I told him about tomorrow morning’s manhunt with the Boy Scouts; Pritch took notes.
“Seeing that I haven’t had lunch yet,” I added, “I thought I’d grab a bite on my over to the Probation Department.”
“Here’s a thought, for what it’s worth,” Pritch said, rubbing his chin. “If you were in stir, would you be likely to know how crazy Raglan is about his daughter?”
“I’ll bear that in mind.”
I ordered my sandwich and then called the Department to make sure Milt Rosenberg could see me. Milt had been a parole officer for the last ten years, and had helped me on previous occasions when I needed information on individuals who had goofed themselves into the news. Today, however, according to Esther, Milt was just too busy to talk to me.
“I’m checking a news story. Trying to keep ahead of Chief Raglan, which is a remote chance.”
She said maternally, “It takes some doing to keep ahead of Joe Raglan. Can I help?”
“I’ve got to talk to Milt about some of his boys.”
“You think one of them pulled the job?” she asked dubiously.
“Raglan seems to think so.”
“How well I know. Check with me tomorrow, will you?”
I had a somewhat more leisurely lunch than I’d planned, then returned to my desk at the Bulletin and called Homicide again. Raglan had ordered Debbie’s locker opened at school, he told me, but all they found were two textbooks and a couple of items of clothing. No, no short stories.
I’d put off writing the side feature on Deborah Raglan long enough, so I batted it out at home. Despite my objectivity, Debbie came out smelling pretty good. And because of that same objectivity, she came out real, a clever, talented girl, with poise and self-assurance, a realistic outlook, a bit headstrong.
Pritch was happy, too, when I handed him the story Thursday morning. “I might want a favour some day,” I said. “You have somebody out there this morning to shoot the Boy Scouts combing the fields?”
“Matcha. Got back an hour ago. He’s probably in the photo lab.”
I found the huge photographer at the coffee machine. “Listen, Shaffer,” he said, “next time one of your friends gets me out of bed so early, try to have the body in a ground-floor apartment, okay. I must have walked off fifty pounds in the last two hours.”
“They find anything?”
“Yeah. One baseball, an old shoe and seventeen empty whiskey bottles.”
The story broke at nine-thirty, with a phone call from Raglan. “Come over here, Shaffer,” he said curtly. “I told you you’d get it first, but I won’t give it to you on the phone.”
I grabbed my briefcase, told Pritch where I was going, collected Matcha, and went.
When we arrived at Homicide we were sent straight back to Raglan’s office. Raglan picked up a letter from his desk and handed it to me. “This was dropped in a drive-up box in front of the main post office sometime between ten forty-five and eleven forty-five yesterday morning.”
The envelope was clipped to the letter, and bore a twelve noon postmark. The crudely printed address read: “Chief Raglan, Homocide Div., Fallbrook Police Dept., City.”
The note itself was a masterpiece of restraint: “Raglan, if you want the girl back alive, it will cost you $100,000 in unmarked twentys. You have 3 days to get it ready.” It was pencilled in bold black letters on a sheet of plain paper.
“Fingerprints?” I asked hopefully
Raglan shook his head. “The paper’s too porous to retain any. You want to take a shot of it?”
Matcha was already setting up his camera.
“What are you going to do, Joe?”
“Pay,” he said. “I’ve already ordered everyone off the case. I’ve got to assume Debbie’s alive; it’s my job now to keep her alive. She’s probably still in the city. And so is he.”
“Couldn’t you find them in three days?”
“I might scare him into killing her. I don’t want that.”
“Where are you going to get the money, Joe? A hundred thousand is quite a lot. If the department wants to hold a raffle I’ll help with publicity...”
“I’ll get it, one way or another. I hope. Whoever is behind this knows damn well I can’t raise a hundred grand. But he’s got the knife in, and he’s twisting it. It’s someone who hates me personally.”
“You don’t think the money interests him, then?”
“He’s interested; he just doesn’t expect to get it. But perhaps his greed is more powerful than his hatred. My only hope is to get word to him that he will get the money.”
Matcha put the ransom note back on Raglan’s desk and said, “You know what I think. Chief? This is the work of some young high school punk. If he hates you it’s only because you wouldn’t let your daughter go out with him.”
“What makes you say that?” Raglan asked.
“This ransom note. It’s like comic-book lettering. An experienced criminal would have clipped words out of newspapers and pasted them together. This guy practically signed his name.”
Raglan shook his head. “I wish he had used scissors and paste; he might have left a useable print.”
“I still say if you check with the school and see who’s been absent since Tuesday you’ll have him.”
“It’s an interesting theory,” Raglan admitted. “But the fact remains, he’s asked for a hundred thousand and I’ve got to assure him he’ll get it.”
“I can have it on the streets by nine o’clock tonight,” I offered.
“That’s too late, Shaffer. I promised you an exclusive; I want you to release me from that promise. This story has got to be on the noon news over every television and radio station in the area. Help me, will you, Shaffer?”
I told him, “Give me an open line and I’ll start the ball rolling.”
Matcha looked at me oddly. “You better get back to the paper, Chuck,” I told him. “A print of that note ought to go good as a line cut, don’t you think? But don’t tell Pritch what I’m doing, okay?”
Matcha shrugged and lumbered out.
It took me an hour to contact all the local media. At the end of that time Raglan said, “Shaffer, I’ve been thinking. This guy is sure I can’t raise that much money. But if, by some miracle, I succeed, he’ll figure I can make good any promise — or any threat.”
“Maybe,” I said.
“I’ve got to take the chance. Is there any way I could get on television tonight and talk to him personally?”
“A televised news conference?” I suggested.
He frowned. “They’d edit me down to about three minutes of film. I’ll need longer than that. Larry Brenner’s on tonight, isn’t he?”
“Are you serious? He’d tear you apart!”
The big detective smiled. “Nobody tears Joe Raglan apart, Shaffer. Get me in touch with him.”
I talked to Brenner first. He was delighted with the opportunity, and agreed to postpone the show he’d taped for tonight and substitute a live half-hour with Chief Raglan. Caught up in the spirit of the thing, I even called the Daily News and let them scoop me on page one. For that, I should have been awarded a Merit Badge.
Then I called the Department of Probation and Parole. Half an hour later, Milt Rosenberg looked at my list of ex-cons and checked off half a dozen of them. “Back in custody,” he explained. “Raglan picked them up this morning for questioning. Yesterday he interrogated almost everybody else on this list, and every last one of them has complained about it to me. Except for those six, who haven’t been released yet.”
“Complained?”
Rosenberg smiled. “It’s — ah — the manner of questioning they’re objecting to.”
I nodded. “The boys on the force sometimes forget their manners.”