Night Games (The Lt. Hastings Mysteries)

by Collin Wilcox

  “I still can’t believe it,” her mother was saying. “I can’t believe that it happened—that someone like James, such an important, influential man, should have his life snuffed out by a common housebreaker. It’s so terrible. Such a waste.”

  Momentarily shifting her gaze from the traffic ahead, she saw her mother frowning. It was a frown of vexation, as if the murder had been part of some obscure conspiracy aimed at taxing her mother beyond endurance.

  Subconsciously, or perhaps consciously, her mother resented the circumstances surrounding James’ death. It was a tacky way to die, her mother was thinking. Therefore, indirectly, the murder reflected adversely on her.

  Would her mother feel better if she knew the truth?

  Would she be reassured to know that her rich, famous son-in-law, whose picture had appeared in both Time and Newsweek, hadn’t really been murdered for his money, or his possessions—but, instead, had died while playing the lead in one of his own sex fantasies?

  SUNDAY

  One

  FRIEDMAN SAILED A SHEET of lined yellow legal paper across his desk. “Take a look at that.”

  Holding the paper at half arm’s-length, Hastings saw a roughly penciled diagram, a gridlock of crosshatched lines labeled “Jackson,” “Pacific” and “Broadway,” intersected with “Broderick,” “Baker” and “Lyon.” Three squares in the gridlock were labeled “Haney,” “Miller” and “Gross.”

  “I’ve always believed in visual aids,” Friedman said.

  Close to the “Miller” box Friedman had drawn a large X, circled twice.

  “The X is the loot,” Hastings, said, laying the diagram aside. “Right?”

  “Right. And that’s the point—the essential point.”

  “How do you mean?”

  “If you study the diagram, you’ll notice that the loot and the knife were ditched less than a half-block from the Miller house. Am I right?”

  Hastings shrugged. “Yes. But what—?” As the significance of Friedman’s point registered, his eyes sharpened speculatively. “Are you saying that you think—?”

  Friedman’s mouth twitched into a small, complacent smile. Shrugging, he spread his hands over the desk. “I’m just trying to keep my options open, expand our horizons. We’ve got a long way to go, it seems to me, before we’ve got a case against Cutter that the D.A. can take to the grand jury. So I’m starting to toy with a couple of other scenarios. For instance—” Lacing his fingers behind his neck, Friedman leaned back in his swivel chap: He allowed his eyes to half close as he stared up at the ceiling. Because it was Sunday, he was wearing a cardigan fisherman’s sweater that stretched taut across the mound of his stomach. The sweater was powdered with cigar ash.

  “For instance, let’s assume that Amy Miller had the loot, not Cutter. Let’s suppose that she—”

  “Pete, I don’t see how you can—”

  “Wait,” Friedman interrupted smoothly. “I’m just sketching in the broad picture. I’ll get to the details later.”

  “Good. The D.A. is crazy about details. Sometimes called ‘facts.’”

  Ignoring the comment, Friedman said, “Let’s suppose that Amy Miller decided to steal a few things from the Haneys. She took her time. She had all night, after all. So she took what she wanted, and then she went to the kitchen, and got a paper sack. Then, for some reason, she got spooked. So she—”

  “But the knife was in the sack, too. The murder weapon. With blood on it.”

  “She might not’ve know that. Or—” Significantly, he paused. “Or maybe she did. Have you considered that possibility?”

  “Jesus, Pete, I’m surprised at you. Speculation is one thing. But this is fantasy. We’ve got—” Hastings leaned forward in his chair, staring hard at the other man. “We’ve got testimony from three witnesses—Mrs. Haney, Maxine, and Amy Miller. Four witnesses, if you count Amy Miller’s father. And they all add up, roughly. We know that Haney got home about eleven-thirty. Maxine was in the house, and so was Amy Miller. Amy left a little after twelve. Maybe twelve-thirty. Then the murderer arrived on the scene, probably. Maybe it wasn’t Cutter. Maybe it was another black man. Maybe Mrs. Haney made a wrong identification. It happens, all the time. But there’s nothing to indicate that the murder wasn’t committed by a black man during the course of a robbery. Nothing.”

