Rockabye County 5 Read online

  While running towards the car, Alice saw curious glances directed at her by the growing knot of Grantley’s neighbors on the sidewalk and suddenly realized she still held the Cobra in her right hand. Holstering the weapon, she replaced it with her I.D. wallet.

  ‘Fayde, Deputy Sheriff!’ she snapped, showing the wallet to the officer riding shotgun ii in the car and then pointed along to Vine Street. ‘Gray Rambler, four door hard-top, local plates 26-6549. Get an A.P.B. out on it. It went to the right. Three men inside. Watch them, they’re armed with sawed-off shotguns.’

  ‘Snotty-nosed dame!’ sniffed the shotgun as his partner gunned the motor and sent the R.P. forward once more. ‘Who the hell does she think she is?’

  ‘She thinks she’s Woman Deputy Fayde out of the Sheriff’s Office is who,’ the driver replied dryly. ‘And that’s good enough for me. I don’t argue with fuzz, even female fuzz, when they sound like that one. Hit the radio and make with that report. Shotguns. Cheez! And me due to start my vacation on Monday.’

  ‘What happened, miss?’ a tall, distinguished elderly man asked Alice, but the deputy found herself swamped under by other queries before she could reply:

  ‘Is Vera all right?’

  ‘Who was it?’

  ‘Why’d they try to shoot you?’

  ‘Quiet it down, please!’ Alice called. ‘Vera wasn’t touched. Now could you stand back, please, and don’t block the street.’

  ‘That’s right,’ agreed a chubby man, full of wisdom gained watching police shows on the television. ‘Back off, folks. We don’t want to trample on any evidence.’

  The argument went home, although Alice knew there could be no evidence on the sidewalk when the would-be killers’ car had never stopped and had passed on the other side of the street. She did not point that out as the crowd drew back as she wanted.

  ‘Anything, Brad?’ she asked as her partner came up.

  ‘I got one, maybe both passengers, marked up the car somewhat, but it’d gone off of Vine before I reached the corner. How’s everything here?’

  ‘They missed. Start asking the questions.’

  A second R.P. arrived and Brad identified himself to the crew before setting them to work helping control the crowd. Then he asked if anybody had seen the car before. A thin-faced woman with the look and air of the neighborhood spinster busybody stepped forward with word that it had cruised by twice earlier that morning, speeding up once it had passed the Grantley house. Nobody else could verify the woman’s story, but Brad felt he could trust her not to make up information for sensational reasons or the desire to be at the center of attention.

  Leaving the patrolmen from the car to handle the crowd, Brad walked along the path and entered the open door of the house. Alice had already arrived, bringing two of Vera’s neighbors and friends to take care of the blonde. Drawing on his shirt, Grantley glared in Brad’s direction.

  ‘You know what caused this?’ the redhead growled.

  ‘I know what you’ve decided caused it,’ Alice replied calmly.

  ‘Let’s go pick up that bartender from Pete’s Bar. He knew me and set up Vera like a pigeon.’

  ‘Not you, Ian,’ Alice stated, blocking the big deputy’s path.

  ‘Don’t bug me, Al—!’ Grantley began.

  ‘Leave it to Brad and me,’ she insisted.

  ‘Damn it, I’ve been a deputy long—’

  ‘Don’t you try to pull rank on me, Ian Grantley!’ Alice snapped. ‘You’re a trained peace officer. So stop acting like a street-punk looking for a rumble.’

  The words halted Grantley in his tracks. Slowly he raised a big hand to feel at his half-shaved cheeks, then a wry grin came to his face.

  ‘All right, Alice,’ he said. ‘Go pick him up.’

  ‘Brad, hit the phone, call Jake Melnick and warn him,’ Alice ordered.

  ‘His number’s on the pad by it,’ Grantley went on. ‘I should’ve thought of doing that.’

  ‘Sure,’ smiled Alice. ‘Now let’s do this properly, for God’s sake. Who has a grudge against you, Ian?’

  ‘Yeah. I know the routine. I’ll start making a list and as soon as she calms down, I’ll have Vera do the same.’

  ‘I hate to sound immodest,’ Alice said, ‘but I’ve made a few enemies in my time too.’

  ‘They were after Mrs. Grantley,’ Brad put in, covering the mouthpiece of the telephone with his palm and repeating the thin-faced woman’s information.

