“Sure. What about it?”
“I was wondering what grade he’s in.”
“What do you think?” Jackson snapped. Obviously the subject was a touchy one and he forgot about being polite. “He’s six years old. Think he’s in high school?”
“Naah,” Mitch said. “I thought he was in college, maybe.”
Jackson picked up the toy gun and kind of hefted it, balancing it and fingering it as if he were plenty used to guns. “You got a real sense of humor,” he said.
“Yeah,” Mitch said. “What school’s he in?”
“Public school,” Jackson said, spitting the words out.
“Sure. Which one?”
It was the key question. Any father knew what school his kid went to. So if the kid was Jackson’s and everything was on the up-and-up, he’d rattle it off without even thinking. But if he couldn’t, then Mitch was right all the way.
Jackson turned around and called out to the kitchen. “Hey, Betty — our friend wants to know what school Junior goes to.”
She came out of the kitchen to answer. “P.S. Forty-five,” she said. “And we don’t have any beer.”
“That’s okay,” Mitch said. He looked at his watch and stood up. “Time for me to blow, anyhow.” And he left.
But outside, sitting in the car, he saw he had a problem.
He couldn’t let this ride — not when there was a chance he had a lead on a cop killer. On the other hand, if Mitch told the lieutenant that this was nothing but a theory on Mitch’s part, the lieutenant would either laugh it off or else tell Mitch to stay with it until he got something — which meant goodbye tomorrow.
So Mitch was hooked, and he knew it. His only hope was that Jub would dig up something at the junk yard that would blow the case wide open today... or else that Jackson would scare and lead the way straight to Rogan.
Mitch started the car, drove to the corner, and parked on the side street where he had a full view of the Jackson house.
Mitch waited about ten minutes, and then he saw Jackson come out and get in the new car, nose it out the driveway, and head up the street, past Mitch. Mitch followed, staying maybe fifty feet behind and letting himself be seen. After a couple of blocks Jackson pulled up at the curb and got out of his car. Mitch stopped directly behind and waited for Jackson to step alongside.
“What’s the big idea?” Jackson said. Being polite hadn’t worked; it hadn’t fooled Mitch, so Jackson was going to be nasty again. “You tailin’ me?” he demanded.
Mitch shrugged. “Maybe.”
“What for?”
“You guess.”
“Look, copper — I got a right to go where I want to.”
“Sure,” Mitch said. “Anybody stopping you?”
“Just lay off. Turn around and beat it.”
Mitch tapped his hand on the steering wheel, and Jackson had sense enough to see there was nothing he could do.
“Okay,” the big guy mumbled. “Meet me in my office, we can talk there. I’ll be waiting inside.” And Jackson wheeled, marched back to his car, and took off. Mitch stayed behind, still at a fifty-foot distance.
It didn’t take much brain power to dope things out. Rogan was hiding in the office, and when Mitch stepped inside, they’d gun him down and take their chances. Because the way things stood, what did they have to lose?
Jackson kept going, nice and easy, and Mitch kept tagging along behind. He’d find Jub at the yard and pick him up. And what to do then was a tricky business. They couldn’t take the chance of going into that shack, they had no grounds for an arrest, and at the same time they couldn’t just kiss the thing off and go home.
If it wasn’t for that vacation of Mitch’s he’d have hung around and kept an eye on Jackson while Lieutenant Decker ordered an investigation. At the school, from neighbors. Check Mrs. Jackson, check the files. And after a while they’d know. Except that Mitch was planning to go up to the lake tomorrow, and how could you tell how long an investigation like that would take?
So he rolled along and tried to cook up an angle. And all he drew was a blank.
The road was deserted out here, a long stretch with the marsh on one side and the junk yard and its wrecked cars strung along the other. Jub’s police car — its insignia plainly marked — was parked on the macadam, and a couple of hundred feet away Jub was hard at work. He had a crowbar and was forcing open the trunk of a car — a Chevy.
What happened next took Mitch by surprise.
He was expecting Jackson to turn into the dirt road that led to the office-shack, but the guy went right on past, still going slow. Maybe he expected Mitch to stop and talk to Jub, but Mitch didn’t Mitch gave a blast on his horn, blinked his lights, then touched the siren button to attract Jub’s attention. When Jub turned around, Mitch waved for him to come over.
Jackson reacted to that siren as if he were wired for sound. His car seemed to jerk and leap forward, and he had a hundred-yard lead by the time Mitch realized it.
Mitch gave his car the gun, locked the siren button in the On position, and picked up his radio phone. He spoke crisply.
“Signal Nine-Nine,” he said. “Gray Mercury going west on Lincoln.” Then he slapped the phone back in its cradle and concentrated on driving. Signal Nine-Nine would bring out every radio car and every State Trooper on patrol, and Lincoln Avenue would be blocked off. But how soon?
Mitch, with the wail of the siren and the roar of air and the scream of tires in his ears, drove like a speed demon. Four miles to the turnpike. Jackson would cover it in three minutes maybe. Three minutes wasn’t long enough to mobilize and set up a road block, and Mitch had to hang on until help arrived.
Jackson, with that head-start he’d got by speeding up first, was now a couple of hundred yards ahead, and gaining. He swung out to the left abruptly, whizzed past a green car, then careened back to the right. Mitch saw a truck coming toward him, filling the opposite lane.
Mitch realized immediately that he was in a helpless position. Braking easy wouldn’t do any good, and braking hard would probably throw him into a skid — and he’d lose Jackson, besides. So the green car ahead of him or the truck coming toward him had to save his hide — but what the hell was the matter with them? They could see him, they could hear his siren. Didn’t they know they were supposed to pull over and give a cop room?
He gritted his teeth, thought of Amy, of Jackson, of the lake, of everything, of nothing. A green car and a truck, a couple of damn fools who’d lost their heads or didn’t know the rules. Mitch tensed; maybe he prayed and maybe he didn’t. He had no idea. And then the green car ahead of him started doing tricks, in slow motion.
The tail lights went red, the turning signal blinked, but for a left turn. The guy at the wheel was rattled and doing everything wrong. The left blinker went off and the right blinker came on. Mitch was practically on top of the car when the driver finally edged over to the right and slipped onto the shoulder of the road.
Mitch whizzed by, but he never knew how he made it. He felt the sweat pouring down into his eyes and he wanted to wipe it off. But his hands wouldn’t move, they were locked tight on the wheel. Up ahead Jackson was still gaining.
Mitch came out of it slow, and in a funny way he was able to relax a little, to think, to move his fingers again. He brushed off the sweat, decided the hell with this, he’d slow down, save his own life, and let the other boys close in on Jackson. The guy was trapped, wasn’t he?
Then Mitch saw the turnpike overpass ahead, saw Jackson’s brake lights flash on. Jackson’s car seemed to sway, flutter, almost go off the road as it careened into the approach to the turnpike.
Mitch applied his brakes gradually. He didn’t want to go shooting into turnpike traffic at eighty — or at sixty or forty, either. And once Jackson was out there, the State Troopers could worry. Mitch didn’t even have jurisdiction.