Brooks’s murky eyes were wide with fright. He sent a despairing glance at Shayne as the officer took him firmly by the arm.
“Mind if I follow along, Officer?” said Shayne.
“My orders are to bring in Ned Brooks,” he replied. “Whoever comes along is none of my business, but there’ll be no more talking now.” He ushered the reporter through the outer office and out the door.
The wiry city editor was bristling with anger. “What the hell?”
“I’ll go along and see,” said Shayne.
Linkle detained him, saying, “Phone me if it’s important. Goddamn it, Shayne, I’ve already lost one reporter.”
“I’ll phone you if it’s important,” Shayne promised, and went out in a hurry.
Chapter Fourteen
Ned Brooks and his police escort were nowhere in sight when Shayne came out of the Tribune building. He got in his car, made a U-turn on West Flagler, and drove to police headquarters, where he parked in a No Parking Reserved for Police area, and entered by a side door.
The officer who had brought Brooks in blocked the entrance to Will Gentry’s private office. Shayne shouldered him aside impatiently, went in, and confronted the chief, who was standing in front of his desk with a plain-clothes man on each side of him.
Ned Brooks was standing behind a chair, gripping the back of it with both hands and vehemently pointing out his rights as a private citizen.
Gentry turned his head, rolled his rumpled eyelids up, and said, “It’s all right, Jack,” to the uniformed officer who had followed Shayne in and held a vice-like grip on his sore arm muscles.
“Okay, Chief.”
The man went back to the door, and Gentry said to Shayne, “You will witness the fact that we’re not trying to frame this man as he claims. There’s a party waiting in the next room to try to identify the person he saw having an altercation with Bert Jackson on the street near his house about ten o’clock last night. If Brooks insists on a formal line-up he can have it, but you and my two men here should be enough to stand alongside Brooks to make it a legitimate identification.”
“I’m not insisting on anything,” sulked Brooks, “except decent treatment. If the cop had told me what you wanted when he came to the office I’d have come without protest. Hell, I’ll even waive the identification. I’ve admitted I saw Bert last night. Shayne knows all about that. It wasn’t an altercation. We just argued-”
“We’ll let the witness tell it first,” Gentry broke in. “Then you can make a statement. Just for the record, Brooks.” He backed up against his desk, and the two plain-clothes men took a couple of steps forward. “Get in here between them,” he said to Brooks, “and you bring up the rear, Shayne. We’ll see if our witness can pick Brooks out.”
Chief Gentry preceded the quartet and opened a side door, waited while they filed into a small, brilliantly lighted room, closed the door, and moved stolidly forward as the men lined up beneath the lights.
The witness was thin and middle-aged and bald. Lines in his face bespoke years of work and worry. He wore a shabby Palm Beach suit, and his thin fingers clasped and unclasped nervously as the men lined up before him.
“Now, Mr. Pastern,” said Chief Gentry, standing beside him.
Mr. Pastern stiffened, jerking his round shoulders erect.
“Look carefully at these four men,” Gentry resumed in a mild, conversational tone. “Tell me if you’ve ever seen any one of them before. Take your time. There’s no hurry. But keep in mind that you are serving the end of justice.”
Mr. Pastern looked dutifully at each face in turn. He blinked a couple of times, swallowed his Adam’s apple several times in rapid succession, then got to his feet and stepped forward, pointing the forefinger of his right hand dramatically at Ned Brooks.
“That one there. I saw him last night like I told you, having a fight with Mr. Jackson. They were right under a street light, and I was on my way home-a block beyond where the Jacksons live. I had to circle around on the grass to get past them because they were blocking the sidewalk.”
One of the plain-clothes men had a pad in one hand and a pencil in the other and was scribbling rapidly when Ned Brooks protested.
“It wasn’t a fight! Bert was drunk and got sore when I tried to help him home.”
Gentry nodded to the officer with the notebook, slid close behind the witness while the other officer took a firm hold on Ned Brooks’s arm, and Shayne left the group to saunter over to the police chief.
“Sit down, Mr. Pastern,” said Gentry, “and tell us exactly what you saw. Take Brooks back to my office, Wilkins,” he ordered without turning his head. “We’ll hear his story after we get Mr. Pastern’s full statement.”
Wilkins took Ned Brooks away, closed the door, and Gentry said to Shayne, “Since you’ve already talked to Brooks about last night’s episode, you’d better sit in on this, Mike.”
“I didn’t pump him, Will,” Shayne told him. “Brooks volunteered the information.”
Gentry nodded his gray head. “I know. He mentioned it to my men when he was hauled in. Meeting Jackson, I mean, but nothing about a fight.” He settled himself in a chair beside the witness and said, “Go ahead with your story.”
“I didn’t think much about it at the time,” Mr. Pastern began nervously. “I know Mr. Jackson a little, being neighbors with him, you might say. Enough to say howdy when we meet on the street. I know he’s a drinking man-like all reporters, I reckon. So I thought it was a couple of friends having a drunken argument, like I said. I was coming up the walk when I saw this car stop under the street light and a man got out. I didn’t recognize the one walking along until I got close. It was Mr. Jackson, and he was weaving from side to side. The other man, the one that was up there with the others, grabbed his arm, and they were arguing when I came up to them.
“I didn’t pay much attention to what they were saying. They were sort of growling at each other, and like I said, I had to circle around them. You know how it is when you see a thing like that. I’m a man who minds his own business, but if I’d had any idea one of them was going to be murdered, you can bet your life I’d of walked slower and listened harder. I tell you, you could’ve knocked me down with a feather when Sally said-Sally’s my wife-‘That Mr. Jackson in the next block was murdered in cold blood last night.’ She handed me a copy of the Tribune extra, and I read all about it.
“I just couldn’t believe it at first. I said to Sally, ‘But I saw him last night and he wasn’t dead, right down the street not more’n a block from his house.’ Sally got terribly excited. We talked it over and decided that what I’d seen might be important, so I called up my boss and asked for the day off. I explained it all to him, too, and he said it was my duty and he’d see I didn’t lose a penny-”
“Think hard, Mr. Pastern,” Gentry broke in. “Try to remember some particular thing they did, something they said.”
The excited glow in the old man’s eyes dulled as he met Gentry’s determined gaze. “Why, I’ve told you. They were sort of wrestling and cussing-”
“Did you see any blows struck?” Gentry interposed patiently.
“Well, not what you’d call blows, exactly. Pushing each other around, I guess. After I went around them I kept looking back and I saw Mr. Jackson go on toward his house. This other one just stood there and watched him.”
“Then Jackson was all right when the two men parted?” Gentry did not try to hide his disappointment.
“Except being drunk.” Mr. Pastern seemed to realize that his story was falling flat. He fidgeted, looking from Shayne to Gentry, then went on awkwardly. “I wouldn’t want to say a single word but the truth. No matter what happened later, I’m bound to tell you the killing didn’t happen then. I kept looking back, like I said, and saw Mr. Jackson start to turn up his walk. Then this other fellow got in his car and drove off. But with bad blood like there was between them I guess it’s pretty plain he must’ve come back later to do it, don’t you reckon?” Again he appealed to the detective and the police chief, met their cold, impersonal gazes, and his body sagged wearily, his thin hands dangling between his knees.