The Case of the Murdered MacKenzie

by Howard Fast

  “You’re going too far, Masao. I’ve put up with damn near everything from you—”

  “Just tell me why you arrested and charged Eve Mackenzie, and I’ll swallow everything I said.”

  “I don’t have to tell you one damn thing!”

  “So sorry, Captain Wainwright.” Masuto turned and opened the door.

  “Where the hell are you going? And don’t give me any of that Charlie Chan routine!”

  “I’m going to sit in my office and decide whether I want to work here anymore.”

  “Close that door and stop being a horse’s ass!” There was a slight smile on Masuto’s face that disappeared as he turned around. “Now, sit down,” Wainwright said to him. “Talk. Get it off your chest.”

  “All right. I listened to Beckman’s testimony. Then I had lunch with him. Then I went over to see Doc Baxter. He’s going to testify that there’s no way in the world Eve Mackenzie could have killed her husband.”

  “I know that.”

  “You know that, and you withheld it from Beckman. Sy Beckman’s been my partner for years. He has more courage and decency than any man I ever worked with, and you’ve made a fool of him, and you’ve withheld evidence from him and you made him the arresting officer in as rotten and ridiculous a case as I’ve ever seen.”

  “That’s so.”

  “Why?”

  “I don’t have to tell you why, Masao, and don’t push me. I’m tired of being pushed. What’s the difference? The public won’t yell, because they don’t know the difference between a good case and a rotten case, and in another day or two the judge will throw the whole thing out of court, and Eve Mackenzie gets a million dollars worth of publicity, which ain’t bad for a washed-up movie star, and we close our file and that’s the end of it.”

  “And the killer walks away, and we never even know who he killed or where the real Mackenzie is, if there is a real Mackenzie.”

  “You been sniffing around.”

  “That’s what I get paid for.”

  Wainwright got up and stalked around his desk and stood staring out the window. “Times I hate this place and times I love it, and times the goddamn sunshine makes me sick. Look, Masao, this is tied into the Fenwick Works and a lot of other things. They come to me and they tell me to close the book on the Mackenzie case. Indict the wife and then let the case fall apart. She walks out of court free, and that’s the end of it. I tell them we don’t do things that way.”

  “Who?”

  “There’s no who. I gave my word about it. Then they start turning the screw. They put the heat on the city manager, and then the calls come in from Washington, and then more heat—and all along the rationale is that nobody hurts. They want to bury the case. They want an unhappy wife who gets rid of her husband, only there’s no good evidence to convict her. Baxter thinks he’s going to testify, but Geffner will forget to call him.”

  “But why? What’s behind all this? You tell me that Geffner’s in on it, but Geffner’s honest.”

  “We’re all honest.”

  “Is the judge in on it too?”

  “Don’t put me in the middle of some lousy conspiracy. If we had one small notion of who the real killer is, it would be a different ball game.”

  “And you don’t? Not even one small notion?”

  “I want you to stay out of this, Masao. It’s done with.”

  “You know it’s a beauty, Captain. For some reason Eve Mackenzie knows what she shouldn’t know, so they frame a case around her and put their own lawyers in to defend her, and tell her that she takes her choice—keep her mouth shut and walk out of there a free woman or talk and sit in jail for ten years. Only it’s so damn stupid it has to fall apart. What happens then?”

  “We’re cops. We don’t make laws and we don’t run the country. We’re just cops.”

  “Sure.”

  “And now, suppose you get out of here. Lunch is over. I got work to do.”

  “Would you mind if I looked around the Mackenzie house?”

  “I sure as hell would mind. Stay out of there.”

  Angry, puzzled, and to a degree bewildered, Masuto returned to his car and drove down Lexington Road to the Mackenzie house. He parked his aging Datsun across the street from the big, expensive house, a two-story brick painted white, with a tile roof and high walls on either side to hide the grounds behind the house, and to the left of the house a gated driveway. While Masuto sat there the front door opened and a woman stepped out, a tall, well-built lady of about forty, her hair dark, her figure a bit heavy but still attractive. She stared directly at Masuto for a minute or so, and then she went back into the house.

