Double, Double, Oil and Trouble

by Emma Lathen

  “Hello, Tim. . . . Yeah, I can get back. . . . Didn’t he say anything else? . . . Tell him I’ll be there in 15 minutes.”

  Nash grounded the receiver and turned to McMurtrey, his forehead wrinkled in bewilderment. “Something’s come up in the post-mortem. The medical examiner is waiting to talk to me.”

  “But Wylie was killed by a bomb.”

  “I don’t know what the hell is going on. But he’s not hanging around my office unless he’s got something up his sleeve.”

  McMurtrey, his interest piqued, was already reaching for his jacket. “Mind if I tag along?”

  “Sure, but I’m not promising anything.”

  They were both too experienced to waste time speculating during the drive. A discussion of the Astros carried them through traffic, up the elevator, and into the Homicide Division.

  The moment that Nash saw his visitor, he stopped short. Dr. Martin Zender was not a regular member of the staff. He was the high lama of consultants to the medical examiner. He was also a leading light of the Baylor Medical Center and a professor of forensic medicine. A certain degree of disenchantment might be expected in any normal man who divided his time between corpses and modern youth. But today Dr. Zender’s baby-blue eyes were gleaming with excitement.

  “They called me in to look at your bits and pieces,” he said happily, “and I’ve come up with something that may upset all your ideas.”

  “My God,” gasped Nash, sinking into a chair, “Wylie did die a natural death.”

  “Oh, this isn’t about Wylie’s death, this is about his life,” said Zender, deliberately tantalizing.

  Lieutenant Nash took a deep breath. “Now, wait a minute, Doc. You haven’t forgotten this is a homicide case? If it turns out that Wylie was on heroin, that isn’t going to help me catch a bunch of terrorists.”

  Serenely Dr. Zender sailed on. He might have been chatting to one of his classes. “The effects of blast are notoriously unpredictable. You can’t count on your victim being blown to smithereens. In this case, for instance, there was extensive damage including . . .”

  The grisly catalog that followed was intelligible to Nash.

  “Okay, from the hips down he was just mincemeat. So what?”

  “But the upper torso was intact. And when I spotted some interesting scar tissue, I decided to take X rays.” Suddenly Dr. Zender ceased being a lecturer. “You know, I read the headlines, too. I even went back and checked the dates. I was curious about the injuries your Davidson Wylie incurred while he was supposed to be kidnapped.”

  The room had become completely still.

  “Supposed to be kidnapped,” McMurtrey repeated in a whisper.

  “That’s right. In the latter half of July, he sustained three cracked ribs, a broken collarbone, and some chipping of the ulna.”

  No one dreamed of questioning Dr. Zender’s facts. His interpretation was a different matter.

  “I suppose they could have beaten hell out of him,” Nash said doggedly. “But why wouldn’t he mention it?”

  Zender was shaking his head gently. “The injuries were all on the left side.”

  Policemen may end up as specialists in homicide or fraud or vice. But very few of them get through the first years of their career without exposure to the traffic detail.

  “A car accident,” Nash concluded instantly. “But, Lord, the left side usually means the driver.”

  “He could have been on the left in the back seat. And Black Tuesday got some doctor to patch him up.” But McMurtrey was speaking out of a dutiful desire to explore all possibilities. Both he and Nash could sense that Dr. Martin Zender was saving the best for last.

  Zender beamed at them. “This was not a case of stealthy first aid in a hideout. The X rays show exactly how that collarbone was wired together. It was done on an operating table with surgeons and anaesthetists. I can assure you that, during the period Wylie was supposed to be captive, he was receiving first-rate medical attention in a modern hospital.”

  Nash and McMurtrey were so excited they kept explaining the obvious.

  “I was right all along,” crowed the FBI man. “Wylie set the whole thing up himself. And he wasn’t scared because he couldn’t fake a lot of detail about lamps and shutters. He was scared because he left a record a mile wide.”

  “The bastard was simply ripping off his company for a million and a half. There never were any terrorists.” Nash had his own reasons for being jubilant. “But then who in hell killed him?”

  It was clear as daylight to Agent McMurtrey.

