“I told you, Marshall. / am covering Mr. Redfield’s cases.”
“I thought women were confined to juveniles and females.”
“As you know, Marshal,” she said firmly, “we’re always short-handed. I’ve come down from the capital to fill in. Ray Fischer is my case. Just what is it you wanted to know? I can tell you he has a family and a job awaiting him. He has been rehabilitated.”
“I’ve heard that before,” Manning snapped, picturing her as a cold fish. A tailor-suited, prim-rodded spinster who did no good for the enforcement guys who had to take the hell of running them down again.
“You sound prejudiced, Marshal,” she began.
“That’s right,” said Manning. “Me and a lot of people in the cemetery. Stay in your office. I’m coming over.” Hanging up, he turned to Sims. “Does the name Worden ring a bell with you?”
“I’ll find out,” Sims growled. “Let me see her while you give the little monsters of Grammar School Six some words of wisdom. I won’t have to watch my language talking to her.”
“I’ll handle both,” said Manning. “You stay on deck for calls. Get an alert okayed by the Old Man for a mimeo to all station commanders. I want it to include a complete description of Fischer. Tell them to pass the word around their districts to all building superintendents and managers. Get to it. Full moon’s coming in three days.”
Too mad to take the stairs, he slid the brass to the garage adjoining the headquarters apparatus floor. In his coupe he wished it were the sort of emergency where he could use red light and siren. This was one of those times when he wondered if the state had been wise in abolishing capital punishment. He had to admit it hadn’t been much of a deterrent, but neither were stiff sentences when the Parole Board went soft.
As he expected when he entered Julia Worden’s office, she sat very erect, was tailor-suited, but she was about thirty years younger than he’d imagined. Her dark eyes, matching wavy hair, looked a little tired, but friendly despite a faint flush on the set cheeks. A prim-rodder with interesting curves — not a cover girl, but good enough for somewhere inside the book. Plenty good. His angry words vanished, but he cut off her greeting.
“How long are you going to be handling the Fischer case?”
Julia Worden seemed amused by his dismay. “Please be seated, Marshal Manning. I don’t like people looking down at me.”
He sat. “Suppose I brief you in on why I’m so brusque.”
“Let me talk,” she interrupted. “It may save time and temper if I tell you what I have already learned.” Her slim hand touched a folder. “You first caught Ray Fischer for a residential garage fire when he was seven years old. All children, Marshal, go through the playing-with-matches stage.”
“I know.” Manning tried to be patient. “I hauled him and his parents before a juvenile judge who told them off too. It was a first offense — the first known one — and no charges were made since they paid the damages. But you’re supposed to be telling me, so go on.”
She did, coolly mentioning unproved neighborhood grass fires, but detailing the high school janitor’s closet which could have been spontaneous combustion. Anyway, it happened outside of school hours and Ray Fischer was in the building, claiming he had come back for some sports gear. Again no prosecution, but a judge ordered psychiatric analysis and then placed him on probation for six months.
Next came a gap in the record which Manning had never been able to fill officially — a series of apartment, hotel, and department store fires, all obviously arson jobs. At the times, he had interrogated all known suspects, particularly Fischer who, of course, claimed innocence. Finally Manning had got a conviction, less than two years ago, for the first of the two tenement fires. Now Fischer was out again despite numerous previous questionings about arson jobs in neighboring cities, though no convictions.
Julia Worden met Manning’s eye. “Did I overlook anything?”
“That’s what I’m hoping you won’t do,” he said. “I know your office is overworked, but this guy’s got to be watched.”
“If I don’t do it, you’ll hound him. Is that it, Marshal?”
Manning started to stand up, but recalled she didn’t like that. “I’ll give any guy a break if he deserves it. And I’d like to see one handed to my department and police friends sometime. We’re going round and round in a squirrel cage, grabbing pyros, perverts, known felons, and then having the Parole Board turn them loose. Fischer is only one of too many.”
“On the face of the record perhaps,” Julia Worden began.
Manning stood over her. “On the charred faces of victims. It’s bad enough that Fischer is a compulsive pyro — the psychiatric report confirms that — but he’s shifted his touch-offs to crowded areas for added thrill. He’s a menace.”
“He’s a human being, Marshal, and I don’t think he’s been given a chance to be one.”
Staring down at her, Manning ignored a revision of his original estimate. Give her some rest to remove that weariness about the eyes and she was a cover girl.
“He’s a menace to other human beings who are trying to live normal, adjusted lives. I don’t know what your background is, Miss Worden, but if you take my advice you’ll have this case transferred to a man.” He could see by her smile she regarded that as a victory. He couldn’t cope with her. A man would be an easier pushover. Manning thumped his fist on the desk. “Believe me, I know what I’m talking about. Fischer is dangerous, untrustworthy. You can’t handle him with a lot of do-good theories.”
She studied him. “You know, Marshal, I think you’re right.” She smiled. “Maybe you have got it in you to give a person a break.”
Manning hefted that in his mind, but couldn’t decide whether it was genuine or bail. “Let me know who’s taking the case until Redfield gets back.”
“I already told you, Marshal. I’m taking it.”
Manning went down to his car, swearing. At Grammar School Six, fine-combing his words, he felt he wasn’t reaching the gay little faces that looked like a huge bed of flowers in the auditorium. But when he finished, the kids cheered him, and…
“Pretty rugged, Marshal,” remarked the baldheaded principal. “You scared me, but I guess we all need it.”
“Oh, Marshal,” gushed a Mrs. Ackerman, willowy P.T.A. president, “you were so forceful and dynamic. I'm going to speak to our program chairman. The women’s auxiliary must hear you.”
Escaping, Manning headed determinedly for headquarters, but detoured to answer a battalion chief’s request for an investigator at a loft fire. Thinking of Fischer, the Parole Board, and Julia Worden, he barely checked himself from acting like Sims. He cited the loft tenant for misdemeanor, not criminal negligence. When he got to the office, Sims took his bum leg off the desk.
“Don’t tell me, Ed. I can see it. And I also found out why you didn’t get cooperation from the Worden dame. Her old man’s an ex-judge who once sentenced a guy to be hanged, then found out he was wrong, too late. He led the fight against capital punishment. Now he’s on the Parole Board.”
“So that’s where I heard the name before,” Manning muttered. “I guess, in his spot, I would have joined the abolitionists too.”
“For doing what you thought was your job?” Sims demanded. “But wait, you haven’t heard anything yet. At the time of the execution, Julia Worden was just plain housewife. Too bad she still isn’t.”
“What about her?” Manning asked irritably. He hadn’t noticed a ring on her finger.
“Her husband,” said Sims, “was a highway patrolman, the arresting officer in the case. Six months after the mistaken necktie party his car went off the road one night. It’s still a question of whether it was accident or suicide.”