“Of course we’re officers.”
“Got a warrant?”
“Now listen, buddy. Don’t go getting hard, see? And don’t start playing wise guy. Right now we’re asking questions. That’s all.”
“What do you want to know?”
“According to the D.A., you could have had an interest in Ringold.”
“How do you figure?”
“Well, buddy, it’s this way. Jed Ringold was working for the Foreclosed Farms Underwriters Company, see? And that company has a bunch of land up here near Valleydale. Now the president of the Foreclosed Farms Underwriters Company — Cripes, it tangles my tongue to say the damn thing. What did they want to get a name like that for? Well, anyway, the president is a guy named Tindle, and you’ve been out living with him and taking orders from him.”
I said, “You’re nuts. I’ve been visiting out at Ashbury’s house. Tindle is Henry Ashbury’s stepson.”
“You ain’t been workin’ for him?”
“Hell, no. I’ve been taking some fat off Ashbury. I’m giving him jujitsu lessons.”
“That’s what you say. Tindle’s got interests up here. Ringold is working for Tindle. Somebody goes into the hotel and bumps Ringold off. This guy has a description that’s a helluva lot like yours, and—”
I moved forward to stare at him. “Is that what’s eating you?” I asked.
“That’s right.”
“All right, when I get back, I’ll go call the cops and tell them how crazy they are. There were a couple of people who saw the guy that went into the hotel, weren’t there? — Seems to me, I remember reading about it in the papers.”
“That’s right, buddy.”
“All right, I’ll be back in a couple of days, and we’ll clean it up.”
“Well, now, suppose you ain’t the guy that was in the hotel?”
“I’m not.”
“You’d like to get it cleaned up, wouldn’t you?”
“Not particularly. It’s so absurd I’m not even bothering about it.”
“But suppose you are the guy? Then something might happen, and you just wouldn’t remember about going back.”
“Well, you’re not going to take me back just because I happen to know the president of this corporation, are you?”
“No, but the D.A.’s office got hold of a photo of you, Lam, and showed it to the clerk at the hotel, and the hotel clerk says, ‘That’s the guy you want.’ So now what?”
Ashbury and his daughter had taken the hint. Instead of going on into their cabin, they’d got back into the car and turned it around. Ashbury rolled down the window on the driver’s side, leaned out, and asked, “Is there anything I can do for you, my friend? Are you in any trouble?”
“Nothing,” I said, “just a private matter. Good-night, and thanks for the lift.”
“You’re entirely welcome,” Ashbury said and slid the car into gear and whisked out of the auto camp.
“Well?” the officer who had been doing the talking asked.
I said, “There’s only one answer to that. We’re going back. I’ll make the damn clerk get down on his knees and eat those words — every one of ’em. The guy’s just plain nuts.”
“Now that’s the sensible way to look at it. You know we could take you back, but we’d have a lot of notoriety which wouldn’t do anybody any good. If it’s a mistake, the less said about it the better. You know how it is, buddy. It’s kind of hard to identify people from a photograph. We drag you back and get a lot of newspaper publicity that the clerk’s positively identified you as the guy. Then he takes a look at your mug and says he ain’t so certain. Then a while later the real bird turns up. He looks something like you, but not too much, and the clerk says, ‘Sure. That’s the guy.’ But you know what some shyster lawyer would do? He’d make that clerk look like two bits on the witness stand because he’d identified somebody else first.”
“Sure,” I said. “The fool clerk makes a false identification and puts me to a lot of trouble, but it’s the shyster lawyer for the defendant that’s to blame.”
The cop looked at me for a minute. “Say, buddy, you ain’t trying to kid me, are you?”
“How do we go?” I asked.
“We drive you down the road about a hundred miles. There’s an airport there and a special officer that telephoned us to go pick you up. He’s waiting with a plane. If it’s all a mistake, he’ll bring you back, and you can take a stage from the airport right back here.”
“And I won’t be out anything except stage fare and a day’s time,” I said sarcastically.
They didn’t say anything.
I did a little thinking. “Well, I won’t travel on a plane at night for anyone. I’ll drive down with you. I’ll go to an hotel with the officer. I won’t leave until tomorrow morning. I’ve got some irons in the fire I can’t shove to one side—”
“Kinda independent, ain’t you, buddy?”
I looked him in the eyes and said, “You’re damn right. If you want me to go voluntarily, that’s the way I’ll go. If you want to advertise it in the newspapers that the clerk has made a bum identification, you can take me.”
“Okay,” the man said. “Get in. We’re taking you.”
The special investigator for the district attorney’s office who was waiting at the airport wasn’t entirely easy in his mind. My attitude made him a lot less easy, but he was good and sore at the idea that I was going to stay overnight in a hotel and wouldn’t travel by plane at night. He kept trying to argue with me. I told him simply that I was afraid to travel by air at night.
The officer couldn’t figure it out. “Now, listen, Lam, if you want to get back on the job, this is the way to do it. I’ve got this plane here, and it’s chartered. I can put you under arrest and take you back if I have to and—”
“You can if you put a charge against me.”
“I don’t want to put a charge against you.”
“All right, then, we leave in the morning.”
After a while he said to the officers who had brought me down, “Keep an eye on him. I’m going to put through a telephone call.”
He went into a booth and put through a long-distance call. It took him about twenty minutes. The highway patrol and I sat in the lobby of the hotel. They tried to sell me on the idea of going back and getting it over with.
The special investigator came back from the telephone booth and said, “All right, buddy. You asked for it. We’re going back.”
“Going to charge me?”
“I’m going to arrest you on suspicion.”
“Got a warrant?”
“No.”
“I’m going to call a lawyer.”
“That won’t do you any good.”
“The hell it won’t. I’m going to call a lawyer.”
“We haven’t time to wait for a telephone right now. The aviator is ready to take off.”
I said, “I have a right to call a lawyer,” and started for the telephone booth.
They stopped me so fast my head jerked. One of them grabbed one shoulder. The other grabbed the other shoulder. The clerk in the lobby looked at me curiously. A couple of loungers got up and moved away. The investigator from the D.A.’s office said, “Okay, boys, let’s go.”
They gave me the bum’s rush out to the automobile, cut loose with the siren, and got out to the airport in nothing flat. A cabin plane was there with the motors all warmed, and they pushed me inside. The man from the D.A.’s office said, “Since you’re asking for it the hard way, buddy, I’ll just see that you don’t get any funny ideas while the plane’s up in the air and try to start anything.” He slipped a handcuff around my wrist and handcuffed the other loop to the arm of the chair.