Night Work km-4

by Laurie R. King

  “I don’t know. Jani worries.”

  “Send her an e-mail, or fax.” This too had been done before, to let Jani know where he was without waking her.

  “Yeah, I guess I could. Thanks.”

  He followed her across town to the silent house on Russian Hill, joined her in a sandwich and some unfocused and low-voiced conversation in the kitchen, and then they both fell into their beds for the luxury of five unbroken hours of sleep.

  The two detectives dressed with care in the morning, checking shirt-fronts for old stains and hair for stray tufts. They walked into a room which held one lieutenant, one captain, one secretary, Detectives Boyle and Kitagawa from Homicide and Deaver from the LOPD task force, a large pot of fresh coffee, a plate of doughnuts, and an unknown figure whose reputation preceded him, the local FBI agent Benjamin Marcowitz. He was known as Marc to his very few friends, Benny to his numerous enemies, and the Man in Black to most of the people who worked with and for him, both for his habitual choice of dark suit and for his resemblance to a slimmer, younger Tommy Lee Jones in the movie of that name.

  Kate had never seen an FBI agent who more precisely resembled thecaricaturestraight-faced,straitlaced,clean-cut malein thesuit.

  All he needed was a coil of wire emerging from his ear to complete the picture. Marcowitz’s handshake was the least expressive touch of flesh she had ever experienced: It might have been a leather glove filled with sand.

  Despite first impressions, however, he was not as bad as he might have been. At this point, he made clear, he was prepared to run a more or less parallel operation, concentrating on the national search for similar killings and on providing manpower, backup, and coordination for the SFPD. He was, in a word, altogether too reasonable, and the locals eyed him warily.

  To Kate’s astonishment, a brief smile appeared on his face, then vanished. “In the past,” he told the room, “the Bureau has generated a lot of ill will by its tendency to take over cases that might be better handled by the local police departments. We’re actually better used in assistance, on regional cases. I don’t want to get grabby, and I’ll do my best to give you anything we come up with. I hope that works the other way, as well.”

  Eyebrows were raised at this innovation of an FBI running interference instead of carrying the ball, but it was a nice thought.

  In a short time, decisions were made and responsibilities divided up. Having three teams of detectives related to this one case meant tying up practically the entire SFPD homicide detail, and once the tasers brought in the Ladies task force as well, it was clearly time to sort things out. Kitagawa had taken the Laxman Mehta call, but Pramilla’s death— which was Boyle’s case—was clearly a consideration, and over them all was the possible link with Al and Kate’s serial. At the end of the meeting it had been agreed that, in order to streamline matters, Al and Kate would be the primaries on this one, with Kitagawa and Boyle feeding them information so as not to do everything twice and with Marcowitz kept up-to-date so that, if the time came for the feds to take what he called “a more active role,” there would be no delay. The FBI, in the meantime, would turn its mighty mind to the problem of the Ladies, although whether it would give them what it found was anyone’s guess. Kitagawa, on the other hand, was the very essence of cooperation, having printed off multiple copies of his notes from the night before (typically enough, typed neatly and thoroughly legible), including the brief preliminary interview with Peter Mehta. Laxman’s rooms on the upper floor had been sealed off for them, and for the crime scene team, if necessary.

  The morning was fairly thoroughly gone by the time Kate and Al drove off through a light rain to interview Peter Mehta. Speaking over the rhythm of the windshield wipers and the blowing defogger, Al said, “You’ve met Mehta; how do you want to handle him?”

  “He’s definitely a man’s man. You’d better start on the questions, I’ll jump in when it’s time to make him uncomfortable.”

  “Thought of anything else I should know?” They had spent a couple of hours, not only that morning but the night before, reviewing what Kate knew of the case and its chronology. She thought about what she had already told him, and what she had not.

  “Did I mention the thought that there could have been something between Peter and Pramilla? Not that I have anything concrete, just my naturally suspicious mind. She was very pretty and he’s very full of himself. At the very least, he found her attractive.”

