The Case of the Poisoned Eclairs: A Masao Masuto Mystery

by Howard Fast

  “I wish I knew what in hell you’re talking about. I still want his name.”

  “I can’t talk you out of that?”

  “Not this time, Masao. If anything happens to one of those three women, on top of what has already happened, this whole damn department is going up in smoke.”

  “If I give you his name,” Masuto said slowly, “will you give me twenty-four hours? Twenty-four hours before you turn it over to the L.A. cops, twenty-four hours before you pick him up and begin to grill him?”

  “That would really be tying my hands, Masao.”

  “No, sir. With all deference, that would be saving your neck. Because if you pick him up now, not only will his lawyer have him out of here in fifteen minutes, but he would slap this city with the biggest false arrest suit it ever entertained. And as you are fond of telling me, this is not downtown Pittsburgh. It’s Beverly Hills.”

  Wainwright stared at him thoughtfully; then he nodded. “Okay. You got your twenty-four hours. Now give me the name.”

  Masuto took a pad, scribbled the name, and then handed the bit of paper to Wainwright.

  “I’ll be damned,” Wainwright said.

  “I could be wrong. Remember that.”

  “You’re wrong about one thing. I’d think twice before I pulled him in or handed his name over to the L.A. cops. I’d want to see some unshakable evidence.” He looked at the name again, then folded the slip of paper and put it in his pocket. “Maybe we’ll get lucky this time.”

  Catherine Addison

  Masuto picked up his phone and dialed the Crombie number. Mitzie Fuller answered. “Well,” she said, “if it isn’t Mr. Inscrutable himself! Do you know what I feel like? I feel like I’m under house arrest in a Banana republic. This is no life, Sergeant, and I don’t like ladies enough to spend the rest of my life in their company. Either you spring us or I’m going to bust out.”

  “Give it until tonight,” Masuto said.

  “Now if you’ll be our baby sitter, I might be able to relax and enjoy it.”

  “I’m afraid that’s impossible right now. Please stay with it. Is Detective Beckman around?”

  “He is always around. Only the bathrooms are safe from Detective Beckman’s prowling presence. I’ll call him.”

  Beckman got on the phone and said, “Masao, these gals are driving me nuts. Also, the phone doesn’t stop. Every goddamn newspaper, TV station, and wire service in the world has been calling here. It’s one thing for me to say no comment. But these dames—they talk to their friends. So whatever stories get out, don’t blame me. I’m just the keeper. Outside in front, we got two TV cameras and crews, maybe six reporters, and a nice sprinkling of the public. Nothing like this ever happened before on Beverly Drive.”

  “Just keep the doors locked. What about the picture?”

  “You’re right. There isn’t a picture of the kid anywhere in the house. I mean a framed picture, or a picture on the wall, or one of those pictures you stand on a table or a piano.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “Absolutely. But let me tell you this. In Mrs. Crombie’s bedroom, I saw one of those big, classy leather-covered picture albums. I leafed through it, and, Masao, every picture in it is the daughter Kelly.”

  “How do you know it’s Kelly?”

  “Well, it’s obvious, isn’t it? Unless there’s some other kid in Mrs. Crombie’s life. Oh, it’s the daughter, all right, and it starts with her as an infant and takes her right through, I guess until right before she died. If you want one of the pictures, I can slip it out. Who knows if she ever looks at the book.”

  “No—not yet. I think I can get a picture somewhere else. Now look, keep those women inside.”

  “I’ll try.”

  Masuto was on his way out when Wainwright called after him. “Hold on a moment, Masao. One thing.”

  “Yes?”

  “Why does he have to kill all the women?”

  “Then there’s no motive—or four motives.”

  “You mean that cold-blooded bastard would kill four women just to lay down a smoke-screen?”

  “He’s running scared and he has a lot to protect. He’s killed three people already. A man like that is totally without conscience or morality. He will kill a human being the way you or I might kill a fly. You read about that kind of thing. There was that fellow in Texas who killed eleven people. You just don’t look for it in a place like this.”

