He watched Hastings leave the Bell house, go down the steps to the street, walk to the Ford sedan parked across the street. The detective moved easily, confidently, as if he knew he carried with him the full force of the law, society’s broad-shouldered guardian, the man with the badge and the gun.
The man who was stalking his prey. Closer—closer.
Hastings and all the others, searching, tightening the noose. A cliché. A dark, dangerous cliché, a morass. The mind of a murderer, meaningless tangles of insanity and lucidity: his only instrument of survival.
4:40 PM
Dubiously, Friedman shook his head. “I don’t know, Frank. In my experience, loonies don’t make very predictable suspects. Sure, she prayed for Hanchett to die. I’d be surprised if she hadn’t.”
“If you’d seen her, though …”
“I’m surprised you didn’t hang in there, keep her talking.”
“Her husband wouldn’t let me do it. So before he got hot, decided to call a lawyer, whatever, I decided to back off. I’ll wait till the husband’s at work, talk to her again. Why don’t you come along, see what you think?”
“Fine,” Friedman said. “Incidentally, did you hear about the kid and the gun?”
“What kid? What gun?” Hastings asked the questions sourly. Friedman was building the suspense, working his audience.
“A little kid found a gun in some bushes a few hours ago. It was only two blocks from the murder scene. The lab’s doing the ballistics right this minute, and then they’ll do the fingerprints.” Friedman smiled. “The kid fired the goddamn gun. At last report, the mother was still in shock. Not to mention the father, who’s got a hole in the driver’s door of his brand-new Celica.” Friedman’s smile broadened. “Can you imagine the insurance adjuster’s expression?”
“Was the father inside the car?” Canelli asked.
“No.”
As though relieved, Canelli settled back in Hastings’s visitor’s chair. Then, dolefully, Canelli began to shake his head. “Jeez, just think of it. That poor woman. Teresa Bell, I mean, with her kid dead. And now she’ll be locked up, maybe. Sometimes—” Canelli sighed. “Sometimes there’s no justice. None.”
As Canelli said it, Friedman’s smile faded. For a moment his face remained expressionless. Then, speaking quietly, looking down at his thick hands judiciously folded in his lap, Friedman said, “In this business, Canelli, justice is just a word. Haven’t you figured that one out by now?”
As always uncertain how he should respond to yet another of Friedman’s homilies, Canelli first shrugged, then shook his head. Finally he ventured an uncertain nod, followed by another shrug. Watching the two of them play their ritual parts in this long-running departmental skit, Hastings was once again struck by the similarities between the two men. Both weighed at least two hundred forty. Both men were swarthy. Their faces were smooth, their lips full, their eyes dark, their hair thick. Canelli’s hair was dark; Friedman’s hair was graying.
But their personalities differed dramatically. Lieutenant Peter Friedman, senior co-commander of Homicide, seldom revealed his feelings, never allowed himself to be put on the defensive. Hastings had never seen Friedman surprised or disconcerted or visibly frightened. First and last, Friedman kept them guessing.
“I thought,” Canelli said, “that the witnesses both said it was a man.”
“They said the assailant wore a cap, or a hat,” Hastings said. “And slacks. Given a combination like that, if the light’s bad, most witnesses will say they saw a man commit a crime, not a woman. They seem to be conditioned to think that—”
Millie Greenberg, Homicide’s long-suffering receptionist, secretary, stenographer, and amiable object of lust, appeared framed in the aluminum-and-glass rectangle of Hastings’s office door. When Hastings beckoned, Millie entered, deposited a sheaf of papers on the desk, and spoke to Friedman.
“Lab reports and the coroner’s prelims on the Hanchett homicide.” She smiled at the two lieutenants. “Can I leave? My kid’s nursery school phoned. Donnie’s got the shits, if you’ll pardon the expression.”
Saying something sympathetic, both lieutenants nodded in unison.
“Thanks,” she said. “See you tomorrow.” She flipped her right hand, used her left hand to pat Canelli on top of the head, and left the office. After duly studying the admirable action of Millie’s buttocks and thighs, Friedman picked up the papers, slipped on a pair of black-rimmed reading glasses, and began reading the reports while Canelli asked Hastings whether Millie’s divorce was final.
