Hire a Hangman

by Collin Wilcox

“No hearts,” she answered. “Livers and kidneys, at Barrington. We specialize, you see. That’s the secret of Hanchett’s success in transplants. Specialization. Which is why we have a worldwide reputation, especially for livers. And it’s all thanks to Dr. Hanchett and his ego.”

  “How do you mean, ‘specialization’?”

  “I mean we don’t take chances. We do one kind of operation—livers and kidneys—and we do it very well indeed. We don’t experiment. That’s when you fail, you see. Which is why …” Her voice began to fade, her eyes began to lose focus. A random thought had surfaced, something significant.

  He prompted her. “Which is why?”

  Thoughtfully, she responded, “Which is why, occasionally, Hanchett had problems. Not with the doctors. With recipients. Or, rather, with their families.”

  “Someone needs a liver and doesn’t get one. Is that what you mean?”

  “For every organ that’s available, there’re always a dozen candidates. Someone has to rank them, give them a priority number, one to twelve, whatever. Actually, it’s a committee of three that assigns the priorities—the Recipient Selection Committee. And Hanchett, of course, was the chairman of the committee, which means—meant—that it was a one-man show, really.” Now, mischievously again, she smiled. “Some cynics say playing God came naturally to Hanchett. But whether it came naturally or not, the fact remains that someone had to decide who got a chance to live. Which meant, of course, that someone else would probably die. And Hanchett had to make the decision.”

  “How’d he decide? What were the guidelines?”

  “Mostly it’s a medical decision. It’s very complicated, really. But basically it comes down to how successfully the recipient will get through the operation—and how long he’ll survive, assuming the operation succeeds.”

  “So a ten-year-old kid has a lot better chance of being chosen than someone who’s eighty.”

  She smiled. “Try fifty.”

  “What about money? Does a forty-year-old millionaire have a better chance than a ten-year-old whose family’s on welfare?”

  She let a beat pass before she decided to say, “I hope not.” Another moment of silence. Then, as if to divert his next question, she said, “The primary consideration is need—how sick the patient is, how long he can live without a new liver or kidney. Sometimes that translates into”—she paused, searching for the phrase—“into geography.”

  “Geography?”

  “‘Harvesting organs,’ as it’s called, is a minute-to-minute operation. It’s distance, and it’s time. The ideal source is a nineteen-year-old kid riding a motorcycle without a helmet. He hits his head, goes into a coma. His parents agree to donate his organs, if and when. Barrington is notified that a liver and kidney might be available. A couple of transplant surgeons pack their instruments and a change of underwear. If the organs are in Sacramento or San Jose, they drive to the hospital—and wait. Otherwise, they get into a corporate jet—and hope the weather is flyable. Because once the donor dies, those surgeons have got to get the organs and pack them in ice, and get in their Learjet and get back here. They always come in an ambulance, sometimes with a police escort, from the airport.

  “And while all that’s going on, the recipient has got to get to the hospital—time and distance again. He’s got to be on the operating table. Because once that organ comes through the doors, the surgeons start cutting. So, obviously, the recipient who can get here the soonest has an edge. Which is why, just last month, a young couple with a twelve-year-old girl who was dying of kidney failure got in their motor home and drove down from Redding. They drove to San Francisco, and they started living in our parking lot. They parked there for almost two weeks before—” She broke off, looked away. Meaning, without doubt, that the girl had died.

  “So are you saying Hanchett made enemies, playing God?”

  “I’m saying that he had to deal with some pretty distraught people. Especially parents with young children—mothers. Believe me, Frank, you always hear about the ferocity of the mother fighting for the life of her young. And I’ll tell you, it’s all true. You see it constantly in this business. But never more dramatically than when there’s a mother whose child is going to die unless he gets a particular organ from a particular donor by a particular time. The mother will do anything—anything—to get that organ. And a mother who sees an organ go to another woman’s child, then sees her own child die …” Susan shook her head. “I only dealt with it once, when the woman went off the deep end. But it was awesome. Really awesome. Most times, I like being a nurse. But dealing with that woman …” She turned up her hands. “That night I about decided to go into real estate. Even after one of Arnie’s double martinis and a backrub, I still thought about real estate.”

