Mankiller (The Lt. Hastings Mysteries)

by Collin Wilcox

  David Behr—a name almost as well known as Rebecca Carlton. David Behr—rock impresario. David Behr—multi-multimillionaire. An immigrant Lebanese, penniless not so long ago. Now a national figure.

  And then I saw him: a short, stocky man dressed in wrinkled cords and a fisherman’s sweater. With his neck bowed, with his dark, snapping eyes glowering from under black, beetling brows, he looked a little like Napoleon out of uniform. He was standing between two of the hulking security men at the top of a flight of rough wooden stairs that led up to the stage.

  Could he quiet the beast?

  At the moment, nothing was more important. Dead bodies can wait. But out in the amphitheater, disaster was boiling.

  The woman tried again—and again. She was crooning to the crowd as a mother might croon to a distraught child. Her technique was flawless. Slowly, soothingly, she dropped her voice—and the crowd lowered its voice to hear her.

  Finally, Behr took a single quick, decisive step through the parted curtains.

  Instantly, the crowd’s voice changed to a note of excitement and anticipation. Through a semitransparent skim, I could see Behr standing at a microphone placed at center stage. He didn’t speak, didn’t gesture. He simply stood perfectly still, imperiously waiting for quiet.

  And slowly, the crowd noise dropped. Finally, speaking softly, conversationally, the impresario’s voice came out over the mammoth speakers, amplified thousands of times:

  “I felt just like all of you did, when I heard about it. I was driving on the Bay Bridge. I was heading for here, in fact, when I heard. I was hoping to catch Rebecca’s last set. I planned to watch her glow, when she came offstage. I did that for a lot of years, you know—watched her glow, coming offstage.”

  He paused. As I listened to the crowd’s voice sink, I saw a beautiful young woman appear from between the parted curtains. It was Pam Cornelison, leaving the stage. She was tall and blonde, dressed in a blue silk jump suit. She descended the short flight of backstage stairs with her back straight and her head held high. She carried herself like a princess, with a hint of royal disdain for the rabble.

  Behr was speaking again, confessing to the crowd:

  “I suppose,” he said quietly, “that most of you know Rebecca and I were married.” Another pause. And this time, a murmuring note of sympathy came from the crowd. The beast was no longer dangerous. To myself, I nodded. David Behr had a light, sure touch, quieting a crowd. It was a rare, subtle talent.

  “We aren’t married any more,” he was saying. “Or, rather—” The voice caught. Was it an actor’s trick? “Or, rather, we weren’t married any more, I should say. But, anyhow, we were always friends—always partners. We worked together on this concert, just like we worked together on all her other concerts—before, during and after we were married.”

  Still another short, deft pause. Then, speaking through the powerful sound system in a hushed voice that rolled out across the arena in a rich, throbbing tremulo, Behr said, “And now, Rebecca is dead.”

  He paused again, letting it sink in. Whether he knew it or not, he was probing the beast’s wound, testing its lingering potential for violence.

  “She finished the best concert she ever gave,” he said. “It was a concert dedicated to her father, who died just three weeks ago. She sang the concert, and she gave four encores. And then someone killed her—shot her. You all heard about it. That’s why you’re still here.” He let a beat pass before he added quietly: “And that’s why the police are here.”

  At the word “police,” a ripple of anger swept the crowd. But Behr quickly raised his hand, saying sharply, “Wait. Just wait. Quiet down a minute.” It was a command, not a request. And, momentarily at least, they obeyed him.

  “Wait now,” he repeated. “Don’t blow your cool, just because you hear a word you don’t like. That’s silly. Just plain silly. Sure, some of us have been hassled by the police. Most of us, maybe, at one time or another. But don’t let’s forget that the police have their problems, too. And, right now, their problem is that they’ve got to get things cooled down here, so they can do what they have to do, to find out who killed Rebecca.”

  A dubious murmur greeted the statement. Behr let the rumbling continue, then raised his hand. Obedient now, the crowd quieted.

