Twospot

by Bill Pronzini

  As two black and white cars pulled up in front of the house, Canelli asked the private detective whether he’d ever served in Homicide. The rueful smile returned.

  “I was never asked,” he replied.

  I faced the two of them. To Canelli I said, “I want you to take him into a bedroom, or somewhere, and make notes on everything he’ll tell you—names, times, addresses, everything. It’ll be part of your report. I don’t have any of his information on paper. So it’s your responsibility. Clear?”

  Canelli nodded. “That’s clear.”

  “If you want,” Bill said, “I’ll send you a written report.”

  I nodded. “Fine. Thanks. But I still need Canelli’s.”

  We shook hands, and I watched the two big men turn and walk into the house together. Their movements were as different as their personalities. Despite his size, Canelli’s gait was loose and ambling. Bill’s movments were solid and decisive. Canelli was still deciding who he was and where he was going. The older man already knew.

  I turned to the four uniformed men who had assembled behind me on the walk, waiting for orders. I recognized a sergeant, and made him responsible for securing the perimeter of the property. As we talked, a third black and white car drew up at the curb. Across the street, a press car was parking illegally. Up and down the block, window drapes were drawn aside; front doors were opening. In the cold, fog-smudged darkness, shirtsleeved people were materializing: silent, disembodied, two-dimensional figures. Whenever someone died, wherever the place, the same silent shapes appeared. The shades, someone had called them. From Greek tragedy.

  “Don’t let anyone in except through the front door,” I ordered, still speaking to the sergeant. “You’ll be on the front door. Clear?”

  “Yessir.”

  I nodded, then walked through the door and into a small entryway. I was facing a central staircase that curved gracefully as it swept up to the second floor. From above, I could hear voices. Canelli was taking his notes.

  The first floor was arranged around a large hallway. Through an ornate archway to my left I saw a large formal living room. The room looked as if it waited for a House & Garden photographer, not for its owners. Each piece of furniture gleamed; each book was perfectly aligned on its shelf. Magazines were arranged on the coffee table in a symmetrical fan. I looked carefully at every sofa and chair. All of the cushions were plump, unmarked.

  I turned to an open door that led into a small study, where I saw a tweed hat resting on one corner of an elaborately carved desk. An expensive shearling coat was thrown carelessly across a leather couch. If Jason Booker had parked in the driveway and entered the house through the front door, as Bill had surmised, then Booker must have come directly into this room. Because the clothing, Bill said, almost certainly belonged to the victim.

  Careful where I walked, I entered the study and stood in the center of the room. Like the living room, the study was a stereotype: an expensive decorator’s idea of how a study should look. Everything was in its calculated place. Behind glass doors, floor-to-ceiling bookcases held leather-bound books that probably hadn’t been read for years—if ever. Except for the tweed hat, nothing on the desk was disturbed; a calendar, a desk pen, a notepad and a phone were arranged with thoughtful symmetry. Still standing in one spot, I leaned forward to look at the tooled leather calendar. There were no notes, no dates circled. Nothing.

  I stepped to the sofa and carefully patted down the shearling coat’s big patch pockets. I couldn’t feel anything: no weapons, no billfold, nothing bulky. After the photographers had finished, I would go through the pockets.

  I turned next to a big leather armchair. This was where he’d sat; the heavy leather clearly retained an impression of a body. A side table was placed beside the chair. A large crystal ashtray rested in the exact center of the table.

  In the ashtray I saw three filter-tip Winston cigarette butts, smoked almost to the nub. Statistically, the average cigarette represented approximately thirty minutes of “presence,” assuming the subject was an average smoker and was under moderate strain. If the statistics were right, Booker had been on the premises at least an hour and a half before the murder.

  Waiting for his murderer—someone known to him, perhaps.

  Alex Cappellani?

