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Leopold's Way
Detective Stories
By Edward D. Hoch, Francis M. Nevins Jr., Martin H. Greenberg OPEN ROAD INTEGRATED MEDIA
Copyright © 1980 Edward D. Hoch
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4804-5645-7
CHAPTER 1
Circus
THE RAIN HAD STOPPED, and once again the quiet residential street was filled with the laughter of children. Here and there a puddle still remained, but now the sun was out, and that was all that really mattered.
Leopold parked his car behind the other one and walked through the wet grass of the vacant lot to the place near the trees where a small group of men stood silently waiting.
"I'm Leopold, from Homicide. What's the story?"
"A kid got killed, Captain."
"A kid? How?"
"Strangled."
"Lift the blanket and let's have a look."
He couldn't have been more than ten, a good-looking boy with sandy hair and blue eyes. There was a blue rope-mark on his throat. Leopold sighed and looked away. Sometimes it still bothered him when he saw them like that. Even after six years on Homicide it still bothered him.
"Who is he?"
"We think his name's Tommy Cranston. Lives in that brown house over there. Mat's checking."
"All right." Leopold rubbed his eyes. "I'll be over there, too. Call me when the doc comes."
"Right, Captain."
Leopold walked back through the wet grass and crossed the lot toward the brown house. There were many children on this street, he noticed. They were running and playing and having fun. It was a good street. Or at least it had been.
"Mister Cranston?"
"Yes ..."
"I'm Captain Leopold."
"Come ... come in ... We just heard ..."
"I'm very sorry."
"Yes ... Of course ..."
"Is Mrs. Cranston ...?"
"She ... It was a great shock to her. One of your men is with her in the living room ..."
One of his men ... Mat Slater, a big tough hard cop who'd seen the city at its worst. Leopold knew him, but didn't like him. He was the type of cop you found in the tough mystery novels. Only once in a while you found him in real life, too.
"Hello, Leopold. I just told them about it."
"Yeah." To Slater he was always "Leopold," never "Captain."
Mrs. Cranston was crying in a big green chair. Right at that moment she looked very small and very helpless.
"My boy ... My boy ... He ... he was on his way to the circus ..."
Leopold felt suddenly cold and he wanted to be out of that big brown house and away from the crying woman in the green chair.
"Come on, Slater. We can talk to them later."
"Right."
They went back outside and crossed the lot to the trees once again, and Leopold cursed the wet grass that clung to his shoes.
Slater lit a cigarette. "Something like this always happens on a Saturday afternoon. We'll probably be up all night chasing down leads."
"Yeah."
"The doc's here." The doc was the coroner's assistant, a middle-aged man who'd met death many times while working for the city. Leopold had seen him like this a hundred times before, bending over a silent form in some dim alley or crowded street. This was what the doc lived for.
Leopold frowned at the wet grass and the thing under the blanket. "How long's he been dead, Doc?"
"About an hour."
"Before or after the rain?"
The doc looked puzzled at that one. Finally he answered. "Body and the ground under it are both wet, but the ground's not as wet as the rest of the place. Guess that means he was killed just after the rain started, but it's hard to tell for sure."
"Yeah." Leopold had a vision of the killer tightening his rope around Tommy's throat and killing him as the rain began to beat down upon them.
Slater ground out his cigarette and lit another one. "And nobody saw him?"
"That's what we're going to find out. Come on, Slater. We'll see you a little later, Doc."
The lot was filled with people now, and they had to push their way through the crowd.
"You know, Leopold, we should sell tickets to this thing. We'd probably get a bigger crowd than the circus."
"Shut up, Slater."
"What?"
"Shut up. I'm tired of listening to you. We've got a job to do. Let's get it done and clear out of here."
"Sure, Leopold, sure."
Leopold looked up and down the quiet street with its puddles of water reflecting the grey clouds above. Even with the crowd in the lot, the street still had the silence of death about it. He wondered if it was always like this.