  Friedman regarded Hastings with a long, lazy-lidded stare. Projecting the air of someone who was effortlessly constructing an infallible trap that was about to snare an unwary prey, he murmured, “Go ahead. Don’t stop now.”

  “Maybe Cutter came in through the garage, behind the car. Maybe he hid in the garage for a half-hour or so, until everything was quiet. Then he went to work. Let’s say he brought a sack with him, a Petrini’s sack. It could happen, you know. Thousands of people shop at Petrini’s. So then, while he’s working, Haney surprises him. Haney could’ve been going for the gun he kept in the study. It would make sense. Cutter picked up the dagger and killed Haney, who’d run out into the hall. Then Cutter went back into the study to get the loot. That’s when Mrs. Haney saw him. He ran. He took the loot, and the knife, and he ran. But then, after he’d run a couple of blocks, he realized that it was a mistake, taking the loot, and the knife. They’d tie him to the murder. So he ditched them.”

  “Hmmm—” Frowning mock-judiciously, Friedman rocked his chair forward to an upright position, banging both feet on the floor as he began pawing through the papers that littered his desk. “I’ve got to admit that it fits. Not perfectly. But adequately, if you’re playing by the standard WASP game plan.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “You know—” Still looking for a particular paper, Friedman spoke absently. “You know—the blacks are slavering savages, and the whites are the embodiment of all virtue. Especially sensational-looking blond ladies who practice their wiles on police lieutenants, just to keep in practice.”

  “What the hell are you—”

  “Ah—” Friedman held up another sheet of lined yellow paper. “Here it is—the notes I took on what the burglar-alarm guys said.” He picked up a pair of heavy horn-rimmed reading glasses, jammed them carelessly on his nose. “Are you up on these so-called second and third generation electronic alarm systems?”

  Hastings shrugged. “I guess that depends on what you mean by ‘up on.’”

  “They’re unbelievably sophisticated. I talked for almost an hour with the head man at West Coast Security, the company that installed the Haneys’ system. And it was fascinating. As you know, there’s no more alarm bells, or whatever, waking up the neighborhood. That’s old hat. What happens, the alarm goes off at the burglar-alarm office. The signal is automatically double-checked, to make sure it isn’t a short circuit. Then the customer has sixty seconds to call the alarm office, if the alarm was set off accidentally. And, yes, he has to give them a code number, to prove he isn’t the burglar. Otherwise, the alarm company calls the cops. Pretty clever, eh?”

  Hastings made no comment.

  “The layout inside the Haneys’ house is apparently the absolute state of the art,” Friedman went on. “There’re two or three sensing systems, and incredible flexibility, too. For instance, there’s a concealed switch at every door. So—”

  A knock sounded on the glass door of Friedman’s office. Canelli stood with one hand tentatively raised, palm facing the glass, as if to signal both a greeting and an apology for intruding. He was sheepishly smiling. Friedman beckoned him inside, gestured him to a seat and took a few moments to recapitulate the previous conversation. As he described the alarm system, Canelli began nodding vigorously.

  “You’re right, Lieutenant. These new systems, they do everything but walk the dog. And the one the Haneys have, it’s the Rolls-Royce, according to what I understand. That’s one of the things I had in mind to tell you, as a matter of fact.” As he spoke, he gestured with his notebook. “Because I think they’ve got everything on tape, see, down at the burglar-alarm office. I mean, we�
��re talking minute to minute. And I thought that maybe the tape could tell us a lot. Don’t you think?” Anxiously, Canelli looked from Friedman to Hastings.

  “Canelli—” Elaborately pained, Friedman shook his head. “You’ve just blown my whole story. I was building the suspense.”

  “Oh, Jeez, Lieutenant. I’m sorry. But I just thought, see, that—”

  “Never mind, Canelli. I’ll take it from here.” Friedman turned to Hastings. “As I was about to say, the alarm company keeps everything on tape for forty-eight hours, at which point the tape recycles. Naturally, the Haney tapes aren’t being recycled. In fact, at this very moment, Culligan is at their office, making damn sure they aren’t being recycled. Meanwhile—” He waved the sheet of yellow paper. “Meanwhile, here’s what the alarm people say happened, tapewise, at the Haney house on Friday night.” Friedman adjusted the glasses and began reciting from his notes:

  “At six-thirty, the entire system was armed. That’s probably when Mrs. Haney left the house, with Maxine and Amy Miller inside. Everything was on line, as they say, buttoned up tight. But then, at nine-thirty, the circuit that guards the study door was switched off.”

