EASY GREEN

by Bill WENHAM

  With the body and the wheelbarrow in the van, Cardilli had watched Factor depart at about 10.30 a.m., from the driveway of one of the unfinished buildings on his street.

  He still had Dellie’s garage door opener and all of her keys. As soon as Factor’s car was out of sight, Cardilli drove the van to his house.

  He used the opener to raise the garage door, backed the van inside, got out and left the door open. Factor’s garage had a rear rather than a side door to it which suited Cardilli’s purpose perfectly. He opened it as well.

  Next, he opened the van’s rear doors and pulled the heavy, deep binned wheelbarrow out on to the garage floor. He positioned it close to the door opening and climbed inside the van.

  Getting Santini’s body out of the van was a lot easier than getting it in. He merely dragged it across the floor of the van and tipped the body into the barrow. It rocked a little when it received its heavy load but thankfully, it didn’t tip.

  So far, so good, Cardilli thought, as he pushed the barrow with its heavy human load over the brick patio to the poolside. The patio surrounded the pool on all four sides and when Cardilli reached the pool edge, he upended the barrow to tip out its contents.

  Santini’s body slid out from under its tarp wrapping and thumped down heavily onto the stone of the patio. Cardilli and his victim were now right out in the open in broad daylight but he knew from his previous visit last winter that the back of Factor’s property was well screened.

  It was completely surrounded on all sides by eight foot high emerald cedar evergreens that formed a dense hedge. Cardilli knew his chances of being seen or even heard were minimal. Any sounds that were heard would be attributed to the pool guys servicing Factor’s pool.

  Cardilli rolled the dead man’s body to the side of the pool and gave it a hard shove. Santini’s heavy body fell into the water with a huge splash, soaking Cardilli from head to foot in the process.

  Cardilli cursed at being drenched as he watched the body go under. A moment or two later it resurfaced; face down in the crystal clear water. Well now, he thought if Santini wasn’t dead before he went in, he sure as hell will be now.

  He looked around quickly to make sure Factor hadn’t received any unexpected visitors. When he was satisfied he was alone, apart from the floating Santini, he bundled the tarp up and threw it back into the barrow.

  Then he wheeled it back into the garage and lifted it into the van without as much as a backward glance toward the pool and his victim. He closed the doors of the van, leaving the rear garage door open but he took a cloth from his pocket and thoroughly wiped all the door handles.

  Before he left, he had one more task to accomplish, one that would drive the final nail into Factor’s coffin. He put on a pair of surgical gloves and unlocked and opened the connecting door from the garage to the house.

  Once he was inside he made his way upstairs to Factor’s bedroom. He opened the door of the en-suite and went over to the medicine cabinet and grinned at his reflection in the bathroom mirror. Then he removed a labeled dispensing container from his pocket and opened the cabinet door.

  He moved several other items aside, placed the container towards the front and closed the door again. Satisfied he’d set Factor up as best he could, he went back to the garage, locking the connecting door again after him.

  Cardilli climbed into the van’s driver’s seat, started the engine and drove it slowly out into the driveway where he stopped it, put it in park and lowered the garage door with the remote. Then he removed the gloves, stuffed them in his pocket, lighted a cigarette and stayed in the driveway for several more minutes.

  When the cigarette was finished, he casually flipped the butt of it out of the window and into the middle of Factor’s immaculately manicured front lawn. It would be found by Forensics later but without any fingerprints to match it to, it would mean nothing.

  And by then they would have already arrested a suspect!

  Cardilli sat for another moment or two and then put the van in gear. Haste makes waste, he thought, and if I get caught I sure as hell will get wasted. He drove the van down the driveway into the street and then slowly away.

  A casual observer, if there had been one, would have noticed nothing unusual. A service guy from the pool maintenance company was there once a week, as regular as clockwork. Cardilli would have been prepared to bet a bundle, if there had been anyone to bet with, that no observer, eagle eyed or not, would have noticed that today wasn’t the pool guy’s regular day.

  Cardilli drove the van back to where he had parked his pickup and carefully wiped the door handle, the steering wheel, the turn signal lever and the gear shift clear of his prints. He hadn’t bothered to wipe the barrow’s handles prior to dropping it off at a Goodwill receiving depot on his way here. His prints on it would mean nothing at all to the people there either

  As he locked the van doors and pocketed the keys, it started to rain heavily. In fact, Cardilli thought as he got into his truck and drove away, it looks like a big storm was heading this way. If that was the case, Factor would be highly unlikely to go for a swim when he got home today, not in that kind of weather, surely?

  And Santini wouldn’t mind waiting until tomorrow to be found by the pool guys on their regular maintenance day, would he?

  So, now let’s see Mr. Bloody Factor try to wriggle out of this one, Cardilli said aloud triumphantly. Santini’s location merely added one more piece of variety to Mr. Factor’s mounting collection of dead people– the body in the pool!

  Chapter Nineteen

  Liz Streeter was in her office when her phone rang. It was 10.15 in the morning.

  “Streeter,” she said briskly.

  For a moment there was no answer.

  “Streeter,” she said again.

  “Liz?” a male voice said.

  “Dean, is that you?”

