Act of Betrayal

by Shirley Kennett

  Cut needed money. He considered making a phone call to get it, then decided that it would be better if he obtained it himself with a couple of quick daylight muggings. His first netted him only fourteen dollars. On the second he was lucky: two hundred and eighty-three. He never did understand why people carried around so much. He never did, except of course when he had to buy something out of the ordinary. He didn’t trust credit cards. They led the weak-willed into trouble. Not that he was weak-willed when it came to spending money, but there was no sense taking any chances. Although Cut was an eminently practical man, he also believed in the temptation of the spirit, and he didn’t want his spirit tempted by any little scraps of plastic.

  He cruised North County in his rental car, a nondescript tan Chevy Cavalier, popping peppermint hard candies into his mouth, chomping them, and watching the stores and houses stream by outside his car window. While he was driving around, he heard on the radio that the victim of an early morning hit-and-run had died, and that police were looking for a suspect for questioning.

  It was one of the harder things he’d had to do, run down that little girl. He felt bad for her mother. He knew how hard it was to lose a child. In his case, first a daughter and then a son. That wasn’t right. Children were supposed to go to the cemetery and take flowers to their parents’ graves, not the other way around. But the hit-and-run was over in an instant, and it was part of the plan, so he stuck to it. He wouldn’t hesitate to change a plan for a good reason—it had saved his hide before—but shying away because it wasn’t a pleasant thing wasn’t sufficient.

  Cut found what he was looking for, a camera store. He paid cash for a serious-looking but inexpensive cameraman equipment bag with a shoulder strap, and a couple of rolls of film. He still had a satisfying chunk of money left from his earlier fund-raising activities, so he let one of the pizza places on Lindbergh seduce him. Hunger satisfied, and with a slight buzz from the two beers he had downed, Cut headed to his hotel room for an afternoon of contented sleep. He hadn’t gotten a lot of it the night before, and he wanted to be at his peak physically for the night’s work.

  The hotel, the latest in a string of them he’d used, was one of those instantly recognizable places where he had known no questions would be asked if cash was paid in advance for a few nights’ stay. It had the laughable name of The Executive Palace, and its benefits besides the lack of curiosity of the staff were the bus stop nearby and the presence of a Steak ’n Shake a block away. He was a hard, strong man, with all the fat burned off by work, and ordinarily had little interest in luxuries of the mind or body. But these weren’t ordinary times for him, and lately he’d discovered Steakburgers. He laughed at himself. If he stayed at The Executive Palace too long, he might have to loosen his belt buckle a notch.

  His full bladder woke him at 7:00 P.M. He spent a half hour thoroughly familiarizing himself with the camera, which turned out to be simpler than it looked. Packing the equipment bag carefully, Cut added a bundle from his suitcase. He showered, decided to pass up dinner as a small atonement for the pizza and burgers he’d been eating lately, and then took the bus downtown. He got off a few blocks from the Grand Mississippi Hotel, which was located in Laclede’s Landing, a stretch a few blocks long on the Mississippi waterfront crammed with nightspots.

  Victor Rheinhardt, his target, was attending a charity fund-raising dinner at the hotel, along with three hundred of the city’s socially privileged. Cut found a good place to wait, at the rear of the hotel, near a loading dock. There were no guards, no activity of any kind. The strong scent of garbage, especially spoiled food, told him that the large trash receptacle near the dock hadn’t been emptied in a while. In August, the smell didn’t just get a little bit worse every day between pickups—it doubled. There was a dusk-to-dawn light, but Cut slipped into a shadowy niche that shielded him from the limited reach of the light. His dark T-shirt and dark pants made him nearly invisible against the wall.

  Checking his watch, Cut figured that he had a couple of hours to wait before the dinner broke up. Then, as the crowd of dinner guests was leaving the hotel, he would walk around the front and take a few pictures. Hopefully he wouldn’t be the only one doing so. If things went awry at that point, he was just an admiring citizen photographing a St. Louis hero.

