“It’s not doing so bad, even without my help.”
“—and we’d all be murdered in our beds. No stake out. I’m going to talk to the girl.”
“Now the case gets interesting. Am I allowed to ask what girl?”
“Kid name of Shirl. Really built. She was Big Mike’s girl friend, living with him, but she was out of the apartment when he got bumped.”
“Do you maybe need an assistant? I’m good at night work.”
“Cool off, Sol, you wouldn’t know what to do with it if you had it. She plays out of our league. Put some cold water on your wrists and get some sleep.”
Using the flashlight, Andy avoided the refuse and other pitfalls of the dark stairwell. Outside, the crowds and the heat were unchanged, timeless, filling the street by day and by night. He wished for a rain that would clear them both away, but the weather report hadn’t offered any hope. Continued no change.
Charlie opened the door at Chelsea Park with a polite “Good evening, sir.” Andy started toward the elevator, then changed his mind and walked on past it to the stairs. He wanted to have a look at the window and the cellar after dark, to see it the way it had been when the burglar came in. If he had entered the building that way. Now that he had been assigned to actually try and find the killer he had to go into all the details of the case in greater depth, to try to reconstruct the whole thing. Was it possible to get to the window from outside without being seen? If it wasn’t then it might be an inside job and he would have to go through the staff and the tenants of the building.
He stopped, silently, and took out his gun. Through the half-open door of the cellar ahead he saw the flickering beam of a flashlight. This was the room where the jimmied window was. He walked forward slowly, putting his feet down on the gritty concrete floor with care so that they made no noise. When he entered he saw that someone was against the far wall, playing flashlight along the row of windows. A dark figure outlined against the yellow blob of light. The light moved to the next window, hesitated and stopped on the heart that had been traced in the dirt there. The man leaned over and examined the window, so intent in his study that he did not hear Andy cross the floor and come up behind him.
“Just don’t move—that’s a gun in your back,” Andy said as he jabbed the man with his revolver. The flashlight dropped and broke; and Andy cursed and pulled out his own light and squeezed it to life. The beam hit full on an old man’s face, his mouth open in terror, his skin suddenly as pale as his long silvery hair. The man sagged against the wall, gasping for air, and Andy put his gun back into the holster, then held the other’s arm as he slid slowly down the wall to a sitting position on the floor.
“The shock … suddenly …” he muttered. “You shouldn’t do that … who are you?”
“I’m a police officer. What’s your name—and what were you doing down here?” Andy frisked him quickly: he wasn’t armed.
“I’m a … civil officer … my identification is here.” He struggled to produce his wallet and Andy took it from him and opened it.
“Judge Santini,” he said, flashing the light from the identification card to the man’s face. “Yes, I’ve seen you in court. But isn’t this a funny place for a judge to be?”
“Please, no impertinence, young man.” The first reaction had passed and Santini was in control again. “I consider myself knowledgeable in the laws of this sovereign state, and I cannot recall any that apply to this particular situation. I suggest that you do not exceed your authority….”
“This is a murder investigation and you may have been tampering with evidence, Judge. That’s authority enough to run you in.”
Santini blinked into the glare of the flashlight and could just make out his captor’s legs; they were in tan pants, not a blue uniform. “You are Detective Rusch?” he asked.
“Yes, I am,” Andy said, surprised. He lowered the light so that it was no longer shining in the judge’s face. “What do you know about this?”
“I shall be happy to tell you, my boy, if you will allow me off the floor and if we could find a more comfortable spot for our chat. Why don’t we visit Shirl—you must have made Miss Greene’s acquaintance? It will be a bit cooler there, and once arrived I will be happy to tell you all that I know.”
“Why don’t we do that?” Andy said, helping the old man to his feet. The judge wasn’t going to run away—and he might have some official connection with the case. How else had he known that Andy was the detective who had been assigned to the investigation? This looked more like political interest than police interest and he knew enough to tread warily here.