Both uniforms were still at the door. Or maybe they had already checked the rear and had come back around to the front. They pounded on the door again, loud enough that I could hear them halfway down the street. The summer night sounds of the neighborhood had died away, killed by the police cruiser.
Once they went inside, I could pull away. But before I could get in my battered Packard, an obvious unmarked pulled up and double-parked along the marked car. I waited a moment and then started up the middle of the street for it. Samuels got out. He was by himself. He saw me coming and said as I reached him, “You call the law?”
“No,” I said. “Just you.”
“What’s going on?”
“I think this guy is your man. Other than that I don’t know any more than you do.”
Samuels led the way up the walk. We were friends again. “Officers,” he said to the other cops, “Detective Samuels with Robbery/Homicide. What’s the trouble?”
“Call about a possible prowler. Nobody’s home.”
I liked the call about the prowler as much as I liked having my teeth kicked in.
“Step aside,” Samuels said, and stepped between them and banged on the door with his fist. He turned back to me, still standing on the path. “How sure are you about this?”
“Sure,” I said.
“We’ll get a warrant later,” Samuels said, and opened the screen door and tried the knob, which opened for him as well as it had for me. He stepped inside and the lights came on. The officers followed after him, and I followed behind. The scene was just as stunning the second time. “Damn it!” Samuels said. He turned on me. “Okey, spill. Wait a second.” He turned to the officers. “This was your call. You call it in, and wait outside for the dusters to get here.” Once the two policemen, one ashen faced, the other red, were gone, Samuels turned on me again. “That’s Daniel Merton’s kid. You going to tell me something now?”
“Remember the other case, the one before Christmas? Merton had the story quashed. There’s another one a couple years back. Merton probably killed that one too, because it never went anywhere. When I looked into it, a couple of Hub Gilplaine’s stooges used me for a punching bag. They tried to prevent me from seeing Merton earlier today too. I’m guessing Gilplaine was blackmailing the old man, and it wasn’t worth anything if other people knew. I managed to check in with the old man anyway and he gave me this address. I called you and you know the rest.”
He looked at me with narrowed eyes. “I don’t like it.”
I shrugged and kept my mouth shut.
“You’re claiming that Thomas Merton killed at least three girls and that his father has covered it up for him? Do you know who Daniel Merton is?”
“Sure,” I said.
He looked back at the stiff. “I don’t like it. But I guess I’ll take it. What did Merton senior say when you talked to him?”
“He said that it was okay if his kid killed a couple of girls as long as nobody noticed. I guess killing a girl who’s going to be in a picture gets noticed. And so we have it.”
“He told you that?”
“Not in those words.”
“Well, you keep a lid on this thing. We’ll figure something out.”
“You always do, detective,” I said.
He gave me another squinty-eyed look and then dismissed the comment with a wave of his hand.
“There’s more,” I said.
He shook his head without even looking at me. “You’re going to tell me this other stiff under the boardwalk was Merton’s too.”
“You’re pretty good at this,” I said.
“I’m also good at using my gun as a club without knocking it out of line. You want me to show you that trick too?”
“You said you like it straight.”
“Like it? I don’t like it one bit.” He sighed. “Give it to me short. We’ll go back to the station and you can tell it as long as you want.”
“Tommy and Greg Taylor were friends. They were both out, looking to get high. I’m guessing Tommy killed Ehrhardt on the way. When he realized Taylor could be a witness, he took care of him also.”
He looked at me. “This isn’t the world we were born into,” he said. “It wasn’t like this when we were kids. If a man killed you, he did it looking you in the eyes and he had a good reason, and everyone slept all night.”
“You believe that?”
“Not for a second,” he said, and went back outside.
I followed, leaving the door open.