Victims

by Collin Wilcox

  “I’d think, if you were worried about John being stolen, that you’d have moved those two keys.”

  He shrugged. “Obviously, now, I wish I had. However, I’ve always made it a rule not to dwell on what might have been. It’s a waste of time and energy.”

  “I’m sure you’re right.” I looked at my notes again. “You say that Kramer and John appeared on the driveway just after the shots were fired.”

  “That’s correct.”

  “How long after?”

  He shrugged, irritated. It was obvious that Guest didn’t like to be pinned down, questioned too closely. “I’m not sure. Twenty, thirty seconds, perhaps. No more.”

  “The timing would have squared with the time frame you’re suggesting, in other words.”

  He frowned. “Time frame?”

  “The shots were fired, and Kramer appeared at such a time that made it logical to assume he’d fired the shots.”

  He nodded decisively. “Absolutely. No question.”

  “How many shots were fired?”

  “There were four shots.”

  “Are you sure? Were you awake enough to be sure?”

  “Lieutenant, I’ve already told you—” Exasperated, he shook his head, once more the arrogant, supercilious celebrity, forced to waste his valuable time answering a civil servant’s plodding questions. “I was awake—fully awake—when the shots were fired. And there were four shots. Four.”

  “Did they come all together?”

  “No. There was one shot. Then maybe two seconds elapsed. Then the other three shots followed. And then—”

  His telephone rang. He lifted the receiver, listened for a moment, then passed the phone to me. “It’s the police dispatcher,” he said.

  “Lieutenant Hastings.”

  “Yessir. This is Cassiday.”

  “Hello, Cassiday. What is it?”

  “On the A.P.B. you authorized on Gordon Kramer, a white male, age thirty-six, believed to be traveling with John Kramer, male, six years old.”

  “Have they been picked up?”

  “Yessir. They’re in custody over in Oakland. They were picked up at the airport, there, about twenty minutes ago.”

  FOUR

  “YOU LOOK TERRIBLE,” FRIEDMAN said.

  “I had about three hours sleep last night. At the most.”

  He slipped the cellophane wrapper from his morning cigar, made a tight ball between his thumb and forefinger and sailed the ball into my wastebasket. Even though his fingers were thick and stubby, Friedman used his hands with remarkable delicacy.

  “Give me the rundown on Charlie Quade, will you?” Friedman asked. “Canelli was going to oblige me, but I didn’t feel strong enough to sit through it. I didn’t get much sleep either, last night.”

  As concisely as I could, I gave him the details. While I talked, glancing occasionally at my notes, Friedman went through his cigar-lighting ritual. The routine never varied. Lolling belly-up in my visitor’s chair, he shifted from one sizable ham to the other, grunting as he searched his pockets for matches. Once he’d found the matches, and had the cigar lit to his satisfaction, he shook out the match and sailed it, still smoking, into my wastebasket. For the first year or two we’d worked as co-lieutenants in charge of Homicide I’d dreaded the possibility that he’d start a fire. Lately, though, I’d begun to change my mind. I’d never seen Friedman rattled, even when he faced mortal danger. So the prospect of watching him deal with a fire he’d started in my wastebasket gradually became more intriguing.

  The cigar ash was an inch long before my bare-bones summary of the case was finished. As Friedman took the cigar from his mouth, the ash fell unheeded on his vest. “Poor Charlie. He was always a loser. When he was a child, I’ll bet he got chased home from school every day. Have they done an autopsy yet?”

  “Not yet. But the coroner called just a few minutes ago to say that there were two wounds. One broke the right collarbone. The other entered the neck just below the left ear. It ruptured the carotid artery and lodged in the spine. That was the fatal shot, obviously.”

  “What about the lab reports?”

  I gestured to the clock. “It’s only ten o’clock in the morning—and a Saturday morning, at that. Besides, the technicians are still on the scene. According to Guest’s testimony, four shots were fired. Two .45 shell casings were found, indicating that Quade fired twice. A .45 bullet was found in the wall, but they haven’t found the second bullet. They’re still looking.”

  “It’s not in Gordon Kramer, then.”

  “No.”

  “Where’s Kramer now?”

  “He’s downstairs in Interrogation. He’s ready when we are.”

  Friedman nodded, drew slowly on his cigar, blew a neat, plump smoke ring lazily toward the ceiling of my office. Even though it was Saturday, he wore a three-piece suit, with collar and tie. But, as always, the suit’s jacket and trousers were badly wrinkled, and the vest was smudged with cigar ash, hastily brushed away. His tie was askew, his collar was mashed by a sizable double chin. Friedman’s face, like Canelli’s, was broad and swarthy. His nose was undistinguished. His mouth was perpetually pursed in a small, subtle smile that sometimes seemed smug, therefore sometimes seemed irritating. His pepper-and-salt hair was thick, haphazardly combed. Beneath heavy lids, his dark, shrewd eyes noticed everything, revealed nothing. Reclining at his ease in my visitor’s chair, Friedman was playing the part he liked best: the squad room sage, as inscrutable as a Buddha.

  “There’re two things that puzzle me about all this,” he said finally.

  “Like what?”