  “Jealous of Laxman, you think?”

  “Who in turn may have picked up on it, and bashed his wife. Just something to keep in mind. Of course, there’s also the fact that Laxman resented his wife’s talking to men on one of her outings. It was the cause of one of his beatings. It could have led to him doing her in.”

  “Which would make it very likely that Laxman was one of our Ladies’ serials. Was there anyone in particular that she was ‘talking to’?”

  “It’s on my list of things to find out. I thought I’d give Amanda Bonner a call later today.”

  “What about Mehta’s wife, Rani? Did you get the sense that she suspected something between her husband and her sister-in-law?”

  “She’s a puzzle. Far too much of a wife-and-mother for me to get much out of her, and her English isn’t good enough to get much subtlety out of it. If there was something—if—she’d be aware of it. How could she not be, all under the same roof? But I will say that according to Roz’s material on bride burning, it’s usually the mother-in-law—which in this case would be Rani—who is most involved in dowry harassment.”

  “Really?”

  “Ironic, isn’t it? So much for the solidarity of the oppressed.”

  When they arrived at the Mehta house, they discovered that it would have been redundant to park a uniformed at the curb: The place was awash with media. They had to push their way through to the two uniforms who were trying to keep the reporters out of the rosebushes. Three women in rain parkas carrying hand-lettered signs reading children are NOT FOR MARRYING walked back and forth in front of the next-door neighbor’s house, which was as close as they could get to their target. Al mounted the front steps and, before pushing the doorbell, asked the uniformed how it was going.

  “Oh, fine sir. It was a little crazy about an hour ago when he came out to talk to the reporters, but some of ‘em left after that. Wish it would rain harder.”

  “You mean Mehta? He made a statement?”

  “Yes sir. Right here on the steps. I had some job keeping them from following him inside afterward.”

  “What did he say?”

  “That he and his family were being ‘hounded,” that was his word, by a bunch of women who had no understanding of Hindu customs or sensitivities. That was more or less what he said.“

  Hawkin glanced at Kate grimly. “Did he name names?”

  “Not directly. Although he had a quiet word with one or two of the reporters, I didn’t hear what he told them.”

  “I guess there’s nothing we can do about it now. Anything you need out here?”

  “We’re going to be going off in a while, they’ll send replacements.”

  “Okay. Well, thanks.” He rang the bell and, after the peephole darkened momentarily and the locks were slid noisily back, they stepped into the besieged Mehta house and followed Peter Mehta into his study.

  Kate introduced Al Hawkin, and then as they had agreed, she sat down and faded into the background. “Mr. Mehta,” Al began. “Could you please tell us what happened last night?”

  “What do you mean, ”what happened‘? My brother was killed, is what happened. Foully murdered and his body left in a—a corrupt and disgusting place, and his murderer walks the streets of San Francisco with impunity.“

  Kate suppressed a tug of amusement at Mehta’s flowery language. She was well aware that many of the city’s ethnic minorities tended more toward histrionics when confronted with tragedy than did the Anglo-Saxons (she herself, after all, came from an Italian family), although she was mildly surpri
sed at the dramatic response of Peter Mehta, who previously had seemed as American as they came. Apparently his American skin was thin in places. He was on his feet now, pacing the carpeted floor of his study, his hands playing restlessly over his lapels, buttons, the backs of furniture, and each other.

  “Sir,” Al was saying patiently, “we need to question everyone who came in contact with your brother last night.”

  Mehta came to a halt and turned to Hawkin, affronted. “You would question me?” His lilting accent was stronger now, such was his perturbation.

  “We are questioning everyone, sir. Now—”

  “My wife? You would question her?”

  “Yes, when we’re fin—”

  “And the children, perhaps? Will you question my son Indrapal who is not yet two years old concerning the foul murder of his uncle? Why are you not out there searching for these female animals who are killing the men of our city? Why do you come and torment the suffering family? This is intolerable!”

