Chiefs (49 page)

Billy grinned. “Would it matter if I did? Print it if you think it interesting. Have you got a camera?”

“I’ve got a Minox in my brief case. Why?”

“Well, you might want to get a shot or two of this place for the dining-out guide of the
Times.”
Billy swung off the main road and onto a dirt one. Shortly they came to a gate with a guardhouse.

“We’re having lunch in the county prison camp?” Howell gaped at the barracks beyond.

The guard looked at him nervously. “Yessir, Governor, can I help you?”

Billy never even fully stopped the car. “Just visiting,” he called out, and laughed as he saw the guard dive for the telephone. “I like to drop in unexpectedly once in a while/’ he said to Howell. “It’s a custom Hugh Holmes started a long time ago.”

Billy headed straight for the mess hall, passing the warden’s house on the way. As they drove by, that gentleman appeared at the door, a napkin tucked under his chin, scowling. “I see the captain isn’t dining with his charges,” Billy said. He parked in front of the mess hall and bounded up the rickety wooden steps, Howell at his heels.

They entered a surprisingly silent hall full of men, the only noise being the dull sound of metal spoons striking plastic trays. Billy grabbed the hand of the nearest guard, an astonished man, and pumped it. “Hey there, glad to see you.” It might have been a campaign barbecue. He led Howell to the serving area and picked up a tray. At that moment the breathless warden rushed through the door.

“Good morning, Governor, my name’s Hardy, I replaced Jenkins last month.” He took Billy by the elbow and attempted to guide him toward the door. “I was just sitting down to some dinner. Why don’t you come join me?”

“Tell you what, Captain,” said Billy, thrusting a tray into the man’s hands, “why don’t we all join your men, here? Let me introduce Mr. John Howell of
the New York Times.”
He kept up a running patter as he propelled the alarmed warden through the line and to a half-empty table. “Mr. Howell is the restaurant critic for his newspaper, and I was just telling him about how well our county prisoners eat. How’s your food, Captain?”

The warden was looking glumly at the mess of dried butter beans and fatback before him. Howell was snapping pictures with his Minox as fast as possible.

“Tell us, Captain, what’s your daily allowance per man for food?”

“Uh, two dollars and thirty cents a day, Governor.”

“Well,” said Billy, poking at his food with a spoon, “the boys must be having T-bone steak tonight, huh? This looks iike about fifteen cents’ worth to me.”

“Well, uh, we missed a delivery this morning. This is just temporary.” A prisoner down the table began a coughing fit.

“I sure hope so, Captain. I’d hate for the
New York Times
to think that our prisoners ate this way three times a day. Tell you what, just to give you a hand, why don’t I arrange for somebody from the department of corrections to come down here the next day or two and help you do an inventory of the pantry and go over the books and the purchasing orders with you. Would that help you out?”

The warden was sweating now. “Well, sir, I think we can handle it. I was just going to have a talk with the sheriff about improving things. I’ve only been here a month, and—”

“Oh, yes, I expect you work pretty closely with the sheriff. You know, I wouldn’t be a bit surprised if he didn’t join us pretty soon. Ah, speak of the devil—”

Billy pointed across the room. Skeeter Willis was coming through the door. Billy stood up to greet him. Skeeter ignored his outstretched hand. “Godammit, Billy, if you want to go snooping around my camp you call me, and—”

“Sheriff, have you met Mr. John Howell of the
New York Times?

“What?”

“Mr. Howell wanted to have a look at a model camp, and I knew yours would be just the thing. Well, gentlemen, if you’ll excuse us, we have to be on our way. No, don’t get up, Captain,” he put a hand on the man’s shoulder and sat him down. “Finish your lunch by all means. I’ll see that you get that help down here shortly.”

Billy and Howell walked back to the car, followed closely by Skeeter. The sheriff pulled Billy to one side. “Now, look here, Billy, I don’t appreciate this.”

“Why, Skeeter, all I’m doing is just getting you some publicity. I thought you’d like that. In fact, Mr. Howell was talking about doing a long piece on county government. If you’d like I could steer him to you, let you give him a good look at your operation.”

“Now, listen, Billy. There’s no call for—”

“I was talking with a fellow in the Justice Department the other day who was expressing just the same kind of interest. Maybe you’d like to talk with him, too?”

Skeeter was nearly purple by now. “Dammit, Billy, you—”

“Tell you what, if you’d really like some attention down here I could speak directly to Bob Kennedy about it. He’s taking a keen interest in southern law enforcement these days.” Billy walked away from the fuming sheriff and got into the car with Howell. He rolled down the window. “I’d be more than happy to do anything I can in that direction, Skeeter. You just say the word, hear?” He rolled up the window, and, with a wave at the sheriff, drove out of the camp. “You get some nice shots?” he asked Howell.

“Oh, Jesus, that was the funniest thing I ever saw. Did you see the warden trying to eat that slop?”

“Didn’t seem to like it much, did he?”

“Do you do this often?”

“Not often enough. Those guys really need watching. I’ll get somebody down here in a few days, and it’ll be all right for a while, but first chance they get—”

“Yeah, I guess they need a message sent pretty often.”

“I think Skeeter got the message,” Billy said as he turned back toward Delano.

Chapter 13.

TUCKER turned from Broad into Main Street and moved slowly down the block with the traffic. He caught sight of his new recruit, Gene Legg, fresh from the Marine Corps, walking among the Christmas shoppers. He thought the boy would work out well, after some training and experience.

“I’m a little surprised you didn’t hire a black officer,” said John Howell, who rode in the passenger seat. The reporter was, as part of his magazine piece, spending a working day with Tucker.

