Night Extra

Terrell hesitated, frowning slightly. He wasn’t sure of Duggan. He had known him a dozen years, and had seen him move up from a lieutenant of detectives to the top police job in the city. Duggan was personally honest, Terrell was sure; he took no graft, he ran the department efficiently and intelligently. But Terrell also knew that Duggan was a victim of something that might be called moral inertia. The disease was very prevalent in the city; its symptoms were a tolerance of evil, and a self-hypnosis that protected the victims from seeing or hearing anything that might disturb their conscience. Duggan was a willing neurotic in a sense; he was honest to a point and beyond that he was neutral.

“All right,” Terrell said, still unsure of how far to trust him. “Let’s start with Paddy Coglan. Why did he kill himself?”

“He might have been sick, drunk, worried — a thousand reasons.”

“Coglan saw a man run out of Caldwell’s the night Eden Myles was murdered. He told me that on the phone. But he denied the story after talking to Captain Stanko.”

Duggan studied Terrell with a puzzled frown. “Stanko told me Coglan had got mixed up,” he said at last. “I guess you know Paddy was a boozer.”

“Then Coglan went over to Beach City and shot himself,” Terrell said. “Wasn’t that a happy coincidence for the prosecution?”

“You’re not talking about facts,” Duggan said angrily. “You’re putting guesses together into a theory.”

“Why didn’t the coroner release the fact that Eden Myles was pregnant?”

“What’s that?”

“You weren’t told either, I’ll bet,” Terrell smiled without humor and got to his feet. “There are two police departments in town. One is out in the open for all the citizens to see. The cop on the beat, the squad chauffeuring girls home through the streets, patrolmen on duty in the stadium for big games. The other department operates in the dark. It doesn’t answer questions. Its files get lost. It accounts to nobody. And that’s the one you’re suggesting I cooperate with. Why in hell should I?”

“Let’s not blow our tops,” Duggan said, making a placating gesture with his hands. “So the girl was pregnant. There was probably a good reason for holding that back. But you reporters start screaming about freedom of the press unless we broadcast every lead and clue we come across. How can we go into court if the defense has every detail of our case?” Duggan’s voice strengthened in support of his argument. “We play things close to our vests for good reasons. But unless we call your city desk every hour on the hour we’re accused of running a gestapo.”

“We don’t seem to be making much progress,” Terrell said.

Duggan suddenly slammed a fist on his desk. “We’ll make progress or you’ll regret it, Sam. Who gave you that item you printed yesterday?”

Terrell hesitated. For an instant he was tempted; if he told Duggan he had got the description from the lips of Paddy Coglan, Duggan would be on a spot — he’d have to make a token effort to find the man, or continue to insist that Coglan was an unreliable witness. If he took the latter course it might cause the public to suspect the quality of Coglan’s testimony against Caldwell. The Hall couldn’t have it both ways; they couldn’t reject Coglan for the defense and then accept him for the prosecution.

“I’m waiting,” Duggan said. “Who gave you the story?”

Terrell decided not to tell him. But before he could answer, the door opened and Mayor Shaw Ticknor sauntered into the room. Ticknor was grinning widely and scratching the inside of his leg. The grin disappeared when he saw Terrell, but he continued to scratch his leg. “Well, you’re the culprit I’ve been looking for. I hope for your sake you don’t mind the taste of crow. Jack, did you put our position to Sam?”

“We were just discussing it,” Duggan said.

“There’s nothing to discuss,” Ticknor said easily. “Not a damn thing.” He strolled across the room toward Terrell, smiling again, a tall angular man with shaggy, iron gray hair and big features that looked as if they had been hacked roughly from coarse red rock. The Mayor was letter perfect in his favorite role — the canny backwoodsman at large in the city. The voters seemed to be amused by his calculated oafishness, for they had returned him to office four times running. But his well-publicized flamboyance was no index to the man, Terrell knew. Ticknor was coarse, that much was accurate; he loved whiskey and dirty stories, all-night poker games and sadistic practical jokes. He was a fumbling but compulsive lecher and had been in trouble with one woman after another all of his years in office. But he was no lovable old cut-up; he was a thief on a large scale; a bully with a shrewd knowledge of the mechanics of power, and the ruthless enemy of anyone who stood in his path.