CHAPTER EIGHT
The first thing I saw when I walked into the squadroom the next morning was Harry Sears reading the _Herald_ headline: “Hunt Werewolf’s Den in Torture Slaying!!!”; the second thing I saw was a chain of five men– two derelicts, two squarejohn types and one in county jail demins, manacled to a bench. Harry put his paper down, stammering, “C-c-confessors. S-s-said they s-sliced the girl.” I nodded, hearing screams coming from the interrogation room.
A moment later, Bill Koenig led a doubled-over fat man out the door, announcing to the bullpen at large, “He didn’t do it.” A couple of officers clapped satirically at their desks; a half dozen looked away, disgusted.
Koenig shoved the fat man out to the corridor. I asked Harry, “Where’s Lee?”
Harry pointed to Ellis Loew’s office. “W-with Loew. R-r-reporters, too.”
I walked over and peered through the crack in the doorway. Ellis Loew was standing in back of his desk, playing to a score of newshounds. Lee was seated at the DA’s side, dressed in his only suit. He looked tired–but nowhere near as edgy as he did last night.
Loew was sternly enunciating, “. . . and the heinous nature of the killing deems it imperative that we make every effort to catch this fiend as soon as possible. A number of specially trained officers, including Mr. Fire and his partner Mr. Ice, have been detached from their regular duties to aid in the investigation, and with men like them on the job, I think we can expect positive results soon. Moreover . . .”
I couldn’t hear for the pounding of blood in my head. I started to nudge the door open; Lee saw me, bowed to Loew and exited the office. He dogged me back to the Warrants cubicle; I wheeled around. “You got us detached, right?”
Lee put restraining hands on my chest. “Let’s take this slow and easy, okay? First off, I gave Ellis a memo. It said we got verified dope Nash blew our jurisdiction.”
“Are you flicking crazy!”
“Sssh. Listen, it was just to grease the skids. The APB on Nash still stands, the fuck pad is being staked out, every southside cop is out to cancel the bastard’s ticket. I’m gonna stay at the pad tonight myself. I’ve got binoculars, and I figure between them and the arclights I’ll be able to catch the plates on the cars that cruise down Norton. Maybe the killer’s gonna drive by to gloat. I’ll get all the license numbers, and check them against the DMV and R&I.”
I sighed. “Jesus, Lee.”
“Partner, all I want is a week on the girl. Nash is covered, and if he doesn’t get collared by then, we go back to him as our priority warrantee.”
“He’s too dangerous to let go. You know that.”
“Partner, _he’s covered_. Now don’t tell me you don’t want to build on your shine killings. Don’t tell me you don’t know that the dead girl is a better piece of pie than Junior Nash.”
I saw more Fire and Ice headlines. “One week, Lee. No more.”
Lee winked. “Copacetic.”
Captain Jack’s voice came over the intercom: “Gentlemen, everybody to the muster room. Now.”
I grabbed my notebook and walked through the bullpen. The ranks of the confessors had swollen, the new ones cuffed to radiators and heating pipes. Bill Koenig was slapping an old guy demanding to talk to Mayor Bowron; Fritzie Vogel was taking down names on a clipboard. The muster room was SRO, packed with Central and Bureau men and a shitload of plainclothes cops I’d never seen before. Captain Jack and Russ Millard were at the front, standing beside a floor microphone. Tierney tapped the mike, cleared his throat and spoke:
“Gentlemen, this is a general briefing on the 187 in Leimert Park. I’m sure you’ve all read the papers and you all know it’s a damn rough piece of work. It’s also a damn big piece of work. The mayor’s office has gotten a lot of calls, we’ve gotten a lot of calls, the City Council has gotten a lot of calls and Chief Horrall has gotten personal calls from a lot of people we want to keep happy. This werewolf stuff in the papers is going to get us a lot more calls, so let’s get going on it.