  Hastings exchanged a look with Canelli. “That’s the French door that leads from the study out to the garden,” Hastings said.

  “It was switched off at nine-thirty,” Friedman repeated. “And it wasn’t switched back on.”

  “Amy Miller probably went out into the garden,” Hastings said. “She went out, for some reason, then came back. She forgot to rearm the sensor when she came back.”

  “Why?” Friedman asked. “Why would she go outside?”

  “She probably went out for some air. She couldn’t’ve gone anywhere except out into the garden. Not unless she had a key to the gate, which I don’t think she did. It’s one of those two-way locks. You need a key to get out and get in, either one.”

  “In my experience,” Friedman said drily, “teen-agers very seldom go out for some air. To meet other teen-agers, yes. But to get some air—” He shook his head.

  “Maybe she did meet someone,” Canelli said. Then, excitedly: “Hey. Maybe there was some black guy that she let inside the house. That would account for the black guy that Mrs. Haney saw.” Hopefully, he looked at the two lieutenants in turn.

  “Canelli. Please.” Sardonically long-suffering, Friedman gestured to the yellow paper. “We’re talking high tech, here. Let’s stick to the script.”

  “Oh. Sure, Lieutenant. Sure.” Canelli clicked his teeth, shook his head, apologetically waved away his previous remark. “Sorry.”

  “After the sensor on the study door was disarmed,” Friedman said, scanning his notes, “nothing happened until a little after eleven-thirty, when the garage door went up—and down. Then, a minute or two later, the sensor on the service door was disarmed, when the door was unlocked. But, for some reason, the door wasn’t locked again, from the inside. Which meant that the sensor wasn’t rearmed. Do you follow?” Friedman looked at Hastings and Canelli. Both men nodded as Friedman said, “So, to recap, at eleven-thirty, we’ve got the entire system on, but two doors aren’t armed—the service door from the garage, and the study door to the garden. Right?”

  Once more, Hastings and Canelli nodded.

  “The next blip,” Friedman said, “came a little more than an hour later, when the front door was opened—and then closed, and rearmed.”

  “That was probably when Amy Miller left,” Hastings said. “It squares with her story, anyhow.”

  “Let’s not overlook the possibility that her story could be fishy, though,” Friedman said. “She could’ve let someone in, for instance. However—” He readjusted his reading glasses. “However, we’re now at one A.M. We’ve got Haney and Maxine inside the house. We could also have Cutter inside, too. Maybe even Amy Miller. And someone else, too, maybe. And, with the exception of the service door and the study door, the entire system is armed. Right?”

  Emphatically, Canelli nodded. “Right. Which means, really, that anyone could’ve gotten in through the study, without being—”

  “So now,” Friedman interrupted smoothly, “we’re approximately at the midpoint of the period when, according to the temperature of the victim’s body, he had to’ve been killed. Midnight to two A.M. Right?”

  Both Canelli and Hastings nodded agreement.

  “Well, now—” By way of emphasis, Friedman pulled off his glasses and used them to tap the paper with measured significance. “Well, now, we come to an interesting blip. Or, rather, we come to the absence of any interesting blip. Which is to say that, electronically speaking, nothing more happened until approximately 2:20 A.M.”

  “What about Mrs. Haney?” Hastings asked. “She had to’ve gotten home at—” As his gaze wandered speculatively away, he let it go unfinished.

  With a small, smug smile teasing the corners of his mouth, Friedman said, “As I just told Canelli, let’s stick to the tapes. We can play detective later.” He let a beat pass, then said, “And, to repeat, the tapes show that nothing changed between approximately twelve-thirty and twenty minutes after two, when the garage door was opened—and closed. None of the armed doors was either opened or closed. Nothing.” Another long, significant pause. Then: “At about 2:23 A.M. the sensor on the service door was armed. Which meant, probably, that someone drove into the garage, and went inside the house, and locked the service door, and armed its circuit. So, at that point, the whole system is armed—except for the French doors. But then, at about ten minutes to three, the entire system was disarmed. And it stayed disarmed for the rest of the time, until the first uniforms arrived at the scene, which was about twenty-five minutes after three.”

