Speaking softly, so as not to disturb his vision, I said, “Was the man spattered with blood, too?”
He nodded. “Yes. I see him with blood on his hands, and his clothing. And even—” He gagged. “Even on his face, and in his mouth. He spits out the blood. Her blood.”
“What happened then?” Friedman asked softly. “What did he do next?”
“He—” Justin frowned. Now he squinted, as if to see his vision more clearly. “He—I see him falling out of the large car. Sally Grant’s car. I see him on his knees, down on the gravel. And then I see him getting up, staggering. I see him running back toward his own car. He’s terrified. All he can think about is getting inside his car and escaping. He’s got to hide himself—hide the blood.
“But then, at his car, he stops. He’s forgotten the gun. He’s got to throw it away. All along, he’d planned to throw away the gun. It was part of his plan. So he turns away from the car. He’s terrified now. He’s more animal than man. His jaws are dripping, like an animal’s. He’s stumbling again on the gravel, running toward some trees to his right. As he runs, he sees a car coming. He crouches down behind some shrubbery. The car slows—then speeds up, goes away. He’s on his feet, taking the gun out of his pocket. He throws the gun away from him, far out over the treetops.
“But then, even with the gun still in the air, he hears a sound. It’s metal, striking the ground—tinkling. It’s his keys—his car keys and his house keys. When he threw the gun away, one of the keys caught on the gun, in the trigger guard. So the keys flew out with the gun.
“He’s frantic. Now he’s crying like a baby. And he’s on his hands and knees, too, like a baby. But he knows he can’t find the keys. Not in the dark. So he gets to his feet, runs to his car, feels under the front bumper. There’s a key, there—a spare key. He gets in the car, starts the engine—drives away.”
Still with his eyes half closed, still resting his head against the chair, Justin sat motionless for a moment, exhausted. Finally he whispered, “He’s still terrified. Right now. Right this minute, while we talk. He feels as if he’ll never be able to wash the blood from his hands.”
“This man—” Friedman said. “Is he young? Old? Tall? Short?”
Slowly, with great effort, Justin shook his head. “I don’t know. I’m sorry. I don’t know.”
“What about the woman?” I said. “You say it was Sally Grant.”
A slow, heavy nod.
“How did you know it was her? Did you see her? Recognize her?”
“No,” he answered. “No, I didn’t see her. I’ve never seen her. But I knew it was her.”
“How?”
Again, he shook his head. “I can’t tell you, Lieutenant. I can’t explain it, except to say that, for years, I’ve known about Sally Grant. She and my stepfather were—” He hesitated, then said, “They were friends for a long time.”
“Originally they were lovers,” Friedman said. “Then, later, they were business partners—in a deluxe whorehouse. Then, still later, they came to hate each other. At least, so your mother says.” Friedman spoke harshly, almost brutally. He was trying to shock Justin into some reaction that would either verify what Cass had said or else contradict it.
The device didn’t work. Instead, Justin moved his shoulders, shrugging languidly. “As I said, I never met Sally Grant. So I can’t judge her.”
“If you didn’t know her,” I said, “then how were you so sure it was her murder that you saw in your vision?”
“I wasn’t sure,” he answered. “Not until now. Your presence here—your questions, have reinforced my vision. You mentioned the name Sally Grant. And, instantly, everything became clear.”
“That’s very interesting,” Friedman said, playing the role of an impressed listener. “Very interesting indeed.” After a moment he said, “How long has Aztecca been operating?”
Justin’s expression was benevolently quizzical as he said gently, “You make it sound a little like a dry-cleaning plant, Lieutenant.”
“A dry-cleaning plant?”
“When you say ‘operating,’ it sounds like a business.”
“Oh. Sorry. You didn’t answer the question.”
“We came here two years ago,” Justin replied. “Before that, most of us were wandering in the world, alone. Each of us—each single one of us—came through hell to get here. We came through hell, and we’re never going back the way we came. Never. Not in this life, or in any other life. We came here just as we came into the world—naked. We came with nothing. So everything we’ve got, we own. Therefore, nobody owns us. So, therefore, we’re free. We’ve made ourselves free.”
