“Who was he?” Natalie demanded.
Jack’s gaze met Gil’s. “His name is Hiram Buckley. That has to be Buckley Engineering?”
Gil nodded. As the lawyer involved, he knew that many more of the details than Jack. “We took a large government contract from him several months ago.”
“Government contract?” Natalie echoed, but she was looking at her husband. “What government contract?”
“For electronic parts. We’ve been producing them at the plant.”
Lenore stirred in the chair into which she’d collapsed. “I thought you were making television sets.”
“We are,” Jack said, “but we’re also doing special work for the government.”
“What kind of special work?” Natalie asked.
“Oh,” he waved a hand to suggest the insignificance of the issue, “parts for jet airplanes … other military things.” The Korean War, not to mention the rampant fear of the Russians, who had tested their first A-bomb little more than two years before, was proving to be a gold mine for industry. Of course, Jack had no desire to inform his wife of that. She had weathered the last war well enough, but he knew that she was basically a peace-loving soul.
Gil quickly refocused the discussion. “From what I heard, Buckley thought he had the contract sewn up. He was furious when we got it.”
“What’s happened to his business?” Natalie asked.
Jack shrugged and looked at Gil, who answered. “It folded.”
“Because of one government contract?”
“It was faltering anyway. Losing the government contract was simply the last straw.”
Lenore wrapped both hands around her brandy snifter and stared at the tiny bit left in it. What she had drunk hadn’t warmed her; she felt as chilled as ever. “Then … he has nothing?”
“Hiram Buckley isn’t our concern,” Gil informed her curtly.
“But he’s ruined. Doesn’t that bother you just a little bit?”
“It’s unfortunate for the people involved when any business folds, but Buckley’s would have done it sooner or later even if he had gotten that contract.”
“It’s the way of free enterprise,” Jack added. “Survival of the fittest.” He turned to Gil. “Which is what concerns me most. Do you think he did any damage?”
Gil rubbed the back of his neck with his hand. “Hard to tell. It was pretty late in the evening. Some people had already left before he created his little scene. I guess it took him that long to get up the nerve.”
“Or that much liquor. How the hell did he get in?” Jack was scowling at his wife.
“I don’t know,” she returned. “You were supposed to know everyone who came. A full third of them were total strangers to me. How was I to know that one more was there who hadn’t been invited?”
Gil stepped between husband and wife and held up both hands placatingly. “There are bound to be crashers at any large affair. I’m sure we’ve had them in the past.”
“But none of them have done what Buckley did!” Jack argued. “Your involvement in our getting that contract was as great as mine. People must know that. Hell, if you’re not worried about harm to your campaign, I sure am about my reputation—”
“Take it easy, Jack. He was one crackpot who was very obviously drunk. I think he offended everyone doing what he did after he’d spent the night taking advantage of your hospitality. Besides, there were other businessmen there. They know the score.”
“Do they know about Buckley? I think they should. I think we should spread the word that he had run his business into the ground long before he lost that contract.”
“And be put on the defensive? That would be exactly what Buckley wants. No, Jack. You’re angry. That’s all. When you calm down you’ll agree that we’d do better to ignore the entire thing. If we make an issue of this, it will only draw attention to something that people may have already forgotten. Besides, we’re the ones on top. We know that a worm like Buckley can’t hurt us.”
Jack gave him an annoyed glance. “I suppose you’re right, but that doesn’t mean that I wouldn’t like to put the guy against the nearest wall and shoot him.…”
Chapter 9
Robert Cavanaugh doodled a large star on his calendar the day that the department’s ballistics expert returned from vacation and took a good look at the bullets that had killed Mark Whyte and Deborah Warren. He called the man twice that morning demanding first priority on his time and was practically leaning over his shoulder when the analysis was finally completed.
“Interesting,” Leo Bachynski commented, straightening from his worktable with one of the bullets in his hand. “It’s from the same caliber gun as the one you found with the body.”
“But?”
“The grooves are distorted.” He turned the bullet in his palm. “Similar, but different.”
“Which means,” Cavanaugh concluded on a note of triumph, “that a silencer was used.”
The ballistician agreed. “Looks that way. At least there’s nothing to prove that the bullet wasn’t fired from the same gun. I’d feel safe in saying that a silencer caused the discrepancy in the grooves.”
Cavanaugh was already thinking ahead. This was the first concrete lead he had that the deaths were something other than self-inflicted. There was no way Mark Whyte could have shot himself to death, then removed and disposed of a silencer. Still, he wanted corroboration.
His next stop was the medical examiner’s office. Unfortunately, the coroner, Nicholas Carne, was at work. The stench in the room was nearly as overpowering as the aura of death. In all his years on the force Cavanaugh had never gotten used to either.
Carne had, of course, and he didn’t welcome the untimely interruption. “Can’t talk now, Cavanaugh.”
“It’s important.”
“Can’t it wait for an hour?”
“If you want me to puke all over your cadaver it can. I need this fast or we’ll both be in trouble.”
