Murder Makes the Wheels Go Round

by Emma Lathen

  “What do you mean over the hump? You’re not going to let them take away the division now are you? “she challenged. Her outing with the ladies had been teetotal so she wasn’t in the best of moods. “No. I’ve had that sewed up for weeks. You know that.”

  “I know that’s your story,” she said nastily. “It doesn’t seem to have gone down so well at the company before Ray was shot.”

  Wahl stared grimly ahead at the road as his hands tightened on the steering wheel. “My story and Krebbel’s. Remember that.”

  His wife’s discontented face moved restlessly as she hitched up the mink store required of MM front office wives, regardless of temperature or season. “All right, all right,” she muttered. “You know I will back you up whatever you say.”

  “Whatever I say! But I’m telling you the truth,” he howled.

  “Then why are you getting so upset? If you’ve got the division sewed up what else can go wrong?”

  “Plenty,” as his lips tightened again. “You seem to have forgotten we are in the midst of a murder investigation. As if that isn’t enough, we’ve got people nosing around trying to find out who was the tipster.”

  “I thought they were trying to brush that under the rug.”

  “They were until Ray came back. He got them all stirred up. But if they have any brains they will let it die down now.”

  “Why should they?” his wife demanded perversely. “They ought to find out and get rid of him.”

  “You don’t know anything about it,” he barked. “A witch hunt doesn’t do the division any good. We’ve got enough trouble as is. Much better to let sleeping dogs lie.”

  “That’s the trouble with you. You’re always ready to let things lie. Sometimes people have to stand up for things. But not you...” as she tapered off.

  Wahl resorted to a diversion which never failed that always stopped her tenaciousness as a bull dog. He made his gesture, “It is early; let’s stop off for a drink Audrey.”

  She brightened right up and said, “You know, it is a good thing Ray got himself murdered.”

  As the same time a union PR man was discussing the murder too. “It is a shame Jensen was murdered. So long as he was out at MM it gave a nice indignant air to our releases.”

  “Now Sid,” said Thad reasonably, “we’ve been indignant for 20 years with no help from Jensen.”

  The 2 men were putting the finishing touches to a statement Thad would shortly deliver at a press conference. The contract negotiations were not far off and the union was beginning their usual drum beats. “Well they are bound to ask you about the murder, Thad,” persisted Sid. “And we have to think of something for you to say.”

  “There’s only one thing the union can say.”

  20 minutes later the occasion arrived and Thad was rising to meet the occasion. “A loss,” he said shaking his handsome head gravely. “A great loss indeed,” using the same words delivered previously by Chairman Lionel French.

  Chapter 13

  Men Working

  As Fabian Riley had observed, the Jensen death was a real loss to the DOJ as 3 men in a DOJ office observed together 2 days after the funeral.

  “So we will never know what he might have told us,” Riley reported to his bosses.

  “We may not know but we can make a good guess,” one of the others said. The gloom in the office deepened. There is never any shortage of good guesses in the Antitrust Division of the DOJ. An entire staff labors mightily to no purpose other than the elevation of these kinds of guesses into hard facts and trial worthy evidence.

  The boss behind the desk flapped his hand as if to clear the air and said, “That doesn’t help any, Art. The point is that Riley, here, thinks that the whole murder may hinge on just this consideration in which case the department has a real interest in seeing that the investigation doesn’t get sidetracked or bogged down because the local police don’t have access to our knowledge.”

  “Well, Riley, if you’re going to explain the ins and outs of that conspiracy to the Michigan police, I wish you luck. I had the devil’s own time doing it for a Michigan jury.”

  Riley bit back an uncharitable comparison between Captain Georgeson and that bluest of blue ribbon juries. Instead he contented himself by saying the police thought the entire antitrust complication was irrelevant.

  “I suppose they are just passing it off as a lucky coincidence,” Art snorted. “We all know what Jensen was, ambitious, unscrupulous, and out entirely for himself. But he never offered to make a deal. He just took his sentence like a lamb and sat tight on a whole wad of figures and names. Now, you can’t make me think he was doing that because of noblesse oblige.