As he’d spoken, his voice had slowly hardened and deepened, taking on a kind of reedy resonance. His eyes, so strangely empty following his vision, were sharply focused now, staring intently at me. But as I tried to meet his gaze I realized that he wasn’t actually looking at me. He was looking beyond me—or through me.
I decided to try to bring him back to reality.
“In my office yesterday,” I said, “you mentioned that you saw Rebecca frequently—that she was interested in your work. But I have to say that no one else seems to think you and Rebecca were very close, or that she was interested in Aztecca.”
Speaking to me, Friedman said, “Maybe he meant to say that he was trying to interest her in his work.” Then he gave a sly, sidelong glance at Justin, saying: “Maybe it was a fund-raising effort.”
Turning to Friedman, Justin said, “You seem to be preoccupied with money, Lieutenant. I wonder why?”
“Was it a fund-raising effort?” Friedman prodded gently.
Justin shrugged his bony shoulders, saying diffidently, “I suppose you could put it like that.”
“Did she actually give you any money?” I asked.
“No,” he answered. “But she intended to. She’d promised me. And then—” He winced. “And then she died. Perhaps it was because someone intended to harm Aztecca by killing her.”
“It seems,” Friedman observed, “that you have lots of enemies.”
Almost benignly, Justin nodded. “Yes, Lieutenant, we do. But we are ready for them, I promise you that.” As he spoke, he allowed his eyes to close. His head fell back against the back of his medieval chair. Our audience had apparently ended.
Twenty
FRIEDMAN AND I STOOD side by side on a graveled parking area that overlooked a spectacular panorama of the San Francisco skyline, the Golden Gate Bridge and the bay beyond. The sky was a bright, clear blue. The graceful orange arch of the bridge contrasted vividly with the soft green of the Marin headlands that rose behind the bridge to the north. On the bay, hundreds of tiny white sails were festive specks on the cobalt water.
Behind us, a half-dozen police vehicles blocked access to the area. Below us, a line of more than twenty-five policemen were slipping and sliding and swearing as they searched every inch of the steep, rocky slope that dropped away from the graveled crescent.
“It’s incredible,” I said, shaking my head as I looked around us. “He really did see it. Down to the last detail.”
“He either saw it,” Friedman said mildly, “or else he was listening to the radio this morning. They had the whole story. Everything. In detail.”
“But what if we find the keys? And the gun?”
Watching the frustrated, sweating searchers, Friedman nodded thoughtfully. “That might make a believer out of me. I can’t say I’d like to see my kids join Aztecca. But I’d have to admit that, yes, Justin sees things. Which I never doubted. The question is, why does he see them?”
“What’d you think of him?” I asked. “How do you read him?”
“I think he believes that crap he’s spouting,” Friedman answered promptly. “And that makes him a little frightening—and potentially dangerous, too. People like that, they’re capable of anything.”
“Even murder?”
Friedman shrugged. “Why not? Obviously, he’s a practicing paranoic. Plus I’m sur
e he’s convinced himself that he’s divine. Therefore, he’s convinced himself that he’s incapable of doing anything wrong. He’d see murder as a burnt offering, or something. I’ll bet anything that if you talked to him long enough, you’d discover that he thinks he’s plugged into the cosmos, maybe with his own private line to God.”
I smiled. “You could be right.”
“I’ll also bet,” he said, “that he’s been on drugs.”
“You think so?”
“I think so. He has that washed out, empty-eyed look. I’ll bet anything he used to be an acid head. Maybe he still is. Maybe he—”
“Hey, Lieutenant!”
About halfway down the steep incline, a patrolman stood beside a small, wind-twisted juniper. His right hand was raised high above his head. A ring of keys dangled from his forefinger.
“If they belong to one of our suspects,” Friedman said, “put me down as a Justin Carlton fan.”