  “Which one of the four is he after?”

  “I’m not sure. I could guess, but I’m not sure.”

  “Alice Greene?”

  “I’m just not sure.”

  “And you don’t think he’ll drop it now?”

  “He can’t drop it. It has him by the throat.”

  “Which is what worries me, Masao. If anything happens to one of those women, we’re in it up to our ears. At this point, I don’t give a damn about the cost. I can put four men around that house day and night.”

  “No.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because that’s not the problem. The problem is keeping them in the house. I’ll go down the line on the fact that nothing will happen to them while they’re there. But we can’t keep them there. You know by now the kind of women we deal with in Beverly Hills. They’ve had it their own way; they’ve always had it their own way. All I can do is ask them to stay there, and maybe while they’re scared enough they will. But the fear will wear off, and my guess is that by tomorrow, no force on earth can keep them there. But while they’re there, Beckman is with them, and there’s no one I’d trust more than Beckman in a situation like that.”

  “All right,” Wainwright agreed uneasily. “Where are you off to now?”

  “Downtown—oh, I am stupid, I don’t have a brain in my head.” He broke off and stalked back to his office and called the Crombie house again. This time, the phone was busy. He kept dialing, looking at his watch, dialing. It was eleven o’clock. The day was running away.

  Beckman answered the phone.

  “Sy, did you get her first husband’s name?”

  “Whose first husband’s name?”

  “Crombie’s.”

  “Yeah. I forgot to tell you. She was married to a guy named Neville Addison. He invented a type of radar for use on small military vehicles and made himself millions. From what I’ve been able to get from Mrs. Legett”—he dropped his voice—“this Crombie dame is worth millions, but millions.”

  “Good enough,” Masuto said. “Hang in there.”

  Outside, the press was waiting, pleading with him. “Come on, Sergeant, open up. Give us something. Is the Mafia established in Beverly Hills?”

  “Is this a contract job?”

  “How does Monte Sweet fit into it?”

  “Where is Monte Sweet?”

  “Was he romancing this broad? Come on, give.”

  Masuto got into his car and drove away. He was totally into it now, putting it together, piece by piece. He felt that he had most of the pieces, the only trouble being that the most important pieces were blank. He felt driven, compelled. The shadow figure who opposed him was locked with him in combat. Masuto knew, and by now the killer was aware that Masuto knew.

  He pulled his car into the parking lot at the Los Angeles Police Department and went inside. On a day when every minute counted, luck was with him. Lieutenant Pete Bones was at his desk.

  Bones regarded him sourly.

  “I know,” Masuto said, “but if you could wrap up those two killings you got and maybe fish another one out of the bin, you wouldn’t hate me so much. Right?”

  “I don’t hate you. You’re just one curious son of a bitch, and that pisses me off. What the hell have you got, some kind of lousy Oriental crystal ball?”

  “Come on now, Pete,” Masuto said gently.

  “How in hell did you know that those two bullets would match up?”

  “Two bullets?”

  “You know damn well what I’m talking about. The bullet that killed the Chica
no kid and the bullet that killed the chemist.”

  “Same gun?” Masuto said innocently.

  “You know, if it was anyone else, I’d say you’re mixed up in something, but the word is you’re an honest cop. Not that I’m taking my hat off to the Beverly Hills Police Department.”

  “No,” Masuto agreed. “Of course not.”

  “All right. You got this thing with the botulism. Omi Saiku filled me in on that. It had to be a chemist, and you figured the chemist had to be dirty, so there was a dirty chemist somewhere whom we might have picked up, and if we put the screws on him, he would have implicated your killer. So your man killed him. You laid that out uptown. But how in hell could you be sure that the Chicano kid tied into it?”

  “I don’t know how many plainclothes detectives you have in the L.A. force,” Masuto said. “Perhaps a thousand. We don’t have enough to make up a good poker game. So I have to guess. Sometimes I guess right.”

