by Howard Fast
“Still at it, Masao?”
“Suppose I’m right? All we have to do is to identify him.”
“If we can’t convict him for murder—and I don’t see a chance of a snowball in hell that we can—then the statute of limitations has run out in the embezzlement, and he can walk around and thumb his nose at us, that is considering that you ever find him.”
“Oh, I’ll find him,” Masuto said. “As far as criminal action is concerned, you may be right that we can’t touch him. But suppose the money can be reclaimed in a civil suit?. After all, there’s no statute of limitations on stolen property. I read where they’re still litigating World War Two disputes, and that’s forty years ago.”
“You may have a point there. But don’t get any notions about becoming a rich cop. If it ever came to that, the money would go to the City of Beverly Hills.”
“It might get us that ten percent raise we’ve been asking for.”
“I doubt it.”
“Well, one step at a time, captain. By tonight I expect to know who Stanley Cutler is.”
“It’s Wednesday,” Wainwright said. “I expected as much.”
“I’m sure,” Masuto said dryly.
When Masuto returned to his office, Dawson was completing the charcoal portrait. Very skillfully, he had aged the portrait, pushing back the hairline, allowing the cheeks to expand and sag a bit, putting wrinkles around the eyes, lines on the brow and around the mouth, and loose flesh and folds of skin on the neck.
“That’s very good,” Masuto said.
“No, it isn’t. Any art student could do as well.”
“I doubt it.”
“You should see my paintings. All this crap about naturalism and photorealism that’s coming up now. I was doing it ten years ago, when I was just a kid. But you want to know about the art scene in Los Angeles? It stinks. A few lousy galleries on La Cienega, a couple in Beverly Hills that are even lousier. New York’s the place, but they tell me you got to pay six, seven hundred a month for some small, rundown loft in Soho. I need a stake. You don’t know any of the local art collectors, do you, sergeant?”
“I’m afraid not.”
“Well, who does? Anyway, here it is. What do we do now?”
“We go to see Dr. Leo Hartman.”
“You want me to drag all my stuff with me?”
“You might as well. You have fixative?”
“What am I—an amateur?”
“Good. I’ll want to fix the drawing when we finish there.”
In Masuto’s car Dawson said, “The way I got it figured is this. This character ripped off something important thirty years ago and you’re after him now. It had to be a homicide, otherwise the statute of limitations would have wiped it out. I would be mighty pleased to be let in on your secret, Sergeant Masuto.”
“Sorry. You’ll just have to be patient and read about it in the papers.”
“I don’t read the papers, sergeant. It’s too depressing. I watch the news on TV with a pad, and I draw everything I see. That’s what’s responsible for the whole decay of the art scene. Nobody knows how to draw anymore. No standards. To me drawing is like playing the piano. You just have to stick with it every day of your life or you lose it.”
Hartman kept them waiting for half an hour before he was ready to see them, during which time Dawson attempted to sketch one of the women sitting in the waiting room and was told in no uncertain terms that she had not come there to be an artist’s model. He contented himself with sketching Masuto, and had achieved a fair likeness when the receptionist told them that the doctor could see them now.
In Hartman’s office Masuto introduced Dawson while the doctor unwrapped sandwiches.
“Mighty kind of you,” Dawson said. “I didn’t expect lunch to come with it.”
“My contribution to the good cause,” Hartman said.
Masuto placed the glossy photograph of Cutler on Hartman’s desk. “This is the man who may have murdered Ben McKeever. This picture of him was taken perhaps thirty-three years ago, when he went to work at the Midtown Manhattan National Bank. It’s not the best picture in the world, but it’s all we have. That appears to have been a rather bad scar on his jaw, possibly a war wound. Now Dawson, here, has drawn his likeness as he might appear today. Of course there’s guesswork on Dawson’s part, but it’s a beginning. Here is what I would like you to do, doctor, if you will be so kind. The man in the photo comes into your office, as he came into McKeever’s office. I don’t know what went on there, and probably we never will know. But the fact is that he persuaded McKeever to change his face. Now just for the sake of our experiment, let us imagine that you are in McKeever’s place. This man comes into your office and he persuades you to change his face. Now I know nothing about your practice, but I suspect that both you and McKeever would follow somewhat the same procedure. Or are there many alternatives?”