“I’m not sure,” Hastings answered. “Why? What about you and Gracie? What’s it been now—eleven years—that you’re engaged?”
“More like twelve,” Canelli admitted sheepishly.
Knowing that Friedman could listen to their conversation while he read the reports, Hastings said, “So what about Hanchett’s stepdaughter, Paula Gregg? Did you talk to her?” As he asked the question, Hastings experienced a momentary pang of guilt. She’s wild, Fiona Hanchett had said. She’s wild, and she’s dangerous. Meaning that he should have told Friedman, should have cautioned Friedman not to send Canelli alone to interrogate Paula Gregg. But Friedman had been harassed, working the telephones.
“Boy—” Canelli nodded enthusiastically. “Did I ever talk to her.” Wonderingly, he shook his head. “I’ll tell you, Lieutenant, too bad you weren’t there. I mean, talk about a looker.” Once more, Canelli shook his head. “I’ll tell you, she’s something else. She’s one of those—you know—natural beauties.”
“So what’s her story?”
“Well …” Canelli took out his notebook, thumbed the pages back and forth, frowned, riffled the pages again. Finally finding his place, he began again: “Well, she lives in one of those old loading sheds down at the piers that’s been converted into apartments. Nice place. Far out, but nice. You know—trendy. Funky, I’d call it. But anyhow, I got there a little after two, I guess. And, Jesus, it looked like she and some big black guy were just getting out of the sack.”
Friedman laid the reports aside, took off his glasses, and studied Canelli as he continued. “The black guy took off, though. I mean, he took one look at the badge and he split. But the lady—Paula Gregg—it didn’t faze her. She’s like, you know, one of those real wild-looking types you see in the TV ads for perfume or something. Real long and lanky, with this real thick hair that’s all over the place. You know, ‘Jungle Passion,’ like that. And, in fact, it turns out that’s what she does. Models, I mean. She’s got big blowups of herself on her walls, from magazine ads.”
Marveling, Friedman shook his head. “You’ve got a gift, Canelli. A real flair.”
Canelli’s reaction was speculative. For as long as he’d been in Homicide, he’d never quite been able to divine Friedman’s true motives.
“So what’d she say about Hanchett?” Hastings asked. “You did mention the murder, didn’t you?”
“Yeah. And, boy, she didn’t make any bones about it. She hated him. She’s only twenty years old, but she’s already been on her own for three years. As soon as she could get out of the house, she split. And before that—she doesn’t make any bones about this, either—she was a ward of the juvenile court, and spent some time at that place in Idaho. That custody farm for rich kids, I forget the name.”
“It’s Orchard Lake.” Friedman spoke quietly, thoughtfully. A suspect with a record—any record—was always taken seriously.
“What about last night?” Hastings asked. “An alibi?”
Canelli shrugged. “She was with that black guy, she says. I’ve got his name, but I haven’t checked him out yet.”
“Well”—Friedman gestured to the lab reports—“there’s a little nugget here for us.”
Canelli’s reaction was an expression of hope; Hastings simply waited through the pause that always preceded something of substance from Friedman.
“It turns out,” Friedman said, gesturing to the printouts he’d just scanned, “that the
gun the kid found was the gun that did the job, no question. I had C. J. check the gun through Sacramento, and it was registered to a guy in Los Angeles. Then C. J. ran the guy.” Friedman consulted one of the printouts. “His name is Foster Crowe, and he lives in Beverly Hills. A high roller, apparently, very big in Dun & Bradstreet. So I decided, what the hell, I’d give Foster Crowe a call. And it turns out that the gun was part of his gun collection. Which figures. I forgot to mention that the gun is a Llama, which is a Spanish automatic. Actually, I happen to know that, as a gun, the Llama is the shits. But this one is engraved, has carved grips, the whole thing. It turns out that part of the collection was ripped off a year ago. So I called old John Farrell, down at LAPD. John, it happens, owes me at least three favors, from that Custance homicide a few months ago. So he’s going to see what he can do about tracking down the gun after it was stolen.”
“What about the rest of it?” Hastings pointed to the other reports.
Friedman shrugged. “Not much we don’t already know. There were two shots that did the damage. Your reports say three shots were fired, so one went wild. One bullet severed the aorta, which was fatal. That one went right through. The second shot punctured the lower abdomen and lodged in the buttocks. It’s a seven-millimeter bullet, incidentally.”
“So.” Hastings spread his hands, glanced at his wristwatch. “So what we’ve got so far is zero.”
“The game’s just started.”
“I don’t know.” Hastings shook his head. “Something about this case doesn’t add up.”
“Don’t let me talk you out of Teresa Bell,” Friedman said, “just because she’s a loony.”
“Her husband works nights, eight to four,” Hastings said. “Tomorrow night, let’s talk to her.”
“Not tonight?”
Hastings shook his head. “I’m going to talk to Jason Pfiefer tonight. He’s the estranged husband of Carla Pfiefer, Hanchett’s girlfriend. “He’s also a surgeon at BMC, and he was apparently very, very jealous.”
“Ah.” Friedman nodded puckish approval. “The jealous husband. Right.” He smiled. It was the habitual Friedman smile: elliptical, inscrutable, knowing. “The case is assuming dimension. Who else’ve we got that hasn’t been interviewed?”
“We’ve got a guy named Clayton Vance, who’s Barbara Hanchett’s boyfriend, at least according to Fiona Hanchett. Then there’s Edward Gregg, Paula Gregg’s father.” He turned to Canelli. “Why don’t you talk to him, since you’ve already talked to Paula? He lives in Pacific Heights. Meanwhile, after I talk to Pfiefer, I’ll talk to Vance, hear what he has to say about Barbara Hanchett and her husband.”
Canelli brightened visibly. “Maybe Vance and Barbara murdered Hanchett so she could get the inheritance and marry Vance.”
“I think I saw that movie the other night on ‘Golden Oldies,’” Friedman said. “Wasn’t that John Garfield and Lana Turner?”
As Canelli was considering his response, Hastings spoke to Friedman. “So what about you?”
“I,” Friedman answered, “will stick with the Llama. In fact”—he consulted his own watch—“in fact, I think I’ll put in a call to the LAPD, see what they’ve found out. Also, I’m going to talk to a couple of police reporters.” He glanced at notes he’d scrawled on the back of a printout. “All we really know for sure is that the assailant—man or woman—killed Hanchett at about ten-fifteen P.M. last night, at the eleven-hundred block of Green Street. Carrying the gun, he walked down the hill to Hyde Street, where he—or she—probably turned left. Then he probably turned right, on Vallejo. He walked a block and a half—probably—and then he dumped the gun in a hedge. Now Hyde Street between Green and Vallejo, I happen to know, is well traveled, even at that hour. There’s the cable car, for one thing, and at least one restaurant on the block. So my plan is to give out that route to the newspapers and TV, see what we get.”
“What we’ll get,” Hastings said, “is a lot of nuts calling up. You know that, Pete. It’ll be more trouble than it’s worth. It’s always more trouble than it’s worth.”
Dark, heavily lidded, almond-shaped eyes hooded, swarthy face expressionless, Friedman studied his co-lieutenant. “Well, how about giving out the block where the crime was committed, and the block where the murder weapon was found?”
“And let them figure out the route for themselves,” Hastings objected. “It comes to the same thing. There’s only one route from the murder scene to the place where the gun was found.”
“Trust me.”
“Hmmm …”
7:10 PM
“Frank.” It was a woman’s voice.
Hastings turned to see Susan Parrish—and her husband Arnie, reminding him again of the distant past, memories fugitive from the old neighborhood, half-forgotten high school days.
Arnie, in his forties now. Paunchy. Balding. Wearing a three-piece suit and an executive tie.
Arnie, who’d always been so skinny, so shrill. So pushy.
Still so shrill: “Hey, Frank. My God, all these years in the same city, Frank.”
Followed by a hard, competitive handshake. Still pushy.
“Hello, Arnie. How’ve you been?”
“Never better. I’m in real estate, you know. Just like your dad. Only—” The smile, too, was competitive. The new Arnie now, condescending: “Only a little more successful, I guess you’d have to say. But, still—” A good-old-boy blow on the shoulder. “Still, I don’t get on the six-o’clock news, like you do.”
Smiling minimally, Hastings turned to Susan Parrish. “I’ve got an appointment with Jason Pfiefer. I’m late. He said he’d meet me in the lobby here, at seven.”