“That might come after a while,” Tucker replied. “But I needed a man, and a qualified applicant presented himself, so I hired him. Next time I need a man, if a qualified black applicant turns up, I’ll hire him.” Tucker knew very well that the next man he hired would be black, even if he had to kidnap him from another police force.

“What do you think about the civil-rights movement, about the changes that are happening?”

“I think the changes are long overdue. As for the movement, it has my sympathy, but I don’t regard myself as an active part of it, even though I’m the first black to hold a job formerly held only by white men.” Tucker knew he would never have been considered for the job except for the civil-rights movement.

“What will you do if you’re required, in the line of duty, to become involved? Locally, I mean.”

“I’ll do my job, I hope. I tend to divide what happens in the world by what is a police problem and what is not. If something happens in Delano that becomes a police problem, I’ll involve myself to the extent necessary to achieve a satisfactory solution.”

“You don’t see a larger role for yourself, both as a policeman and a black man? You aren’t willing to step over the line drawn by your duty in order to influence events?”

“That line is always very fuzzy for a policeman. A cop makes those decisions all the time. Should he make an arrest or just issue a warning? At what point does a domestic argument escalate from a family quarrel to a criminal act? When does a peaceful demonstration become a threat to the community? I hope I’ve developed a sense of judgment in those areas, and I hope it’ll stand me in good stead in the future.”

“Do you think your family relationship to Jesse Cole might cause problems for you in Delano?”

Tucker could not hide his surprise. “Did Billy Lee tell you about that?”

“No, I heard about it from … another source. I’ve discussed it with Billy, though, and it doesn’t seem to bother him. There certainly seems to be no question of any involvement on your part in helping Willie escape.”

Tucker shrugged. “I’m not aware that he was escaping from anything. He certainly had nothing to do with the governor’s daddy’s death. He just happened to be there, the way I heard it.”

“He broke jail.”

“Yes, I suppose he did, but you say, yourself, that there’s no question of my being involved. He was just my cousin, and I didn’t know he had broken jail until he was dead.”

“To get back to my question, do you think the relationship will cause you any problems here?”

“Why should it? Are you going to print it?”

“Would you be uncomfortable if I did?”

“I don’t know. It all happened so long ago, I don’t see what it has to do with what’s happening in Delano today.”

“Just history, I suppose. Also, I get the impression that certain political opponents would like to find a way to use it to embarrass Governor Lee. It might be better if it were mentioned in passing in my piece than for it to come out under circumstances of those people’s choosing.”

“If you say so. I don’t see how it can hurt him, anyway.”

“You still have an aunt here in Delano. Jesse Cole’s wife.”

“Yes.”

“Do you see her often?”

“She comes to Sunday dinner. She’s my only living relative, and she and my wife get along well.” Tucker felt a trickle of sweat run down the small of his back. “We don’t have a lot of friends here. We’re kind of neither one thing nor the other. It’s nice for my wife to have her to talk to.”

“In reading over the announcement of your appointment in the
Delano Messenger,
I noticed there was no mention of your aunt. Small-town newspapers normally bring that in … you know, Watts is the nephew of … etcetera, etcetera.”

“I didn’t write the announcement. I suppose they extracted their information from a resume that covered my career in the army. My aunt isn’t a part of my military career. The announcement didn’t mention I was black, either, but then I guess that wasn’t in the resume.”

Howell grinned and mused over his notes. Tucker fought the urge to change the subject; then Howell did it for him. “Tell me about this guy Sonny Butts, who used to be chief.”

“You probably know as much about him as I do.”

“He really just disappeared, did he?”

“Apparently so. And with the department’s motorcycle.”

“Strange.”

“Yeah, it was.” Tucker paused for a moment. Why not? This guy needed entertaining, and he liked this subject better than the one they had just been talking about. “Come on back to the station, and I’ll show you something interesting—something to do with Butts.”

As they were entering the station, they brushed past a drunk black man who was being, booked in the squad room. Tucker directed Howell to his office and went to the bank of file cabinets. From behind him a voice came, questioningly.

“Willie?”

Tucker froze for just a moment, but prevented himself from turning. He flipped through the files rapidly.

“Willie!”

Tucker extracted a file from the cabinet and turned toward his office.

“Don’t you know me?”

Tucker turned to Bartlett. “What’s this?”

“This, Chief, is Walter Johnson, a regular customer.”

“Willie, it’s
Pieback.
You know me, boy.” The man leaned drunkenly over the counter and stuck his hand out.

Tucker looked at him in disbelief. He had not laid eyes on Pieback Johnson since they had played at hitching rides in the railroad switching yard when they were, what—thirteen, fourteen? And Pieback, stone drunk, had made him as if it had been yesterday.

“Sorry, Johnson, wrong fellow. You better go take a nap.” He joined Howell at the door of his office and ushered him in. Tucker was badly shaken. He busied himself pouring them both a cup of coffee and rattling on about Sonny Butts. Howell looked at him curiously, but said nothing.

“Sonny Butts,” Tucker said, tossing the file on his desk, “was a real hell raiser. He or one of his officers shot a black prisoner in the jail while they were allegedly beating him up. There was a local movement against him, but he wasn’t even indicted. Then he beat up a man out at the fairgrounds, and the city council voted to fire him because of that, on the same day that the grand jury met and failed to indict him for the killing. Before he heard the results of either meeting he left this station in a hurry on the police motorcycle, and nobody ever saw him again, dead or alive.” Tucker sat down and sipped his coffee. “The theory was he thought he would be indicted, so he ran.” Tucker took a sip of his coffee. “But it doesn’t add up.”

“Why not?” Howell asked.

“Because at the last minute, a new witness turned up at the grand jury hearing and cleared him. A witness he would have to have known about.”