The Devil's Own Rag Doll Read online

  We’ll ask Captain Mitchell for a bit of free rein on this one, I thought. We’ll go over and squeeze all the punks in the neighborhood till something leaks out about Donny Pease, and then we’ll find the cocksucking bastard and make sure we don’t need a trial. Simple enough, even for me.

  But it wasn’t Pease. So many other times I had been able to forget what I couldn’t quite grasp, but this was a truth I couldn’t push far enough away. Though I had bumped up against enough scum to rub away any illusion about the human character, I knew that a small-timer like Pease—a car thief, a purse-snatcher, a creep-and-run coward—could never have the marbles to pull a thing like this. It wasn’t Pease. I knew it with a certainty that felt as solid as a good shot to the heavy bag—thunk!—when the bag goes weightless on the chains for just a second. But when I tried to scare up some idea of who might have done it, my mind felt the old fog setting in. It’s just like they say, I thought. I’m not cut out for this kind of head work.

  As Bobby squealed around the corner, leaning on the horn and leaving precious rubber on the pavement, I let the decision fall quickly: I’d have to think about asking Mitchell to drop me back down to sergeant. But first, there was this one thing to set right: Though I could not yet explain it to myself, I knew that I could not allow the killing of the girl to stand. I stood up and walked toward Bobby’s car with my hands and my feet tingling and my mind worrying over a young girl and a broken family.

  * * *

  “Shut the door, Caudill. Close it. All the way.”

  “Listen, Captain, I see it this way, if—”

  “Shut up, Swope. It’s too early in the morning to have to listen to your claptrap.”

  If Captain John Mitchell had not slept, I couldn’t see it. His wiry gray hair bristled neatly over his head, and his cheeks had been shaved so closely that his skin looked as if it had been scrubbed with steel wool. His small eyes were dark, his uniform pressed and formed as if it were a part of his body.

  Mitchell pushed a neatly folded copy of the Detroit Times across the desk to Bobby.

  Bobby picked it up and began to read. “‘The body of Jane Hardiman, daughter of Lloyd Motor Company vice president Roger Hardiman, was found yesterday on family property in Dearborn, the apparent victim of a riding accident.’” Bobby grinned and said, “Things move fast in this town.”

  Mitchell let out a long breath. “How long do you think a story like that can hold water?” He trained his eyes on Bobby. “How many people saw that girl in there? And how long do you think it will take people to put two and two together and figure out what happened? It seems far from your mind, but how are we to carry on an investigation when no murder is supposed to have happened?”

  “Well, Captain,” Bobby began, “something like this … It’s a messy business, and the Hardiman family—”

  “What you figured,” said Mitchell, “is that Roger Hardiman would want the whole thing hushed up. So you decided to set aside your duties to pony up to him. I’m guessing also that the two of you had to put aside your assigned caseload to chase after Hardiman’s daughter in the first place.”

  I clenched my teeth. I glanced at Bobby and wished he could have the sense to keep his mouth shut.

  “I just thought that with all the trouble with the colored—”

  “It does not matter what you think ought to be done. You are a civil servant. You are paid to do your job, and part of that is doing what you’re told. If you don’t feel like you can follow the chain of command, remove your badge and sidearm and place them on my desk.”

  Bobby’s face went blank for just a moment. “I don’t want that at all,” he said.

  “Then keep your mouth closed and listen to what I’m telling you. I’m well aware of the trouble we’ve got smoking in the Valley and down in Black Bottom. From the looks of things, it’s going to be a long, hot summer. It’s my job to stay right on top of things, and that gives me a perspective you don’t seem to be able to muster. I’m not just concerned about putting a few extra dollars in my pocket. I’ve a better idea than you do, apparently, of the shortage of manpower we’re facing here on the force, as well. Think, now, think. Think about how it looks when you and Caudill—given his history—pay a visit to Toby Thrumm and beat the hell out of him—”

  “Hey, I just busted his nose, that’s all.” I felt heat rise over my chest.

