Payton chuckled appreciatively, and I managed a twisted smile. “I can’t argue with you about the bouncing on the head bit, but it still doesn’t change the facts. You should consider them before you laugh. Here’s the key one: Charles Wentworth Payton had a wife whose behavior was not only an embarrassment and a danger to him in his private life and his attempt to run for public office, she was also getting ready to take him for one hundred million dollars.” Duffieux looked up sharply.
“Think about that for a while,” I said. “One…hundred…million…dollars. That’s what a divorce might have cost him.”
Tama looked skeptical and I waggled a finger. “No marriage contract with separation of property like you French so cleverly have. Half of everything was hers. And Payton didn’t like it. He was the one who’d made the money, and he intended to hang on to it. So he set out to do something about it. He could have pulled the kidnapping stunt anytime, but he waited to see how his senatorial campaign was coming along. And we know how it is: lousy.
“When he arrived here three weeks ago he was losing by 15 percent in the polls. When you’re that far behind what have you got to lose by taking a chance? Maybe a kidnapped wife would get him the sympathy vote. It’d certainly bring him publicity, and when you’re running against an incumbent that’s what you always need—to get your name recognized.”
“You should be my campaign manager,” said Payton agreeably.
I shrugged. “So what do the latest polls show? Are you still 15 percent behind?”
I’d finally touched him. He bounced to his feet, fists clenched. “That’s got nothing to do with it!” he shouted. “You miserable bastard, you think I’d kill my wife just so…just so.…” He spluttered with rage.
“Sure,” I said equably. “I do think so. And to save yourself one hundred million dollars.”
“But I don’t even know these Wests.…”
“That’s what you say. You’ve been coming to Tahiti for twenty years—you’ve never been to the Hotel Taaone? You’ve never met any of your wife’s friends? Hell, a man like you spends half his life on the road—you could have met them on the West Coast. Or you could have remembered reading about Susan West, girl terrorist and kidnapper. For that matter, you’re in the publishing game: you could have interviewed her. Don’t worry, Payton, once they start digging they’ll tie you to them.”
Duffieux sat forward. “You’re saying that Monsieur Payton originated this…scheme? That the Wests were just following his instructions?”
“Absolutely. He orchestrated it from the start. It didn’t make you wonder at the start when you heard how he refused to pay the ransom, how he refused to believe she’d actually been kidnapped?”
“But that’s because—” Payton began, and stopped.
“Because he was getting ready to milk it for every drop of publicity he could get,” I said. “Any ordinary billionaire running for the U.S. Senate would either have paid off the first time he was contacted, or would have been down here like a flash. But what does Payton do? He carries on with his campaign in Truth or Consequences, New Mexico.” I snorted scornfully.
Tama nodded assent. “I remember at the time.…”
“…how odd you thought it was,” I reminded him. “Payton was just stalling until he thought the time was ripe. Finally, he had the Wests start sending those photos to the newspapers, and the story broke. So down he came, bringing with him half the media in the Western World.” I appealed to their natural chauvinism. “Is that the way a French senator would behave?”
Tama and Duffieux exchanged a long look that Payton didn’t like.
“Now wait a minute here.…” he protested, but Duffieux gestured imperiously and he fell into smoldering silence.
“When he got here,” I went on, “he discovered something that threatened to ruin his entire plans. He discovered that the Wests had cooked up a little scheme of their own, which they were running at the same time as the kidnapping.”
“Mmmm,” said Duffieux pensively. “The paratroopers.”
“Exactly,” I said. “That’s what’s always so dangerous about taking on partners—they tend to have minds of their own. All Payton was concerned about was getting rid of his wife and saving his money. Obviously he was going to give the Wests a cut of the ransom money once it was handed over, but the Wests were living in a fantasy world of their own—maybe they’d even come to believe all of the stories they’d made up about themselves and their prospects. They wanted more than just money—they wanted their hotel. So clever Bob West decided that this was the perfect time to get the paratroopers off his back.”
“By framing them for the kidnapping,” said Duffieux.
“That’s right. Only Payton happens to be a little smarter than Bob West was. He saw that any time you introduce extraneous elements into a scheme you begin to endanger the whole structure. For instance, if the frame-up against the paras was to go wrong, then the question would be, ‘Who could have set it up and why?’ Which is just exactly what we did ask ourselves. And the answer was obviously the Wests. I mean, once you start looking at them, they couldn’t bear very close examination.”
“It’s too bad you didn’t think of all this a little earlier,” said Tama sharply. “It might have saved Mrs. Payton’s life. Instead, you had us bugging the Wests’ house.”
I grimaced ruefully. “She’d been dead for several days by then: they must have killed her just as soon as they knew the paras were locked up. And bugging their house would have worked, just as I planned, except for one thing: Payton here knew all about it.”
Tama and Duffieux turned to consider Payton. Their faces were grave. Richecoeur hitched his chair closer.
“I was working for Payton, remember? He was the first person I told my suspicions about the Wests to. That must have given him a nasty shock. He could see what would happen, just as he’d feared once he learned about the Wests’ frame-up scheme. They’d be brought in for questioning, eventually they’d talk, Mrs. Payton’s body would be discovered, and to save their own skin they’d implicate him as deeply as possible.”
