“Just wondered.”
Healy I knew of. He was chief investigator for the Essex County DA’s office. There were at least two first-run racketeers I knew who stayed out of Essex County because they didn’t want any truck with him.
Healy said, “Didn’t you work for the Suffolk County DA once?” I said, “Yes.”
“Didn’t they fire you for hot-dogging?”
“I like to call it inner-directed behavior,” I said.
“I’ll bet you do,” Healy said.
He was a medium tall man, maybe five ten, slim, with very square shoulders. His gray hair was cut in a close crew cut, the sideburns trimmed at the top of the ears. The skin on his face looked tight, finely veined on the cheekbones, and his close-shaved cheeks had the faint bluish tinge of heavy beard. He had on a tan seersucker suit and a white shirt and a brown and yellow striped tie. A short-crowned, snap-brimmed straw hat with a flowery hatband lay on the table before him. His hands were folded perfectly still in his lap as he sat with his chair tilted back slightly. He wore a plain gold wedding ring on his left hand.
“What’s hot-dogging?” Marge Bartlett said.
“He’s not too good about regulations,” Healy answered.
Margery Bartlett said, “Can you get my child back, Mr. Spenser?” She was leaning forward, biting down on her lower lip with her upper teeth. Her eyes were wide and fixed on me. Her right hand was open on her breast, approximately above her heart. There were tears on her cheeks. Donna Reed in Ransom, MGM, 1956. “I don’t care about the money; I just want my baby back.”
Trask leaned over and patted her hand.
“Don’t worry, Marge we’ll get him back for you. You got my word on it.” John Wayne, The Searchers, Warner Bros. 1956.
I looked at Healy. He was carefully examining the backs of his hands, his lips pursed, whistling silently to himself.
The Smithfield cop named Paul was looking closely at the copper switchplate on the wall by the back door.
“What have you got?” I asked Healy.
He handed me a sheet of paper inside a transparent plastic folder. It was a ransom note in the form of a comic strip.
The figures were hand-drawn with a red ballpoint pen and showed some skill, like competent graffiti, say. They featured a voluptuous woman in a miniskirt seated on a barstool, leaning on the bar, speaking in voice balloons.
“We have your son,” she said in the first panel, “and if you don’t give us $50,000. you’ll never see him again.” In the second panel she was taking a drink and saying nothing. In the third panel she said, “Follow the instructions on the next page exactly or it’s all over.” In the next panel she was lighting a cigarette. In the fifth panel she was full face to the reader and saying, “Be careful.” In the sixth and last panel she had turned back to the bar and only her back was visible. I handed it back to Healy. He gave me the second page, similarly enclosed in clear plastic. It was typewritten, single-spaced, by someone who was inexpert at typing.
“Why the hell did they draw the picture?” Roger Bartlett said. “Why did they have to draw pictures? That don’t make any sense.”
“Take it easy, Rog,” Earl Maguire said.
I started to read the typewritten sheet.
“Way to conceal their identity,” said Trask. “That’s why they’re drawing pictures. Right, Healy?”
“Too early to say,” Healy said.
It was hot and moist in the kitchen. Outside, the rain had started again. I read the instructions.
there is a riding stable on route 1. In front of it is a driveway. Have Margery Bartlett stand on the curb at the right hand corner of the driveway at High Noon, Sept. 10. Have the money in a green book bag. Have her hold it out in front of her. Have her do that till someone comes along and takes it. If anyone is around or any cops at all or anything goes wrong and you try some funny stuff. Then your kid gets the ax and we mean it. we will cut off his head and send it to you so Don’t screw up. AFter we get the money we will tell you where to go and get your kid. So. do what we say and stand by for further instructions.
I gave the paper back to Healy and raised my eyebrows.
“Yeah,” Healy said. “I know.”
“Know what? What do you mean by that?” Marge Bartlett said.
“It’s an odd note and an odd set of instructions,” I said.
“Can you get the fifty?”
Bartlett nodded. “Murray Raymond, down the bank, will gimme the dough. I can put the business up as collateral. I already talked to him, and he’s getting me the money from Boston.”
“What’s funny about the instructions?” Marge Bartlett said. “Why do I have to be there?”
Healy answered her. “I don’t know why you have to be there except what they said, maybe to keep some kid from finding the bag and taking it home. The instructions are complicated in the wrong ways. For instance, they obviously want the bag to be where they can grab it on the move, but why there? And why no instructions about the kinds of money and the denominations of the bills? Why give us two days lead time like that to set up a stake?”
“But they needed to give Rog time to get the money,” Trask said.
“Yeah, but they didn’t need to tell us where they were going to pick it up,” I said.
“Right,” Healy said. “A call five minutes beforehand would have done that, and left us nothing to do but sit around and wonder.”
“And why the mail?” I said.
“What’s wrong with the mail?” Roger Bartlett said.
“That’s one reason they had to give you lead time,” Healy said. “They can’t be sure when you’ll get the letter, so they have to give themselves away several days ahead.”
“What do you mean a stake?” Marge Bartlett asked.
“That’s the stakeout,” Trask answered. “We conceal ourselves in the adjacent area so’s to be in a position to apprehend the kidnappers when they come for the ransom.”
“Apprehend,” Healy said, and whistled admiringly.
I said, “Adjacent isn’t bad either, Lieutenant.”
“What’s wrong with you guys?” Trask said.
“You talk terrific,” I said, “but I’m not sure you want to apprehend the culprits in the adjacent area. Maybe you might want to place them under close surveillance until they lead you to the victim. You know?”
“I don’t want anything like that,” Margery Bartlett said.
And she shook her head. “I want nothing like that at all.
They might get mad if they saw you. And they said—about his head—I couldn’t stand that.”
“I don’t want that either,” Roger Bartlett said. “I mean, it’s only money, you know. I want to do what they say, and when it’s over then you can catch them. I mean, it’s only money, you know?”
Trask put his hand on Margery Bartlett’s again. “We’ll do just as you ask, Marge, just as you ask.”
Healy shook his head. “A mistake,” he said. “Your odds are better on getting the kid back if you let us in on it.”
Margery Bartlett looked at me. “What does he mean?”
I took a deep breath. “He means that your best chance to get Kevin back okay is to have us find him. He means they might take the ransom and kill him anyway, or they might not. There’s no way to tell. The statistics are slightly in favor of the cops. More kidnap victims survive the kidnapping when rescued by the police than when turned loose by the kidnappers. Not many more; I’d say it’s about fifty-five percent to forty-five percent.”
Healy said, “Maybe a little closer. But what else have you got?”
Roger Bartlett said, “I don’t want him hurt.”
Margery Bartlett put her face down in her hands and began to wall.
Her husband put one arm around her shoulder. She shrugged it away and cried louder “Marge,” he said.
“Jesus, Marge, we gotta do something. Spenser, what should we do?” Tears formed in his eyes and began to slide down his face.
I said, “We’ll stake it out.”