Victims

by Collin Wilcox

  He took a notebook from another pocket, frowned as he thumbed the pages backward and forward, and finally found the entry he wanted. “As near as I can tell, several shots were fired—three shots, at least—just a little after 1:00 A.M. Like, maybe five minutes after. Guest called 911, and the first black-and-white unit was on the scene at about 1:25. They verified the crime and called Dispatch. The dispatcher called Homicide. I was the only one catching. I got here about ten minutes to two. By that time another black-and-white was on the scene, and the premises were secure. I took a look at the victim. At first I didn’t recognize him. That’s because he was on his face, see. Then I talked to Guest. Or, more like it, he talked to me.”

  “How do you mean?”

  “I mean that—”

  A hallway door opened, revealing John MacFarland, a big, amiable, powerfully built man in his middle fifties, with a ruddy face seamed by twenty years spent riding a motorcycle.

  “Hello, Frank.”

  “Hello, Johnny. How’ve you been?”

  “No complaints.” He smiled. “I’m a grandfather. Just a week ago. Sally had a baby boy.”

  “I know. Kennedy told me. Congratulations.”

  “Thanks. The coroner’s team is here. They want to know whether they can move the body.”

  “No, they can’t. The lab technicians aren’t on the scene yet.” Inquiringly, I looked at Canelli. He spread his hands and shook his head.

  “I called them as soon as I got here, Lieutenant. But it’s Friday night, you know. They’re out on another call: a wino, dead in a church, if you can believe that. I was just going to tell you.”

  “Then I don’t want anyone within ten feet of the body,” I said, speaking to MacFarland. “This one, we’ve got to do right. Just exactly right.”

  MacFarland nodded and turned away, closing the hallway door as he went.

  “Where were we?” I asked Canelli.

  “I was telling you about Guest.”

  “Where is he, by the way?”

  Canelli gestured to a carved oak staircase that curved gracefully up from the central entry hall to the mansion’s second floor. “He’s in his bedroom, at the top of those stairs. He says for you to go up and see him.”

  “Over the phone, he seemed pretty sure of his facts, pretty convinced he had everything figured out. Is that the way he seemed to you?”

  “Well—” Canelli frowned as he pressed a forefinger to his pursed lips. “He kind of comes on strong, I guess you’d say. I mean, he’s a dynamic personality, no question. But the way it looked to me, he sort of—you know—sized me up, and decided that I wasn’t—you know—an officer, or anything. So then he made it pretty plain, see, that he didn’t intend to waste his time talking to just anyone.”

  “Did he accuse Gordon Kramer of the crime when he first talked to you—when you first arrived?”

  Canelli shook his head. “No, sir. Not right at first. He said that he knew who did it, though. Then he said that he’d make his statement at the proper time, to the proper person. That’s when I decided to call you.” As he said it, he looked at me with his soft, anxious brown eyes, obviously still wondering whether he’d done the right thing, calling me. Canelli was the only cop I’d ever known who could constantly get his feelings hurt.

  “You were right to phone me, Canelli. No question.”

  “Oh, Jeez, Lieutenant. I’m sure glad you’re not—”

  “Come on. Let’s take a look at the body. Where is it?”

  “Here—back here.” He led the way down a wood-paneled hallway and opened an elegantly carved oak door. I was prepared for the smell of violent death: excrement and the sickly sweet stench of drying blood mingling in an odor a policeman never forgets, an odor that constantly lingers in the senses, is never completely purged.

  I was facing another hallway, this one narrower, less elaborate, leading straight to the back of the house. Two interior doors were on my left, both of them ajar. To my right, another shorter hallway led to an outside door, also ajar. Through the window of the outside door, bathed in the glare of police floodlights, I saw the coroner’s van parked on a large concrete apron that served a three-car garage.

  “It’s ahead,” Canelli said. “There’s another hallway that goes off to your right, back there. That’s where he is.”

  “You stay here. I’ll just take a quick look. You didn’t touch him, did you?”

  “No. I don’t think Guest did, either. But I’m not real sure.”

