15

At quarter past six Powder was climbing the stairs to the fourth floor. Wondering what the hell Miller could want with him. That’s the problem with phone calls. The person who does the calling knows what he wants and is ready to talk about it. The person who gets called is less prepared, misses chances. What’s Miller got to do with me anyway?

He unlocked the door and stepped into the corridor. From inside, the stairwell doors at Police Headquarters in Indianapolis opened only by key. So that a prisoner who escaped onto the stairs found only a fool’s-gold freedom.

Powder walked straight into Miller’s cubicle, stood hands on hips in front of the desk. “What’s this shit about wanting to talk to me?”

Miller, reacting slowly—a defense—just raised his head and said, “Ah.” He tidied a pile of papers which had nothing to do with anything and said, “Sit down.”

“No.”

Miller leaned back. “What’s the matter?”

“You’re the one with something the matter. You’re the one that waked me out of a sound sleep.”

“Sorry. But I’ve been talking to Albert Samson. You met him, I understand.”

“What was the name?”

“Samson. The private detective whose name I gave you.”

“Oh yeah,” said Powder.

“We’ve got a situation on our hands, that’s all.”

Powder relaxed into a chair. “I hate losing sleep,” he said. “I don’t get enough as it is.” What with digging in the rain.

Miller paused. Couldn’t quite make up his mind whether to say “You’re a good cop, but you make too much needless aggro”; something like that. Decided it wasn’t his place.

Powder said, “Well, you’ve been talking to your buddy Samson.”

“You know anything about him?” Miller asked, figuring this was the best way to the center, the long way.

“I know he’s your buddy. I know he works out of a cruddy office over a carpet store. I know his mouth—” pause to remember—“is going to get him in trouble someday.”

Miller smiled, too. “Yeah, well, he says he hates his showers being interrupted.”

“He doesn’t get enough of them. Yeah. Yeah.”

“Well,” Miller continued, “what maybe you don’t know is that over the last couple, three years he’s had a pretty good record of coming up with the goods. Now, maybe it’s luck, and maybe it doesn’t mean we should pay attention to him just because he’s got that glint in his eye, but I’ve given up betting against him.”

“So I’ve heard,” Powder said ambiguously. But meaning clear to both of them. It was all around the department that Miller’s promotion had been helped along by a non-department case.

“Yeah, well, don’t believe everything you hear,” said Miller, who knew damn well that he’d been up for the promotion anyway.

“So what has your golden boy got his golden eye on now?”

“You sent some school kid to him, right?”

“More or less.” More.

“And the kid was complaining about a girl and her grades.”

“Yeah?”

“And the kid has come up complaining that the girl has gone missing.”

“Oh?”

“Well, Samson is hot about this missing girl.”

“Then he knows something that I don’t.”

“He thinks he does.”

“What?”

Miller twisted uneasily. “Well, I don’t know quite what. He wouldn’t tell me.”

“Terrific,” said Powder, rising. “Been nice talking to you, Miller.”

“He did tell me—” waiting for Powder to sit down again—“that the girl is definitely missing. She’s been leading a routine life and then last Friday she never came home from school.”

“How old is she?” Powder asked.

“I don’t know exactly. Eighteen maybe.”

“Big girl.”

“Yeah, but Samson says she has a background which makes her more interesting than just maybe a runaway.”

“What is it?”

“Well,” said Miller, “my impression is—”

“Impression! For crying out loud, Miller, do you know anything or not?” And before Miller could answer, “And besides, what the hell does it have to do with me?”

“Well, Samson thinks it would be smart to take the pressure off this kid, this …” Miller looked for his notes.

“Rex Funkhouser.” Thinking: China Charlie.

“Yeah, Rex Funkhouser, about that break-in at the school. Samson implies that the missing girl will be bigger.”

“‘Implied.’ ‘Impression.’ It sounds to me like your friend is trying to fix the case for his client, that’s what it sounds like to me.”

Miller’s turn for indignation. “I don’t fix, Powder.”

Powder shrugged.