  In unison, Hastings and Canelli nodded. Also nodding, Friedman slipped his glasses into his shirt pocket. “So there it is, friends—the story of the tapes. So now it’s your turn—” Invitingly, he waved. “What’s it all mean?”

  Obviously anxious to speak, Canelli nevertheless first looked tentatively at Hastings.

  “Canelli, you first.” Friedman was burlesquing a schoolmaster calling on a willing, but backward student.

  “Well, Jeez,” Canelli said, “I still think there’s something in the fact that the sitter—Amy Miller—opened the study door, around nine-thirty. I mean, we all know what these baby-sitters do, sometimes, when they aren’t supposed to be doing anything but baby-sitting, especially if they’re good-looking. I mean, Jeez, I remember when I was in high school. There was this girl named Frances. And, boy, I can tell you that—”

  “Canelli. Please.” Friedman raised a restraining hand. “Ordinarily we’d be deeply interested in your teen-age sexual adventures. But it’s Sunday, as you know. And my wife has solemnly promised me that if I’m not home for dinner, she’s going to buy a pair of shoes. An expensive pair of shoes.”

  Even though Friedman’s comment caused him obvious embarrassment, Canelli was determined to make his point. Earnestly frowning, he said, “What I was saying, though, is that just suppose she let this guy in. Say he’s a black guy. And let’s say they were, you know, screwing around. So then, who knows, maybe the guy was really out to rob the place, and was using her to let him get inside. So let’s say he was doing that, robbing the place, when Haney comes in. Or maybe, who knows, Amy Miller and this guy were working together. Maybe they—” His voice trailed off as his frown deepened. Both the lieutenants were shaking their heads.

  “It just doesn’t sound right,” Hastings said. “She sat for the Haneys once a week. It doesn’t figure that she’d suddenly decide to set them up for a robbery.”

  “Still,” Canelli said, “she did open the door to the study. And she left the alarm off that door, which would give the guy his way in, and his way out, too—just the way Mrs. Haney said it happened. Without tripping any alarms.”

  Hastings turned to Friedman, asking, “Is the garden gate on the alarm system?”

  Friedman shook his head. “Not according to the information I got over the pho
ne. We’ll know more when Culligan gets here with the tapes. There’s a layout of the whole system. He’ll bring that.”

  “That gate’s real secure,” Canelli said. “I checked it before I left the scene, the first time I was there. It was double-bolted and locked, too. And the wall is six feet high, at least. And, besides, you need a key to get out, not just in.”

  “Which would square with Mrs. Haney’s story,” Hastings said thoughtfully. “He’d’ve had to jump over the wall, if he didn’t have a key.”

  “What doesn’t square with Mrs. Haney’s story,” Friedman said, tapping the sheet of yellow paper, “is the tape. According to the tape, she didn’t drive into the garage until twenty minutes after two. Which is twenty minutes after the time the coroner says the murder could’ve been committed.”

  “Oh, Jeez—” Exasperated with himself, Canelli loudly clicked his teeth as he looked apologetically at the other two men. “Jeez, I completely forgot what it was I was going to tell you, one of the most important things, maybe, the way this is all turning out. See, I checked out Jeffrey Wade, like you told me to do, Lieutenant—” He turned to Hastings, who nodded. “So I was, you know, asking the people who live in his building what they heard Friday night, and saw. And it turns out that one guy seems to keep very close track of Mrs. Haney and Jeffrey Wade. And, of course, she’s pretty easy to keep track of, being that she’s so good-looking, and drives a big Mercedes, and everything. So anyhow—” He paused for breath. “Anyhow, this guy—his name is John Kelley—he swears that he got home about two o’clock, from a party. And he swears that Mrs. Haney was leaving Wade’s apartment, just when he was driving into his carport. Kelley, I mean.”

  “Did he actually see her?” Hastings asked. “Or did he just see her car?”

  “No—” Decisively, Canelli shook his head. “No, sir. He says he saw her. He saw her leave Wade’s place, and saw her get into her car, and drive away. He’s positive.”

  During a long silence, both Hastings and Friedman stared at Canelli, then stared thoughtfully at each other.