The Black Hearts Murder (14 page)

“Oh?” Cordes's nose twitched like Peter Rabbit's. “What's that?”

“I don't know that they want it publicized, so this is off the record. It concerns the weapon used. I'll be working on the case with the police, by the way.”

The little man said, “I thought your mission here is to try to prevent a racial outbreak.”

“It is. But cracking this murder may do exactly that. At the moment I'm more concerned with heading off white violence than quieting the blacks. Horton's being shot by a black will probably put a damper on black protest for the time being, but it's bound to whip up a white backlash. It could well have developed last night until you stepped in.”

Cordes waved away the implied compliment. “Of course white violence can't but harm my candidacy, while black violence can't but help it. I don't like the choices. You can expect my full cooperation, Mr. McCall, any time you think you can use it.”

McCall shook his head. “I have the feeling I'm going to need all the help I can get before this thing is settled. I want to see this murder cleaned up as quickly as possible—before the election, certainly. It seems to me our number one priority of business. And it has nothing to do with whether it's going to make it easier or harder for you to win, Mr. Cordes. I'm after peace in Banbury, as the governor directed.”

“Amen.” The little man shook his head. “And good luck. I know something about your reputation as a scalp hunter.”

McCall rose. “Thanks for your time, Mr. Cordes. And for your offer. I'll call on you if I need your help.”

It was pushing eleven when McCall headed for city hall. He turned his car radio on to BOKO.

In spite of Cordes's assurances, when the newscaster, a naturally nasal type, read the latest letter from Harlan James he employed an insinuating sneer that managed to give it a far different tone from the one McCall had got out of it. The letter, delivered in that tone, sounded so arrogant and braggart that McCall was convinced a large part of the listening audience would interpret it as a taunting challenge—a veiled admission that James had killed Horton.

Either Cordes had cynically lied to him, or the station's news department was overzealous. In any event, the damage was done.

Harlan James's taped speech was broadcast immediately after the reading of his letter. It was still going on when McCall got to the city hall. He pulled into the municipal parking lot and sat in his car listening to the rest of it.

It went on for fifteen minutes, a screed of violent invective and blipped-out obscenities against whites for oppressing blacks, a harangue that could only inflame both races.

Ben Cordes was right about the effect these speeches would have on white lower and middle-class minds. They were bound to arouse fear and hatred and turn too many people against the Black Hearts, and consequently against candidate Jerome Duncan for the sole reason that he shared the Black Hearts' blackness.

SIXTEEN

Laurel was alone in the mayor's reception room when McCall walked in. She was typing a letter. She glanced up just long enough to give him a brief cool look, then bent to her typing again.

McCall stood over her curiously. When she continued to ignore him, he said, “What's the matter?”

She went on typing. “The matter? Why should you think anything's the matter?”

“Don't you recognize me?”

Laurel typed away.

“I'm McCall, remember?”

He might not have been there.

“Baby girl.” He snapped his middle finger off the ball of his thumb and blipped her in the middle of her nape. She jumped a foot and looked up wrathfully.

“You made me make a typo!”

“What's with the deep-freeze?” McCall demanded. “What have I done?”

Laurel began to doctor her error. She concentrated on the erasure. “Chief Condon just left the mayor. He stopped by to give the mayor a detailed report about last night. I had to sit in to take notes.”

“So?”

“The chief said you were the one who first reported the murder.”

“That's right. What of it?”

“He also mentioned that you attended the rally with his secretary, a Policewoman Mackenzie or something.” She paused. “A female cop.”

“McKenna, Beth McKenna. Very nice gal.” Chief Condon had a big mouth, McCall decided.

“Oh?” Laurel laid down the fiberglass eraser, picked up one of rubber, and used it to erase the error on the second sheet. “How nice?”

“Very nice, I said,” he said. “Were you a Horton backer?”

That startled her. “Of course not!”

“Policewoman McKenna was. Or at least she was thinking of becoming one. Her boss was backing Horton, along with most of the other members of the force, so she could attend the rally without repercussions. Could you have?”