  Nodding, I walked slowly forward. The first room to my left was a small bedroom, darkened. The second room on the left was larger, also a bedroom. The hallway light was enough to reveal a clutter of children’s toys through the half-opened door. Ahead, the hallway made a right angle turn to the right. As I approached the corner, I saw a hand, clenched in death’s final agony. Another slow, reluctant step revealed a bare forearm. Then I could see it all: Charlie Quade, sprawled facedown on the parquet wood floor. He’d gotten balder since I’d last seen him, and fatter. He was barefooted, and wore only his undershorts and a tee shirt. He’d bled a lot. Squatting for a closer look, I saw why: One bullet had gone through his neck just below the ear, probably rupturing the jugular vein. The other bullet appeared to have struck him in the shoulder or high on the chest. His eyes were open, staring at my foot. His mouth was open, too. His white, pudgy legs were drawn up close to his body; his torso was twisted. He’d probably suffered before he died. A lot.

  I saw a Colt .45 automatic lying about a foot from his hand. I remembered that gun. For their off-duty weapons, most officers choose the smallest, least conspicuous gun possible, usually a short-barreled revolver, easily concealed. Not Charlie. Off duty, he carried the big Colt .45 thrust in his belt, on display. He’d always been a show-off: a blustering, bad-tempered braggart. Guns, money, cars, women—Charlie flashed them all.

  Straightening, I looked down the short hallway that led to what seemed to be an outside door, half open. But no light from the driveway came through the door’s small eye-level window.

  “Does this door lead to the garage?” I called out.

  “That’s right,” Canelli answered.

  I looked a last time at Charlie Quade, then joined Canelli, standing exactly where I’d left him. I pointed to the first bedroom door. “Was Charlie sleeping in there?”

  “I guesso.” He pointed to the second door. “That’s the boy’s room, I know. Guest’s grandson, as nearly as I can make out.”

  We were standing within a few feet of the outside door that opened on the floodlit concrete apron of the garage. Over Canelli’s shoulder I saw the crime lab’s van pull to a stop beside the coroner’s wagon. I pointed. “There’s the crime lab. Finally. You stay with them until they’re finished—until they’ve got everything they want. And I mean everything. I want you to keep looking over their shoulders. Clear?” I looked him in the eye, hard.

  “Yessir.” He nodded diligently. “That’s clear.”

  “When you’re satisfied—good and satisfied—you can authorize the removal of the body, on my authority. If you’ve got any questions I’ll be upstairs, talking to Guest.”

  He nodded again. “Yessir.”

  “I want everyone—everyone—to realize that this isn’t the Tenderloin. And Alexander Guest isn’t their friendly local pimp. Charlie Quade was apparently working for Guest. Which automatically makes this whole thing important. If we make any mistakes, Guest could make us pay. Through the nose.”

  Canelli started to smile, then decided to frown earnestly as he nodded vigorous agreement.

  THREE

  THE WALLS BESIDE THE curving central staircase were hung with large, elaborately framed oil paintings, most of them landscapes. At the top of the staircase, I stood facing yet another English style oak door. From behind the door I heard the sound of someone talking. I stepped closer, listened for a moment, then knocked.

  “Yes?” It was a loud, authoritative voice, unmistakably Alexander Guest’s.

 
; “It’s Lieutenant Hastings, Mr. Guest. Frank Hastings. Homicide.”

  “Come in.”

  Like the rest of the mansion, the master bedroom reproduced an English manor house, with paneled walls, high ceilings, parquet floors and gracefully carved decorative woodwork. Even the huge, strictly American plate glass window that commanded a spectacular view of the Golden Gate Bridge was framed in carved wood, with small, square stained glass panes bordering the plate glass.

  Alexander Guest sat behind an ornate leather-topped table with carved lion-claw legs. The table served as a luxurious desk. He waved me to a nearby armchair, then half turned away from me, continuing to talk into the phone.