  ‘It was Vera then,’ Alice breathed. ‘As long as she’s telling the truth.’

  ‘Peeking Minnie might be nosey, but she doesn’t lie or fake,’ Grantley growled. ‘That means—’

  ‘You’re breaking out again,’ Alice warned. ‘You handle this end. Did you get the bartender’s home address?’

  ‘No, there didn’t seem to be any need. Thought of having a stake-out put on the bar, but decided against it, too. The local house had enough work on without us taking one of their units and most likely wasting its time.’

  ‘We’ll find him,’ Alice promised.

  In his heart, Grantley knew Alice was acting for the best. Not only should he stay by his wife at such a time, but he did not have the right to go after the bartender feeling as he did. Cold logic, of the type drilled into trainees at the Police Academy, warned him that he might be jumping to a conclusion and likely to do an injustice to an innocent man. Being unsure that he could make unprejudiced decisions, he must allow other officers to handle the affair.

  ‘Let me have the phone, Brad,’ Grantley ordered.

  ‘Ian,’ Alice interposed. ‘Vera mentioned some young high-power who threatened her just after your wedding—’

  ‘Sure. Vera’d put his sister away on a 725B. iii It was her third fall and she went down for a ten stretch. The punk’s in The Walls for seven himself.’

  ‘Which should let him out,’ drawled Brad, for a man in ‘The Walls’, the main State Prison at Huntsville, could not be driving a car through Gusher City at the same time. ‘Let’s go see that bar-dog, Alice.’

  Something in her partner’s voice drew Alice’s eyes to his face. She shot out her hand to catch his arm and, strong as he was, he knew better than try to free it from her grasp.

  ‘Listen to me, Brad!’ she said quietly. ‘You’re a peace officer. A Rockabye County deputy sheriff. That means you don’t put muscle on a suspect just because you think he’s done something. Got it?’

  ‘Got it,’ Brad agreed.

  When they had first teamed up to investigate the killing of Tom Cord, Brad had told Alice that she, having more experience and longer service, was the boss of the team. Since that day he had seen nothing to make him regret the decision. One thing he learned real early was that any advice Alice gave out could be relied upon as accurate and to the point.

  ‘Let’s go then,’ Alice said and led the way to the front door.

  Five

  Arriving just after the owner of Pete’s Bar, Alice and Brad found Cohen to be in a state of near-incoherent fury at discovering his bartender had cleaned out the till before closing up the previous night. Not that Cohen trusted his employee. He kept a very careful check on all the stock and owned a cash register guaranteed by its makers to resist any attempts at defrauding it.

  Alice used her tact to soothe down the irate tax-payer as he demanded to be told why the bartender was allowed to rob him blind under the eyes of half the County Sheriff’s Office staff. After learning the bartender’s name and address, she extracted a promise from Cohen that he would leave everything untouched until the arrival of technicians from the Latent Prints Squad of the Scientific Investigation Bureau. In return, she promised to leave no stone unturned while searching for the absconding bartender, bringing him to justice and—most important—retrieving Cohen’s money.

  Returning to their car, Unit S.O. 12, the deputies drove five blocks along De Silva Avenue to the address given as their man’s residence. A few children playing on the sidewalk interrupted their games to watch the a
rrival of the black deputy car, then scattered hurriedly as Brad swung out.

  ‘Where’d we find Covacs?’ he asked a leathery old timer who sat on the porch of the building.

  ‘Him that’s a bar-dog at Pete’s?’

  ‘That’s him.’

  ‘On third somewheres.’

  Knowing that a De Silva Avenue apartment building would be unlikely to supply its occupants with the luxury of an elevator, Alice and Brad made for the stairs and went up fast. They were aware of how quickly word of the law’s arrival could pass through such a building. One word of their coming would warn Covacs and either start him running, or prepare to make a fight.

  ‘On the third floor, a plump, cheerful woman emerged from a room and looked towards the deputies with frank interest.

  ‘Which is Mr. Covacs’ apartment, please?’ asked Alice in a low voice.

  With the tenement dweller’s inborn instinct, the woman recognized the law. Not all citizens of the Bad Bit were cop-haters, and the woman happened to be one of the many people in Gusher City who felt a lot of respect for the peace officers who tried to preserve law and order in the city.

  ‘That one,’ she answered, indicating a door. ‘What’s he done?’

  ‘This’s just routine,’ Alice replied and followed Brad to the door.