  A few minutes later a Beverly Hills prowl car pulled up alongside Masuto, and the officer driving said, “I didn’t know it was you, Sergeant. The lady in the house called in a suspicious car. You got to admit that Datsun of yours is pretty suspicious in the neighborhood.”

  “I guess it is,” Masuto admitted.

  He drove back to the police station, studied the blotter, and found nothing to interest him. Sensible professional criminals, with some exceptions, steered shy of Beverly Hills. It was too heavily policed. Burglaries, house break-ins for the most part, were done by amateurs or kids. Car thefts led the list. Masuto was staring at the list without actually seeing it when Wainwright entered his office.

  “When Beckman finishes at court,” Wainwright said, “he’ll fill you in on the follow-ups. Today, you might as well knock off.”

  “I want to talk to Geffner.”

  “That’s your affair, Masao. Do it on your own time.”

  Masuto drove back to Santa Monica and got into the crowded courtroom by flashing his badge. Beckman was still on the stand, being cross-examined by Cassell.

  “And you actually believe,” Cassell was saying to him, “that this woman, Eve Mackenzie, who weighs a hundred and fourteen pounds, could bend over her husband while he sat in the tub and knock him unconscious? Come on, Detective Beckman.”

  “If she used a hammer—” Beckman began.

  Geffner interrupted with an objection. “The question calls for a conclusion,” he said. “Detective Beckman is not a physician.”

  “I’m going to allow it,” Judge Simpkins said. “I must say that I’m not thrilled by any of the evidence you’ve presented thus far, Mr. Geffner, and with this witness you’ve opened every door imaginable. Don’t ask me to close them. Anyway, it’s almost five o’clock. I think we’ll adjourn.”

  Beckman spotted Masuto and joined him, and Masuto told him that he intended to talk to Geffner and that it wouldn’t be possible if Geffner’s star witness listened in.

  “This is one time I wish I could.” Beckman sighed. “It’s been a long, stupid day. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  Geffner was surrounded by reporters, and Masuto waited until he had worked his way out of them. Then Masuto fell in next to him as Geffner walked out of the courthouse, and Geffner said, “So you’re back, Masuto. I wish you had been here. This mess might have been less messy.”

  “Not likely. I have to talk to you.”

  “That can only mean grief. I have enough grief.”

  “You can’t make the grief go away, and at least I don’t print what I hear.”

  “All right. I’ll meet you at the bar of the Seaview, Ocean Avenue just off Wilshire.”

  “I know the place.”

  In the dark comfort of the bar at the Seaview, slumped in a heavy carved wood and black leather chair out of another era, Geffner said, “Masuto, I’ve practiced law for twenty-five years, and this is the first dirty trick I’ve ever been caught up in, and so help me God, I can’t make head or tail of it, and I don’t know whether I’m being honest or dishonest or what.”

  “I think you should talk about it,” Masuto said.

  “You know something, I’m going to, because if I don’t talk to someone about this, I’ll go out of my mind. Beckman was the arresting officer, but the file came to me via Wainwright. Very curious. I tol
d him that there simply wasn’t enough clean evidence to go into a preliminary hearing with, that it wouldn’t wash. He just shrugged it off and he tells me I got to, you got to. I said no, no judge would move to indict. Then I get a call from Washington. Not direct. First Senator Haitman calls. I know him. I know his voice. He tells me a very important top-secret call from Washington is coming in. Who? What? Nothing but innuendo. Then the call comes. From the White House. Not the President. Gives me an extension and tells me to call back. I call back. This is the White House, she says. I give her the extension and the guy tells me to take the Mackenzie case and see it through. I tell him it’s a rotten, tainted case. You take it and see it through, he tells me. I argue that any sane judge will dump it at the preliminary. Just present it, he tells me, if they dump, they dump.”

  “And you don’t know who he is—this voice?”

  “Not a glimmer. But the preliminary hearing was before Judge Speeker. He’s crazy as a. bedbug on the film business. Hates it. The film people ruined California, according to him. He gives us our indictment. So there I am scheduled to go into court without enough evidence to convict this lady of robbing a gumball machine. Well, you saw the beginning. The only other witness I have is that ridiculous Mrs. Scott. I can’t put Baxter on. He’d blow the whole thing.”