Hartman was studying the photograph. “No, not too many alternatives. Perhaps none. Is this the only picture?”
“As I said, the only one.”
“If we only had a profile. But we haven’t, have we.”
“Here is Dawson’s drawing.”
Hartman put down the glossy and stared at the drawing. “It’s damn good.”
“Is it a reasonable reconstruction of the aging process?”
“Fairly so. I think you’ve made the neck too scrawny. The photo shows a very muscular neck. I would guess that he would wear a sixteen and a half or a seventeen shirt. Age would add flesh to it, and there would be some horizontal lines under the chin.”
“He is a man who stays in excellent physical condition,” Masuto said.
“Oh?” Hartman looked at him thoughtfully. “May I ask how you know that if you don’t know who he is?”
“In time. Could we get back to the photo? He comes into your office. You agree to change his face. What would you do?”
Hartman turned to Dawson. “How long would it take you to make a tracing of this photo—a line drawing but with all the features and marks?”
“About five minutes.”
“Do it. Meanwhile we’ll eat. You see,” he said to Masuto, taking a bite out of his sandwich, “there is not too much you can do with the human face. We’re not molding in clay. We work with flesh and bone. It’s very popular in novels and movies for the criminal to go to a plastic surgeon and order a new face. It really can’t be done. Now during the war I was a young surgeon in the Pacific, and since then I’ve done a great deal of work with people who are badly burned or injured in car crashes. In such cases, you very often do build a completely new face, but only because the old face has been destroyed, and in such cases the countenance is never quite normal.”
“Why couldn’t McKeever have done this with him?”
“Smash his face? Burn it? No, sergeant, we don’t do such things. Cosmetic surgery is limited, thank God.”
Dawson finished the tracing and handed it to the doctor. He laid it on his desk with the photograph beside it. “Suppose you change the neck on your drawing, and let me study these for a few minutes.”
For the next few minutes Hartman munched his sandwich and studied the tracing and the photo. Then he said to Dawson, “Move around so you can see what I’m doing. Then you make the changes in your drawing.”
“Okay, Doc. Got you.”
“First thing, we get rid of the scar.” He made marks on the tracing.
“Can you do that and show no new scars?” Masuto asked.
“If you’re good, and Ben McKeever was good.”
“Heavier neck and no scar,” Dawson said.
“Get rid of the mole.”
“Done.”
“Now, in getting rid of the scar, we make this incision on the other side of the jaw, cut here and here, and lo and behold we’ve changed the shape of his mouth.”
“How much?” Dawson asked.
“Just a trifle.” He made the change on his tracing. “But see how it changes his appearance. A rather petul
ant look, but his face would light up more when he smiles. It might give him a charming smile, and I suppose that with his nature, that would be an asset. Now the nose, and there’s the problem. The most prominent feature on man’s face, the nose. If we only had a profile. Do you know his name?” he asked Masuto.
“Is that important?”
“It might be.”
“Cutler. Stanley Cutler.”
“Anglo-Saxon. Or Irish, conceivably. Irish would account for that long, pointed nose—straight, long, and pointed. We’ll bob it, very simple, done it a hundred times. Here, young fellow.” He made the change on his tracing, and carefully using his kneaded eraser, Dawson changed the drawing to conform.
“Ah, now we’re beginning to see what the devil looks like. Now, one more simple detail, and we’ll have Mr. Cutler with a face that even his own mother wouldn’t recognize. Of course, that’s just an expression,” he explained to Masuto. “His mother might recognize him, but she’d want to know what he had done to himself. Then again, maybe she wouldn’t. I think if I were doing the job, she wouldn’t.”
“That one more simple detail?” Dawson suggested.
