Mankiller (The Lt. Hastings Mysteries)

by Collin Wilcox

  “Christ, it’s the idiot brother. Now the goddamn cast is complete.”

  Canelli was walking beside a tall, gangling young man who looked to be in his middle twenties. He was dressed in sandals and dirty chino trousers. A roughly woven, peasant-style Mexican serape covered his upper body, falling to mid-thigh. A huge pagan sun-symbol hung around his neck, supported by a thick chain. His shoulder-length blond hair was dirty and tangled. His beard, a darker blond, was thin and ragged. Because his face was pale and gaunt, his colorless eyes seemed abnormally large beneath sparse, unformed brows. The eyes were fixed and fervent—locked inexorably on me as he advanced with long, uneven strides. There was something potentially violent about him—something wild and unpredictable. He could have been part of a fanatic foreign mob, rioting in support of some strange, avenging holy man.

  “This,” Behr muttered, “is where I fade into the scenery. Meet Justin Wade, the victim’s stepbrother. Lots of luck. You’ll need it.”

  As he turned away, I put my hand on his arm. “Where can I find you tomorrow?”

  “Call my office. David Behr Productions. I’ll leave word at the switchboard, so they’ll either put you through or else tell you where I am.” He nodded, glanced once more at Justin Wade, then walked off quickly.

  Even before I turned to face Justin Wade, I heard him saying, “Is this the man—the one in charge?” His voice was high and sharp: a thin, ragged falsetto.

  “That’s him,” Canelli said. “Lieutenant Hastings.”

  Wade stood an inch taller than me, but beneath the serape his body was scarecrow sharp. He looked underfed, or ill—or both. His complexion was sallow. His throat was scrawny, his hands and wrists bony. His sandaled feet were long and narrow.

  “Where is she?” Wade demanded. He stood barely a foot from me, with his face thrust close to mine. His lips were drawn back over his teeth, as if he were in pain. His voice was trembling now, almost breaking. His breath was bad. Seen close up, his enormous eyes shone with a strange, unhealthy luster. I wondered whether he was running a fever.

  “She—” I hesitated. “She’s gone. Taken away.”

  “And she’s dead? Dead?” Now the feverish eyes came closer, accusing me. I realized that I’d stepped back before him, disconcerted by the sheer force of his emotion. Was it grief? Anger? Something else? I couldn’t decide.

  I gestured to the angle of the stage and the curtains, where Behr had taken me earlier. “Let’s step over here, Mr. Wade.” I took his arm, guiding him. Canelli questioned me with a look, and I gestured for him to come along. With Wade’s back to him, Canelli caught my eye, inclined his head toward Wade, and rolled his eyes elaborately upward, shaking his head. The message: Canelli voted with Behr. Wade was a weirdo.

  Wade strode quickly to the orange curtain, then wheeled to face us. With his lips still drawn back from his teeth, he opened his mouth and lifted his chin. He could have been struggling for breath—or hyperventilating. Both his bony, long-fingered hands clutched hard at the rough woolen material covering his chest. With his wild eyes, his tortured mouth and his desperate hands, he looked as if he might rip his clothing, parodying a paroxysm of Old Testament grief.

  He held me for a moment with his luminous eyes locked into mine before his voice dropped to a hoarse whisper: “I knew it would happen. I felt it happening. It came like a pain—a terrible, mortal pain. And I knew. Knew.”

  As Canelli’s eyes again rolled upward, I asked quietly, “How do you mean, you knew it would happen?”

  “I told you,” he breathed. “I felt it. That’s why I came. I felt the pain, and I knew. So I came. To help.”

  “If you knew it would happen,” I said, “then you must have some idea why she was murdered—and who murdered her. Is that right?”

  Slowly, disparagingly, he shook his head. “No. You’ve got it wrong. All wrong.”

  “Then tell me how it was.” I folded my arms, prepared to wait. For a long moment we stood facing each other, silently staring. Finally, with his eyes fixed just above my head, he began speaking in a kind of hollow, eerie monotone:

  “You are a policeman, Lieutenant Hastings. That’s your profession. Your calling. Is that right?”

  I nodded, but he took no notice. So, as if I were forced to join in a responsive reading, I answered, “Yes, that’s right.”