  “Yes, yes.” Impatiently he gesticulated with his free hand, as if he were angry with the caller for not comprehending. “There’s a ranking officer here now—finally.” As he said it, he glanced at me sharply. Plainly, Alexander Guest resented the time he’d been compelled to spend with underlings before I arrived on the scene. “He’s just come into the room, in fact. I’ll—what?” Obviously still exasperated, gnawing his lower lip and shaking his head, he paused, gracelessly enduring whatever the other person was saying. Finally, speaking with exaggerated patience, as if he were dealing with an uncomprehending child, or an inattentive adult, he said, “Marie, I’ve told you what I want you to do. I want you to stay where you are. I want you and Durkin to stay together, in the same room. Durkin will protect you. That’s his job, to protect you. There’s an officer here now, as I said, someone with authority. I’m sure he’ll approve a guard for you, as soon as he knows the details. In the meantime, though, you stay there, with Durkin. It’s odds on, certainly, that Gordon’s trying to get away. He might’ve succeeded by now, for all we know. So I don’t think you’re in danger. But, still, there’s no point in—What?” He listened for another ill-tempered moment, then apparently broke in, saying, “Marie, I’ve got to go. The sooner I talk to Lieutenant Hastings, the sooner things will fall into place. You just do as I tell you. I’ll call you as soon as I’m free.” Abruptly, he cradled the phone and turned to face me.

  Because I’d seen his picture so often, Guest’s face seemed familiar, like the face of a movie star seen on the street. He looked to be in his early sixties. His body was lean and muscular: an athlete’s body, taut and trim. Alexander Guest was one of those restless, intense men who conveyed a sense of constant movement and tension, even sitting behind a desk. His gray hair was thick and wiry, growing low across his forehead, elegantly barbered. His face, like his body, was lean and vigorous, deeply creased down the cheeks and around the mouth. His nose was large and high bridged. His eyes were a clear gray, almost transparent. The eyes dominated the face: quick moving, shrewd, unsmiling, uncompromising. He looked like an actor perfectly cast in the role Alexander Guest played in real life: an incredibly successful trial lawyer, a living legend with an international reputation as a brilliant, ruthless winner. A gossip columnist had recently written that Guest never accepted clients unless their names appeared in Who’s Who.

  Immediately, he went on the offensive. “Have you gotten anything on your bulletin to have Kramer picked up?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Have you got men at all the airports? They should be covering Oakland and San Jose, too, as well as San Francisco—any airport that makes connections to New York.”

  “Did you tell that to Inspector Canelli?”

  “Certainly,” he snapped.

  I looked at my watch; the time was 3:15, almost exactly two hours since the murder. Assuming that he’d committed the crime at 1:10 A.M., Gordon Kramer couldn’t have gotten to San Francisco International, the closest airport, before 1:45. By 2:45, probably, the airport police would have been alerted. We’d have to check the airline schedules to be sure, but I doubted whether any airline would leave San Francisco for New York before, say, 6:00 A.M. So it seemed probable that we had a better-than-even chance of apprehending the fugitive, assuming that he and his son were forced to wait for a flight out of town. In the wee hours, a man and a boy in a deserted airline terminal would be hard to miss.

  “Do you have any reason to believe that he’s going directly to New York?” I asked. “If he’s a fugitive, and he’s smart, he’d go somewhere else first. Los Angeles, for instance, or Portland. He’d want to get out of San Francisco as soon as possible. Once he does that, he can take his time going on to New York.”

  “Well,” Guest said, “he’s a fugitive, no question. And, sure as hell, he’s smart.” His voice was flat and furious; his eyes were stone cold.

  “What I’d like,” I said, taking out my notebook and ballpoint pen, “is for you to fill me in. Give me everything you can think of, from the beginning—everything that’s relevant to the crime.”

  “Yes—certainly.” Suddenly, as if his body couldn’t contain its own instant burst of energy, he rose to his feet. Wearing a plaid woolen bathrobe over paisley-printed silk pajamas, he began pacing back and forth behind the intricately carved table.

