She’d gone back to sleep after the nightmare had released her. But the next morning, awakening, the horror had returned. The vision of his dead face, so cold and clammy to the touch, had persisted.
And then the phrase “hire a hangman” had begun to stir deep in her amorphous, awakening consciousness. If she could hire a hangman—an executioner, a killer—she would be rid of him. Finally rid of him. Finally free.
In the moments that followed, still lying in bed, still with her eyes closed, as if she were a child, afraid the vision would vanish if she opened her eyes, she lay motionless as, yes, the possibility congealed into certainty: an incredibly matter-of-fact necessity, a simple puzzle that required a solution no more complex than finding a mechanic or a gardener or someone to plan a party.
Yes, hire a hangman …
For days—weeks—she’d nurtured the vision, let it germinate, allowed the desire to solidify into the plan.
And then, deliberately, she’d waited patiently for her chance.
She’d only had to wait until the following Friday night, when they’d gone to the movie, then gone for pizza, then gone to her place. He’d told her he was going to Cancun. It was, she knew, a test, one of his little games, to test her. Instantly, she’d seen her chance.
She’d realized instinctively that it would first be necessary to pronounce the words. A few days before, over espresso, they’d signaled with a look, only a look, that murder might be the answer. But, the next step, words must be spoken. And, almost immediately, the opportunity had come. When he’d said that she should do something about Brice, anything, to ease her burden, she’d said, “How? Kill him?”
And, like the self-blinded fool he was, he’d swallowed the bait whole. So that the next time they saw each other, she had only to wait for him to create his own opening. She’d expected him to begin by repeating his wish that she come to Cancun with him. But, instead, he’d simply said he’d been thinking about what she’d said the other night—thinking about Brice Hanchett, dead.
The rest of it had followed the same script, line for line. There was a woman named Teresa Bell, whose son had died for want of a liver transplant, she’d told him. If he were to approach Teresa Bell, befriend her, sympathize with her, then Teresa Bell would do their work for them. Teresa Bell would be their instrument of vengeance—and, yes, of gain. Enormous gain, his hangman’s bounty.
Magically, the scenario had once more played out according to the script. As if she were a robot, a marionette, Teresa Bell had taken the pistol and gone to the address on Green Street.
But then the waiting had begun, the agony of uncertainty. When would they know? Would the policeman’s knock on the door be their first word?
Only later—only during their second meeting at the yacht harbor—had she learned that, incredibly, he’d been unable to stand the uncertainty. Late Monday night, he’d gotten in his car and gone to Russian Hill. He’d played the part of a spectator, gawking at the blood that still stained the pavement. It was a mad, senseless risk—a risk induced by fear.
But at least he’d known. His agony of waiting was over. Hers had only begun.
But finally the police had come. She’d prepared herself, so that it was only necessary to continue reading from the script.
But she couldn’t prepare him. She couldn’t know that already he was weakening.
Minutes after Hastings questioned him, he’d called her. They had to meet. It was on Tuesday, the day after the murder. Her first close look at his face confirmed her fears. Under questioning, he might tell the police everything. If his actual words didn’t betray him, his actions would.
Betray himself …
Betray her.
Then he’d told her that the police had already questioned Teresa Bell. How did he know? she’d asked. Because, he’d answered, he’d seen Hastings leaving Teresa Bell’s house. His voice had been ragged, his eyes furtive with fear, his face pale and waxen. His telltale hands were in constant motion, twitching, plucking, fretting.
First he’d gone to Green Street.
Then he’d gone to the Bell house, come close enough to see Hastings—and be seen in turn.
Then he’d told her he had another gun. With that gun, he’d said, he would kill Teresa Bell, to protect them. There was no other way.
She’d planned the killing of one monster—and created a second monster. The first monster was crazed by greed and arrogance and ruthlessness. The second monster was crazed by fear.
The first monster, Brice Hanchett, had threatened to take her sanity. The second monster threatened her freedom, even her life.
After the second murder he’d called again. He’d told her they were safe, now they were safe. But they must meet again, he’d said. More than ever, he needed her. She’d refused. Yesterday, she’d refused.
Today, she knew she must accept. Even though it was dangerous to accept, it was more dangerous to refuse.