  “Let me make a guess,” Bones said, “that the killing you had last night ties into this.”

  “That’s good guessing.”

  “Nah! Not even smart. We got a Chicano housemaid who dies of botulism who works for this Crombie woman, and then we got this Mafia-type killing in her front yard.”

  “Is that what you think?” Masuto asked. “The Mafia?”

  “Do you?”

  Masuto shook his head.

  “Then what the hell are you asking me for? What am I, some kind of schmuck? When the Mafia comes into this county, I will know about it, and if they put out a contract, I’ll know about that too. I’m not saying I can make an arrest stick, but I will know about it.”

  “Let’s pretend we’re on the same side,” Masuto said, smiling. “I’m not trying to do you in. I come bearing gifts.”

  “What kind of gifts? And what do you want?”

  “Only a little help.”

  “Yeah. What kind of gifts?”

  “We have four murders,” Masuto said. “Three of them took place in Los Angeles.”

  “That Chicano maid was working in your town.”

  “Yes, but she went home to L.A. before she ate those éclairs. So technically, it’s yours. We don’t want any more killings than we have to have. Now I think I can clear this up before midnight today, and if I do, I give you my word I’ll call you in for the arrest.”

  “You can’t do that even if you wanted to, which I don’t believe for a minute.”

  “You know I can. I’ll get through to you or to whoever you designate, and you have a car cutting through Beverly Hills, and I’ll put out an assist and your car picks it up and makes the technical arrest.”

  “No. It’s clumsy.”

  “If I already have the man? I’ll tell you something else, when I go after him, I may very well be in Los Angeles. I can’t say at this point.”

  “You know, Masuto, every time I see you, you got trouble for me. Every time I see you, you got some crazy project. You come here and tell me you got a killer lined up and you want to hand him over to me. Why?”

  “Justice. More killings on your turf.”

  “Bullshit. You know who the killer is, give me his name and we’ll do the rest. We’re not the worst police force in the world.”

  “Maybe the best. We’re not up to names. But you can’t tell me it won’t be a feather in your cap to clear up four killings.”

  Bones leaned back in his chair and stared at Masuto. Finally, he nodded. “Okay. We got a deal. But don’t rat on me. If you do, I’ll take it out of your hide. Now what do you want in exchange?”

  “Very little. Perhaps a month or two more than three years ago, a young woman whose name was Catherine Addison was killed in a car crash. I want to know exactly when and where the accident took place. I want you to locate the policeman or policemen who attended the accident at the time and I want to talk to them, and if you assigned an investigator to the case, I want to talk to him as well.”

  Bones grinned slowly. “You got to be kidding.”

  “Oh, no. I’m very serious.”

  “Three years ago? Are you crazy, Masuto? Suppose no other car was involved in the accident? Suppose no one was booked? Suppose it didn’t even happen in Los Angeles? Did it?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “You got a lot of nerve coming down here with something like this.”

  “I know.”

  He opened the pad in front of him. “What did you say her name was?”

  “Catherine Addison.”

  “Hasn’t she got relatives, a family? There are easier ways to get at this.”

  “She has a mother who won’t talk about her. My guess is that the mother can’t talk about her, and I haven’t got time for psychoanalysis.”

  “All right, we’ll give it a try.”

  “I want it quick.”

  “Yeah? I want the moon.”

  “Even if you find one of the cops, have him call our station. Polly there will patch him through to wherever I am.”

  Back in his car, Masuto felt a certain satisfaction. It was beginning to come together. Very slowly, yet it was beginning to come together.

  He drove back to Beverly Hills and Beverly Drive. The media had given up, and, except for a couple of curious kids, there was no one in front of the Crombie house. Still in the driveway were three cars, the Porsche, the Seville, and Beckman’s Ford. Masuto parked behind the Ford, walked to the door, and touched the bell.

  There was a peephole, and he could imagine Beckman staring at him. Then the door opened.

  “I’m being relieved,” Beckman said. “You’re taking over.”

