Time Expired

by Susan Dunlap

  “He wouldn’t,” I said. “No one ever accused Tiress of restraint.”

  “Yeah, it’s hard to picture him backing off to consider the options.”

  “So, what you’re saying, Raksen, is that if he panicked and pressed down on the gas pedal, then it’d have stuck?”

  “With the brake line cut, and the gas pedal jammed,” Misco said, “old Tight Ass was on his way to the moon.”

  “Lucky there was no one down here sitting on the grass in his way,” Heling said.

  “There wouldn’t have been, not after five,” Howard put in. “That could have been part of the plan.”

  I felt a shiver in my solar plexus. The cleverness of it shouted: Madeleine Riordan. But it couldn’t have been her plan, not the Madeleine Riordan who refused to drive antiwar bombers over the border because she hated violence. I shook my head. “He had to cross intersections at rush hour. He could have caused crack-ups in both directions. And if there’d been pedestrians …”

  Howard nodded slowly, the lines of his face pulled in confusion and distress. He looked as if he’d been abandoned, as if Madeleine Riordan had abandoned him.

  I took a step back away from Heling and lowered my voice. “Maybe, Howard, she just got fed up worrying about what was right. Maybe she figured she’d played by the rules all her life and what had it gotten her? Why shouldn’t she go ahead with her elegant sting and leave Tiress and the pedestrians to take their chances? Whatever their fate, it wasn’t likely to be as bad as hers. Why not?” I could almost hear Herman Ott speaking through my mouth: “You barge in here making up rules, then you carry on like I should follow them. Well, Smith, I’m not a cop; I don’t play by your rules.” Ott was like Madeleine.

  I wanted Howard to come up with an unassailable argument, but he just shrugged.

  Leaving Heling in charge, I headed back to the car. Howard had caught a ride down here with Raksen. He slid into my patrol car for the trip back. “If it was her plan, Jill, why wasn’t it in the metal box with the rest of them?”

  “I don’t know.” I started the car.

  “Wait.” He jumped out.

  “Where are you going?” But he was already halfway across the road. I turned the car off and raced after him, catching up just as he reached Heling.

  “Tell me about Tiress here,” he demanded. This was Heling’s district and she had certainly seen enough of Tiress to know his habits. “Was there any spot Tiress stopped at around here? Did he get out of the Cushman, take a leak, or get a doughnut?”

  Heling laughed. “Tiress eat a doughnut? He’d choke before he’d put something sweet in that sour mouth of his.”

  “Did he stop for anything?” Howard asked.

  Without shifting her feet Heling seemed to move away from Howard. “Well, yeah, now that you mention it, sometimes he did pull over a couple blocks up from here just before the espresso truck left. He had a friend, if you can imagine that, and the two of them got espressos there. They’d sit and drink them and probably talk about what scum the rest of humanity is.”

  “So, if someone knew that, they could plan to use that time to insert some glue—”

  “They couldn’t count on it, Howard. Tiress didn’t always stop there, just maybe half the time, but not regularly, like maybe he’d go a week without stopping. And he never sat down to drink his coffee out of sight of the Cushman.”

  “Was the Cushman in his line of vision while he was getting the coffee?” I asked.

  “Not usually.”

  “But when he did stop, it was around five P.M.?” Howard insisted.

  “Right.”

  “O—kay,” Howard said like a coach applauding the winning point after. “Thanks, Heling.” Before she could ask for more of an explanation, he was loping back to the car.

  “So?” I said as I climbed back behind the wheel.

  “So, what we’ve got here is most likely an aborted plan, but one too elegant to keep quiet about. I mean, Jill, there are magnificent stings no decent person can orchestrate—too dangerous. But they’re still magnificent. You can’t do ’em, you can’t get ’em out of your mind. You sate the urge by talking about em.

  I recalled a few of Howard’s. In a city that is self-insured, every taxpayer would have been relieved to hear of Howard sating himself verbally.

  “My guess is it was Madeleine’s plan, but done by someone without her standards. If I’m right, Madeleine’s plan would have called for adding the glue two blocks up from here, not six.”

