John D. MacDonald

Cop Probe

He was into the last twenty minutes of the four-to-midnight shift in the squad room at Precinct Four when Captain Louis Moreno put a call through to him. Moreno sounded old and tired and far away.

“Paul, you going to be relieved on schedule?”

“Looks that way. It’s a quiet night out this way.”

“Suppose you stop by my place as soon as you can. Okay?”

Something in Moreno’s voice alerted him. “What’s up, Captain?” he asked.

“You just stop by, Paul,” Moreno told him, and hung up.

A half an hour later, Detective Sergeant Paul Deever walked into Louis Moreno’s small, familiar, shabby bachelor apartment. “No protocol, boy,” Moreno said. “Here’s your beer. Sit down.”

Moreno wore a frayed blue bathrobe, scuffed slippers. He was a smallish, heavy, balding man with blue pouches of fatigue and overwork under shrewd, brown eyes.

Deever sat down and said, “You weren’t just feeling sociable by any chance, Captain.”

“No, Sergeant. And this is the one place in the world you call me Louis, remember? Tell me, how does it feel to be a cop lately?”

Paul Deever made a wry face. “Oh, it’s very exciting. Every clown wants to make jokes. But somehow I never feel like laughing. What’s the box score now, Louis? Thirty-seven suspended, of which twenty-one have been indicted by the Grand Jury? How did it get so rotten out there in Precinct Two?”

“I get the jokes, too, boy. At the club today, even. ‘Lock the doors, here comes a cop! Ho-ho-ho’.”

“It has to blow over, doesn’t it? Sooner or later?”

“Later, Paul. This is an election year. They want to make it stink as long and as loud as possible. That’s more important than morale. Tomorrow, they get a big story. The old man resigned. They worked him into a corner. He had to.”

“Who takes over?”

Moreno sipped from his can of beer, lowered it, wiped his mouth on the back of his hand. “Me.”

Deever stared. “Congratulations.”

Moreno returned the stare, expressionless. “Thanks a lot. Acting Chief. A nice time for it. Seven hundred demoralized cops. A public that thinks we’ve been knocking over more supermarkets, liquor stores and gas stations than the guys we’re supposed to be after. Dirty new headlines every single day. Thanks a lot, fella.”

“It’s a gesture of confidence, anyhow.”

“Is it? I’m a pro. I check out clean. I’m a mild, little, fat man. Just the stooge they need. So all day, I’ve been acquainting myself with the activities of the Mayor’s Special Committee. Tomorrow, my picture will be on the first page posed with the mayor. Smiling.”

“I thought you looked tired, Louis.”

“I am tired. I’m tired of a lot of things. Sick at heart. Mild little fat men should be jolly. You’re in the paper, too, Paul.”

Deever looked at him with a puzzled half-smile. “Do I get promoted, too?”

“Not exactly. You’re one of the three new names they’re calling in. They’re going to give you a chance to clear yourself, my friend.”

“Of what? What the hell are you talking about?”

“Don’t yell at your superiors, son. The kindly old committee just wants you to answer a few little questions based on material their staff investigators turned up. So I’m asking you the few little questions before they do.”

Paul leaned forward. “Because you’re not sure I’m straight, Louis? Is that it? You got a little doubt?”

Louis Moreno closed his eyes for a moment. “Eleven years I’ve known you, Deever. I brought you here. I was your best man when you married Polly. Your kids climb the hell all over me. When we had that nut holed up and I got careless, you were the guy ran out in the open and dragged me back to cover before he could finish the job. For the remark you just made, I should try bouncing you off a couple of walls.”

“I’m sorry, Louis.”

“Just answer the questions. You and Polly have a joint savings account. A year and a half ago, you deposited twelve hundred dollars in one chunk. Seven months ago, you put in a little less than nine hundred. Where did it come from?”

“A bequest to Polly from her uncle’s estate. She got twelve hundred right off, and then a percentage of what was left after the rest of the estate was liquidated.”

“You got the correspondence about it?”

“Of course.”

“And they turned up the fact the twelve hundred didn’t show on your tax return, Paul.”

“It didn’t have to. I checked. The estate pays taxes and then...”

“I know that. Let’s get to the other thing. Let’s get over onto Detective Sergeant Miles Urban, now under indictment for robbery and grand theft and so forth, and out on bail. Let’s get to how come you were seen with him on the night of November eighth, last year, at a notorious gambling den called Dome’s Walkaway, ten miles over into Salem County.”

