“So what do we do now?” Farrell asked him.
Jameson was silent for a moment, apparently interested in the glowing tip of his cigarette. “Well, we could get an identification from them without too much trouble, I think,” he said at last.
“How?” Ward said.
“If we separated them and told each boy that the other was telling the truth — they’d come clean then. Right now they’re stuck together — miserably, I’d guess — in a lie. Split them up and they’d tell us what we want to know.” He glanced from Ward to Farrell. “Well? Do you want me to try it?”
“Hell, yes,” Ward said, with a touch of impatience in his voice. “Let’s do what we have to.”
“How about you, Mr. Farrell?”
“I don’t know.”
Ward said irritably, “What don’t you know, John?”
“I don’t like it. I think it would be a mistake to trick these boys into telling the truth. They’ve got half a notion, I suspect, that Duke and Jerry are heroes right now, tougher than their fathers or the police. If we lie to them it may only confirm their feeling that we can’t handle this problem by legitimate means.” Farrell made an impatient gesture. “Damn it, the important thing is that our kids don’t trust us. And they don’t trust Lieutenant Jameson or those detectives outside either. I want the truth out of them, but I don’t want to badger them into it with sleight-of-hand gimmicks.”
Ward lit a cigarette and put out the match with an exasperated snap of his wrist. “You’ve got a point, John, but are we going to sit on our duffs and do nothing at all, for Christ’s sake?”
Farrell said, “What about it, Lieutenant? You think my objection makes sense?”
“Sure it does,” Jameson said, somewhat to Farrell’s surprise. “I don’t want to lie to the boys. This is their first experience with cops. First look inside a police station, I imagine. I wouldn’t want them to get the impression it was all done with mirrors. But I can’t hold Duke and Jerry without their identification.”
“So we do nothing then,” Ward said. “Our kids are forced to lie and steal, they get slugged right in broad daylight and we can’t do a damn thing about it. Isn’t that a rosy picture of the good life in the suburbs?”
There was a knock on the door. Jameson looked up and said, “Yes?” Sergeant Cabella stuck his head in and gave the lieutenant a quick wink. “Mr. Garrity is outside, Lieutenant.”
“Tell him I’m busy.” Jameson’s normally expressionless face had tightened with irritation. “Ask him to take a seat.”
“He don’t want a seat, Lieutenant.” Cabella’s eyes were masked but there was a definite significance in his gently lowered voice. “He’s walking around and he’s full of beans.”
“What’s on his mind?”
Cabella nodded toward Ward and Farrell. “This business. He wants in on it. As a friend and committeeman of the accused, he’s got...” Cabella almost smiled. “Certain rights.”
Jameson drummed his fingers on the desk. “All right, send him in.” When the door closed he said, “You’re going to have the privilege of meeting Mr. Timothy Garrity, chairman of the Hayrack Voters’ Club, Committeeman of the Seventh District, a man — in the sergeant’s phrase — with certain rights.”
A knock sounded and the door opened before Jameson looked up. A big man in a camel’s hair coat swept in with an air of good-humored importance. Jameson said, “Come in, Mr. Garrity,” a bit drily and Garrity laughed and said, “Sorry to presume on your good nature, Tom, but I’m in a bit of a rush today. Now I don’t think we need make a Federal case out of this matter. There’s been a misunderstanding, obviously. Can’t we settle things in the pleasant old-fashioned way which — I’m sorry to say — seems to have lost support and favor in these modern nervous times? You know when I was practicing law a million years ago, the magistrates tried to apply a little bit of sympathy and common sense to the unfortunates who stood before them at the bar of justice. There’s a little good in the worst of us, and a little bad in the best of us, and it ill behooves the rest of us to damn forever any of us.’ That old saw may be a bit before your time, Tommy my boy, but it’s still got good clean teeth in it. In a misunderstanding like this, handshakes are a thousand times more useful than handcuffs. Men make mistakes but only mules refuse to admit them. The law stands for justice, it doesn’t sit down to gossip and guess. Now, Tom, let’s have it straight: what are you holding those two lads for?”
Lieutenant Jameson said, “I’d like you to meet Mr. Ward and Mr. Farrell. I believe they’re as concerned with this matter as you are, Mr. Garrity.”
“It’s a pleasure, gentlemen.” Mr. Garrity shook hands with them firmly, making the gesture meaningful with a big warm grip. “Let me say in all honesty, I sympathize with you and I sympathize with the youngsters, and I’m outraged that this thing could have happened in our community, a bit of God’s green earth I perhaps value above its mere worth in wood and brick and stone.”
“We’re not pleased about it ourselves,” Farrell said. He had Garrity down as a preposterous windbag. Physically the man was tall and broad and stout, a great mass of pink and well-fed flesh stuffed snugly inside a gray flannel suit, a white silk shirt and a vast, tentlike camel’s hair coat. He had thick gray hair, the candid eyes of a baby, and smooth pink cheeks that were covered with a fine blue lace of ruptured veins.
“Now here’s the thing,” Garrity said, in a suddenly businesslike manner. “I know the Resnick family. I know the Leuth family. Honest, God-fearing folks, all of them. Humble, it is true, of modest means it may be stated without shame. This morning about eight o’clock — that’s right, isn’t it, Tom? — the police knocked on their doors. Their sons were waked, ordered to dress, escorted to jail.” Garrity breathed deeply, puffing out his cheeks; his voice rose slightly. “Here these lads were locked up as felons. No charges were preferred against them. They were not slated in the House Sergeant’s arrest book. They were not told what crimes they were suspected of committing. Later they were brought upstairs to this office, confronted by your sons. For what purpose remains a mystery: your youngsters had never seen Duke Resnick or Jerry Leuth before in their lives, and they were honest and frank enough to admit this. I may say, gentlemen, their conduct reflects credit on you, and credit on their dear mothers.” Garrity paused and turned to face Jameson, and in that instant he didn’t seem quite so preposterous to Farrell; his eyes were colder and his big pink face was set in the expression of a man accustomed to exercising his will with assurance. “A mistake’s been made, Tom,” he said. “Are you intending to compound it by holding those lads without slating them?”
It seemed to Farrell that Jameson was controlling his temper with an effort. “Just one minute,” the lieutenant said. “I am running this Detective Division, Mr. Garrity. I think we’d better get straight on that.”
“Well, of course you are, Tom,” Garrity said pleasantly. “But with reason, I trust, and the best interests of the community at heart. The families of these lads are upset, understandably so. It’s a mark on a lad to be picked up by the cops, even if he’s charged with nothing more seditious than throwing a wrapper of gum into the street. Now if you’d just tell the families — or authorize me to tell them for you — that this was a mistake for which everyone is sorry, well, it will put their minds at ease.”
“Well, goddammit,” Ward said suddenly. “You want us to apologize to those young hoodlums? Is that what you’re leading up to?”