  Mitchell turned to me without expression and spoke evenly. “That’s another thing you’ll have to explain to me. I received a telephone call late last night from the Reverend Horace Jenkins. Seems he and his people had to take Thrumm to Receiving Hospital with a broken arm and a concussion. If what he’s telling me checks out, it also looks like Thrumm was bullwhipped. They say he had almost bled to death when they found him. Blood coming out his ears.”

  “You’d take Jenkins’s word over mine?” I let my look get as dark as it wanted to. “I busted enough noses to know he wasn’t hurt that bad.”

  “I’m not saying it was you just yet. But Jenkins says he’s got several witnesses who saw a certain one-eyed man and a dandy jackass on Thrumm’s front porch early yesterday. And given your history, Caudill, you can see why Jenkins might want to get involved in this.”

  “Ah,” I said, “that’s a bum rap.”

  “I’m thinking about how this will affect the mood in the colored neighborhoods. You, of all people, should know that our old city isn’t so rosy as it once was. We’re not children. I know that sometimes heads will get busted. That’s part of the nature of our business. You’re not so stupid as you’d like to be, Caudill. Don’t insult me by pretending you don’t know how it is.” He looked at me with his black eyes till I shrugged.

  “Now, Swope, if you’re so concerned about keeping things quiet, you’ll understand that Jenkins is exactly the man I ought to talk to. I’m guessing you and Caudill don’t have too many friends among the Negroes.” Mitchell drew a breath. “Jenkins is marching his people down here this morning. I want you two out of this building and out of sight.”

  Bobby spoke up. “Captain, we’ll just see what we can do about finding Pease—”

  “No you won’t. You’ll stay clear of anything on the west side until I see what Jenkins has to say. When I get all the information I can, then I’ll decide what you should do.”

  I shifted in my chair. “What are we supposed to do, sit around holding our peckers?”

  “Look here, Caudill. Don’t talk to me like you’re equal to me. I’ve given a lifetime to get where I am, a lifetime of service to the people of this city. I don’t have any concern for you beyond the job you’re supposed to be doing. Now, I worked with your father for many years. We went through perilous times, and I appreciate all he did as an officer for this city. But if I say the word, you’ll be out of here and lugging engine blocks for Chrysler’s. If they’ll take you.” Mitchell drew a deep breath and let it out slowly. His tone softened. “You can see that when Jasper Lloyd himself calls me on the telephone and tells me that this particular case is highly important to him, I feel like I need to get a handle on things. The situation is messy enough. And this news story of yours, Swope, just makes it worse for us. Right now you two are what I have to work with. Frankly, I’m not sure how much I trust either of you.”

  “But Captain, how are we supposed to get at the bottom of it if we can’t poke around?” Bobby’s tone was unnaturally sincere.

  Mitchell looked hard at us. “It looks like there are more players here than we know about. If Jenkins is playing straight, it looks like somebody is deliberately stirring things up in the Negro districts. And any kind of trouble we have in Detroit can only mean lost production, and lost production means that more of our boys will lose their lives overseas.”

  “For God’s sake,” said Bobby, working his knobby fingers over his jaw. “They’ll start a riot if things get any tighter.”

  “Just keep your eyes open.”

  “Is that all?” I clenched and loosened my fists. “Is that all you want
us to do? Keep our eyes open? How are we supposed to find out what’s going on if you want us to lay low?”

  “Take it easy, Caudill. I’ve got two recruits coming in, and I’m pretty sure they’re straight. One of them’s my nephew—Will Johnson, my sister’s boy. His father’s sheriff up in Kalkaska. The other’s a colored boy just on the force, name of Walker, one of Jeffries’s little concessions to Jenkins.”

  “What the hell are we supposed to do with two green frogs?” I asked. “At a time like this?”

  “Send them over to the west side to canvass the area. Find out if anybody will talk about Pease. They might be more likely to talk to the colored boy. And Caudill, you see to it that my sister’s boy doesn’t get in any trouble.”

  My agitation spilled over. “You want me to hold his dick for him when he takes a piss, too?”