  “Wylie couldn’t have pulled this off by himself. And when he started to come apart under questioning, his buddies decided it would be safer to get rid of him,” he reasoned. “They used an explosion to make it look like terrorists. But actually it could be anybody—some of his pals in Europe, or some of the people he works with at Macklin. You’re going to have to start finding out about them.”

  Nash remembered all that apparently useless detail spewed forth by the computer about Arthur Shute, Hugo Cramer, Paul Volpe, Klaus Engelhart.

  “I already know a lot. And I’ll tell you one thing. They may call themselves director of operations or marketing manager, but basically they’re all engineers. Any one of them could have put that bomb together blindfolded.”

  McMurtrey had followed the underground press in his time. “That doesn’t mean a thing. If you can read English, there are plans everywhere.”

  “Who cares?” Nash asked grandly. “Thanks to the Doc here, I don’t have to worry about a pack of politicals. That’s the big thing.”

  McMurtrey hastened to add his own congratulations. Dr. Zender was so moved by the general approbation that he broke the rule of a lifetime and ventured beyond his own arena.

  “You know,” he said modestly, “I think the Turkish police might be interested in this discovery of mine.”

  They were more than interested. Captain Harbak seized on the new facts like a terrier shaking a rat.

  “You see what this means, Pezmoglu,” he declaimed to his subordinate. “All along I said the man was lying. But one thing bothered me, one thing supported his fanciful tale. You know what that was?”

  Three weeks of unremitting, unsuccessful effort to verify or disprove Davidson Wylie’s kidnapping had left Pezmoglu beyond speech.

  “No, Captain Harbak.”

  “He looked the part,” thundered Harbak. “He was white and puffy and unhealthy, exactly like a man who has been confined. And he had been confined! But not by kidnappers! In a hospital—surrounded by well-wishers and telephones and telegraph wires. Does he ask for the police, does he call the embassy, does he telegraph his company? Of course not! He is too busy stealing a million and a half dollars.”

  “He did not enjoy it for long,” said Pezmoglu with mournful satisfaction.

  “And that is as it should be. But now we can proceed without the distraction of these mythical terrorists. These strange, shy terrorists who made no speeches, demanded no prisoner exchanges, never mentioned Ulrike or Daoud. Pfa! Wylie must have thought we were imbeciles.”

  Pezmoglu continued his own strange dirge. “He created imaginary terrorists, and now he has died by one of their bombs.”

  “That is a matter for the Houston police. For us, there are other concerns.” Harbak cleared his throat. “It is only natural that I should have been deceived by a convalescent. I make no claim to expertise in these matters. And the same is true of diplomats and businessmen. But there is one man who should have recognized Wylie’s imposture.”

  Harbak was on his feet, pulling his tunic taut, as his assistant watched with interest.

  “You and I, Pezmoglu, are going to the American embassy to have a talk with this Dr. Wennergren.”

  Chapter 11

  Offshore Operations

  The iron rules of protocol, regularly waived by affable monarchs, genial prelates, and modern major generals are scrupulously observed by diplomats, by the lower depths of bureaucracy, and by al
l physicians and surgeons. In our brave new world, the last surviving bastion of working feudalism is the great order of healers.

  So Captain Harbak, with Pezmoglu in tow, approached the embassy medical office knowing what to expect.

  Dr. Wennergren began hollering before he was hurt.

  “Yes, I have been informed that Wylie has been murdered. Somewhere in Texas, I believe. I am not clear how I can help you, Captain.”

  “You saw Wylie three weeks ago, did you not?” Harbak said.

  “What possible bearing can that have when the man has just been blown up?” said Wennergren.

  Lordliness is no more endearing to a Turk than to anyone else, which explains why sultans have gone the way of tsars and dauphins.

  “The Houston police,” Harbak said cunningly, “have sent us the results of their post-mortem on Davidson Wylie.”

  He paused, but, beyond a slight pursing of the lips, Wennergren did not bite.

  “The results of this post-mortem are interesting to us,” Harbak continued. “Perhaps they will also interest you, Doctor.”

  Without enthusiasm, Wennergren accepted the document that Harbak proffered. As he read, he lost altitude steadily.