"What did you find out about the parents?"
"Not much," Slater mumbled. "Kid left just before the rain started. He was going over to the circus. They'd taken him the night before, but he wanted to go again. It's just a few blocks away. He was cutting through the lot on his way there. In fact, his mother watched him out the window until he got around the side of the house."
Leopold was sweating now. He almost wished the rain would start again. "Did she see anything?"
"No. Nothing."
"They got any other kids?"
"No. He was the only one."
Leopold swore again and thought about the woman in the green chair. Maybe it was better in a way that Tommy was the only one. Then at least she'd never have to go through it all again. There were so many ways that sons could die these days. In front of a speeding car, or on some distant, half-remembered battlefield. Or in a vacant lot in the rain.
"Take the houses on this side of the street, Slater. See if the people noticed anything."
"Sure."
Leopold left him and headed for the nearest house. He glanced back at the lot and saw that the trees where Tommy had died were out of view now. There were only the police, clearing the crowd away. The body would be gone now, but men would still be working over the spot. There was much to be done before nightfall.
Leopold began ringing doorbells and talking to people, but the answer was always the same. They had seen nothing, or if they had it was only the usual mysterious stranger who could be found any day in any neighborhood.
The sun was disappearing behind a low cloud when Leopold met Slater again.
"Get anything?"
"Nothing, Leopold. How about you?"
"Nothing. Listen, take a run over to that circus and start checking. Find out who could have been away at the time of the killing."
"You think it's somebody from over there?"
"No, but it's worth trying anyway. I'll be at the Cranstons' house."
Slater muttered something and walked away toward his car. Leopold watched him for a moment and then walked slowly toward the big house.
Across the street the cars of police and newspaper reporters were still parked, and in the lot next to the house there was still activity. Now and then a flashbulb would light the dim twilight for a second, and then fade away. Reporters, getting plenty of pictures for Sunday's edition.
"Captain ... Captain Leopold! How about a statement?"
A young kid, probably just out of journalism school.
"No statement. We're following a few leads ..."
"Are you personally conducting the investigation?"
"I'm here. I've been here since two o'clock this afternoon. And maybe I'll be here all night."
The reporter made quick notes on a small pad.
"Do you have any children yourself, Captain?"
Leopold looked at the young face for a long while, and then he walked away without replying.
"Captain ... Captain ..."
But he kept walking. It was just a story to them. Just a shocking story of a kid's murder. Just something to sell a few more Sunday papers.
And to Slater it was just a job, a job he was paid for, but one that interfered with his Saturday nights.
Leopold went up the steps and knocked on the door of the brown house. Mr. Cranston came to the door, looking pale and very tired. He led Leopold into the living room without a word.
The green chair was empty now, and Cranston motioned toward the upstairs. "My wife's resting. Her mother's up there with her. It's ... it's been a great shock to all of us."
"Yes ..."
"Did you get him yet?"
"The man who did it? No, we didn't get him yet."
"You've got to catch him before he does it again."
"I know."
"Someone's got to pay for Tommy."
"Yes, someone's got to pay."
Cranston kept pacing as he talked. Back and forth, across the living room floor.
Leopold sat down and began asking the usual questions. How old was the boy? Was he quiet or wild? Did he make friends with strangers? The father answered, and Leopold carefully noted the answers in a little book. But he knew there was nothing to be found here. The killer had probably not even known little Tommy Cranston.
He had just been a boy walking in the rain. And the killer had caught up with him in that vacant lot.
Cranston sat down and tried to light a cigarette. "Who ... who found him, Captain?"
"One of our police cars saw something in the lot, and investigated. They found him just after the rain stopped."
"I can still see them over there, taking pictures. Won't they ever stop? Won't they ever go away?"
"They'll stop."
Yes, they would stop. When the next body was found. Then it would be someone else's turn to watch the prowling men and listen to the sobbing women.
The phone rang and Cranston answered it in a broken voice. "It's for you."
