Authors: Whit Masterson
The car stopped again and with it his macabre train of thought. He peeped over the window ledge and saw that they had reached the big wooden gate which barred the road to McCoy’s ranch house. The gate was bathed in the radiance of two floodlamps, making the darkness beyond that much more forbidding.
Quinlan got out, opened the gate, drove the automobile through and stopped again to close the gate behind them. “Mac would think it was funny if I didn’t,” he explained. “He can see the gate from his front window.”
“Is he home?” Holt asked, keeping out of sight.
“There’s a light on at the house. He’s home.”
They drove forward again, along the winding lane that Holt remembered from his previous visit, and then came to a final halt. “How close are we to the house?” he questioned, not daring to look for himself. “I’m not sure about this gadget but I don’t imagine the range is much over a hundred yards.”
“We’re right by the front door,” Quinlan said. He shut off the engine but made no move to get out. Holt finally asked him what was the matter. “I feel like the lowest kind of snake, coming here like this. That’s what’s the matter.”
“I don’t like it any better than you do.”
“That’s easy said. But Mac has been like one of my own family.” Quinlan’s voice quickened. “Oh-oh, there he is now. I’d better move.” And at the same time, Holt heard McCoy’s cheerful hail from the direction of the house, “Hey, Hank, is that you? Come on in.”
Quinlan opened the door and got out. In an undertone, he told Holt, “If you’re wrong about him, I promise you I’m going to kick your teeth in. Even if you’re right, I may still do it.”
Holt hastily put on the ear phones and groped for the switch of the tape recorder, ready to start the spools in motion at the proper moment. Quinlan’s microphone was working; Holt could plainly hear the crunch of the sergeant’s footsteps across the gravel and then the hollow sound of his mounting the wooden steps to the porch.
McCoy’s voice came into the ear phones, faintly at first but increasing in volume as the two men approached each other. “Well, how are you, stranger? Glad to see you. Why didn’t you phone you were coming?”
Quinlan made some excuse. He was no actor.
“Doesn’t matter,” said McCoy jovially. “I’ve got plenty of beer in the icebox and I’m ready, willing and able to give you another pinochle lesson. Come on in, Hank.”
Holt heard a door open and shut. Cautiously, he looked out. McCoy and Quinlan had disappeared. Holt turned on the tape recorder.
“Well, don’t just stand there,” said McCoy from somewhere in the ranch-house living room. “Sit down, Hank, take the load off your feet. How’s the leg doing tonight?”
“Not so good,” muttered Quinlan.
“That’s a darn shame,” sympathized McCoy. “Personally, I feel good, best I have in days. In fact, I feel like celebrating and I’m glad you came out. Sit tight while I get the beer.”
“Never mind, Mac,” said Quinlan. “I’m not thirsty.”
“Who said anything about being thirsty? This is a celebration.” McCoy paused and his voice grew more serious. “What’s eating you, Hank? I know that expression.”
“Nothing.”
“Yeah? Well, all right, if you say so. But relax, take your coat off — ”
“No, I don’t want to,” said Quinlan, so hastily that Holt winced. “I just want to talk to you, Mac.”
“Okay,” said McCoy slowly. “I’m listening.”
Holt, listening, also tensed. It was coming now, he knew, and he wondered how Quinlan intended to lead up to the subject. Holt himself would have chosen a devious route but Quinlan knew only one way. He was as subtle as a bulldozer attacking a hillside; he drove into the subject head-on. “I want to know what’s been going on.”
“Going on when?” asked McCoy cautiously.
“Now. And in the past. The whole thirty years.”
There was a pause during which Holt could hear Quinlan breathing heavily. Finally, McCoy said, “That’s a pretty big subject. Hank. Sounds to me like you’ve been reading too many newspapers.”
“They started me thinking, that’s all.”
“So you’ve come to the astounding conclusion that where there’s smoke there must be fire.” McCoy chuckled. “This is a pretty strange thing for you to be asking me, Hank.”
“I didn’t hear any answer.”
“I thought this was a friendly visit,” McCoy said, so softly that Holt had to strain to hear him. “But maybe I was wrong. You figuring on pushing me around?”
“I came out here to ask you a question. Is what Holt’s been yelling about the truth?”
“The truth?” echoed McCoy. “Every time I’ve ever appeared in court, I’ve sworn to tell the truth. Now am I supposed to take another oath in front of you?”
“If you’d like.”
“Well, I don’t like. I don’t like the way we’re talking to each other.”