  “How long ago was this?”

  “Six, seven months, I’m not really sure.” She smiled ruefully. “I’m trying to block it out, obviously.”

  Thoughtfully, Hastings nodded. A distraught mother whose child had died because Hanchett had decided to give an organ to another child … it was a possibility worth exploring. Both witnesses had said the murderer was a man. But all they’d seen was a figure wearing slacks and a jacket and a cap. The closest streetlight had been a hundred feet away; the block was badly lit. The closest witness, the pizza deliveryman, had been at least fifty feet from the victim.

  He opened his notebook. “What’s this woman’s name?”

  “Her name is Bell. Teresa Bell.”

  “Do you know her husband’s name?”

  She frowned—“It’s Fred. I’m almost sure it’s Fred.”

  “Do they live in San Francisco?”

  “Out in the avenues.” She smiled. “Not too far from where we grew up, Frank. The old neighborhood.”

  He returned the smile, closed the notebook, moved forward in his chair. “Thanks, Susan.” He rose. “I’ve taken enough of your—”

  Her phone warbled—a different, louder note. Was it an alarm? Yes, he could see it in her face as she listened briefly. He could hear it in her voice: “Okay. Two minutes.” Quickly she rose. “Sorry, Frank. Duty calls. You know how it is.”

  “I know how it is. Thanks, Susan. Can I use your phone?”

  “Dial nine.” She hugged him, kissed him on the cheek, went to the door. “Let me know. Promise?”

  “Promise.” He watched her leave the office, closing the door as she went. Sitting in her swivel chair, he touch-toned Homicide, asked for Canelli.

  “Sorry, Lieutenant, but Canelli isn’t—oh, wait. Here he comes now. Just a second.” And, moments later, Canelli came on the line.

  “Hi, Lieutenant. How’s it going?”

  “I was just going to ask you the same question.”

  “Well, his wife took it pretty cool, Lieutenant. Very cool, in fact.”

  “What time did you talk to her?”

  “It was twenty minutes after two when I finally got there.” As Canelli spoke, Hastings could hear him suppressing a yawn.

  “And?”

  “Well, she was alone in the house. It’s a real fancy house on Jackson, near Scott. I mean real fancy. Big bucks. Real big bucks.”

  “Had she been asleep, did you think, when you got there?”

  “Hard to tell. Like I said, she was real cool, made me show my ID, the whole nine yards. All this with the night chain on the door. So, jeez, with her coming on so strong, not letting me in, and demanding that, you know, I tell her what it was all about, me standing on the goddamn stoop, well, jeez, I didn’t have any choice. I mean, I had to tell her through the crack in the door that her husband was dead. So then—finally—she let me in.”

  “She wasn’t upset, eh?”

  “Not that I could see, Lieutenant. Mostly—well—if I had to pick a word, I guess it’d be ‘hostile.’ I mean, we just stood in the hallway, you know? She didn’t even ask me in, or anything. It was like—you know—I’d delivered a real smelly load of fish or something, and she couldn’t wait for me to leave. And—
oh, yeah—the first thing she asked me—after I told her that her husband was dead, and that he was shot by an unknown assailant on the street—the first thing she asked me was where had he gotten killed. What street, what address? Well, even though I knew we weren’t giving out that stuff to the press, or anything, not now, at least, I figured that, jeez, I couldn’t very well refuse to tell her. So I told her it happened on Green Street. I mean, I figured she’d find out anyhow, sooner or later. So I—” Partly to catch his breath, partly because of uncertainty, Canelli broke off. Hoping for the best, he waited for Hastings to speak. The pause was Hastings’s cue. “That’s right, Canelli. What else could you do?”

  “Ah.” It was a grateful sigh. “Right. What else could I do?”

  “So how’d she react, when you gave her the location?”

  “She didn’t really react, not that I could see. She just wanted me to leave—get lost, it seemed like. So then, the next thing I know, I’m standing on the goddamn porch again, looking at the door.”

  “I think I’ll talk to her. Then I’ll come in. Tell Lieutenant Friedman I’ll be there by about noon. Okay?”

  “Yeah. Sure, Lieutenant. Okay.”