“But I know this guy, I know how he works. And if I were in your shoes I’d ease off on Funkhouser for a while. It’s not as if he murdered anybody.”

Powder said, “It’s not my case anymore.”

“I know,” said Miller. “Been assigned to Groce. Know him? Dean Groce?”

Powder shook his head.

“Well, I had a word. He says because you gave special attention to the case he’s been leaning pretty hard on Funkhouser. He wouldn’t want to back off unless you said so.”

“Leaning hard? Christ, I had the kid set up to bring in a signed confession.”

“I don’t know about that,” Miller said.

“So you want me to call Groce off because he’s been leaning too hard on one of your friend’s clients. Have I got it right?”

“Not call him off, Powder. Just relax a little while and give Samson a chance to do the work for us.”

“Funkhouser tell Samson that he did the break-in?”

“Samson wouldn’t say.”

“I see,” said Powder.

“Well?”

“Tell your friend that I won’t play.”

“What?”

“That’s all. I don’t do things on the advice of flea-bitten private detectives who come in and act like they know the secrets of the universe but just don’t care to pass them on. Your friend wants to put his cards on the table, I’ll consider talking to him.”

“Well,” said Miller, “if that’s your attitude.”

“That’s my attitude,” Powder said. “And don’t wake me in the middle of my night again. I’ll start calling you in the middle of yours.”

Powder left Miller’s office and went over to check his day desk. Couldn’t. Nothing left to be said. Nothing on the desk either.

Powder had walked halfway to the Night Room before he turned on his heel and walked back to the Day Detective receptionist.

“Leave a note for me, will you?”

“Sure, Lieutenant Powder.”

“To Sergeant Groce Ask him to see me tomorrow, five thirty, about the Funkhouser case and bring his notes.”

“Sure, Lieutenant Powder.”

The business with Miller threw Powder off his track. He knew he had something he wanted to do. But couldn’t remember what it was. Fuck it.

Fuck fuck fuck.

Something on the mind.

What was it he wanted to do?

Powder walked into the Night Room. It was completely empty.

“Fuck,” he said to the assembled throngs of assembled throngs. “No dedication left in this business.”

He walked to his office, casually threw his coat on his desk. It slid to the floor, taking the In-Tray with it. Powder hesitated, sighed audibly and then got down on his hands and knees to clear up.

“You’ve got to admit he’s a damn good cop.” Sid Smith was entering the room.

“He here yet?” Schleutter.

“No, nobody here.”

“He worked it all out before he talked to you?”

“Yeah, brought me in for one of those ‘hypothetical questions’.”

Schleutter laughed.

“He thinks he’s a goddamn teacher. That’s what he thinks he is,” Smith continued. “But, by God, I’m sitting outside the warehouse gates cursing him at five in the morning when a guy walks up to the gate and the night watchman lets him in. Guy goes behind the warehouse and drives out in a big semi. We stop him; the semi’s full, only the cargo sheet says it’s empty and going to Fort Wayne.”

“Damn well would have been empty by the time it got to Fort Wayne.”

“But look at it. If Powder’d just sat on his ass, turned in the report and waited for Day to come in …”

“Oh, he has a nose for the job,” said Schleutter. “No question about that.”

“I knew he was smart enough. That’s what you hear, anyway. But he’s such a prickly bastard. How’d he get stuck on nights, anyway? You know?”

“It’s a long story,” said Schleutter, who knew.

“Come on, tell me.”

“Tell me, too” said Powder, rising.

Schleutter and Smith stood in shocked silence.

“Mouths in the cookie jar, boys? Come on, Schleutter, tell us how I got stuck on nights. That’s an order.”

“There was a little trouble about a special investigation, and there was a rearrangement inside the department, that’s all.”

“I see,” said Sid Smith, nodding vigorously and trying to help.

“What the hell were you doing on the floor anyway?” said Schleutter. “You sick?”

“Tell your nodding friend to put a stick under the fur on his chin or I’ll send him down to the Drug Squad to check for needle marks.”