“Sally Urban and Polly are friends. Not good friends. Somebody called Sally from out there and said her husband was being drunk and abusive and losing heavy money. Sally checked around to try to get somebody to go out and get him home before he got in real trouble. If I remember, we were the third or fourth party she tried. I went out and got him. I had to trick him to get him outside, then chop him down and load him in his car. I brought Sally with me to drive our car back.”

“Provable?”

Deever frowned for a moment, then shrugged. “Sure. I had to do it in a hurry because I had to go on at midnight. The signed duty roster will prove that. And Polly’s brother Dave and his wife were at the house that night. They sat with the kids while we did the favor for Sally Urban. They’ll remember we didn’t leave until about quarter to eleven, and they’ll remember that Sally came back alone a little after midnight because she had to drop me off at the precinct.”

“So that will make it real easy for you tomorrow, Paul.”

Paul was puzzled by Moreno’s tone. “Sure. I’ll just go in and explain it to the committee.”

“Tomorrow morning, you get a nice personal headline about mysterious and unreported bank deposits, and being across the county line in a gambling layout with Urban. The day after tomorrow, you get a two-line mention on page seventeen saying you’re cleared. So?”

“I know it isn’t fair, but that’s the way things work, isn’t it?”

Moreno fingered plump, dark jowls. “That’s the way the thing is kept alive, Paul. For weeks, they haven’t come up with anything. For weeks, they’ve been able to give the impression they are coming up with new scandal all the time. The public has that impression. They list us. We trot in and clear ourselves, readily. But the listing continues.”

“It will die down, Louis.”

Moreno smiled at him in a curious way. “You are a decorative cop, Deever. Lean, rugged, well trained. Two citations, no stain on the record. Lovely wife, small children. Like they say, the new, lean breed, eh? Gold-badge material.”

“What’s this all about?”

“What if you refuse to make a voluntary appearance before the Committee?”

Paul stared at Moreno with consternation. “What happens? Are you crazy, Louis? That was the original deal, remember? If you refuse to co-operate, you get an automatic suspension. The old man made that deal. That would be the stain on the record, all right. Where could I go from there? In five minutes, I can clear myself. Why shouldn’t I?”

“Why shouldn’t you, indeed?”

“Louis, please don’t give me this mystery business. Do you mean you’d buck them? You wouldn’t suspend me?”

“I’d suspend you immediately, Sergeant. That’s the agreement.”

“Then I’m just another name on the list. And it’s a list I don’t belong on. What good would that do?”

“Good for you, or for the department?”

“How could it help the department?”

“Isn’t that up to me?” Moreno said.

“What are you asking for, Louis? Blind faith?”

After a long moment, Louis Moreno nodded. “Blind faith.”

“But what would I tell people? How will I explain it? What will I tell Polly?”

“Tell Polly — no one else — that it’s a favor to me. Tell everybody else you are not going to co-operate with a headline-hunting committee dedicated to destroying police morale.”

“That’s what some of the others said — the guilty ones.”

“I know.”

“They’ll think I’m guilty.”

“Probably.”

“But what good will it do?”

“I can’t guarantee anything, Paul. All I can do is bet my own future on a hunch, and ask you to do the same thing. Yours is longer than mine, but no more important to you than mine is to me. So go along with it.”

“That’s an order, Captain?”

“Don’t make it tougher than it is. It’s a friend asking a favor.”

“That’s a large favor, Louis.”

Moreno smiled. The curious sweetness of that smile always astonished Deever. “Who else can I ask?”

At a little after nine the next morning, after seven hours of restless sleep, Paul Deever walked out into the kitchen, wearing ancient slacks and a faded sports shirt. Polly turned quickly from the sink and came toward him, a small, intense, auburn-haired woman with a quality of animation which made her seem prettier than she was.

“Darn it, Paul, I was just going in to shake you awake when I heard you getting up. I’ve been furious for the past hour. Wait until you see the paper! Mysterious, undeclared cash deposits! A riotous roadhouse evening with Miles Urban! Honestly! It’s a lousy, dirty smear! It was the money Uncle Ben left me, and it was the time Sally got us to go out there to that place and rescue Miles. Just look at the paper, darling. We’re famous!”

He sat at the table and read the article. Three officers to be questioned. Three stern pictures from official department records. He remembered that this same picture had been used when he had been given one of his two citations. The reporting was factual, but so cleverly worded that the average citizen would readily believe that here were three more bad cops. Just as she was serving breakfast, the phone rang. It was Wes Krantz, a headquarters sergeant on Special Traffic.