“Oh, yes. Yes, indeed. You see the way his brows come together? That’s perhaps the most noticeable feature on his face, that heavy line right across his brow. Well, we separate the brows. Remove a piece here, remove a piece here, and then, if we’re doing a really artistic job, we lessen the thickness of what remains by about a quarter of an inch. Like this.” He made the change on the tracing and pushed it over to Dawson. “See what he’s become? He’s no longer a sullen, miserable creature. He’s quite sensitive, isn’t he? The inquiring mind. Isn’t it marvelous what a raised brow will do? A trick actors learned long ago. There you are. McKeever has given him a new face, a new look, a new character, and he could walk through the corridors of any police department in perfect security.”
“And you could do all this?” Masuto asked. “The man’s face would reveal no sign of it, no scars at all?”
“For the first few months the scars would show. After all, the trauma to the skin and flesh has been very severe.”
“How long?”
“Five, six, seven months. But they are fading. By now, all trace should be gone, even to close examination.”
“Is it possible for fingerprints to disappear with burns on the fingertips?”
“Yes, indeed. And even without severe burns, if one does work of a certain kind. Great mythology about fingerprints. But you have aroused my curiosity enormously. When do you expect to arrest this man?”
“As soon as I find him,” Masuto replied, knowing it was hardly that simple. “You’ve helped us enormously.”
“It’s been fascinating. Both of you very interesting.” He handed a card to Dawson. “Keep in touch. I use an artist quite often, and the work pays. Give me a call next week.” And to Masuto he said, “I have stifled my curiosity, but a Nisei detective on our little police force, I must say I like the notion.”
“It’s interesting work,” Masuto said for want of anything else to say.
Outside, Dawson said, “So it goes. Art for art’s sake. From police artist to the reconstruction of the faces of rich dames. I wonder what he pays?”
“Ask him.”
“Right. What do you think, sergeant, am I worth twenty dollars an hour?”
“Every bit of it.”
“It’s not what they pay me at the L.A.P.D., but this is Beverly Hills, isn’t it?”
“It certainly is.”
“You got kids, sergeant?”
“Two of them.”
“Well, if they want to be artists, discourage them. My uncle’s a rancher, but I saw cows branded once, and that was the end of it for me. I’ll ride back to your office with you and fix the drawing, and then if you’re finished with me, I’ll take in some of those lousy galleries on La Cienega. Might as well see what the competition is doing.”
After Dawson had left, Masuto took the charcoal drawing into Wainwright and spread it out on his desk.
“What’s this?”
“Stanley Cutler.”
“Is this what you needed the police artist for? It doesn’t even resemble the photo you showed me.”
“No? Well, it’s thirty years later and he’s had a lot of cosmetic surgery.”
Wainwright grinned and shook his head. “You are wonderful, Masao. I don’t know what the hell to make of you, but you are something.” He stared at the drawing again. “On the other hand, I could swear that I’ve seen this man somewhere.”
“It’s rather unique, isn’t it?” Masuto said. “We discover the skeleton of a man murdered thirty years ago. The murderer has killed five other people. We know his name, and I think we know what he looks like and tonight I suspect I will know who he is, and we can’t touch him.”
“So you’ve come to that conclusion too?”
“I’m afraid so.”
“Well, there it is,” Wainwright said. “It happens. I think it happens a lot more than the public suspects. There’s a lot of killers, a lot of criminals walking around on the streets, and the cops know it, and the cops can’t touch them.”
“I still have to know who he is.”
“Why? What good will it do? You can’t tie him into any of the murders. You can’t even tie him into the embezzlement, because if he has no prints and his face is changed, there’s no way ever to prove that he’s Stanley Cutler.”
“Don’t forget,” Masuto said, “that he has taken the name of the man he put under the swimming pool.”
“So you say. Guesses. He could take any name. In the right places here in L.A. you can buy a social security card and a birth certificate, not to mention honorable discharge papers. So why stay with the name of the man he killed?”
“Because it gives him roots, a place of origin, a hometown. This man didn’t want to lose himself. He wanted to be a man of position and power. Those are his gods, wealth and power, and to have those things, he has killed without mercy.”
