He held up an immense left hand and with his right forefinger he ticked off items of interest. “It's good we found out about the money. It's bad.”—he ticked another finger—"that they know about it, about our interest.” He ticked another finger. “And then there is you. Are you any good to us? You are their man, it seems. They have a contact in you. Now we will never know if you are working for us, or for them.”
“But I work for you,” Cap'n Lite almost shrieked. “You know that! You picked me up, gave me a job—”
The Man nodded. “That is true. You were nothing. But you had useful knowledge. We thought you would be grateful, loyal, because you had been rejected by your own people.”
“I am grateful! I am loyal! How can you say that I'm not?”
“But now,” the Man said, tapping the fourth finger forcefully, “you have made your way back into the good graces of these Detroit people, you see. They will no doubt appreciate your loyalty to them. They will see that you are useful after all, that you have made amends for whatever it was that offended them. It was something to do with skimming, was it not? It couldn't have been too serious, or they would have killed you. But you were no longer trusted. They were content that you should just run away, go into exile. So you were useful to us. But now you have won your way back. And you are no longer useful to us. It is ironic, is it not?”
The Man lifted both hands as if demonstrating an obvious truth and he looked at the two men who held Cap'n Lite, but not at Cap'n Lite. He wasn't really talking to him, it seemed. He was explaining the situation to them, but explaining it in English out of deference to Cap'n Lite.
“When a man is of no use to our competitors, he is useful to us. When he becomes useful to them, he is useless to us.” He dropped his hands to his knees, sat in thought for a moment, then heaved himself to his feet. “This is a grave situation. It endangers us all. In such a situation, the leader must act. It is his responsibility, his alone.”
Now he spoke in the native tongue, his voice low and rumbling. He spoke for several minutes, addressing the two men while they held their captive even tighter. So tightly, in fact, that he cried out in pain. The rumbling stopped. The Man looked at Cap'n Lite in surprise, then said something to the two men in the island language. They immediately changed their grip, moving their hands down to grasp his hands, almost like children, except that they also grasped him by the wrists with their other hands. Also, they stepped away, slightly, so that Cap'n Lite's arms were now more or less extended.
The Big Man approached Cap'n Lite, loomed over him. He stood so close, at last, that he was almost touching him. He looked gravely down into Cap'n Lite's eyes and said something incomprehensible. Then he put his hands around Cap'n Lite's neck and began to squeeze. He was very powerful. His hands completely encircled the scrawny neck. He squeezed. The gesture knocked off Cap'n Lite's hat, exposing his bony skull with its few clinging strands of pale hair. Cap'n Lite started to protest. “I'm a sick ma—” he got out.
The big man squeezed harder, cutting off all sound. Cap'n Lite's tongue protruded, his eyes bulged. He tried to struggle but it was hopeless. The men held his arms; he had no room to move. He knew he was being murdered, that this was it, that there was no argument, even if he were allowed air to speak it, and then he lost consciousness.
When the strangler was confident that his victim was dead, he released him and stepped back. He wrinkled his nose. The victim had fouled his pants. The murderer spoke to the two assistant murderers in their own tongue and they dragged the dead man to one side, holding him still at arm's length. The big man stood, self-absorbed, rubbing his hands together, kneading first one then the other. All the while he gazed pensively at the dirty window. But finally he seemed composed. He took a deep, chest-lifting breath, straightened his coat and buttoned it, turning up the collar. Then he went out the door.
When the two assistant murderers heard the leader's car drive away, they dragged Cap'n Lite out to the Cadillac and heaved him into the trunk like a sack of garbage. One of them went into the cabin and retrieved the hat, tossing it into the trunk before he slammed the lid. They drove back into Salt Lake City and, around four A.M., they decanted the body and the hat onto a quiet downtown corner, 300 South at 400 West, near the Amtrak station. It was discovered about an hour later by a cruising policeman who at first thought it was a derelict. But it was too cold for a derelict to be out. It was the very dead of winter.
