Knowing old Doolan the way I did, it was hard to accept, yet on the surface that sounded reasonable enough. When a guy hits eighty, a dirty death is something he sure wouldn't want. Still... Doolan? Damn.
"How'd he do it, Pat?"
"With his own .38 revolver. He shot himself in the heart."
I looked up at him quizzically. "Old cops usually swallow the muzzle, pal."
"There are exceptions. He was one."
"You checked his hands."
"Sure. Doc did a paraffin test on him right there. He fired the gun, all right. Powder and flash burns right on his shirt. No unusual angle to the bullet entry. It would be easy enough to do. We even have a time for the shot. A little old lady heard it. She didn't know what it was at first, but got pretty damn suspicious. Her window opened right onto the air shaft from Doolan's, and she knew he was an old-timer cop."
"She the one who called in?"
"Uh-huh. And she placed the time right on the nose. The M.E. had an easy case on this one."
"How long had Doolan been dead before a car got there?"
"Maybe fifteen minutes." Pat knew what I was going to ask next and beat me to it: "The door was locked. First cops on the scene kicked it open."
"What about the street? Anybody see or hear anything?"
"Nothing. At ten-thirty at night, it's pretty quiet around there. Not like it's crawling with potential witnesses."
"There's a news vendor on the corner."
"I know. And he'd closed down a half hour before."
I shut my eyes and let it run through my mind. Finally I said, "Any doubts, Pat?"
He shook his head. "I wish there were."
"It just doesn't sound like old Doolan," I insisted.
"Mike ... it is old Doolan we're talking about. Not the fireball we knew back in the early days. Not the guy that mentored us both, right after the war. When you get up there in years, hell, you change. He changed. You know that."
How could I argue about that? Hadn't I got older, and changed?
But I did argue: "No," I said flatly, "I don't know that. I admit the logic is there, Pat. But it still doesn't sit right."
"Hell, man. Cut me a goddamn break. I put everybody on it—we blitzed every angle we could before the day was out. Any real enemies Doolan had died a hell of a long time ago. He wasn't involved with any police matters, his circle of friends was small and of long duration. He was well-liked in the neighborhood, occasionally took part in civic affairs..."
"Like how?"
"Attended meetings when it concerned neighborhood problems or renovation. Things like that."
"Social life?"
"He would go to departmental retirement parties sometimes—I figure for him that was a big night out."
"What about his granddaughter?"
His wife and daughter were deceased; the one granddaughter was the only relative I knew of.
Pat said, "She still lives upstate with that slob she married. They got in town a couple hours ahead of you."
"Nothing there either?"
"Zilch. The grandson-in-law hasn't missed a day at work all year. Staying sober is probably killing him. If he gets drunk and beats up on Anna one more time, he goes up for a year. The judge really laid on him last time."
"She ought to dump that bum," I said.
"Right now she thinks she loves him. You know, old Doolan beat that kid's ass couple years back—Doolan in his seventies, the guy in his late twenties or early thirties. Funny as hell."
"So there's a suspect already."
He winced at that, and his eyes seemed tired now. "I told you, Mike, I've covered all the angles, including that one. There's not a reason in the world to label it anything except suicide."
I nodded, knowing that Pat was certain of his facts, but still reluctant to admit Doolan would renege on his ethical standards and take his own life. Hell, drugs could wipe any pain out right until he died, and Doolan had kissed death often enough not to be afraid of her.
"Take me through it, Pat," I said.
"Mike, imagine how many times I've—"
"One more time."
He sighed. "We got the call, the squad car responded, the officer broke the door down, went back to Doolan's study, flipped on the light, and saw the body—"
"Hold it. The place was dark?"
"Sure. But that's not unusual. You remember how Doolan was. Whenever he had a problem, he'd sit there in the dark listening to that classical music. And he had a problem, all right. That's what he was doing—thinking out a problem ... a problem he finally solved with a single shot. And before you ask, the music tape was still going when the officer entered. At that point it was about three quarters completed."
"How long was the tape?"
"Ninety minutes." He let me drift over the picture, then added, "Convinced?"
I shrugged. "I keep forgetting the first lesson Doolan ever taught us."
"What's that?"
"Don't get emotionally involved with your cases."
Pat snorted. "Yeah, well, that's a lesson you didn't learn so good, did you?"
I grinned at him, but there was nothing funny in it. "Must've dozed off in class that day, Pat."
His eyes locked with mine. "You're satisfied with what I told you?"
"Absolutely, buddy," I said. "There's no disputing the facts at all. Everything points to a suicide. But are you satisfied, Pat?"
"Yes," he said. His eyes were hard, his chin jutted. "I'm satisfied." Then the eyes hooded and the chin lowered, and he let out a deep breath and shook his head. "But you're not, are you, Mike? Not really?"
"Buddy," I told him, "I'm not doubting you at all. It's just that I feel highly pissed off at Doolan for pulling a stunt like that."
If he pulled a stunt like that.
"He wasn't Doolan," Pat said resignedly. "He was an old man, Mike."
I was older. I was jaded. I had changed. I was tired. I was retired. But I was still Mike Hammer.
"Bother you if I look into it myself?" I asked Pat.
"Nope." He let out a sigh that must have started yesterday. "I knew you were going to. No matter what I said. Just tell me why."
"So I can be convinced—like you."
"Fine," he said. "Be my guest." He slapped the tabletop. "Now ...let's go give the old boy a proper send-off."
And that was the real question, wasn't it?
Had somebody already given Doolan a send-off?
Chapter 2
TOMORROW THERE WOULD be an inspector's send-off for Doolan.
The city would escort the cortege to the county line and the motorcycle squads would pick it up from there. At the gravesite there would be rifles fired over Doolan's casket, bugles blowing, and somebody would present a flag to his granddaughter. Then it would be over and everybody would go home glad that it was over so they could get back to normal again, the bureaucrats and the foot soldiers and distant relatives and kids of deceased parents who'd been the old boy's friends having served out their obligation to a dinosaur of a cop who had taken way too long to get around to dying.
But tonight was different.
Tonight would be the gathering of the clan, and like all reunions, the pack would assemble in little groups according to age, rank, and serial number—the old-timers, long-retired, with their own little clique near the casket, those working buddies of Doolan's getting ready for their own inspector's parades. Gold badges gleaming on freshly pressed uniforms as the brass arrange themselves in ladderlike order of importance, wearing their funeral masks beautifully, but singing no praises to the corpse. In their own way, they'd be working.