  “Sir,” Hawkin said sharply. “Each death must be treated individually. Even if your brother’s murder is related to someone else’s, it is distinct. You’re a sensible man, Mr. Mehta. Surely you can see that we have to begin at the beginning, to trace your brother’s last movements, and to do that we have to question the people who were closest to him. Do you have any objections to that?”

  Abruptly, Mehta subsided. “No,” he said, and retreated to his chair behind the desk. “No, of course I don’t. I’m just… It is all most upsetting. I was fond of my little brother. He was not an easy person, but I did my best to love him and care for him. And now this. Achcha,” he said, and then drew himself together. “You wish to know where we were last night. I worked in this study until eleven o’clock. My wife worked in the kitchen with the servant, Lali, and then Lali left and Rani put the children to bed at nine o’clock. She was asleep by the time I went up, and I was asleep myself twenty minutes later. I did not see Laxman all evening, although his lights were on. They usually are.”

  “Do you know why your brother was in the Castro district last night? Was he meeting a friend, perhaps?”

  “My brother had no friends. He had his family, and until a week ago he had his wife.”

  “I understand that he and his wife were very close.”

  “He worshiped her,” Mehta declared fiercely, although Kate thought that was not exactly the same thing.

  “Do you think your brother killed his wife?” Al asked bluntly. Too bluntly, because Mehta turned his swivel chair around to look out the window at the slowing rain.

  “I don’t want to think that, no,” he said after a while.

  “But you think it possible?”

  Mehta did not answer. Hawkin left it for the moment.

  “When did you last see your brother?”

  “In the afternoon, I went up to his rooms to see if I could persuade him to come down and eat dinner with the family. He had not done so since the girl died.”

  “You mean he stayed up in his rooms all the time?”

  “During the day.”

  “But at night… ?”

  Mehta gave a deep sigh. “I do not know, but I think he went out at night. My wife thought she heard him come in early one morning, and two days ago I found the front door unlatched when I went out for the newspaper.”

  “Where would he go?”

  “My God, who would know? He had no friends, he didn’t drive. Where is there to walk to here?”

  Kate could have listed half a dozen late-night hot spots less than half an hour from the house by foot, including Dimitri’s leather bar, but neither she nor Al chose to enlighten the man. Instead, Hawkin asked him, “Did your brother have his own phone line?”

  “No, just an extension of the family line.”

  “Would you have heard an incoming phone call during the night?”

  “Of course.”

  “In that case, I’ll need to see a printout of the calls made on your number since your sister-in-law died.” It would save another round of search warrant forms if Mehta were willing to provide the records—but he was already nodding in agreement.

  “I’ll ask the phone company for one.”

  “What about phone calls this last week, Mr. Mehta? Any threatening calls, hang-ups, wrong numbers at strange hours?”

  Mehta nodded vigorously. “Two. We had two after Pramilla died.” He was using her name now, Kate noted. “Women, both of them. I hung up on them. And told my wife and children not to answer the phone, to let the answering machine take it. There have been a lot of hang-ups on the recorder.”

  The two detectives were silent for a minute, wondering if they ought to have known, if they should have put a tracer on the line as soon as they had a man fitting their profile of victim. Could they have foreseen the threat to Laxman Mehta, and prevented his death? Or would they have had to be psychic to guess?

  “Your brother’s income, Mr. Mehta,” Al asked. “Did he have his own bank account, charge cards, ATM card, that sort of thing?”

  “As I told your colleague, Laxman was mildly retarded. He could handle simple cash transactions—he was actually pretty good with numbers—but the concept of money was beyond him. I handled all money matters for him, gave him a cash allowance to spend at the market. He enjoyed shopping for clothes, and for knickknacks at the tourist shops. Anything bigger, I went with him to purchase.”

  Something in the phrase “handled all money matters” snagged at Kate’s attention, and she thought she ought to clarify this. “Do you mean that Laxman had money of his own? Or was he dependent on you?”

  “Of course he was dependent on me,” Mehta said impatiently. “You met him, you saw the problem.”