“Mac,” said Quinlan. “The question’s easy, too easy to duck any more. Did you ever frame anybody?”
There was another pause. Then McCoy said simply, “Nobody who wasn’t guilty.”
The admission was given so matter-of-factly that Holt, straining every nerve, scarcely believed that he had heard it. Quinlan apparently had the same reaction because McCoy laughed. “Well, Hank? You asked for the answer and I gave it to you. Satisfied?”
“You’re kidding me,” said Quinlan, in almost a whisper. “You can’t mean it.”
“Why should I kid you?” asked McCoy. “You already knew, anyway, didn’t you? Otherwise, you wouldn’t have had to ask. I know you.”
“I thought I knew you. I believed in you, I stood up for you — and all the time, all these years …” Quinlan’s voice was a croak of anguish. “Mac, why did you do it? What got into you?”
“Nothing got into me. I was just doing my job, that’s all, making sure that the bastards couldn’t commit murder and get away with it. Sure, sometimes I had to dress it up a bit but you’ve got to fight fire with fire. There was nothing wrong about it.”
“But faking evidence, lying — ” Quinlan mumbled.
“It wasn’t lying,” snapped McCoy. “It was aiding justice. You remember the Burger case back in ‘34 or ‘35? We had him dead to rights but he’d have gotten away with it, sure as shooting, if we hadn’t come up with the pipe he used to beat his wife’s brains in.”
“You found it in his backyard where he’d buried it,” said Quinlan slowly. “Or was it you that buried it there?”
“It worked, didn’t it? Burger confessed. So what difference does it make who buried it?”
“What difference does it make?” Quinlan cried. “You didn’t have any right!”
“Burger didn’t have any right to kill his wife, either. I just made sure he paid for it.”
“What about all the others — the ones where they didn’t confess — what about them?”
“Well, what about them? They were guilty, every damn one of them.”
“But how could you be sure?”
“I’m a detective,” said McCoy. “I got an intuition for these things. You know that I didn’t play around with the case unless I was sure. Most of the time I didn’t have to, anyway.”
“Most of the time,” Quinlan echoed. “How often, Mac? How many times?”
“I don’t know,” said McCoy, and Holt could almost see him shrug. “Maybe a dozen, maybe less. I don’t remember exactly. What does it matter, anyway?”
“It matters to me,” Quinlan said hoarsely. “Don’t you see what you’ve done to yourself? And to me?”
“Oh, knock off the moralizing,” said McCoy impatiently. “It’s out of place coming from you. You’ve got nothing to kick about. You’ve had a nice ride all these years, thanks to me.”
“Thanks to you!”
“Yeah, to me. You’d still be pounding a beat if I hadn’t carried you along. But I made a sergeant out of you, made your name known all over the state. Hell, I made you practically a legend. And you enjoyed it. So don’t come crying around now about how it was done.”
“I didn’t know,” Quinlan murmured. “God help me, I didn’t.”
“That’s not my fault.” McCoy paused and then his voice softened. “What are we fighting about, anyway? We’ve been partners too long to be yelling at each other like this. It’s all ancient history, Hank, water under the bridge. I’m retired now and what’s past is past.”
“It isn’t ancient history,” said Quinlan. “It’s still going on.”
“You mean the mix-up with the dynamite? All right, I stumbled there but I’m an old man, Hank, and I guess I was pressing too hard. Anyway, it all came out all right, didn’t it?”
“I’m talkin about last night, when you framed Holt’s wife. That was a dirty thing to do. If it’s all over, like you say, why did you take Holt’s pistol?”
There was a short silence. McCoy asked softly, “And just how did you happen to know about the pistol?”
There was a concealed deadliness in his tone that Holt recognized even through the earphones. But apparently Quinlan didn’t. He blurted out the truth. “Holt told me.”
“Oh, did he? Perhaps that explains a lot, why you’re here, and that halo you’re wearing. You’re working for Holt now. You’ve got yourself a new partner.”
“I’m not working for Holt,” Quinlan said. “I’m working for the department.”
“I don’t like the sound of that. What are you after, Hank?”
“Holt’s pistol first. The game’s over, Mac. I’m going to have to take you in.”
“So that’s it, is it?” McCoy said thinly. “That’s the loyalty I get, huh?”
“I took a bullet for you once.” Quinlan’s voice was bitter. “I figure that makes us square. I’m not going to take this one for you. I’m taking you in, Mac. Don’t make me rough you up. I might enjoy it too much.”
