A Movement Toward Eden

by Clark Howard

  When he finished shaving and had rubbed a liberal amount of witch hazel onto his face, he walked naked back to the kitchen and put on a kettle of water for coffee. Then he returned to the bedroom and dressed very slowly, enjoying the fresh feel of clean underwear and sox against his skin, the snug fit of his belted trousers, the soft Oxford-cloth collar around his neck, the heavy leather of his Scotch-grain wingtips. He knotted a silk necktie and slipped it into place as he went into the kitchen again to rescue the screaming kettle.

  Standing at the Pullman counter, Devlin mixed a cup of instant coffee, cooled it below the scalding point with tap water, and gulped it down in a long swallow. Immediately he made a second cup and carried it into the living room. He laced it generously with brandy and sat down to sip it leisurely with the day’s first cigarette.

  He began to make his plans for the evening. He knew where he was going and what he was going to do, but he did not know exactly how he would go about it. It was a drastic step that he planned to take, one that he did not look forward to, but one which was, under the circumstances, absolutely necessary.

  Devlin was now facing the Keyes case with a complete and total honesty with himself. He no longer thought that he could handle it alone, unaided. The panorama of his thoughts during the fiasco-surveillance he had attempted had convinced him of that fact. He was not functioning at anywhere near his usual efficiency; his thought of processes were off, his judgment was faulty, he was making too many errors. He was not sure why; perhaps it was a combination of things: his emotional involvement with Jennifer, with whom he had felt he was falling in love, but to whom he could not bring himself to make love to again; with Todd Holt and Janet Sundean, two of the people who had been closest to him in his life, but who had somehow drifted away from the principles in which all of them had once believed; and even Evelyn Lund, a lonely, frightened girl for whom he had developed a sudden deep affection until he saw that she had let her loneliness and fright force her to clutch at a security based on evil, an evil to which she had contributed as much as—yes, he had to admit it to himself now—as much as Jennifer had contributed to it.

  And perhaps that was why he had not gone back to Jennifer or let her come to him—

  Whatever the answer, he told himself now, he did not have the personal capacity to resolve the case without help. There were too many locked doors behind which were the corridors of secrets that lay between him and Keyes. What he needed, what he intended to get tonight, was a master key to help him unlock one of those doors. The door to Todd Holt.

  He crushed out his cigarette and swallowed the last of his brandy-coffee. Five minutes later he was guiding his car off the parking lot.

  The drive to the western suburbs took him more than an hour, for he travelled at a leisurely pace in order to have time to formulate in his mind the words he would use later. He kept to the slow lane of the expressway for fifteen miles, then turned off to a road that became a main street traversing the center of a small suburb. He followed the street through town until it became a road again, and continued several more miles into the country. Eventually he came to a wide asphalt drive leading through a stone fence and curving up to a stately, ivy-covered mansion. A wrought-iron plate mounted to the gatepost was inscribed SUNDEAN. It was the home of the Chief Justice of the State Supreme Court.

  Devlin parked at the edge of the drive in front of the house. He walked onto the porch and rang the bell. Its chimes sounded softly within the house. Waiting, Devlin looked out across a vast expanse of lawn at the twilight sky. He saw rainclouds gathering on the horizon.

  The door opened and he turned back to the house.

  “Good evening, Mr. Devlin.”

  “Good evening, Ito,” he said to a small, obviously wiry Oriental dressed in a neat blue chauffeur’s uniform.

  Twenty Five

  Ito showed Devlin into the Sundean library.

  “I will tell the judge you are here, Mr. Devlin.”

  “Thank you, Ito.”

  Devlin looked around the large, book-filled room that had once been so familiar to him. He stepped over to the fireplace and touched his fingertips to the rough surface of bricks he himself had fired by hand and set to mortar—how many years ago? Eleven, twelve? He could not remember exactly. At least ten, he was certain, because Janet had been a slip of a girl then and Noah Sundean still a superior court judge.