  “You’ve got to help them,” Behr said flatly. “You’ve got to go home. You’ve got to leave here, quietly. You’ve got to get in your cars, and go home. That’s what you’ve got to do, if you want to help find Rebecca’s murderer. And that’s what I’m here to ask you to do—go home. And I’m asking you please. Please.” The last words were spoken in a low, half-broken voice. I wondered whether the emotion was real, or contrived.

  He stood motionless for a moment, head slightly bowed over the microphone. Then, slowly and deliberately, completely in control of his audience, he turned and walked offstage. It had been a masterful performance. And, out beyond the footlights, I could sense that the crowd was moving sluggishly toward the exits, obeying him.

  I turned again toward the huge aluminum mobile home, following Canelli as he led the way. I stepped over a tangled skein of electrical cables, rounded the far corner of the aluminum monster and found myself facing a grimly familiar scene: a dead body, surrounded by a solemn semicircle of policemen.

  Four

  SHE’D FALLEN BACKWARD, DOWN a temporary flight of three low wooden steps and a small landing that had been built against the door of the mobile home. The door was standing open. She was sprawled face up, with her legs on the landing, her torso slanted down the three steps and her head jammed at a cruel angle on the concrete floor of the arena. Her left arm was flung wide, fingers crooked in death’s final agony. Her right arm was crossed over her waist. Her eyes were open wide, staring toward the stage. Her blouse was a flaming red, and almost concealed the small bloodstain centered on her heart.

  Beneath the body, blood was puddled on two of the three wooden steps. A small rivulet of blood ran across the concrete floor toward the trailer.

  Raising my eyes from the body, I saw Pete Friedman, my senior co-lieutenant in Homicide, talking to Albert Farley, San Francisco’s coroner. The two men were standing slightly apart from the semicircle of men surrounding the victim. Seeing me, Friedman lifted one beefy hand, waved, and gestured for me to join them.

  After Farley and I exchanged perfunctory pleasantries, Friedman turned to me. “We’re about to move the body.” As he spoke, two ambulance stewards carrying a gurney began edging their way toward the body.

  “What’s it look like?” I asked Friedman. Farley excused himself, moving off toward the two stewards. He was observing protocol. Policemen had full access to the coroner’s information, but the opposite wasn’t true.

  “It seems pretty open and shut,” Friedman said. He turned, pointing a pudgy forefinger to the gap in the backstage curtains that both Pam Cornelison and David Behr had used going on and offstage. “She finished her fourth encore, which apparently was some kind of a track record. She came through the curtains and down the stairs. She started walking directly from the bottom of the stairs to her trailer. The distance, as you can see, is about fifty feet. Along the route, she collected about a dozen well-wishers and hangers-on. They were congratulating her, and walking with her toward the motor home, here.” As he spoke, Friedman turned back to face the body. “The door to the motor home was closed. Rebecca, by all accounts, was ecstatic. Everyone was telling her she was a smash. Did you hear what David Behr said, just now?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, it was all true, I guess. Anyhow, with the faithful crowded around the stairs, there—” He pointed. “She went up to the landing, and opened the door to her mobile home. But then, with the door open, she turned back to take one last bow. Which probably gave the murderer a beautiful chance to take careful aim.”

  Now he turned to face the stage, once more pointing. “Everyone seems to agree that the shot came from there—from the direction of the stage, or maybe from that
light tower.” He gestured to one of the four tall, narrow rectangles built of tubular metal scaffolding.

  “Whichever it was,” Friedman continued, “the murderer was either very well briefed, or else very lucky. Because, at the time the shot was fired, the entire backstage area was blacked out—except for one spotlight that followed Rebecca to her trailer.” Wryly, Friedman smiled. “Rebecca, it seems, had a pretty good sense of the dramatic, even offstage.”

  “Was that her usual MO—going to her dressing room with the backstage area blacked out and a spotlight following her?”

  “Yes. Always.”

  “Then it sounds like good planning, not good luck.”

  Friedman shrugged. Until all the facts were in, he never liked to theorize.

  “What about a weapon?”

  He pointed to the base of a light tower, guarded by two uniformed patrolmen. For the first time I saw the crime lab’s white tape arranged in a rectangle around the base of the tower. A small circle was chalked inside the taped perimeter.

