“Is that what your husband told you?” I said. “That it was an accident?”
“My husband knows nothing at all about what happened to your partner,” she said, with such complete conviction that I was inclined to believe her.
“Someone was on that boat with Anna Waverley the night Bobbi was attacked,” I said. “If it wasn’t your husband, who was it?”
She regarded me, cool green eyes reflecting calm, total control. “Anna Waverley wasn’t on the Wonderlust that night, Mr. McCall. Neither was my husband.”
“Bobbi will eventually remember what happened,” I said. “What then?”
“She will confirm that neither my husband nor Anna Waverley was involved.”
“What about Anna Waverley’s murder?” I said. “I’m certain she was killed because she knew something about Bobbi’s attack.”
“My husband told me that Anna was killed during a home invasion.”
“The police often deliberately keep certain details of a crime from the media to weed out false confessions and to give themselves an edge when interviewing suspects,” I said. “Home invaders wouldn’t bother to make it look like suicide.”
She paled. “I — I didn’t know,” she said. She clutched at the crucifix on her breast. “How is it that you know her murder was made to look like a suicide?”
“I found her body,” I said.
“You …” She paused. “So she …” She paused again.
“So she what, Mrs. Moffat?”
She straightened her shoulders and took a deep breath, still holding onto the crucifix. Calm restored, she said, “Anna told me about your visit, Mr. McCall. She liked you and regretted having to lie to you, but she was protecting me, you see.”
I thought about it for a second, then said, “You were on the Wonderlust the night Bobbi was attacked, weren’t you?”
“Yes, I’m afraid I was.”
“With Anna?”
“No.”
“Who, then?”
“I’m afraid I can’t tell you that, Mr. McCall.”
“Why? Who are you protecting?” I waited for the obvious answer. When it wasn’t forthcoming, I said, “Your husband was on the boat, after all.”
She shook her head. “No.”
“All right,” I said. “Tell me what happened.”
“I’m afraid I can’t do that, either.”
We were at an impasse. Then a telephone chirruped. She stood and excavated a cordless handset from the stacks of files on her desk.
“Yes, Maria … Oh, Mr. Getz.” Her mouth compressed. “What is it?” she asked, voice chilly. She looked at me. “As it happens, he is.” She listened, still looking at me, expression darkening, then said icily, “Very well. We’ll be right up.” She pressed a button and laid down the phone.
I stood. “What’s going on?”
“Come with me,” she commanded.
I followed her out of her office into the long hallway. “Is something wrong?” I asked, as we headed toward the front of the house.
“My husband apparently wishes another word with you.”
“What about?”
She didn’t answer. I followed her up the wide staircase to the second floor and along the hall to the door of the private apartments. She knocked on the door. It opened almost instantly.
“Come in, Mr. McCall,” Woody Getz said, standing aside. I went in. “Thank you, Elise,” he said, and closed the door in Mrs. Moffat’s face. The last glimpse I had of her, her eyes were like cold, green laser beams drilling holes in Woody Getz. He didn’t notice.
“Where’s Mr. Moffat?” I asked.
Woody Getz smiled his weaselly, fish-eating smile. “He’ll join us in a moment. We have a few things to discuss first, you and I.”
“I can barely contain my curiosity,” I said.
“You’ve been making quite a nuisance of yourself.”
“Thank you.”
“You seem to be under the impression — or perhaps the delusion — that Mr. Moffat is somehow involved in the attack on your partner and the death of Anna Waverley.”
“Well …” I said.
“You’re treading on dangerous ground,” Getz said.
“Well …”
“I’m sorry your partner was hurt,” he said. “I truly am. I understand she doesn’t remember anything about the attack.”
“Not yet,” I said.