  Satisfied, he continued in the same strangely disembodied voice: “My calling is different, though—different from yours, different from anyone else’s.” With his eyes still raised, he paused. Then, softly: “We are all unique, each one of us. And my uniqueness—my gift—is that I am a seer.” Another long, somber pause followed, plainly calculated for its effect. As he’d spoken, his hands had unknotted themselves from the woolen serape, and now hung loosely at his sides. He stood with his chin raised, eyes elevated. But now the tension was gone. The painfully corded muscles of his neck were smooth. The harsh, haggard contours of his face had been transformed into an expression of almost beatific calm.

  “I was at Aztecca, with my people, when I first felt it,” he said softly. “It tore at me like a murderer’s knife, here—” He raised one hand, to touch his heart. “And, instantly, I knew she was dead. I knew that she’d been murdered.”

  Self-consciously, Canelli cleared his throat. “How’d you know it was murder? I mean, couldn’t it have been an accident? Or a heart attack, maybe?”

  Wade shook his head. “No. I knew it was murder. I could feel the tearing of flesh. And I could feel the terror, too. And then I knew. Knew.”

  “What you’re telling us,” I said, “is that you have ESP. Is that it?”

  He didn’t answer, but instead turned toward Rebecca’s trailer, raising his serape-draped arm to point.

  “Is that where it happened? There?”

  “Yes.”

  Still staring at the trailer, he nodded. His eyes were blank, as if he’d gone into a self-willed trance. Slowly, dreamily, the outstretched arm dropped to his side.

  I tried another tack: “You said you were at Aztecca when you—” I hesitated. “When you felt she was killed.”

  Again, his head inclined gravely. “Yes.”

  “Where is Aztecca? How far away?”

  He shook his head. “I don’t know. I don’t think in terms of space and distance. Or time, either.”

  I decided to join in the game: “You think in terms of the spirit, then.” I tried to make it sound hushed, respectful.

  He turned toward me, searched my face for a moment, then intoned: “That’s right, Lieutenant. The spirit. Exactly.”

  Canelli cleared his throat again. “What’s Aztecca, anyhow?”

  Wade’s empty eyes moved to Canelli. “It’s a place of refuge, Inspector. A retreat.”

  “For you and your people, I gather.”

  “Yes.”

  Frowning thoughtfully, Canelli nodded. “How many of you are there?” he asked.

  Wade’s pale lips moved in a small, indulgent smile. “It’s not a numbers game, Inspector. Others count. Not us.”

  Shaking his head, Canelli murmured something inaudible.

  Still trying to play the game, I asked, “What did you do, when you felt your stepsister die?”

  “She was my sister. Don’t say stepsister. Not now.”

  “All right. Sorry. Sister, then. Tell me what you did. What action did you take?”

  For a moment he didn’t reply, but simply stared off toward Rebecca’s trailer, at the same time stroking his scraggly beard. Then, very softly, he said, “I began the process of willing my entrance into a different dimension. I knew she was gone, you see, and I knew I must go with her, as far as I could. So I withdrew to a dimension we could share, together.”

  “What the lieutenant is after,” Canelli said, “is something a little more—” He cleared his throat. “A little more down-to-earth. Like, how you got here, for instance. Did you drive, or what?”

  “Yes,” he answered. “I drove.”

  “How long did it
take you?” Canelli pressed.

  “I don’t know. I left after midnight.”

  “Was that immediately after you felt her die?” I asked.

  “No. I meditated first. I’ve already told you.”

  “Did anyone come with you?”

  “No. I wanted to be alone. It was probably a mistake—probably a dangerous mistake, because I slipped from one dimension to the other as I drove. I shouldn’t have done it. I shouldn’t have driven. But I knew I must be alone, so that I could keep in contact.”

  “With your sister, you mean.”

  “Yes.”

  I nodded, at the same time glancing at my watch. Already, I’d spent too long with him.

  “Would you mind waiting here for a moment, Mr. Wade?” I asked, at the same time gesturing for Canelli to follow me as I stepped toward the corner of the stage. “We’ve got a little business to take care of.”

  Again the dreamy smile touched his lips as he raised his hand in a kind of parting benediction. As we walked around the corner of the stage, I saw Wade’s eyes return to his stepsister’s trailer.