  “So Tiress couldn’t get up too much speed, couldn’t really endanger anyone, and wouldn’t land out far enough in the lake to do anything more than look foolish.” I started the engine.

  “But, the thing is, Jill, adding the glue at the last moment when Tiress stopped for coffee was the tricky part. Our perp couldn’t be sure he’d stop today, tomorrow, or even this week. He didn’t have Madeleine’s control; couldn’t bring himself to wait for the right conditions.”

  “So he took the easy way out and added the glue earlier, farther away, right?”

  Howard shifted his knees against the dashboard. There was no comfortable way for him to stow those forty or so inches of leg when I had the seat pulled forward. “If the parking perp is one of the irresponsibles, I guess that lets out Timms.”

  “The irresponsibles? As opposed to the responsibles?”

  “Not exactly.” He sighed. I knew that sigh well. He’d have liked to lean back in his chair, stretch out those long legs, and begin making professorial pronouncements on male psychology. Here all he could do was tap a finger on the microphone as I headed toward University Avenue and declare, “You know the theory that men view women as either madonnas or whores.”

  “Easy choices for simple minds,” I said, taking a right too fast.

  “So, Jill, how do women view men?”

  “How, O latter-day Freud?”

  “As Dads and Cads. Men who are expected to be responsible and guys who are prized for their free spirits.”

  “Dads and Brats, you mean?”

  “It doesn’t rhyme. What’s pop psychology without rhyme or alliteration?” Howard laughed. Pop psychology took a beating from Howard. “Anyway, Jill, the point is that women give the brats a lot of slack. They love their playfulness, the way they flip the bird to rules; they excuse them when they’re late or forget dates altogether. But if the guys they expect to be responsible do any one of those things, they rake them over the coals.”

  I nodded. The theory annoyed me, but I couldn’t disagree. And the more I thought of it, the more it seemed that Madeleine Riordan was exactly the sort of woman Howard was describing. “So in the Dads camp we’ve got Herbert Timms and Michael Wennerhaver.”

  Howard nodded.

  “She really did pick well, Howard. Herbert Timms she chose to take care of her dog. And Michael … Michael must have been a mainstay of the responsible camp from the moment of birth. She devoted a lot of time to him. He benefited from her perception of him. Being a doctor, a caretaker for the elderly, and ignored, what a perfect profession for a Dad. Michael was her final gift, a memorial to her mother—the caring doctor who could have saved her.”

  “But, Jill, the chief Brat was Coco Arnero, canine and human. If any other client of hers had talked about out-of-body experiences at a review commission hearing, he’d have been looking for another lawyer.”

  “But coming from him it was okay,” I said with growing excitement. “And there was Coco, the dog, on the bed, never denied access to a room even if the inhabitant didn’t want him in, carrying around that meter wand.” I pictured Coco with that taperlike dowel. It would have been so easy to bite through. Easy for anyone to cut in half. “Oh, my God, Howard.”

  “What?”

  I stopped at the light by an Indian grocery and a sari shop. “That Brat has got the meter wands displayed in his living room. He cut them in half and made a coatrack out of them. I looked right at them and at his shirts and jackets on the floor underneath. And all I
thought was what a slob he was!”

  CHAPTER 24

  I RACED BACK TO the station.

  But in order to nail Champion I had to run a check on his mother, Lucia Champion. I took the station stairs two at a time and ran through the meeting room that doubled as interview space the rest of the day. Uniformed officers looked up in mild curiosity—need of speed is not an earthshaking occurrence here. The suspects seated across from them stared as if I were carrying pardons from the governor. I ran on through files, ignoring the cries of the phones, past the reception desk, and nearly smacked head-on into Inspector Doyle.

  “Jesus have mercy, Smith. It’s about time you’re here,” he said as I skidded to a stop. “Two parking incidents in one day! Phone’s been ringing off the hook. The press. The mayor. Every member of the city council. The city manager. Everyone but God the Father, and probably He can’t get a line through!” Doyle reached inside reception and snagged a doughnut from this morning’s box, then glanced from the box to me questioningly. I shook my head; I was too wired to eat.

