“You think I killed that woman in Stockford? You’re crazy. I’ve never even been to Stockford.”
“You sold three vacuum cleaners there, Burchard. You’ve been there all right, and we don’t think making calls is all you did.” Fellows raised a hand as Burchard tried to protest. “Now don’t tell me again how innocent, you are. Just get your coat and your shaving things, if you want, and come along with us.”
Burchard said, “You can’t do this,” but he knew they could. He put on a tie in the bedroom with Fellows and McGarrity standing in the door. He went into the bathroom, with the chief following, got his shaving kit while mumbling that he was going to call a lawyer and sue for false arrest. He took a jacket out of the closet and put that on, then got into a dark winter overcoat and scarf, taking a dark brown hat from the shelf. When he stepped away, Fellows took a look into the closet himself. A tan overcoat was also there, of lighter weight, and a gray spring topcoat. There were two other hats and half a dozen suits of varying shades.
Fellows closed the closet and followed Burchard into the living room where Harris opened the door. The five of them went down the stairs and stopped for Wilks, who was inside the front apartment door in the hall talking to the landlady.
Outside, at the car, Wilks put handcuffs on the man while Fellows had a brief conference with McGarrity. “He’s our pigeon,” Fellows said, coming back. “McGarrity’s letting us take him.” They put Burchard in the rear seat, guarded by Wilks, and drove back to Stockford in silence, Harris following in his own car.
CHAPTER XVI
Monday, 10:30 P.M.—Tuesday, 12:45 A.M.
Clyde Burchard was put in a cell in the block behind the police waiting room at ten-thirty that evening. Wilks and Harris took the contents of his pockets, his wrist watch, belt, garters, and shoelaces, and gave him a receipt while Fellows called up the grocer boy again.
When Wilks returned from the cell block, Fellows was sitting in his chair at his desk, tilting back with his arms on the armrests, his eyes closed. He opened them when Wilks came in to report things under control.
“I gather the landlady didn’t clear him,” Fellows said.
Wilks pulled up another chair. “She says she doesn’t know what her tenants do. Most of the time she doesn’t know whether they’re in or not.”
“Or if they’ve got girls in?”
“I asked her about that. She didn’t know and didn’t seem to care. As long as she gets the rent and there’s no noise and nothing gets damaged, her tenants can do as they like.”
Fellows said, “He wears good clothes, and he fits the description.” He sat up. “I got hold of that kid, Andy. He’s coming right down.”
“You going to let him identify him tonight?”
“Why not? If we’re wrong, I don’t want to keep the guy in jail. If we’re right, the sooner we know it the better.”
Andy arrived ten minutes later, coming through the side door in a too thin jacket and no gloves. Wilks, Fellows, and Sergeant Gorman were at the main table drinking coffee, and the young lad pulled off his cap and said, “I’m here, Chief. What is it you want me to do?”
Fellows produced an extra container of the liquid for the boy, who sat down to it with mixed pleasure and awe. “I only want you for a minute, Andy. Sergeant Wilks and I are going to show you a man we’ve got in a cell beyond that steel door. I don’t want you to say anything while we’re in there, but after we leave, I want you to tell me if you’ve ever seen him before.”
“Sure. I get it. Is this the guy?”
“I’m not saying who it is or why we want you to look at him, Andy. When you finish your coffee, just follow us and, remember, don’t speak while you’re there.”
They didn’t make the boy hurry, letting him smoke a cigarette over the beverage, and Fellows even tried one of Andy’s cigarettes himself, smoking it experimentally, contrasting the effect with chewing. Wilks was a little restless at the chief’s lack of speed in settling the issue and Gorman was downright impatient, though he tried hard to conceal it.
Then, when they were all through, the three left Gorman behind, and Wilks slipped back the heavy bolts on the sheet steel cell-block door and pulled it open. The gap revealed a long, dimly lighted hall to a head-high barred window at the end that looked out onto the yard. Six small cells were spaced on the right, each with its worm’s-eye barred window, and Burchard was in the farthest one down, the only one occupied.
The three walked down the cement hallway and stopped in front of his door. Burchard was sitting on his bunk against the side wall, his tieless shirt open, his beltless pants sagging, his laceless shoes on his feet. His jacket was neatly folded on the bunk beside him, for the windows were closed and the steam heat of the building kept the tightly stoppered area overwarm. He was slumped in dejection with his elbows on his knees, and he looked up at their arrival, staring at them dully, without expression.
Fellows said, “Are you comfortable, Mr. Burchard?”
The man answered with a snort. “Mister Burchard!” He spit at the wall. “You come in like the Gestapo and pull a guy out of his house and slap him in jail in the middle of the night and then you think if you act like Emily Post, it’s going to be all right.”
“I’m doing my job, Mr. Burchard.”
“Who’s the kid supposed to be?”
“Take a look at him, Mr. Burchard.”
Burchard did. He took a long look and thereby gave Andy an equally good look at him. He said, “I looked. Are you happy?” Fellows and Wilks turned back with Andy, and the youth couldn’t