Carne glowered at him over the rims of his glasses, but he did straighten. Snapping off his surgical gloves and tossing them toward a trash bin, he stretched to switch off the mike above the table. Then he pushed his glasses to the top of his head, planted his hands on his hips, and sighed impatiently. “Okay. What is it?”
“The Whyte-Warren case. You did the autopsies, didn’t you?”
“My name’s on the report.”
“You have associates. I want to know who did the actual work.”
“You’re looking at him.”
“Thank you,” Cavanaugh said, making no effort to blunt his sarcasm. He had never cared for Carne, who had a chip on his shoulder three miles wide.
“So?”
“New evidence has appeared establishing that it was homicide.”
“Sure. Whyte killed his wife.”
“No. Someone killed the two of them. I need to take a second look at those autopsies.”
“You have the reports.”
“They don’t tell me a thing, at least nothing that suggests a double murder.”
“Then there wasn’t anything.”
“Can you think back to the autopsies?”
“Jesus, do you know how many autopsies I’ve done in the last month? Crazies come out of the woodwork during the summer.”
“Look, Carne, I know you’re overworked, but so am I, and this is important. I need to know if there was anything that might have been strange about those bodies.”
“If I’d seen anything I’d have put it in the report.”
“I’m talking of something small, something you might have considered insignificant at the time, only now, in light of a possible homicide, you could interpret differently.” Sensing imminent rebellion, he rushed on. “I’m not criticizing the work you do. It’s just that this is a tough case. You know the families involved. If the department overlooks even the smallest thing we’ll never hear the end of it.”
As much as Carne resented the intrusion in what he considered his personal d
omain, he had enough sense to see Cavanaugh’s point. He snorted, then tossed his head toward the microphone. “I have transcripts. If you come back in an hour—”
“Now. I need them now.” Not that an hour would have made a difference in the case, but Cavanaugh felt that he had wasted far too many hours waiting for the ballistician to return. One more hour was more than he could bear at the moment.
“I won’t just hand them over to you,” Carne warned in a grumble, but he was slowly walking toward a side office. “You wouldn’t know what to make of them. I’m the expert around here. If there’s anything to be found I’m the one who’ll find it.”
Cavanaugh said nothing. He stood patiently while Carne opened a file cabinet, sifted through its contents and tugged out a folder. Setting it on his desk he lowered his glasses from his head to the bridge of his nose and began to scan the notes. He shook his head and turned one page, quickly read the second, shook his head again and turned to the third.
When he wasn’t as quick to shake his head, Cavanaugh grew more alert. “See something?”
“I don’t know,” Carne mumbled. He frowned, looked across the desk at nothing in particular, then returned his gaze to the folder. “Sleep. Could be nothing. There’s always the possibility. But if you want to look at it another way—”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
Carne looked up. “There was sleep in Mark Whyte’s eyes. Dried mucus. Sand. You know,” he stuck a finger under his glasses and made as though he were wiping something from the inside corner of his eye, “the stuff you have to get rid of in the morning?”
Cavanaugh could have done without the demonstration. “Could it have been from an allergy or cold or something?”
“Nope. The guy didn’t have anything active in his system.”
“If there was sleep in his eyes we’d have to suppose that he’d been sleeping when he was shot.”
“We’d have to suppose that he’d been sleeping at some point that night,” Carne corrected with satisfaction. “He could have been asleep, then woken up and,” he straightened a forefinger from his fist and cocked a thumb-trigger, “barn. So you don’t really know anything new.”
But Cavanaugh did. He knew about the silencer. That, taken with what Carne was saying, was promising. “It’s another bit of evidence playing against the suicide theory,” he said eagerly. “A guy doesn’t go to sleep and sleep soundly—which Whyte must have been doing—with the knowledge that he was going to kill his wife and himself. Between the blood workups and tissue studies, we know that he hadn’t been drunk or taken any kind of pill or drug—”
Carne interrupted him. “Hold on.” He returned to the transcript, read a little further, then set the paper on the desk and looked smugly at Cavanaugh. “It’s right here. If you’d read the report, you’d have seen it.”
“What?”
“Corneal edema.”
“What the devil’s that?”
“A swelling of the cornea that normally occurs during sleep. I don’t always take that kind of measurement, but where there is a question of drug usage I study the eyes pretty close.”
“Did you find the same with his wife?”
Carne flipped through more papers, read a bit, then nodded.
“This edema, could it simply be a function of death?”
“No.”
“Could someone wake up, accurately shoot another person, then himself within a minute and still have corneal edema?”
“Possible. Not probable.”
Cavanaugh breathed out a sigh. Dealing with Carne had been worth the effort for once.
John Ryan, whom Cavanaugh went to see next, was surprisingly cautious about the two new twists. “Without the silencer itself, you’re going on supposition alone. Bachynski could only guess that a silencer was used. Those bullets could have been shot from a totally different gun. And as for Carne, probable versus possible won’t prove a damn thing in court. You need more!” he snapped.
“Of course I do. I’ve just started.” And Ryan had originally told him to take his time. Why the impatience now?
“You’re going to the coast, aren’t you?”