Nine o’clock, he’d said.
Less than six hours, now.
A lifetime less.
4:30 PM
Frowning, Canelli patted his pockets again. Finally he shook his head. “Sorry, no pen.”
Without comment, the woman behind the counter took a pen from a drawer beneath the counter and placed it on the clipboard. As Canelli signed, the attendant said, “Don’t forget your badge number.”
“Oh. Right.” He printed the number, added “Homicide,” and returned the clipboard and pen. The attendant nodded, yawned, and pressed a buzzer beneath the counter. Stepping back, Canelli moved to the door, looked through the small, wire-reinforced glass pane. In the waiting room, Dolores was pacing. In her establishment dress and high heels, hair carefully done, makeup meticulous, she was drawing the appreciative stares of a dozen males, some of them in handcuffs. But if she was aware of the attention, she gave no sign.
Behind him, another buzzer sounded; another door opened. Turning, Canelli saw him: a slim Chicano boy wearing jeans, sneakers, and a Giants T-shirt. He carried a small backpack by its shoulder straps. Fixed on Canelli, his eyes were large and dark and very still.
“Oscar?”
Standing just inside the inner door that led back to the detention section, the boy stood motionless, still staring.
“Come on, Oscar.” Canelli opened the outer door, gesturing toward the visitor’s section. “Your mother’s here.”
The boy remained motionless, his face revealing nothing.
“Come on.” Canelli opened the door wider. “Your mother’s waiting. She’ll take you home.”
Warily, keeping as far from Canelli as possible, the boy moved forward, began edging through the door. Now he held the backpack with both hands, waist-high, as if for protection. Like his mother, the boy was instinctively ready for trouble. Had he been mistreated while he was in custody? Slapped around? Even sodomized? It could have happened, Canelli knew. Even in the daylight hours, one of the older inmates, a teenager already gone bad, could have—
“Oscar.” Suddenly Dolores was there, her arms wide, scooping the boy up, hugging him so hard that his feet left the floor. For a moment, still holding the backpack, the boy remained rigid in her arms. Then he dropped the pack, threw his arms around his mother’s neck, and began to cry.
4:50 PM
“So—” Friedman tilted back in his swivel chair, propped his feet on the bottom drawer of his desk, and eyed Alan Bernhardt, seated in one of Friedman’s two visitors’ chairs. Bernhardt was a tall, lean man in his early forties. “Lived-in” was the phrase Friedman had privately ascribed to Bernhardt’s appearance: thick, unruly salt-and-pepper hair that always needed trimming, slacks that needed pressing, loafers that needed shining. Plainly, the well-worn Harris tweed jacket was Bernhardt’s very own, along with the open-collared button-down oxford-cloth shirt that Friedman suspected might have come from Brooks Brothers. Bernhardt’s face matched his lived-in persona: a thoughtful, reflective, distinctly Semitic face. The nose was a little too long, the mouth a little to
o small, the cheeks a little too hollow. But the soft brown eyes were both watchful and knowing, and the deeply etched pattern of the face’s lines and creases unified the whole. It was, Friedman had always thought, a rabbi’s face. For better or worse.
“So how’s it going, Alan? How long’s it been since you cut loose from that snake Dancer?”
“A little more than a year.” Bernhardt’s voice matched his face: measured, modulated.
“You’re doing all right free-lance,” Friedman said. Then: “Aren’t you?”
Bernhardt considered. “Yeah, I suppose I am. Everyone wants more business, I guess. But in my case …” He let it go unfinished.
“Meaning that, really, you’d rather write plays than surveillance reports.”
“Except that if the plays don’t get produced, then I’ve got to keep writing the reports.”
“And you and that classy lady you saved from Hollywood, you’re still an item?”
Bernhardt smiled. “You’re an incorrigible busybody, you know that, Pete?”
“So I’ve been told.” Friedman spoke complacently, then pointedly let a silence settle. He was expecting an answer.
Bernhardt’s smile widened as he said, “Okay, the answer is yes, we’re still an item.”
“Good.” With an air of finality, Friedman nodded. Having satisfied his curiosity, he was ready to proceed. “You’ll recall that the last time we talked, you said you owed me a big one for that fingerprint search a month or so ago on the State of California’s six-million-dollar Japanese fingerprint computer. Right?”