  Now, he thought, it had come to this. The man whose friendship he valued above all others, and it had fallen to him to tell that man that his own daughter was involved in a criminal conspiracy. Fate, he decided, was a sadistic whore. He removed his hand from the brick and turned just as Noah Sundean entered the room.

  “Dev,” the Chief Justice greeted him warmly. “It’s good to see you.” He came forward and grasped Devlin’s hand firmly. “You’ve gotten to be quite the stranger around here. By the way, I’m sorry I missed you at Janet’s engagement party the other evening.”

  “Sorry I missed you, too, Judge,” Devlin said. “I was on a case and could only stay a few minutes.”

  “Well, what do you think of my little tomboy? Hasn’t she turned out to be quite the young lady?”

  “Yes. Yes, Judge, she certainly has.”

  Sundean led him to a pair of leather chairs facing each other in front of the massive fireplace.

  “Sit down, Dev, sit down. This is like old times. Let me get the brandy.”

  Devlin eased himself into one of the chairs and watched his old friend open a liquor cabinet against the wall and return with a bottle of Napoleon brandy and two glasses.

  “I wish I had known you were going to drop in, Dev,” the judge said, pouring their drinks. “I’d have planned to spend the evening with you. Been quite a while now since we had a good old fashioned philosophical debate. As it is, I’m afraid I’ll have to excuse myself in a few minutes to leave for a prior engagement.” He handed Devlin a glass and raised his own in a toast. “To old times—”

  “To old times,” Devlin echoed.

  “Well,” the judge said, settling into the opposite chair, “what have you been doing with yourself lately?”

  “Working, mostly,” Devlin said. “The attorney general has me on loan for a year to the local chief prosecutor’s office.”

  “Yes, I’d heard he sent you down here. Handling syndicate matters, aren’t you; organized gambling, that sort of thing.”

  “I’m supposed to be, yes. I recently got sidetracked, however, and I’m working a kidnap case right now. As a matter of fact, that’s why I dropped by; I wanted to discuss the case with you.”

  “All right.” The judge glanced at his watch. “Will we have time tonight or would you rather stop by the office Monday?”

  “I’d like to at least brief you on it right now,” Devlin said. “You’ll understand why after I give you the facts.”

  “All right,” the judge said again. He sat back and relaxed. “Let’s hear it.”

  “A man is missing,” Devlin began. His voice was quiet and reserved, deliberately devoid of tone. “He’s a Hollywood business agent named J. Walter Keyes. From all indication he has been abducted. I haven’t established the motive for the abduction yet, except that it definitely isn’t a kidnapping for ransom. What appears most likely is that he has been taken by a group of people who are bent on exacting some type of revenge against him for certain crimes for which they feel the law either could not or would not punish him.”

  “What sort of crimes?” Justice Sundean asked.

  “I’m not altogether certain,” Devlin admitted. “One of them has something to do with a girl who was seduced by Keyes and later suffered a mental breakdown because of it. She’s a patient at the state hospital at the present time. In addition to that, Keyes apparently has been involved in a number of abortions which these people feel could not be proved against him due to a lack of factual evidence. Also, I think he’s done something—I don’t know what—that apparently affected the life of a young boy in some way; I’m ev
en more vague on that one than the others, I’m afraid—”

  “What you’re saying, in effect, is that this Keyes is a highly undesirable person, is that correct?” Judge Sundean’s question was precise and direct, as if it were being asked from the bench.

  “He appears to be yes,” Devlin admitted. “However, in fairness I should emphasize that all of these accusations are purely hearsay; I have no positive evidence on any of them.”

  “Do you personally believe that he’s guilty of these acts?” Sundean asked quietly.

  “I’m reasonably certain that he’s guilty of some of them,” Devlin said. “I wouldn’t be able to prove his guilt in a courtroom, however.”

  The judge nodded and sipped at his brandy. “In other words,” he remarked, “you’re about in the same position as these people who have abducted the man.”

  Devlin frowned slightly. “Theoretically, I suppose I am,” he said, his voice becoming guarded. That was an odd comparison for the judge to make, he thought abstractly.

