The Man Who Never Returned by Peter Quinn

Author:Peter Quinn [QUINN, PETER]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: FIC014000, FIC022060, FIC022000
ISBN: 9781468304718
Publisher: The Overlook Press
Published: 2012-07-10T04:00:00+00:00

They traveled in an unmarked car across town to First Avenue. Though the sleet had ceased, heavy traffic slowed them to a crawl. As he drove, Crow kept the sidewalks under constant surveillance, moving his head in a deliberate swivel and leaning over the wheel for a better view of a pedestrian’s face, the feral reflexes of a veteran cop sniffing for trouble.

Dunne told Crow that the reports he’d read so far didn’t differ in any significant way from the newspaper accounts. Crater’s bank statements showed that he’d withdrawn the equivalent of a State Supreme Court justice’s annual salary at the time of his appointment to the bench, a seeming indication he’d paid for his office. (In Mrs. Crater’s telling, the money was used to help members of his family “financially distressed by the Stock Market crash of the previous autumn.”)

Of the five grand that Crater had received from having his court clerk cash two checks the morning of his disappearance and the two briefcases filled with papers he’d taken from his chambers — not a trace was found. The money, Crow speculated, could have been intended to pay off a blackmailer. The files might have contained information Crater wanted to keep out of the hands of investigators authorized to look into the buying or selling of judgeships. But if they were so private and potentially dangerous why was he so obvious in removing them?

In the month-long lapse between when he disappeared and when it was reported, there was no telling who’d entered Carter’s apartment, what they’d been after or what they’d removed. If Carter had left the cash behind, who knows who might have taken it. “The year was 1930, don’t forget,” Crow said. “People were scared and desperate. Five grand was a fortune. Even a saint would have been tempted to take it. And if Tammany got wind that Crater removed a bunch of papers from his chambers—and you bet they did—they would have slipped someone into his apartment to see what they contained and, if necessary, seen to their disposal.”

Though in sync with published accounts of the case, the police reports added another level of detail. Detectives Fitzgerald and Von Vogt made it clear that the carefully coordinated responses of Crater’s judicial colleagues were intended to keep the investigation from going where they didn’t want it to go. No judge would speak with them unless another judge was present. A stenographer recorded their answers. Whether Crater had been done in for reasons unrelated to his position or was hiding in fear of an investigation, his colleagues’ first concern was to avoid any involvement. If a single one had the slightest concern over Crater’s fate, he made no mention.

Interviewed in his chambers, in the presence of Justices McCarthy and Mandel, Judge Carmen Traglia volunteered that when Judge Crater hadn’t appeared for the opening of the term, he’d attempted to reach him at his summer residence in Maine. Since he was calling in his capacity as presiding judge and

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