“In that case, there’d be only one thing to do,” said Tama with detachment, falling easily into the police interrogation routine. “He’d make plans to kill them.”
“It was a cinch,” I said. “First he warned them they were going to be bugged and that I was going to feed them some corny routine. They probably had a good chuckle about it. ‘Why don’t you go right home,’ says Payton, ‘after LaRoche gives you the spiel and tell Susan about it. You can ooh and ah at what surprising news it is, and then go right back to your ordinary routine. The cops will be taking down every word, and the only thing the whole deal will prove will be your innocence!’”
I grinned wolfishly at Payton, who stared back sullenly. “That was quick thinking. But you were lucky, you know. You really shouldn’t have gotten away with it.”
He shook his head as if the words were meaningless. “What now?” he asked wearily. “Your imagination is bottomless.”
“I mean when you killed the Wests. All it would have taken when you drove up was for Susan or Bob to say, ‘Hey, there’s good old Charlie Payton out there, I wonder what he wants?’ and your goose would have been cooked. You couldn’t have planned on Susan West turning on that electric mixer just as you drove up.…”
Payton sighed irritably and climbed to his feet. “I’ve never heard such a fantastic amount of nonsense.” He turned to Tama. “I’m surprised three responsible officials such as yourselves would lend yourselves to it. When I get back to the States I’ll have a word or two with some people about that.”
It was the wrong thing to say. Tama’s face hardened. “Just a moment,” he snapped. “I have a further question.”
Payton’s face reddened, and he turned to stare balefully at Tama. “Well?”
“It’s very easy to settle this once and for all,” said Tama. “Just where were you at the time the Wests were killed? You certainly weren’t with
us at the Gendarmerie while we were listening to the bugs from their house.”
Payton’s lips tightened. “I was phoning the States,” he said shortly. “I do have other things to do than listen—”
“Interesting,” purred Tama. “It will be easy to verify since, of course, we were still running a tap on your phone. Your conversations will naturally have been recorded.”
“Of…course,” said Payton hesitantly. “Wait. Let me think. Maybe I was on the plane for those calls. Yes, I remember now. I was calling a number of…influential people in Washington and New Mexico.” He drew himself up and stared at Tama coldly. “My house was jammed with television clowns, and my phone was tapped. These were confidential calls,” he said acidly. “I have a complete communications center on my plane. I definitely remember now that I went to the plane. I spent several hours there.”
“I see,” said Tama. “Your radio officer will be able to vouch for—”
“I don’t need anyone to help me call the States,” said Payton irritably. “You think I’m a child? I.… Oh.” He frowned. “Well, of course, there was someone to let me in the plane,” he added hurriedly.
“And he stayed with you all the time you were there?” asked Duffieux, at last scenting blood.
Payton ran his hands through his hair. “Well.…”
I got painfully to my feet. “I’m going to fall on the floor if I sit here any longer. Can I go?”
Payton glared at me with open hatred. I winked at him.
Duffieux rubbed a fingertip along his lips, then nodded minutely. “As long as you’re back here at…oh, let’s say ten tomorrow morning. This morning.”
I could feel my head moving wearily up and down as I tried to nod. I had to concentrate to get it to stop.
“Until tomorrow,” I said. “I mean, this morning. Gentlemen.”
CHAPTER 37
Dawn was about to arrive, and with it the early morning flight from Los Angeles, so the town’s taxi drivers were up and about. A cop at the switchboard had one in front of the Commissariat within five minutes. I gave the driver instructions and fell asleep as soon as my head touched the back of the seat.
Twenty minutes later he shook me awake and we drove slowly up the private road to the Payton’s mountain home. The Renault was where I’d left it—how long ago now? I couldn’t remember. The rent-a-car people would be happy to tell me. Its starter turned over reluctantly but finally it caught and I paid off the taxi driver.
Then I walked slowly in the early morning light through the dew-laden grass. The leach pit was closed now, its grisly contents gone. I gave it a quick, furtive glace and walked on. The wreckage of the generator shed and the water tank was complete. The explosion had torn through the cement-block wall of the shed, and the legs of the tank had collapsed, tumbling the tank onto what was left of the shed. Somewhere in there a nameless gendarme had been blown to pieces. Now there was nothing more to see than a heap of twisted metal and shattered wood. Did his spirit linger somewhere in there, crying for revenge?
I stood in silence, shivering in the cool mountain air, then walked slowly back to the car.
It took me less than a minute to find the note that had lured me there, stuck in the gap between the seat cushions. I slipped it into a pocket. Had I poked it there myself? Had Schneider hidden it there? While I ponderously turned these weighty questions over in my mind I felt my eyes closing of themselves and laid my forehead for a moment on the steering wheel to help me think.
When I came to with a jerk it was 8:30 and the sun was streaming in the window. My mouth tasted like the Lippizaner Stallions had camped there for the night. I found an outside water faucet by the garage and turned it on. No water. Suddenly I remembered: no tank. I grimaced, knuckled my eyes, and staggered back to the car.