Wainwright looked at him long and thoughtfully. “You know, Masao,” he finally said, “we’ve been together a lot of years. If you weren’t Nisei, you’d be running this police force, although with your mind, I never understood why you wanted to be a cop. I know,” he continued, waving a hand, “it’s your karma. Only I don’t buy that. I don’t buy one little bit of it. It’s something else. I’ve watched you through a lot of cases, and particularly through this. And most of the time, I keep my mouth shut and give you a free hand. So this time I kept my mouth shut, which maybe I shouldn’t have done.” He tapped the drawing on his desk. “You’ve gone to a lot of effort. You figured out what kind of a crime led to that murder up on Laurel Way. You tracked it down. You got yourself a suspect. You got his name and background and you got a picture of what he might look like if he were alive today—and to get this picture you had to tie in a plastic surgeon and his nurse. But I’ve been asking around about Dr. Ben McKeever. Masao, he was an addict, and his nurse was an addict, and he had fouled up his life from A to Z. You took what Leo Hartman told you for gospel. Well, I don’t know what the relationship between Hartman and McKeever was, but either Hartman was taken in by McKeever, or he was covering. Well, that’s all right. McKeever was a middle-aged man and Hartman was just starting out, so maybe McKeever threw him some bones, so to speak.”
“Where did you get all this?” Masuto asked him.
“Where do you think? I called Chief Maddox, who ran the police force thirty years ago. He’s almost eighty, but he has all his buttons, and he told me the circumstances. They were having an affair. The nurse’s name was Mary Clancy. One of her kids smashed up a car and was killed. Mary overdosed and died. McKeever called the cops. When they got there, the house was in flames. The dirty stuff was hushed up. So this picture doesn’t mean one damn thing.”
“I think it does,” Masuto said slowly. “It’s been in back of my mind since I called the F.B.I. It’s been there, and I kept chasing it away.”
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br /> “What’s been there?”
“Just a notion. I chase it away, and it comes back and reverses everything. Let’s suppose that John Doe is Stanley Cutler, that it’s Stanley Cutler’s skeleton that we found under the pool, that his partner planned and executed the whole thing. Then there would be no need for concealment on the killer’s part, and no way to connect him with the embezzlement. He put Cutler into the bank, showed him how to operate, and then, when the proper moment arrived, killed him.”
“Then if you thought of this, why this whole business of the police artist?”
“Because I don’t know. You’re telling me that McKeever was in neck deep. All the more reason why he should do business with a man like Cutler. If he called the police, he could have done so at the point of a gun. But maybe that’s all a surmise with no foundation. Do you want me to drop it at this point? You’re the boss. You’ve been needling me about dropping it. Do you really want me to?”
Wainwright stared at Masuto for a long moment, and then he said, “Goddamnit, no! That murder thirty years ago was on our turf. I want you to find the bastard and bring him in.”
Chapter 11
ISHIDO
Even Masuto, who could look at the enormous wealth and very conspicuous consumption of Beverly Hills with objectivity and without envy, related to his wife’s kinsman, Ishido, with awe. It was not simply that Ishido’s wealth was larger than most Beverly Hills wealth; it was the way Ishido was. Whereas visitors to Beverly Hills have often noted that it specializes in vulgarity, Ishido epitomized taste. Actually, Ishido did not live in Beverly Hills, but a few miles to the west in Bel-Air, a neighborhood with a little more posh and perhaps a good deal more money than Beverly Hills. There Ishido lived alone—his wife having died seven years before—in a large, single-story Japanese-style house, surrounded by green hedges, a brick wall, and patrolled by two armed guards and two Doberman pinschers. Ishido himself was a small, deceptively gentle and pleasant man of some sixty-five years. At the age of twenty-five he had been a colonel in the Imperial Japanese Army. When the war ended, he was the youngest general in the army. He had come to California in 1947 to represent one of the new Japanese companies that were rising out of the ruins left by the war, and now, thirty-three years later, he was retired, a multi-millionaire, and a quiet power in the Los Angeles area.