  “No such luck. Where are the ladies?”

  “Inside playing bridge. I’m the dummy. It don’t matter that I can’t play bridge worth a damn. They taught me the game and now I’m trapped, and every lousy play I make, that Crombie dame rakes me over the coals. She is a lulu. Tell you something else, Masao, with these three dames locked up together, their love for each other is going downhill swiftly. They’re beginning to snap and snarl, especially the two older ones.”

  At that moment, Laura Crombie’s voice. “Mr. Beckman, what’s going on out there?”

  “Sergeant Masuto. We’ll be in in a moment.”

  “It’s your deal.”

  “Sy,” Masuto said softly, “I want one of the pictures. Kelly, Catherine. The Crombie kid. Grown, not as a child. Take it out of the album.”

  “We could ask. I hate to steal it.”

  “Mr. Beckman!” from inside.

  “We are not stealing it. We’re borrowing it. Don’t worry. We’ll put it back.”

  “Okay,” Beckman said.

  “While I’m here. I only have a few minutes.”

  Beckman shook his head.

  “Don’t worry. I’ll send you upstairs,” Masuto said.

  Beckman led him through the house to a bright, beautifully-decorated breakfast room that overlooked the gardens and pool. The furniture was bamboo and flowered chintz, the floor was of imported Spanish tile, and the bay window set in shiny brass fittings. There were plants and flowers everywhere, and Masuto looked at it with such pleasure that Laura Crombie abandoned her tight-lipped expression of annoyance.

  “You like the room, Sergeant?”

  “Very much.” He turned to Beckman. “Go through the house while I’m here, Sy.”

  “Again?” Mrs. Crombie asked.

  “Please. Then I can report back that he checked the house while I was present.”

  Beckman strode out on his mission, and Nancy Legett said, “Sometimes, Sergeant, I wonder whether you are not a little mad. This whole notion that someone is trying to murder us—”

  “Stop that, Nancy!” Laura Crombie said sharply.

  Nancy Legett began to cry. She sat bent over the table on which the cards had been dealt, her body wracked with sobs. Mitzie Fuller put her arms around her.

  “Come on now, darling,” Mitzie said. “Everything’s going to be all right.”

  “Nothing�
�s going to be all right,” she sobbed. “We’re all going to be killed, the way Alice was killed. You know that. I know that. He killed Alice first, and then it’s our turn.”

  “Who killed Alice?” Masuto asked gently.

  “Arthur Crombie. Didn’t you know?”

  “No, no, that’s too much,” Laura Crombie said. “Now see here, Nancy, we’re old friends, but that doesn’t give you the right to carry on like this.”

  “I wish I could stay, but I can’t,” Masuto said firmly. “Now listen to me!”

  They stopped squabbling and turned to him. Mitzie said cheerfully, “Right on, Charlie Chan. Oh, no. That was terrible of me. That was inexcusable of me. Please forgive me.”

  “More inexcusable since I am a Nisei, which means of Japanese parents. However, I’ll forgive you.”

  “Bless you.” She leaped up and kissed his cheek. “There’s my apology.”

  “Thank you. Now, I want a picture of each of your ex-husbands.”

  “You’re kidding,” Laura Crombie said.

  “Dead serious. Of course, Mrs. Greene presents a problem.”

  “You read the Times,” Mitzie said. “You are one strange detective.”

  “How do you know I read the Times?”

  “Because the Examiner has a picture of Alice and her ex right there on the front page. I’ll tear it out for you.”

  “Mrs. Crombie?”

  “I’ll find a picture of Arthur for you.”

  “Mrs. Legett?”

  She was unwilling to meet his gaze.

  “Mrs. Legett, did you hear me? I have to have a picture of your ex-husband.”

  Still avoiding his gaze, blushing, she opened her purse and took a two-by-three photo out of her billfold. She handed it to Masuto. The two other women stared at her in disbelief, and then, unable to contain herself, Mitzie cried out, “Oh, no! I don’t believe it.”