"You may take my word for it. I've been on the force for thirty years. You get sadists in any department of life—I'll challenge anyone to deny that. And if an innocent man happens to get a bad break—comes up against the wrong kind of cop—it can be very bad. You could justify a certain degree of cop hatred in almost anyone on other grounds. The world we live in isn't for children. If cops were mild-mannered intellectuals, or held completely modern, psychiatric views about crime—and the causes of crime—society in general might be in for trouble on a day-to-day realistic basis."
"It might not do any harm at all if we gave it a try," Willard said.
"On a theoretical level there are times when I'm inclined to agree with you," Fenton said. "But there's another part of my nature that says there has to be a kind of binding cement to hold society together meanwhile—I mean, until Utopia's here. Cops have to be picked for toughness—to a certain extent. But that doesn't mean they can't be completely fair. A lot of them lean backwards to be fair, will be a big brother to young hoodlums if they think there's an ounce of decency left in them and all they need is a little of that 'not being completely rejected' feeling to give them a different slant on things. You know what I mean. But some cops can be sadistic, mean, even downright vicious. I would be the last to deny it."
Fenton smiled, trying his best to bring a little warmth into his words, to get the man on the cot to trust him. "There are times when I don't like cops myself, any better than you do. It's a very human feeling. Could I go any further than that, considering that I'm supposed to be just about as tough as they come in some respects, being a Lieutenant of Detectives on the Homicide Squad?"
"What do you want to know?" Willard asked. "What do you want me to tell you? I walked into her office and shot her dead. Isn't that all down on the record now? Haven't I confessed to it?"
"It still needs a little filling out," Fenton said. "Suppose we start at the beginning and just go over it all again, step by step."
A half hour later Fenton sat again at his desk, drumming with his fingers on the big double-file spread out before him.
Gallison hadn't seated himself this time. He stood awkwardly shifting his weight from foot to foot, and casting an occasional glance toward the window and at the large framed photograph of an Inspector in uniform on the opposite wall—Inspector Henry Millard, who had been dead for twenty years. He did not seem to want continuously to meet and hold Fenton's level, almost accusing gaze.
"He didn't do it," Fenton said. "I knew that the instant I started questioning him, but I had to make sure, beyond the faintest possibility of a doubt. All of the things he told me—and at least one-third of the details in his signed confession—are completely wide of the mark. He wasn't there, didn't shoot her, couldn't even tell me how she'd looked in falling fifteen seconds after the shot was fired. How she must have looked, I mean, for her head and shoulders to strike the desk the way they did, upsetting an ashtray, and to be consistent with the position she was in when Miss Prentiss found her. And the body wasn't moved—not a half-inch—until we arrived.
"Other things—a dozen, at least. I had the impression he wasn't even sure just where the bullet had entered her head. Oh, a murderer can be mistaken about many things, way off in some respects. But not quite that far off. Not nearly that far off, in fact, when he's studied everything published in the papers about the case, and has been in that office many times. There were details we didn't tell the reporters, details he couldn't possibly have known and he was completely wrong about all of them, with one or two exceptions. And that only strengthens the case against him—the very damaging evidence which proves that he wasn't the killer and couldn't possibly have been."