  “Yes.”

  She could hear the strain in his voice in just that one word.

  “What’s wrong?” Streeter asked.

  There was another pause and then Factor said, “Can you come out to my place?”

  “Why?’

  “Just come right away, Liz. And bring your full team out here with you, please.”

  She was about to ask him why again but he had disconnected.

  What the hell has happened this time, she wondered. She had barely recognized his voice, he sounded so absolutely defeated. This must be something really serious, even more so than the other times, if that was even possible.

  She made a few quick calls and then left the building.

  At his house, Factor heard the sirens long before the police cruisers drove into his street. A very haggard looking Factor met Streeter at his front door and stepped out on to the front porch.

  Streeter was accompanied by two uniformed officers from one of the cruisers.

  Factor closed the front door behind him.

  “Not inside, Lieutenant. It’s around the back,” he said. “I found it there this morning.”

  Streeter was about to ask him what ‘it’ was, but he was already leading them around the side of the house and into the back garden.

  As soon as she rounded the rear corner of the garage she could see immediately what ‘it’ was. ‘It’ was floating in Factor’s pool!

  The four of them crossed the patio to poolside and looked over at the body. It had drifted over to the middle of the pool and was still floating face down.

  In a very businesslike voice, Streeter asked, “Do you know who he is, Mr. Factor?”

  Factor took a deep breath.

  “I think so, lieutenant. But I won’t know for sure until I see his face.”

  “And who do you think he is then, sir, and where do you know him from?”

  The two police officers were standing nearby awaiting her instructions. Factor glanced at them.

  “Lieutenant, you are as aware as anyone I know, of my past situation regarding murders. I think it would be best if any statement I made about thi
s one is made in the presence of a lawyer.”

  Oh, God, Dean, she thought. Don’t dig yourself into a bloody hole if it isn’t necessary!

  “There is a man’s body in your pool, Mr. Factor. But why are you automatically assuming it is a murder?”

  Factor looked at her sadly.

  “Because, lieutenant, if that,” Factor said, gesturing at the floating body, “is who I think it is, I had a fight with him in a bar just a few days ago.”

  Streeter looked at him in amazement.

  “You did what?”

  “I knocked him down in a bar in front of a roomful of people. So, now, lieutenant, can you see why I really need a lawyer this time?”

  Streeter nodded and beckoned the uniforms over.

  “Please take Mr. Factor into custody. Take him downtown and hold him on suspicion of a possible homicide. And remember, please, that Mr. Factor is going with you freely,” she said meaningfully.

  “I’ll talk to you later, Mr. Factor, with a lawyer present, once we have gotten the body out of there and have established a positive identity. In the meantime, we are asking you to help us with our inquiries.”

  She shook her head at the officer who produced hand restraints.

  “Those won’t be necessary. I’ll take full responsibility for Mr. Factor’s good behavior.”

  As Factor was led away to a cruiser, the medical examiner, a prematurely white haired woman in her early fifties, passed him on the patio.

  She always joked that the pressures of finding out what killed people had turned her hair white.

  Several more police officers and the Forensic team accompanied her over to the pool. With the aid of a hand pool skimmer, they guided the floating body over to the pool steps prior to lifting it out.

  “Hi, Liz,” Jennie Thomas, the M.E., said. “What have you got for me today?”

  Streeter gestured over at the steps.

  “Just that,” she answered.

  “I passed Dean Factor on the way in. You think he’s involved?” Jennie asked as she glanced at the floating body.

  Streeter shrugged wearily.

  “Involved, yes, definitely. Guilty of murder, no, definitely not,” she said.

  “Really!”

  “I’d bet my badge on it, Jennie. I’m sure someone is trying to frame that poor guy for all these murders.”

  Jennie smiled.

  “Poor guy, is he, Liz? Be careful honey. I think your slip is showing.”

  Streeter flushed.

  “So I like the guy. So what? It won’t prevent me from doing my job, Jennie,” Streeter responded defensively.

  Jennie reached out and put her hand on Streeter’s arm.

  “Relax, Liz, your wicked little secret is safe with me. In any case, I can’t stand around here discussing your love life with you. I’ve got work to do.”

  Before Streeter could respond that Factor wasn’t her love life, the M.E. was walking over to where the body was now out of the water and had been placed on to the stones of the patio. One of the officers had put a black plastic body bag beside it, ready to take the body away after the M.E, had made her initial examination.

  The body was still face down and the first thing immediately obvious to her was a fresh one and a half inch split, surrounded by a pinkish bruise, in the pale skin of the back of the man’s shaven head. He’d received a blow to the head first by the looks of it, and very recently too.

  Not just a simple accidental fall into the pool, for starters, she thought, and wondered what else the autopsy would reveal.

  As part of her own investigation, Streeter inspected Factor’s house. So far, she had only been on the upper floor on her first visit to the house on the night of the blazing car.

  She felt a little uneasy poking around amongst Factor’s personal belongings, but you’re a cop dammit, she told herself, so get on with it!

  That was fine until she opened the door of the medicine cabinet.

  “Oh, shit!” she breathed, as she saw what was on the shelf right in front of her and read the label. In penciled block letters the label read, ‘POT. CYAN.’.