  “Whew—ee,” Canelli breathed. “He is something else. What’d you make of him, Lieutenant?”

  “I’m not sure. But I am sure that I don’t have any more time for him. He’s yours, Canelli.”

  “Oh, Jesus.” He shook his head. “I could feel it coming.”

  “Get his whole story,” I ordered. “He’s part of the victim’s family. He should have something for us. Clear?”

  “But, Jeeze, the way he rambles, Lieutenant, it could take me all night.”

  “Just get his whole story, no matter how long it takes. Go back to Aztecca with him, if he’s going.”

  “But what if Aztecca isn’t even in San Francisco?”

  “Canelli—” Wearily, I dropped my hand on his shoulder. “Improvise. Use initiative. Already, this is a big case, and by tomorrow it’ll be a lot bigger. Whatever help you need, get it. On my authority. But I want his story. Clear?”

  He sighed heavily. “That’s clear, Lieutenant. I guess I’ll see you tomorrow, then? At the Hall?”

  “Right. At the Hall. Good luck.”

  “Yeah,” he answered ruefully. “Thanks.”

  Six

  I WATCHED THE MURDER scene replayed on the TV news while eating breakfast the next morning. Driving to the Hall, I heard the story repeated on news-talk radio. When I parked in the Hall’s underground garage, three local newspaper reporters were waiting for me at the elevator. When I got out of the elevator on the third floor, two TV crews followed me down the hallway to my office. Inside the office, my phone was ringing.

  The caller was Friedman. “I hope you wore a clean shirt,” he said.

  “Where are you?”

  “In my office, hiding. It turns out I didn’t have a clean shirt.”

  “What time did you leave the Cow Palace?”

  “About a half hour after you did. Two o’clock.”

  Rubbing my burning eyes, I sighed. Even when I’d gotten home, I hadn’t slept well. I couldn’t forget the quarrel with Ann.

  “What now?” I asked.

  “Now we compare notes, and then put the pieces together. I’ll see you in a few minutes, just as soon as I hear from a couple of computers.”

  Friedman knocked once on my office door and came in without being invited. He made for my visitor’s chair, and sank into it with his customary grateful sigh. It was Friedman’s contention that, in the entire department, my visitor’s chair was the only one that could comfortably accommodate his two hundred forty pounds.

  He settled himself, took a cigar from his vest pocket, and began thoughtfully stripping off the cellophane wrapper as he said, “Lately, it seems that we’ve had more than our share of homicides that turned into media events. But this one, I predict, will be a record-breaker.”

  He balled up the wrapper, tossed it casually at my waste-paper basket, then began searching his pockets for a match, grunting as he shifted from one big ham to another. Beginning with the balled-up cigar wrapper, which had missed the wastebasket, it was all part of an inevitable early-morning ritual. Eventually he would find a match, light his cigar and toss the match toward the basket. If the wrapper always missed, the smoking match invariably sailed straight and true.

  “Rebecca Carlton was a big star,” I said. “One of the biggest, apparently.”

  Friedman lit the cigar and tossed the match into the basket. As I watched the basket for smoke, he got the cigar going to his satisfaction before he said, “Did you hear the rumor that she’s going to lie in state on the stage of the Cow Palace while millions of fans come from all over the world, to file past the bier?”

  “Jesus, no.”

  “That’s just one scenario. There’s also a rumor that her ashes are going to be scattered over the Pacific from an airplane that’ll be leading a formation of a thousand other planes. God—” He shook his head, awed by his own speculations. “Just imagine what the Rebecca Carlton Lives T-shirt concession will be worth, to name just one skam.”

  “Has Canelli come in yet?”

  “I haven’t seen him,” Friedman answered. “By the way—” He shifted his cigar from one fat hand to the other, and drew a computer printout from his inside pocket—in the process dislodging an inch-long cigar ash, which fell unheeded on his vest. Tossing the printout on my desk, he said, “The ownership of the gun just came in from Sacramento. Sam Wright. Who’s he, anyhow?”

  “He’s the victim’s husband.”

  Friedman’s eyebrows shifted slightly higher. Except in extremities, it was the only sign of surprise that ever registered on his smooth, swarthy face. Friedman’s style was to startle others, not be startled himself.