  Cut planned to get as close as he could to Rheinhardt, remove the two throwing knives from his camera bag, and send them on their way. He would mill around with the rest of the crowd, a shocked and fearful look plastered on his face, and then ease himself away into the night during the precious minutes of disorientation that followed the attack. He knew all about that brief disorientation—he’d used it to good advantage before.

  It was an ambitious plan, but a solid one.

  Forty-five minutes went by uneventfully except for the fact that Cut was getting hot in the long-sleeved black T-shirt he had chosen to blend in with the night, and his nose was running a little from his usual summer allergies. The combination of long sleeves and a runny nose had led him to indulge in a furtive bit of nose-wiping, and he found it ironic that he was more worried about being discovered with snotty sleeves than with throwing knives concealed in his camera bag.

  Cut was startled in midwipe by a noise. Very close. A creaking noise, like a door opening reluctantly. He slipped as far back in the shadows as he could.

  The loading dock door was opening. Not the big one that rolled up like a garage door, but the ordinary entry door next to it. A man stepped out under the dusk-to-dawn light. He was wearing a tuxedo. One of the dinner guests, then, probably out sneaking a smoke. Cut drew in his breath slowly, tried to let it out slowly. He was only thirty feet from the man, who was looking down, rumbling in his pocket. Cut couldn’t make out his features clearly. A cigarette lighter flashed a tiny defiant flame. Then the man tilted his head back, the tip of the cigarette glowing brightly, inhaling deeply. The orange glow of the dusk-to-dawn light fell on his face.

  It was Rheinhardt.

  Cut hesitated, not quite believing his luck. Rheinhardt was alone and exquisitely vulnerable, puffing away, probably hoping no one would miss him inside the hotel while he sucked in a few puffs. Cut slipped the pair of throwing knives from his camera bag. They were eight inches long and double-edged, with a dull black finish so they wouldn’t catch the light. He hefted them in his left hand, admiring their weight and balance. It would be a shame to lose them.

  He ran forward, light on his feet, and passed one knife from his left hand to his right as he darted toward Rheinhardt, coming in on the man’s left side. When he had closed the distance to ten feet, he saw Rheinhardt’s head swivel toward him; the man had picked up the motion. The blade flew from Cut’s hand, turning end over end, barely visible in the muggy night because of its nonreflective black surface. It caught Rheinhardt in the neck, burying itself half of its length, transfixing the man as he turned toward Cut, wide-eyed, cigarette hanging loosely from his lips. The second blade, not wanting its twin to have all the fun, tumbled silently through the space between the two men and landed with a muted thump to the left of the sternum.

  Cut saw the man drop. He looked around; no witnesses. He approached the body to be certain of the killing. Bending over Rheinhardt, he pulled off his gloves and shoved them in his pockets. If the man had a faint pulse, Cut might not have been able to feel it through his gloves. He pressed a couple of fingers of his right hand against the bloody throat of the man lying on the ground. There was no pulse. Life had fled quickly. It was a clean easy death compared to what Cut’s son had endured, but setting up a homemade gas chamber and luring a victim was too elaborate and risky a thing to do every day. After the harsh statement delivered by the first target’s death, expediency ruled for the follow-ups.

  He was tempted to retrieve his lovely and useful knives, but he knew that would create a disposal problem. Better to leave them in place. Cut wiped his bloody hand on his victim’s shirt, being careful to leave nothing but smears, no recognizable finger or palm prints.
He moved away rapidly, relieved to be out of the revealing cone of brightness from the dusk-to-dawn light. Back out on the street, he strolled through Laclede’s Landing, his hands jammed into his pockets to conceal the slight bulge of the crumpled gloves that also rode within them. The sidewalk was busy with people barhopping, and none of them gave him a second glance.

  He hadn’t needed the camera, after all. It had been a waste of money, and that was a small blot on an otherwise gratifying mission.