  “I expect you to start acting like a detective if you’re going to be walking around with the badge. Now get the hell out. And you’d better get some results pronto or you’ll find out how the wind around here can blow a man right out the door.” Mitchell pushed an old brass key across the table. “I’ve set up the old interrogation room in the basement for everything you do with this case. Walker and Johnson are waiting down there for you. I shouldn’t have to tell you, Swope, to keep your mouth shut about it. Now get out before Jenkins shows up.”

  We got up slowly. In the pit of my stomach, my undigested breakfast had turned sour, and I felt acid gnawing at me. “We’ll set things right,” I said, though I didn’t believe it.

  * * *

  The four of us squeezed into the unused interrogation room. It had been made small with the idea that the cramped feel would make a man more likely to talk. But none of the bulls could stand to be in it, either, so the room had been abandoned.

  “That’s a nice notebook, Johnson,” I said, eyeing the leather pad holder. “Your mother buy you that?”

  “No, it was … Captain Mitchell. Gave me this pen, too, my first day on the force. It’s a Waterman.”

  “You’re not fooling with me, are you, boy? There’s no need for any of that.” I meant for it to seem like a joke, but it just went out in the air with a nasty feel. My social graces had fallen out of use. I sipped my black coffee. “You can put that pen down for now. We’ll keep the paperwork out of this.”

  Johnson said, “You don’t want us to take field notes?” He lifted his eyebrows and folded his notebook.

  I shook my head. I could see that Johnson was a bright boy. He was a good-looking kid, tall and blond and carrying a bit of color from spending time outdoors. I thought he looked a little soft, but the jaw was big enough to carry it for a time.

  “Detective Caudill likes to keep things simple,” said Bobby. “Like his clothes, see? The other day, a lady tried to put a nickel in his coffee cup.” He waited for a laugh and didn’t seem to mind that he didn’t get one. “See, he likes to keep things to himself.”

  “I put my clothes on to keep my ass from hanging out, that’s all. Listen, Johnson,” I said, “You can scribble all you want with your Waterman pen when we finish up this particular case. But for now”—I tapped my forehead—“keep it up here.”

  Bobby threw a leg up over the edge of the old table, sat, and said, “What do you think of all this, Walker?”

  “Well,” said the Negro patrolman, “since I’m stuck here in these blues for a while, I don’t see any point in getting het up about my clothes.” His face showed nothing.

  “But if you were off duty and you were trucking down in the Valley, wouldn’t you want to wear something to get yourself noticed?” Bobby asked.

  “Well, sir, I am a family man.”

  “Swope’s a family man, too,” I said, “but that don’t prevent him from dressing like a rooster.” It didn’t seem funny even to me. I tried to read Walker’s tone, his expression, but found no trace of bitterness in his reserved manner. Maybe that was what they were looking for when they hired colored men for the force. He had just finished the officer’s training course, like Johnson, but Walker was evidently some years older. The nicks and scars on his hands and face showed that he had done some real work in his time.

  “You might have some luck with the ladies if you picked up something a little more modern, Caudill,” Bobby said.

  “I got enough problems already.” I had given up on the small talk. Bobby enjoyed it so much that he seemed willing to forget our present troubles, just to try to impress these two bland rookies. It was hard enough, I thought, to figure out what things meant without having to entertain these punks. I let it pass on the chance that Bobby’s patience, his instinctive feel for wheedling, might pay off somehow with the pair. Still, I couldn’t get over the idea that things could work so much more briskly without the social bric-a-brac.

  “Okay, fellas, let’s get down to brass tacks,” said Bobby. “Did Captain Mitchell tell you what it’s all about?”

  Johnson said, “He told us to listen to you.”

  “Are you with us so far, Walker?”

  “Yes.”

  Bobby said, “What we have here is a situation where you need to keep everything quiet. And quiet means quiet. We don’t want you whispering with your buddies or anybody else. We don’t want to hear any of this getting around.” Bobby pulled out a cigarette and tamped it on the table. “Because it’s my ass, and Caudill’s ass, on the line. So, can I count on you two to keep it under your hats?”

  “Sure,” said Johnson.