  “Are you sure?” he asked.

  I shrugged. “I haven’t seen the marriage certificate. But David Behr said they were married several years ago. It hasn’t been a marriage for a long time, Behr says. But it’s apparently still legal.”

  “Well, then, I guess we should talk to him,” Friedman said thoughtfully. “How about you doing it? I’ll stay here and try to keep the strings together.”

  “All right. What does ballistics say? Is it the gun that killed her?”

  Friedman nodded. “It’s the gun, all right. One shot was fired. The lab identified four sets of latent prints on the gun itself, and two on the cartridge cases. One set belongs to the victim. The other three are up for grabs.”

  I lifted my telephone and ordered Culligan, in the squad room, to locate Sam Wright and have his premises staked out, front and back. When he’d done it, Culligan would notify me. I broke the connection, then called the lab, ordering them to get a three-man crew ready, with a paraffin-test kit added to the usual fingerprinting and specimen-collecting equipment. And, finally, I phoned for a search warrant.

  As soon as I replaced the phone in its cradle, it rang.

  “It’s Canelli, Lieutenant. Jesus, what a time I had last night. You want me to come in?”

  “Come on in, Canelli.”

  Gently, Friedman smiled. “Do I understand that we’re about to be treated to one of Canelli’s suspense-filled reports from the field?”

  Staring at the computer printout, I didn’t reply. The gun was a .357 magnum, Smith and Wesson, purchased three years ago, new.

  According to Behr, Sam Wright hadn’t been backstage at the Cow Palace last night. But he could have been in the audience. After the encores, he could have slipped through the curtains and killed his wife. Then he could have gone back through the curtains and left with the departing crowd, one face among thousands. Fifteen minutes later, he could have been at the airport. By now, he could be in New York, or Mexico.

  Or Europe, or South America.

  Or else at his home, waiting for us—ready with a plausible reason why the murder weapon bore the victim’s fingerprints.

  I heard Canelli’s soft, tentative knock at the door. Even though Canelli had been my driver for almost a year, he still approached
my office as if he were a schoolboy sent to the principal for misconduct.

  Canelli edged into the office, greeted Friedman with a hesitant nod and slid uneasily into a chair. Physically, the two men were almost identical. Each of them weighed well over two hundred, not all of it muscle. Each of them managed to look perpetually disheveled, no matter what he was wearing, or how recently he’d been to the barber. Each man’s face was round and swarthy, with full lips, a large nose, at least one double chin and brown eyes beneath thick, dark eyebrows. Their dark-brown hair grew low across the forehead, and was never quite combed.

  But their personalities were almost exact opposites. At age fifty-four, a homicide lieutenant for almost twenty years, Friedman knew exactly who he was, and precisely what he thought of almost everything. His mind was quick and subtle, his humor ironic and whimsical. As long as I’d known him, Friedman had always kept at least one jump ahead of everyone, the good guys as well as the bad guys. To Friedman, police work was a long-running, good-humored game.

  Canelli, at age twenty-seven, was always playing catch-up ball. He was the squad room’s resident innocent. He was the only policeman I’d ever known who got his feelings hurt, and admitted it. He didn’t think like a cop, or look like a cop, or act like a cop. But, precisely for those reasons, Canelli could do things that left his colleagues gasping. On stakeouts, or trailing a suspect, Canelli was the last one to be made. No one, it seemed, took him seriously. He was a consistent loser in a constant succession of minor skirmishes with machines, especially cars. Yet, in hot pursuit, Canelli seemed to drive with an angel on his shoulder.

  Now, as he balanced his outsize body precariously on the edge of his chair, Canelli was nervously clearing his throat, ready with his report on Justin Wade.

  It was Friedman, lolling belly-up in his own chair, who asked Canelli how it went last night.

  “Well,” Canelli said fervently, “I want to tell you, Lieutenant, that guy is really something else. I mean, he’s either crazy, or else he’s some kind of a genius. Or maybe both, for all I know. I mean, it’s like he’s on one level, or something, while everyone else is on another level. Which, when I think about it, is what he keeps talking about. Like, different levels of existence, and experience, and everything, with him on some kind of a plane all his own.”