“You’d better think it over,” McCoy warned. “You’re in this thing just as much as I am.”
“No, never that much. I’ve been dumb but I haven’t been crooked. I’m not your partner any longer, Mac. I guess I never really was.” Quinlan’s voice hardened. “Now get me that gun.”
There was a moment of silence during which Holt held his breath. Then McCoy said calmly, “If that’s the way you want it, Hank. I’ve got it right here.”
Quinlan cried out hastily, “Mac! Don’t be a damn — ”
The gunshots exploded in Holt’s ear phones like thunderclaps. An instant later, another sound followed, like an echo. It was a heavy thud, as if someone had accidentally dropped a telephone receiver during a conversation, then a thrashing sound, then silence. Holt sat in the darkness of the automobile’s back seat, a sick sensation enveloping him, and knew what had occurred as plainly as if he had seen it. Despite the shocking revelations he had heard, Quinlan had still not been quite able to break his faith in his old partner. Thirty years couldn’t be destroyed in thirty minutes. And Quinlan had paid for his last shred of trust.
Holt heard McCoy’s voice. It was muffled and sounded a great distance off, which meant that Quinlan had fallen face down, on top of the microphone. Then McCoy’s voice grew more distinct and Holt guessed that he was turning Quinlan over.
It sounded as if McCoy were sobbing. “Hank!” he moaned. “You damn fool! I didn’t want to do it — you hear me, Hank? What’d you make me do it for? You’re the only one who …” Suddenly, he stopped and his voice changed completely, from remorse to consternation. “What the hell’s this thing?”
He had discovered the microphone. The ear phones went dead.
Holt knew that it was only a question of seconds before McCoy understood the entire set-up, and that he stood in the greatest peril of his life. If McCoy would shoot down his old friend to save himself, he could hardly be expected to show Holt any mercy.
Holt cast aside the now useless ear phones and scrambled into the front seat of the autmobile. For one horrible moment, he thought that Quinlan might have taken the keys with him. But they still dangled from the ignition. Holt groped among the unfamiliar controls, seeking to bring the engine to life. The starter ground raspingly and the engine coughed and sputtered.
At that instant, floodlamps on the ranch-house roof burst into light, illuminating the parking area, and McCoy ran out on to the porch. He was in shirt sleeves and dishevelled, and his eyes were wild. In one hand he held Holt’s pistol.
“Holt!” he shouted, and the pistol came up. “Hank’s dead! Do you hear me? Hank’s dead — you killed him!”
Holt didn’t wait to reply. The engine raced and he sent the car lurching forward, swinging it around in a tight circle of the direction that spelled escape. He wasn’t aware of the shot but the windshield in front of him suddenly splintered.
“Don’t try to get away!” McCoy yelled. “You’re under arrest!”
Holt had to pass broadside to the porch and automatically he ducked as he wheeled the car around. But he couldn’t duck far enough. A crushing blow descended upon his shoulder and his right arm went abruptly numb. Somehow, he managed to keep the automobile under control with his left hand alone.
“You shot Hank!” McCoy screamed at him as he passed. “I saw you do it! They’ll believe me! They always believe me!”
The car was pointed in the right direction now, down the lane that led to the highway. Holt stamped on the gas. He couldn’t outrun the bullets, however. They whined off the body of the fleeing automobile like frustrated bees. Holt, glancing in the rearview mirror, caught a brief vision of McCoy, running after him down the driveway, firing as he ran, his agonized mouth shouting. Holt wasn’t sure what McCoy was saying. His words blended with the pound of the labouring engine and the thunder of the gunshots, but Holt thought it sounded like, “I’ll get you yet!”
And though it was only the raving of a frantic old man, his legs no match for the horsepower that Holt commanded, Holt nearly believed him. At this panicked moment, McCoy seemed to have the powers of darkness at his summons. The ranch’s main gate barred Holt’s way at the bottom of the lane but he did not slacken his speed. He sent the automobile crashing into it head-on and carried the wooden barricade away before him with the rending sound of bones splintering.
He had won. He was several miles down the highway toward the city before his mind could thaw from its panic sufficiently to realize it. On the back seat, the tape recorder still turned slowly, like a mechanical spider spinning its web. It recorded nothing now. But it had recorded enough, enough to blow the lid off a scandal thirty years in the making. It was all there, on a little spool no larger than a pocket watch. Three deaths had contributed to the making of it. Linneker, Farnum, Quinlan — and the web spun on.