  Eleven

  ST. LOUIS AWOKE ON a steamy Wednesday, the fifth day of August, to news of the slaying the previous evening of a fixture in the city, the popular Prosecuting Attorney Victor Rheinhardt. He had held the elective office for almost twenty years. Although PJ hadn’t lived in the city that long herself, some of those in the law enforcement and judicial structures of the city wouldn’t remember a time in their careers when Rheinhardt hadn’t held the reins of the prosecutor’s office.

  Most likely a few of the up-and-coming were secretly glad to see an opening at the top, although she thought that only the most hard-hearted of the law-abiding citizens of St. Louis—plus several thousand convicts—would have wished that manner of death on the man. By 8:00 A.M., when PJ arrived at work, it was clear that the jockeying for position and advantage was under way, as assistant prosecutors strutted their stuff.

  It wasn’t CHIP’s case, as was made amply clear by the defection of most of the officers who had been assisting on the Rick Schultz homicide. She understood the pressure on Lieutenant Wall and his superiors. She could close her eyes and hear his excuses. Rick Schultz was the son of one of their own, but the inescapable fact was that he had also been an ex-con.

  The fact that an ex-con died an unnatural death was only news so long as nothing overshadowed it.

  Victor Rheinhardt was not only a local celebrity, but the city’s chief prosecutor. It was imperative to the reputation of the department to have a quick arrest, and Chief Wharton would not only be watching the case with a magnifying lens, but meddling in it himself.

  PJ found it hard to be sympathetic with Wall when he appeared midmorning, harried and hurried, and announced that he could spare only her core team, Dave and Anita, to continue working on the Rick Schultz case.

  The three CHIP members sat glumly in PJ’s office.

  Anita looked like a pixie on downers. Dave had the sleepy detached look that had earned him the nickname Witless, a play on his last name of Whitmore. If he were a bear, he’d be about to go into hibernation.

  “Any helpful news on the chemical sources?” PJ asked.

  “News, yes, helpful, no,” Anita said. “Two companies, Brenner Chemical Supplies in Springfield and Overton Chemicals in Peoria, have records of purchases by a G. Miller. Small quantities over three months. Nothing alarming. Always paid with a postal service money order. The orders were picked up directly at the loading dock, but no one remembers anything out of the ordinary. They tell me it isn’t unusual for chemistry teachers to do that.”

  “During the summer?” Dave asked.

  “I suppose so. Restocking for the next school year, and have to be ready by the time the fall semester starts. Or it could be summer school at a college. G. Miller must not be too memorable. Both companies claimed that about a quarter of the direct pickups are by women, but none of the loading guys remember anything unusual, and can’t put a face to the name.”

  “Our gal Ginger may not have gone in person. Or maybe Ginger looks more like a George,” Dave said.

  “Anything on the money orders? PJ had perked up. She tapped a pencil rapidly on the desktop.

  “Purchased at the main post office for cash. The receipts show the address on Lake where Rick’s body was found. No ID recorded, such as a driver’s license number. I sent copies of the receipts over to handwriting.”

  “Good work,” PJ said. “At least we have something moving along. So Ginger could be a chemistry teacher.”

  “Or live next door to a chemistry teacher, or have at one time ten years ago known a chemistry teacher, or passed a chemistry teacher in the aisle of the supermarket within the past six months,” Dave said.

  PJ frowned at him. “That’s not a positive attitude.”

  “Yeah, well, since Schultz isn’t here I figured I’d take over for him as resident curmudgeon.”

  “You’re not old enough to be a curmudgeon,” Anita said.

  “Age has nothing to do with it,” PJ said. “Or gender. I once knew a girl—”

  “From Nantucket,” Dave said, “who kept all her cherries in a bucket. Not one did she spill, till along came old Bill, who peeked at her cherry, then fucked it.”

  Anita guffawed and slapped her knee. It was a very un-pixieish action.

  PJ struggled to keep a straight boss-lady face, and then gave up. She laughed with the others.

  “All right, I get the point,” PJ said when order was restored. “Geez, I miss that man around here. I never thought I’d say that.”

  Or feel it.

