Stalking Horse (The Lt. Hastings Mysteries)

by Collin Wilcox

  “He’s killed before,” Friedman said. “We know that.”

  “Yes,” I answered, “we know that.”

  For more than a minute, looking off in opposite directions, we didn’t speak. Then Friedman said, “God, can you imagine the headlines if it ever went to trial? Can you imagine Time, and Newsweek, and the six o’clock news?”

  Twenty-three

  DRIVING DOWNTOWN TO THE Hall, Friedman and I discussed strategy. Assuming a fifty-fifty chance that Eason had murdered Juanita Tharp, how should we proceed? The first steps were obvious: wait for the lab to report on physical evidence; wait for more witnesses to come forward, ideally someone who had seen the murderer at the pedestrian gate.

  But waiting, Friedman pointed out, was a cop-out. Logically, our next step was to interrogate Eason, find out where he’d been last night and whether witnesses could confirm his story. If his answers gave grounds for suspicion, and if I could convince a judge accordingly, I should ask for a warrant to search his person, his room and his car, looking for physical evidence: bolt cutters with jaws that might match the cut chain, a pry bar that might match the jimmy marks on the gardener’s shed and the sliding glass door—and traces of manure that might match that found at the scene.

  Friedman was still talking about the “horseshit connection” when I unlocked my office, and we walked inside. Automatically, I began riffling through the small sheaf of messages that had accumulated in my mailbox.

  The first message read, “Contact Lloyd Eason at the Fairmont.”

  The FBI man stationed at the eleventh-floor elevators was expecting me, but I was surprised when we didn’t stop at Eason’s door. Instead the agent took me to 1101, Donald Ryan’s suite.

  Eason opened the door and let me inside. Dressed in gray flannel slacks, loafers and a soft white shirt open at the throat, Donald Ryan sat in an elegant wine-leather armchair. He was framed by large, richly draped casement windows that offered an eastward view of San Francisco Bay, with the sullen, boulderlike protrusion of Alcatraz at the left and the long gray line of the Bay Bridge to the right.

  Sitting erect in the leather armchair, with his thick white hair dramatically combed back from his broad forehead, dark eyes alert, mouth firm, chin lifted in an attitude of command, Donald Ryan was the living, breathing embodiment of all the magazine and newspaper photographs, the same arresting figure from all the TV footage. Only the pallor of his skin hinted at the sick, saddened man I’d seen in this same room on Saturday night. His voice was deep and calm as he said:

  “Sit down, Lieutenant.” He gestured to a facing chair. “It’s good of you to come so quickly.”

  “Thank you.” As I obeyed, I glanced at Eason. He came to stand beside Ryan, awaiting permission to be seated. At a nod, Eason drew up a straight-backed chair and placed it to make a triangle with Ryan and myself. Eason sat with his feet flat on the floor, back straight, big-knuckled hands gripping the arms of the chair. He was looking at Ryan. His square, stolid face was expressionless.

  Speaking slowly and deliberately in the same calm, controlled voice, Ryan looked me squarely in the eye as he said, “Lloyd just told me about Juanita Tharp’s murder. I asked him to call you. Immediately.”

  “Good.”

  “The other night you proved to be a good listener, Lieutenant.” As he said it, he smiled wryly, obviously recalling his Saturday-night monologue with mixed feelings. “However, as you know—and possibly knew at the time—there was a lot that I didn’t tell you.”

  Looking at him steadily, I didn’t respond. I watched him obviously gathering himself for the story he’d decided to tell.

  “Some time ago,” he began, “I spent a few years down in Hollywood making films. In retrospect, I did it because I was bored. Or, to give it a more positive cast, I was looking for new fields to conquer. In any case, again in retrospect, I think I was going through a kind of premature midlife crisis. I’d already made my mark in the aircraft industry, as you may know. I was married and had two children. But none of that was enough. It never is enough. Of course, I didn’t realize that at the time.