  “So, Smith, what did your search of files turn up?”

  “I haven’t gotten to it.”

  His face flushed red. “Haven’t—”

  “I’m ready to collar the perp.”

  Momentarily he stopped, then picked up his pace, veered into his office, plopped the stale doughnut on the desk, and propped himself behind his big green desk chair, arms on its back. “What do you have?”

  I brought him up to date on the case, ending with a description of Champion’s ersatz coatrack. “He must have laughed his head off after I left.” I could feel my face flushing. Doyle’s, already red, darkened. No cop takes well to perps mocking his authority, or his subordinate’s. There’s an imaginary collar, a metal dog collar, that hangs around the neck of all suspects and leashes them into our investigation. Champion’s just tightened a link. “It’s easy, Inspector, to picture Champion on that ten-speed swooping down and grabbing the meter wands.”

  “You saying he ran this string of capers just for the fun of it?” Doyle looked ready to pull the chain another link tighter.

  “No. We checked Champion through every file known to computer. Zip for means or motive. But the man inherited from his parents. I need to run a check on the mother. I’m betting that’ll turn up plenty.”

  Doyle handed me the phone. I passed the word to the clerk and hung up.

  He was still leaning on the back of his chair, his arms crossed, fingers tapping on arm flesh. “So where does Madeleine Riordan fit into it all? She devise all these capers?”

  “I found plans for the one by Telegraph in her box. But there was nothing about the hostage incident or the explosion. They’re not her style—too violent.”

  “You got any evidence for that opinion?”

  “Nothing to take to court. Champion can tell me.”

  His fingers snapped into a fist, as if he were jerking the chain. “Smith, we talking about the guy who’s starred in ‘Make Monkeys of the Police’? You think now he’s going to sit down and lay it all out for us?”

  “Not for us. For me.”

  Doyle didn’t say anything. But his silence said, “Are you smug, or crazy?”

  I propped a foot on his visitor’s chair. “Look, there were only two people who knew what went on with these capers. Madeleine’s dead. That leaves me Champion. Here’s a guy who’s slid through life never mastering anything, and all of a sudden he makes himself a folk hero. Clearly, he revels in it. Then along comes Madeleine, takes over, and adds a panache he never dreamed of. In her eyes she’s doing him a favor. In his, she’s deposed him. He can’t take it. He kills her.”

  “That a speculation or a theory?” Smug or crazy still hung in the air.

  Ignoring that, I went on. “Maybe she told him she asked me to come back the next night. Maybe he figured she was going to confess and turn him in, too.”

  “Why would she tell him?” The air cleared of insinuation.

  “Maybe she didn’t. The staff at Canyonview knew I was coming back. Maybe he heard it from them.”

  “Maybe, maybe, Smith. You’re going to have to come up with a whole lot more than maybes.”

  “I will. You can count on that.” Even I was surprised by the tightness of my throat. I sounded as if the suspect’s choke collar was around my neck.

  “Your make on Lucia Champion, Smith.” The clerk handed in the report. I read over the sheet and for the first time tonight I smiled. Champion had mentioned inheriting “what little she had” after her death a year ago in Arizona. But it wasn’t her money that interested me now. It was her car and the possibility of Champion collecting O-Tows (out-of-state tows) with it. After five or more citations an out-of-state vehicle will be towed, impounded, and held till the owner can show proof of payment to both BPD and the towing company. In the last six months a Buick registered to her at a Scottsdale address had been towed, impounded, and held four times. It was still in impound.

  I passed the report to Doyle. “So Champion’s left with a grudge against Parking Enforcement, and a bicycle for transportation.” No wonder he hadn’t driven around the city looking for Tiress before he pulled his parking pranks.

  It took Doyle and me only three minutes to agree that the best scenario would be to capture the parking perp with lights, camera, action, in front of every reporter in the Bay Area. The worst would be to let him slip through our lines—lights, camera, media, and civilians wandering through our lines. Outside it was already dark, and with the fog it looked like someone pulled a giant comforter over Berkeley’s head. If Victor Champion wanted to disappear down into the canyon tonight, we’d have as much luck rooting him out as the neighbors there did the skunks and deer.

