office and various state police offices, and decided to familiarize himself with everyone in town. He wanted to be able to know, just from looking at a man, if he was local or a stranger. If he was local, Younger wanted to know everything there was to know about him; what he did for a living, if he was married or not, if he owned his own home, if he'd ever been in trouble.
Sagamore was a small town, and a dull one. Troublemakers and other lively types left early, and didn't come back. As a result, making up a mental card-file on the town wasn't very hard, or very interesting, except for one man, one citizen who stood out from all the rest.
Joseph T. Shardin.
The facts about Shardin were few. He owned his home, he was retired, he'd lived in town about five years. He made frequent trips down to Omaha, staying a day or two or sometimes up to a week, and every once in a great while he had a visitor or two at his house, always strangers from out of town. He didn't have any relatives around here, and no one had ever seen him before he'd come here to retire.
Beyond that, it was all a blank. Younger couldn't find out exactly what Shardin had retired from. At the bank he learned Shardin had a banking account, and kept it supplied by depositing cheques that were dividends on investments or payments on life-insurance policies or Social Security dribbles. But no pension cheque, from a company or the government, no income to suggest what kind of work he'd done before retiring.
Younger got more and more interested. He wasn't suspicious at first, just stretching a bit in his new job. He was running a police force, and here was a chance to do a bit of detective work, unravel a mystery. He did it for fun, more than anything else.
Not learning much from the people around Shardin, Younger next tried to learn from Shardin himself. He coached one of his patrolmen, a youngster with an honest, stupid face, and sent him off to see Shardin as a census-taker. Among the questions about age and sex and how many occupants in the house, he also asked about Shardin's background: place of birth, principal occupation, most recent employer, last three addresses. Shardin, according to the patrolman's report, answered all the questions easily and calmly, and didn't suspect a thing.
The only thing wrong, the answers didn't check out.
For place of birth, Shardin had put Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. Younger wrote to Harrisburg, asking for information on a Joseph T. Shardin, born their city on January 12, 1894. They wrote back there was no record of a Joseph T. Shardin born in their city on that or any other date.
For principal occupation, Shardin had put sports promoter, explaining he had promoted boxing matches, wrestling, roller-derbies, stock-car races, and other sports events in the East, mostly Pennsylvania and New York. Younger wrote to both the Pennsylvania and New York Boxing Commissions, and both wrote back they had no record of any Joseph T. Shardin.
For most recent employer, Shardin had put Midstate Arena Attractions, Inc., Scranton, Pennsylvania. Younger wrote a letter to this company, asking for information on Shardin, and the letter came back with a post- office rubber stamp on the envelope: ADDRESSEE UNKNOWN. All three former addresses Shardin had given were false.
Younger was now sure he'd found a wrong one. Shardin had an income from unknown sources, chose to live in a place where he wasn't known, and gave a false background.
The next time Shardin went to Omaha, Captain Younger, with a skeleton key, went into Shardin's house. In the kitchen he set up his fingerprint equipment, the learning about which had been another part of his early enthusiasm for the new job, and from the water glasses in the kitchen cabinet he got three perfect fingerprints. He set up his camera and his white cardboard backdrop, and took three pictures of each print, just to be on the safe side. Then he cleaned up the traces of his having been there, and went back to the station to have the film developed. He mailed a set of the photos to Washington with a covering letter that gave no details but simply asked for whatever identification and information he could get about the owner of those prints, and then there was nothing to do but wait.
A week later a phone call came from the Federal agency office in Omaha. 'About a set of fingerprints you sent Washington about a week ago.'
'What about them?'
But the Federal man was calling to ask questions, not to answer them. He said, 'What was that inquiry in connection with, Captain?'
Younger felt a sudden transitory dread; had he stumbled on some sort of secret government agent? Was Shardin actually a counter-spy or something? If he was, the government wouldn't like some hick cop poking around after their man, causing a ruckus.
But that couldn't be it. Shardin' was an old man of seventy; what kind of secret agent was that? Besides, why would the government establish an undercover man for five years in a nothing little town like Sagamore?
The Federal man had been waiting for an answer. He said, 'Are you there, Captain?'
'What? Yes, yes, of course, I was just looking for the folder…' He already had his story worked out, just in case he was asked this question, and all he had to do now was get his wits collected and tell it. He said, 'We had a little burglary here, a liquor store ransacked. We checked the place out for fingerprints, and those three were the only ones we couldn't match to somebody we already knew was in the store that day.'
'A liquor store robbery. Odd.'
Younger held the phone so tightly that afterwards his hand ached. 'Who is it?' he asked. 'Who do they belong to?'
'Man named Joseph Sheer. I'm only…'
'How do you spell that?'
The Federal man spelled it, and then said, 'It's a surprise to hear from him. We thought he was dead by now.'
'Oh? An old man, huh?'
'He'd be about seventy now.'
