“Thank you, Captain,” Dorfman said, and Delaney hoped they might be easing back into their earlier, closer relationship.
He thought it out carefully in his methodical way. He would wear his oldest suit, since that basement storeroom was sure to be dusty. It was probably adequately lighted with an overhead bulb, but just in case he would take along his flashlight.
Now, the room itself might be locked, and then he’d be forced to make a fuss until he found someone with the proper key. But he had never turned in his ring of master keys which, his predecessor had assured him, opened every door, cell and locker in the Precinct house. So he’d take his ring of keys along.
He didn’t know how long it would take to go through the detectives’ old files, but he judged it might be all day. He wouldn’t want to go out to eat; the less chance of being seen by Broughton’s men, or by Broughton himself, moving around the stairs and corridors, the better for everyone. So he would need sandwiches, two sandwiches, that he would ask Mary to make up for him in the morning, plus a thermos of black coffee. He would carry all this, plus the flashlight and keys, in his briefcase, which would also hold the typed lists of the cards included in Monica Gilbert’s file.
Anything else? Well, he should have some kind of cover story just in case, by bad luck, Broughton saw him, braced him, and wanted to know what the fuck he was up to. He would say, he decided, that he had just stopped by to reclaim some personal files from the basement storeroom. He would keep it as vague as possible; it might be enough to get by.
He awoke the next morning, resolutely trying not to hope, but attempting to treat this search as just another logical step that had to be taken, whether it yielded results or not. He ate an unusually large breakfast for him: tomato juice, two poached eggs on whole wheat toast, a side order of pork sausages, and two cups of black coffee.
While Mary was preparing his luncheon sandwiches and his thermos, he went into the study to call Barbara, to explain why he would be unable to see her that day. Thankfully, she was in an alert, cheery mood, and when he told her exactly what he planned to do, she approved immediately and made him promise to call her as soon as his search was completed, to report results.
His entry into the 251st Precinct house went easily, without incident. That intimidating woman, the blonde sergeant, was on the blotter when he walked in. She was leaning across the desk, talking to a black woman who was weeping. The sergeant looked up, recognized the Captain, and flapped him a halfsalute. He waved in return and marched steadily ahead, carrying his briefcase like a salesman. He went down the worn wooden staircase and turned into the detention area.
The officer on duty-on limited duty since his right arm had been knifed open by an eleven-year-old on the shit-was tilted back against the wall in an ancient armchair. He was reading a late edition of the
“How you coming along?” he asked.
“Fine, Captain. It’s healing real good. The doc said I should be mustering in a week or so.”
“Glad to hear it. But don’t hurry it; take all the time you need. I’m going to that storeroom in the back hallway. I’ve got some personal files there I want to get.”
The officer nodded. He couldn’t care less.
“I don’t know how long it’ll take, so if I’m not out by the time you leave, please tell your relief I’m back here.”
“Okay, Captain.”
He walked past the detention cells: six cells, four occupied. He didn’t look to the right or to the left. Someone whispered to him; someone screamed. There were three men in the drunk tank lying in each others’ filth and moaning. It wasn’t the noise that bothered him, it was the smell; he had almost forgotten how bad it was: old urine, old shit, old blood, old vomit, old puss-90 years of human pain soaked into floors and walls. And coming through the miasma, like a knife thrust, the sharp, piercing carbolic odor that stung his nostrils and brought tears to his eyes.
The storeroom was locked, and it took him almost five minutes to find the right key on the big ring. And when the latch snapped open, he paused a few seconds and wondered why he hadn’t turned that ring of keys over to Dorfman. Officially, they should be in the lieutenant’s possession; it was his precinct.
He shoved the door open, found the wall switch, flipped on the overhead light, closed the door behind him and looked around. It was as bad as he had expected.
The precinct house had opened for business in 1882 and, inspecting the storeroom, Delaney guessed that every desk blotter for every one of those 90 years was carefully retained and never looked at again. They were stacked to the ceiling. An historian might do wonders with them. The Captain was amused by the thought: “A Criminal History of Our Times”-reconstructing the way our great-grandparents, grandparents, and parents lived by analyzing the evidence in those yellowing police blotters. It could be done, he thought, and it might prove revealing. Not the usual history, not the theories of philosophers, discoveries of scientists, programs of statesmen; not wars, explorations, revolutions, and new religions.
Just the petty crimes, misdemeanors, and felonies of a weak and sinning humanity. It was all there: the mayhem, frauds, child-beating, theft, drug abuse, alcoholism, kidnapping, rape, murder. It would make a fascinating record, and he wished an historian would attempt it. Something might be learned from it.
He took off his coat, hat and jacket and laid them on the least dusty crate he could find. The windowless room had a single radiator that clanked and hissed constantly, spitting out steam and water. Delaney opened the door a few inches. The air that came in was carbolic-laden, but a little cooler.
He put on his glasses and looked at what else the room held.
Mostly cardboard cartons, overflowing with files and papers.
The cartons bore on their sides the names of whiskies, rums, gins, etc., and he knew most of them came from the liquor store on First Avenue, around the corner. There were also rough wooden cases filled with what appeared to be physical evidence of long forgotten crimes: a knitted woolen glove, moth-eaten; a rusted cleaver with a broken handle; a stained upper denture; a child’s Raggedy-Ann doll; a woman’s patent leather purse, yawning empty; a broken crutch; a window-weight with black stains; a man’s fedora with one bullet hole through the crown; sealed and bulging envelopes with information jotted on their sides; a bloodied wig; a corset ripped down with a knife thrust.
Delaney turned away and found himself facing a carton of theatrical costumes. He fumbled through them and thought they might have been left from some remote Christmas pageant performed in the Precinct house by neighborhood children, the costumes provided by the cops. But beneath the cheap cotton-sleazy to begin with and now rotting away-he found an ancient Colt revolver, at least 12 inches long, rusted past all usefulness, and to the trigger guard was attached a wrinkled tag with the faded inscription: “Malone’s gun. July 16, 1902.” Malone. Who had he been-cop or killer? It made no difference now.
He finally found what he was looking for: two stacks of relatively fresh cardboard cartons containing the last year’s garbage from the detective squad’s files. Each carton held folders in alphabetical order, but the cartons themselves were stacked helter-skelter, and Delaney spent almost an hour organizing them. It was then past noon, and he sat down on a nailed wooden crate (painted on the top: “Hold for Capt. Kelly”) and ate one of his sandwiches, spiced salami and thickly sliced Spanish onion on rye bread thinly spread with mayonnaise-which he dearly loved-and drank half his thermos of coffee.
Then he got out his list of names from Monica’s cards and went to work. He had to compare list to files, and had to work standing up or kneeling or crouching. Occasionally he would spread his arms wide and bend back his spine. Twice he stepped out into the hallway and walked up and down a few minutes, trying to shake the kinks out of his legs.
He felt no elation whatsoever when he found the first file labeled with a name on his list. The address checked out. He merely put the file aside and went on with the job. It was lumbering work, like a stake-out or a 24 -hour shadow. You didn’t stop to question what you were doing; it was just something that had to be done, usually to prove the “no” rather than discover the “yes.”
When he finished the last file in the last cardboard carton, it was nearly 7:00 p.m. He had long ago finished his second sandwich and the remainder of his coffee. But he wasn’t hungry; just thirsty. His nostrils and throat
