“Lieutenant Hastings …” Thoughtfully she touched the tip of a small pink tongue to her upper lip. Still staring straight ahead, her eyes narrowed slightly, she said, “He’s a—” She hesitated. “He’s a formidable man, I think.”
“Formidable?” Canelli smiled. “That’s not the word I’d pick, I don’t think.”
She shrugged. “Everybody’s different, sees things different. But Hastings—he’s one of those big, quiet men. Get on the wrong side of him, you’d have a problem.”
“Well …” Judiciously, Canelli nodded. “Well, that’s certainly so, come to think about it.”
“My mother lived with a man who reminded me of Hastings. God, he was tough, that one. Didn’t say much—never, you know, threw his weight around. But get him mad …” Remembering, she shook her head. “Get him mad, watch out.”
“Where’d you grow up?”
“Mexico City.” Saying it, her voice dropped, her eyes hardened, her mouth tightened.
“How was it? Pretty tough?”
She glanced at him. It was a brief look, plainly touched with the half-concealed hostility the underclass reserves for its masters. “Yeah,” she answered, once more staring straight ahead. “Yeah, pretty tough.” Her voice was bitter.
“Your mother was—what—divorced?”
She laughed—a brief, harsh laugh. “My mother was never married. She had five kids. All by different men. She—”
Across the street, a latticed gate beside the house swung open to reveal Hastings and a younger, slimmer man: John Hanchett, dressed in jeans and a loose-hanging shirt. His face was drawn and pale, his dark hair in disarray, his eyes haggard—or haunted.
Canelli waited until the two men came closer, then spoke to the woman beside him. “Well, what do you think?”
Frowning, she was studying John Hanchett as Hastings maneuvered him to stand immediately in front of the cruiser, his face profiled.
“I …” She hesitated. Then, annoyed, she shook her head, gestured impatiently. “This is hard, like this. I mean, sit him on a goddamn bar stool, put a stocking cap on him, dark glasses, lights down low …” She shrugged. “Who knows?”
“Yeah. Well …” Canelli caught Hastings’s eye and moved his head to signify that Dolores had seen enough—and not enough. As Hastings nodded in response and turned away, Canelli said heavily, “Yeah, I know what you mean. If these guys were actually suspects—if they were in custody—we could put them in a lineup with caps and glasses all around, whatever. This way”—he shook his head—“it’s a goddamn crap shoot.”
“Jesus.” She looked at him, an expression that might be equal parts of amusement and puzzlement. “Jesus, no wonder there’re so many crooks running around, the way you guys operate.”
4:45 PM
She filled the wineglass, eyed the bottle. Almost half gone. Already, almost half gone. Was this the first sign of weakness, the first suggestion of guilt, therefore, of vulnerability? Should she return the bottle to the cupboard—conceal the evidence?
Evidence?
Evidence of what?
Concealed from whom? Why?
Only a few days ago the calculations would have been meaningless, a muddled jumble of mere mumblings, scraps from the subconscious, fragments of coherence, shards of a life left over from the time before Monday night.
Monday night, and last night: two mute, mangled corpses.
No, not mangled.
Punctured, not mangled: tiny holes, surgical holes.
Would Brice have approved?
In those last moments, would Brice have appreciated the intricacy of her plan? Would he have approved its precision, admired its two-plus-two logic?
Nothing plus nothing equaled nothing. Logic.
She took the wine into the living room, placed the glass on the coffee table, sat on the sofa. Solemnly, she stared into the amber depths of the wine.
Was it possible to conjure up his thoughts as he felt life slipping away? Was it necessary that she try?
In the question, the answer was self-evident: yes, it was necessary that she try. It was essential that she try.
Two instruments—two imperfect instruments, he and Teresa Bell. One instrument flawed by insanity, one flawed by—
By what?
Did she know? Really know?
This question—this dilemma—must now be addressed. Urgently addressed.
First, she knew, the police looked for motive. Just as she, too, must now decide on his motive. His real motive, not his pretended motive.
His motive—and her motive.
