“It wouldn’t be the first time a member of the Fallon gang got away with this raw a kill,” Gunner said. “Not even the first time for Spoda.”
Mrs. Worth said, “The Fallon gang?”
“A bunch of labor racketeers, headed by a crooked lawyer named Mark Fallon. Spoda is Fallon’s top gun.”
He had Nick Spoda brought in then. The old people showed no more emotion at the sight of the gunman suspected of murdering their friend than they had when they viewed Mrs. Pritchard’s body. Gerard Hawk examined him with the clinical detachment of a biologist looking at a specimen under a microscope. Anna Stenger cocked her head to one side and stared at him with teacher-like disapproval. Hester Lloyd peered over her glasses at the swarthy gunman sorrowfully, as though she pitied him more, for his sins, than she censored him.
Nick Spoda sneered. “What’s this, Sergeant? An old folks’ convention?”
Ignoring him, Gunner said to Mrs. Worth, “Is this the man who came to see Mrs. Pritchard?”
“Yes,” she said.
Still looking at the gunman while speaking to the retirement home manager, Gunner said, “But you weren’t present when they talked?”
Mrs. Worth shook her head. “I left them alone in the parlor. All I can really testify to is that he did talk to her.”
Gunner turned to the three old people. “None of you saw this meeting?”
All three shook their heads. Gerard Hawk said, “We all generally nap about that time of the afternoon, but she told us about it afterward.”
“Just what did she tell you?”
Anna Stenger said, “He threatened her. He warned her not to identify him when she was brought to headquarters to look at him. Apparently he planned to turn himself in.” Her voice took on a kind of grisly enjoyment. “I guess Olivia told him off good and proper. She wasn’t one to hold her tongue.”
Gunner said, “She told all of you this same story?”
The other two old people nodded. Hawk said, “We were all together when she told it.”
Nick Spoda yawned. “Hearsay. Just think what Mark Fallon will do to that testimony.”
Hester Lloyd peered over her glasses. “What’s he mean by that?”
Nick himself answered her. “It ain’t admissible evidence. Long as you didn’t personally hear me say nothing to this Pritchard dame, it don’t count. What somebody else told you I said ain’t allowed in the court record. The most you people can prove is that I stopped off to see the old lady for a couple of minutes. So what? I heard she wanted to buy a dog, and I got one for sale.”
His arrogant tone constituted a brazen admission that he had committed the crime, and an equally brazen challenge for Sergeant Gunner to prove it. Gerard Hawk studied the swarthy man, his expression curious.
He said, “You don’t seem very scared, young follow.”
Nick Spoda laughed.
The squad room door opened and three men walked in. In the vanguard was a well-dressed man of about forty, sleek and genial and assured. He made an impressive entrance, pausing just inside the door and smiling around generally before coming the rest of the way into the room. Behind him came two men with beefy physiques and sullen faces.
“Morning, Sergeant,” the lead man said to Gunner. “Got a little piece of paper for you.”
Gunner took the proffered paper and studied it. When he looked up, he said, “You didn’t need a writ, Fallon. We had every intention of sticking your boy in front of a judge this morning.”
Mark Fallon cocked an eyebrow. “On what charge, Sergeant?”
“Suspicion of homicide. I think we have enough to get him remanded.”
“What homicide is he suspected of?”
Sergeant Gunner looked irritated. “Don’t cat-and-mouse me, Fallon. What’s on your mind?”
Fallon smiled a genial smile. “As Nick’s attorney, I’m entitled to know the charge. What homicide?”
When Gunner failed to answer, Nick said, “Some old dame named Pritchard, Mark. They claim I gunned her down on the street from a blue sedan at three o’clock yesterday afternoon. Down on South Broadway somewhere, a couple of blocks from the Riverview Old Folks Home.”
“The Riverview Senior Citizens Retirement Home,” Mrs. Worth corrected.
The lawyer’s expression became one of mock surprise. “Three PM.? It’s lucky I happened to bring these two gentlemen along.” He indicated his two silent companions. “They were with Nick across the river at the dog races from eleven a.m. until five-thirty p.m. Right, gentlemen?”
Both nodded without changing expression.
“There are other witnesses, too,” Fallon said. “The boy Nick bought his admission ticket from, a fellow who sold him a hotdog, and a cashier at one of the betting windows. Can’t see how you could establish Nick as anywhere but at the dog track at three yesterday.”
Sergeant Gunner gazed at Fallon for a long time before saying, “You own stock in that track, don’t you, Fallon?”
“Totally irrelevant, Sergeant. Shall we go see this judge you mentioned?”
Gunner said, “Murder isn’t the only change your boy faces. There’s the little matter of flinging a grenade through a plate glass window.”
“The Sloan Company bombing, you mean? You have a witness tying Nick to that?”
Sergeant Gunner continued to gaze at Fallon. Then suddenly his expression wearied. He said, “I guess we better go see the captain.”
Fifteen minutes later, Nick Spoda walked out of Police Headquarters a free man.
Sergeant Gunner didn’t have much success explaining to Mrs. Worth and her three elderly tenants why the gunman was released, partly because he wasn’t very happy about his own explanation.
“A writ of habeas corpus requires you either to release a suspect from custody or take him before a judge who has authority to set bond,” he said. “In this case we knew there was no point in taking him before a judge because the judge would have to dismiss the charge.”
“Even with our testimony?” plump little Mrs. Hester Lloyd asked.
“He has better testimony on his side,” Gunner said. “All we could prove was that Spoda called on Mrs. Pritchard two days ago. His witnesses prove he was miles away when she was gunned. Even though we know they’re lying, there’s nothing we can do without counter witnesses placing him at the scene of the crime.”
“But isn’t Spoda the man Olivia identified as throwing that bomb?” Mrs. Lloyd persisted.
“She only gave us a description that fits Spoda. She never actually identified him, because she was dead when Spoda turned himself in.”
“It’s still obvious he’s the killer. I mean, people like Olivia don’t go around getting shot by just anyone. It seems to me that, like Mr. Hawk said, any jury would understand when a gangster has a motive to kill someone, he threatens her, and then she gets killed in a gangster way, he must be the killer.”
“It has to be more than obvious,” Gunner said. “You have to prove it beyond a reasonable doubt.”
The straight-backed Anna Stenger said, “Aren’t you going to do anything at all, young man? Just let him run loose to kill again?”
Sergeant Gunner said, “There isn’t anything we can do.”
The old ex-schoolteacher sniffed. “We didn’t have that lack of justice when I was young, Sergeant. Criminals were punished.”
Gerard Hawk said, “I guess it makes a difference who you are, Anna. I imagine that when ordinary people who haven’t got gangs behind them commit murder, Sergeant Gunner takes them to court.”
Gunner’s face reddened. “What would you do if you were a cop, Mr. Hawk?”
The old man looked at him without any particular expression. “I was a cop once, Sergeant. But I guess things have changed since my day.”
The sergeant became a little angry. “Maybe you didn’t have the problems we have. You’re right when you say I run ordinary people who commit murder into court. But you think I like watching a cheap hood like Nick Spoda walk out of here clean? You think he’s the only killer who has? What’s a cop supposed to do when an organized mob like the Fallon gang is willing to perjure itself down to the last man? I know Spoda killed your friend, but I couldn’t prove it in court in a million years, so why waste my time trying?”