  She closed the cabinet and went downstairs to inform the Forensic team what she had found. Depending upon what Jennie Thomas found in the autopsy, this could be a smoking gun. Why else would Dean have it here?

  Could I really have been so bloody wrong about him, she thought? She’d told him a couple of times he was a lousy actor but maybe he wasn’t. Maybe he was a bloody good one and had her fooled.

  Even so, was he also stupid enough to leave poison, if it really was poison, in plain sight? And why would he dump the body in his own pool, for God’s sake?

  Just wait a goddamn minute here, Streeter, she told herself. Don’t torpedo the poor guy just yet even if the man in the pool had been poisoned as well. If you think everything else has been a setup, why not this one as well?

  Later, when it was completed, Dr. Thomas wasn’t overly surprised to also find poisoning. Not just small traces of the potassium cyanide that had killed him either.

  Prior to being dumped in the pool the man had received a massive dose, enough to kill several people and it confirmed Streeter’s fears. Factor was in really big trouble this time because the container Streeter had found contained exactly that – cyanide.

  This time the police had motive, opportunity, probable witnesses and the murder weapon.

  As soon as the news of Santini’s death by cyanide poisoning appeared on the news and in the papers, the police received an anonymous call saying a man had fought with Santini in a local bar. The caller gave the name of the bar and said that Santini had been threatened there by another man with cyanide.

  Of course the caller could give the name of the bar. The caller was Cardilli. After Santini had told him what had happened, and he’d remembered his father’s box of souvenirs, he had gone to the bar the next day to get the story first hand from the barman.

  The barman described Factor and said, although he wasn’t what he would call a regular, he came into the bar fairly often. It was he who had confirmed Santini’s story about the cyanide.

  When Cardilli left the bar and returned to his pickup, he was grinning broadly. Everything was falling very nicely into place!

  A policeman checked out the bar, based upon the anonymous call, and the bartender gave him an accurate description of Dean Factor. He also confirmed the caller’s information regarding cyanide. He said he’d even heard Factor mention it himself.

  At the station, Factor who had been initially detained merely for questioning, was now formally charged with the murder of Enzo Santini. Identification had been very simple because Cardilli had deliberately left the dead man’s wallet in his pants pocket.

  Streeter was naturally involved in Factor’s charging but was unable to do anything to help him. This time her belief in his innocence had been severely shaken since several of the bar’s regulars had stated it was Factor who’d been the aggressor. Factor had struck Santini first and some of them said the attack on the now dead man had been completely unprovoked as well. Others had also heard him mention cyanide.

  Streeter felt absolutely shattered. Four accusations of murder now, she thought. That was stretching the realm of coincidence a bit too far – a lot too bloody far, in fact. And Factor obviously had access to the poison.

  She knew the basis of law was the presumption of innocence until proven guilty. It had been also been drummed into her by that old fart Faraday and no one had proven anything, one way or the other, yet. But am I totally wrong about him? Am I letting my heart rule my head here, she thought.

  And what about those ghastly murders of Jim Willoughby and Cheryl Morton in Zurich? Could he have somehow arranged for those as well? He certainly had enough money to pay someone to have it done for him.

  While Streeter was trying to sort out her head and her heart, someone else was planning his next move. With Willoughby dead and Factor now securely locked up in jail, the vengeful Cardilli now turned his a
ttention to the disposal of one of the first male franchisees – Paul Thatcher.

  Unfortunately for Cardilli, his actions had caught the attention and had angered another even more vengeful person. By comparison, Cardilli was merely a babe in arms, a rank amateur in the murder business!

  Chapter Twenty

  Factor’s new secretary, Nellie, ushered two strangers into his office. Both wore impeccably tailored charcoal gray business suits with an elegance born of complete confidence in themselves. The older of the two was probably somewhere in his late sixties or early seventies, with a heavy mane of pure white hair. He was around 5’ 10’’ or so, and was carrying just a little excess weight around his middle. The excellent tailoring of his expensive suit disguised it admirably.

  The man’s bushy eyebrows were also pure white, framing black and heavily lidded eyes. He looked exactly what he was – an elegant, not to be intimidated man who wielded enormous power. He had the power of life and death if he so chose, and was a man who would not have an ounce of compassion for those he sentenced to die.

  The man was not a Supreme Court Judge either, even though he wielded considerably more power than one. If someone was asked to visualize what their ideal candidate for President of the United States would look like, chances are he or she would create a mental image identical to this man in their minds.

  Fortunately for the citizens of the United States, Factor’s visitor had no such ambition. He had supreme power and no one in the world to hold him accountable for his actions. Why would such a man want to be the President? He could afford to buy the Presidency for whoever he chose.

  Factor’s other visitor was a man of about his own age. He was tall, blond and at first glance, was almost a carbon copy of Willoughby. The man had an easy grace about him but with a hard face and equally hard pale blue eyes.

  The pair of them gave the impression they would not stand any nonsense, disobedience or opposition from anyone.

  “Mr. Torrance and Mr. Petrov are here to see you, Mr. Factor,” Nellie said a discreetly and withdrew, closing the office door after her.