His tireless work and dedication paid off. In early June there was a shake-up in the department. Men were demoted and promoted, assignments were shifted. Lieutenant Weston was made a full-fledged captain, in charge of the Mobile Reserve Squad, and Day was promoted to lieutenant to take his place in charge of the West Sector burglary detail. Day, Lieutenant Day, wasn't surprised.
He was surprised, though, six months later, when Bill Grindle called and wanted to see him. Distasteful as it was, Day agreed, and was instructed to be in the public library the next day at three o'clock.
At two the next afternoon Day got busy with some paper work, trying not to think about the impending meeting with Grindle. Using the knack he'd somehow acquired, he managed to lose himself completely in his tedious work.
Then the time arrived, and Day rose from his desk and left his office, nodding to the white-haired desk sergeant as he left the precinct house.
Day sat for what seemed along time in the criminology section of the library before he sensed a presence and looked up from the open, unread book before him to see the man he'd never wanted to see again.
The same vaguely sarcastic smile, the same amused eyesâthe same in every way, only slightly older and heavierâBill Grindle stood looking down at Lieutenant Day.
"Been a long time," Grindle
said
,
seating himself in a chair across the table.
Day nodded. "Almost five years." He wondered what Grindle had on his mind, but he tried not to let that show.
"You look worried," Grindle said with a smile. "There's no need to worry."
"Why don't you tell me what you want," Day said, "then let me decide whether or not to worry."
Grindle snorted a little laugh and nodded. "No need to try to fool each other, Lieutenant, not old friends like us. I came here about the Bain Corporation warehouse on Palmer Road."
"Bain... They're drug manufacturers, aren't they?"
Grindle nodded. "And there's close to eighty thousand dollars' worth of amphetamines stored in their warehouse."
Now Day remembered the plant and warehouse. It had been robbed about three years ago. A low, spread-out, pale-brick building, it was completely isolated in an area that was just beginning to be developed. Since the robbery three years ago, they had installed bright outside lights and hired a night watchman.
"Why meet here and tell me about the Bain warehouse?" Day asked, but he knew why.
"We're partners again," Grindle said smiling. "You're going to assist me in stealing those amphetamines."
Day shook his head and said simply, "No."
"Come on, Lieutenant Day, you don't want me to tell the police board some things I know, do you? I have some very interesting old tapes. Then too, there's my wife's testimony."
"You'd be cutting your own throat."
"But it would be far from fatal, Lieutenant. It's a point of law that the statute of limitations for breaking and entering in this state is five years. Of course, you couldn't he tried for those early jobs of ours eitherâwouldn't he convicted on my evidence anyway. But on the other hand there's your career to think about, your family and reputation." Grindle's amused eyes were fixed on him like jewels in some sardonic mask.
Day rose from his chair in anger, but the eyes didn't blink, the mask didn't change.
"I told you before, Lieutenant Day, burglary's like a business with me. You were sort of my pension plan, and now it's time for me to make one big killing and retire."
Day sat back down slowly. The facts had arranged themselves in lightning order in his detective's logical mind, and he knew he was had. "How do I know you'll retire?" he asked Grindle.
Grindle shrugged. "At least you know you won't have to worry about me for another five years. You'll be a captain by that time."
"What about the men you set up? What will they do to you if they find out the truth?"
Grindle smiled and waved a hand. "They're either dead, in prison, or too small for me to worry about now."
Day sighed a long, deflating sigh, knowing that Grindle was right as usual. "What's your plan?"
Grindle glanced around him, amused by the idea of planning a burglary in the library's criminology section.
"Safe and simple," he said. On the back of an envelope he expertly sketched a detailed drawing of the Bain warehouse, then drew in a basic floor plan. "We bypass the alarm here, then we go in through this loading door at five a.m."
"We?"
"Myself and Rich Costa," Grindle said.
Day nodded. Rich Costa was one of the area's well-known burglars, one of the most careful. He was stepping into something not very nice this time.
With the point of the pencil, Grindle showed Day where the amphetamines were stored. There were so many of them that after they'd hauled them across the warehouse to the loading door, Costa was going to go out again and back the car into the dock so they could hurriedly toss the drugs down into the spacious trunk.
"What about the watchman?" Day asked.
Grindle looked up at him a bit surprised. "We take care of him, don't worry."
"How?"
"We wear stocking masks so he can't identify us. He'll be here, in this little office." Grindle drew an X on his floor plan. "We hold a gun on him, bind and gag him. He's an old man and can't give us much trouble."
"And for guaranteeing your safety I suppose I'm to get Costa."
"When we're getting into the car to drive away, you shoot him." Day looked up sharply, feeling something draw taut in his stomach.
"Shoot him?"
Grindle nodded, speaking through his sarcastic half-grin "This is a big job, my last, and I don't want to have to worry about somebody putting the finger on me for a better deal in court or for a parole later on."
"Do you know what you're doing?" Day asked in an incredulous voice. "You're asking a police lieutenant to commit murder!"
"I'm asking you to shoot a fleeing criminal. You'll probably get a citation. Some of the amphetamine is in powder form in plastic bags. I'll leave a five-pound bag next to the body to make everything look genuine. You put a couple of bullets in the trunk too, for them to see when they find the car. It won't hurt the narcotics. Just make sure you don't hit a tire or the gas tank."
Day got up and began to walk. He had to walk, had to work some of the nervousness out of his body. "This is crazy!"