Wes said, “Congratulations, old buddy. I sec we both made the Hall of Fame this morning.”

“And where did a crummy sergeant get a thirty-thousand-dollar home, fella?”

“Well, it was pretty tricky. An involved deal. I bought it for twelve-five, with a ten-thousand-dollar mortgage fourteen years ago, and since then, I’ve put fourteen thousand hours of work and five grand of materials in it, and I’ve got a ledger to prove it, because I’ve been fighting the assessment boys. Nice picture of it in the paper, hey?”

“Very nice. They called you yet?”

“Not yet, but I understand we’ll get calls before noon. We’re scheduled to appear about two o’clock. See you there.”

“I’m not going, Wes.”

“But when they tab you, you have to go in and...”

“It’s a voluntary appearance, isn’t it? So I don’t happen to feel co-operative. They’re just hunting headlines. The hell with them!”

There was silence on the line. When Wes spoke again his voice was subtly changed. “Well, I guess it’s your decision to make. Best of luck.” He hung up.

Paul turned and was startled to find Polly standing so close behind him. “What were you saying to him?”

“I’m not going to appear.”

“But they’ll suspend you!”

“Sit down and I’ll tell you about it.”

After she had heard the whole story, she looked at him with disbelief. “Louis is a sweet little guy and he’s been a good friend to us, Paul, but he can’t... he can’t ask you to sacrifice yourself and your career. He should find somebody without a wife and children to go along with a wild idea like this. And why should you take it all on faith?”

“He’s a good cop.”

“But a good cop can do a very silly thing. You know that.”

“Honey, I can’t help it. I gave him my word. Look, honey, all we have to do is act as if that money was some kind of payoff, and act as if I buddied around with Miles Urban. We keep the proof to ourselves. We wait for Louis to make the next move. The reporters will be after us. Don’t you tell anybody I’m doing this because Captain Moreno asked me to.”

She stared at him. “That’s all we have to do, huh? Look guilty over something you could explain in minutes. And depend on Louis Moreno to get you out of it somehow. And be suspended as if you’re a thief. Look at this picture of him standing and smirking with the mayor. The mayor is a rough man, Paul. And so is that man who’s chairman of the committee, Mr. Ferris Rand. Louis is such... such an amiable little guy. They’ll do anything they want with him. Don’t you see? That’s why they put him in.”

“I gave my word.”

She looked at him. Tears filled her eyes. “Your loyalty is very touching. Too bad you’re giving it to Louis Moreno instead of me, dear.”

“That isn’t fair, Polly. You know it.”

“All I know is that I don’t think I’m going to enjoy my new life as the wife of a suspended cop. It’s been bad enough being the wife of any kind of cop lately. This is going to be extra special.” She left the room. He heard the bedroom door close quietly.

He sighed and went to the stove to get more coffee. He had the hollow feeling that he was being a damned fool. Moreno was a good man in a tight spot. But that was no reason to believe that he had any political savvy.

At ten-fifteen, Rand’s office phoned. A woman said, “Sergeant Deever? The committee would like you to appear at City Hall at two-thirty this afternoon. Room Two-eighteen.”

“I decline with regret.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“Appearance is voluntary, isn’t it? I’m not volunteering.”

“I see. I’ll inform Mr. Rand at once. Thank you.”

Ferris Rand phoned ten minutes later. “Deever? I want to confirm the statement you gave my secretary. Are you refusing to appear before the Mayor’s Committee?”

“Yes.”

“Are you afraid that if you appear you will either perjure yourself or incriminate yourself?”

“I am afraid that by appearing I would be lending myself to a circus act I think has no legal standing, Mr. Rand.”

“It’s not a court.”

“You’ve been running it like one.”

“Refusal will result in immediate suspension from duty.”

“So I’ve been told.”

“I see. Perhaps it’s the only choice you have. Sorry, Deever.”

As Paul hung up, he felt shaky. His hands were sweaty. He went to the bedroom. Polly looked small and dispirited, staring at the ceiling.

“Have you burned the bridge?”

“Yes,” he told her.

She sat up and smiled wanly and took his hand. “Okay, Ex-sergeant. If I can’t block it, I’ll have to ride with it. But I’m a girl who has always doted on security.”

“Maybe it won’t be so bad.”

“I have the feeling it’s going to be terrible. You’re just not the martyr type, darling. Maybe Louis is. But you’re not.”

“I had to go along with him.”

She kissed him and stood up. “I guess so. Maybe things were going too good for us. I guess I’m superstitious. I’ve been knocking wood for years.”

