Rafferty Read online

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  Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  About the Author

  About the Publisher

  Newsletter

  Copyright

  Chapter One

  It wasn’t the end of Emmet Rafferty’s story that was important. It was the reason back of it; the big and little reasons which led, inch by inch, step by step, to the ending. In the course of the events of my regular life, I might never have devoted the time to finding out the facts of the story; and it was only through a series of circumstances—of no particular importance—that I found the time.

  I had not been in New York since the years just preceding World War II. At that time I had gone abroad as a correspondent, remained during the war. In the years following, I settled for a while in England, then moved to Italy, joining the American colony there, writing a few articles to meet expenses, and working on a book which I had started while in England. A sense of longing to see the States again had been growing within me. This homesickness urged me to accept an opportunity to return, under the heading of business. I arranged to stop off in New York to visit friends of many years, and was invited to stay with them in their apartment. Two days before arriving in New York, I received a radiogram from them informing me they were unavoidably called to Washington and would be gone for a week or ten days. However, I was to take over the apartment and await their return.

  Inasmuch as I was not expected on the West Coast for another two weeks, and I did not want to miss the opportunity of seeing my friends for the first time in more years than I cared to count, I decided to remain in New York and await their return. It took me a day or two to get settled, after landing, and then I found myself with a great amount of time on my hands, and very little to do except attend shows. While I was delighted to have an opportunity to catch up on my theater-going activities in the evening, I had very little to do with my days. Time and fortune had scattered many of my former friends and acquaintances... and I was both lonesome and restless.

  At one time in my writing career, I had worked on a series of crime articles for a well-known national magazine. While engaged in gathering material for the stories, I had met a detective sergeant attached to the Homicide Bureau named Emmet Rafferty. Rafferty was a charming Irishman, with a delightful collection of stories and a vast and unlimited knowledge of the sins of man. I made a sincere effort to cultivate his friendship. As a result, we had become good friends. Although I usually had met him during his off-duty hours I had on occasion been permitted to ride with Rafferty and his partner, a detective named Swanson. In their green-and-white squad car, I had spent a number of spectacular evenings. There had been a natural sincerity—combined with a refreshing sense of adventure—in Rafferty’s manner which had helped our friendship to develop spontaneously. This natural fellowship was strengthened by our common interest in crime. However, like all things, my series of articles came to an end, and eventually my association with Rafferty was broken when I went abroad.

  Now, in the midst of my inactivity in waiting, I remembered Rafferty and wondered if it was possible to pick up the threads of our former friendship. I hesitated because of the years which had passed and the fact that we had been completely out of touch with each other. Although, actually, we had never become confidential in our friendship, and I knew little about his personal life, I felt that Rafferty would be happy to see me again. And after recalling his engaging personality, I decided to get in touch with him and invite him out to dinner.

  Consequently, I called the precinct station where he had been assigned when I had known him. A rough voice answered the phone and I asked for Emmet Rafferty. The phone was silent for a moment before the voice exploded in my ear, ‘Are you kiddin’?’ and the connection was broken as the police receiver was jammed down on the hook. I stood looking at my phone in astonishment, holding the long cord in my hands and feeling a fool. The abrupt rudeness of the answer made me angry and, although the police force has never been famous for its diplomacy, my innocent inquiry had received a reply far beyond the bounds of civility.

  I resolved to try again, but I wanted no further conversation with the desk man who had answered my previous call. Once again I made a call, but this time to the Homicide East Bureau, and repeated my question. Again there was a pause on the phone and my question went unanswered. Instead, the voice on the other end of the line asked who was calling. I told him. ‘I used to be a friend of Sergeant Rafferty before the war,’ I said. ‘I knew him... and his partner Swanson, too.’

  ‘Just a minute,’ the voice told me. ‘Hold the line.’ I waited for several minutes until another voice spoke.

  ‘This is Swanson. What do you want?’

  Again I introduced myself. ‘I met you before the war,’ I explained. ‘As a matter of fact, I rode with you and Emmet Rafferty in your squad car...’ I could sense Swanson, on the other end, rolling the years back in his memory, trying to recall our slender connection.

  Finally he said, ‘Yeah, I remember you. What’d you want to see Rafferty about?’

  ‘Nothing,’ I replied. ‘I just wanted to buy him a drink. I’ve been out of the country since I last saw you both. It’s been a long time and I’m only going to be here for a short stay.’

  ‘Didn’t you read the papers where you were?’ he asked. I could feel him selecting his words carefully.

  ‘Certainly,’ I replied. ‘But I didn’t read anything about Emmet in the foreign papers.’

  ‘Maybe you better go back and read the New York papers a couple years ago,’ he said.

  ‘Wait!’ I exclaimed, but he had hung up and I could hear the empty tone signal.

  At this point I was both exasperated and curious, I still did not know where Emmet Rafferty was, and all three of the police to whom I had talked had refused to answer me. But, at least, Swanson had given me an indirect answer. If I wanted to know, it was up to me to find out. My curiosity urged me on, and as I had nothing to do, I decided to see what the papers had to say about my friend.