“Definitely.”
“So how’re you fixed for time, the next day or two?”
“I’ve got time.” As he spoke, Bernhardt took out his notebook and pen. “What can I do for you?”
“What I need,” Friedman said, “is a little illegal entry, maybe a little fingerprint lifting. Are you any good at fingerprints?”
Bernhardt shrugged. “I’ve done it. But I can’t say I’m very proficient. What’s the rundown?”
“There’re three, maybe four guys I need fingerprints on. Do you know about the Hanchett murder case?”
“Sure. I read the papers.”
“And the murder of Teresa Bell, two nights ago?”
Bernhardt frowned. “Teresa Bell?”
Friedman sighed. “Teresa Bell was neither rich nor famous, so she didn’t make the front page. But she’s dead. We think she killed Hanchett. Then we think she was killed to shut her up. If we’re right, we may have the fingerprints of her murderer on some cartridges. But all we’ve got are suspicions, not nearly enough to get search warrants.”
“So?”
“So I need you to get fingerprints from a list of suspects, like I said. We’ll do a little on-the-spot fingerprint work. You get inside the guy’s house, find something like a drinking glass, maybe unscrew a doorknob, whatever it takes. You bring the item out to our van, where we’ve got a fingerprint technician. He takes a couple of minutes to lift some prints. Then you return the glass, and we go on to the next suspect.”
Bernhardt frowned. “But, Christ, what if—?”
“Wait.” Friedman raised a peremptory hand. “I know what you’re going to say, and I’ve got it covered. It’ll be a team effort. I’ll be the team captain.” He smiled puckishly at the other man. “Does that reassure you?”
“Hmmm.”
“You’ll have a half-dozen guys backing you up. There’ll be a guy tailing the suspect, naturally, so he won’t walk in on you. Then one guy in front of the suspect’s house, and another guy in back. Plus me and the fingerprint guy. A goddamn task force, in other words. How’re you on locks?”
Bernhardt shrugged. “Sometimes I win, sometimes I lose. You know how it is with locks. If the technology is ahead of you, then you lose.”
“Well, I’ll get a locksmith. A private party. So all you have to do is go inside. You’ll have a walkie-talkie, of course. And I’ll be coordinating from the van. If the subject returns home, I’ll give you fair warning. You’ll have to bring your own car, though. We don’t want anyone to connect us, naturally.”
“What about the walkie-talkies? If they’re police-issue, they’ll connect us.”
“I’ll get a couple from the property room. Drug dealers are very big on walkie-talkies.”
Bernhardt nodded, then shrugged, one gesture canceling the other. “Sounds like it should work. But I don’t understand what you’ll gain by all this. Talk about illegally gathered evidence. The DA’ll never touch it.”
Always impatient whenever a pet project was questioned, Friedman dismissed the point with a wave of the hand. “You get the goods, I’ll handle the details. And, meanwhile, you’ll be back in the black, so far as our private tally is concerned. Okay?”
“Yes. Fine. When do we start?”
“How about now? This evening? I’ve got four subjects in mind, like I said. I’ll put a stakeout on each one of them. The first one who leaves the house, gives us a shot, we’ll go for it. Same thing applies to his place of business. I figure that, with luck and good communications, we’ll have what we want in twenty-four hours. Okay?”
“Okay.”
6:20 PM
Standing side by side in the archway of the small living room, they watched the boy as he sat absorbed before a small TV set. On the screen, cartoon characters chattered and shrieked. No matter what the characters did, the boy’s face remained unchanged as he methodically ate a chili dog they’d picked up at Taco Bell. The archway was narrow. Canelli was conscious of Dolores standing close beside him, their thighs sometimes brushing. After she’d gotten Oscar settled, she’d gone into the bedroom and changed into jeans and a silky blouse that clung to her torso. Her feet were bare. Beneath the silken swell of her breasts, her arms were crossed.
“Television …” Resigned, she sighed. “What’re you going to do?”
“He looks like he’ll be okay, though,” Canelli offered.
“Yeah, he’ll be okay.”
They remained silent for a moment, still companionably close. On the TV screen, during a raucous commercial, a clown was pitching a computer war game; the sound effects might have come from a Vietnam film clip.
