Mom insisted on seeing Len's body. Captain Tower and the chaplain tried to dissuade her, but she ignored them. We all rode down to the morgue in the Captain's car. Dad on one side of Mom, me on the other, we walked into the dreary red brick building, due to be replaced next year. We watched through the big glass viewing window as the medical examiner pulled the sheet off my brother's still body.
Mom trembled, then held herself stiff and straight.
When we followed Dad into police work she'd told both Len and me, "If that's what you really want, do it. I love you too much to try and stop you. I'll live with it. And I'll somehow learn to live without you if the worst happens."
She was going to have to learn to live without Len. And I'd have to learn to live with the guilt that I'd let Len leave Bigold's parking lot alone.
Len's funeral two days later was a sea of blue uniforms. I sat beside Mom on the front row of the funeral chapel and looked across the aisle at Kanto's impassive face. He was one of six men from our squadroom who served as pallbearers. Mom had taken it for granted he would and I didn't object. Besides, I wanted to watch him. If he'd killed my brother, his long time friend, could he sit through the funeral and give nothing away? So far, he had.
Most of the crowd from the cemetery followed us back to the house after the grave side service for the funeral meal our neighbors laid out. After half an hour, Mom excused herself and went upstairs followed by Dad. Captain Tower eased over to me as soon as she disappeared from sight. He held up a cigar and nodded toward the side porch. We stepped outside and he lit up. He was silent as the fragrant smoke drifted around our heads.
"What is it, Cap?"
He glanced back toward the crowded house. "Miss anybody?"
I nodded. "Kay Kanto. And he didn't come back from the cemetery."
"He's at the station, IA'll be talking to him."
"IA? About?"
"I need you to come down, too. Shouldn't be gone long." He went down the steps and walked around the house.
My gut tightened. What had they found out? Was Kanto involved in Len's murder?
I drove to the station and went to the Captain's office. Kanto sat in a straight back chair rubbing the back of his neck. He looked up at me and snarled. "Son of a bitch. You think I'd kill my best friend?"
Captain Tower tapped a pencil on his desk blotter. "Nobody's accused you of killing anybody, Kanto.
"Ringer thinks so. Right, Mitch? He never did think I was good enough to be his brother's friend." He slumped in the chair, hands hanging down.
"Tell Kanto what you and Len saw at Bigold, Mitch."
I jerked my eyes from Kanto to the Captain. "How the hell do you know about that?"
"I already told you I just forgot to pay for the damn batteries." Kanto's voice sounded hollow and unconvincing.
"We saw you take the batteries out of the package and put them in your pocket. Then you walked straight to the exit. Since no alarms went off when you went through the doors, I guess you'd ditched the packaging somehow."
I leaned a hip on the Captain's desk and scowled at Kanto. "Len and I talked it over in the parking lot and he said he was going to your place to talk to you. I never saw him again. When I called you next morning you said you didn't see him. A few minutes later Captain Tower and the chaplain came to tell us his body had been found."
"And you couldn't wait to rat on me, to say I ..." His adam's apple moved suddenly and he glared at me.
"No, I never liked you. And if you had anything to do with my brother's death ...."
"Enough, Mitch." Captain Tower slapped his hand on his desk. "You forgot to pay for the batteries. What about the marked money in your locker?"
"Captain. I swear I don't know anything about that money."
"Somebody else got a key to your locker?"
"I don't know." Kanto looked at Captain Tower. "Wait a minute. Ringer asked how you knew about the batteries. If he didn't tell, how did you know?"
"IA's been on your tail for six months. They never could catch you in anything. Hellman was in the store that day, too. He wasn't sure what he saw. So he got the video tapes. They showed Len and Mitch watching you from a different angle."
"It's the first time I ever took anything. God, what was I thinking? You gotta believe me." Kanto sounded desperate.
"Turn in your badge and gun. You'll be notified when the hearing comes up. Get out. You stay, Mitch."
Kanto laid his gun and badge on the Captain's desk and started for the door.
"Kanto." Captain Tower said softly. Kanto turned back.
"Recognize this?" Captain Tower laid his hand flat on the desk, then raised it.
A piece of jewelry lay there, about two inches long, not quite as wide. An intricate golden letter K set with rubies. At the last department party that pin rested at the lowest point of the deep neckline revealing her luscious bosom. Kay Kanto. I looked from the pin to Kanto to the Captain.
"What the hell?" Kanto's face had blanched.
"Where was it found?" I asked, my voice tight.
"Under Len's body." Captain Tower never took his eyes off Kanto. Kanto wheeled and left the office.
"I don't think he killed Len. Maybe Len happened onto something and got overpowered. Hell, maybe he was up there with her, they quarreled, and she pushed him over."
"Len wouldn't betray Kanto. You know that." I heard my voice getting loud, tried to lower it. "Why don't you think he did it?"
"He has an alibi. So far it's holding up." The Captain picked up Kanto's badge and twirled it.
"What alibi? Was he at the poker game?"
"No. But several people place him miles away from where Len died."
"The hell you say."
Captain Tower looked at me. "I didn't hear that."
"Sorry, Captain." I picked up the pin, held it on my palm and watched the diamonds blaze in the overhead lights. "Has anybody talked to Kay? Asked her how come this was under Len's body?"
"We're looking for her to ask her."