  “It was probably a .38 Smith and Wesson,” Friedman said. “Five shells were in the cylinder, one shot was fired. It was ditched there, in the circle. It’s on the way down to the Hall.”

  I took a long, deliberate moment to survey the backstage area, slowly pivoting in a full circle as I tried to fix the scene firmly in mind. The Cow Palace was essentially a huge oval arena surrounded by an amphitheater of seats and bleachers. It got its offbeat name because, originally, it had housed the biggest annual indoor rodeo and livestock exhibition west of the Mississippi. In later years, as the complex was expanded, almost every kind of indoor amusement came to the Cow Palace, including basketball games, circuses, political conventions and countless exhibitions of everything from hot rods to orchids.

  The interior of the main building was laid out with spectator entrances around three sides, and a huge rectangular entrance on the fourth side that was large enough to accommodate a dozen horses galloping abreast into the arena. Tonight, the fabric falls and curtains that separated the audience from the backstage area had been strung on a track that extended across the entire width of the arena at a distance of about two hundred feet from the big rectangular entrance. The cable on which the curtains were hung was suspended about thirty feet from the floor, with the four scaffold towers rising another twenty feet above the curtain.

  After he fired the shot and ditched the gun, the murderer would have had his choice of escape routes: either slip through the curtains to mingle with the departing spectators, or else melt into the group of fifty-odd performers, stagehands and technicians that had doubtless been backstage at the time of the murder.

  “Security is pretty tight at these rock concerts,” I said.

  “True,” Friedman answered. “But it’s all aimed at gatecrashers. Someone wants to get out, they let him out.”

  “Still, there were probably guards posted there and there—” I pointed to the line of curtains, then at the performers’ entrance to the arena. “They would’ve been guarding against anyone getting backstage after the performance.”

  Friedman nodded. “You’re right. I’ve got Culligan and Marsten talking to them, one at a time.” Following his pointing finger, I saw Culligan and Marsten, each interrogating a red-jacketed security man. Four other security men were standing close by, obviously waiting their turns.

  “It’s possible,” I said thoughtfully, “that the murderer is still right here backstage. He might not’ve wanted to go past the guards, even though he knew he wouldn’t be challenged. He might not’ve wanted to be noticed.”

  Again, Friedman nodded. “I’m aware of that. In fact, it’s my offhand opinion that it’s something like fifty-fifty that, literally, we could throw a rock and hit the murderer.” As he said it, he let his shrewd, dark eyes wander around the oddly assorted group of people scattered backstage. As always, Friedman’s jowly, swarthy face was as smooth and unrevealing as a Buddha’s. “The problem is, though,” he said, “that we can’t detain this many people for questioning. Not for more than another hour, anyhow. Already, some of them are beginning to squawk. Loudly.”

  As he’d been speaking, I looked toward the far end of the stage, in the opposite direction from the taped-off light tower, David Behr and Deputy Chief Lawrence Pomeroy were surrounded by a half dozen reporters and TV cameramen. Smiling genially for the cameras, Pomeroy was gracefully gesturing with his hands as he talked.

  Following my gaze, Friedman snorted. “When a wino gets murdered for what’s left in his bottle, Pomeroy is playing bridge at his club, sure as hell. But whenever a camera’s around, he’s always there. The asshole.”

  I sighed. For as long as I’d known him, Friedman had been engaged in a grueling guerrilla struggle with almost all the departmental brass, including William Dwyer, the Chief of Police. In fact, Dwyer was Friedman’s favorite target.

  “Come on.” I nudged him and pointed to Farley, who was projecting ill-concealed impatience as he stood beside the body. “Farley’s waiting for us.”

  “Big deal,” Friedman muttered sourly. But, obediently, he followed me to the body. Farley nodded to us, then ordered the two stewards to lift the woman.

  Friedman pointed to the floor beside the makeshift wooden stairs. “Put her there, face up.”

  The two stewards obeyed, then stepped back. Friedman and I moved to either side of the body, both of us staring down at the remains of Rebecca Carlton.