13
Music Lessons
Mulheisen was trying to explain to Cateyo why she should talk to him. “A lot of people think that they don't ever have to talk to the police; that's the popular notion, but it's not true.” That sort of thing. The problem was compounded by the presence of Ms. Daphne Z. Stonborough, sometime attorney to Helen Sedlacek and now retained by Cathleen Yoder. Since Ms. Yoder was not in custody and was not accused of any crimes, at this point, she had only consented to speak to Mulheisen if the interview took place in Counselor Stonborough's offices. Mulheisen didn't mind this. He liked Ms. Stonborough. She had two invaluable assets: competence and intelligence. He disliked having to deal with incompetent attorneys, which he seemed to meet all too frequently.
The valuable thing about interviewing a witness in the presence of a competent lawyer was that the lawyer willy-nilly aids the detective by not permitting illegal and improper questions, so there is less chance to see a case thrown out of court by impropriety of the investigating officer. Mulheisen appreciated this. Still, there were problems. Essentially, what one had to do was convince the attorney that the client should talk to the police, that it was in her best interests. This is never an easy thing to do. It is well known that the most hideous sound in the world, to a lawyer, is the sound of her client's voice.
As Mulheisen saw it, he had to convince Ms. Stonborough and Ms. Yoder that it was all right to say who the woman was who had accompanied Cateyo to Joe Service's cabin and, secondarily (though most important, in Mulheisen's eyes), where Joe Service was now. Mulheisen started by explaining that he knew another woman had accompanied Cateyo to the Service cabin. He didn't say anything about a satellite, just that he had a witness, but he declared that the witness was ironclad.
“Who is this witness?” Ms. Stonborough wanted to know.
Mulheisen said politely, calmly, but with all the confidence he could muster, that the witness could not presently be identified. The witness had rights, too, just as Ms. Yoder had rights that he was bound to respect. He could not reveal this name; it would be a breach of confidence.
“Well, if you have such a wonderful witness,” Daphne sniffed, “why do you need Ms. Yoder? Your witness sounds fabulous.”
Fabulous, Mulheisen thought, in the sense of mythical? But he said, “The witness is good, irrefutable. Still, as you know, there is a difference between having a single statement and one that is corroborated by another. Beyond that, my witness is not privy to the kinds of information that we think Ms. Yoder has. My witness doesn't know Ms. Yoder's friend's name, for instance.” He turned to Cateyo and said, “Surely, there's no harm in giving a name.”
“I don't want to get anyone in trouble,” Cateyo said.
Mulheisen glanced at Ms. Stonborough; she was noncommittal. “This woman is already in trouble,” he said. “Deep trouble. Is she a friend of yours?”
Cateyo glanced at her lawyer, then said, “If she were a friend of mine it would be disloyal, wouldn't it, for me to betray her?”
Mulheisen brushed this aside, saying, “Loyalty is a fine sentiment, but you have to ask yourself who you're being loyal to. There is nothing ambiguous about this situation, Ms. Yoder. We believe your friend could tell us something about the murder of an elderly woman who operated a ranch in Tinstar, a ranch located within two miles of Joe Service's cabin. But we can't locate your friend, mainly because we don't know her identity.”
As he spoke he observed with satisfaction the expression of shock on Cateyo's face. Clearly, she didn't know about the murder of Grace Garla
nd, or at least she hadn't connected it with Joe Service or his cabin. For that matter, even after examination there was as yet no indication that Grace Garland had, in fact, been murdered. But she had certainly been intimidated, she had been struck, so the presumption was still murder. The Butte-Silver Bow coroner was waiting for the medical examiner's report.
He went calmly on: “I feel that you are a moral person, Ms. Yoder. You're a nurse, a woman committed to helping people. The murder victim was alone, a widow. She took in this other woman, who may have been injured, or at least in trouble. So she was helping this woman out. I don't have to tell you: out here people do this, it's the custom of the country. But sometimes it's asking for trouble. In this case, it looks like Mrs. Garland invited a killer into her home for Christmas. She was assaulted, and the woman she took in has disappeared. So we need to find this woman.”
