Badge of Evil (17 page)

“Guns must be answered with guns, bullets with bullets,” Oscar proclaimed melodramatically. “They’ve shot at you. Now we’ll shoot at them. It has become a family matter. Our enemies will learn this to their regret.”

Under different circumstances, Holt would have smiled at the boyish bravado. Now it merely frightened him. The last thing he needed on his side was a trigger-happy irresponsible, no matter how well-intentioned. Whatever others did, Holt must stay within the law. This was his strength and his only possible hope of victory. He said, “I appreciate your wanting to help, Oscar, but I’m going to have to insist that you go back to Mexico.”

Both brother and sister protested vigorously. Connie said, “Mitch — why? At a time like this, when you need help — ”

“No offence to Oscar but he’d just get himself and us into trouble. That gun he’s carrying is enough to land him in jail, even if he never used it.”

“I don’t need a gun,” said Oscar proudly, shoving it beneath his coat. “I have two good hands.”

“You’re a Mexican national,” Holt reminded him. “That puts you
hors de combat
on this side of the border. I’m sorry, but that’s the way it is. You can help me most by going home.”

Oscar shrugged in exasperation. “I don’t understand you Americans sometimes. A man shoots at you — twice — and all you worry about is the law.”

“That’s just the point,” said Holt. “If I don’t, then I’m no better than he is.”

Oscar didn’t understand that either, and Holt wasn’t sure that Connie did, but he eventually won the argument because he wouldn’t have it any other way. Connie and her brother had returned in Connie’s convertible and it was now in the garage which was the reason Holt hadn’t seen it immediately. Now he backed his own car out of the driveway so the brother-in-law could return to Mexico in the convertible. Oscar departed reluctantly. Holt soothed his rumpled truculence by delegating him to act as personal bodyguard for Nancy.

Connie questioned her husband worriedly about this after Oscar had gone. “Do you think that Nancy is in danger too, Mitch?”

“No, not so long as she’s down there on the ranch. McCoy’s no supercriminal. But I had to tell Oscar something.”

“Suppose you tell me something,” Connie suggested, pulling him down on to the sofa. “I haven’t tried to pry but I think I’ve got a right to know just what’s going on.”

He agreed. And so, sitting quietly beside her in the dark living room, he told her the story from the beginning, from his first faint suspicions and their gradual development to the break with Adair and culminating in the attempt to murder him tonight. It was a discouraging story of reversals and frustrations and when he had finished he said wearily, “So there you have it. Now go ahead and ask me, what’s the use? Why am I batting my head against a stone wall?”

Connie was silent for a while. Finally, she said, “I don’t have to ask you that, Mitch. You’re doing it because you’re you, and I don’t think I’ve ever been prouder of you than I am right now.”

He squeezed her hand. “Thanks for not thinking I’m crazy.”

“You’re not the crazy one, it’s the rest of them. What a horrible situation. How could it have ever come to exist?”

“Well, I can only guess. I don’t believe that McCoy ever started out deliberately to fake evidence. But sometime during the last thirty years, he came up against a situation where he knew a suspect was guilty but he needed one conclusive bit of proof. Right there was when McCoy and the law parted company. He faked the proof and it worked. Next time it was a little bit easier, and easier still the time after that. That’s the way things go — they start small and gradually build into something big. It’s quite possible that by now McCoy can’t even distinguish in his own mind between what is true and what is false. Like your father, and those hunting trophies of his, which was what gave me my original idea. Even if McCoy wanted to — and it’s incredible that he ever should — he wouldn’t be able to tell us the truth.

“And now McCoy has taken the next logical step along the road. He’s reached the point where he’s taking more than the indictment into his own hands. He’s also taking the execution. What he’s attempted is murder but I doubt if he can see it that way.” Holt sighed. “He won’t get away with it, of course. It’s bound to come out, one way or another, and when it does it’s going to be an awful scandal for everybody connected with the law. McCoy is going to take a lot of good and honourable men down with him. That’s the real tragedy of it.”

“You keep talking about just McCoy,” Connie said. “What about that other man, the one who came here to the house? Mr. Quinlan.”