  No indeed Riley agreed silently. What’s more he was willing to bet that Jensen had played his cards wrong. MM instead of being grateful was wary of him. Buck, a less forceful and less dangerous personality, might still be welcomed back into the fold. Dunn had been junior enough to dismiss. But Jensen?

  “They were going to wash their hands of him and he wouldn’t have taken that. He would have come to us for his revenge.”

  “And very nice it would have been,” sighed Julian Summers. “But it doesn’t seem impossibly difficult to explain to a layman.”

  “Things aren’t that simple,” Riley stated.

  “They never are at MM,” Art added. “You see, there are 2 sides to the coin. Jensen may have been killed because of what he knew. But it is also possible he was killed because of what he was going to find out.”

  2 pairs of raised eyebrow invited him to continue as he did, “Jensen was trying to find out who the tipster was. The front office had been hoping to forget about that.”

  His listeners frowned in thought. “It would be awkward at this late date for MM to discover it was someone who profited from our cleanup,” Art contributed.

  “That’s their problem but still part of our business. Now the way I see it I’m not going to be able to spare you from Detroit until this investigation either is concluded or deemed hopeless. We’ll give it another week, at least,” Summers concluded grimly.

  Art intervened. “Quincy won’t like that. He’s been hoping to send Riley out to Denver for a month now.”

  “Yes, I know. I got another memo from him this morning reminding me that there are other industries in the country besides cars. He’ll just have to learn the facts of life about operating with limited personnel.”

  Quincy was a recent political appointee thirsting for a major kill. None of the regulars were wasting any sympathy on his troubles. Riley then added with some diffidence, “There is one other thing, Sir. I don’t know if you have heard but there’s been talk of moving forward with their public offer.”

  “I thought they’d dropped that for the time being,” replied Summers, giving proof of the efficiency of the department’s economic intelligence section.

  “Yes, they have. But in the meantime they have had a banker practically living with the front office day and night. He could know a lot.”

  “What banker?”

  “John Thatcher of the Sloan.”

  “Wall Street,” Art said darkly. “You wouldn’t get anything out of him.”

  “I wasn’t thinking of violating any professional confidences. But he must have picked up a lot of personal detail.”

  “Forget it,” advised Art.

  “I don’t know about that,” mused Summers. “There might be possibilities there. But you will have to go cautiously. I think I will leave that to your discretion, bearing in mind, of course, the interests of the department.” He paused and then, apparently satisfied with the ambiguity of his instructions, continued briskly to those orders which could be put into words, “Now, Riley, you can hand over the routine surveillance to that youngster we sent you. I want you to concentrate on liaison with the State police.”

  Riley was ready to bring all the vigor of an enraged and balked reformer to his task. He was perfectly prepared to place himself at the disposal of the police. And with him
his enormously detailed information about the inner MM workings. Unfortunately, he thought as he drove to their barracks on Friday morning, the police did not seem inclined to capitalize on either of these powerful assets. He swung off Telegraph Road onto their extensive grounds, drove past the dormitory for uniformed police, and once again entered the spacious offices that clacked endlessly with messages about stolen cars and missing husbands.

  Georgeson rated a small well designed private cubicle soothingly decorated in beige. These offices compared favorably to the shabbiness of DOJ offices everywhere he had visited. Riley would have traded the whole trim ensemble for 1 copy of Standard & Poor’s and a man who could understand it, as he found himself 15 minutes later saying, “I think you are wrong, Georgeson, absolutely wrong.”

  Mindful of instructions to cooperate with the federal authorities, Georgeson let his gaze stray to the portrait of a bygone Michigan dignitary on the wall and emulated its patient smile. “All right, Riley, tell me where I’m wrong. Madsen has fallen for Jensen’s wife. Everyone knows it from the Holzingers and Wahls to the MM secretaries. He wanted her to divorce Jensen to marry him. She even left him before the trial. But Jensen didn’t go along apparently. Now you have to admit that gave Madsen a great motive.”