  Standing on either side of the door, Alice and Brad exchanged glances. Then Brad reached around to knock loudly.

  ‘Open up, Covacs!’ he called. ‘It’s the law!’

  Nothing happened. No sound came from beyond the door. Then both Brad and Alice heard a clatter.

  ‘Go back to your room, please,’ Alice said to the staring woman.

  ‘I’ve got things to—’ began the woman, then stared at the automatic which just seemed to materialize in Brad’s hand. ‘Oh my God!’

  Without another word, the woman turned and dived back into her apartment. Brad’s automatic often had that effect upon people when it made a sudden appearance. While folks expected a peace officer to be armed, they were rarely prepared for a damned great black Colt Government Model automatic when most detectives carried snub-nosed revolvers.

  Swinging around to face the door, Brad raised his right foot and smashed it home. Although the move appeared casual, almost leisurely, Brad’s strength, combined with knowing where and how to kick, sprung the lock and burst open the door. Instantly he went through the portal and into the room at the right, dropping to one knee with his Colt ready for use. Following on Brad’s heels, but going to the left, Alice prepared to use her Cobra if needed. They worked smoothly, a trained team. If a hostile presence had been in the room, the almost simultaneous arrival on both sides of the door might cause him to waver momentarily while trying to decide at which deputy to shoot first, thereby giving them time to deal with him.

  The room proved to be empty. On the table, a can of milk had been overturned and a cat darted out of the open window. There did not appear to be anywhere in the one-room apartment where a man might hide, even the bed offering insufficient cover, so it was apparent that Covacs had left. Brad went to the window and looked out. Three floors high and no fire-escape or other means of climbing down precluded any chance of their man having taken that way out.

  ‘He’s flown the coop,’ Brad commented unnecessarily, clicking on the safety and holstering his gun.

  ‘Wouldn’t you, after setting up a deputy’s wife as a pigeon?’ countered Alice, replacing her Cobra.

  ‘You buy it as being a tie-in with the Colismides threat then?’

  ‘It’s possible,’ admitted Alice. ‘We’ll have a lab crew in anyway.’

  On leaving the apartment, they found the woman peeking from her door.

  ‘Didn’t find him, huh?’

  ‘No, ma’am,’ Brad replied.

  ‘What’d he do?’ the woman asked, coming into the passage. ‘It must’ve been something bad for you to go in that way.’

  Living in the Bad Bit, she knew lawman procedure. When peace officers drew their guns, kicked open a door and dived inside a room, they expected to have difficulty in restraining the occupants.

  ‘It was just routine, which you don’t believe either,’ smiled Alice. ‘How well did you know him?’

  ‘Not more than to say “good morning” to. He didn’t have much truck with us.’

  ‘Do you know what time he came home last night, ma’am?’ asked Brad.

  ‘No,’ answered the woman, rapidly gaining confidence and darting disbelieving glances at the left side of Brad’s jacket. ‘Doesn’t that big gun weigh heavy?’

  ‘Not at the right time. Can you tell us if Mr. Covacs owns a car?’

  ‘Sure. A green Plymouth. How do you mean at the right time?’

  ‘When somebody’s shooting at me. You wouldn’t know the car’s license number, would you?’

  ‘Can’t say I’d—Say, do folks often shoot at you?’

  ‘Sure do,’ smiled Brad. ‘I work part-time as a target on a shooting range.’

  As a piece of spontaneous wit, Brad’s comment would not have Bob Hope firing his gag writers and reaching for a pen to sign a blank check and retain the deputy’s services, but it made the woman chuckle.

  ‘You’re putting me on,’ she stated. ‘Damned if I can see a sign of it.’

  ‘If you could, I’d change tailors,’ Brad replied. ‘What kind of Plymouth is it, hard-top, convertible?’

  ‘Hard-top. Covacs was always yelling at the kids for scratching it up. It wasn’t new, either.’

  ‘Did Covacs have anybody rooming with him?’ Alice inquired.

  ‘Not that I know of. Like I said, he wasn’t neighborly and didn’t mix,’ answered the woman, then looked at a man clad in overalls who appeared at the stair head. ‘Tom Wigley here’s the building super. He might be able to help.’

  ‘Sorry about your door, Mr. Wigley,’ Alice said.