“I hope her memory does return. When it does, she’ll tell you Walter had nothing to do with her attack. Let’s say, for sake of argument, she does tell the authorities Walter was on the Wonderlust that night. He wasn’t, but public figures are fair game these days, aren’t they? He’ll be forced to defend himself. How credible a witness will she make? Any halfway decent lawyer will tear her testimony to shreds, suggesting she’s delusional as a result of permanent brain damage from the attack, lack of oxygen, or the subsequent coma. Or maybe that someone — knowingly or unknowingly — contributed to her recalling something that never happened, like those people who claim to remember childhood abuse or being abducted by aliens, but which turn out to be false memories implanted by suggestion, wishful thinking, misguided hatred, or the need to blame someone else for their failings. You don’t want your friend to go through that, do you? No, of course you don’t. But that’s exactly what’ll happen if you continue to poke your nose where it doesn’t belong.”
“The police might be interested to know that Mrs. Moffat’s foundation sold the Wonderlust to a film production company. You own a film production company, don’t you, Mr. Getz?”
“You’ll have to do better than that,” Getz said.
“All right. What about Anna Waverley? Who murdered her? And why?”
“I have no idea,” Getz said. “It certainly wasn’t Walter. The police won’t find his fingerprints in her home; he never visited her home. However, they’ll find yours, won’t they? Maybe you killed her. She was a very beautiful woman. Maybe you made a play for her and she blew you off, so you killed her in a fit of rage? Yes, yes, I know. You’re going to tell me you have an alibi for the time in question. But perhaps the medical examiner was wrong about the time of death. Forensics is an imprecise science, not at all like on television. You see how it can go, don’t you?”
“You seem to know a lot about the case.”
“The Waverleys were acquaintances of the Moffats. I made it my business to learn what I could about Mrs. Waverley’s murder, if only to make sure the police were doing all they could to apprehend the individual responsible.”
“And protect your investment in Walter Moffat.”
“Of course,” Getz said, patting the top of his head, as if checking that his lacquered comb-over was still in place.
“Oh, shit,” I said, remembering what John Ostrof had told me about the man he’d seen talking to Anna Waverley on the quay, who he’d also seen at the parties on the Wonderlust, that he had patted the top of his head, as if afraid his hair might blow away.
“Don’t take it too hard,” Getz said, smiling as though he had a fishbone in his throat. “Win some, lose some. That’s just the way it goes sometimes.”
I didn’t know why Elise Moffat had lied to me about being on the Wonderlust, but she had. It had been Anna Waverley on the boat after all. Not with Walter Moffat, though; with Woody Getz. Woody Getz was Anna Waverley’s mysterious lover. Well, I told myself, not without some disappointment, there was no accounting for taste.
“What happened, Woody?” I said. “Did Bobbi stumble into the middle of something she shouldn’t have? Did she catch you and Anna Waverley together? Maybe you thought she was a spy for the opposition and tried to take her camera away from her. She wouldn’t have given it up without a fight. Was she hurt in the struggle? Is that what happened? It is, isn’t it? I can see it in your face. You thought she was dead, that you’d killed her. You panicked and forced Mrs. Waverley to help you load Bobbi into the Zodiac and dump her under the bridge.”
“This is very entertaining,”
Woody Getz said. His hand twitched at his side, as if, like Dr. Strangelove’s arm, it had a mind of its own and he was barely able to prevent it from swinging up and patting the top of his head.
“That’s what Anna was going to tell me before she was killed, wasn’t it? I bet I know who killed her. That nasty character who looks like Joel Cairo from The Maltese Falcon. Trouble with people like that, Woody, is that when they get caught, and they almost always are, they’re quick to roll over on their employers in exchange for a reduced sentence.”
“It’s not what you believe that’s important,” Getz said. “It’s what you can prove. Utter a word of this bizarre fantasy to the police or the press, I’ll sue you within an inch of your life. I’ll take you for everything you own and everything you or your children and their children will ever own. You’re fucking with the wrong guy, McCall.”
“Oh, yeah.”
“But I’m a firm believer in positive reinforcement,” he went on, patting the top of his head again as he sailed into familiar territory. “I’m in a position to send a substantial amount of business your way. Nothing too big — we’re always under a certain amount of scrutiny — but what would you say to three thousand a month, give or take?”