  “Yes, I admit that--” began Riley, before being waved to silence by Georgeson’s hand.

  “So Madsen has his motive. Then he admits he had a rough fight with Jensen. Probably the night Jensen was murdered.”

  “But Jensen was killed the next day,” Riley pointed out. “A lot of people saw Jensen Wednesday morning, Dunn for example. And Madsen and one of his witnesses says the fight was Tuesday night.”

  “The neighbors aren’t so sure it wasn’t Wednesday. Madsen and Jensen fight; Madsen goes after him, shoots him, manages to get the body in the Plantagenet which was sitting by the pool. It would have been a cinch for Madsen to put the body into the backseat sometime Thursday. And there you are.”

  “Years of pursuing financial peccadilloes had sharpened Riley’s eye for detail.” The neighbors,” he said with a pause.

  “Name of McKenna. Good solid citizens. Respected in the community. No reason to dislike Madsen...”

  “Aren’t they 80 years old?” Riley inserted since he knew they were.

  Georgeson was not fond of contradiction and generally managed to avoid them. He was kept from retorting by a uniformed trooper who opened the door, “Governor’s on the phone, Captain.”

  Georgeson expanded before their eyes. Abandoning Riley, he reached for the phone, clearing his throat. “Georgeson here,” he said, his voice lowered and more resonant than usual. “Yes, Mr. Governor. Yes sir...certainly, sir...”

  With the civil servant’s contempt for elected officials, Riley listened to Georgeson’s eager monosyllables. His own goal, to apprehend a murderer and incidentally to punish the criminal who had aborted DOJ information, was beginning to seem visionary to him.

  “The governor is interested in the case. He had ties with the industry himself you know. I told him we are 95% sure Madsen did it. He’s got the motive and opportunity. And Mrs. Jensen’s story is so fishy it could swim. The way I see it, she ran into Madsen, and he told her he killed her husband.”

  Georgeson’s side of the conversation with the Governor had been confined to Yes Sirs and No Sirs. Riley did not waste time pricking bubbles of the policeman’s self-esteem; instead he reverted to his earlier argument.

  “Look Georgeson. You have to admit that all you’ve got against Madsen is motive, which I grant you, and a lot of circumstantial evidence. Sure, this Madsen Mrs. Jensen mess is a strong motive for the usual murder. But this isn’t an ordinary murder.” He tried to keep his temper from rising as he noted Georgeson’s mulish look. To prevent being interrupted he went on quickly. “First 3 MM executives were convicted of price fixing; now that’s important and you are overlooking it.”

  “Listen Riley, I don’t like that tone of voice,” said the Captain, bucked up by the Governor’s call. “I’m not overlooking anything. We’ve checked up on Holzinger and Dunn, as well as Jensen. We’ve listened to everything you had to say. But big shots from other companies went to prison didn’t they? They’re not dead. You’ve got an ax to grind, I can see that.”

  “Don’t you understand? Things at MM went to hell because nobody decided what to do with these 3 when they got out of jail.” Riley brought his fist down onto the desk and glared at the Captain. “Look, this was a company murder all the way. It was a company gun that killed Jensen. He was found on company grounds, in a company car. Half of top management wanted to get rid of him; he was a menace to Wahl who took his job; he railroaded Dunn into jail when he could have covered for him; he was shafting Holzinger. He might have been the tipster in which case half the Board of Directors would have been gunning for him too.”

  Georgeson was not unaffected by this show of conviction. “Watch your step Riley,” he rumbled, tempted to shake Riley like a wet dog. “In the first place Madsen works at MM; he had access to the gun; he could put Jensen in the car on company grounds.”

  He threw himself back in his chair and made an unconvincing attempt at humor, “I can see you are a specialist with a one track mind. I don’t deny all this business stuff is important. That’s why the Governor keeps calling. 9 out of 10 times it is liquor; but premeditated murders are about sex or money, or both. If not, I’ll turn in my badge.”