  10:50 AM

  “If you’ll please take a seat”—the uniformed maid gestured to a large leather armchair—“Mrs. Hanchett will be right with you.”

  “Thank you.” As Hastings sank into the luxury of the chair, he glanced around the room. It was a small study. Two walls, floor to ceiling, were bookshelves. A third wall was dominated by a huge, multicolored, leaded-glass window that was certainly an authentic antique. There was a library table and a leather-topped desk, also antique. Another leather lounge chair matched Hastings’s chair. The desk chair, on casters, was also leather. The wall behind the desk was covered with framed pictures, certificates, and mementos.

  “Would you like some coffee?” the maid asked. “Rolls?” She was Filipino; her café au lait face was as smooth as polished stone, and just as bland. Her voice was expressionless.

  “No, thanks.”

  “Mrs. Hanchett is with …” The maid hesitated, searching for the right word. As the silence lengthened, she began to frown. “She’s with the undertakers.”

  “Ah.” Hastings nodded. “Yes.”

  The maid nodded politely in return and turned toward the door, which she left open as she walked out into the spacious entry hall with its curving staircase that led up to the second floor. The door was carved oak, thick enough to have come from a castle. The massive handle was brass.

  A maid; a Pacific Heights town house; bookcases filled with leatherbound books; a Jaguar; a young, beautiful lover: Hanchett had had it all.

  But the Jag was in the police lab. And Hanchett was in a drawer at the morgue, awaiting the autopsy surgeon’s knife.

  From the hallway came the sound of voices, hushed male voices, a restrained woman’s voice. Contracts in their pockets, the morticians were departing. Through the open door, Hastings saw two men in dark suits gravely shaking hands with a dark-haired woman wearing beige slacks, and a loose-fitting brown sweater. Slim but full-bodied, carrying herself with the arrogance of a desirable woman aware of her own desirability, Mrs. Brice Hanchett bore a remarkable resemblance to Carla Pfiefer. Had Hanchett’s choice of lovers followed a pattern?

  She was coming toward him now. With her dark, elegant, arrogant good looks, with her chin raised, shoulders and hips working together, moving as provocatively and as economically as a model might, she came into the study, swung the door closed, and took one of the two deep leather chairs facing him. All of it—the entrance, closing the door, sitting down, crossing one slim leg over the chair—was accomplished as if it were one movement, smoothly choreographed, flawlessly executed.

  Carla Pfiefer, the girlfriend, was a sensual, exciting woman.

  But the wife had the class.

  After Hastings introduced himself, Mrs. Hanchett said, “I’ve already talked to a homicide detective this morning. Do you know that?”

  Hastings nodded. “Inspector Canelli. Yes. This is a—a follow-up. I’ve just finished talking with Inspector Canelli, as a matter of fact.”

  Watching him with her dark, calm eyes, she made no response. Her face revealed nothing. It was a lean, aristocratic face. The mouth was small and firmly set, the nose aquiline, slightly pinched.

  Like I’d delivered a load of smelly fish, Canelli had said.

  Score another one for Canelli.

  As, still, she waited calmly, her eyes effortlessly meeting his.

  “I’m sorry it had to be so late when Inspector Canelli rang your doorbell,” Hastings began. “But it’s departmental policy to notify the next of kin in person, not by phone.”

  She nodded. “Of course.”

  “Is there anything I can do, Mrs. Hanchett? Anything I can help you with?”

  She smiled, a slight, humorless movement of her impeccably drawn lips. “You can catch whoever did it.”

  “That’s why I’m here, Mrs. Hanchett.”

  She frowned. It was the first spontaneous expression she’d revealed since she’d made her entrance. “I don’t understand.”

  “It’s beginning to look like your husband might’ve been killed last night for personal reasons.”

  The frown deepened, the nostrils thinned, the mouth hardened. “What d’you mean, ‘personal reasons’?”

  “I mean enemies.”

  “Enemies?”

  “Whenever someone’s killed, we look for two things—motive and opportunity. So, we’re trying to find someone with a motive for killing Dr. Hanchett. Usually, in a killing like this—a street killing—it’s either a fight or else it’s robbery. Sure, there’re the nuts, the random killers who kill for kicks, or because their voices tell them to do it. And it’s possible that your husband’s killer was one of those. But my hunch is whoever killed your husband did it for a reason.”