How had it begun? Surely that was the essential starting point: that tiny seed, germinating so slowly, beginning to grow, first in her subconscious, inexorably spreading its tendrils until, finally, it penetrated her consciousness: the vision of Brice Hanchett, dead.
It could have begun with a look: no words, just one of Brice’s looks, eloquent with a calm, calculated contempt.
One moment she’d been able to tolerate that contemptuous look from him; the next moment she hadn’t. It was as if she’d stepped through an invisible wall. On one side, she’d accepted her humiliation, the ruin he’d left behind, herself contemptuous of herself.
On the other side, the far side of the invisible wall, she’d known that he must die. If she were to live—survive—then he must die. It was a simple equation, cause and effect. One of them would die.
And if she survived—accepted the risk, and prevailed—then she would prosper. Risk must be rewarded; he’d taught her that.
And so the thought had surfaced; the unthinkable had become real.
She’d never thought of it as murder. Execution, yes. Retribution, yes. Punishment, certainly. Sometimes she thought of a balance scale, the scales of justice, good on one side, evil on the other. Overload one side, and the beam tilts. Verdict rendered. Sentence pronounced.
So she’d begun to make her plans. Beginning with Teresa Bell, fatally flawed, that demented woman who’d known she must die.
Beginning with Teresa Bell—
And ending where?
7:15 PM
“But what’s the big deal?” Across the dinner table, Billy’s voice rose an aggrieved half-octave—and cracked into a twelve-year-old’s falsetto. Exasperated by his younger brother’s protestations, Dan elaborately raised his eyes, then concentrated on his plateful of fettuccine and white clam sauce.
At the head of the table, Ann calmly chewed her own fettuccine, swallowed, sipped her tea. Then she said, “The big deal, Billy, is there isn’t a hundred dollars in the budget to buy you a pair of Air-Flex running shoes. Especially since the shoes you’ve got are perfectly—”
In the hallway, the telephone warbled.
“I’ll get it.” Hastings wiped his mouth, put down his napkin, gulped his tea, and left the dining room as, behind him, Billy’s voice rose another half-octave, while Ann’s voice, replying, dropped an ominous half-octave. If the call was for him, Hastings decided, even if it was an aluminum-siding salesman, he would prolong the conversation until the sounds of combat from the dining room subsided.
“You’re probably right in the middle of dinner.” It was Friedman’s voice.
“It’s okay.” Untangling the cord as he went, Hastings carried the phone into the living room. He sat on the sofa, took the TV wand from the coffee table, and began running through the channels, volume off. “What’s doing?”
“I just had a thought.”
“A thought?”
“A theory on the Hanchett-Bell thing.”
“Okay …” On the TV screen, wearing a trench coat and a slouch hat, Robert Mitchum was holding an automatic on a woman wearing a low-cut evening gown. The woman’s breasts were superb. Mitchum looked incredibly young. The gun was a Colt .45 automatic.
“I think,” Friedman said, “that Teresa Bell was set up as a hit person.”
“Hmm …”
Behind Mitchum, a door was slowly, ominously opening.
“What’s th
at mean? ‘Hmm.’ What’s that?”
“It means I’m thinking.”
“It’s the only thing that makes sense. Let’s say, for instance, that Carla Pfiefer’s husband—what’s his name?”
“Jason Pfiefer.”
“Right. Jason. Let’s say he’s insanely jealous of his wife and Hanchett. He decides to kill Hanchett. But he’s too smart to do the job himself. He’s too smart, and he’s got too much to lose. Let’s say he knows about Teresa Bell—which he would, since he works at BMC. He figures he can put a bug in her ear, tip her over the edge, get her to kill Hanchett out of vengeance. He’ll even give her the game plan. It figures, when you think about it. After all, who better than Pfiefer, the proud, insanely jealous husband, to know that Hanchett would be with his estranged wife at a particular time and place? He probably had PIs spying on them.