"Leopold here."
"This is Slater. I'm at the circus. Think I've found something. Come on over."
"Right."
"I'll meet you in front, at the main entrance."
"Be there in five minutes."
He left Cranston and the brown house, and it was dark outside.
Dark.
But the circus was a blaze of light; light and noise and laughter. Here was happiness, undampened by the silence a few blocks away.
And there were children here, too. Gay children. Living, laughing children.
Perhaps one of these would be the next. It might not be tomorrow, or next week, but someday, somewhere, perhaps the killer of little Tommy Cranston would see another child running alone through the rain. Then the hands would loop the strong rope around a tiny throat once more.
"What kept you, Leopold?"
"Oh, there you are, Slater. What's up?"
"I asked a few questions around here and I found out there's a guy they hired a couple of weeks ago that's been acting queer. Last week they caught him over near the girls' tent, and last night one of the girls complained he was prowling around again."
Leopold sighed. "Let's talk to him."
His name was Charlie. Charlie Watts. Around forty, strong, well-built, but with a gleam behind his blue eyes that told you to watch out for him. Leopold had seen that look before, too many times.
"We're police, Charlie. We want to talk to you."
"I ain't done nothing. Honest."
From the big top came the blare of the circus band as the evening show got under way. It was a dying profession, yet here in the midst of it everything was still somehow full of life.
Slater moved in closer. "You were bothering the girls."
"No. No, honest."
"What about the boy this afternoon?"
"What boy?"
The trumpeting of an elephant, the growl of a lion ...
"How many times you been locked up, Charlie?"
"Never. Never!"
Leopold spoke from the shadow. "We can take you downtown and check your prints."
"No!"
From the distance came the booming voice of the ringmaster. "And now, ladies and gentlemen, in the center ring we have the death-defying rope-spin! An unbelievable stunt that will ..."
Slater hit Charlie Watts with the back of his hand. "Then talk, damn you!"
"Lay off the rough stuff, Slater," Leopold spoke quietly.
"No ... No, don't hit me again. I ... I was arrested once for ... for looking in windows ..."
"You get the idea, Charlie. Keep talking. Tell us about the kid this afternoon."
"What ... what kid?"
Slater drove his fist into the soft flesh of Charlie's stomach. The man doubled against a tent post.
"Damn it, Slater. Touch him again and I'll have your badge."
"This is the only way to deal with his kind, Leopold. Beat it out of them. Give me five minutes and I'll have a confession."
"Come on, let's get out of here."
"And leave him?"
"He's a nut all right, but he's not the kind we're looking for. The guy that looks in girls' windows isn't the same guy that strangles little boys for no reason at all. Come on."
They left Charlie on his knees, with his forehead pressed against the hard earth. Outside the tent the world was living again. Light and laughter and fellows out with their girls on a Saturday night.
Leopold watched a green balloon break free from a child's grip and sail up into the blue sea above their heads. He watched it until it disappeared against a cluster of stars. Then the stars themselves vanished behind a sudden unseen cloud.
"Where to now, Leopold?"
"Back. Back to the vacant lot."
"What do you think?"
"I don't know."
"Maybe the parents killed him accidentally and then put the body in the lot. It's happened before."
"They couldn't do it in broad daylight."
"He was killed in broad daylight, Leopold. Back by those trees it's hard to see things from the street."
"Yeah."
"How do you explain it, Leopold?"
"I don't know. It was raining. The street was empty. Anything might have happened in that lot without anybody noticing it, I suppose."
"But it didn't start raining until fifteen minutes after he left the house. Did it take him fifteen minutes to ...?"
Leopold stopped walking. "You are right. His mother watched him start through the lot and it wasn't raining then. What was he doing for those fifteen minutes?"
"Maybe a car stopped. Maybe someone called him over."
"And lured him into the car and strangled him with a length of rope. And then, when the rain started, carried his body into the lot. That would explain why the rope wasn't found."
