Free River City by John Farrow Page B

Miron. That wasn’t part of the deal.”
    “Yes, sir.”
    “But keep your ears open. You may get to shoot his coat yet.” Sloan glowered at the young guy, then said, “Speaking of the radio, Captain, he has one on him. In his pocket. One of those fancy new transistors. The Regency TR-1.”
    “Sophisticated. Imagine that, eh? A radio you don’t plug in. Damn thing costs fifty bucks, but I might buy one. Anything else?”
    “A flashlight and a penknife, also in his coat pockets. A bit of putty. We picked up a woman’s kerchief that was lying beside him so it wouldn’t blow away. We can’t say if it belonged to him or just blew in.”
    Touton shook his head, then nodded back at the Sun Life. “Look at that building. I don’t know what Fort Knox looks like, but it must be similar. Are you telling me he broke into that building with a transistor radio and a penknife?”
    Sloan shrugged a little. “He also must have had several long stretches of rope and a few sticks of dynamite.”
    “Dynamite, a kerchief and putty.” Touton blew out a gust of air.
    The coroner bagged the knife and placed it in the glove box of his van, which he locked, then he locked the van. He came back for the body, which his assistants had bagged, and, while Touton questioned other cops on the scene, he loaded the corpse onto a gurney. The captain wanted to hear what the other cops had learned or guessed, if anything, and to know if any witnesses had stepped forward. This was a public park, one that was used at night, although, admittedly, the night had been exceptional. The cops confirmed what he’d expected: that the usual thrum of people had been drawn into the cacophony of the riot, and so far only one witness had turned up. That man had spotted a group of adult males, at least two of whom looked old, huddled over the victim. Suspiciously, aggressively, he said. He’d dashed away to call a cop. When the officer went to investigate, the men ran.
    “The cop didn’t chase them?” Touton asked.
    “He did, he says, but they vanished into the mob scene.”
    Feeling glum, Touton went over to the coroner’s van and shut the driver’s-side door on him, giving it a slap as the vehicle departed. The coroner drove across the grass and snow, onto the sidewalk, then slowly dropped the van off the curb onto the street and headed south.
    The captain of the Night Patrol turned back to the crime scene.
    This one was perplexing. He knew that his men were seeing what they were meant to see. The acrobatic robbery, followed by a bold murder with a valuable, stolen weapon. But an aspect that had made the robbery work was the early preventative evacuation of the building due to the riot. Sloan had already made that connection. And another question—why would a thief lie dead, with the stolen prize lodged in his chest? That one was the real puzzle to anyone looking at this.
    “Sir! Sir!” Miron called excitedly. Then, suddenly, he reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out two shells.
    “What? Did Sloan mention Richard?”
    Miron stooped to retrieve a shell that had fallen in the snow, and noddedin the direction the van travelled. Touton shot a glance that way. The coroner’s van had been cut off by a car at the intersection with Dorchester Boulevard. Both its front doors were flung open.
    “Get down there! Go! Run!”
    Touton ran, too, but the younger, lighter man who was free of war wounds dashed ahead of him. Spotting them on the move, Sloan and other cops came running. Touton could see a confrontation around the cars, a tussle, then heard a gunshot. Men leaped into a large, black Cadillac, and the car burned rubber, its tires squealing as the car vaulted away before its doors were closed. Still running, Touton caught sight of a coroner’s assistant bent over a body in front of the van, and he yelled at Miron, “Shoot! Fire that thing!”
    The young man still had to load the shells. He stopped running to do so, then aimed and pressed both