  “Financially, I mean, Mr. Mehta. Did your brother have any money of his own?”

  “In a manner of speaking, yes. Our father wished to be fair, so he left a small portion of his estate in trust for Laxman.”

  “How does that work, to have money in trust?” she asked innocently, to see how he would respond.

  Mehta picked up a gold pen from his desk and fiddled with it, put it down and picked up a small bronze figurine. “The money is there, in an account and stocks, and the income goes into another account that is jointly in my name with that of Laxman. Theoretically, he could have drawn from it, although he could not have touched the capital.”

  “And you were the, what do they call it, executor?” Al stepped in to resume the questions. Kate had no doubt that her partner knew perfectly well what the word was.

  “I was. Am, since I am also the executor for Laxman’s estate.”

  “And now that he is dead, who inherits?”

  “Inspector, I really don’t know why—”

  “Just answer the question please, Mr. Mehta.”

  “My brother was killed by… by terrorists, and you sit here questioning me about my financial affairs?” Mehta spluttered indignantly.

  “We can find out easily enough, Mr. Mehta.”

  “My children,” he told them furiously. “My four children will inherit their uncle’s estate. Mani’s nephews and nieces.”

  “Although it will, I assume, be in trust for them until they reach the age of twenty-one? Isn’t that how such things usually work?”

  “It is.” The terse response showed that Mehta well understood the implications a suspicious detective might place on the transfer of money, but there was no hesitation in his answers. “At the time my eldest reaches twenty-one it will be legally presumed that my wife and I are having no more children, and Mani’s estate will then be divided equally between however many there are.”

  “Until then, you are in charge of your brother’s estate?”

  “Yes.”

  “And how much money is actually involved?”

  Mehta’s eyes came up to meet Hawkin’s. “In the vicinity of a million dollars. Depending on the state of the stock market, you understand.”

  Hawkin nodded sympathetically, as if the recent downswing in
stock values had inconvenienced him as well. “Mr. Mehta, are you sure there was no such provision in your father’s will, that Laxman should inherit the money at the age of twenty-one?”

  A muscle in the line of Mehta’s jaw jumped, once, and he picked up the pen again as if thinking deeply.

  “He did inherit, didn’t he?” Al prompted.

  “No! For heaven’s sake, Inspector, Laxman was already twenty-two when our father died. There was no question of his inheriting. Unless,” Mehta continued in a slow and reluctant voice, “circumstances changed.”

  “Those circumstances being…?”

  “Our father was trying to be fair, especially to any children Laxman may have had. The doctors told him that any children Laxman might have would be normal, that his mental condition would not be passed on.

  “So Laxman would have inherited if Pramilla had children?”

  “Not Laxman. Our father knew he couldn’t manage more than a few dollars on his own.”

  “Mr. Mehta,” Al said, his voice showing impatience for the first time, “if you are refusing to tell us what financial arrangements your father made concerning your brother, then say so. Don’t assume I won’t find out the details on my own. With a homicide like this one, I can easily get a warrant, and your lawyer will be required to tell me. Everything.”

  That final threat got to Mehta. He exhaled, and put down the pen. “My brother had inherited the money the day he married. I was still a signator on the account, and I had planned on using some of it as a down payment on die house down the street for him and his wife. I did not tell Laxman at the time, because it would have confused him.”

  “And Pramilla?” Kate asked coldly.

  “What about her?”

  “Did she know that her husband was in himself a wealthy man, not just a person living off his brother? Or did you not want to confuse her, either?”

  “You make all this sound so sinister,” Mehta complained. “The girl was a peasant. She could barely read, couldn’t speak a word of English when she came here. I wanted to give her a chance to grow up, to learn about her position and her responsibility. Tell me what you would have done, Inspector. Would you have told a fifteen-year-old, virtually illiterate village girl that by writing her name on a piece of paper, she could have anything she wanted? Any clothing in the shops, any flashy car, a house she couldn’t begin to care for? Would you?”