Dirty Harry 05 - Family Skeletons (7 page)

Harry slowly retrieved his Magnum and straightened to face the last pair of blacks. They stared at him as if he were a whole army of Ku Klux Klan members.

“Bingo,” Harry said. They must have thought he said “Boo!” because they nearly knocked each other over again trying to get out the exit door at the same time.

Harry tiredly picked up Tom, dragged him over to the soda fountain, and asked the wide-eyed man behind the counter directions to the nearest police station.

C H A P T E R
F o u r

“I
can’t help you. You’ll have to wait for Detective Collins.”

It was the fourth time Harry had heard that. A guy can’t make a dollar with any ease in this town, Harry thought. All he wanted to do was book Tom and then get him alone in a room for a little talk. That wasn’t too much to ask, was it? The Boston Police Department could extend that little courtesy for a visiting inspector, couldn’t they?

It certainly didn’t seem that way. First, Tom had screamed excessive violence—“police brutality” in the lingo of the sixties—and demanded medical care. When the police doctor had only found a bump on his head and no horrible wound with an accompanying concussion, Tom had screamed for his rights, his phone call, and the name of a good lawyer.

The friendly, mostly chubby, and seemingly agreeable cops had kept Tom on ice for a few hours now, occupying him with pictures and prints, the arrest report, and other delightful official things like that. In the meantime, they also entertained Harry by getting his statement. When they heard about the Unitarian Church offices and the hunting knife, they hastily got together for a huddle and then called downtown.

Ever since, Harry had felt trapped in a Samuel Beckett-like play that might have been titled
Waiting for Detective Collins.

The police station was very familiar. It was like many other municipal police stations in that it was housed in one of the city’s oldest buildings. But rather than being rundown and corroded, Boston’s station house was a solid stone structure just a couple of blocks away from the theater section and Boston College.

It was after ten o’clock in the evening when Detective Collins finally arrived. He swept into the squad room, his furry tan coat unbelted and unbuttoned off a nice pinstripe suit. Detective Collins was well dressed, well groomed, good-looking, and as black as the boys Harry had beaten up at the pinball emporium.

“Detective Christopher Collins,” a woman sergeant introduced, after bringing the man over to where Harry sat, “Inspector Harry Callahan of the San Francisco Homicide Department.”

Collins’ handshake was solid and warm. “It getting boring on the West Coast, Inspector?” Collins said as way of hello. “You trying to solve all our murders, too?”

Harry stood. Collins was a couple of inches shorter than he was. About five-eleven or six feet, Harry judged. “Just happened to be at the wrong place at the right time,” Harry replied.

Collins looked beyond Harry at the collected arrest reports on the desk. “We’ll see,” he murmured, scanning them. He turned to the sergeant, who looked like a retired librarian. “I’m glad you called me.” He then straightened, started to walk out of the room, and motioned for Harry to follow. Harry left the harried, forever active squad room to their work. He caught up to Collins in the hall. The black cop was still studying the reports.

“I’ve been assigned to the Beacon Hill Murders that happened last night,” Collins explained. “Some things you say in here look like they could be connected with it.”

“I figured as much,” said Harry, glancing around the hall as they went. “Both the murder victim and the attacked girl worked at the Unitarian Church, and both were attacked with knives.”

“Hmmph,” Collins grunted, eyes still on the papers in front of him as he seemingly walked around by radar. “Christine, huh? Is that the only name you know for her?”

“We weren’t properly introduced. I could find out. Call the Unitarian offices. She might still be there.”

“We have,” said Collins. “She wasn’t.” Harry nodded, unsurprised. “No problem, though,” Collins continued. “We will call in the morning. Anyone on duty there will know her full name.”

The black detective looked at Callahan out the corner of his eye. Harry saw it with his own peripheral vision but acted as if he hadn’t. It was an old, tired trick. Always try to put the other person on guard; always act if the other person has something to hide.

It often worked because almost everybody who walked into a police station without a badge had something to hide. Whether they were reporting a crime, the victim of one, or the perpetrator, everyone had the feeling that the cops wanted to know every single detail of their lives. In actuality, they were probably right.