  “What kind of a reason?”

  “Usually it’s either gain or revenge. Or jealousy, one of those three.” He decided to smile, to make a gesture of invitation. “Take your pick. Please. We need all the help we can get.”

  “Lieutenant …” She let a hard, deliberate moment pass. “I really don’t have time for guessing games. And I don’t have the patience, either. Not this morning.”

  “Sure. I understand.” Briskly he withdrew a notebook from an inside pocket. “This won’t take long, Mrs. Hanchett. I’ve already been to BMC, and I’ve gotten a pretty good idea of Dr. Hanchett’s, uh, professional situation. So now, if I can get a rundown on his personal life—his relatives, his family situation—then I’ll be on my way.” Expectantly he clicked his ballpoint pen, at the same time experimenting with another smile.

  “What is it you want, exactly?” Her voice was cold, impersonal. But something stirred in the depths of her eyes. Was it caution? Concern?

  Concern for what? Why?

  “I’d like vital statistics. From his driver’s license I know he was fifty-two years old, and I know he lived at this address. But that’s all I know. And I need more. Lots more.”

  “He was married before,” she said, reciting now. “And so was I. His first wife’s name is Fiona. She lives on Washington Street, not too far from here, in fact. They have a son. John. He lives with his mother.”

  “Is that Fiona Hanchett?”

  She nodded. “Yes. She never remarried.”

  “What’s your name—your given name?”

  “It’s Barbara.” She hesitated, then decided to say, “Barbara Gregg Hanchett.”

  “How long have—were—you married to Dr. Hanchett?”

  “Almost four years. It’ll be—” She broke off, bit her lip. “It would’ve been four years in two months—November.”

  “You were married before. Could I have your first husband’s name?”

  Instantly she bristled. Hastings recognized that mannerism: the upper-class matron harassed by a mere civil servant.

  “Why do you want my first husband
’s name?”

  Tactically, his response was textbook-clear: never answer a hostile question.

  “Have you ever seen a transcript of a murder trial, Mrs. Hanchett?”

  “What’s that got to do with it?”

  “A transcript can run to thousands of pages, the most minute detail. That’s what this business is all about, Mrs. Hanchett. Details.”

  Jaw set grimly, eyes bright with rigidly suppressed anger, voice edged with bitterness and scorn, she said, “His name is Edward Gregg. He’s remarried, and lives on Cherry Street. He’s a lawyer. A very rich, very successful lawyer. He’s forty-five years old, and—” Contemptuously, she shrugged. “And I’m forty-three, if that’s the kind of detail you’re looking for. We—Edward and I—have a daughter named Paula who’s a model and lives in North Beach.” About to say more, she frowned, then fell into a brooding, patrician silence.

  Calling for a calm, cool response: “Thank you, Mrs. Hanchett.” He flipped a notebook page, made a final entry, flipped the notebook closed, returned it to his pocket, the businesslike policeman doing his job. “That’s very helpful.”

  “Good.” Sitting in her chair, chin lifted, back arched, legs elegantly crossed, a finishing-school posture, she nodded, a slight, stiff-necked inclination of her impeccably coiffed head.

  All of it making an irresistible target.

  Holding her gaze, Hastings let a beat pass. Then, quietly, he said, “Did Inspector Canelli tell you the, uh, circumstances surrounding your husband’s death?”

  “Circumstances?”

  “It happened a little after ten P.M., in the eleven-hundred block of Green Street. That’s on Russian Hill, between Hyde and Leavenworth.”

  She made no response. But, deep behind her violet eyes, something shifted. He’d touched another nerve. Or was it the same nerve?

  “Would you like to hear the details?” Hastings asked. “Or would you rather not? Your choice.” Aware that whichever way she answered he could only win, he was also aware of the smugness he felt. Friedman’s favorite targets were the rich and the famous. Sometimes Hastings could understand why.

  “Do you mean that—” Watching him attentively, she broke off. When she spoke again, her voice was lower, tighter. “Do you mean that you know how it happened? Why it happened?”