  Walker nodded somberly.

  “You heard about Jane Hardiman? Riding accident?” Bobby looked the pair over.

  “It’s too bad. I met her once,” Johnson said. “Funny girl.”

  “She’s not funny any more,” I said. “Murdered.” I saw Johnson’s predictable look of surprise, sincere concern. Walker’s expression did not change. He only nodded.

  “How do you mean she was funny?” asked Bobby.

  “I met her when she was sixteen, I think. She just seemed funny. She was always making jokes but didn’t seem happy. A real looker, too.”

  “It wasn’t just that she was killed,” I said.

  “That’s right,” said Bobby. “We’ll spare you the details. Maybe you didn’t read in the social column, Johnson, about how young Jane Hardiman liked to hobnob on the poorer side of town. On the colored side. We found her in an apartment toward the west end. You know this area, Walker?”

  “I’ve been there, yes.”

  “We had a tip she was with a colored boy named Donny Pease. Now this is just a small-time thief, lately out of St. Louis, with a big smile and flashy clothes—a zoot-suiter, you know the type. So we ran down the tip, and he was gone before we could get there.”

  “So,” said Johnson, “you think this Donny Pease—”

  “Don’t start in with the thinking just yet, Johnson,” I said. “You’re here to keep your mouth shut and do the grunt work for us.”

  “That’s right,” said Bobby. “We just want you two to go over to his apartment building, knock on all the doors, sniff out what you can find about where Pease might have gone. After that, just keep on knocking down the street and see what turns up. And for God’s sake, keep it close to the chest. All we’re looking for is anything about Donny Pease we can find. Nobody said anything about the girl. As far as anyone should know, there’s no girl involved in any of this. You can understand how all this could be hurtful to the Hardiman family.”

  “What should we tell people if they ask why we want Pease?” asked Johnson.

  “Tell them he’s wanted for buggery,” I said.

  “No, no! Jesus, Pete. Tell them it’s traffic tickets or some such. Drunk and disorderly.” Bobby slugged down the last of his coffee. “One thing, though. You fellas remember when you’re talking to these people, you can expect that every last one of them is going to try to lie to you. That’s the way it works when you’re in the uniform. If they start talking, let them keep talking until they say something funny, and then you’ll have som
ething on them.”

  I continued to search Walker’s passive face for any trace of emotion. I would have been relieved to find anger flashing in his eyes or a smirk or a look of disgust. It would not have angered me to see Walker looking bored. The lack of reaction told me only that Walker was smart but not which way he leaned. I looked carefully at his tired eyes and wondered what he thought of me. If it was on his mind, he kept it buried.

  “Walker,” I said, “you have any acquaintance with Donny Pease?”

  “Not to my recollection, no.”

  “Colored folks tend to stick together, isn’t that right?” I asked him.

  “That’s fair to say,” he said, measuring his words. “But just the same—”

  “It’s only natural,” said Bobby. “You can’t expect Walker to know every Negro in the city.”

  I choked down the words that wanted to pour like hot gas from my mouth. “Maybe,” I mumbled, “maybe Walker could ask around, that’s all.”

  “You can do that, can’t you, Walker?” said Bobby.

  “I’m willing,” he said. “But from how you talk about Pease, I don’t think anyone from our church would have any familiarity with him.”

  I kept quiet for the next few minutes while Bobby laid out our plan for the day. Then we all stepped from the little room and walked up the narrow stairs to street level. Bobby kept close to Walker and made an effort to chat amiably on the way. After a few steps, I took Johnson’s elbow, drew him aside, and let Bobby and Walker walk on ahead.

  “Listen, Johnson,” I muttered quietly. “I got something for you. If you see a tall, skinny colored boy, about thirteen, big eyes like a cow, maybe name of Joshua, you let me know, all right? He’ll be shaking like a leaf, probably. Maybe wearing his pants too big, hoisted up with a belt. You find out what you can, you don’t do anything, you just let me know. And keep it under your hat. Don’t say anything to Walker or Swope about it either. You follow?”

  “Sure,” he answered. “But what—”