Free Badge of Evil by Whit Masterson

Shayon. I want to break this thing fast. Then it’ll be up to you to take it from there.”
    Holt drove back to his office but a good deal slower than he had covered the same distance earlier. His mind was still clouded with confusion. He had been completely convinced that he was right, and Van Dusen’s findings had borne out that conviction. But his logic had foundered against the unassailable rock of the hidden dynamite, and there was no arguing against it. He sighed. Might as well admit it, he told himself, you were wrong. But it was hard to swallow, just the same.
    Van Dusen was at the drinking fountain as Holt came down the corridor. He hailed Holt cheerily. “Well, I did my homework, teacher. O’Hara left town all right and I sent off a teletype to the D.A. in Frisco to run a check on him. And here’s Farnum’s new address.” He held out a slip of paper.
    Holt took it and read it automatically. “Thanks, Van.”
    “It was a cinch. I figured he might be out of work so I checked state employment and got it without even leaving the office. You want we should take a run over and see him?”
    “I don’t think we need to bother.” Briefly, he told Van Dusen about the dynamite and Shayon’s arrest, which had probably been consummated by now. “I guess I was barking up the wrong tree.”
    “Well, it’s a funny one,” Van Dusen mused. “I still don’t see how they did it, but you remember what I told you about McCoy. He’s uncanny. Guess you can take that vacation, after all.”
    “Yeah.” Holt stuck the slip of paper with Farnum’s address in his pocket. So finally he could empty his brief case and take a real vacation. Not a worry in the world. Somehow he didn’t feel particularly jubilant at the prospect. He went in to phone Connie. He doubted if she’d be too happy about it, either, considering the reason. The young lovers are guilty after all, dear, so now let’s relax and have a good time. But that was the way things went.

CHAPTER EIGHT
    T HOUGH chagrined, Connie Holt took the news with more composure than did her husband. By the time Holt arrived home that evening, the whole affair had become secondary in her mind and she was more interested in discussing the activities of Nancy’s Brownie troop than in raking over the now dead coals of the Linneker murder. She had been wrong, she accepted the fact and there was no use dwelling on it. That was Connie’s view.
    Though a practical viewpoint, it was one which Holt was unable to share. His mind kept returning to the case, like a wistful vulture to a carcass whose bones had already been picked clean. His conversation at the dinner table was abstracted and his appetite meagre.
    Connie said, “For goodness sake, Mitch, how can I get Nancy to clean her plate when you set that kind of example?”
    “I’m not hungry.”
    “You would be if you’d only stop brooding. You’d think that this whole thing was your fault or something. You should be happy that it’s settled.”
    Holt said moodily, “That’s just it. It’s not settled, not in my mind, anyway. I’m going to have to prosecute those two kids, Connie. What sort of a job can I do when I’ve got a doubt in my own mind?”
    “I’ve been wanting to talk to you, Mitch.” Connie dismissed their daughter for her after-dinner ration of television. “It’s occurred to me recently that maybe it’s time you made a change. Are you getting stale in your job? These cases never used to upset you this way. I don’t like it.”
    “I had the same thought this afternoon. Maybe it’s not the case. Maybe I’m just played out.” Holt shrugged. “I’ll tell Adair tomorrow that I’m going to take that vacation whether he likes it or not. Maybe he’ll fire me.”
    Connie said softly, “Then you could handle their defence, couldn’t you?”
    “They’ve already got an attorney,” Holt said. Then he grinned at her. “All right, dear, I’ll admit it. I still feel like I should be on their side