  A typescript from the Ministry of Interior, Republic of Turkey, left him imperially displeased with errors in the English text. But when he reached the Houston medical examiner’s findings, he scented a rival power. The attached memorandum from Dr. Martin Zender of the Baylor Medical Center toppled him completely.

  “A broken collarbone that was wired,” he muttered. “But Wylie didn’t say a thing about that.”

  “You do not think there is any possibility of error?” asked Harbak blowing a delicate smoke ring across the doctor’s desk.

  By now Wennergren the autocrat had been routed.

  “I think I’ve got an ashtray here somewhere,” he said, fishing in a drawer. “Error? What kind of error? If Baylor says Wylie had a wired collarbone, that’s what he had.”

  “I thought I remembered that it was a reputable institution,” said Harbak blandly. “Not perhaps a pleasant one. It is where they transplant hearts, Pezmoglu. A gruesome thought.”

  Wennergren was not amused. “They’re reputable, all right,” he said shortly.

  “With eminent specialists, no doubt,” said Harbak. Although he had never left Turkey, he had a fair notion that the American colony in Ankara was not one of medicine’s greener pastures. “So, you do not dispute these findings?”

  “How can I?” Wennergren responded defensively.

  “You may recall that Wylie refused hospitalization. He refused a thorough examination—”

  “Aha! And if you had examined him thoroughly, you would have discovered this collarbone?”

  Wennergren quivered. “Certainly.”

  “But without such an examination even a doctor could not tell that Wylie had been injured in this way?”

  “Modern medicine,” Wennergren retorted, “is not based on casual observation. My God, the man wouldn’t even take off his shirt.”

  Harbak lost interest in Wennergren. “So now we begin to understand. Mr. McMurtrey was quite correct. Wylie conspired in his own kidnapping. But he was hurt in the wrong place at the wrong time. Nonetheless, he succeeded in concealing his injuries from you, Doctor. A very cool criminal, your Mr. Wylie.”

  Wennergren made an ill-advised attempt to reassert his authority. “Whatever else he was, Wylie was not cool. He was under severe nervous strain—virtually exhausted. There is no reason to doubt that he was the victim of a kidnapping. The fact that he had a broken collarbone strikes me as irrelevant.”

  With demoralizing indifference, Harbak rose to leave. “My choice of words may be unfortunate. But the man you saw has been murdered, and the broken collarbone will tell us why.”

  Outside, Pezmoglu did not have to struggle with the anarchy of English. “Wylie was not treated in any Istanbul hospital,” he said. “We went to each of them.”

  “Go to them again,” said Harbak, leaning his head against the seat cushion and closing his eyes. “Forget about Davidson Wylie. Ask about broken collarbones. But I, too, think he left Istanbul. The publicity was too intense.”

  Pezmoglu was gloomy. “The publicity reached everywhere—Paris, London. Even Peking!”

  Irritably, Harbak straightened. “Obstructions, obstructions! First that American idiot, now you. Nothing, not even the mercy of Allah, reaches everywhere. And remember, Wylie had three weeks, not three years. Forget China! Start with Istanbul. Then draw your circle larger and larger.”

  Circles radiating out from Istanbul were an old story. That was how the janissaries had carried the mercy of Allah to many lands and many peoples. Now, it was police telex messages, not scimitars, that surged across the Dardanelles.

  Athens still did not like it.

  “First a band of terrorists! Now an American with a broken collarbone,” said the assistant minister of interior, twirling his mustache. “Do these wonderful Turks think that the Greek border is made of Swiss cheese? This is not worth our time, Matsis.”

  Matsis was a deep thinker. “They say the American did not have a broken collarbone when he entered Greece.”

  “If he entered Greece,” said the minister.

  “Exactly. They are circularizing other countries too. But they want reports from hospitals.

  That means—”

  “I see what they want, Matsis!”

  “Furthermore, this request does not come from Turkey,” Matsis persisted. “In reality, it is from the Americans.”

  “As bad as Turks!” said the minister, martially breaking a pencil. “Very well, let it be done. Instruct the authorities in Thessaly to make inquiries. I do this only to show these barbarians that Greece is a civilized member of the world community. But myself, Matsis, I would leave these Turks and Americans to each other. They are assassins!”

