“We’ve been telling you all along he didn’t rape that woman,” Ben Foley said. “Seems to me there’s enough evidence here to have Larry Cutter and his gunmen pulled in and shake confessions out of them.”
“First thing, let’s check with the state-police barracks,” the D.A. suggested. He glanced at his watch. “Ten forty-five. It’s over an hour since you reported the accident. They ought to have something on it by now.”
He went to the phone. “This is District Attorney Arnold Kettle, Sergeant. Do you have any report yet on that accident at the bridge on Twenty a few miles out of town?”
Some time passed as Kettle merely listened. Then he said, “Yes, that is odd, but I think I know the explanation. He’s here now, being questioned by me, so there’s no point in his coming out there to repeat the story. You’d only turn his statement back to me anyway, if you think some criminal action is indicated. I’ll have him get in touch with you tomorrow.”
There was another period of silence, then: “I suggest you have the lab classify the blood type for future reference. I’ll ring you again in the morning, Sergeant.”
Hanging up, he returned to his chair. “The state cops are all up in the air,” he said. “They wanted you down there for questioning right now, but I stalled them off. They say they were told there would be a body in the car.”
“Wasn’t there?” Saxon asked.
The D.A. shook his head. “Your playmates are certainly cute. There was blood splashed all over the front seat, but no body. There goes your best evidence that Larry Cutter was behind the kidnaping.”
Foley said, “Not if the body’s recovered and it’s established by blood type that Simmons died in the car.”
Saxon looked at him ruefully. “You don’t know how professional hoods operate, Ben. By now a hole’s probably been cut in Lake Erie’s ice half a mile from shore and the body wrapped in tire chains and dumped through it. By morning the hole will be frozen over again. And when Farmer Benton and Spider Wertz are picked up, they’ll have a dozen witnesses to insist that they were somewhere miles from the scene of the accident. It’ll be my word against theirs plus all their alibi witnesses’ words.”
“You mean we can’t do anything about an attempted murder?” the plump lawyer demanded.
“Oh, sure,” Saxon said. “We can have the Buffalo police arrest Larry Cutter and his two stooges, set a preliminary hearing, and have charges dismissed for lack of evidence. That about sums it up, Arn?”
“I’m afraid so,” the district attorney admitted. “However, I’m willing to try, Ted. I’m completely convinced now that you were framed.”
“Let’s just drop it,” Saxon said. “Why tilt at windmills? It may worry Cutter more if no one even comes around to question him than if we try to throw the book at him. He’s used to beating legal raps. At least we now know where to look for evidence. I’ll start digging again tomorrow.”
“You’re going to Buffalo again?” Foley asked with a frown.
“Sure. But tomorrow I’ll carry a gun. Am I still legally entitled to, Arn?”
The district attorney pursed his lips. “Technically you’re still a member of the force. You’ve been suspended, not fired. It might be an arguable point, but I doubt that any jury would convict you under the Sullivan law. I’m not going to suggest that you go up against this band of armed hoods with your bare hands.”
Grinning, Saxon rose to his feet. “I’m afraid I’d ignore the suggestion if you did. I guess we’ve accomplished all we can tonight. Let’s go home, Ben.”
Chapter 18
Sunday morning Saxon didn’t go to church. His first act after breakfast, while still in robe and pajamas, was to phone the state police barracks.
Arnold Kettle had already phoned the barracks and talked to the lieutenant in charge, he learned. As a result Saxon wouldn’t have to come down to make a formal statement. In a few days he would receive an accident report form in the mail from the state Bureau of Motor Vehicles, and would be required to fill it out and return it. If there was to be any criminal investigation in connection with the accident, he would hear from the district attorney.
Saxon asked what had been the disposition of his car and was told it had been hauled from the ravine and into Iroquois by a wrecker owned by the Fellinger Repair Garage. He would have to phone the garage to learn the towing charge. When he phoned the garage, he learned he owed twenty-five dollars. The man he talked to suggested that the wreck would bring about that amount from a junk yard, and offered to call it even.
“Better leave it there until the insurance adjuster can examine it,” Saxon said. “I’ll talk to you again after he’s seen it.”
When he hung up, he looked for and located his auto insurance policy. It was a seventy-five-dollar-deductible policy and he had paid the premium. He made a mental note to phone his insurance agent first thing Monday morning.
Then he phoned Bell’s Service Station, where he bought gas, and caught owner Dick Bell on duty. The place was not merely a gas station, but also a repair garage that handled used cars.
“This is Ted Saxon, Dick,” he said into the phone. “I wrecked my car last night.”
“Yeah, I heard about it,” Bell said. “But the way I heard it, you’re not gonna want it repaired.”
“No. I’m not calling about that. Do you have anything I can use for a few days until I find out if the insurance company is going to buy me a new one?”
“Sure, Ted. How far away you going to be traveling?”
“Well, I want something that will get me to Buffalo and back.”
“Oh. Then I’d better not send you the clunker I had in mind. I thought maybe you wanted something for just around town. I have a five-year-old Dodge here in pretty good shape. I’ll have Lenny leave it in front of your house.”
“Fine,” Saxon said. “Want me to drive him back?”
“Any kid working for me who couldn’t walk two blocks I’d fire,” Bell said. “The keys will be over the visor. It’ll be there in ten minutes.”
Hanging up, Saxon went upstairs to shower, shave, and dress. Before putting on his jacket, he snapped the holster of his thirty-eight Detective Special to his belt just over his right hip. When he took his overcoat from his closet, he noticed a torn spot on the bottom hem. Examining it, he realized that it was a bullet hole and remembered the bullet plucking at the skirt of the coat as he climbed up the ravine bank. Saxon, a one-hat man, didn’t have a replacement for the one he had lost. His father had owned several, though, and their head sizes had been the same. He selected one from the closet in what had been Andy Saxon’s room.
A black Dodge sedan was parked at the curb when he left the house. The storm had spent itself during the night and it was a clear, still day. The tireless snowplows had cleared the streets before dawn and traffic had melted what little snow the plows had left. The temperature hovered just below freezing.
Saxon took the Thruway to Buffalo, on the theory that it was more likely to have been plowed free of snow than the less-used Routes Twenty and Five. It had been. He made the twenty-five miles in twenty-five minutes, arriving about eleven o’clock.
He got off at the Bailey Avenue exit and drove straight to the apartment house where Ann Lowry and Sandra Norman lived. In the lobby he threw a casual glance at the card beneath the mail slot for apartment 6-B, then did a double take.
The card read: Mrs. Helen Fremont.
Going back outside, Saxon glanced both ways at the apartment houses on either side. He had entered the central of the three buildings on the block, all right.