Called by a Panther by Michael Z. Lewin

Author:Michael Z. Lewin [Lewin, Michael Z.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Pan Macmillan

Chapter Thirty Two

A NEW DAWNING BROUGHT the need to answer a critical question: should I contact the police and tell them what I knew?

If so, when?

If so, what?

But at eight-fifteen the decision was taken out of my hands. The police, in the form of Jerry Miller, called me. He said, “Al, there's something I'd like to talk to you about. Do you think you could come down and see me?”

“What, you mean like lunch?”

“Before lunch. This morning. Now.”

“Has something happened, Jerry?”

“No, no,” he said without conviction. “I would just like to have a little talk. What time do you think you can get down here?”

A little after ten-thirty his secretary waved me straight through to his office.

“O.K., sport,” I said. “What the hell is going on?”

“Sit down,” he said.

He had the same air of reserve that he'd had on the phone and I thought about battling him all the way down the line. But I didn't have a clue what it was about. It might be personal. It might be that he had decided to leave Janie at last and he wanted help with his farewell letter.

I sat down.

He said, “We have briefings first thing these days.”

I waited.

“Scum Front,” he said.

I waited silently again, but this time because I couldn't have said anything if I'd wanted to.

He said, “Reviewing. You know. What guys did yesterday on the case. Latest pronouncements from on high. And this morning, Al, you can imagine what I felt when I caught your name.”

I nodded and swallowed and tried to locate my voice. “I . . . I had a couple of guys come around.”

“So I read,” Miller said. He picked up some papers from his desk. But he didn't look at them. He looked at me. “Anyhow, so when I heard the name I asked Ryder for his report.”

I went for “injured innocent.”“What's the problem?”

Miller didn't answer the question. He waved the papers slowly. “You made a call from a public phone, right?”

“Right.”

“To—”

“Only she was out. What is the problem, Jerry?”

“Well, I don't know if you know, there's a new gadget available on phones.”

“Is this going to take long? Because I've got a young daughter and I don't want to miss her fiftieth birthday party.”

“When we get a call in the department, this gadget automatically gives us the source telephone number and the location of the phone the call is being made from.”

I waited.

“The information goes on a rolling computer thing so we keep records for thirty-six hours before they get wiped to be replaced by the new calls. The same equipment can be put on other phones and because of the importance of the Scum Front case we've got all the pay phones in central Indianapolis hooked up. The Scummies use them to call Cab-Co.”

“Jerry, I know about that. I saw it in action. I was sitting in my car dealing with some serious calories and I saw cops coming out of the woodwork to get at that phone in the shopping center.”

“Yeah, but maybe you didn't know that the equipment also records the time the calls are made.

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