“But, of course, he’s got to supply a gun—a gun that can’t be traced to either him or Teresa. So he contacts Dolores. He gets one gun for Teresa—and one gun for himself, just in case. Maybe he figured he might have to kill Teresa before she talked to the police and incriminated him. Which, in fact, probably would’ve happened if Teresa hadn’t been dead when we got there last night. You said so yourself. You figured she’d talk her head off, if her husband wasn’t there to shut her up.”
“It’s a good theory. All we need now is proof.”
“True. How’s Dolores Chavez working out?”
“I doubt that she’ll be much help.”
“Has she seen Pfiefer?”
“No. She’s seen Bell and John Hanchett.”
“And?”
“Either she isn’t willing to cooperate or she’s getting confused. I can’t decide which.”
“What we need,” Friedman said, “is sufficient grounds to bring one of these guys in for a lineup, put a blue stocking cap and dark glasses on him.”
“And a mustache.”
“Right.”
“Speaking of a mustache,” Hastings said, “Pfiefer wears a beard. If he had the beard before Dolores sold the two guns, that eliminates Pfiefer.”
“But if, on the other hand, he grew the beard after Dolores sold the gun,” Friedman countered quickly, “then the ball is in his court.”
“It’s easy enough to check.”
“Are you going to do anything on the case tonight?”
“I want to talk to Paula Gregg, Hanchett’s stepdaughter.”
“The one he’s supposed to have molested when she was young?”
“The one who hates him, apparently. Still.”
“I wonder whether she and John Hanchett could have cooked this up,” Friedman mused.
“I wonder whether John and his mother—Fiona Hanchett—could’ve done it. They both hated Hanchett. And John’ll undoubtedly profit, get an inheritance.”
“What about Barbara Hanchett? Not only was she the wronged wife, the classic motive, but she’ll certainly profit, too. Which reminds me, Hanchett’s will has probably been submitted for probate by now. It’ll be interesting to see who gets what from the estate.”
“What about Barbara and Clayton Vance?” Hastings said. “According to Fiona Hanchett, they’re lovers. So suppose they decided they’d get rid of Hanchett, get Barbara’s slice of the inheritance, and live happily ever after.”
“Another classic motive,” Friedman answered, adding judiciously, “I like it. Lust and greed.” Hastings could imagine him nodding elaborately. “Good. Very good.”
“Barbara could’ve known about Teresa Bell. She could’ve planned it.” Warming to his subject, Hastings spoke more rapidly now, more avidly. “Vance got the guns. Then one of them—Vance or Barbara—contacted Teresa Bell. They planned the whole thing, in detail. Vance gave Teresa the gun, told her how to use it, gave her the game plan. But when we started questioning Teresa, they spooked. They knew she’d talk. So one of them killed her, to keep her quiet.”
“It’s actually all the same theory,” Friedman said. “Just different characters. My theory, don’t forget.”
“How could I forget?”
“So what now?”
“First, I’m going to finish dinner. Then I’m going to interrogate Paula Gregg. Then I’ll find out how long Pfiefer’s been wearing a beard.”
“Good man.”
9:15 PM
“Miss Gregg? Paula Gregg?”
She was tall and vivid, a lean, restless-moving blonde with bold eyes. Legs braced, one fist propped on an outthrust hip, the other hand on the doorknob. She wore a man’s large, long-tailed white dress shirt—and probably nothing else.
Looking down at the gold shield, frowning, she said, “More police. I already talked to someone. An Italian. And I’ve got … company.” She said it defiantly, challenging him.
“Do you have a bedroom?”
The frown deepened as she raised her eyes to meet his. She was a brown-eyed blonde, an unusual type, if the blond hair was real.
“Yes, I’ve got a bedroom. Why?”
“Tell him to stay in the bedroom and close the door. I’m not interested in your sex life. But I’m investigating the Hanchett murder—and, now, another murder. And I want to talk with you. It won’t take long. But it’s got to be done. Now. Right now.”
“Don’t you need a warrant before I have to let you in?”
He nodded. “You’re right, I do. And I don’t have a warrant. So if you don’t let me in, that’s it. You close the door and I walk away. But I don’t think that’s a game you want to get into, Miss Gregg.”
“Oh? Why’s that?”