Grindle shook his head, glancing about to make sure they were still alone before speaking in a raised whisper, "It's not crazy and it will work, and we're going to do it."
"I'm not a killer!"
"I know you're not, Lieutenant, you're a police officer doing his duty. And you might look at it this way: there is no statute of limitations on murder. I'll be absolutely sure of your discretion, and you'll be free of me."
That was true enough, Day reasoned with some relief, and he felt soiled that the idea of murder for personal gain should actually appeal to him. Day went back to the table and sat down. As he rested his bare, perspiring forearm on the tabletop the faint odor rose to his nostrils. Sweat and varnish, the same as the smell of a police station; sweat and varnish, and sometimes fear.
"Is there a patrol car cruising that area around five a.m.?" Grindle asked.
"I don't know," Day answered slowly. "I can find out."
"Do that," Grindle said, "then phone me and let me know where we can create a diversion to get the car out of the area before we go in.
Day nodded. It was as if the years hadn't passed and he and Grindle were plotting their earlier burglaries. Grindle scribbled a phone number on a torn-off corner of the envelope and handed it to Day.
"It'll be Friday morning unless you hear different," Grindle said.
Day didn't look at him as Grindle pushed back his chair with a scraping sound and left through a side door.
Thursday evening Day went to bed at ten o'clock, telling Audrey that he didn't feel well. He was telling her the truth. All that night after supper he couldn't stop thinking about what he was hiding from her, and for the first time he began wondering if
she
would think the price of her contentment were worth it. It occurred to Day that up until that time he'd only considered the deals he'd made with Grindle from a basically selfish point of view.
He didn't sleep much that night, tossing on the soft mattress and glancing from time to time at the glowing hands of the clock radio. The only thing that comforted him somewhat was that Grindle was right about the murder charge. It would free Day forever from him.
At four-fifteen, as he knew it would, the telephone rang. Day snatched up the receiver instantly, cutting off the first ring, but he sensed that Audrey was awake beside him anyway.
"This is you-know-who,
"the voice said loosely,
"and I'll meet you you-know-where."
"All right," Day said too casually.
"Remember,
" the voice said,
"last time."
"I'll remember," Day said, and hung up the phone.
He was worried. Grindle had sounded as if he were high on something. There had been an electric undercurrent of excitement in the burglar's voice that Day hadn't heard before. As he climbed out of bed and flicked on the soft reading lamp he told himself not to worry. If nothing else, Grindle was a pro.
"What is it?" Audrey asked behind him. "Where are you going?"
"Some work to do," Day said, turning and smiling down at her. She was still sleepy and her face looked peaceful in the soft yellow light. "Duty to perform," he added.
"Again?" she said with drowsy irritation. Summoning phone calls in the middle of the night for Day were nothing new, but they never failed to annoy Audrey.
"You go to sleep and I'll be back in the morning," Day said gently, bending and kissing her forehead.
H
e went into the bathroom and got dressed quickly, mercilessly splashing ice-cold tap water over his face.
The low, rambling Bain Corporation warehouse was like an island of light in the dark night. The beige brick looked almost white and very clean in the harsh glare from the overhead dusk to dawn lights and the beams of the ground-level spots. Day parked his car off Palmer Road and walked back toward the light, keeping to the shadows as much as possible. To his right the skeletal beams of a half-finished building rose against the starless sky. He was approaching the Bain warehouse from behind and to one side, and when he saw the lighted loading and receiving dock, with its few trailers backed into some of the overhead doors, he grew more cautious.
Day saw that one of the trailers had been backed into a door next to the one Grindle and Costa would use. That would shield them almost completely from the street, and only darkness stretched in the other direction, dotted in the distance by some tiny pinpoints of light.
It was quarter to five. They wouldn't be here for fifteen minutes, and probably just about now were calling in and reporting a prowler at the electric company plant two miles away. Day worked his way closer, concealing himself in a deep shadow near a portable trash container right next to the side of the building. The trash had a sweet, nauseating odor, and Day didn't want to have to stay there long.
Grindle and Costa walked silently past, within thirty feet of Day, but they didn't see him. Day stayed in the deep shadows and drew his revolver from his holster.
He heard a slight metallic clanking and then the low rolling sound of the overhead loading door going up. He got between the building and the trash container, worked himself to the corner and peered around, but there was nothing to be seen. Grindle and Costa had silently lowered the door behind them so their way of access couldn't he spotted from outside. They'd also extinguished the outside lights near that door for added concealment.
Day waited, watching. When Costa left to get the car he would work in behind a nearby parked trailer where he could get off a clear shot.
As he waited, the brassy taste of excitement rose in Day's throat. Nervousness, he decided, as he inched forward. He took a deep breath, then smiled confidently to himself, and that's when he realized the guilt, the shame. For the first time he admitted it to himself. He was enjoying this. He was actually enjoying himself!
The shot from inside the building wasn't very loud, like the single, flat blow of a hammer.
Day straightened and caught the sweet stench of the trash. "No...he whispered to himself. "No!" Then he was running, away from the loading area and toward the front of the building. Within a minute he'd broken the thick glass of a front door with the butt of his revolver and was inside.
He ran through the offices, through a door into the warehouse area.
Everything was dark except for a feeble glow about a hundred feet off to the left. Day remembered the sketch Grindle had made of the building's floor plan and cautiously made his way toward the light. As he got closer he could hear a radio playing, tuned to some all-night-chatter and soft-music station.