of competing with that brief case.” Connie’s voice softened. “I don’t really mean that, Mitch. I was worried, that’s all. When will you be home?”
“In a little while.” He decided that this was no time to tell her about the days, perhaps weeks, of labour ahead.
“Well, hurry, won’t you? I’ll bet you haven’t even eaten any dinner.” He confessed that she was right. “I’ll save some for you. Oh, by the way, Mitch, there was a man here tonight to see you. A Mr. Quinlan. He didn’t leave any message.”
“Oh?” said Holt slowly. And then, without really knowing why he did so, he asked, “Are you all right, Connie?”
“Of course,” she told him, a trifle surprised. “Bored, that’s all. Come on home, won’t you, husband?”
Holt went back to work with renewed energy. He began to notice that it was generally McCoy who gave the testimony, not Quinlan. He thought it over and it made sensible procedure. McCoy was the more glib of the two men, seemingly the faster-thinking, and would more impress the juries as an expert witness. There was more to being a detective than merely hunting down the evidence; you had to be able to recite it authoritatively in court. That part of the teamwork had obviously been assumed by the ranking officer, McCoy.