Harry certainly knew that he was hiding something. He had failed to mention Shanna’s involvement with the girl, Shanna’s shared conversation with the two, or even that Shanna existed. According to his statement, Harry had been just passing by when he saw the two young people go running out of the Unitarian Headquarters.

It was a calculated gamble. Shanna’s father’s name was Donovan. If Collins was to think Harry had relatives in the city he’d find no directly related Callahans. If Collins found one of the drivers who just missed Harry on Beacon Street, he could prove him as a liar, but that was doubtful. As it stood, only Shanna and Harry knew the truth. And Collins didn’t know about Shanna, and Harry wasn’t talking.

So Callahan ignored the questioning silence and Collins’ suspicious glance. He saw no reason to bring his relatives into it at this point, especially since the “alleged perpetrator” was in custody. “Where are we going now?” Harry inquired easily.

“Your wish is my command,” said Collins. “We’re going to pay Tom Morrisson a little visit.”

The interrogation-detention room was remarkably like all the others Harry had visited in his career. Then again, you could take any room and line every inch of wall space with cork and get the same look. White corkboard was everywhere. Within its pristine confines was a table, a tape recorder, and four chairs. In one of the chairs was an angry Tom Morrisson.

“You can’t keep me here!” he shouted when they first walked in. “I didn’t do anything.”

Collins stopped in the doorway and turned to Harry. “They all say that,” he told him with a smile. “They learned it from
Dragnet.”
The black detective looked back at Morrisson while still standing in the doorway, the reports under his arm. “Well, you’re absolutely right, Mister Morrisson,” Collins answered cheerily. “So we’re just going to have a little chat before we can decide what to do with you.”

“I want my lawyer,” Tom said.

“That’s the second line they learn,” Collins cracked to Harry, then fully entered the room. “Do you have a lawyer?” the black man asked.

Morrisson thought a little bit. “Not by name,” he said.

Callahan was going to warn Collins about the kid’s lack of eating and sharp temper when he remembered he hadn’t mentioned overhearing their office conversation. But since he was leaning toward the other detective as if to mention something, he spoke up anyway. “He doesn’t have one.”

“Hmmph,” Collins said as he put down the reports and sat in the chair opposite Morrisson. “Well, of course if you don’t have a lawyer, the court will assign you one, but first we have to get to court. You understand?”

“I have a lawyer, I have a lawyer!” Tom yelled.

“Give us his name or number so we can call him,” Collins suggested.

“Uh . . . uh,” Morrisson answered. “Uh . . . give me a phone book. I’ll look it up.”

“Sorry,” said Collins, knowing it to be a ploy by which Tom would call up the most appetizing lawyer he could find, then promise him any amount of money to take on his case. It was a time-wasting routine. “No phone books. They were all ripped off.”

Morrisson fell silent. “I guess we’ll just have to have a talk without a lawyer,” Collins went on. “Now you know all your rights, don’t you, Thomas?”

“Tell them to me again.”

“Oh you know them,” Collins countered affably. “I bet you watch
Barney Miller
every night. Let’s get down to cases, shall we?” The black detective looked over at Harry, who was standing off to the side behind him. “You know who Inspector Callahan is, don’t you?” Collins inquired.

Harry realized his whole subterfuge could blow up in his face with one wrong word out of Morrisson’s mouth. He looked at the kid with no expression, not wanting to tip his hand. If Tom knew that Harry didn’t want him to say anything about Shanna, he had no doubt she’d be the primary topic of conversation.

“Yeah,” Morrisson snarled. “He’s a fucking cop.” For one of the few times in his career, Harry didn’t mind being called that. To him, it was better than being called “Shanna’s uncle.”

“Yes,” Collins agreed with the kid. “He’s a fucking cop who has brought you in on charges of assault with a deadly weapon, resisting arrest, and disturbing the peace. Do you have anything to say to these charges?”

“Do I have anything to say?” Morrisson responded incredulously. “Do I have anything to say? You bet I have something to say!”

“Remember,” Collins said quickly. “Anything you say can be used against you.”

Morrisson fell silent again.

“Oh good,” Collins said. “Now we can get on with the really neat stuff. First, let’s see if we have the right Tom Morrisson. You are Tom Morrisson of 365 Commonwealth Avenue, apartment 4D?”

“Yeah,” Morrisson answered miserably.

