Night Extra

“How did you figure him?”

“To tell the truth, I was for the guy. I heard him talk and he made sense.”

“What time did Coglan call in?”

“It’s in the log, if you want the exact minute. About ten twenty-five, I think.”

“Where was he then? At a box, or inside Caldwell’s?”

“He was inside Caldwell’s, I guess.”

“Mac, did he say anything about seeing a man leaving Caldwell’s?”

Sergeant McManus didn’t answer for a moment. He sat staring down at the backs of his big, blue-veined hands. “You’ll have to ask Captain Stanko,” he said.

“Why, Mac?”

The sergeant turned then and looked at him steadily. “Because Stanko took the call. He was in my office from around ten o’clock on, fussing over some reports. When the outside phone rang he was sitting right beside it. He picked it up, talked to Coglan. When he finished he told me to flash radio and have them send an ambulance and a couple of our cars over to Caldwell’s. He said Coglan had a dead one.”

“Just that, eh? That there was somebody dead at Caldwell’s?”

“That’s all.”

“Does Stanko hang around your office as a rule, Mac?”

McManus looked at Terrell for a few seconds in silence. Then he shook his head slowly. “He’s got an office of his own, Sam.”

“Thanks.” Terrell got to his feet. “Say hello to Mrs. McManus for me. She feeling better these days?”

“Much better, thanks.”

The station house filled slowly as the news spread by telephone and word of mouth through the city. Reporters and photographers, tipsters and hangers-on from the Hall, deputies and bailiffs from the Mayor’s and Sheriff’s offices — they crowded the hall and offices of the station, chattering tensely over the news. Speculation was the conversational legal tender; it would buy more speculation, and there was nothing else for sale.

Terrell spent an hour or so absorbing gossip and impressions, and then drifted into the roll call room which was dominated by a high wooden bench. This was where the preliminary hearing would be held; a magistrate was on his way to the Sixteenth now, and Caldwell had already been slated for murder and taken upstairs to the detectives’ bureau for additional questioning. He was being treated with scrupulous care; one of his law partners was with him, and he had been allowed to talk to Sarnac.

Terrell sat down on a wooden seat that ran along the wall. The man beside him grinned and said, “You think he strangled her before or after?”

Terrell glanced at him, then lit a cigarette.

“The smart money is betting after,” the man said. He was small and excited, hugging himself with thin arms.

“Whose smart money?” Terrell said. “Ike Cellars’?”

The little man shrugged and rubbed his arms. “Well, it’s just a gag, friend.”

The atmosphere was carnival, Terrell realized, glancing around the smoky room. He noted the wise little grins, the rib-nudgings, the expressions of relief and excitement. There would be no more talk of waste and corruption. No more threats of exposure. The reform candidate was in jail for attacking and murdering a girl. Well, it figured; what could you expect from these holy joes, these virtuous bastards? It was a good joke. Hypocrisy had been exposed; that was always funny.

Terrell saw Sarnac come in a few minutes later, moving like a man in a waking nightmare; his face was dazed, his eyes were red with tears. Terrell joined him, and Sarnac said desperately, “I can’t think straight. Do you believe he did this? I... I can’t think at all.”

“Let’s go outside.”

“But do you believe it?”

“Let’s get some air. We can talk then.”

The night was cold, and wind buffeted the windows of dark, silent buildings. Terrell took Sarnac’s arm and led him down the block, away from the noisy crowd gathered around the brightly-lit entrance of the station. He felt illogically angered by Sarnac’s impotence; what good were tears? This was a time for guts. No wonder reformers usually looked silly, he thought. Pious fools. Expecting the flock to turn over new leaves and join them in song. The flock understood nothing but a knee in the groin.

“Everything we’ve worked for is smashed,” Sarnac said. “You’ve talked to Caldwell? What did he say?”

“Just to keep his wife away from him.”

“Great. Anything else?”

“No — he doesn’t seem to know what’s happening.”

“He’ll find out,” Terrell said. “I’ve talked to the lab men. Skin from Caldwell’s face has been found under the girl’s nails. Caldwell had been drinking. The girl is dead. That’s the DA’s case.”

“Something must have snapped. It could happen to anyone, particularly to someone with his spirit and energy — but I can’t believe it. I won’t believe it.”

“That’s better,” Terrell said. “Keep talking that way.”

A hope began to burn in Sarnac’s eyes. “Do you know anything that will help him?”

Terrell hesitated a second or so. Then he said, “The whole story may help. And I’m after the whole story. Now let’s go back and watch poor blind-folded justice at work. Hampered only slightly by the gun in her back.”