When I arrived in Punaauia forty minutes later Tamara Payton was waiting in the doorway. Her face was grim. I sighed and walked slowly toward her. I stopped six feet away and nodded somberly. Her breasts rose and fell as she breathed through clenched teeth.
“So!” she barked. “That’s the kind of friend you are. You take my money, you take my father’s money, and then…and then you put him in jail!” Her eyes flashed.
I gestured apologetically. “You don’t—”
“—understand?” she hissed, and drew nearer by a stride. Her pretty college-girl looks were distorted now by anger. “I certainly do understand. He swindled you out of your $100,000 and this is your way of getting even!”
“Tamara, that’s not—”
“Of course it’s true. Look at you, you can’t even look me in the eye!”
I could, of course, but there was no particular reason to. “I just came to get my—”
“I bet you did!” She moved closed, and I wondered if she was going to attack me. In my state, an assault by a three-legged kitten could easily be fatal. “Even a slimy no-good like you wouldn’t dare to go on living in the house of the man you’ve just put in jail!”
“Hold it,” I pleaded wearily. “He is in jail, he really is?”
“Well…” she conceded reluctantly, “Tama didn’t actually say he was in prison, he just said he was being held until some questions could be cleared up. But that’s what they said about you!” she flared. “And then look what happened—that Schneider monster tortured—”
“No one’s going to be torturing a friend of the President,” I said impatiently, although I had to admit to myself that in this particular case the idea wasn’t totally abhorrent.
Her head fell forward against my chest. “Oh, Rocky,” she said, her voice muffled, “just…just because he cheated you out of that money and…and…likes to do disgusting things with boys doesn’t mean that he killed my mother!”
“You know about—”
“Of course,” she said scornfully. “I think he’s hateful and despicable and weak and foolish, but he’s still my father, and he didn’t kill my mother and he didn’t kill those awful West people even though they deserved it and I wish he had!”
I managed a weak smile. “You really think he didn’t?”
“I just told you, dammit all! Why don’t you believe me?”
“Well, I do believe that you be—”
“You bastard! You’re just laughing at me! I tell you, he couldn’t have killed the Wests, he was with me when they were killed.”
I studied her dubiously. “He was? All the time? I thought he was on the phone, plotting his campaign back in New Mexico.”
She frowned in concentration. “It’s…so hard to remember when it’s so long ago and you didn’t have any reason to pay attention.… But I…remember…I drove him in to the airport sometime in the morning, you’d already gone to the police station, and one of the crew was there to open up the plane for him, and I went on board with him and we…talked for a while, he was trying to tell me that Mommy was going…going…to be all right, and…then somebody brought us a cup of coffee and he started to get out a lot of papers from his briefcase…and then I…I think I remembered I had to get some clothes from the cleaners so…so he said not to bother to wait for him and I got down from the plane and drove into town.… I…stayed there in town for lunch and then went home, and about four o’clock I remembered he was still on the plane, so I went back to get him.”
“And he was there?”
“Well, he was…standing in the parking lot, talking to some people, and when he saw me he said goodby to them and came over and got in the car and I drove him home.”
“Well.…” I said slowly.
“But don’t you see, that proves he couldn’t have killed—”
“Yeah, I guess so. If the police believe you, and if he can prove there was someone else there all the—”
Her eyes widened in shock as the final betrayal hit home. “But…but…you don’t believe me,” she whispered. “You don’t believe me!”
“Well…I’ve got to think about it,” I said evasively.
She pushed herself away violently, stag
gering me. “I hate you!” she cried, and ran back to the house.
I stood there motionless for a long time.
Finally I nodded in weary agreement.
I didn’t like myself very much either.
CHAPTER 38
Tama made it unanimous by glaring at me when I walked into his office at five after ten.
“Confessed yet?” I asked, and the glare intensified. I sympathized. It wasn’t a policeman’s dream, holding a multimillionaire Senatorial candidate who was a wood-chopping pal of the President’s. It was a situation fraught with dangers, and conductive to long deep thoughts about other fields of employment. “What about Duffieux’s meeting at ten?”
“Postponed,” said Tama shortly. “They’re trying to figure a graceful way to let Payton go.”
“Hrmph. So you still haven’t booked him yet?” His lips tightened.
“And you’re not getting anywhere with him, huh?”
“Listen, LaRoche,” he growled irritably. “If any one person can be said to be responsible—”
“Look,” I broke in, “sneak me in to see him and gimme fifteen minutes alone with him. I think I’ve got the key to unlock him.”
“What?” he demanded.
I shook my head. “It’s personal. It’ll either work for me, or for nobody else. If it does work, you’ll be the first to know about it.”
He eyed me suspiciously. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he muttered.
Neither did I but there was no sense in letting Tama in on the secret. I smiled purposefully. “Fifteen minutes?” I wheedled.
He grimaced in resignation and got to his feet. “If you tell anyone—”
“Mum’s the word.”
Tama led me down the hallway, to where a uniformed policeman sat in front of a closed door. “Take a break,” he ordered. When the cop had disappeared Tama unlocked the door and motioned me through. “Fifteen minutes,” he warned.
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