“Because it all goes on your tab, that’s why. You can cause me trouble tonight. But I can cause you a lot more trouble down the line. Believe me.”
For a long, furious moment she defied him with smoldering eyes. But finally: “Fuck it.” She whirled, strode down the short hallway and across a huge, dimly lit room to a half-open door. She said something to someone inside, said “Fuck it” again, slammed the door, and strode to a leather sling chair. As she threw herself into the chair, Hastings caught a glimpse of pale thighs and red panties beneath the white shirt.
The apartment occupied the top floor of a waterfront loft building that had originally been a loading shed built on one of the city’s turn-of-the-century deep-water wharfs. But as real-estate speculators had dumped fill into San Francisco Bay and then built high-rise buildings on the fill, the bay had grown smaller. The wharves that had once served square-riggers now offered high-cost housing to trend-conscious San Franciscans.
“Interesting place.” Hastings surveyed the outsize room. Its rough wood walls and lofty roof cross-bracing were whitewashed; its ancient planked floor was oiled. Half of one wall was glass, and looked directly out on San Francisco Bay, with the jewel-lit hills of Berkeley and Oakland in the background and the slow-moving red running lights of an inbound freighter animating the vista in the foreground. The whitewashed walls featured more than a dozen huge blowups of Paula Gregg, some of them nudes.
“Jungle Passion,” Canelli had said, marveling as he remembered interrogating Paula Gregg.
Her leather sling chair was one of three companion chairs placed close beside the large, free-standing, black iron fireplace that dominated the room. Without ceremony, Hastings hooked the frame of one of the chairs with his toe, turning it to face the woman.
“Since you’re tight on time,” Hastings said, glancing pointedly toward the closed bedroom door, “I’ll come right to the point.”
“Good.”
“At eight o’clock last night—Wednesday night—where were you?”
She shrugged. It was a slow, languid gesture. The brown eyes were brooding now, more speculative than hostile. She was changing tactics: the female of the species, sizing up a new male.
“I was out. Somewhere.” She shrugged. “Anywhere.”
Watching her, listening to her, Hastings decided that she was probably on a recreational drug—cocaine, possibly. When he’d knocked on the door, she’d been up, ma
nic. Now she was coming down. Slowly, sensuously coming down. Looking him over. Had she ever had a cop? Was she trying to remember?
“Who were you with last night?”
She shrugged again. Her back was arched, her neck curved. Her whole body came together, tight as a drawn bow, registering haughty disdain. If she’d ever had a cop, it had been a disappointment. “I was with different people. It was a party.”
“You’ll have to do better than that, Paula. A lot better.”
“Oh? Why?”
“I’ve already told you. There’re two murders. Brice Hanchett was shot and killed Monday night, on Green Street. Teresa Bell was shot and killed last night at her home in the Sunset. These murders were connected.”
“And you think I killed them.” It was a flat, hostile statement. Her eyes, too, had gone flat and hostile.
Yes, “Jungle Passion.” A steamy thirty-second TV commercial: the wild, predatory female with hair like a lion’s mane, a body that promised everything, and eyes that smoked, devouring the camera.
“I think you had a motive. And in my business, motive is what it’s all about.”
“What motive are you talking about?”
He’d been expecting the question; he was prepared. Even before she’d come on so strong, the aggressor, he’d decided on his reply. “I’m told that when you were young, living with Hanchett and your mother, Hanchett molested you.” Holding her gaze, he spoke quietly, evenly.
The reaction began down deep: a tightening of her mouth, a shifting of her long, lean legs, an inward contraction of the torso, as if she were shrinking away from him. Finally the dusky brown eyes faltered, flinched, revealing a crevice of hidden pain.
“Who told you that?” Her voice was low and harsh; her eyes turned hot and hostile, masking the pain.
“It doesn’t matter. What I—”
“It does matter, goddamn you.” She sprang out of the chair, strode to the plate-glass window, turned to face him. The anger had returned, touching her magnificent body with sexual magic.
The body was her fortune—and the anger was her shield.
Twenty years old, Canelli had said. Marveling.
Hire a Hangman Page 14