  “So, anyhow, I started to make movies. And, about that time, I began to play around—to have affairs; all of them, without exception, ill-advised. And the most ill-advised affair was with—” He hesitated. Then, firmly, he said, “It was with Juanita Tharp. It only lasted for a few weeks, actually—and I really have no excuse, except to say that, physically, she was one of the most exciting women I’ve ever known. She was beautiful. Absolutely breathtaking.

  “However,” he said, “she was also neurotic. I won’t go into her past life—her psychotic mother, her absent father, all the foster homes, and all the stepfathers and guardians who tried to seduce her—and succeeded. Suffice it to say that almost immediately I realized that I’d made a big mistake. So I did what I’d done before—” As he said it, he turned to Eason, faintly smiling at the impassive bodyguard. “I made out a check to her, and gave the check to Lloyd, and asked him to deliver it. But—” Ryan shook his head regretfully. “But, with Juanita, it wasn’t quite that simple, unhappily. That became apparent about a month later when I got a call from Byron Tharp.” He looked at me. “Do you know Byron?”

  “Yes, I do.”

  “Then you can probably imagine what he had to say.”

  “He wanted money. For his sister.” I drew a deep breath. Then, holding his eye, I said quietly, “She was going to have a baby.”

  Smoothly, without visible emotion, Ryan nodded. He’d known I was going to say it. “Exactly. Byron was selling real estate then, down in Los Angeles. That was twenty-seven years ago. He’s been collecting from me every month for twenty-seven years. He takes his cut and uses the rest to support his sister—and her child.”

  “Not your child. Her child.”

  Ryan looked at me steadily for a moment before he said, “I didn’t want to contest his paternity, and Byron knew it. Even then, before I got into politics, I couldn’t afford to do it, couldn’t afford the publicity. For one thing, it would’ve meant a break with my father. He was a puritan, an unforgiving man.” As he’d been talking, his voice had become steadily weaker and his speech slower, as if his voice were on a record that was running down. As I watched him, I wondered how much precious energy this interview was costing him and how much more energy he could afford to expend.

  “Have you had any contact with your—with Frederick during the twenty-seven years?” I asked.

  He shook his head. “No. None. It’s been as if he didn’t exist.” As he said it, his eyes wandered away. What was he remembering—regretting?

  “Then how did he know who you were?” I asked. “What decided him to come after you?”

  “What must’ve happened,” he said, “is that when Frederick got out of prison he somehow found out that I’d been supporting him—that supposedly I was his father. That discovery, added to the fact that his mother was institutionalized, must’ve decided him on this course of action—this attempt to punish me by extorting money from me.”

  “Maybe he found out from his uncle. Maybe Byron refused to give him money and told him to go to you.”

  Ryan shook his head. “No. Frederick was Byron’s golden goose. Or at least the secret of Frederick’s parentage was Byron’s leverage.”

  “Yes,” I admitted, “that makes sense.”

  “In any case,” Ryan said, “Frederick found out and, for whatever reason, he’s decided to make me pay.”

  “And pay,” I said, “and pay. You never end it with blackmailers. As long as they have a hold on you, they keep coming back for more.”

  Ryan’s nod was a single wan inclination of his handsome head. He was tiring fast; my time was running out. “I know that,” he said. “And, frankly, I don’t know how this is going to end. Especially after the phone call I received this morning.”

  “Phone call?”

  “Yes. Frederick called. Ferguson took it and told me about it. Apparently Frederick thinks I had his mother
murdered. And he—he promised to kill me if he doesn’t get the million dollars. Not just expose me, but kill me. He was raving, Ferguson said. Really raving.”

  “He’s always said he was going to kill you, right from the first. It sounds like his raving might be staged, to put pressure on you.”

  “Perhaps.” He spoke weakly, vaguely. Once more, his eyes were wandering away.

  “Are you going to pay, Mr. Ryan?”

  Instead of answering, he raised one hand in a kind of tremulous imitation of a papal parting benediction. Now, suddenly, his lips were pale. His eyes were half closed. Sweat glistened on his forehead.

  “I’m sorry, Lieutenant. But I’m tired. Very tired. You’ll have to talk to Lloyd.”