“Sergeant Quinlan.” Holt explained why he believed McCoy alone had performed the guilty acts. “In my original assumption, I took it for granted that they were in it together. That became too much to swallow. They’re different men, different types. Moreover, a pair of liars would trip each other up. But with only one, no other story to check against his — anyway, I’m convinced that Quinlan was just the innocent stooge for McCoy all along.”

“Then if you could talk to him alone, perhaps convince him — ”

Holt chuckled bitterly. “I couldn’t even convince Adair. Even if Quinlan had nothing to do with the fake evidence, why should he believe me over a friend of thirty years’ standing? Particularly since it would be a terrible reflection on himself.”

“It sounds pretty hopeless, doesn’t it?” Connie murmured.

“Not completely. I have to thank McCoy for one thing and that’s proving to me that I’m right. If he hadn’t gotten panicky I’d probably have dropped the whole thing. But McCoy over-reached himself. He blew out our front window with a shotgun to warn me off. Then he stole my brief case to find out what I knew. When he learned it wasn’t evidence he had to fear — there wasn’t anything in the brief case that wasn’t already a matter of record — he decided that it was only my persistence that represented the threat. So he tried to get rid of me tonight.” Holt fingered his lapel moodily. In the darkness he imagined that the bullet had scorched the material. “Lucky for me that he’s an old man. He probably can’t see too well in the dark any more.”

“It won’t always be dark,” Connie reminded him. “Mitch, I’m scared. What are we going to do?”

“Well, we’re not going to start shooting back, that’s for certain. That’s why I sent Oscar packing. I’ve got to keep my hands clean, even though I’m up against an outlaw.”

“What about the police? They’re supposed to protect people.”

“Cops are human beings, too. Gould called me a political opportunist this morning and a mental case this afternoon. He doesn’t believe one thing about my story, even that the shotgun attack was genuine. So what’s the use of telling him about what happened tonight? I couldn’t prove it. That’s the hell of it, Connie — I can’t prove anything yet. In a showdown, it’s only my suspicions against McCoy’s word. If you were Gould, who would you believe? That’s what I’m up against. I don’t have a single solitary ally in the world.”

“You have me,” Connie said gently. “And right now I’m going to take you to bed. You sound like you need a good night’s sleep.”

“I need more than that.” But he let her pull him to his feet. “Lots more.”

“It’ll do for a start. In the morning, you’ll think of something. I know.” She put her arm around his waist. “Remember one thing, Mitch. You’re only doing what you think is right.”

“Yeah,” he agreed wearily. “But so is McCoy.”

H
OLT
was more tired than he knew and so he slept soundly, although Connie reported the next morning that he had tossed and turned all night, as if wrestling with demons. Perhaps she was right for when he awoke the answer was there in his mind, full-grown and entrenched, without his having to summon it consciously. It wasn’t the answer he wanted but it was the only one he had.

Over breakfast — his first decent meal in the past two days, although he didn’t tell Connie this — Holt revealed his plans. “Last night I said I didn’t have an ally in the world, but that’s not precisely so. At least, I believe I know where I can find one.”

“Good. Where, Mitch?” In answer, he held up the morning newspaper. Connie was startled. “You serious?”

“I’m serious. Connie, I know I’m right in what I’ve discovered — about McCoy I mean. Up till last night, I was willing to go through the proper channels, even if that meant fighting everyone from the mayor on down. But now I’m worried. What if something happens to me?”

“Mitch, don’t even talk like that!”

“Well, it’s a possibility and we may as well face it. Suppose next time McCoy doesn’t miss — if there is a next time. With me gone, the truth might never come out, or at least not in time to make any difference to anyone. But if I should break the story now …”

“You said yourself it would only be your word against McCoy’s,” Connie pointed out. “This doesn’t sound like you, Mitch.”

“It’s true that I can’t prove a thing at this point. But once somebody on the outside knows the story — I mean somebody who’d have no reason to cover up, the way Gould and Adair do — then I’m protected to some degree.”

“Adair will never forgive you if you go behind his back. You know that.”