Laurel considered this. “I suppose it would have looked funny. I mean with the mayor supporting his opponent.”

“Exactly,” McCall said. “Can you imagine the headline if some reporter had spotted you there?
Mayor's Secretary Backs Boss's Political Foe
. God, your hair. You never got that auburn out of a bottle! Busy tonight?”

“I'm invited to a baby shower.” She continued to examine him. “I'll probably be home by nine.”

“I'll be there at five past.”

She laughed suddenly. “I think I'm being conned. But don't take my girlish laughter as weakness, Mr. McCall. I may decide to get mad all over again.”

“Is it a date?”

“It's a date. Did you want to see the mayor?”

“That's one of the reasons I'm here.”

“I assume that means I'm the other, but I'm not going to press my luck. Mr. Duncan's with the mayor.” She jabbed at the intercom. “Mr. McCall is here, Mr. Mayor. Shall I have him wait?”

Mayor Potter's high voice said, “No, no, Laurel, send him in. I've been wanting to talk to him.”

Jerome Duncan rose when McCall entered the office and offered his hand.

“You're looking at me hard, Mr. McCall,” the mayoralty candidate said. There was a suggestion of amusement in his liquid eyes. “Do I fit the description?”

McCall grinned. “Touché. Put it down to occupational habit, Mr. Duncan.”

“Black is black, eh?”

“No, sir. Just another point of identification, like blue eyes.” The chitchat was on a light level, but McCall nevertheless took in the lower part of Duncan's face in detail. The skin was as dark as the killer's, but Duncan's lips and nose were too Caucasoid to match, he decided.

“How do I come out on your computer, Mr. McCall?”

“Aces high, Mr. Duncan.”

“In that case, take one of the mayor's chairs.” The candidate grinned at the old man. “Sorry to monopolize the conversation, Heywood, but I had to find out where I stood with the governor's man.”

“Why don't we all sit down?” Mayor Potter said. He settled himself in his highbacked black swivel chair. “Chief Condon just left here, Mike. Dropped in to brief me about last night.”

“Your secretary just told me.”

“I don't know what's happened to this country,” the old man said, shaking his head. “The Kennedys, Dr. King, now Horton—terrible. Any ideas on the Horton killing you didn't express to the police, Mike?”

McCall hiked his eyebrows. “No. Why do you ask?”

“My police chief is convinced the killer was either Harlan James or some other Black Heart acting under James's orders.” The mayor gestured toward a radio on a bookcase. “BOKO got another letter and tape from James in this morning's mail, and we heard the broadcast while Chief Condon was here.”

“I caught it on my car radio.”

“It didn't do anything to change the chief's mind about James's guilt,” the mayor said. “Condon's so locked in on it, I'm afraid he won't look elsewhere for an answer.”

“The question is why he's so locked in on it, Heywood,” the black candidate said. “The man's a racist, you know that. You should have replaced him long ago.”

“You know that would turn the police department upside down and inside out, Jerome. As strong as the department feeling is, they're still a functioning force, and I can't afford to leave my city without effective policing.”

“I wonder,” Duncan said. “Ask our black citizens how effective they consider the Banbury police. Their definition, Heywood, might be different from yours.”

“No sense in arguing,” the mayor said. “I'm mayor of the whites as well as the blacks, and I have to do what I consider best for everybody. When you're mayor, you'll find out what I'm talking about. Right now, Condon's worrying me.”

“Don't let him, Mr. Mayor,” McCall said. “The two men assigned to the case are good cops. They lean toward James as the prime suspect, yes, but that won't keep them from investigating other possibilities. And even if they shouldn't, I'll be probing on my own.”

Jerome Duncan leaned forward. “You're going to assist in the investigation, Mr. McCall?”

“More than assist. I like to work in cooperation with the local authorities, but only so far and so long as they're doing a job. Cooperation has never kept me from striking out on my own.”

Duncan studied him. “Who are the men in charge of the case?”