He should have quit while he was ahead. Until that moment I’d been ready to admit defeat and slink away with my tail between my legs. He was right. I might be able to make things a little hot for him, but I couldn’t prove anything. Moreover, as he’d pointed out, even a middling competent lawyer would tear Bobbi apart on the stand. However, men like Woody Getz aren’t satisfied until they own your soul. Any doubt about his involvement in Bobbi’s attack or Anna Waverley’s death, or how far I was willing to go to see him punished, evaporated in a puff of foul smoke with his next words.
“I can’t guarantee you’ll be able to retire to the Bahamas in five years,” Getz said, “but what was it Humphrey Bogart said at the end of The Maltese Falcon? ‘This could be the beginning of a beautiful friendship.’”
“That was Casablanca,” I said. “And I’d rather be sued.”
“Is that right?” someone behind me said. “How do you feel about dead?”
chapter twenty-seven
Walter Moffat stood in the doorway to his office. There was blood on his face from a gash under his eye, startlingly red against the sickly paleness of his complexion. It hadn’t been Moffat who’d spoken, though. The man I called Joel Cairo stood behind him, smiling nastily. He had a revolver in one hand and held Bobbi’s elbow in the other. Her wrists were duct-taped together in front of her, and there was another length of tape wrapped around her head and across her mouth. Her eyes were round with fear, but when she saw me, hope blossomed. I only hoped it wasn’t misplaced.
Cairo prodded Moffat in the back. Moffat took two stumbling steps into the room. “That’s far enough,” Cairo said. Moffat jerked to a halt, as though he had reached the end of an invisible tether.
“Kittle,” Woody Getz said. “What the hell are you doing here? I told you to leave town.”
“I will,” Cairo — or Kittle — said. He thrust Bobbi toward me. She stumbled and I caught her. “As soon as I clean up a few loose ends. Starting with these two.”
“You know this guy?” I said to Getz.
Getz ignored me, turning to Moffat, who seemed dazed and confused. “For god’s sake, Tony,” Getz said. “Did you have to hit him in the face?”
Moffat looked at Getz, as if uncertain where he was. “Woody?” He raised his hand to his head, touched the blood, brought his hand down and looked at the blood on his fingers. “Woody. What’s going on? I’m bleeding. I need to sit down.” Getz helped him to a chair. He almost fell into it. “Elise?” he said plaintively, glancing around the room, looking for her. “Where are you?”
“Hmmm-mm,” Bobbi hummed through her nose, shaking her head, trying to claw the tape from her mouth. I started to help, plucking at the end of the tape with my fingernails.
“Leave that,” said the man Getz had called Tony Kittle, waving his gun for emphasis. I left it.
“Mm-hmm,” Bobbi hummed again, growling deep in her throat and scowling fiercely, the stitched cuts on her face livid.
“What’s she going to do?” I said. “Scream? Who’d hear her?”
“I said leave it,” Kittle snarled, pointing his revolver at me. I’d had guns pointed at me in the past, but never by someone as coldly and frighteningly malevolent as Tony Kittle. I had the feeling he’d just as soon shoot me or Bobbi as look at us. Bobbi became very still.
“Tony,” Getz said, with strained reasonableness. “For god’s sake. Put that thing away before you hurt someone.”
I’d made a very bad mistake not returning Mary-Alice’s call and telling her where I was going, but there was no reason anyone else had to know that. “People know I’m here,” I said. It sounded lame, even to me.
“So what?” Kittle said. “I’m not planning on hanging around after I’ve taken care of business.” He moved the revolver in Getz’s direction. “Speaking of which, where’s the money?”
“What money?” Getz said, staring at Kittle’s gun.
“Don’t shit me,” Kittle said. “You know what money. Your slush fund.”
“What are you talking about?” Getz said, eyes shifting to Moffat then quickly back to Kittle. “What slush fund?” It was obvious he knew exactly what Kittle was talking about.
“Jesus Christ,” Kittle said. “You should go back to selling cars or whatever the fuck it was you did before you discovered politics was an even better sucker’s game.” He waved his gun in Moffat’s direction, who stared blankly into space, oblivious to what was going on around him. “You’re almost as fucking dumb as he is,” Kittle said. “And we both know how dumb that is, don’t we? You’ve been skimming money from Wally’s campaign contributions from day one.” He leaned toward Moffat. “Feel that, Wally? That’s you being fucked by your campaign manager.”