  “Tell me what you know about these people who have Keyes,” the judge said.

  “All right,” Devlin nodded and leaned forward in the chair, “but first let me make one thing absolutely clear. I’m not as vague about the people involved in this thing as I am about why they have Keyes and what they believe he has done. Motives are sometimes dark, elusive things that evade detection, but people—people, Judge—can be seen, followed, observed, investigated. What I’m about to tell you now, I know. The people I’ll name for you are involved and there isn’t a shadow of a doubt in my mind about that. It may be difficult for you to believe—but it’s true. Do you understand?”

  “I understand.”

  “The first one,” Devlin said, sitting back in the chair again, “is the head psychiatrist at the state hospital, Dr. Damon Fox. Next, is Reverend Abraham O’Hara, pastor of the First Community Church. Also Dr. Milton Price, head of the psychology department at the state university. And a man named Barry Chace who is an executive statistician with the International Statistical Data Corporation.”

  Devlin paused and took a sip of brandy to wet his mouth for what would come next.”

  “Quite an array of talent,” the judge commented. “I’m very impressed.”

  “There are others,” Devlin said quietly.

  “Go on.”

  “Judge Harold Wilke of the Superior Court—”

  “Well, now I am impressed,” Justice Sundean interjected.

  “—and Todd Holt,” Devlin continued, “and your daughter, Janet Sundean.”

  The judge finished his brandy and put the glass aside. With his elbows resting on the chair arms, he put the fingertips of both hands together and seemed to study them thoughtfully. His lips pursed and held that way, as if momentarily petrified by troubled thoughts.

  Devlin felt the judge’s silence surround him. He was not certain what exactly he had expected from Sundean; his own mind had not gone beyond the actual naming of the people involved, had not probed into the possible reaction of the man before him. Now he found himself curiously awaiting the result of his words. As he waited he drank the remainder of his brandy and put the glass on a table beside him. He lighted a cigarette and, exhaling, saw through the smoke that Sundean’s eyes were now on him. He was unaware of the exact instant the judge’s gaze had shifted, but at that moment he knew himself to be under the most penetrating scrutiny he was ever likely to encounter.

  “What proof have you as to the involvement in this abduction of any of the people you named?” Justice Sundean asked soberly, eyes unrelenting in their piercing gaze.

  “Factual proof?” Devlin said. “None. Merely my personal conviction.” Why, he wondered, does he ask about them as a group, when his whole concern right now should be centered on his daughter?

  “Upon what do you base your personal conviction?” the judge queried further.

  “Conversation with some of them—Todd and Janet included. Observation of the others.”

  “These conversations, do any of them include admissions by any individual as to his or her involvement?”

  “And are you,” the Chief Justice asked, dropping his hands to the arms of the chair, “prepared to convince me?”

  Devlin frowned. “Is it necessary for me to convince you?” he asked in an almost incredulous tone. “I’m here as a friend, to ask you to intercede with Todd before he ruins his and Janet’s lives.” His frown deepened. “This is your daughter we’re talking about, Judge.”

  “That is precisely why I would like something a little more substantial than your suspicions, Dev,” the jurist said quietly. “Look at this from my position for a moment. You have come to me with a story about a missing man whom you believe to have been abducted. He is, by your own admission, a person of highly questionable character, a person whom you yourself believe to have been involved in certain criminal acts, albeit they cannot be proved against him.

  “Now, the responsibility for abducting this somewhat undesirable person you allocate not only to my daughter and your best friend, but also to five of the most respected and upstanding citizens in the community; men of unimpeachable reputation, Dev! Men whose positions in their respective fields of endeavor equal my own as a jurist or yours as an investigator—”

  “Your respect for my reputation, as well as mine for your own,” Devlin said evenly, “is exactly why I came to you for help.”

  “I realize that,” Sundean said, “and I want to help you in any way I can; but there are legal restrictions on what I can do for you in my status as chief justice, and I have personal moral limitations as to what I will permit myself to do for you as a friend.”