“You don't know that this woman killed Grace Garland, then?” interjected Stonborough.
Mulheisen did not display annoyance at the interruption, nor did he take his attention from Cateyo's face. He said, “We know she was there, at the ranch, right up to the estimated time of death. We have a witness who saw her there and talked with her. We have an excellent description. We need to talk to her. You weren't there, Ms. Yoder, so we don't feel that you can tell us anything about the circumstances of Mrs. Garland's death. It doesn't have anything to do with you, directly. But you can tell us something about the woman who was with you at Joseph Humann's cabin. The man we know as Joe Service.”
“I don't see that a woman at the cabin necessarily has anything to do with a woman at Grace Garland's,” Stonborough said. “That's rather a giant leap, isn't it, to think that they are the same person?”
“No. From the descriptions we have of the woman at the cabin and the woman at the ranch, we're fairly confident that it's the same woman. But we need to nail it down. That's why Ms. Yoder's testimony is so important,” Mulheisen said. He kept his eye on Cateyo. He noted that she looked concerned. “Did the woman leave the cabin when you left?” he asked.
“No,” Cateyo said. She looked wildly at her lawyer, who only sighed and raised her eyes to the ceiling.
“So you left the cabin with Joe Service, and the other woman stayed behind?” Mulheisen asked.
“Yes.” Cateyo's reply was faint, tentative.
“But she went to the cabin with you and Joe Service?”
“Yes.”
“So you know her name. You know who she is,” Mulheisen said. “She was a friend of yours.”
“Not . . . not exactly,” Cateyo said. Again, she glanced to her lawyer for assistance, but the attorney only sat forward with interest.
“Who was she then?” Mulheisen asked.
Cateyo sighed and said, “Her name is Heather Bloom. She was my roommate.” She went on then to explain how she had met Heather at the hospital and how, later, Heather had come to her home, inquiring about a place to stay. Cateyo had rented a room to her for a couple of months. Heather seemed very nice, she said. She provided a description of Heather Bloom and said she understood that Heather was only temporarily in Butte, that she did some kind of computer work, apparently for the power company, but she expected to move on to another job before long. Heather seemed to have unconventional hours. She had volunteered to accompany Cateyo and Service to the cabin, when Service was allowed an “outing.”
“You met her at the hospital,” Mulheisen said. “Was she a patient? Visiting someone?”
“No, actually, it was outside the hospital. I'd taken Joe, Mr. Humann—or Service—for a walk, in a wheelchair. She came up to us and started talking about being new in town. Then Joe had an accident—it was my fault, really, I wasn't watching what I was doing—and he fell out of the wheelchair. Heather picked him up and carried him up to the hospital while I brought the chair.”
“She carried him?” Mulheisen said. “She must be pretty strong.”
“She's quite strong,” Cateyo agreed.
“What happened at the cabin?” Mulheisen asked.
“How do you mean?” Cateyo looked tense.
Mulheisen mused for a moment, then said, “Well, I take it that you weren't planning to spend the night. That wasn't the plan for the outing that the doctor had authorized, was it?”
“No, but once we got there and the weather started to turn bad . . . I mean, there wasn't any problem with staying over. I called the hospital. It was all right.”
“But you didn't stay over,” Mulheisen pointed out. “You and Service left, despite the weather. But Heather Bloom didn't leave with you. Why?”
“Why?” Cateyo looked at Daphne Stonborough. The attorney held up her hand, to stop her, then asked Mulheisen to step out of the office. He only had a few moments to kick his heels in the outer office before he was invited back in.
“You may proceed, Sergeant Mulheisen,” the attorney said, “but please go carefully. I don't want to compromise my client's rights here.”
“Of course,” Mulheisen said, showing his teeth as amiably as he could. “So, Ms. Yoder . . . you and Service left together, but Heather stayed behind. Why didn't she go with you?”
Cateyo still seemed quite confused and uncertain, despite her conference with Stonborough. She knew that she had committed herself to telling about the situation at the cabin, but she was unwilling to elaborate. Mulheisen simply sat and waited. He'd always found it a very good tactic, simply sitting and waiting. The interviewee gets nervous, wants to fill the silence, becomes more and more conscious that only she can break this deadlock.