I laid the pin on the desk. "At Bigold, Saturday, Len said she was visiting her sister."
"Trouble on the home front?"
"I don't know. Len didn't say. Kanto wouldn't, to me."
"She's not at her sister's. When did you see her last?"
"Not since the last department party, Valentine Day dance. She was at a table with Len and Kanto went over and dumped his drink down the front of her dress."
"Because she was with Len?"
"Maybe. Kay had come in a couple of hours late and stood at the bar. Wearing a red dress with a deep vee neckline, this pin at the bottom. Kanto must not have seen it before. I was at the bar when he walked up to her and touched the pin."
"And - ?" The Captain looked up from doodling on a pad.
"He said, 'Hell, baby, you deserve nice things. C'mon. Dance with me.' And tried to steer her toward the dance floor. She jerked loose and snapped, 'Forget it, Rob. You're drunk.' Len was shooting the shit with Hellman. She grabbed Len, dragged him out on the floor just as a slow number started. Kanto just stood there a minute watching them."
"I heard the scuttlebutt. That Kay came on to Len, gave Kanto the cold shoulder. Him dumping a drink on her." He fixed a cold eye on me. "She was Len's girl first, wasn't she?"
I was on my feet so quick my chair, heavy as it was, slid back several inches. "My brother ...."
"Easy, Mitch." Captain Tower leaned back and spoke softly. It was more effective than a shout. "If, I say if, Kanto was involved in Len's death, there had to be a reason."
I crossed my arms. "Sure, Kay came on to him that night, but Len was a straight arrow, Captain. You know that, everybody in the department knows that."
"So who wanted him dead? And how does this fit?" He dropped the pin from one hand to the other, shards of colored light slashing across the office.
"I don't ... " The red glow of the pin stirred something else in the back of my mind. What? Oh, yeah. The fake hooker, Kanto's cousin. When she danced and twined her body around the Lieutenant, the sequins on the dress and her red shoes had sparkled in the light. Kanto said he'd told her to be sure and wear a red costume. Like Kay Kanto's dress at the Valentine party?
"Kanto called him a phony." I said the words before I even recognized where my train of thought was leading.
"Called who a phony?" Captain Tower barked.
"Who found the marked money in Kanto's locker?"
"Hellman." The Captain narrowed his eyes. "Spit it out, Mitch."
"Maybe Kay was having an affair with somebody. Maybe she was leaving with him when Len got there that day. He would have tried to talk her out of it."
"And you have an idea who it might have been?"
"It had to be somebody with a lot to lose if the affair came out."
"Somebody like Jim Hellman." Blonde hair matted to her head, Kay Kanto stood swaying in the doorway of the Captain's office, Sergeant Brown behind her. The puffy purple flesh around her green eyes almost concealed them. Her knees buckled. Sergeant Brown caught her and carried her to the chair her husband had vacated a few minutes earlier.
Captain Tower poured water into a glass from the pitcher on his desk and handed it to Brown, who held it to Kay's lips. She took a sip and pushed the glass away. She looked at me.
"Mitch, I'm so sorry. I wanted to break it off, he didn't. He parked a few blocks over and walked to the house, said we could work something out. We should go to the Bluffs, talk in private. Len drove up as he shoved me in my car. Hellman drew his weapon and forced Len back into his car. He told me I better follow."
Captain Tower's telephone rang. He barked into the receiver. "Tower." After a few seconds he spoke again. "She's here and talking. You'd better bring him." He hung up and said, "Go on, Mrs. Kanto."
Kay's face turned whiter, between the dark bruises, though I didn't think it was possible. "He's coming here? I have to leave." She tried to stand and fell back into the chair. Her hands trembled violently and she clamped them together. "He said - no one would believe me if I told. It's his word against mine."
"That was Captain Calworth at IA. The lab called to tell him they were able to lift a partial print from the back of the pin. It belongs to Hellman. It won't be your word against his."
"But he gave it to me. One of his prints could have been on it. He'll say that." With each word her voice rose higher.
"Has it been polished, cleaned, since he gave it to you?"
Her forehead screwed up. "Yes. After Rob spilled his drink on my dress. The liquor got on the pin. I had the jeweler clean it."
"How did it get under Len's body?"
"I took if off and flung it at Jim. He picked it up, threw it over the bluff. Quick as a rattlesnake, he turned and shoved Len over, too. Len had no time to react."
She kept turning to me, begging for my forgiveness with those eyes almost buried in discolored flesh. "He took me to a motel and when we got in the room, he started punching me. Said I should remember my pin was at the bottom of the bluff with Len's body. That I'd better think up a good reason for it being there. He said it wouldn't do any good to try and involve him, nobody'd believe the wife of a dirty cop."
I kept hearing Mom's anguished cry when they told her about Len. Once years ago she and Kay had been friends, when Len thought Kay loved him as much as he loved her. Mom might one day forgive her. But I prayed she'd be charged as accessory to Len's murder and spend the rest of her life in prison.
I got my wish, partly. Kay was charged and tried, but got probation. Kanto left for parts unknown and the prosecution couldn't find him to testify. Hellman got life. Unless his lawyer managed to get him in a country club prison, his life probably would not match the actuarial tables.
I debated leaving the force myself, but Frankie and I were talking marriage. A married man needs a steady income.
End