  “Judge Sundean,” Devlin said urgently, “perhaps I haven’t impressed the seriousness of this matter on you. There is a strong possibility that this group—of which your daughter and her fiance are definitely members—may be planning to execute this man!”

  “Devlin,” the judge said very precisely, “I can give you my personal assurance right now that Janet is in no way connected with any group which would take the life of another person, no matter how low and inhuman that person had become.”

  He rose from the chair, looking at his watch.

  “I’m afraid we will have to continue this discussion another time; I believe I mentioned a previous engagement.”

  He stepped next to Devlin and placed a hand affectionately on his shoulder.

  “I know you are greatly perplexed by this matter, my friend, and though my conduct at the moment may not show it, I am sincerely disturbed by the affect it has had on you.”

  Gently, the judge drew Devlin from his chair and guided him toward the door. Devlin’s eyes were hollow and puzzled.

  “I want you to do something for me, Dev,” Sundean continued. “I want you to go home and rest all weekend. Don’t go out, don’t do anything, above all don’t work any further on this Keyes case. Then come to my office first thing Monday morning. I want you to trust me from now until Monday morning; put your faith in the belief that I will help you at that time.”

  They passed from the study into the foyer, Sundean still gently guiding, his voice soothing, convincing, Devlin being led almost as if under a deep, unfathomable spell. They stopped just inside the double doors through which Devlin had entered the house.

  “Will you do that for me, Dev?” the judge asked. He offered his hand to Devlin. “If I give you my word to help you on Monday?”

  Devlin nodded, bewildered.

  “Yes, I—”

  His voice stopped with but that brief utterance; his lips remained parted without sound; and his eyes, a moment earlier troubled and filled with doubt, suddenly focused and narrowed to pinpoint sharpness. He stared past the judge’s raised hand at a credenza against the foyer wall, and a large silver ashtray which rested upon it.

  An ashtray which had been empty when Devlin arrived an hour earlier, but in which now lay a wilting, brown-edged carnation.

  He brought his eyes up to meet
Sundean’s as the final and most important segment of the Keyes puzzle fell into place.

  “Judge,” he said in a quiet, precise voice, “I am no longer in your home as a friend and guest. As of this moment I am here in an official capacity as a representative of the attorney general. In that capacity I am going to ask you one question and if you do not give me a satisfactory answer, I am going to put you under arrest.”

  “That is the most foolish thing you could possibly do,” the judge said.

  “I don’t think so,” Devlin retorted forcefully. “Maybe spreading this matter all over the front pages is the only way to get the answers I need.”

  The Chief Justice sighed resignedly. “What is your question?”

  “Of the people whose names I gave you tonight,” Devlin said, picking up the discarded carnation, “who besides Judge Wilke is in this house right now?”

  “I do not have to answer that,” Sundean said firmly.

  “Then you are under arrest and as of now in my custody.”

  Behind Devlin, as he spoke, two men stepped into the foyer from another room. One of them was Ito, the blue-uniformed chauffeur. The other was Todd Holt.

  Twenty Six

  Todd Holt and Ito stepped over to flank Justice Sundean, one on either side of him, and Devlin faced the three men in the foyer.

  Todd’s expression was tight and serious, his mouth drawn firmly. The Chief Justice was visibly tense. Only Ito remained inscrutable. The three stood between Devlin and the door.

  “The Chief Justice is under arrest, Todd,” Devlin said quietly, “and so are you.” He crushed the wilting carnation in his hand and tossed it back into the ashtray. He noticed the thin line of Todd’s mouth grow harder.

  “Dev, I hope you’ll be reasonable about this,” the judge said. “You must know that we cannot allow you to arrest us—”

  “I’ve already arrested you,” Devlin said flatly.

  “All right then,” the older man conceded, “but you must know that we cannot allow you to enforce that arrest. Considerable thought and effort have gone into this plan, Dev, and it is a most serious matter—”