  That afternoon I stopped in the library of one of the daily papers and asked to see the file on Emmet Rafferty. I took the bulging Manila envelope to a table and spread the clippings before me. Sick at heart, I read them. Slowly I stuffed the stories back in the folder and returned it to the gray librarian. I felt cold and chilled and, although it was a magnificent spring afternoon in New York, the skies suddenly seemed overcast and threatening. I had a temporary guest card at the Lambs, and I made my way to the club where I had planned to have dinner. Standing at the bar, the usual carefree chatter and conversation seemed far away.

  As far away as Emmet Rafferty.

  I sat through a show that night without recognizing the actors or hearing a song. The newspaper clipping, with the last date line, kept appearing before my eyes and I read it over and over again, each time putting it back in the envelope but never putting it out of my mind. Suddenly it would be back before my eyes again, and a feeling of horror would grip me. I carried the feeling of
unreality home with me and to bed. All night long I dreamed, seeing Rafferty as I knew him.

  And then in the slow, exaggerated motions he would act out the stories in the paper.

  Awakening in the morning, tired, dull, and unrefreshed, my mind had been made up. The decision had not been made consciously but I accepted it without question. I knew the end of Emmet’s story, which had played on a nightmare reel during the night. Every instinct of my mind rejected it. Although I knew the whole story as reported by the papers, I didn’t know the true story—the motives which set in action the events which culminated inevitably in the terrible clippings. It was that story, behind the clippings, which I must find out.

  The fact that Rafferty’s story was now old and would never be printed meant nothing to me. But for my own sake—I hesitate to say for my own curiosity—I had to know. It was more than curiosity. It was a real and personal urge to know why such things could happen to my friend. This urge to know the true facts, the true interpretation and the reasons behind events and persons, had been sharpened by my years of writing. But more than this, the urge was propounded and propelled by my very real feeling of affection toward Rafferty. And every sense of my mind rebelled at what I had read. I could not accept it as the ultimate and final truth of the story. The fact that something terrible had happened to Emmet Rafferty was not enough. I must know why it happened. Or I would never forget the newspaper clippings.

  I had nearly a week to devote to my task; the facts were here at my fingers; the persons concerned—with one or two exceptions—were in New York. I had nothing else to do except to find out what really happened to Emmet Rafferty.

  On that day, I started my search back through the years.

  What I found I believe I have presented truly and accurately. It is impossible to verify the conversations word for word, because, in many instances, only the two principals were involved, and there was no third witness. And after the lapse of years the other personalities and witnesses in the story can recall only specific scenes with accuracy, or the general trends of certain conversations. Many times, facts and conversations were relayed through the principals to second parties, and again the second parties can only recall them in generalities. However, I have taken the information that I gathered and put it together—from the facts I have and the memories of Emmet Rafferty as I knew him—and I sincerely believe that I have his story.

  Chapter Two

  I called Swanson at the Homicide Bureau, and when I had him on the line, I told him that I had read the stories and what I intended to do. ‘I want you to help me,’ I added.

  Swanson thought a moment before replying. ‘I can’t talk so good now,’ he said. ‘Why don’t you meet me after work? I’m through at four.’ I agreed and we made plans to meet in a small bar near Times Square at four-thirty.

  I was waiting for him when he came in, a big, half-bald, deliberate-moving man. He recognized me immediately and came to the booth where I was seated. We shook hands and he ordered a whisky. After the drink was served, I again brought up the reason for our meeting. He shook his head slowly.

  ‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘I been thinking about it since you called. Maybe you’ll be walking on a lot of people’s toes, and maybe you’ll be hurting a lot of feelings that shouldn’t be hurt. Maybe it’s better just to leave it alone...’

  ‘Have you been able to leave it alone?’ I asked.

  ‘No,’ he said, ‘not entirely. At first I did an awful lot of thinking. But I kept it to myself. I wondered... sure! Who wouldn’t?’

  ‘Are you satisfied just to keep on wondering?’

  ‘Maybe. And maybe not. Emmet and me was closer than brothers... for a while. He saved my life a couple of times... just like I took him off the hook once or twice. But the department is funny. The book is shut as far as they’re concerned. They want to forget about it. It’s all over. The newspapers, too. They were pretty decent about it. Just covered it enough to protect themselves. They coulda made a big thing out of it.’

  ‘I’m not trying to dig it up again,’ I explained. ‘I’m only interested in one little word—why. Why did Emmet have to do what he did?’

  Swanson studied his glass carefully, swirling it gently between his big fingers, watching the ice cubes circle around and around. ‘I wonder, too,’ he finally admitted softly. ‘Why couldn’t it happen to you... or to me?’ He took a breath and let it out slowly.

  ‘If you won’t help me, what chance do I have of ever finding out?’