  “Eve Mackenzie—she’s out on bail?”

  “A hundred thousand—very low for murder one. The Fenwick outfit put up the bail.”

  “And the lawyers were from the same place?”

  “Exactly.”

  “Gets stranger and stranger. What will you do?”

  “Finish my case. If Cassell doesn’t make a motion—well, he has to make a motion to dismiss, and that’s the end of it.”

  “The judge dismisses, and she walks out free.”

  “That’s about what it adds up to. I suppose Wainwright closes the book then. But to what end, Masuto? That’s what drives me crazy. A man who works for Fenwick is killed. Everyone—Washington, Fenwick, your bunch there in Beverly Hills—everyone wants his wife charged with the murder. But they know there’s no evidence. They know she’ll walk out. Why?”

  “That’s quite a question.”

  “Obviously, someone read the notebook and framed the lady. My candidate is Feona Scott.” He ordered a second double Scotch. “Who ever heard of a name like that?”

  “British. Scottish.”

  “She’s attractive until you see the eyes. Gimlet eyes. Mackenzie says it’s not her husband. Mackenzie. I mean Eve, Mrs. Mackenzie, she says it’s not her husband.”

  “Maybe not. Tell me, do you know who her agent is?”

  “Eve Mackenzie? I don’t even know whether she has one. She hasn’t done any films lately.”

  “Ah, so. What’s your guess about Washington?”

  “That’s it. It makes no sense. Even if Mackenzie was involved in some super-secret stuff, why prosecute his wife without evidence? Unless they felt that in this way the real killer would be protected. But how? And who’s the killer? Feona Scott? How about that?”

  Masuto shook his head.

  “I wish I were defending the lady,” Geffner said moodily. “I’d tear the state’s case to shreds. I’d be another F. Lee Bailey. You know, in England that’s the way it works. Lawyers switch from the prosecution to the defense and back again. Makes more sense than the way we do it. Well, what do you intend to do about all this, Masuto?”

  “I work for the city. That doesn’t leave me much choice. I argued with Wainwright, but I guess the same voice from Washington convinced him to close the book. He won’t reopen the case. Unless—”

  “Unless what?”

  “Just a notion, but unlikely. One more thing. Did you talk to Eve Mackenzie?”

  “The formal stuff. I asked her whether she wanted to plead. She smiled at me and said, ‘No, Mr. Geffner, we must have a trial.’”

  “She wasn’t disturbed?”

  “Not a bit. Cool as a cucumber.”

  Masuto paid the check. “I’ll be off now. Thank you.”

  “Thank you for nothing,” Geffner said.

  Chapter 6

  What Masuto’s wife, Kati, disliked most about those times when he would become totally engrossed with a case was his habit of withdrawal; and this evening, when he returned to his cottage in Culver City after talking with Geffner, it was immediately apparent. He answered questions with monosyllables and he listened without hearing. Kati had once mentioned to him on such an occasion that his Zen Roshi in downtown Los Angeles might not respond well to someone who listened without hearing. It was very un-Japanese on the part of Kati, but since she had become part of a Nisei consciousness-raising group, she did a number of things that were un-Japanese.

  When they were in Japan, Kati had been less impressed than Masuto by the food, holding that her mother’s cooking was better. She also thought that her own cooking was in most cases superior, but that was a thought she would never voice. However, tonight she had prepared a complex and unusual dinner, a little bit of tuna sushi to begin, then suimono, a delicious soup flavored with ginger and dashi, and then oyako domburi, a chicken dish that takes long and patient preparation. When her husband ate without commenting, Kati said, “If I were an Anglo lady, I would be very angry. I might even shout and scream at you. I might even leave you.”

  “Kati, what on earth are you talking about?”

  “About what your Roshi would say if you spoke to him without hearing what he said.”

  “Kati, you’re making no sense.”

  “You’ve eaten the sushi and the suimono. Now you are eating oyako domburi.”