Smith said, “Did you hear how the warehouse thing came out last night, Lieutenant? We got the whole load about five A.M. An hour later we broke the night watchman. He set up the whole thing—”

“Save your breath, kid,” said Schleutter.

“But I just wanted to—”

“He’s giving you good advice,” said Powder. “When you want to talk behind my back, do it out of my territory. I can’t afford electronic equipment, but you can never tell where I’ll be hiding. Get the hairy caterpillar out, Schleutter.”

“Right.”

Schleutter led the confused Sid Smith away. Powder hung up his coat, replaced the In-Tray and sat at his desk. Wondered if Schleutter would tell Smith who should have been Chief by now.

It unfolded as a quiet night, as nights in Indianapolis go. Some street action, but not much that required a detective on the scene.

A report came in for Powder at 8:30, from Tidmarsh.

Now, what the—Oh yeah, I remember.

It was an outline summary of the multiple killings over the last year and a half.

Brindell and his square hole. Too many Brindells these days.

Powder’s interest in multiple killings was because he had the impression there’d been quite a few series-type cases like the battered women of the last few weeks. Seemed worth putting Alexander Smith on—till Smith turned reluctant.

But the report was still interesting. Four cases of series murders in eighteen months were quite a few. The previous three groups had been two, two and three killings, respectively. Superficially … very different kinds of cases.

Phone call. “What was that?”

“I said,” said the uniform duty officer downstairs, “We’ve got a burglary in which ninety-three wind-up clocks were stolen. Do you want it?”

“More clocks? I don’t understand it.”

“What’s that, Lieutenant?”

“Nothing. Yeah, we want it. Give me the details.”

Which he passed on to Schleutter.

“Look,” said Schleutter, “I know I was out of line talking to Sid Smith, but there’s no reason to put me out to pasture.”

“You’ll do what I tell you, damn you. We’ve had, I think, three thefts of wind-up clocks now. It’s an epidemic. I want you to check this one out. Get lab men out there if you have to. You wouldn’t want all the wind-up clocks in town to be stolen, would you?”

“Wouldn’t I?”

“Go do it, Schleutter.”

“Yes, sir, Lieutenant Powder, sir. Yes, sir.” Schleutter goosestepped out of the Night Room.

Powder didn’t really care. Lot of Smiths in my life. A Robert Smith had pushed the guy he owed money to off a quarry lip. Most people have the decency to knock a guy out before they throw him into a quarry lake, but not Smith. Not for his loan shark. But three nights later he did knock out his local pusher before sending him over the same quarry lip. Convicted for two at the price of one.

Now, that’s something, Powder thought. Why did he knock the second guy out?

Of the other two series, Powder had dealt with one of them himself in January before he left for his vacation. Fairly straight-forward; three men shot and dumped near Weir Cook airport. Consecutive nights. Straightforward in that the killer had been picked up the day after the third man was found. He’d had the gun on him and said he was hunting for his fourth victim. Protection men, and the guy had been fed up with having to pay the guys off.

What did I think that case was? Powder thought. Oh yeah, had it tagged as a gang war.

He went down the list, the third series killing. And there it was again, two people bashed with pipes or sticks. Unsolved, this one. Victims: a shopkeeper who got robbed, and a robber with a long record of violent robberies. An irony there, but nobody caught.

In day-to-day business they blended into the miscellaneous killings of the city, but separated because he’d asked for them, they felt like a lot for one town like this in eighteen months.

“Hey, Schleutter?” he called without looking up.

“He’s out, Lieutenant.”

Oh yeah. Was going to ask him if he thought we’d been getting a lot of these series murders.

Hell, he probably wouldn’t know anyway. Mentally, he mimicked Schleutter: “One mudder’s a lot like anudder mudder.”

Settled for sending another project to Tidmarsh.

Powder called Tidmarsh on the phone. “Yeah, well, give me the same kind of records for the last ten years. What? Naw, don’t break them up into anything. Oh yeah, year by year. Naw; year by year’s fine. No. No charts. No crazy graphs. Jesus, Tidmarsh!”