  Poetry was lost on Matsis. “This American, Davidson Wylie, was murdered. But all we are asked to discover is whether he broke a collarbone in Greece.”

  With unconcealed dislike the minister said: “He was probably murdered by a Turk, then.”

  “In Texas?”

  “Matsis, do not try me. Let us say that Wylie was murdered by another American. But first, his collarbone was broken by a Turk.”

  Little did he realize what he was suggesting. Because, if a Turk had damaged Davidson Wylie, then Cyprus was about to fade into insignificance. Within hours, routine inquiries placed Davidson Wylie on Greek soil, specifically the market town of Xanthi, not much more than 100 miles from the Turkish border.

  For three weeks, while the world thought him kidnapped, Davidson Wylie had been in Xanthi. Full reports filtered back to Matsis, to the minister, and to many others.

  “No, not under this name—not Wylie, if that is the way they pronounce it. No, it was worse. Owen Gilfillan. My God, how do they keep from laughing out loud?”

  “Get on with the story, Triantaphillocopoulos,” said Matsis.

  Triantaphillocopoulos complied. Driving a rented car alone, armed with false documents identifying him as Owen Gilfillan, of Santa Barbara, California, Davidson Wylie had passed customs with no difficulty. 85 miles east, about 20 miles out of Xanthi, he had somehow lost control of the car, slued off the road, and landed in a drainage ditch.

  “... and unconscious. But he was lucky—”

  “He has been murdered,” said Matsis.

  “Well, what do you want?” Triantaphillocopoulos asked rhetorically. “Luck does not last forever. But there, Anastasis came by with his truck. He saw, he stopped, and Wylie, or Gilfillan, was rushed to the clinic. The car was not badly damaged either.”

  The surgeon in Xanthi answered questions impatiently.

  “Yes, I have just looked at the photograph Triantaphillocopoulos brought around. That is definitely the man who was in the clinic for ten days, under the name Gilfillan. Yes, a broken collarbone, which I attended. Some broken ribs as well. Yes, he was in pain—we nat
urally kept him sedated for three days. No, there was no danger to his life. But simple humanity . . . what? Oh, when he left, I told him he must rest. . . . Yes, of course, he could walk. I would not release him otherwise. . . . What? Yes, he went to the hotel and came back to see me twice. He made an excellent recovery.”

  At Xanthi’s finest hostelry, they remembered Owen Gilfillan/Davidson Wylie. But the proprietor provided more than identification. Owen Gilfillan had been expected earlier—some ten days earlier.

  “I remember first, because I have an excellent memory. Also, and Triantaphillocopoulos will confirm this, I keep a complete and detailed record—especially of these crazy tourists. What uncouth things they will do, what trouble they will cause—no, I am not a philosopher. What was I saying? Oh, yes. I remember because there was a telephone call, the long-distance operator, you understand, requesting Mr. Gilfillan. And that was when he was not here, although he had made a reservation. Since I did not know he was in the clinic, there was nothing . . . what? No, for the week that he stayed here, poor sinner, he did not get any calls. . . . No, he did not make any calls. He stayed in his room, resting.”

  In Xanthi, publicity had been no threat to Davidson Wylie. TV sets were rare, and Greek newspaper photographs are no peril to anyone, except politicians concerned with their public image.

  In neat, tidy Switzerland, this was almost unbelievable. Captain Hummel, for one, was certainly thankful to be a policeman in Zurich. “This Xanthi is a small place. You know how they are in small places.”

  Leopold Grimm of Union Suisse did not reply that Switzerland is a small place too. “So at last the Turks and the Greeks have found what Wylie was doing while we were paying ransom to get him back from these phantom kidnappers.”

  Hummel flushed at this unkind reminder that even Zurich nods. “Yes, Wylie rented a car, drove to Xanthi and planned to stay there for three days. Instead, he landed in a hospital, first unconscious, then immobile for ten days. After that, he still bore signs of injury. So he had to delay his return to Turkey, if he was going to claim that he had been kidnapped.”