A Match Made for Murder by Iona Whishaw (top 10 best books of all time txt) 📗

“It’s good of you to have me along to your office,” Darling said. When he’d left Vancouver for Nelson, Galloway had been a sergeant, and Darling remembered him as being quite a good policeman. He had a natural authority Darling had attributed in part to his being English. His accent alone seemed to cause the other men to defer to his views; he had a concise way of speaking and appeared to be able cut through confusion and distraction. At the same time, he had an open, friendly nature that clearly endeared him to the others. Darling had envied this quality when he was younger, and only with time had come to value his own more thoughtful approach to understanding the crimes he had to deal with.

He recalled in particular a case Galloway had worked on in Nelson: a man called Landon had been imprisoned for arson. Galloway had been decisive, and Darling had admired how logically he approached the evidence. Landon had been a disgruntled employee who had been fired from a local mill; he had been drinking heavily on the night of the fire and was unable to account for his whereabouts. Darling was surprised to remember the incident just at this moment. Like Galloway, he had believed the man to be guilty. Landon was eventually tried, and spent six months in prison, but on a routine domestic abuse call, Darling had stumbled on the true culprit lighting a second fire. It had been a cautionary experience for Darling. Landon had lost his job, and he was unable to find his footing after leaving prison and had left Nelson for good. Darling had always hoped he’d found work and a new life.

By that time, Galloway had already left for Arizona, saying the British Columbia climate was too gloomy. He’d obtained American citizenship, and signed up with the 34th Infantry Division in 1942. Darling remembered admiring Galloway’s sense of confidence. He always said it was important to apprehend the guilty as quickly as possible, because in a small community, it made people feel secure and trust they were in good hands with their local police. It encouraged people to come forward on other crimes. It was only later, after Galloway was gone, that Darling asked himself how it could have been done differently. It didn’t surprise him to see Paul in charge now. He had not lost that air of confidence.

“Nonsense. I’m proud to show it off!” Galloway answered, bringing Darling back to the present. “I dare say there are one or two things in our organizational approach that would be of interest to you. With the chief out of commission, it’s all down to me at the moment.” He led Darling through the back door of what he described as the city hall building and then downstairs to the basement. Windows set high up along one wall let in some outdoor light, but the room was largely lit by what seemed to Darling to be an inadequate few rows of fluorescent lights.

“This is where they keep us. Not very glamorous, and we swelter in the summer. As you can see, we have our lock-up over there. Drunks and vagrants mostly. More dangerous people go to the county jail. Anyone convicted goes up to the state pen.” They made their way toward his office between a couple of desks. “Those two fellows are on the phone-in desks, and that’s the dispatch,” he said, waving at a desk near another door. Just outside the office, under a window, he stopped. “Morning, Sergeant Martinez. I’d like you to meet my pal, Inspector Frederick Darling. We worked together up in Canada. He’s just got married to the prettiest woman you’ve ever seen! Down here on a honeymoon.”

Sergeant Martinez, who was sitting at a desk under one of the two ceiling fans, stood up to shake hands with Darling. He was young, Darling thought, but had a look of such weight and seriousness that it appeared the entire fortunes of the Tucson police depended on him. His black hair was cut in a military style, and he had a thin black moustache. Perhaps it was the moustache that gave him his air of gravity, Darling thought.

“Pleased to meet you, sir.” He shook Darling’s hand, and then turned to his boss. “Sir, I’ve been through these arrest reports three times. The Griffin arrest and the accounting evidence aren’t in the files. It was right in order last week. I myself sent it for filing. The case is coming up for trial. It won’t look good if I don’t have it.”

“Then you better find it, hadn’t you, or Jimmy Griffin will go scot-free. It won’t do the department’s reputation any good.”

“Yes, sir. It’s just that I had the notes and evidence locked in my desk while I was working on them. I did take it over to be filed, but Grace says it isn’t there, and there’s no record of it being filed.”

“Then presumably it wasn’t filed, was it?”

Back in his office, Galloway stretched back in his wheeled chair and shook his head. “You’ve heard the saying, ‘can’t get good help’? Case in point. These Mexican fellows are pretty fearless, and they speak the lingo we need for a lot of the crime we deal with, but they’re sloppy as hell. See, now we’re going to lose a big case against one of the local restaurateurs who runs a gambling business at the back of his building because Diego Martinez can’t keep his paperwork in order. I was the one who pushed for his promotion, but I sometimes wonder if it was a good idea. Luckily I’ve got a couple of white rozzers that know their stuff.”

Darling raised his eyebrows. “You surprise me. Sergeant Martinez appears to be concerned and thorough.”

Galloway shook his head, laughing. “You never change, Darling. Always wanting to give everyone the benefit of the doubt!”