Goodbye California - Alistair [50]
‘I see.’ There was a brief silence. ‘All you want is for him to know that such a picture has been taken?’
‘That’s it. I’d be glad if your boys would maintain the fiction I’ve told him – that I was sending people from the Globe.’
This time Aaron positively cackled. ‘That would make him happy!’
‘He’s having fits. Many thanks. I’m leaving the handcuff keys on the study table.’
Dunne, as he’d promised, was still in his office when they returned. Ryder said: ‘Progress?’
‘Damn all. Almost impossible to make an outgoing call. Switchboard’s been jammed since the news announcement. At least a hundred people have seen the criminals – in, as usual, a hundred different places. You?’
‘Don’t know. You’ll have to help us if you will. First off, here are Judge LeWinter’s fingerprints.’
Dunne looked at him in disbelief. ‘He gave you his fingerprints?’
‘Sort of.’
‘I warned you, Ryder. Tangle with that old bird and you step out of your class. Donahure has powerful friends only locally but LeWinter has them’where it counts – in Sacramento. Don’t tell me you used violence again.’
‘Certainly not. We left him peacefully in bed and unharmed.’
‘Did he recognize you?’
‘No. We wore hoods.’
‘Well, thank you very much. As if I haven’t got enough on my hands. Do you know what kind of hornet’s nest you’ll have stirred up? And where will it all end up? In my lap?’ He closed his eyes. ‘I know who’ll be the next caller on those damned phones.’
‘Not LeWinter. He’s a bit restricted right now. Matter of fact we left him handcuffed to a bedpost and his secretary. They were there when we arrived. She’s Russian.’
Dunne closed his eyes again. When he’d assimilated this and steeled himself for whatever was to come, he said carefully: ‘And?’
‘This is interesting.’ Ryder unwrapped the hand-gun he had taken. ‘One wonders what an upright judge is doing with a silenced automatic. Can you have it tested for fingerprints? Incidentally, the girl’s fingerprints are already there. This is a notebook, coded. I imagine the key is in this copy of Ivanhoe. Perhaps the FBI can find out. Finally, this is his private list of telephone numbers. They may or may not be significant but I’ve neither the time nor the facilities to find out.’
Dunne was heavily sarcastic. ‘Anything else you’d like me to do for you?’
‘Yes. A copy of the file you have on LeWinter.’
Dunne shook his head. ‘FBI personnel only.’
‘Would you listen to him,’ Jeff said. ‘After all the legwork we do for him, after all the valuable clues we put in his hands –’
‘Okay, okay. But I’m promising nothing. Where to now?’
‘To see another lawman.’
‘He has my advance sympathies. Do I know him?’
‘No. And I don’t. Hartman. Must be new. Anyway, he’s in Redbank. County division.’
‘What has this unfortunate done to incur your displeasure?’
‘He’s a pal of LeWinter’s.’
‘That, of course, explains everything.’
Hartman lived in a small and unpretentious bungalow on the outskirts of town. For a detached Californian house it was virtually a slum: it had no swimming pool. Ryder said: ‘His association with LeWinter must be pretty recent.’
‘Yes. Lets the side down, doesn’t he? Door’s open. Do we knock?’
‘Good heavens, no.’
They found Hartman seated at his desk in a small study. He was a large, heavily-built man and must have stood several inches over six feet when he stood up: but Sheriff Hartman would never stand up again. Somebody had carefully cross-filed a soft-nosed bullet which had entered by the left cheek-bone. The dum-dum effect had taken off the back of his head.
It was pointless to search the house; whoever had been there before them would have made certain that nothing incriminating a third party – or parties – had been left behind.
They took the dead man’s fingerprints and left.
CHAPTER FIVE
That was the night the earth shook. Not all of the earth, of course, but for a goodly portion of the residents of South California it might have been just that. The shock came at twenty-five minutes past midnight