  I made a slow, careful circuit of the room, but saw nothing else. Stretching out full-length on an Oriental rug, I looked under the desk, the sofa, the big leather chair. Nothing. I got to my feet and re-entered the central hallway. Eberhardt’s friend had told me what to do next. A polished walnut door, half open, led to small storage pantry. I stopped in front of the door, turned, looked back at the study.

  Was this the way he’d come?

  How long ago?

  In response to what cue—what ominous sound—what tremor of fear?

  I slipped through the doorway and stood in the darkened pantry. The pantry’s second door was open wide, and through it I saw garden tools hanging on a garage wall. For the first time, I caught the odor of death: drying blood mingled with the stench of excrement.

  I drew a deep breath and stepped into the garage.

  The murder scene was precisely as Bill had described it. Point by point, I recalled the private the detective’s theory. He’d speculated that Booker could have been in the study when he’d heard a noise in the garage. He could have left the lighted study and entered the darkened hall. Then Booker could have crept through the storage pantry and pushed open the door leading into the garage. With a gun in his hand, he could have cautiously entered the garage and switched on the overhead light. Standing where I stood now, he could have been struck by an assailant who’d crouched down behind a shoulder-high stack of oak firewood piled close beside the door.

  Why?

  Had Booker been an intended murder victim?

  Had Cappellani made an appointment with him for six-thirty—then arrived earlier, surreptitiously coming through the garage, instead of the front door?

  Or had Booker surprised a burglar—and died by accident, not design?

  The facts seemed to fit the latter theory best. If Alex Cappellani had planned to murder Booker, he wouldn’t have called a private detective to witness the crime.

  Three strides took me to the body. This would be my last time alone with him—my last chance to touch him with my imagination, and try to learn the secret of his death. I squatted beside the body—and found myself staring straight into Booker’s dead eyes.

  He’d been a handsome man. The gray in his hair and the coarsening texture of his skin put his age in the early forties, but a leanness of cheek and jaw gave the face a younger look, and made an intriguing study of opposites. Even with lips distended in death’s last agony, the mouth was well shaped. The chin was cleft. The nose was straight. It was the face of a gracefully aging poet.

  He was wearing an expensive silk sports shirt, checkered slacks that were probably pure wool and Wellington boots that could have cost a hundred dollars. He was lying on his right side, with his arm draped languidly over his torso at the waist. His right arm was extended above his head, pointing toward the service door set in the opposite wall. In his right hand he held a small blue-steel automatic. Leaning forward, I sniffed the barrel. The gun had been fired.

  A package of king-size cigarettes was tucked in the pocket of the silk sports shirt. I pushed up the package from the bottom until I could read the label: Winston.

  Blood matted his hair and streaked the shirt. He’s bled so much that blood was pooled beneath the handsome head. The blood was already coagulated. The private detective had been right: Booker had probably been dead for about an hour.

  Still squatting, I minutely scanned the concrete floor of the garage. A blue sock filled with sand lay about a foot from the automatic. The sock was saturated with blood. Judging by the position of the firewood that had been tumbled to the floor, and by the hand tools that had apparently been swept from the top of a nearby workbench, there’d been a struggle that had starte
d the moment Booker stepped into the garage. At least one shot had been fired. The assailant had escaped, probably through one of the two garage doors.

  I took a moment to verify that the victim’s wallet was in his hip pocket. The pocket was buttoned; the wallet apparently hadn’t been touched. I stood up and began pacing across the cement toward the open service door, Carefully, I examined the scattering of matches, coins, the package of Camels and the cryptic “Twospot” note—all described by Bill. The items made a random pattern on the floor between the murder weapon and the door.

  If Booker smoked Winstons, the murderer must have smoked Camels.

  And, if the Camels belonged to the murderer, his prints could be on the cellophane wrapper of the cigarette package.

  Still pacing, I saw the small circle of blood that stained the concrete just inside the service door.

  Logically, it was the murder’s blood.