At noon, a headquarters clerk phoned him and read him the official notification of his suspension, effective immediately, and said he was putting it in the mail. At two o’clock, the newspaper people began to phone. At four o’clock, he was forced into an impromptu press conference in his front yard.

“Tell us the real reason why you wouldn’t face the committee, Sergeant.”

“I’ve told you the real reason a dozen times. They’re hunting headlines at the expense of the morale of the force. So why should I co-operate?”

“But aren’t you giving them even more headlines this way?”

“Possibly. But I feel that I’m also registering a protest.”

“If people believe it. When were you suspended?”

“At noon today.”

“Do you expect to be indicted by the Grand Jury?”

“I couldn’t say.”

“Where did the two grand come from, Sergeant?”

“From a private source.”

“How come you didn’t report it on your tax return?”

“No comment.”

“If you figured on not reporting it, wasn’t it stupid to put it in the bank?”

“That would be a matter of opinion.”

“Are the tax boys after you yet?”

“Not to my knowledge.”

“Did you ever do any jobs with Miles Urban?”

“Official jobs, five and six years ago when we were both assigned to Precinct Three.”

“What’s your opinion of Moreno, the new acting chief?”

“No comment.”

When it was over, he went silently into the house and made himself a stiff drink. He turned to Polly.

“They think I’m a thief,” he said.

“What else can they think?”

“Maybe Louis didn’t realize it would be like this.”

The afternoon paper was delivered. It was worse than he had imagined. He had been moved from page three to page one. The other two men had cleared themselves and been forgotten. Polly took a phone call. It was anonymous and filthy, and left her shaken. After dark, some noble and righteous citizen threw trash and garbage on their small front lawn.

At nine o’clock, after calling Louis Moreno at his apartment a half-dozen times, he finally got an answer.

“I’m officially suspended, Louis.”

“Who is this? Sergeant Deever? There’s nothing I can do for you, Sergeant. If you could have cleared yourself with the committee, you should have done so.”

“What the hell is...”

“I must honor the agreement Chief Doettler made, Sergeant. You’re suspended from the force pending further committee investigation.”

“Louis, I...”

“You are talking to Captain Moreno, Sergeant Deever.”

“But I want to know what I’m supposed to do.”

“I can’t help you there, Sergeant. You made your decision. You’ll have to await the results of further investigation.”

After he hung up, he said hesitantly to Polly, “There must have been somebody with him.”

“Or he found out that whatever he had in mind won’t work, so he’s throwing you to the wolves and saving himself.”

“He wouldn’t do that, honey. Somebody was there. He’ll get in touch with me.”

That was Friday. The Saturday morning papers were more brutal. One photographer had caught him standing in the front yard in a moment of anger, glowering and dangerous, looking guilty. Boobs phoned the house and said violent things. There was no word from Moreno. Deever called the precinct to bring Anderson up to date on his personal unfinished work. Anderson sounded remote and unfriendly. His tone hurt, but Paul could not blame him. Anderson was a good officer. You could not help resenting the ones who had brought all this stink and ruin upon what had been a respected outfit.

Three men he had worked with, three men he had been close to, phoned to tell him that he was being a damned fool, that they knew he was clean, and what was he trying to prove. He was touched. His answer puzzled each of them, but their faith in him seemed unimpaired.

Sunday was a long, long day. Polly told him in a dozen different ways that he should get in touch with Ferris Rand and say he was willing to be interrogated by the committee. He became angry at her. They quarreled.

At five o’clock Sunday evening, he was summoned to headquarters. He tried to reassure Polly. “If they were going to indict me, honey, they’d send somebody to serve papers, or they’d come out and take me down or something. If I was being subpoenaed to appear before the Grand Jury, it wouldn’t be done this way.”

“I’m scared,” she said.

“I’ll let you know just as soon as possible, honey.”

She hugged him hard, sighed against his throat and sent him on his way...

The press conference was taking place in a large room adjoining the office of the Chief of Police. Moreno was sitting at a table holding a statement. Men were arranging the lighting for the cameras to take the film for rebroadcast over the local television channel.

“I’ll answer all questions after my screen test here,” Moreno said with crisp authority. He spotted Paul coming toward him, and beckoned to him. “Sit right here beside me, Sergeant Deever. Boys, Sergeant Deever will answer questions after you’re through with me. Are we all set?”

Moreno read his statement. He was relaxed, but emphatic.