"It would have been dangerous, Leopold."
"No more dangerous than keeping the body in the car with him."
"But," Slater protested, "to carry the body through a lot right next to the kid's house!"
Leopold sighed. "I suppose you're right. It would be too big a risk."
Slater lit a cigarette. "Then what did happen? Where do we find this killer?"
"Not in that neighborhood. He wouldn't kill in broad daylight in his own neighborhood. He must be a stranger."
They went back to Slater's car and drove away, back to the vacant lot a few blocks off, and as they rode the lights and noise of the circus grew smaller in the background.
The lot was hidden in darkness now, covered by the sheltering night which so often screened the movements of evil. Even now the grass was still damp against Leopold's legs, but he noticed it only in a far corner of his mind.
In the rest of his mind he was a boy again, a boy much like Tommy Cranston, thinking the thoughts he must have thought just before he died. Thoughts of the circus, and the joy of growing up. Thoughts ...
What was it?
A boy on his way to the circus ...
What had halted Tommy on his way to the circus?
It would not be a stranger after all. It would have to be someone that Tommy knew and trusted. Someone that lived on the same street, in one of those houses, behind one of those windows. Or else ...
"This is getting us nowhere," Slater complained.
"Maybe not."
"Let's go question his folks again."
"No."
"Why not?"
"Because the answer isn't with them. The answer is out here, in the street, where Tommy Cranston died."
"Well, hell, you can prowl around as much as you like. I'm going back to Headquarters."
"All right, Slater. Tell them I'll be in soon."
He watched the big cop walk back to the street and get into his car. He watched while the car drove away and left him alone in the damp grass.
He looked up again at the night sky, at the moon, and at the clouds passing slowly across the sky.
Fifteen minutes.
What had Tommy Cranston done during those fifteen minutes?
Perhaps no one had stopped him. Perhaps he'd gone on his way.
To the circus?
Leopold sighed and followed the weed-covered path across the lot. He went down a slight incline and then across the railroad tracks.
And then there was the circus, in front of him again, just as Tommy might have seen it.
And Slater's car.
He hadn't gone back to headquarters after all! He'd driven around the block and come back for another crack at Charlie Watts!
Leopold ran across the damp earth toward the bright lights of the midway and the dark shapes of the tents. He found the one where they'd left Charlie a half-hour before.
Slater was in there, as Leopold knew he would be.
"Damn it, Slater, what have you done?"
"Just gotten a confession for you, that's all," the big detective said between his teeth.
Leopold looked down at the ground by the cop's feet. Charlie Watts was sprawled in the dust, clutching his stomach. "I did it," he managed to gasp. "Don't hit me again."
"Get out of here, Slater. The Commissioner's going to hear about this."
"I'm not going anywhere. He confessed, and he's my prisoner. I'm taking him in."
Leopold looked into his face and knew that he meant it.
"All right. Bring him along. We'll settle this at Headquarters, then."
And they left the tent with Charlie Watts leaning heavily on Leopold's shoulder. Behind them the night was full of music and shouting and the laughter of children.
The ride downtown was long and silent. The session with the District Attorney and the Police Commissioner was even longer.
The District Attorney was a big, powerful man, a man who'd devoted his life to crusading against crime in his city. He was a man who rarely made a mistake and expected others to follow his example.
"Damn it, Leopold, why can't we charge him with murder? He's confessed, hasn't he?"
"Yes, he confessed. After Slater here beat it out of him."
"Well, sometimes that's the only way to deal with child murderers."
"Is that what you really think?"
The D.A. sighed. "It doesn't make any difference what you and I think, Leopold. The papers are screaming for an arrest, and I've got to give them one."
"Even if it's an innocent man?"
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Leopold's Way by Edward D. Hoch, Francis M. Nevins Jr., Martin H. Greenberg. Copyright © 1980 Edward D. Hoch. Excerpted by permission of OPEN ROAD INTEGRATED MEDIA.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
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