  As I was about to go through the service door, I heard someone call my name. Turning, I saw Parrington, from the police lab, and Walton, from the coroner’s office. Both men stood in the doorway of the storage pantry, waiting for permission to enter the area. Each man carried a satchel. I told them to stay where they were, and asked Parrington for a piece of chalk. I marked off a “safe” corridor that led to the rear of the garage. Walking between the chalk lines, the two men followed me to a six-foot circle that I chalked on the oil-stained concrete. As we assembled inside the circle, a police photographer ventured into the open doorway. I waited for hum to join us before I explained to the three men what I expected from them.

  “Especially,” I finished, “there are three things I want you to do. First—” I pointed toward the service door. “I want that blood typed. It might not be Booker’s. Second—” I pointed to the package of Camels, then turned to the photographer. “I want to make sure those cigarettes show up clearly in the pictures. I think they might’ve belonged to the suspect. And also—” I turned to the lab man. “Also, I want that cigarette pack fingerprinted by the best man available. Which means you. Clear?”

  Parrington was young and eager. He wasn’t able to surpress a smile at the cryptic compliment. Perhaps to conceal the smile, he solemnly nodded.

  “That’s clear,” he answered. “What’s the third thing?”

  “The third thing is the bullets. I want every square inch of this place searched for expended bullets.” I pointed to the automatic. “That gun’s been fired. I want to know where the bullets are.”

  “One of them might be inside the murderer,” the coroner’s man said laconically. “That’s what you think, isn’t it?”

  I nodded. “That’s what I think.” I edged past them and walked between the parallel chalk lines to the door. Then I turned back. “When you’re ready to move the body, let me know. I’ll be in the hallway, probably. Don’t hurry, though. I requested you men for this job because I want it done right. The reason I want it done right is obvious.” I pointed to the dead man. “We’ve got a victim who wore hundred-dollar shoes and who was a good friend of the woman who owns this house. And the woman who owns this house is a very important person—as I’m sure you’ll be reading in tomorrow’s papers.” I looked at each man in turn. “Clear?”

  They nodded.

  8

  I was yawning as I unlocked my office door the next morning. Canelli and I had arrived at the murder scene about seven-fifteen the previous evening. The technicians hadn’t arrived until quarter to eight, and hadn’t finished the first phase of their investigations until almost nine. They were still on the premises when the second wave arrived: the D. A.’s man, the light crews and the additional lab men who would search inch by inch for evidence. At the same time, three men from my own squad arrived, called from their homes. Their responsibility was the interrogation of witnesses. I put them under Canelli’s command while I performed the on-site investigation’s final ritual. Before witnesses, I moved the body and searched his pockets. I found sixty-three dollars in cash inside his wallet, together with the usual credit cards and identification. He’d carried his wallet in his hip pocket. In another pocket I found less than a dollar in loose change and a Swiss Army knife. A third pocket yielded a key ring and ten .32 caliber cartridges. None of the keys fitted any of the locks in the Cappellani house or garage. However, when I searched the victim’s shearling coat, still in the study, I found a separate key to the front door. At about ten P.M. I told the D. A.’s man that, based on my tentative appraisal of the physical evidence, I’d concluded that Booker had arrived on the premises at about four-thirty, driving his own car. He’d probably been alone. Using a key, he’d entered the house through the front door. He’d bolted the door behind him and gone directly to the study, where he’d possibly waited for an hour and a half. At about six, he may have heard someone entering the garage through the service door. Since we’d found no jimmy marks, we assumed that the intruder’s entrance had been effected by a key—unless he’d come through the overhead garage door, using an electronic door opener.

  The assistant D. A. had been satisfied—and anxious to return to a Friday-night party. My next problem was the reporters: one each from San Francisco’s two daily papers, and two TV reporters. I made them wait until the body had been taken away, then allowed them to photograph the scene of the crime. An informal press conference had taken three-quarters of an hour. By that time, additional information had been developed. One neighbor thought she heard a shot “sometime during the six o’clock news.” At about the same time, a teenage boy had seen a man run from the garage and get into a compact car At the place where the teenager said the car was parked, we’d found the blood. Because of the fog and the gathering darkness, the boy hadn’t gotten a license number.