“As acting Chief of Police, I must concern myself with the efficiency of the men under my command. I cannot permit my officers to be smeared and demoralized by a special committee which proceeds on the basis of rumor rather than fact. I suspended Detective Sergeant Paul Deever, sitting here beside me, because he refused to co-operate in this witch hunt being carried on by the mayor and Mr. Rand. That was the agreement.

“In the meantime. I ordered a departmental investigation of Sergeant Deever. The investigation cleared him completely. The money in question was a legacy received by his wife, and was handled in accordance with all tax regulations. The circumstances of his having been seen with Miles Urban have been satisfactorily explained. Though in one sense his judgment might be considered faulty in refusing to co-operate with the committee, I admire his moral courage.

“As a result, I am serving notice to the committee and to Mr. Rand and to His Honor, the Mayor, that I am reinstating Sergeant Deever. I am ordering all officers to refuse to appear before the committee if summoned. I shall suspend them, conduct departmental investigations and reinstate them if they are cleared. I have no doubt but what they will all be cleared. The bad apples have been removed. There were too many of them. But nothing is gained by trying to keep the situation alive, artificially, by conducting an extra-legal witch hunt at the expense of fine officers such as Detective Sergeant Paul Deever. It has been many, many weeks since any actual evidence of wrongdoing has been uncovered. Yet the stories go on, stirred up for reasons which may seem as evident to you as they do to me. If I am to be removed from office for this act, so be it. I could not in all conscience allow this performance to continue. Thank you.”

The questions were excited and intense. Paul told the details of the small bequest, and the circumstances of his having gone to get Miles Urban and take him back to his wife. When the questions began to become repetitive, Moreno stood up, firmly called an end to the conference and took Paul with him into the Chief’s office.

Paul phoned Polly and told her — a short version that would be expanded later.

When he hung up, Captain Louis Moreno said, “I had to think of the timing. This hits the Sunday-night television and radio news, and the papers tomorrow morning. And it had to be done quick before Rand smelled a trap. He’s a sharp man. Been nervous, fella?”

“Extremely,” Paul answered him.

“I had to brush you off when yon phoned because I have a hunch there’s a tap on your phone.”

“Is it going to work?”

“We just have to wait and see. Hell, I don’t know.”

The corridor door opened suddenly and Ferris Rand came striding in — a man with tanned features and cropped gray hair.

“Very, very cute, Moreno,” he said. “Are you Deever? Yes, of course. Moreno, aren’t you smart enough to realize that if you get in the middle of a thing like this you can get hurt?”

“In the middle, Mr. Rand? A cop is always in the middle.”

“Don’t be evasive, please. I know George Lascomb put you up to this,” Rand said insistently.

“What makes you think that?”

“Because you aren’t shrewd enough to figure it out yourself, Captain. It’s a very professional job of killing the committee. Henry and I put you into this office. Why did you decide to play footsie with the opposition?”

Moreno yawned and stood up. He walked around his desk and faced Rand. Suddenly he did not look fat or mild. “I’m not playing footsie with Lascomb, or with you, or with any political group, Rand. I’m running a police organization. Your committee was no longer doing any good. It was doing a lot of harm. So I blasted it out of the way. If you want to connive me out of this office, go right ahead and try. While I’m here, I’m a professional cop. Now get out of here. Go shill the voters some other way, Mr. Rand. Leave my department out of it, whatever you do, or I’ll go to the people again and tell them who is making my job tough, for his own selfish reasons. Then see how many votes you round up. I’m not running for anything.” He smiled. “No special ambitions, Mr. Rand. Just to run this shop with the help of some boys like Deever here. As long as I’m here, we’ll keep our own house clean.”

Rand stared at him for a minute. “Maybe we misjudged you, Chief.”

Moreno beamed at him. “You picked a tiger, boy. A fat, mild tiger.”

“Suppose we reorganize the committee and put you on it.”

“To save face? No, thanks.”

“Maybe we can figure out some sort of compromise.”

“Make anything you want to suggest official. Put it on paper. Send it through channels. Good night, Mr. Rand.”

After Rand was gone, Moreno sat down heavily. “I think we won, Paul. How did I do?”

“Fine.”

“I was scared to death. Some tiger. Sergeant, you are transferred from your precinct to headquarters. Report to me personally tomorrow morning at eight.”

“Yes, sir, Chief!” He hesitated. “What kind of duty assignment?”

“Hazardous.”

“What?”

“Helping me deal with the public, Paul. That’s the most hazardous duty a cop can face. Now go home and tell Polly we both love her.”

“An order, sir?”

“Yes, indeed, Sergeant.”

Content

John D. MacDonald
Cop Probe