  With the words, Eason was on his feet, unconsciously putting his big, blocky body between me and his master. I rose too, nodded to Ryan and obediently followed Eason out into the corridor and then into his own room adjoining Ryan’s suite. As he showed me to a chair, Eason shook his grizzled head. “He’s sick,” he muttered. “He’s a sick man. He should retire now, before it’s too late for him.”

  “You’re right,” I said. “You’re absolutely right.”

  “It’s his pride—the Ryan pride. All his life he’s tried to be like his father and his grandfather.”

  “What about the extortion money?” I asked. “Are you going to pay?”

  He looked at me for a moment, as if to make a final decision on my reliability. Then, plainly reluctant, he said, “Frederick Tharp called last night about ten o’clock. He said that the money was to be put in a blue suitcase, in bills no bigger than fifties. The FBI advised us to get the suitcase and bring it into the hotel through the lobby. They advised us to get twenty thousand dollars in old fifties, and they’d give us fake money for the rest to fill up the suitcase. Then they’ll put a transmitter in the suitcase. It’s about the size of a flashlight battery. They’ll use that to trace him after he gets the money. And that’s what we’re going to do—try to catch him that way.”

  “Once he’s caught, though, he’ll disclose that his mother and Mr. Ryan—” I let it go unfinished.

  “I know,” Eason answered. “But there’s no other way. Of course, Mr. Ryan will deny he’s the father. He’ll admit to helping her because he was sorry for her. That’s all.”

  Looking him in the eye, I said, “If you’re lucky, he’ll resist arrest and get killed. With his mother dead, that would solve all your problems.”

  His gaze didn’t flicker. “Yes,” he answered steadily, “that would solve them. Except, of course, for the uncle, Byron Tharp. He knows too.”

  “That would only be hearsay, though. He doesn’t have any real proof of parentage. All he has is his sister’s word.”

  He nodded. “I know.”

  “Who besides you knows all this, Mr. Eason?”

  He frowned. “I’m not sure what you mean.”

  “Jack Ferguson, for instance. And the senator’s son, James. Do they know about Frederick—know that the senator’s been supporting him and his mother?”

  “No,” he answered, “they don’t.”

  “It’s just you.”

  He studied me for a long, careful moment as his dark agate eyes slightly narrowed. Finally he said, “There were—arrangements to be made. Mrs. Bayliss made them—the financial arrangements.”

  “What it comes down to, then,” I pressed, “is that you and Katherine Bayliss are the only people Senator Ryan trusts. Really trusts. Right?”

  He didn’t respond. He only looked at me. Waiting.

  “Is that right?” I persisted.

  “Several people work for the senator,” he said finally. “They do different things. I’m in charge of security.”

  “And Katherine Bayliss does a little of everything.”

  Again he didn’t respond.

  “I gather that she’s been with the senator for a long time.”

  He nodded, saying, “We came with the senator about the same time. In the fifties.”

  “She’s a very attractive woman, Mrs. Bayliss.”

  “Yes.”

  “She’s divorced.”

  “Yes. She married very young. Too young.”

  “Was she divorced, then, when she began working for the senator?”

  He hesitated, then nodded. Possible meaning: the senator had been the cause of her divorce.

  “What about you, Mr. Eason? Were you married when you went to work for the senator?”

  This time, his eyes shifted uneasily as he answered, “I worked for the senator’s father. Then I went with the senator. I told you that.”

  I studied him. Plainly, he was doing what I’d hoped he would do: he was wondering how much I knew about him—about his marriage, and his wife’s death. Finally I saw him draw a deep, slow breath. Meeting my gaze squarely, he said, “Do you know about the—the trouble I had, when I worked for the senator’s father?”

  “Trouble?” I asked, pretending innocence.

  “I was in the Marines, during the war. I went through it all—Iwo Jima, Saipan, all of it. On my final leave, before I went overseas, I married a girl named Mildred Penrose. I—I shouldn’t’ve done it, but I did. It was a mistake. A terrible mistake. And, besides that, I was wounded in the war. And I was—disturbed.”

  “In what way were you disturbed?”