  I’d stayed on the scene until eleven-thirty, then left Canelli in charge. His responsibility hadn’t ended until everyone in the neighborhood had been interrogated and every foot of the house and grounds searched.

  Thursday night, thinking about Ann, I’d gotten less than five hours’ sleep. Last night, thinking about the Booker murder, I hadn’t done much better.

  Now, at eight-thirty Saturday morning, I dialed Parrington, in the lab. My muscles ached with fatigue. My eyes felt hot and dry.

  “Do you have anything?” I asked.

  “Yessir,” he answered promptly. “I don’t have it written up yet. But I can tell you about it.”

  “Fine.”

  “Everything we found more or less confirms what you thought, Lieutenant. The blood inside the garage was two different types, for instance. And the blood beside the service door matched the blood on the sidewalk. We got some real good prints off that cigarette package, too—just like you thought. I calibrated the prints and put them into the computer about an hour ago. With luck, Identification could have something for you before too long.”

  “Good.”

  “I also found some clothing fibers caught under the victim’s fingernails. The fabric was brown polyester, and it didn’t match anything the victim was wearing or anything in the house. Which makes me think that he ripped open one of his attacker’s pockets. That would account for the stuff spilled on the floor—all of which, incidentally, had latent prints that matched the prints on the cigarette wrapper.”

  “Did that ‘Twospot’ note have the same prints too?”

  “Yessir.”

  “What about the gun and bullets? Anything conclusive?”

  “It’s a Beretta .32 caliber. I just called Sacramento for an ownership printout on it, but I haven’t heard anything yet. The victim’s prints were on the gun, but no other prints. They were on the bullets, too. If the magazine was fully loaded, and there wasn’t a cartridge in the chamber, then he fired two shots. Which also adds up, assuming he shot his attacker. We found one bullet in the wall of the garage.”

  At that moment, I heard a quick double knock on my office door. I knew that knock. It was Pete Friedman, my senior co-lieutenant. I called for Friedman to come in, and thanked Parrington for hi
s work. Either he’d been up most of the night, or he’d started working at six-thirty this morning. Or both.

  I watched Friedman enter my office and sink down into my vistor’s chair with his customary grateful sigh. It was Friedman’s long-standing contention that my visitor’s chair was the only one in the Department that could comfortably accommodate his considerable bulk. Therefore, according to Friedman, it was only in my visitor’s chair that he could properly formulate the ideas we needed to solve the city’s homicides.

  “Even for a Monday-through-Friday day,” Friedman said, “you’re up early. Not to mention that it’s a Saturday.”

  “You’re up early, too.”

  Ruefully, he nodded. “I’m up early because, about midnight, I got a call from his eminence Chief Dwyer.”

  “What about?”

  “About taking over security for Castro’s visit, if you can believe it. Which I couldn’t—especially at midnight. And especially when Dwyer told me that Castro’s coming to town the day after tomorrow. Christ, I thought it was a week from Monday.”

  “What happened to Captain Duncan? I thought he was in charge of security.”

  Friedman sighed, at the same time unwrapping a cigar and rummaging through his pockets for a match. “Captain Duncan had a gall bladder attack. He’ll be all right. But not in time to throw himself between Fidel and an assassin’s bullet.”

  Sympathetically shaking my head, I pushed my ashtray across the desk toward Friedman. His cigar ash almost never found the ashtray, but I continued to hope.

  “What’s this Booker thing?” Friedman asked. “Give me the rundown. Not that I’ll be able to help until after Monday.”

  It took almost fifteen minutes to describe the case, during which time Friedman complacently smoked his cigar—spilling ashes at random on the floor, my desk and his vest. While I talked, he regarded me with his typically lazy-lidded stare. Occasionally he grunted, signifying either surprise or puzzlement—or both. When I finished, he sat silently for a moment, thoughtfully regarding the tip of his cigar. Finally: