The Pariah (The Lt. Hastings Mysteries)

by Collin Wilcox

  “We’re investigating the strangulation of a prostitute,” Friedman said. “She was killed Tuesday night, a little after ten o’clock. We have a witness who saw Elton Holloway with the victim approximately fifteen minutes before she was killed. So, naturally, we’ve got to talk to Elton. He could have some valuable information for us.”

  “I’ll talk to him,” Mitchell said. “Then I’ll call you.”

  “No.” Slowly, gravely, Friedman shook his head. “No, that’s not good enough. Lieutenant Hastings was willing to go along with you earlier. But now we’ve got our orders.” As he spoke, a nearby door opened. Turning, Friedman saw a young, attractive, determined woman. She was looking directly at Hastings. Her eyes were angry; her voice was low and tight. “Can I talk to you, Lieutenant? Privately?”

  Hastings looked at Friedman, waiting for his silent cue. He saw Friedman’s tongue circling the inside of his mouth, the definitive sign that Friedman was deep in thought. Finally Friedman nodded. To Gloria, sternly, he said, “Fifteen minutes. No more.”

  With only a contemptuous glance at Friedman, Gloria turned abruptly back into her room, leaving the door open. Hastings followed her inside, closed the door, crossed the room to sit in the same chair he’d taken earlier in the day. Tonight, Gloria was dressed in a pleated flannel skirt and tweed jacket. She wore stockings, but no shoes. Like her expression, her voice was cold:

  “We’ve talked to our lawyers, Lieutenant. They tell us that if you have probable cause you can question Elton, and there’s nothing we can do to stop you.” She let a long, hostile beat pass. “Do you have probable cause?”

  “Definitely.”

  “What is it, this probable cause? What’s the evidence?”

  “I don’t have to give you that information. Not until he’s charged with a crime. And I’m not doing that, not charging him.”

  “Then—”

  “He’s a material witness,” Hastings said. “For now, that’s his status. But your lawyers will tell you that we have the same rights where a material witness is concerned as we do if we’re questioning a suspect in a capital crime.”

  “He can’t be questioned unless he has a lawyer present.”

  “No, that’s not right. If he’s a suspect—if I’ve given him his Miranda rights—then he can demand that a lawyer be present. But not now, not as a material witness.”

  “That’s not what our lawyers say.”

  Hastings shrugged. “You have your lawyers, we have ours.” He watched her for a moment, then quietly added, “I’m talking about the DA.”

  “Listen, Lieutenant—” Eyes hard, mouth firmly set, she leaned forward in her chair. The message: Gloria Holloway couldn’t—wouldn’t—be intimidated. “Let’s be honest with each other.”

  “Fine.”

  “You know that my father is a very important man. That’s a cliché in your business, I know—people talking about how important they are, how much they pay in taxes, how much trouble they could make for you. But the thing about clichés is, they’re usually true, have some basis in fact. My father is very important. You might not believe it, how important he is, how much clout he has.”

  “I’m not about to bother your father. I just want to talk with your brother. That’s all. For now, that’s all we want, just to talk with him.” Eyes locked with hers, Hastings let a long, measured beat pass before he said, “I’m not going to threaten him with arrest, and I’m not going to take him downtown. I’m not going to put undue pressure on him. I’m simply going to talk to him. It’s important that you understand that, important that you all understand that.”

  Speaking very slowly, very distinctly, she said, “Our chief lawyer is in Los Angeles. His name is Harlan Collins. Mr. Collins has called a colleague of his, a Mr. Richard Wertheimer. Does that name ring a bell?”

  Hastings nodded. “Richard Wertheimer is probably the best criminal lawyer in San Francisco.”

  “That’s right. And he says that you’ve got to have a warrant to question Elton.”

  “That’s not true. Under certain circumstances, we need a warrant to enter his room. But we don’t need anything to question him. So—”

  “Mr. Wertheimer is on his way over here right now. And his advice to me was that I should stand in front of Elton’s door—his room is 1106, by the way. I should stand in front of his door and make you remove me physically if you want to see Elton. And that’s exactly what I intend to do.”

  Momentarily, the imaginary pleasure of wrestling with Gloria Holloway distracted Hastings, brought a twitch of humor to the corners of his mouth. He gave himself a moment, then said, “Driving over here from headquarters, Lieutenant Friedman and I talked about this—about what would happen if you go against us. And we decided what we’d do.” Watching her, seeing the determination so plain on her face, in the lines of her body, he let the moment lengthen, let the pressure build. Then: “What we decided was, we’d call, say, six uniformed men to come to the lobby downstairs. That’s three cars, two men to a car. We’d get them together in the lobby, and we’d give them their orders, tell them the situation, tell them we’ve got a material witness on the eleventh floor that we have to put under close surveillance. We’ll need more than six, come to think about it, if we’re going to cover the elevators, and the staircases. Then Lieutenant Friedman and I will take, say, four more uniformed men, and we’ll go upstairs—where we’ll do our duty. If you decide to bar our way, there’ll be a couple of men to take you downstairs, through the lobby. You’ll be taken downtown, and booked for interfering with a policeman in the lawful pursuit of his duty.

  “Then, if Elton won’t allow us entry, we’ll have to stake out the eleventh floor, of course, wait until we can get him outside his room. That’ll take, say, another half dozen men, plus the half dozen we’d leave in the lobby, in reserve. They’d all be uniformed men, of course. Big, conspicuous, uniformed men doing their duty.” He broke off, decided to smile. “Do you get the picture? Do you see what the media might think, seeing all that action? Can you imagine the scene at police headquarters while your expensive lawyer’s getting you out on bail? Can you imagine what the hotel people will think, seeing all those cops in the lobby, and up here, on the eleventh floor?”

  Eyes snapping, breathing harshly, she suddenly rose, confronting him.

  “You bastard.”

  He let the smile widen. “It’s your choice, Miss Holloway. If you intend to block your brother’s door, tell me now.” He pointed to a nearby phone. “All it takes is one call. And the response time, in this part of town, will surprise you.”

  “You son of a bitch.”

  “I’m trying to forget you’re saying these things, Miss Holloway.”

  “If you weren’t a policeman …”

  “But I am. That’s the whole point. I am.”

  15

  REFLEXIVELY UNBUTTONING HIS SPORTS jacket and loosening his revolver in its holster, Hastings pressed the button beside the door of room 1106. At his side, Friedman also stood with his hand on the butt of his revolver.

  “Assuming that he’s there,” Friedman said softly, “someone sure as hell has called him, warned him not to answer the door.” As he spoke, Friedman looked down the corridor, where the two security men stood shoulder to shoulder, watching. Gloria Holloway and Lloyd Mitchell had chosen to return to their separate rooms.

  Hastings pressed the button again, stepped closer to the door, listening.

  “Maybe you should knock,” Friedman said. He smiled. “Do the old room service dodge.”

  As Hastings raised his fist, ready to knock, the door opened. Surprised, Hastings stepped a half step backward. Then, automatically, he took out his shield case, showed the badge.

  “Elton Holloway?”

  Dancer Browne’s description had been a good one: a slightly built man of medium height, dark blond hair, a pale, expressionless face. The mouth was small, with colorless lips. The brown eyes were utterly empty, strangely fixed. The voice was a monotone:


  “My sister said you were coming. She just called me.”

  “Can we come in?” Hastings stepped firmly forward.

  Without replying, Elton Holloway turned, walked into the small single room. He walked woodenly, mechanically, arms straight down at either side, shoulders squared, head held rigidly: an overgrown boy playing at being a soldier, his back ramrod straight, marching on dress parade. Entering the room behind Hastings, Friedman surreptitiously bolted the door. The three men sat in separate straight-backed chairs, facing each other. Friedman spoke first:

  “We won’t take much of your time, Mr. Holloway. We—”

  “Elton. Call me Elton.”

  Gravely, Friedman nodded, then smiled his policeman’s smile, calculated to disarm. “Good. Thank you, Elton. I’m Lieutenant Friedman. Peter Friedman.” He gestured. “This is Lieutenant Frank Hastings.” He nodded again, smiled again, then asked, “Did your sister tell you what it is that we’d like to ask you about?”

  “No.”

  “Well,” Friedman said, “it concerns a murder that Lieutenant Hastings and I are investigating. The victim’s name was Amy MacFarland. She was killed last night, just about this time, as a matter of fact. She was a prostitute. We think she picked up a man on Mason Street, just two and a half blocks from here. She took him to the Bayside Hotel, to a room she used. We think the man we’re looking for strangled her in that hotel room. Then we think he left the same way he went in, and walked back the way he came, north on Mason Street. And we think it’s possible—” He let a beat pass. “We think it’s possible that he came here, to the St. Francis.”

  As Friedman spoke, Hastings watched the suspect, whose empty eyes remained inexorably fixed on Friedman. “Stone eyes,” Dancer Browne had said. Privately, Hastings smiled, mentally scored another point for The Dancer. If he’d chosen to play by the rules, Dancer Browne would probably have an office with a view—and a luscious white secretary, of course.

  “Can you help us with any of this?” Friedman asked. He let another moment of silence pass. Then: “We understand you were on Mason Street last night between ten and ten-thirty. Is that right?”

  Elton Holloway remained motionless in his chair. The hands resting on the arms of the chair were inert, the muscles of the neck were relaxed, the head was rigid, held unnaturally high. In the silence that followed, the eerily empty eyes turned briefly toward Hastings, then returned to Friedman. The voice was unchanged: an expressionless monotone.

  “I don’t know the name of the street. Was it Mason, did you say?”

  Friedman nodded. “Mason. Right. And the name of the hotel was the Bayside.”

  Slowly, woodenly, Elton Holloway shook his head. “I don’t know the name of the hotel, either.” Still with his eyes fixed on Friedman, he sat silently, still utterly motionless. Then: “I often do that, you know. Tonight, I was going to do it, too—what I did last night.”

  Involuntarily, Friedman and Hastings exchanged a cop’s closed, covert look. Was it possible? Was this strange-looking, strange-acting son of Austin Holloway about to confess to murder?

  Both detectives turned their eyes to the suspect. For a long, time-suspended moment, neither man could frame the make-or-break question that must follow. Finally, tentatively, Hastings ventured, “Her name was Amy MacFarland. Do you remember that, remember her name?”

  “No—” The narrow head moved in a slow arc of delayed denial. “No, I never know their names. It’s not necessary, you see, that I know their names.”

  “Will you—” Momentarily, Hastings’s throat closed. Had he ever been so close to a confession that would make headlines across the country, around the world? “Will you tell us what happened, Elton? Never mind about her name. Just tell us how it went—what happened, last night.”

  Incredibly, with only a moment’s hesitation, the suspect said, “I remember that I went out the front entrance of the hotel, on Powell Street. And I remember turning right. I turned right, and then I turned left, I remember, at the next corner. I’d been there before, the night before. So I knew I’d found it, you see—found the place where it all begins. That’s so important, you know. It’s like Africa. That’s where they think life began, you know. So if you’re going to understand life, you must go to Africa.”

  Very seriously, as though he were deeply interested, Friedman asked, “Have you ever been to Africa, Elton?”

  “Oh, yes—” Slowly, gravely, he nodded: a single solemn inclination of his head. “And I’ve seen it, the Rift Valley. That’s where it all began. It’s the cradle of civilization, you know.”

  Still nodding, Friedman was studiously frowning, as if he were struggling to comprehend the depth of the suspect’s wisdom. “I see …” He hesitated, then asked, “Can we go back a minute? There’s something I want to ask.”

  “Certainly.”

  “You say you found the place, here in the city, where it all begins. Is that right?”

  “Yes, that’s right. Exactly right.”

  “Well, then, my question is, what’s ‘it’? That’s what I can’t follow.”

  “It’s sin,” came the prompt answer. “That’s the thing about Africa, you see. If you’re going to study humanity, you must go to where humanity began. And if you’re going to study sin, especially if you’re going to fight sin, then you’ve got to know where it starts. Because there’s a place in every city, you know—even towns, if they’re big enough. There’s always a center, the very center, of sin. I can understand that you’re having trouble understanding. Because it took me years, before I could find the center.” Dreamily, he nodded, momentarily lost in reverie. “But now, I’m able to go right to it, right to the center of sin. Sometimes, like Monday, I feel as if I—I’m—” He broke off again, allowing his eyes to wander far away. Friedman and Hastings exchanged another look that hardly concealed their growing excitement.

  “I feel like I’m—” Another pause. Then, confessing: “I feel electrified.” Quickly, perhaps shyly, he looked at Friedman. For the first time, the pale face registered emotion: a kind of hesitant anxiety. “That sounds strange, I know.”

  “No—no—” Hastily, Friedman raised a reassuring hand. “Not at all. I’ve felt the same thing myself. After all—” He gestured again. “We’re all made of electricity. Everyone knows that. So it’s only getting back to the source, really, when you feel like that. Electrified, I mean. It’s like … well—” Momentarily he broke off, searching for the phrase. “It’s like the Rift Valley. It’s exactly the same. Elemental, I mean.”

  “Have you ever been to the Rift Valley?” Elton asked.

  “Well, no,” Friedman admitted. “But you don’t have to go, you know. You don’t have to see it. All you need to do is—” Friedman hesitated, then decided to gamble: “All you have to do is read your Bible. Isn’t that so?”

  “Yes,” the suspect answered, nodding heavily. “Yes, that’s so. Exactly.”

  “Let’s get back to Monday night,” Hastings said. “You were telling us about finding the center of sin, the city’s sin, on Mason Street. I’m curious. What do you do, once you find the center?”

  Elton frowned, this time registering mild annoyance as he turned his attention to Hastings. “I talk to them, of course. I find the one—the right one—and I talk to her, hold up the mirror, for her to see.”

  “Ah—” Hastings nodded. “The mirror.”

  “Is it a real mirror?” Friedman asked. “A mirror on the wall, for instance?”

  “It’s not real. It’s nothing you can touch. It’s not like that.” The frown returned, as the suspect began looking steadily at Friedman. Vexation darkened the round brown eyes.

  “You’re the mirror,” Hastings said. “You. You’re the mirror. You make them look at themselves.”

  For the first time, Elton gave Hastings his full attention.

  “Of course I’m their mirror. They sin, so they can’t see, not by themselves. They’re blind. Morally blind.”

  Slowly,
Hastings nodded, then said, “So Monday, you—you were on Mason Street, looking around. You had to find the center of the city’s sin. And then you went back last night. Tuesday. Is that right?”

  “Yes, that’s right.”

  “I’m interested—” Still playing the part of the puzzled disciple struggling to understand the master, Friedman leaned forward. His expression was studious. “What do you do, exactly, once you’ve found the center? Do you talk to them, talk to the sinners?”

  “Of course I talk to them,” came the impatient reply. “But first they talk to me. That’s very important, that they talk first. They talk, and I answer. Sometimes it’s just a word, one word. But that’s all that’s necessary, sometimes. Just one word. I know, after one word. And she knows, too. It’s contact, that’s all. Just contact. That’s all that’s important, then.”

  “And what happens, after you’ve made contact?”

  “I can’t tell you that.”

  “You punish them,” Hastings said. “Isn’t that it—what you do to sinners? Don’t you punish them for what they do—for their wickedness?”

  Once more, the suspect turned to face Hastings. Elton’s eyes, his face remained expressionless, utterly empty. “Punish them?”

  Hastings nodded. “If they’re sinners—whores—they’ve got to be punished.” He spread his hands. “It’s only logical.”

  Beneath their pale, expressionless surface, the suspect’s facial muscles began to tighten. Behind the brown eyes, a pinpoint of pale, manic fire was kindling.

  “They’ve got to be saved. Not punished. Saved. My father works on the stage, in front of cameras. But my mission is the streets. I—”

  The sharp sound of a buzzer interrupted, followed by a knocking on the hallway door. Suppressing a sharp obscenity, Hastings quickly opened the door. Flanked by Mitchell, a stocky, well-dressed man with truculent eyes stood in the doorway. In his right hand he held a business card, aggressively offered. His voice was harsh: “I’m Richard Wertheimer. I’ve been retained by the Holloway family to represent Elton Holloway.” He looked past Hastings, into the room, then spoke again to Hastings. “Have you charged my client with anything?”