  Satisfied with this peroration, he leaned back. Riley started to reply and then stopped. He knew love, especially thwarted love, was a powerful motive. But he was disheartened that his argument had failed dismally. Georgeson could not grasp the fact that price fixing, politicking, management squabbles for position, and early retirements are as much a matter of money as a bank robbery.

  With that Riley sighed. Georgeson interpreted this wrongfully as an admission of error. He said, “Oh, I admit I haven’t got enough to pick Madsen up. But he did it. We’ve got a lot of evidence about his affair with Jensen’s wife; we have witnesses to say he was around the car on Thursday.”

  “Everyone was,” Riley inserted gamely.

  Georgeson ignored him.

  “He had motive, opportunity, and access to the weapon. He may have had help from Celia Jensen. We’ll never be able to touch her. But she knew all right, and may have helped decoy her husband.”

  “Have you grilled her?”

  Georgeson’s face darkened again. “Watch your language Riley. We pulled her in for a few questions--and a sweet mess she made of them. First she says she saw her husband on Friday. Then, after the lab says he was killed on Wednesday, she says she didn’t see him on Friday. Finally she admits seeing Madsen.”

  “If she knew that her husband had been killed,” Riley pointed out aptly, “she wouldn’t claim to have seen him on Friday, would she?”

  Georgeson, whom nature had blessed with an open face, assumed an expression of Machiavellian cunning. “That’s just it. She wanted to be sure to make us think she didn’t know her husband was dead. So she risked that lie.”

  Inured to the tortuous ways of financial fraud, Riley was nonetheless baffled by this lack of logic and showed it.”

  “She’s clever,” the policeman went on. “But all we need is confirmation...just one piece of hard proof. With these big business people we have to be careful. We can’t bring him in and break down his story until we have more to go on.”

  Riley, who had some experience in being careful with big business people, rose to go, but Georgeson continued his confidences. “Say we find someone who saw them together. Near the Plantagenet. That would do it. We’re interviewing every single person in the plant. Or the gun. We have already searched his apartment and his car. But if we had that gun, Riley, we would have everything we want. Madsen’s goose is cooked.

  “Would you have a case you could give to the DA?” Riley asked, curious about law enforcement in Michigan as never before.

  “With the gun,” repeated Georgeson, “I�
�d have everything.”

  Having exhausted the patience of the Michigan State Police, Riley turned to the last available source of information about the internal workings of the company.

  The same afternoon found him closeted with Thad, president of local 7777. Here at least was one man who did not have to be convinced that avarice, brutality, and murderous passion could arise in corporate surroundings. His problem lay in persuading him to care.

  “Big business,” Thad said conversationally, “is a pretty selfish proposition. But I want you to understand this, Riley. We don’t care if they start bombing each other in the front office, particularly when Jensen was the target, but my people have their rights, and I’m paid to look out for them. The shop stewards tell me that they’re still trying to sell the police on the idea one of our people took the gun.”

  Riley broke in to say neither he nor the DOJ harbored the slightest desire to harm those cherished rights. He was here merely because he was disturbed at his inability to convey the facts of corporate life to the police. He repeated Georgeson’s suspicions of Madsen.

  “That’s absurd. Sure he was breathing fire when Jensen came back. But I don’t blame him and neither does anyone else. Jensen was pure poison. Anyone could have told you there’d be trouble when the 2 of them got together. I wouldn’t be surprised if Glen hauled off and punched him. But to shoot him, and then get involved in a circus act sneaking the body into the plant, that’s laughable.”

  Heartened to find a Madsen supporter, Riley asked him if he knew Madsen well. “Sure. Glen does most of the background work on the negotiations rounds. He works with our people on the profit sharing plan. Nothing like what the boys at GM have been getting. Have you seen how they’re doing?”

  Thad showed signs of being distracted from the issue at hand. Riley said hastily that, yes, he had seen The Wall Street Journal figures and they were impressive. It showed cost cutting could be effective and what about the driver of the Plantagenet? Had they ever found him?