The thin man regarded him expressionlessly. Then he silently pushed the screen door wide.
Though inexpensively furnished, the living room was as neat and attractive as the outside of the house. Just as Harry seated himself in a worn but comfortable armchair, a boy of about two streaked into the room at a tottering run, a sugar cookie firmly grasped in one pudgy hand.
Behind him rushed a plump, attractive woman clad in a house dress. Before she could reach the youngster, Murphy scooped him up and said, “Here! Who told you you could have cookies before breakfast?” The simple act of picking up the child instantly transformed the thin detective from an emotionless cop to an average husband and father. The habitual chilliness of his expression was replaced by a mock sternness recognizable even to the child as a cover for extreme gentleness. With a happy giggle the youngster allowed his father to salvage the cookie and hand it to his mother.”
“Donnie always grabs a cookie before meals,” Murphy explained to Harry. “It’s a game. Never eats it, but likes the sport of being chased.”
With unconcealed pride he introduced his wife as Anne.
“How do you do?” Mrs. Murphy said. “You’ll have to excuse me while I get some breakfast into this young man.”
Preoccupied with his own problem, it had not occurred to Harry until then that eight o’clock on Saturday morning was rather an early hour for a visit. Confused, he began to apologize for interrupting breakfast.
“We’re finished,” Anne Murphy said. “We let Donnie sleep till eight because we’ve never been able to get him to take an afternoon nap. You aren’t disturbing us at all.”
As soon as she disappeared with the boy, the thin detective became all policeman again. In a cold voice he asked, “Now what’s all this about crooked cops?”
Harry said, “You know about my wife disappearing. Last night, Sergeant Murphree took me on what was supposed to be an investigation, but which I think actually was a deliberate demonstration to me that my case was hopeless. I believe the design was either to convince me I was mad, or frighten me into the realization that if I continued to insist I had a wife and lived at Carlton Avenue, I would end up in an observation ward, and possibly be committed as insane.”
“You mean you think Murphree had something to do with your wife’s disappearance?”
“I’m sure he was a definite part of the cover-up.” He told of Mrs. Johansen’s inadvertent reference to Murphree as “Sergeant,” and of the bull-necked detective driving straight to Harry’s old rooming house without asking the address.
“He’s not only a crook, but a cheap chiseler,” Harry concluded. “Even while he was deliberately making a sucker out of me, he took time out to work me for a two-and-a-half-dollar meal in an expensive restaurant.”
With no expression on his face to indicate his thoughts, Sergeant Murphy turned Harry’s story over in his mind. At last he said, “All right, Joe Murphree is a crooked cop. But why come to me instead of taking your complaint to Headquarters?”
“Maybe at Headquarters I’d run into more crooked cops. I been thinking it over, and it seems funny the desk sergeant referred me to Murphree by name instead of just sending me to the detective bureau. Maybe they expected my visit and were all primed.”
“Maybe I’m crooked too,” the detective said dryly.
Harry shook his head. “Last evening I could tell you hated Joe Murphree’s guts. When I became convinced Murphree was a crooked cop, it occurred to me maybe you hated him because you’re an honest one.”
The thin detective emitted a non-committal grunt. “And what do you think I can do?”
“Maybe nothing,” Harry said. “But you’re a trained investigator and I imagine you know Wright City pretty well. I’m not even an amateur investigator and I’m practically a stranger in the city. Alone, I wouldn’t even know where to start, but with your help I might at least have a chance.”
“Look, Nolan,” Murphy said bluntly. “This isn’t even a Homicide case. At least not yet. I put in more time than I get paid for now. Why should I stick my neck out off-duty for a guy I only met yesterday?”
Harry said slowly, “No reason — except I think you’re an honest cop.”
The detective glanced at him sharply. “What’s that got to do with it? I can name you as many honest cops on the force as crooked ones.”
Harry said evenly, “Doesn’t an honest cop have certain responsibilities that aren’t listed in regulations? Sort of moral responsibilities? Me, I was raised to obey the law and respect the law, but never to be afraid of it. Probably most American kids grow up with that attitude. But when you find yourself in a jam and go to the police for help, only to discover the police are working with the criminals who caused your jam, it shakes your faith in the whole law-enforcement system. I’m not speaking as an irate taxpayer, but merely as a citizen who has always believed in the American system of government. What would happen to our society if all our law-abiding citizens lost faith in our system of law enforcement?”
“Anarchy, probably,” Murphy said laconically. “But even honest detective sergeants can’t buck City Hall. And Joe Murphree has the backing of City Hall.”
Harry was silent for a moment. “I see,” he said finally. “I suppose it is asking a lot, since I imagine an honest cop in this town has to move pretty carefully if he wants to hold his job. Naturally you have to consider your wife and kid’s security.” Rising from his chair and walking to the door, Harry turned and said without any particular emphasis, “I suppose Helen isn’t the first woman in Wright City who ever vanished. Or the last. It could happen in any family.”
Involuntarily, the detective glanced toward the door through which his wife had disappeared with his son. Then his chill face relaxed in a wry smile.
“Come on back and sit down,” he said wearily.
Chapter Three
Proof of a Wife
Sergeant Don Murphy sighed. “Before you get your hopes up, I want you to understand a few things. You know much about Wright City?”
Harry shook his head. “I’ve only been here six weeks.”
“Well, it’s a wide-open town, if you know what that means.”
“You mean gambling and such stuff? I know that much, because you can’t walk into a tavern, drug store or filling station without stumbling over a one-armed bandit. And I’ve heard the fellows at work talk about gambling houses, though I’ve never been to one. You mean it’s wide open — like Reno and Las Vegas?”
“I mean wide open like Wright City. In Reno and Las Vegas gambling is legal. Here it couldn’t operate without a powerful and crooked city administration behind it. And gambling is only one of the things that make it a wide open town. We’ve got ninety-four fleabag hotels where anything goes, and at least two dozen retail outlets for marijuana and heroin. The city is rotten with graft from the mayor on down, with the sole exception of the Homicide Squad. Lieutenant George Blair is our boss, and there hasn’t yet been enough money minted to fix him. Otherwise the whole city is crooked. The mayor himself is only a figurehead for Big John Gault, who runs the whole shebang.”
“I’ve heard of Big John,” Harry said. “But I thought he was just some kind of politician. A couple of guys at work seem to take a kind of pride in knowing him casually. I remember one fellow bragging that he had Big John’s unlisted phone number and no cop could ever nail him on a traffic violation. He said all he had to do was mention the number, and the cop would apologize for bothering him.”
“Yeah,” Murphy said bitterly. “Half the people in town know Big John casually, and every one of them is proud of it. John Gault is a professional glad-hander. He passes out that unlisted number like most politicians pass out cigars, and it actually is a password to kill traffic tickets. It makes everybody who has it feel like a little big shot because he is a personal friend of Big John’s. Just one of the many smooth techniques Gault uses to keep himself entrenched.”