“I have to admit,” Friedman said, “that I hope one of those hotshot reporters downstairs doesn’t hear about this. I mean—” He waved his cigar in a bemused arc. “I mean, here we are—two leaders of men, sitting on our respective asses while Canelli and Culligan, the mismatched pair, dutifully drive from one suspect to the other, trying out keys in the suspect’s lock. I mean, Jesus—” Shaking his head, he waved the cigar again. This time, an inch-long ash dropped to the floor in front of my desk.
“For all we know,” Friedman said, “those keys belong to a pimply faced teen-ager whose girl friend had leaped out of the car in a panic when she saw his—”
My phone rang.
“It’s probably not David Behr, Lieutenant.” In my ear, Canelli’s voice sounded apologetic. “Of course, with him, maybe it’d be hard to know. I mean, I figure he’s got a couple’ve places to live, maybe, and who knows how many cars. But, anyhow, he says they aren’t his keys. And when we asked him if we could try them in his front door, and everything, to see if they’d fit, he didn’t say no. And, naturally, they didn’t. Fit, I mean.”
I drew a note pad toward me and crossed off David Behr, the second name. The first name, also crossed off, was Cass Dangerfield. The third name was Donald Fay, Cass’s lover. Fay’s name had been added at Friedman’s insistence, “a hunch.” Ron Massey was next, followed by Sam Wright. Pam Cornelison followed, and Richard Gee. Justin Wade’s name was the last on the list.
“Where’re you going next, Canelli?” I asked.
“How about Ron Massey, Lieutenant? He lives just a couple of blocks from here. Right down the hill.”
“All right. Try him next.”
“Yessir.”
As I hung up the phone, I glanced at my watch. The time was almost five o’clock. Ann and Billy would be leaving Alcatraz for Fisherman’s Wharf, where they’d meet Dan. If they started eating at six-thirty, they’d be finished by eight-thirty. A half hour later, she’d be home—waiting for my call.
“By the way,” Friedman said, “miracle of miracles, a dedicated lab technician volunteered to come in today and start classifying and sorting out the fingerprints inside Sally’s car, and her house. He’s getting double time for his trouble, of course, unlike you and me. But it’s a help.”
Still thinking about Ann, I didn’t answer for a moment. At best, the possibility of a fingerprint match-up was remote. And even if we could connect one of the suspects to Sally by means of fingerprints, we would still be a long way from proving a conspiracy to commit murder.
If, in fact, a conspiracy had actually existed.
Lolling in my visitor’s chair, Friedman blew a long, lazy curl of cigar smoke up toward the ceiling and asked, “What’re you thinking?”
“I’m wondering if we aren’t causing ourselves a lot of extra work for nothing.”
“How do you mean?”
“I mean that Sally had a longstanding grudge against Carlton. Why’re we looking any farther? When we find her murderer—if we ever do—it might turn out that he’s a hood working the lovers’ lanes. It’s happened before.”
Friedman started another plume of smoke ceilingward before he observed mildly, “That’s asking a lot of coincidence, it seems to me.”
I shrugged. “A lot of stranger things have happened.”
“I don’t dispute it. But, for openers, how do you account for Sally taking off in the middle of the night? Right after being interrogated?”
“I don’t account for it,” I answered. “But why do we have to account for it? We’re—Christ—we’re asking for trouble, it seems to me. Why bother?”
“There’s another problem.”
“What’s that?”
“You’re saying she killed both Carlton and his daughter because of a longstanding grudge. Which is to say that she figured, what the hell, I’ll get myself some sugar and see if I can kill Bernard. Then, when that worked, you’re saying that she decides she isn’t satisfied that she’d brought Bernard down in flames. She’s still mad. So she decides to kill his daughter, too.”
Hearing him say it, I realized how silly it sounded. Sally had been a businesswoman. She’d been vicious, and greedy, and totally immoral. But she’d probably never done anything that she didn’t think would turn a profit. Sally had been shrewd and smart.
And planning two murders of revenge wasn’t smart.
I felt a little like a small, grumpy boy as I said, “Well, I just hope Justin’s right, then, about the keys. Because, otherwise, we’re screwed. We’re at a dead end.”