  ‘That’s one of the hazards of living down here,’ sniffed the man. ‘Once in a while the law kicks in a door. Say, are you a cop?’

  ‘And I’ve a badge to prove it,’ she replied.

  ‘Adam Flint never had it that good,’ commented Wigley to Brad.

  ‘Adam Flint doesn’t deserve it that good,’ Brad answered. ‘I bet you wouldn’t trade him your partner for Frank Arcaro.’

  ‘Let us forget Naked City and talk about Covacs,’ Alice suggested. ‘It’s not good for my ego to have folks praising me this early in the day.’

  ‘Come down to my apartment then,’ Wigley replied. ‘Don’t reckon Covacs’ll be coming back, so I can put out the “Room Vacant” sign.’

  ‘Don’t rush it,’ Brad warned.

  ‘Why not? The owners don’t go for empty room-space.’

  ‘We’ll be putting a lab crew in to check it over. That’ll take them most of the afternoon.’

  ‘I reckon we can run at a loss that long. Come on down and—’

  ‘Hey!’ called a stentorian voice. ‘You got some deputies up there?’

  ‘We’re long on deputies up here right now,’ answered Wigley.

  A big, gray-haired patrolman came into sight on the next floor and looked up the stairs.

  ‘Are you-all from Unit S.O. 12?’

  ‘Sure,’ Alice replied. ‘Don’t tell me you’re fixing to hand us a parking ticket?’

  ‘I’d do it if I thought it’d stick,’ grunted the uniformed officer. ‘That honey-voiced sugar-pie from Cen-Con’s just about busting a dainty gut trying to raise you. I heard it over your radio and left my place of duty to carry the word.’

  ‘And thank you, Paul Revere,’ smiled Alice. ‘Anyways, you can rest your tired old Texas feet for a spell. We’re bringing a lab crew into this apartment. Can you stay on here and watch things until they arrive?’

  ‘Reckon so. I get paid to handle all the less glamorous chores.’

  ‘And I love you for it,’ Alice assured him.

  ‘Yeah. I bet you just do,’ drawled the patrolman. ‘What’s on?’

  ‘Did Cen-Con say what the
y wanted?’ asked Brad.

  A slightly different reaction greeted his words. While the patrolman accepted women officers younger than himself holding down positions which gave them the equivalent rank to a Patrol Bureau lieutenant, the same did not hold true when he dealt with a male deputy sheriff.

  ‘Allows to have found the car—sir—if that means anything to you.’

  ‘Enough,’ Brad agreed. ‘It’s maybe the heap used in the hit at Ian Grantley’s wife this morning.’

  Already word had gone out to watch for the Rambler and giving the reason for wanting it found. While there might be inter-departmental rivalry between the Gusher City Police Department and the Sheriff’s Office at normal times, it went by the board in the event of an armed assault upon a peace officer or his family.

  ‘The hell you say,’ the patrolman growled. ‘Does this gaff tie in with it?’

  ‘Could be,’ Brad admitted.

  ‘If Mr. Covacs comes back,’ Alice said, ‘which isn’t likely, hold him.’

  ‘I’ll do my damndest to, ma’am,’ promised the patrolman.

  On reaching the car, Brad took the driver’s seat while Alice rode shotgun and prepared to start the wheels of the law’s organization rolling. First she contacted the Cen-Con dispatcher and learned where to find the suspected car. Then she gave notification that she intended to change radio frequencies for a time. With the warning given, Alice made the change and requested to be put in touch with her Watch’s commander.

  ‘It’s beginning to shape like Ian did see Papas last night,’ she said after giving a quick resume of her team’s activities. ‘When we questioned the bar’s owner, he said last night’s takings had been below average. Which means that Covacs hadn’t been waiting for a real good night before scooping the till and taking the jump. Grantley had told us that the bartender recognized him, but is Hungarian, not a Greek. Not that his nationality would stop Colismides’ bunch using him.’

  ‘Aye,’ replied First Deputy McCall’s dry Scotch voice. ‘An 1160 iv takes precedence over Buck Shields’ chicken stealing caper, so you have it. Anything you want right now?’

  ‘Ask D.M.V. for the number of a Plymouth registered to Tibor Covacs, 117c De Silva Avenue, then put out an A.P.B. on him. Have the lab send a crew to his apartment at the given address. Run a make on him through R. and I. We’re on our way to check on a car that might be the one used for the hit at Vera Grantley.’