  “On with the case. Forensic handwriting analysis didn’t give us much to go on,” PJ said. “There’s a strong indication Ginger was in conflict over what she was writing—that the notes weren’t written in a state of high sexual excitement as the content would lead you to believe, but in a calculated manner.”

  Anita sniffed. I could have told you that, she said.

  Wall phoned to let PJ know that Julia Schultz had walked into a police station in Chicago and said that Leo had spent the night with her, but that she didn’t know his present whereabouts. PJ wondered what level of knowledge Julia had. She tried not to be hurt that Julia might have an insider’s seat while she was frozen out. Leo and Julia had been married for decades and only divorced a few months, which certainly put PJ’s own claim to his affection and trust in perspective. Purely on the basis of time served, Julia deserved to be taken into his confidence.

  PJ brought herself up abruptly from those thoughts. She was starting to sound like a jealous wife. What claim did she have on Schultz, after all? He had made some advances during a vulnerable moment. He was on the rebound from a divorce and a failed relationship with Helen Boxwood, a nurse they had met on a previous case. In fact, the relationship with Helen couldn’t even be called failed. It hadn’t gotten off the ground. And Schultz had been so eager, so pathetically sure that Helen was the right woman for him. Perhaps she was. But without giving that effort half a chance, he had somehow switched around and focused on PJ. What did that make her—the second rebound woman? Was there anything lower than that? The whole thing would make a good article for Cosmopolitan.

  If he didn’t have a good handle on his own private life, how could he think that he was ready for a relationship with PJ? With his boss, of all people?

  I love you, his note had said. We can work it out.

  PJ had avoided examining her feelings, and she knew it wasn’t the time. But she couldn’t pull herself away from thinking about how she felt toward him. Physical attraction, yes. She could acknowledge that much, although it surprised her. He certainly wasn’t a conventional sex object.

  Friendship and a respect for his professional abilities, definitely.

  What else was lurking in the lesser-traveled pathways of her heart? Perhaps she could sort things out during a leisurely bath, with a puffy inflated pillow to rest her weary head on and cucumber slices working magic on the shadowy wrinkles under her eyes. But right then the voice of her deeper emotions was drowned out by the stress and jangled nerves resulting from multiple deaths impacting her life.

  Bam! Mike Wolf’s wife dies. She was practically a vegetable, but it counts anyway. Whack! Rick meets a horrible end. Pow! A little girl crushed by Schultz ‘s car. Her parents stolid for the cameras, despairing in private. And then Rheinhardt. The cold-blooded assassination of a man I’d only met twice but was part of the law enforcement family. Deaths in the family, all of them.

  PJ shook her head to get her spinning thoughts in order. Then she noticed that Dav
e and Anita were staring at her expectantly. She must have missed something, a joke perhaps. She decided to bluff it out.

  “Enough of that,” she said, as much to herself as to them, tapping the pencil on the desk with what she hoped was authority. “What do you think of the possibility of two killers? Or that Ginger was a man, and Rick Schultz went to the apartment for a homosexual contact?”

  “Whoa, boss,” said David. “Where’s that coming from?”

  She explained her theory that Rick would have to be overpowered in some fashion—by his sexual urge, or by force. He was—had been—tall and muscular, a formidable man, as Schultz had been in his youth. In Schultz’s case, there was a soft roundness where there used to be well-developed muscle, but Rick had gotten himself in shape in prison. It had been confirmed that he had been on a serious fitness and weight lifting regimen. If Ginger was a woman, she’d have to be specially trained, carry a weapon, be lucky, or all three.

  Dave shook his head. “I just can’t see that,” he said. “You’re forgetting that Rick was already impaired by alcohol. Wouldn’t that make him an easier target? What about the good old-fashioned method of taking someone by surprise? He could have been jumped the minute he opened the door, when he was busy thinking about doing some jumping of his own.”

  PJ scowled, but she knew he was right. They just didn’t have enough information to go on. “Damn!” she said. “Everything on this case seems so slippery. We could sit here all day and jabber about it. I don’t know about you two, but I need to get out and do something.”