“You’re in a pessimistic mood,” Friedman answered. “Don’t forget, we haven’t found the gun that killed Sally. Who knows, we might get lucky. Who’s supervising the search team, by the way?”
“Jamison.”
Friedman nodded approval. “Excellent. Jamison has the instincts of a bloodhound. And come to think about it, he looks a little like a bloodhound. Ever notice?”
“No,” I answered sourly.
“Incidentally,” Friedman said, shifting to a more comfortable position, “assuming that Hoadley’s telling the truth, which I’m inclined to believe, have you given much thought to how the gun that killed Rebecca got from Sam Wright, to Rebecca’s motor home, to Sally Grant and finally to Hoadley?”
“Sure. Let’s say Sam Wright wanted her dead. Let’s also say that the gun was kept in her trailer. He goes to the trailer, and gets the gun. He gives the gun to Sally, along with a bundle of money and the promise of more to come. She gives the gun to—”
“Wait.” He held up a traffic cop’s hand. “Why does he give it to Sally?”
“Because he wants a cut-out. He wants a hired gun, and he wants someone between him and the killer, in case something goes wrong. It happens all the time. He—”
My phone rang.
“It’s Canelli again, Lieutenant.”
He was trying to speak laconically, calmly. But I could hear the excitement plain in his voice.
“What’ve you got?”
“Well,” he said, “I’m over at Ron Massey’s.”
“And?”
“And one of the keys fits his front door, if you can believe it.”
“Well, I’ll be damned.” And to Friedman I said, “They’re Ron Massey’s keys.”
As Friedman added his incredulous exclamations to mine, I spoke into the phone: “What’s your situation, Canelli? Can the suspect hear you talking?”
“No, sir. Culligan’s got him in the living room. I’m calling from his den.” Now his voice was lower, more guarded. “I’m almost sure he can’t hear me, anyhow. And, besides, him and Culligan are talking.”
“Have you questioned him—confronted him with the evidence?”
“No, sir, I haven’t. See, the first couple of times, Culligan and me, we went through this big long rigamorole, see, explaining to the subjects what we were doing, and asking permission to try the keys, and everything. You know—doing it all according to the book. I mean, Ms. Dangerfield and Mr. Behr are pretty high-powered types, you know. And we didn’t want to ta
ke the risk of—”
“Canelli. Please.” I took a deep breath. “Get to the point, will you?”
“Oh. Yeah. Sorry. Well, anyhow, when we got to here—to Massey’s—I thought, what the hell, I’d just save myself a lot of trouble, and try a key in the front door. And, Jesus, it worked. So then, naturally, the door opens right in our faces. And there’s Massey, cool as a cucumber, demanding to know what we’re doing, fooling around with his front door. And then, when he took it in—you know, the keys, and everything—he said, ‘Oh, good. You found my keys. I’ve been looking for them.’ He was real cool about it, like I said. Real calm.”
“How much did you tell him?”
“Nothing, Lieutenant. I mean, I said that the keys were found at the scene of a crime, but that’s all I said. I figured you’d want me to call you right away.”
“What did he say when you told him that?”
“He pretended to be real puzzled. You know, a big frown and everything.”
“What kind of a car does he drive?”
“It’s a Datsun. One of those 280Zs.”
“Do the keys fit the car, too?”
“Yessir.”
“What’s his state of mind? Does he seem to be worried?”
“No, sir, not that I can see. He’s acting more puzzled than anything. Like I said.”
“And you haven’t mentioned the Sally Grant murder.”
“No, sir. Not a word. And Culligan didn’t, either. We talked about it, beforehand—how we weren’t going to say anything about it.”
I paused a moment, trying to decide on the best strategy. Then: “See if you can get him to come down to the Hall voluntarily, Canelli. Sweet-talk him. Tell him that you don’t know the whole story but we’re holding the keys as evidence. Tell him you’re acting for me, and that he’s got to see me.”
“Shall I read him his rights?”
“Not if you can help it. Tell him he’s a witness, not a suspect. That way, maybe we’ll get a shot at him before he calls his lawyer. Clear?”
Mankiller (The Lt. Hastings Mysteries) Page 18