“The Tom Morrisson who is an undergraduate theater major at Emerson College?”

“Yeah, that’s me,” Morrisson nodded.

“The Tom Morrisson who is a chairman of the organization called The Order of the Orenda?”

The young man had leaped out of his seat. “How do you know about that?” he shouted, coming around the table. Collins sat unaffected as Harry met Morrisson halfway. Tom looked up into Harry’s lined face and thought better of moving anymore. He slowly returned to his seat while Collins laughed.

“Oh, we know a lot about all sorts of different cults that pop up in Boston, Thomas. We make it a practise to find out all we can about all these perverted sects.”

Callahan had to admit to himself that Collins knew what he was doing. He had pegged Morrisson as a hopped-up hothead as soon as he entered the room, then degraded Tom’s most cherished beliefs in the most callous way he knew. All his words were designed to get a rise out of the kid.

It worked quickly. “It is not a cult!” Morrisson shouted, standing next to his seat. “And it is not perverted! It’s the original belief! The belief of the true Americans.”

“Yes, we know,” Collins responded knowledgeably. “The American Indian beliefs. But there are so many different tribes with so many different beliefs.”

“We take the best of all of them,” Morrisson cried with pride.

“What?” Collins queried. “Like the Iroquois who believed there was more than one soul which traveled to different places depending on how the body died? Like the Algonquians who believed evil spirits must be driven out of the body for a happier life? Like the Plains Indians, who cut off joints of fingers as a sacrifice?

“Or do you go further?” Collins leaned in, his voice rising in pitch and speed. “Are you like the Pawnee, who murdered young squaws in the name of the morning star? Or are you like the Inca and Maya who didn’t need an excuse to raid a neighboring tribe for a virgin sacrifice? Or the Aztec who made special raids to acquire their victims and slaughtered them by the hundreds?”

“No!” Morrisson screamed, clawing across the table for Collins’ throat. He gripped the black man’s neck just as Callahan swiped him across the room with the back of his hand.

Morrisson flew bodily off the table, traveled three feet through the air, and slid in a crumbled mass against the wall. Collins merely straightened his coat and tie.

“No,” Morrisson said feebly from the floor, tears rolling down his cheeks. “I am a shaman. We believe in purity and the Great Spirit. We believe in Brotherhood . . .”

The boy’s words reduced to incoherent babble. Collins rose, looking at the huddled mass in the corner.

“That’s about all we can do here,” Collins grimaced.

“It’s enough,” said Harry.

“Yeah,” Collins agreed, calling in the uniformed men to take the boy away. “Feel like a little ride?” the black detective asked Callahan when they got out into the hall.

“Sure,” said Harry, knowing an order when he heard one. “Why not?” Harry may have outranked Collins, but Boston was the black man’s town. He’d have an easier time making things stick than Callahan.

They went downstairs, out the back, and into Collins’ unmarked El Dorado. “What’s going to happen to the kid?” Harry asked, settling into the plush red passenger seat.

“Probably going to have to send him to the hospital now,” Collins mused. “Find out what’s making him crazy. Hold him a couple of days for observation.”

For the second time, Harry wanted to mention the kid’s lack of food, but he had purposely omitted the information before, so he stuck with his little white lie. “What then?” he asked.

“Then,” Collins retorted, starting the car’s engine, “then we’ll probably release him.”

Harry sat up. “What?”

“We have a little problem with your charges, Inspector,” Collins said pulling out into the sparse night traffic.

“Such as?” Harry inquired, ignoring the many sights along the wide avenues.

“First and foremost,” Collins said, watching the road, “the assault with a deadly weapon.”

“He attacked a girl with a hunting knife!” Harry said incredulously, his hackles rising. “You mean they don’t have a law against that here?”

Rather than responding to Callahan’s obvious sarcasm, Collins went curtly to the heart of the matter. “Where’s the girl? Where’s the knife?”

That caught Harry unawares. Finding Christine should be no problem, but he had assumed that Tom had the knife on him when he ran. “Find the girl and you’ll probably find the knife,” was what Harry concluded aloud.

“Probably, probably,” Collins echoed, turning right onto a wide, two-way street. Harry saw the Boston Gardens, the companion park to the Common to the left at the end of the block. “But until then, we have another deadly weapon to worry about.”