“Lieutenant Cox and Sergeant Fenner of the detective bureau.”

The black man nodded. “They're a good team. Do they have anything to work on?”

“One clue that points to Harlan James.”

“What's that?”

“I don't imagine they want it broadcast,” McCall said. “While it points to James, it doesn't convict him by a long shot.”

McCall stopped in the outer office to use Laurel's phone book.

Harlan James was not listed. McCall looked up James's sister, Mrs. Franks. A number of Frankses were listed, but none had the Christian name Isobel or the initial
I
.

He called the
Post-Telegram
city room and caught Maggie Kirkpatrick at her desk. Yes, Maggie said, she knew Isobel Franks's address; she had been to Mrs. Franks's home several times on assignments to interview the president of the Black Hearts.

“She never changed the phone listing after her husband Cecil died a few years back,” Maggie said. “She's still listed in the book under ‘Cecil Franks.' You'll find it in the book under that name. It's on Ferris Street.”

There was a Cecil Franks listed at 1427 Ferris Street.

When McCall left city hall it was past noon. He found himself ravenous, which was usually a sign that he was troubled. His nose led him to a typical city hall-type restaurant around the corner by way of an aromatic blend of pig's knuckles, sauerkraut, noodle soup, and beer. On his way out he had to make a conscious effort to remember what he had eaten. It was after one when he parked at 1427 Ferris.

It was in the heart of Banbury's black section, the so-called west side. An indigenous Harlemite might not have recognized Banbury's west side as a ghetto, at least from its topography, although a member of the Watts community would have felt at home. It consisted mainly of small one- and two-family houses neatly tended; its rodents were more likely to be field mice than rats. The occasional apartment building seemed neither as overcrowded nor as dilapidated as the multidwellings of the metropolitan slums. Under Mayor Potter, McCall understood, the city enforced health standards and tenement laws rigorously.

But if life in what Banbury's white racists contemptuously called Blacktown was more decently livable than in other cities' black enclaves, the area was nonetheless a ghetto. Under the surface rumbled all the bitterness, hatred, and unrest of the worst slums. A few had managed to burst the bars and through talent, industry, or luck insinuated themselves and their families into “good” white neighborhoods; the overwhelming mass were prisoners in Blacktown through realtor conspiracies, white community hostility, employment inequities, or their own conditioned submission and hopelessness. McCall felt a jarring buzz under the quiet air, as of the uncomprehended conversation of not an alien but an alienated people.

Fourteen twenty-seven Ferris was a small white green-shuttered house surrounded by a white picket fence. Two men came out of the house and pushed through the gate as McCall parked his car at the curb. He was surprised. They were Lieutenant Cox and Sergeant Fenner.

The lieutenant seemed just as surprised to see him.

“What are you doing here, Mr. McCall?”

“Looking for Mrs. Franks. You, too?”

“We've been searching her house for her brother Harlan's target pistol. I'm afraid she isn't going to throw her arms around your neck. We had to get a warrant before she'd let us look.”

McCall said, “Find the pistol?”

Cox shook his head morosely. “James must have taken it along when he went into hiding. Although Isobel claims she never saw such a gun in his possession.”

“She has to be lying,” Sergeant Fenner snapped. “Harlah's lived with her about fifteen years, and that gun permit application was filed only two years ago.”

“Kind of odd weapon to request a permit for,” McCall remarked. “It's too long-barreled to carry about comfortably.”

“Too small-calibered for decent defense, too,” Lieutenant Cox said. “For snap shooting you want something that's going to stop the other guy even if you only hit him in the arm or a leg. And that means at least a thirty-eight. For precision shooting, of course, you can't beat a Woodsman. If you have time to aim, it's as accurate as a rifle. Up to fifty yards a good marksman could nail his target between the eyes.”

“Yeah,” Sergeant Fenner said. “It makes a lot better assassination weapon than a defensive one.”

The two officers drove off, and McCall moved on up the walk. His ring brought the thin black woman to the door.

“What do
you
want?”