They gave me another drink and I sat with them and talked about the homicide cases in Philadelphia. I didn’t tell them about the Miller kid. I won’t be able to talk about that case for quite a while.
In the morning I drove on to Jack Farner’s place, and spent two long weeks there. I put ten pounds back on and got a little tanned in the sun and cut Jack enough stove wood to last him for six months. The calluses on my palms felt good and the new strength in my shoulders felt even better.
I stopped off to see Charlie and Sid on the way back. Charlie told me that Drock had stayed in the hospital for two days and then had gone back to Philly with the body of his wife. The car had been counted out as a total loss, and sold for salvage value. The thing was open and shut. A simple, tragic accident.
And yet, somehow, it bothered me. Curiosity is an occupational disease with a cop, I suppose. I still couldn’t figure out why Drock had slowed down before hitting the tree, why the jar of going off the pavement hadn’t awakened him, why he was so insistent on the car not being touched.
Banning is the guy who taught me the cop business. Banning says to always assume the worst and work a case from that end. It was none of my business. And it was silly. If you want to kill your wife, and you drive your car head on into a tree, you’ll probably end up knocking yourself off, too.
It bothered me and I know how I’m put together. I have to follow every little thing up or I can’t sleep nights. Maybe that’s why I’m a cop.
I drove to Kell’s garage. A guy climbed out from under a car and looked at the records and told me that the Drock car had been sold to an outfit named Higgins and Rigo.
Higgins was a puffy little man with watery eyes and a soiled shirt. He gave me the busy-man routine and I flashed the badge and watched him become very affable. He left me alone with a boy named Joe Baydle who had pulled the Drock car apart.
Joe acted very nervous until he found out that I wasn’t interested in him. He leaned against the bench and said, “Anything funny about that Drock car? What do you mean?”
“I don’t know what I mean. You’ve got to help me, Joe. I don’t know what I’m looking for. They told me over at Kell’s garage that Drock had got his stuff out of the car while it was there, and that he had brought a suitcase to carry off tools and things in.”
“He must have had a hell of a lot of tools.”
“How so?”
“The crate hasn’t been sent to the bailer yet. It’s still out in the back. Come along and I’ll show you.”
It was barely recognizable as the same car I had followed on that dark foggy night. It had been stripped.
Joe yanked the front door open on the driver’s side and said, “Look here.”
I bent over and looked where he pointed. The car was a four-door and a wide special compartment had been built under the front seat with a drop door that would open right under the driver’s thighs.
I borrowed a flashlight and stretched out so I could look in there. It was empty. At first I thought there was no clue to what it had contained. Then I noticed a small fragment caught in a front corner. I pulled it out.
It looked to me like a piece of sponge. I showed it to Joe. He shrugged and I put it in my pocket.
The nurse at the hospital, a pretty little thing with a turned-up nose and wide, wise Irish eyes, said, “Yes, I took care of Mr. Drock. He was very upset about his wife.”
“Did he make any phone calls?”
“Why, yes, he did. The morning after he came in here. He called the garage where his car had been towed and told them not to touch the car or anything in it until he had seen it. He called his wife’s parents and her sister and her cousin in Elmira. He sent a few wires.”
“Was he hurt badly?”
“No, he was very lucky. He didn’t even get badly bruised. Just shock.”
“How do you tell about shock?”
“The patient perspires a great deal, losing the body fluids from the pores. That fluid has to be replaced. Plasma.”
“Did they use that on him?”
“No. Dr. Flanagan said that it wasn’t a bad case of shock and just to keep him warm and give him a lot of fluids to drink.”
“Thanks a lot, nurse. You’ve given me the information I want.”
“You’re quite welcome.”
Banning drummed his fingers on the desk top. “It’s wild geese you’re after, Tom. I can give you one explanation. You say he’s a broker. Well, for some reason he was carrying some negotiable securities and he had them hidden in that compartment.”
“Ed, all I want is your permission to work on it for a couple of days.”
“Go ahead, Tom. Go right ahead. Get the doubts out of your thick skull so you can come back to work. The couple of days, my boy, will be leave without pay.”
“So be it.”
The little green house in Upper Darby had a “For Sale” sign on it. Walker Drock had moved down to an inexpensive apartment hotel on Chestnut.
I picked him up the first night he left the office and followed him to his apartment hotel. I waited up the street and he came out in different clothes an hour later. He went to a cocktail bar on Woodland and fifteen minutes after he arrived, a good-looking blonde joined him.
They got pleasantly tight and then went up and took a room at a cheap hotel on Market near Thirty-eighth. He left her there at dawn and I let him go. She came out at quarter to eleven and walked two blocks toward town before she found a breakfast spot.
She sat at the counter and I went in and sat beside her, in spite of the empty stools on both sides of us. In the mirror I saw her give me a long, skeptical look while she ordered a big breakfast. She was the type who always have trouble with citizens trying to pick her up. A long lean girl with abundant curves in the right places, pale, go-to-hell eyes, and a wide, heavy mouth.
I didn’t say a word until she had her coffee cup to her lips. Then I said, “Known Walker Drock long?”
She sputtered and the coffee ran down her chin and she sponged it off with a paper napkin.
“Who the hell are you?” she snapped.
“Just a cop, honey. A plain, dumb cop. Known Walker Drock long?”
“For a year. What’s it to you?”
“Mrs. Drock didn’t like Walker Drock knowing you, did she?”
“She didn’t know—” She stopped suddenly. “What’s this all about?”
“All about the sad and untimely death of Mrs. Drock. Very unfortunate, wasn’t it? Or maybe fortunate. Depends on how you look at things.”
“Mister, if you want to know anything, talk to my husband. His name happens to be Walker Drock.”
“Sure and husband and wife sneak off to a cheap hotel. That sounds good.”
“You think so? It happens that Walker has a certain position to maintain and it wouldn’t look right if he married too soon after his wife’s death. So we were married secretly in Maryland, and after a decent period we’ll be married all over again.”
I could tell she wasn’t lying.
I said, “You’ll have a great future, honey. You can wait for him to get tired of you and get chummy with some other gal. Then he’ll kill you the same way he killed his first wife.”
That was a shock to her. Her eyes widened and her hands shook. She glanced nervously at the counterman standing ten feet away. She said hoarsely, “You’re mad! It was an accident. Walker was in it, too! He could have been killed.”
“Could he? Suppose you ask Walker.”
I turned away from the look in her eyes. I threw a dime on the counter for my coffee and walked out.
I used the badge on the resident manager of Drock’s apartment hotel and got myself a room across the hall from his door. I propped the door open a crack so that I could watch his door.