  “They called it periodic depression. And I—I couldn’t always control my temper. I tried, but I couldn’t. If it ever happened that I got into a fight, I couldn’t always control myself.”

  “You’d try to kill the other guy?”

  “Yes,” he answered quietly, meeting my eyes steadily. “Yes, that’s it.”

  “Were you hospitalized?”

  “Yes. During the last year of the war, I was in the hospital for six months for my wound. Then, afterwards, I was an outpatient.”

  “A psychiatric outpatient?”

  “I guess so. They called it an adjustment center. Mostly, I think, they just wanted to keep an eye on us for a year or two. At least that’s the way it was with me. After about eighteen months, they phased me out.”

  “What was the trouble you mentioned?” I tried to make the question sound interested, but nothing more.

  He sighed: a deep exhalation, infinitely regretful. “It was my wife. She was a tramp, a real tramp. All the time I was in the Marines, she was sleeping around. And afterwards, too. She never stopped. And so—” He began to shake his head, as if to deny the memory that still haunted him. “And so, one afternoon, I found her in bed with a man. He was a bartender from a place around the corner. He was a big man—big and tough. And he came for me. There was a fight. I chopped him in the windpipe. He died in the ambulance. And my wife, she died too. She—she tried to pull me off him. I threw her across the room, and she hit her head on a table. At least, that’s what the investigators said.”

  “Were you found guilty?” I asked quietly.

  “Yes,” he answered, just as quietly. “I was found guilty. I got a suspended sentence. Seven years.”

  Without knowing why, I said, “To me, you don’t look like a violent man.”

  “I’m not,” he answered. “Not now. I’m fifty-six years old. I’m a different person.”

  I nodded, sitting motionless for a moment, silently watching him. Once more, he remained implacable under my scrutiny. Finally I said, “How do you figure Juanita Tharp’s murder? Why do you think she was killed?”

  Slowly, deliberately, he shook his head. “I don’t know. I thought her son might’ve done it.”

  “Frederick? Why?”

  “For money,” he answered. “Her money.”

  “But she didn’t have any money.”

  “Didn’t she?” he asked, still meeting my eyes. “I thought—” He let it go unfinished.

  “You thought she got money from the senator.”

  He nodded. “Yes.”

  I glanced at my watch, then moved forward in my chair as if preparing to leave. I wanted him to think
that I was through with him, that he wasn’t a suspect. “I’ve got to go, Mr. Eason,” I said. “Before I do, though, I have to ask you where you were last night between midnight and three A.M.”

  For a moment he didn’t reply, but only stared at me with his inscrutable eyes. Then, without inflection, he asked, “Why do you have to ask me that?”

  “Because obviously the person who would most benefit from Juanita Tharp’s death is Senator Ryan. You understand?”

  “Yes,” he answered slowly, “I understand.”

  “Well?” I smiled as I said it.

  “Well,” he answered calmly, “I was here. Right here. I went to sleep about eleven.”

  “Alone?”

  “That’s right, Lieutenant,” he said. “I sleep alone. Always.”

  I smiled again, thanked him and turned to the door. With my hand on the knob I turned back to face him, saying, “You visited Mrs. Tharp a few days ago in the sanitarium. How did she seem to you?”

  “She seemed crazy,” he answered. “I couldn’t make any sense of what she said.”

  “Is this the first time you’d seen her in recent years?”

  He shook his head. “No. The last few years, whenever the senator was in San Francisco and the newspapers carried the story, she tried to contact him. I’d talk to her. Sometimes I’d give her money.”

  “How much money?”

  “Fifty, a hundred dollars. Whatever the senator gave me to give to her. Or else Mrs. Bayliss would give me the money.”

  “Was Mrs. Tharp always glad to get it?”

  He nodded. “She was like a child in some ways. A little child.”

  “Did she drink?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t think so. But she was always strange. Always.”

  “Did the senator tell you to visit her in Brentwood a few days ago?”

  “No. Mrs. Bayliss did.”

  “Why?”

  He shrugged. “She just reminded me that I should see her, like I always do when we come to San Francisco.”