“I know it.” Holt grimaced. “Hell, Connie, I don’t like the idea even a little bit. It’s treason, that’s what it is, and Adair would be acting strictly within his rights to fire me. While I was shaving I decided to resign — I was even drafting the letter in my head — but then I changed my mind. Let Adair fire me. Maybe that would dramatize the whole business enough to start the ball rolling. Once it starts rolling, McCoy is finished.”

“I don’t know as much law as you do, but aren’t you likely to be sued?”

“Anybody can sue anybody over anything at any time. That’s one of the first things you learn in law school. That doesn’t worry me, because a lawsuit would be one sure way to get the charges fairly and completely investigated.” Holt smiled faintly. “Me and Emile Zola. But that’s really all I’m after, a fair investigation. I’m not advocating that McCoy be taken out and shot.”

“Won’t it come to the same thing?”

“Well, better him than me. If I break this story to the papers, then McCoy won’t dare to take any more shots at me. Call it life insurance, if you like. I’m no hero.”

“That’s the first stupid thing you’ve said,” Connie told him. “Now eat your breakfast, dear.”

There were three newspapers in the city, two morning and one evening. In effect, however, there were only two, since two of the papers were owned by the same firm and were identical in viewpoint. This view happened to be pro-administration and, therefore, conservative in the extreme. Holt thought it of no use to approach them with his story. To say that these papers — the
Sentinel
and the
Evening News
— were controlled by a political party was not strictly accurate. They were not controlled by the city administration any more than they controlled the city administration. But the publishers of the
News
and the
Sentinel
and the incumbent politicians shared the same philosophies, interests and biases. To present them with a
cause celébrè
which couldn’t help but discredit the administration bordered on the naïve.

The third newspaper, one of the two morning publications, was the
Press-Examiner
and it was known to the city government as “the opposition paper,” among less generous epithets. Holt didn’t read the
Press-Examiner
frequently enough to know whether their opposition sprang from convictions or merely from a desire to sell papers. He didn’t particularly care since he thought the story he had for them would satisfy the
Press-Examiner
on either count.

He made an appointment by phone with the
Press-Examiner’s
managing editor. Holt knew nothing of the hierarchy of a newspaper but “managing editor” sounded as if its bearer should have considerable authority.

He did, but not enough for what Holt had in mind. The managing editor — his name was Underwood, a lean scholarly man with horn-rim glasses and a British moustache — listened to the story with obvious fascination, but also a certain amount of wariness.

“It’s the biggest thing that’s hit the town since the war,” Underwood admitted when Holt had finished. “Potentially, that is.”

“Why potentially?”

“Well, Holt, you know as well as I do that this is more than a news story, much more. It’ll have political repercussions all over the state, right up to Sacramento maybe. Hell’s bells, the governor used to be D.A. here. He made his reputation prosecuting some of those very cases you want to dig into.”

“From what I know of the
Press-Examiner’s
politics, I didn’t think you’d mind.”

“We’ve also got a responsibility to the truth, though she’s a much-abused lady nowadays. I’m wondering just why you came to us with the story. Out there” — he gestured past the glass of the little office in which they sat — ”the boys in the city room call you the Clam. Say you haven’t got any use for newspapers. Why the sudden change of heart?”

“I guess I deserve that,” Holt admitted. “It’s true that I haven’t got much use — not for newspapers — but for personal publicity. I’m not looking for any now. I came to you because I couldn’t think of any other way to handle it.”

Underwood mused, “It could be the biggest story of the year. Or the biggest flop. I have a sneaking suspicion I should forget I ever heard it — but sit tight for a few minutes, Holt. I won’t be long.” He left the little office and Holt saw him board the elevator for upstairs.

When Underwood came back, his mouth beneath his bushy moustache was curved in a rueful grin. “Put this down in your book, Holt. Newspaper people are the most optimistic men on earth. We’re born suckers, which is probably the reason we stay in the business.”

Holt felt a surge of hope. “Does that mean you’re going to print the story?”

“Not exactly. I followed approved procedure for employees and bucked it along upstairs. You’re scheduled to meet with Mr. Ingram and the rest of the brain trust after lunch. One o’clock all right with you?”

“Any time’s all right with me. I’m supposed to be on vacation.”