With both Buffalo newspapers having local correspondents in Iroquois, they could hardly have avoided hearing of the rape charge, even though no news release had been issued. Both papers must have checked with some official source, most likely with the Iroquois County district attorney’s office. And the printed stories indicated that the response had been “No comment.”
The story that a chief of police was accused of raping a female prisoner was too newsworthy an item to be passed up altogether, but without official confirmation it had to be handled carefully. In both papers it was merely reported that acting Police Chief Theodore Saxon of Iroquois was “under investigation” for an alleged mistreatment of a prisoner. Not only was the prisoner unmentioned by name; the sex wasn’t even disclosed.
Saxon wondered if he were going to make it all the was through the scandal with no more adverse publicity than that.
He found out the next day that he wasn’t.
Chapter 12
The Saturday, January 3 issue of Buffalo’s morning paper reported Saxon’s suspension on its front page. The new mayor was quoted extensively to explain the suspension. In part the item read:
Reform Mayor Adam Bennock told the correspondent for this paper that acting Chief Saxon’s suspension was the result of an accusation of rape made by a female prisoner placed in Saxon’s custody on New Year’s Eve. The woman was Buffalo’s murderess Grace Emmet, since killed in an automobile accident, who was left at the Iroquois city jail for a short time on New Year’s Eve while the police officer escorting her back to Buffalo from Erie, Pennsylvania, was receiving medical treatment for a minor complaint.
Mayor Bennock said that no criminal charges were brought against Saxon because the complainant died in the automobile accident less than two hours after the alleged attack, and the Iroquois County district attorney’s office felt her death left insufficient evidence to obtain a conviction. However, the Iroquois Common Council is conducting an independent inquiry to determine Saxon’s fitness to remain in office. Pending the result of the inquiry, Lieutenant Arthur Marks has been appointed acting chief.
Saxon felt grim amusement at Adam Bennock’s characterization of himself as a “reform” mayor. The adjective would probably give Ben Foley apoplexy.
Since by the time he arrived in Buffalo early Saturday morning the whole city knew of his suspension, he decided it would be a waste of time to try to get to any information from police headquarters. The past relationship of the Iroquois police and the Buffalo police had always been excellent, and Saxon was personally acquainted with the chief and most of the division heads. But he knew that most cops hold rapists in the same contempt they hold blackmailers, and he could hardly expect a very favorable reception at Buffalo police headquarters if he started inquiring about a woman he was supposed to have raped.
Instead his first stop was the city morgue.
He was a day too late to view the remains of Grace Emmet. A fat, rather unpleasantly affable morgue attendant told him the body had been released to a relative from New York City the evening before.
“Helter and Fork Funeral Home picked her up,” the man said. “You could still probably find her there, ’cause they have to embalm her before shipping her back to New York. Shouldn’t think you’d want to see her if you were a friend, though.”
“Why not?”
“You wouldn’t recognize her. It’ll be a closed-casket funeral. She hadda be cut out of the car with a torch. When the car went over the bank, it nosed straight down twenty feet. Folded up like an accordion. If it wasn’t for her clothes and that mink coat she was wearing, we wouldn’t even of been able to tell she was human when they brought her in. She didn’t have no face left. And she had short hair just like a man, you know.”
“It wasn’t that short,” Saxon said with a frown.
“You should see some of the men we get,” the fat attendant said, grinning lewdly. “Sure it was short. What they call a poodle cut. Bleached blonde. But we get bleached blond men too. Somebody’s always bumping off a swish. She was so banged up, they hadda identify her by fingerprints.”
“Oh? Where’d they get the fingerprint record to compare her with? She’d never been in custody here, had she?”
“Hadda send to Erie, where she was picked up. It was Grace Emmet all right. That cop with her was sure lucky he was throwed clear.”
“Yeah, I guess so,” Saxon said. “Well, thanks a lot, anyway.”
He decided not to visit the Helter and Fork Funeral Home. Primarily Saxon had gone to the morgue to make sure the body was really that of Grace Emmet. It had occurred to him that possibly her inducement to go along with the frame had been a promise to let her escape, and that Morrison had rigged the accident with some other body in the car to substitute for his prisoner. But if she had been identified through fingerprints, that killed that theory.
It had been a rather farfetched idea anyway, he decided.
From the morgue he drove to a drugstore and checked the phone book for the address of an Anthony Spijak. The man was listed as living on North Street just off Delaware — which was a section of big, expensive homes. Five minutes later he parked in front of a large brick house, followed a winding, freshly shoveled walk to its wide porch, and rang the doorbell.
A dark, good-looking woman of Saxon’s age answered the door. She looked at him in surprise. “Why, Ted Saxon!” she exclaimed. “We were just talking about you!” Then her face slowly colored with embarrassment.
“You saw the morning paper, huh?” he said dryly. “Tony home, Marie?”
“Sure. He never leaves until about eleven. Come on in.”
Pausing to kick off his overshoes and leave them on the porch, he stepped into a small entry hall off a wide front room which, he could see, was expensively furnished in modern American. Marie Spijak took his coat and hat and hung them in a guest closet, then led the way into the front room.
“Tony!” she called.
A tall, darkly handsome man with black curly hair appeared from the rear of the house. Shirt sleeves rolled to his biceps exposed muscular forearms covered with fine, curling black hair. He too was about Saxon’s age.
The man grinned broadly when he saw Saxon. Advancing with hand outstretched, he said, “How are you, Ted, old buddy? I ain’t seen you since your old man ran me out of Iroquois.”
Clasping the hand, Saxon said with an answering grin, “You have to admit you deserved it, Tony.”
“I guess trying to run a wide-open handbook in a place like Iroquois was asking for it,” Spijak admitted. “Incidentally, I was sorry to read about your dad. He was a great guy, even if he did roust me out of my home town.”
“He certainly lasted in the job a lot longer than I did.”
“We’ve just been reading about that. Sit down; Ted. Like a drink?”
Saxon shook his head. “Too early for me.”
“I have beer for breakfast. Keeps me in shape.” Seating himself in a chair opposite Saxon’s, Tony Spijak said to his wife, “How about a beer for me, hon?”
Marie disappeared in the direction of the kitchen.
Glancing around at the expensive furnishings, Saxon said, “You seem to be doing pretty well, Tony. The bookie business must pay well. I assume you’re still in it, aren’t you?”
Spijak cocked an eyebrow. “You asking as a cop or as an old buddy?”
“I’m not a cop any more. You read the paper. I wouldn’t have any jurisdiction here, anyway.”
Spijak grinned. “You sure made the front page. What the hell got into you, anyway? Were you drunk?”