“Well,” Canelli said finally, “I guess I better get back to the Hall.” Unwilling to move away from her, he spoke softly, regretfully. On the TV screen, the pyrotechnics continued. He decided to take a tentative half-step backward, into the hallway. Moving with him, she led the way to the front door. Then, turning toward him, her back to the door, she stood motionless. As if she were determined to measure up to some distasteful task, she lowered her chin, bowed her neck, set her shoulders.
“Listen, Canelli, I, uh—” She frowned, broke off, began again, this time speaking in a rush: “I, uh, just wanted to thank you.” Still she stood motionless, obviously struggling. Then, slowly, with grave determination, she raised her eyes to meet his. “I wanted to thank you a lot. I mean …” She shook her head sharply, as if to dispel some painful vision. “I mean, it would’ve been terrible, if Oscar had stayed in that hole.” Deep in her dark eyes Canelli saw a softness. As if to deny it, her frown deepened. But, still, the softness remained.
“Ah, jeez, Dolores …” Canelli’s head bobbed. “Jeez, it’s okay. I’m just glad it worked out, is all. You know, sometimes you get tangled up in that bureaucracy, all that crap, it doesn’t always work out. But this time it did. So …” In acknowledgment of their good fortune, he waved a hand. Then, because they were standing so close, he touched her shoulder, let his hand linger. “So I’m glad.”
With his hand still on her shoulder, she suddenly smiled. Plainly, the smile surprised her. “You’re a funny guy, you know that? Especially for a cop, you’re a funny guy.” As if they’d just been introduced, she studied him for a moment. Then, boldly: “Have you got a girl?”
“I, uh …” He squinted, frowned, shifted his feet, took back his hand. Visibly uncomfortable, he cleared his throat. “I, uh, yeah, I do, as a matter o
f fact. Gracie. We’re … engaged, I guess you’d say.”
“Ah …” Self-protectively, she nodded. Now she said something in Spanish, three short, wistful words. Then her eyes changed. Her voice was crisp as she said, “Listen, looking these guys over, there’s one more to go. Right?” It was a businesslike question, asked with precision.
“Yeah. Right. At least I think that’s what the lieutenant is saying. But—”
“Is this last guy the one you suspect most, or what?”
He snorted. “Who knows? You gotta talk to the lieutenant for that.”
“But you want the guy eyeballed. Right?”
“Right. But I thought you—”
Impatiently, she shook her head. “I never said I wouldn’t do the job. I just said I didn’t want to lie. I mean, I’ve got problems enough without that.”
“Well …” He grinned. “Well, let’s do it, then.” He checked the time. “Let’s give it a shot, see what happens.”
“Can I be back in time to put Oscar in bed? Eight-thirty?”
“No problem.”
“Okay, I’ll tell Oscar and make sure Maria can watch him. But it’s gotta be eight-thirty, Canelli.”
“Guaranteed.”
In the narrow hallway, before she could pass, he was compelled to flatten himself against the wall. As he did, she came close, rose upon tiptoes, and kissed him full on the mouth. Once more, she said something in Spanish. Only a few wistful words.
6:25 PM
Hastings pressed the blinking plastic button and lifted the telephone to his ear.
“Hastings.”
“This is Susan Parrish, Frank.”
“Susan.” He smiled. “You’re my most faithful informant, you know that?”
“Is that good?”
“It proves you’re on the side of the angels. What can I do for you?”
“Well, I feel kind of silly, telling you this. I mean, it’s just gossip, that’s all it is. But when you told me you wanted to know about Dr. Pfiefer’s beard, the easiest thing to do was talk to his nurse. It was hard because I couldn’t tell her why I was asking—except that, really, I think she figured it out. It’s all over the hospital that Dr. Hanchett was murdered as he was leaving Carla Pfiefer’s place. And then, of course, you’ve been here, questioning Dr. Pfiefer. And that’s stirred up a lot of gossip, naturally. But anyhow—” In the background, a telephone warbled. “Oh, damn. Hold on a second, Frank.” She clicked him on hold. A half-minute passed. Then, a little breathlessly: “Sorry, Frank. I think I need a vacation.”
Hire a Hangman Page 19