  “Of course.”

  “But no comment. Is it good, bad, indifferent? Better than what we ate in Tokyo? Worse? You never even noticed what you were eating.”

  “Of course I did. Delicious.”

  “You’re just saying that.”

  “I say it and I mean it. And I appreciate it.”

  “What did you have for lunch?”

  He took refuge in an outright lie. “Hamburgers,” he said.

  She was mollified. “How can you eat such food! I’m a thoughtless wife. I should pack a lunch basket for you. But I become jealous and thoughtless when you have one of those dreadful murders, and at first I was so happy that we were in Japan when it happened, but now I can see that it waited for you.”

  “Well, I work in Beverly Hills, Kati. You must know how I feel.”

  “I think murder is awful, but when a woman kills someone, it’s so much worse.”

  “You mean Eve Mackenzie?”

  “Yes.”

  “She didn’t kill her husband, Kati.”

  “How do you know that? Because she’s so pretty?”

  Masuto leaned back. “The dinner was wonderful, Kati, and I love you, and the children are in bed, and I’m so glad to be home in our own house. I’m thirsty too, so I’d love a pot of tea and some cake. I know I don’t talk much about my cases, but I want to talk about this one and see if I can straighten some of it out in my own mind. Would you like that?”

  Kati smiled and nodded, and Masuto felt that he had made up in some degree for his boorishness about the food. Kati was quite right about his not listening. In another person it might be forgivable; in him it was not. Kati poured the tea and sat facing him, and once again he reminded himself that his wife was a truly lovely woman.

  “Will you ask me questions?”

  “If you wish me to. You mean when I am confused. I heard on the TV this afternoon that she said the dead man was not her husband. Can you tell me what she meant by that?”

  “Exactly. What is apparent, everyone sees. What is not apparent is not seen. If a tree is cut down, it’s invisible, even though it was there before.”

  “Now if you begin that kind of Zen talk that always confuses me—”

  “No. I promise you, although in a way what is happening here is very Zen. It’s the work of an illusionist, but not a very bright one, I think. You asked me about Eve Macken
zie’s husband. No, she did not kill him. I’m quite sure she killed no one, but specifically not her husband.”

  “But the dead man?”

  “Not her husband.”

  “She wasn’t married? That’s what the man on television said, that the only explanation for Mrs. Mackenzie’s statement was that they had never been married.”

  “Hardly. And if he weren’t lazy and had checked some records, he would have discovered that Mr. and Mrs. Mackenzie were married.”

  “But the dead man?”

  “He was not her husband because he was not Robert Mackenzie. A number of other people identified him as Mackenzie, but that was because they had seen Mackenzie only with his clothes on. His wife had seen him naked, and when she looked at the body in the tub she saw something that was missing, and as I said before, what is missing is invisible.”

  “Ah, so—yes!” Kati exclaimed. “An operation scar, a birthmark, of course. Then who is the dead man?”

  “Who do you think he is, Kati?”

  “Only one person can look so alike. It’s Mr. Mackenzie’s twin brother.”

  “Good!” Masuto said with pleasure. “Again, Kati, the apparent and the unapparent. When Mrs. Mackenzie said that the man was not her husband they put it down to the unreliability of a woman’s mind or witness. If one has contempt for women, then one puts no stock in a woman’s statement.”

  “Yes, yes,” Kati agreed. “We were discussing that at our consciousness-raising group. And I think, Masao, it’s even worse among Nisei women—”

  “Perhaps.”

  “I didn’t mean you, Masao,” Kati said apologetically.

  “You must. I’m as bad an offender as any. But you do see the position of Mrs. Mackenzie. She declares the dead man is not her husband. A dozen men swear that she is mistaken. The dead man is her husband. But can a woman be mistaken on such a question? Hardly, and since all the male witnesses plus Mrs. Scott insist that the dead man is Robert Mackenzie, it is accepted and Mrs. Mackenzie is arrested.”

  “Then she did not kill her husband. Did she kill his twin brother? Why did his clothes have to disappear? I don’t understand that,” Kati said.