  “If we could wait till morning …” Doyle said with resignation. But we both knew that wasn’t an option, not when the perp could have other booby traps set to blow in the canyon—ones we missed or ones he set after we left. “We’ll go with a forward force: you and four patrol officers, and a secondary to surround Champion’s house and the outlets around the canyon.” Glancing at his watch, he added thoughtfully, “It should take an hour to put together.”

  “Too long! I can’t wait. Madeleine Riordan told me to come back at eight thirty. There had to be some reason for that.”

  “Some reason, Smith? It could be whim. Maybe that was when she finished dinner, or her favorite TV show was over. We can’t organize this entire operation around whim.”

  “Maybe what happened at eight thirty was something she spotted through her binoculars, looking at Champion.”

  Doyle leaned on the chair back, clearly unimpressed.

  “Inspector, we’re talking about Madeleine Riordan. Madeleine Riordan didn’t have whims. But if she had, it wouldn’t have been to chat with a police officer. She knew what we thought of her. Inspector, she’d heard about her picture on the locker room bulletin board.”

  Doyle flushed brick-red. It made me wonder if he’d tossed one of those darts that pierced her cheek or eye. Or perhaps he just didn’t object. Whatever, I could tell the balance had shifted toward Madeleine, and me, and my plan. “Okay, Smith,” he said slowly, “take the forward unit. Put a man on each exit. Keep Champion inside. Don’t bring him out until we turn on the lights.”

  It said something about how long we’d worked together that he didn’t bother to remind me how bad things would be if I blew it.

  It was already after seven. But I hadn’t gotten a report back from Kensington P.D. on Champion’s guns. From my office I called the Kensington station. Downey, the officer who’d questioned Champion, was still there.

  “So, Downey, does he have weaponry?”

  “Believe it, Smith. We’re just lucky he didn’t turn them in when we had the amnesty program. At fifty bucks a gun he could have bankrupted the city. But Champion’s not a guy who thinks ahead.”

  “How so?”

  “The guy’s got an M-1, a Thompson machine gun that’s virtually a collector’s i
tem, so many German weapons his father must have done nothing in the second world war but strip the dead. Champion told me about watching the colonel clean them, like it was a religious ceremony. Champion could have sold them for a bundle. But you know what he did with them?”

  “No.”

  “Real Berkeley move. I’ll tell you, Smith, this guy’s on the wrong side of the county line.”

  “What did he do with the weapons, Downey?” I said, failing to mask my impatience. I’m not as amused by Berkeley bashing when it comes from the other side of the line.

  “He stuck them out in the yard, in the wood bin! They’re rusted all the hell up.”

  I shook my head. Destroying weapons of death would have been a Berkeley move, but this was the reaction of a Brat—a brat who could have used the money from selling the collection, but chose to spite his father instead. His dead father. Victor Champion was sounding more unhinged than I’d thought. A bitter loner with guns. “Was all the weaponry unusable?”

  “That’s the bad part, Smith. He doesn’t know. He can’t remember what was supposed to be there.”

  “So anything could be missing.”

  “You got it.”

  “Did you search his house?”

  “Nope. All of a sudden he got uptight and started carrying on about a warrant. You know how that is.”

  “Indeed. Thanks, Downey.”

  Things were clear to me, but I didn’t have enough for a warrant, either. As Downey could have told me, too frequently a judge can’t see as clearly as a police officer. A judge would need a confession in order to see the truth here.

  I called the Evening Watch commander. The officers he gave me for backup would come off patrol in one or two sectors of the city—places where suspicious vehicles or people might now go unnoticed, where victims of robberies or muggings would get slower police response, where the perpetrators of those crimes would stand a better chance of walking free. Those were also districts where the remaining officers would be working harder while my backups were assisting me and, later, writing up reports on the assist. And if anything came down in those districts because they were short, I would hear about it.