  She’d been in her middle to late twenties, perhaps her early thirties. Her chestnut hair was long and straight. Her face was oval. Her eyes were brown, slightly almond-shaped. Her nose was small and straight, her mouth wide and generously formed. She was heavily made up for the stage, with long false eyelashes, fluorescent blue-green eye shadow, bright orange lips. From throat to forehead, her skin was covered with a thick, shiny substance, tan-tinted. Decorating the dead face, the effect of the exaggerated stage makeup was grotesque. Trying to imagine the face without its makeup, I decided that it was probably an ordinary face, neither pretty or ugly.

  She was about five foot seven inches tall, and probably weighed close to a hundred fifty, twenty or thirty pounds overweight for her height. Beneath the flame-red silk blouse her breasts were round and full. The straight-cut blouse was worn outside her slacks, falling to her upper thigh. The gleaming white silk slacks were tight at the thigh and flared at the ankle. Her slippers were silver, decorated with red and gold sequins. The ambulance stewards had arranged her so that the blouse covered her crotch. It was a thoughtful gesture. Rich or poor, famous or infamous, most homicide victims lose their bodily wastes when they die. Rebecca Carlton was no exception.

  Slowly, knees cracking, Friedman knelt beside the body and began unbuttoning her blouse at the neck. His fingers moved deliberately, dispassionately. As the blouse fell away, I saw that she’d worn a full body stocking cut in a deep “V” between her breasts. The bullet had struck her just below the lower heart.

  Was it a lucky shot?

  Or an expert shot?

  Friedman looked up, questioning me with a glance. I nodded. He took a firm hold of her blouse and slacks. Bracing himself, he grunted as he tried to heave her over on her stomach. At first the lifeless, inert body seemed consciously to resist him. But then, balanced at midpoint on shoulder and thigh, the body suddenly seemed to move of its own volition, flopping face down on the dirty concrete. The body settled itself like a bag of viscous liquid, obscenely flattened on the underside.

  Once more, the steward stepped forward, this time moving the victim’s face to one side, making it more comfortable. Glancing at him, I wondered whether he was one of her fans.

  Her back was blood-soaked, as we’d expected.

  Friedman straightened, his knees cracking again. “No surprises,” he grunted.

  “No.”

  “Are we done with her?”

  I nodded. With Farley’s agreement, I gestured for the stewards to load her on their gurney and wheel her away. They did the
ir job quickly and efficiently. Less than a minute later the coroner’s van was driving through the performers’ entrance. I borrowed a walkie-talkie from a patrolman, and ordered two fully loaded patrol cars to escort the van downtown. Remembering the frenzied fans outside, I could imagine them tearing the van open for one last look at their dead idol.

  Five

  “JESUS,” FRIEDMAN SAID, SHAKING his head as he stared at the backstage scene, “this thing is turning into a real media circus. Honest to God, I’ve never seen anything like it. Everyone’s in the act. We’ve got—” He moved his head, chin bobbing, counting. “We’ve got five TV cameramen here. And there’s a couple of freelancers outside, trying to talk their way in.”

  “Have you had your picture taken?” I asked.

  “No. Have you?”

  “Yes,” I admitted.

  Friedman didn’t comment, but his grumpy, shoulder-shrugging silence was eloquent. For Friedman, there were only two kinds of cops: the “politicians” and the “pros.” Politicians schemed to get their pictures in the papers. Pros didn’t.

  “How the hell are we going to sort this out?” As I spoke, I glanced at my watch. The time was a little after one A.M. During the hour I’d been on the premises, we hadn’t developed any new information beyond the few facts that Friedman had gathered when he first arrived at the Cow Palace. All we had was a puddle of blood, a crime lab seal on the door of Rebecca Carlton’s mobile home and a chalked circle at the base of the light tower. The technicians had made their measurements and dusted for fingerprints and labeled a dozen plastic bags full of floor sweepings. Now they were packing up their equipment, finished for the night. The police photographers were already gone. The uniformed men were yawning at their posts, guarding the exits and wearily explaining to impatient bystanders that, for now, no one could leave the premises. Some of the bystanders took it good-naturedly, some angrily.