  He moved his shoulders uneasily. ‘It ain’t that,’ he said. ‘I’d like to help you. But I don’t know about the department. There’s too damned much politics to watch out for. I got to keep on working for the force. Maybe they don’t want me to talk...’ He finished his drink and began edging from the seat. Standing by the booth, he jammed his battered felt hat securely on his head.

  ‘What do you suggest?’

  ‘I don’t know exactly. But maybe I got an idea. First of all, talk to Emmet’s wife. If she don’t care and can give you any dope, I’ll take you in and introduce you to Captain Feinberg. He made the original assignment to Emmet of covering Rose Pauli. Maybe he can tell you something about it, if he wants to. If Feinberg goes along with you, I’ll take a chance of telling you what I know about it.’ He scribbled on a small sheet of paper, in his notebook, tore-it out and tossed it on the table. ‘That’s Katherine Rafferty’s number,’ he said and walked out.

  I called the number from a booth at the back of the bar. A girl’s thin voice answered the phone and told me that her mother wasn’t home. She was working and would be back around eight that night. I secured the address and left a message that I wanted to see her mother and would be out around eight o’clock.

  It was nearer to eight-thirty, though, when I walked up to the address in the Flatbush section in Brooklyn. It was a single, square, smallish building of yellow bricks, three stories high, standing on a corner and separated from a long row of blowzy brownstone houses by a vacant lot. On the main floor was a grocery store darkened and closed for the night. Above the store were two floors of small apartments which were approached by a stairway running up from the side of the grocery. I climbed the stairs, with the aid of a weak light which was hanging from the landing of the second floor. Four doors met face to face, each door bearing a scrawled name card. Unable to find the name Rafferty, I climbed an identical flight to the third floor and found the apartment.

  At my knock, the door was opened immediately by a sweet-faced Irish woman. I judged her to be somewhere in her middle forties. I introduced myself and told her I had talked to her daughter that afternoon.

  ‘Won’t you come in?’ she invited me pleasantly, and held the door open. ‘That was Mary you talked with,’ she said.

  I entered a small, perfectly square living room with two narrow windows overlooking the street. The frames around the windows and the doors were varnished oak. A round table, with a heavy velvet cloth, stood in the exact center of the room bearing a table lamp with a handpainted glass shade. An old-fashioned, massive radio console stood against the wall; it was tuned low, playing music softly. By the windows a young girl, of perhaps fifteen, was curled up on a well-worn, overstuffed davenport. She was reading a paper. There was no sign of dust, no trace of disorder. The white curtains fell plainly, and straight, away from the windows; the inexpensive pictures on the walls had been recently wiped and cleaned.

  ‘This is Mary...’ Katherine Rafferty waved her hand at the reading girl. A fresh, young face looked up and smiled engagingly, then went back to her reading. ‘My oldest daughter, Maureen, has a date tonight. She’s still dressing.’

  As if on cue, a door opened and a tall, slender girl walked into the living room tugging at a pair of gloves. Under her arm was tucked a purse. Glistening black hair fell to her shoulders, and in the soft light of the room her eyes were cool and green. She acknowledged her mother’s introduction with the poise and assurance of true beauty. Then turning, she swiftly ki
ssed Katherine’s cheek. T won’t be too late,’ she said softly, ‘but don’t wait up for me. Tom and I are going into Manhattan.’ She nodded again, and closed the outer door behind her. For a moment I could hear the sound of her heels tapping down the stairs.

  ‘She’s going to be married this summer,’ said Katherine.

  ‘Gosh, it’s about time,’ said Mary looking up from her paper. ‘She’s twenty-one. I’ll bet I get married when I’m eighteen.’

  ‘If you’re as pretty as your sister, you won’t have any trouble,’ I said. ‘I’ll bet you can do it when you’re seventeen.’

  ‘Now don’t be putting ideas in the child’s head,’ Katherine Rafferty smiled proudly.

  ‘Aw, I was just kidding anyway,’ said Mary.

  I seated myself in a heavy chair covered with a slip cover, while Katherine sat down next to her daughter on the davenport. Both of them looked at me expectantly. Suddenly I was both confused and embarrassed. I didn’t know how to bring up the subject of Emmet, or even whether I should with the child sitting in the room. ‘I’m a friend of Swanson’s,’ I began slowly.’ He suggested that I talk with you.’

  Katherine Rafferty immediately grasped the reason for my visit. The warmth of her smile faded, although the smile remained fixed on her face. She glanced swiftly, from the corner of her eyes, at her daughter. ‘Mary,’ she said, ‘darling, why don’t you run downstairs and visit Clara for a while?’

  ‘It’s getting late,’ said Mary.

  ‘But you wanted to, earlier this evening. We have... some business... to talk about. It’s just downstairs—go ahead.’

  The girl carefully folded the paper and placed it on the table in the center of the room. ‘Okay,’ she said. ‘Call me when you want me.’ She left the room and started down the stairs. Katherine closed the door behind her and turned to me.

  ‘Why did Swanson send you to see me?’ she asked.