“Monday morning.” It was Thursday; as it was, he would have to work late each night to get enough of his other cases out of the way so he could stay in California until he was satisfied that he had searched every nook and cranny. Jodi wasn’t going to be thrilled. They had planned to drive to Maine for the day on Sunday, and it looked like he would have to work. Maybe her mother would decide to pop into town for the day, or Jodi would decide to do some Sunday shopping or have an emergency with one of her students to keep her occupied. That sometimes happened on a weekend.…
“Good. There’s got to be something there.”
“If there is I’ll find it.”
“Go over everything. Take his house apart. Look at things that don’t even seem remotely connected.”
“You know I will,” Cavanaugh said, stifling his irritation. He didn’t need Ryan telling him how to do his job.
“I’m getting pressure on this one, Cavanaugh. Holstrom has had it to his ears with calls from Whyte and Warren.”
“I’ve been in touch with Jordan Whyte. He’s going to try to get the big guys to ease up.”
“Jordan Whyte. Sneaky bastard. If he’s working to help you he’s probably got something to hide.”
“If he does I’ll find it.”
“You do that, Cavanaugh. You know the stakes in this one.”
Oh, yes. Cavanaugh knew the stakes in this one. Chief of homicide on the verge of retiring. Someone needed, preferably from the ranks, to take his place. More money, power, prestige.
And revenge.
* * *
“Come on, Bob,” Jodi argued when Sunday morning rolled around and Cavanaugh informed her that he had to spend at least part of the day at the office. “You promised we’d take off for the day. You’ve been working overtime all week. Don’t you think you deserve a break?”
Unfortunately, Jodi’s mother hadn’t decided to pop into town. Nor had any other distraction come up to keep her busy.
“What I deserve is one thing,” Cavanaugh stated. “What I have to do is something else. And what I have to do today is to clean up a stack of paperwork that should have been done yesterday.”
“It’s not like you to be backlogged.”
“It’s not every day that I have a case like the Whyte-Warren one.”
“Maybe you’re spending too much time on it. Maybe you’re looking for things that simply aren’t there.”
Cavanaugh quickly shook his head. “No. Things are there. I just haven’t found the right ones yet.”
“How can you be so sure things are there? Damn it, Bob, you’re still staring at pictures and pouring through files and it’s getting you nowhere.”
“Not nowhere. I’m learning things about those guys that the public doesn’t know.”
She was disappointed enough about the disruption of their plans—annoyed enough at Bob—to throw caution to the winds. “Like what?”
Cavanaugh felt he had to justify himself. “Like the fact that Gil Warren won some of his early elections by talking his strongest opponents out of running.”
“What kind of dunce could be talked out of doing something he wanted to do?”
“A dunce who was promised something even better—like a plum position with one of Warren’s friends.”
“Whyte?”
“Among others. Of course, who the hell would have wanted to work with Whyte is beyond me. Dirty money from the word go.”
“What do you mean?” They had already been through the discussion of Jack’s father’s bootlegging, but the look of disgust in Bob’s eye told Jodi that he had something else in mind.
“In the late forties and early fifties his business expanded too quickly. Where did he get the money?”
“I don’t know,” she answered blankly. “Where did he get it?”
“Come on. Use your ima
gination.”
“A bank? Investors? Friends? Profits?” She paused, knowing precisely what Bob thought. “Do you have any proof that he got it from the Mob?”
“Proof?” Cavanaugh twitched his nose as though he didn’t think proof was relevant, but he answered honestly. “No.”
“Then what’s the point in suggesting it?”
“Okay,” he picked up more boldly. “I do have proof about something else. Come 1951, with the people here so frightened of the A-bomb that children were cowering under their school desks during air raid drills while their parents furiously stocked bomb shelters, Jack Whyte was supplying beta-ray spectographs to the government for use in the development of the H-bomb. More and greater weaponry. He cashed in but good.”
“There were those who argued that we needed the more powerful bomb to maintain supremacy over Russia.”
“I thought you were a dove! Whose side are you on, anyway?”
“I’m on your side, Bob, but I can’t help wondering if you’re letting your own biases get the better of you in this case.” She had seen him, night after night, pouring over papers with an intensity she had never seen in him before.
“I’m just pointing out what Whyte and Warren did back then. You can imagine what they’ve done since.”
“But what relevance does that have for this case?”
“It has some. I know it does. I’m sure that once I know all the facts everything will come clear. But I can’t know the facts of this case until I clear my desk of other cases. I’m heading for L.A. tomorrow—”
“Which is precisely why I want you to myself today,” Jodi said plaintively. “You’ll be gone for … God only knows how long.”
“I should have been out there long before now!”
“Don’t we have a right to be together once in a while?”
“I’m a cop. Cops don’t work nine to five. You knew that and what my job meant to me when we first met. My work has to come first. It’s as simple as that.”
“I see,” she said quietly, then turned and very calmly went to the closet where she had hung her pocketbook, draped its strap over her shoulder, and left the apartment.
* * *
Twilight Whispers Page 18