“Goddamn it, Tony,” Getz said.
“He’s been fucking your wife, too,” Kittle continued, his tone at once both mocking and cruel. “Figuratively speaking, of course. He’s been using her stupid foundation to wash the money he extorted from your pals with videos of them getting it off with hookers on that boat.” He turned back to Getz, deadly serious. “Where is it?”
“All right,” Getz said. “Take it easy. It’s in the safe in Walter’s office.”
“That’s more like it.” He waved his gun in the direction of the door to Walter Moffat’s office. “Let’s go.”
Getz helped Moffat to his feet and Kittle herded us all into Moffat’s office. He stood by the door as Getz settled Moffat into a chair. Getz then went to the credenza behind Moffat’s desk and opened a cabinet to reveal a small, incongruously modern safe with a glowing keypad lock. He punched six digits into the keypad, opened the door, and peered into the safe.
“Oh, fuck,” he said.
Oh-oh, I thought, squeezing Bobbi’s arm. This isn’t good. Bobbi looked at me, then at Kittle standing by the door.
“What’s wrong?” Kittle said.
“It’s gone,” Getz said.
“What to you mean, gone?” Kittle said.
“Gone,” Getz said. “As in not there. Have a look for yourself? Shit.”
Keeping his gun on me and Bobbi and Moffat, Kittle went behind the desk, waved Getz out of the way, and looked quickly into the safe.
“What the fuck is this?” Kittle shouted, spittle flecking his lips. He wiped his mouth with the back of his gun hand as he looked into the safe again, just to be sure. “What are you trying to pull? Where is it?”
“I don’t know,” Getz said worriedly.
Kittle came around from behind the desk. His movements were spasmodic, random, as if his body and his brain weren’t quite in synch. He waved the revolver about, pointing it at me and Bobbi, at Moffat, at Getz, as if trying to decide which one of us to shoot first. He wiped the back of his gun hand across his mouth again and seemed to regain some
semblance of control.
“Who else knows the combination?” he shouted at Getz. “Who?” His face was livid and the smell of his cologne filled the room, intensified by the heat radiating from his body.
“No one,” Getz said. “I changed the combination. Not even Walter knows it.”
“What about his old lady?” Kittle said.
“No,” Getz said. “Only me.”
“Either someone else knows the combination,” Kittle said, “or you took the money.” He smiled savagely, as if impressed by his powers of deduction.
“Oh, shit,” Woody Getz said. “Caroline.”
Caroline, I remembered, was the art history major who was interning for Moffat and whom he’d said would help us photograph the collection. At the mention of her name, Moffat raised his head. I supposed, since the collection has been stolen, she was out of a job.
“What the fuck would you give her the combination for?” Kittle said.
“I didn’t,” Getz said. “But she was in the room the other day when I opened the safe. She must have — I didn’t think she was paying attention. She was talking on her cellphone.”
Kittle laughed. It was an ugly sound. “You goddamn moron,” he said. “Who doesn’t have a fucking video phone these days? She recorded you punching in the number, you dumb fuck. Shit. I thought there was something hinky about her.” He thought for a moment, eyes shifting from Moffat to me and Bobbi to Getz, but the revolver pointed unwaveringly at me and Bobbi. Then his eyes locked on Getz. “Well,” he said. “I guess you’re just gonna have to owe me.”
Kittle took a roll of duct tape out of his pocket. Not your usual large diameter roll, but a smaller roll that looked like a few feet of tape wrapped around a short length of dowel. He tossed it to Getz, who fumbled it. Kittle sneered with contempt as Getz picked it up, but he didn’t take his eyes — or his gun — off me. My hand was still on Bobbi’s arm. She was as stiff as a statue, breathing hard through her nose.
“Tape him up,” Kittle said.
“You can’t get away with this,” I said.
Depth of Field Page 27