“I. . . .I don't know,” Cateyo faltered. “I mean, we weren't planning to go back to Butte, to the hospital. We weren't going anywhere that she would . . . “ Her voice faded. She didn't know how to go on.
“You didn't want her to go with you, with you and Joe?” Mulheisen suggested, helpfully. When she nodded agreement, he went on: “But why did you and Joe leave?” Mulheisen relieved her by proceeding to the next obvious move. “Wasn't the weather too bad? Wasn't that why you stayed in the first place? The weather didn't improve suddenly, did it?”
“I believe we might be getting into another area of inquiry here, Sergeant Mulheisen,” Stonborough said.
Mulheisen turned to her and asked reasonably, “Do you think so? It seems relevant to the inquiry about Ms. Bloom.”
Stonborough considered this for a moment, then said, “Very well. But.” She turned to Cateyo. “If you feel uncertain, just say so and we can consider it privately before proceeding.”
“You and Joe left together, without Heather,” Mulheisen prompted, “even though the weather had not improved. Why?”
Cateyo just stared dumbly at Mulheisen. She was a moral woman, brought up in a strict fundamentalist Christian family. She didn't want to lie, but she had to protect Joe.
Mulheisen recognized the situation; it was the usual problem: the witness was trying to decide whether to lie and then to what extent. He could help the person lie by suggesting something neutral or more or less true to which she could agree, or seize on, as a possible alternative to the whole truth. This would lead to a situation where she must slip into the lie or back out of the muddied water. People don't like to back out; it makes them look as if they'd already lied, when they had not, really. So they tend to take another tentative step into a less tenable, but still not quite false position. Then, once the person has embarked on this not-quite-lie he could let her get deeper and deeper into a morass and then either rescue her or offer her a way out to the blessed firm ground of the truth, or he could confront her and bully her into the truthful admission, or . . . there were a lot of variations on the tune. But the tune was definitely starting. Now was the time to take care. He was reminded of a saying he had heard recently, attributed to the great jazz saxophonist Coleman Hawkins: “I hear a tune, but I cannot play it.” He could hear the distant strains of the tune, but not all the changes.
“What time did you leave?” he asked, choosing the neutral question.
This she could answer freely; nothing was involved. “I think it was about ten, maybe a little later. I'm not sure.”
“Did Heather object to your leaving?”
This was more difficult, dodgy in fact. Heather had actually attempted to murder them both, but Cateyo was confident that there was no way that Mulheisen could know this. The question could be answered just as Cateyo improvised: “You could say that.”
Mulheisen began to get excited. There was something definitely wrong here. He wanted to find out what had happened—had they argued? Had Heather threatened them in some way? But he was patient. “But you decided to leave her there? Did she have a car?” He knew from the satellite pictures that there had been only one car, but it was an opportunity for Cateyo to embroider, to elaborate, to make up a lie. She didn't do it.
“Uh, no,” Cateyo said, glancing at Daphne, who bent forward at her desk, fascinated and curious.
“You left her in the cabin without a vehicle? In a blizzard?” Mulheisen's tone was not condemning, but mildly puzzled. It was a distraction. It led Cateyo to believe that he was more interested in her behavior toward Heather than in Heather's behavior, or Joe's.
“It was my car,” she said, defensively.
Mulheisen shrugged. “So you left,” he said, neutrally. He paused for a long moment. He supposed she would anticipate that he would ask where she and Joe had gone, and she would be preparing her response. “Have you seen her since?”
“Hunh? Why no. No, I haven't.”
“You didn't go back to get her? You left her up at Joe's cabin, in a storm, and you didn't go back to get her?” He managed to sound faintly incredulous.
“Well, I . . . we . . . we heard there was a fire. . . . I assumed she was all right, people would have helped her . . . “
Mulheisen seemed to accept this lame response, saying, “But you haven't heard from her, you haven't heard anything about her, have you?”
Dead Folks Page 19
