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“Didn’t do no good after all. Might’s well let Vic tell the chief last time.”
    Saxon glanced over his shoulder. “You might as well have let Vic tell the chief what, Sam?”
    â€œWhen he caught me drunk. What’sa difference ole Andy boards me or you? Mighta known I’d get caught again.”
    Apparently Vic Burns had caught Lennox drunk at some time in the past and had covered for him by not reporting it to the chief, Saxon thought. Suddenly he remembered an incident a few weeks back when both he and his father had been in city court all morning. When they came downstairs at noon, Lennox was gone and Vic Burns, working the desk, had said he’d had him driven home because he was ill. Lennox, free from Andy Saxon’s watchful eye all morning, had probably sneaked out several times to hoist a few in taverns. And Burns, realizing he was drunk on duty, had sent him home.
    Saxon could hardly bring himself to blame Vic Burns for the cover-up. Everyone knew that Lennox had been warned that he was through if he ever again drank on duty. Saxon realized that he was now doing exactly what Burns had done on that occasion: letting the old alcoholic get away with it again.
    Wearily he said, “See if you can get him sober by tomorrow morning, Nora. I’ll expect him to be on duty at eight A.M .”

chapter 5
    On New Year’s Eve, Saxon took Emily out for a single cocktail at 4 P.M ., then dropped her at home and reported for desk duty at five.
    It had long been the custom in Iroquois for the police to be tolerant of drunks on New Year’s Eve. Local drunken drivers were allowed to park their cars and were driven home by police, provided no accident or flagrant violation of the law had occurred. Out-of-town speedsters were usually merely warned and sent on or, if too drunk to drive, were escorted to jail to sleep it off, then were released without charge. Consequently, New Year’s Eve was usually a quiet night at police headquarters.
    Until nine o’clock there wasn’t a single phone call, and the only radio message was from one of the squad cars reporting that it would be out of service for fifteen minutes for a coffee break.
    At 9 P.M . Patrolmen George Chaney and Mark Ross came into headquarters hustling between them a lean, knobby-jointed man in his mid-forties. The man had a narrow, ascetic face, a humorless, thin-lipped mouth, and wore steel-rimmed glasses that began to cloud over the moment he came indoors. His overcoat and hat were obviously expensive.
    Getting up from his chair, Ted Saxon approached the counter and gave Chaney an inquiring look.
    â€œForty-five miles an hour on downtown Main Street,” Chaney said laconically. He tossed a driver’s license and a car-registration form on the counter.
    According to the operator’s license, the man’s name was Edward Coombs and he lived on Delaware Avenue in Buffalo. The birth date made him forty-six.
    Saxon raised his eyes from the driver’s license to give Chaney a puzzled look. Coombs showed no indication of being under the influence of alcohol, and it wasn’t customary to pull in sober speeders on New Year’s Eve.
    â€œWe stopped him twice,” Chaney explained. “About an hour ago he was speeding south on Main. We warned him and let him go. We just stopped him again going north, and he decided to give us a hard time. He wanted to know why we hick cops weren’t off catching criminals instead of bugging law-abiding citizens.”
    Saxon looked at the motorist. “Well, Mr. Coombs?”
    Coombs unbuttoned his overcoat, probed in his hip pocket, and drew out a handkerchief. Removing his glasses, he briskly massaged the lenses and put them back on. Immediately they started to cloud again, though not as badly.
    â€œIt’s a clear, moonlit night out, Sergeant,” he started to say.
    â€œNot sergeant,” Mark Ross interrupted. “You’re speaking to the