She scanned the spacious lobby, and pointed. “He’s over there. That lean, darkly handsome devil sitting beside the ficus tree. He’s a little strange, maybe. But undeniably handsome.”
As he turned to track her gesture, Hastings said, “That could be a description of Brice Hanchett.”
“They’re a lot alike,” Susan said. “Same looks, basically. Same egos, too. Basically.”
Hastings thanked her, smiled, managed to keep the smile intact as he shook hands with Arnie and walked across the lobby to stand before Jason Pfiefer. Plainly considering the meeting a waste of his time, Pfiefer rose, shook hands perfunctorily, and gestured Hastings to a chair. Pfiefer was tall and lean. His eyes were intense, revealing nothing, demanding everything. His close-trimmed beard lent a satanic cast to his pale, deeply etched face. He wore a green surgical gown and white running shoes. A stethoscope was thrust into the pocket of the gown. His hands, Hastings noticed, were in constant, restless motion. His body language was uncompromising.
“I don’t have much time, Lieutenant. I told you that on the phone. And you’re late.”
It would be a mistake, Hastings knew, to apologize. Instead, trying to match the other man’s intensity, Hastings leaned forward. “I’ll come right to the point, then, Doctor. I’m investigating the murder of Brice Hanchett, as I told you on the phone. He was killed last night about ten-fifteen, as he was leaving your—as he was leaving Carla Pfiefer’s apartment.” Hastings watched for a reaction. Except for a slight compression of the thin lips, Pfiefer’s expression remained unchanged.
“So?” It was a soft, sibilant monosyllable.
“So—how do you feel about—about—” A final hesitant beat. But there was no retreat. He’d boxed himself in, and was forced to come out with it: “How do you feel about Hanchett and your wife seeing each other?”
“Estranged wife. She’s filed for divorce.” Pfiefer’s voice was icy. “I presume you knew that.”
“You haven’t answered the question.”
“You’re over the line, Lieutenant. I’ve no intention of telling you how I feel about Carla and Brice.”
Studying the other man thoughtfully, Hastings finally nodded. “I can understand how you feel. But there’s a man dead. There’s a man dead, and there’s a romantic triangle. Now, my business is like a lot of other businesses.
It’s percentages. And according to the percentages, in a situation like this—a romantic triangle—the natural suspects are the man’s jealous wife and the woman’s jealous husband.”
Pfiefer’s entire body tightened visibly as he rose to his feet. “Are you telling me—are you insinuating—that I killed Brice Hanchett?” Suppressed fury drew his voice taut. “Is that what you’re saying?”
Moving deliberately in a choreographed pantomime of the moment’s deadly delicacy, Hastings also rose. “We can make it real simple, Doctor.” A final eye-to-eye confrontation. “Just tell me where you were last night between ten and eleven. Tell me that, and I’ll be on my way.”
Pfiefer’s mouth twisted into a malicious smile. His voice matched the smile. “I was here, Lieutenant. I was here all night. There was a liver, you see, that we were waiting for. It was delayed because of bad flying weather. Then the airplane had a mechanical problem. The whole transplant team was here. All night. All sixteen of us.”
7:30 PM
Now it began. The stillness that pulsated with a life separate from her own—the silence that beckoned from the darkness beyond the grave.
But somewhere in that silence, somewhere in that darkness, the voices would begin. First the small voices, whispering. Then the heavier voices, smothering the one voice—
Smothering her.
All of it shattered by the first explosion. All of it consumed by the orange fire blossom.
A trigger-touch of flesh on metal. Liberation. Silence. Peace.
Promise.
But then, today, the stranger had come. The large, watchful man with the still, knowing eyes. Was he the devil, this man with the golden badge?
Was the watchful policeman her new tormentor, the one whose devil-voice would ignite the other voices, kindle the other eyes that always watched from the shadows?
This she must know.
Tonight, therefore, she must make the call—before it could begin again.
9:15 PM
“Mr. Vance? Clayton Vance?”
With the door open on the night chain, a pair of eyes looked down at the gold badge in Hastings’s outstretched palm.
A Death Before Dying (The Lt. Hastings Mysteries) Page 30