  “It all started,” he said, “almost seven years ago, when my daughter Marie—” He gestured to the phone. It was a short, resentful gesture, as if he were releasing a charge of sudden anger. “Marie married Gordon Kramer, in New York. She’d been married once before. In fact, she’d gone to New York to live for a while, to forget her first husband. Unfortunately, however, she met Kramer almost immediately, and in just a few months they got married, at City Hall, naturally. Secretly. Or, at least, surreptitiously, as if the marriage were a shameful secret. They lived in New York until John, their son, was almost two years old. Then they came to San Francisco. Kramer—I never think of him as Gordon—was in venture capital. He had his own business in New York, or so he said. I was able to help him get established here, and within two years after his arrival in San Francisco he’d made many advantageous connections, thanks to my efforts.

  “But then, unhappily, the marriage started to come apart. And, to be fair, I can’t claim it was entirely Kramer’s fault. Because, in fact—” He broke stride, stood motionless for a moment. I saw his shoulders sag and his head lower, as if his sharp, restless vitality had suddenly deserted him. “In fact, even during her first marriage, Marie began to drink.” Plainly weary now, he resumed his seat. “I thought having a baby might help, but it didn’t. Just the opposite proved to be the case. Postpartum depression aggravated the problem. And then there was Kramer—” His eyes hardened, his voice sharpened vindictively. I was aware of a pattern developing. Talking about his daughter or his grandson, Guest’s manner softened. But when he talked about Gordon Kramer, anger took over.

  “During the whole of his marriage, Kramer was seeing other women. Lots of other women. And when he and Marie moved here, his philandering continued, got worse, in fact. Until, finally, he became so blatant about it that we had no choice but to take action.” He began reflectively twirling an antique silver letter opener with his long, expressive fingers as he looked me squarely in the eye. Obviously, he was evaluating me, deciding how much he should tell me. Finally he said, “To be perfectly candid, Lieutenant, we made a deal, Kramer and I. If he would agree to a divorce, agree to go back to New York, or wherever, and if he would agree not to bother either Marie or John, I’d agree to a nominal settlement—even though, God knows, the court would never have given him anything. The point being, I wanted him out of our lives. For good.”

  “Did he have visitation rights, after the divorce?”

  He nodded. “Yes. It was just too much trouble to eliminate visitation. The courts, you know, will almost always grant visitation, and Kramer’s lawyer wasn’t about to yield the point, doubtless because he could see some profit to his career, successfully opposing me in divorce proceedings. It’s like gun fighting in the old west, making a reputation by going against someone important. So, as I said, Kramer and I made a separate deal, privately. He agreed to stay away from both Marie and John. And I agreed to—certain other things.”

  “Then he broke his word. Is
that it?”

  He waved aside the question with a sharp, impatient chop of his hand. Talking about Kramer, Guest’s angry vitality had returned. “Yes, he broke his word. But that’s another story. It’s a long story, and it’s irrelevant, at least for the moment. After all, it’s three o’clock in the morning. And we’re still doing background.” He eyed me coldly, as if to imply that he shouldn’t have to tell me how to conduct my own interrogation. “Suffice it to say I had a lot of incriminating information on Gordon Kramer—information that had nothing whatever to do with his goddam philandering.” He broke off, frowning down at the silver letter opener, his expression implacable, inscrutable. Then: “For a while the deal held. But, two years ago, Kramer got remarried. And for whatever reason, he apparently decided that he wanted John. So a year ago, he began taking measures.”

  “He wanted the boy permanently, you mean? Or did he want to visit him?”

  “It began with visitations. Of course, I objected. He was breaking our private agreement. In response, he initiated custody proceedings, naming Marie an unfit parent. I threatened retaliation, of course. I’ve already told you I had information that would incriminate him. I threatened to use it.”

  “What was the nature of that information?”

  “I don’t want to go into that,” he snapped. “There’s no need, now. Everything’s changed. Obviously. Besides, using that information was the expedient of last resort. Initially, there was an easier, less complicated answer to his custody suit.”

  “What was that?”

  He looked at me silently for a moment, signifying that he was about to take me into his confidence—a confidence that I would be wise to respect.

  “I simply arranged for the court proceedings to be delayed.”

  “For how long?”

  “Two years, probably. The first court date was about a year in the future, if I recall correctly.”

  “And you could’ve continued to get postponements. For years.”

  He made no reply, but his silence was eloquent.