  “Like, first, how does a custody dispute turn into murder? And, second, how well does Alexander Guest come off as the doting grandfather? By all reports, the man’s heartless. He’s a people-eater. An egomaniac.”

  “He doesn’t have a wife, and his daughter is an alcoholic. Unless I’m mistaken, John Kramer might be his only other living relative. He just doesn’t have anyone else.”

  He shrugged, waving the cigar in a dubious arc. “That answers the second question, maybe. But what about the first question? How did child stealing come down to murder?”

  “Kramer’s waiting for us,” I said. “Why don’t we ask him?”

  By departmental tradition, interrogation room “A” was reserved for our most important cases. Therefore, the short corridor leading to “A” was kept under a kind of informal surveillance by the city’s crime reporters, alternating shifts. As Friedman and I turned into the corridor, Dan Carter, the Sentinel’s veteran crime reporter, stepped in front of us. At age sixty-two, Carter was a vintage type: tough-talking, cynical, shrewd, secretly sympathetic to the human wreckage whose problems translated into paychecks for Carter, Friedman, and myself. Carter could write better than any reporter I’d ever known. In his thirty years on the Sentinel, he’d won every prize but the Pulitzer.

  “Is that the one who shot Charlie Quade?” Carter asked, jerking his chin down the hallway. He was a small, skinny man, totally bald, with a long, mournful-looking nose and a bulging forehead. His voice, like his manners, was often abrasive.

  “We don’t know yet,” Friedman answered. “Ask us when we come out.”

  “I will,” Carter answered. “Believe me, I will.”

  We checked our revolvers with the sergeant on duty, and nodded to the uniformed patrolman guarding the entrance to interrogation room “A.” As long as we were inside, he would keep watch through the small wire-mesh window set into the steel slab door.

  Kramer was seated on the prisoner’s side of a small metal table. He was a “medium man”: Medium height, medium weight, medium age. His features were regular: well-shaped nose and jaw, broad forehead, alert eyes, firm mouth. He was dressed casually in flannel slacks, a maroon turtleneck shirt, and a herringbone sports jacket that looked expensive. His haircut looked expensive, too, and so did his high-style glasses. If he hadn’t slept in his clothes, and if he’d shaved, he’d look exactly like the character he pr
obably played to perfection: the intelligent, confident, successful young executive.

  Friedman and I identified ourselves and sat facing him across the steel table. As I put my notebook and pen on the table, Friedman asked Kramer whether he’d made the two phone calls he was allowed.

  “I made one call,” he answered. “I called my wife.”

  “Is she here? In San Francisco?”

  “She’s in New York. But she’ll be here tomorrow. She’s bringing a lawyer.” He spoke evenly, in a low, tight voice. His eyes were steady, his mouth was hard, his lips were compressed. Obviously, he wasn’t intimidated, wasn’t frightened. As I watched him, I realized that I didn’t know how much he’d been told, didn’t know whether the charge had been child stealing or homicide. I wondered whether Friedman knew, whether he’d read the arresting officer’s report, and the booking sergeant’s statement. Knowing Friedman, I doubted it. He hated paperwork, hated to read reports.

  “Was your wife standing by?” Friedman asked. “In case of trouble?”

  Kramer looked at Friedman for a moment, his expression calm, coldly calculating. Then he asked, “Where’s my son? Where’s John?”

  “He was taken to the Youth Guidance Center,” I answered. “Just about now, his grandfather will be picking him up.”

  “His grandfather.” He said it as if he were pronouncing an obscenity.

  “Why’d you do it, Mr. Kramer?” I asked. “Will you tell us?”

  He transferred his angry gaze to me. “It should be obvious why I did it. I did it because Alexander Guest and his daughter cheated me out of my son. So I took matters into my own hands.”

  “You took your son away from your father-in-law’s house,” Friedman said. “And when the bodyguard Guest hired tried to interfere, you shot him. Is that the way it happened?”

  The suspect blinked. “I—what?” His eyes were fierce, locked with Friedman’s. “What?”

  “You shot him,” Friedman said. “You shot him and killed him.”

  A spasm tugged at Kramer’s face. His eyes momentarily faltered; his mouth twitched at the corners. Was it fear? Guilt? Both?

  Friedman and I silently watched the suspect as he struggled for self-control, struggled to conceal the fear that tore at his face as comprehension dawned.

  “Those shots …” he mused. “It was those shots that I heard. That’s why I’m here, why I was arrested.”

  He’d answered my question, then. Without doubt, he’d been charged with child stealing, the lesser offense. Good: Friedman and I had surprise on our side.

  “You’re here,” I said, “because, officially, you’re being held as a material witness to the murder of Charles Quade.”

  “But that could change,” Friedman said softly, on cue. “Depending on what you tell us, or don’t tell us, the D. A. could very easily change the charge to murder. So, for you, the next few minutes could be very important. A matter of life and death, in fact.”

  Also on cue, I turned to Friedman. “He could probably cop second degree murder, though. That’s assuming that Quade fired at him.”

  Friedman nodded judiciously. “That’s true.” He turned to Kramer. “You could plead self-defense. As Frank says, the evidence is in your favor. Especially if Quade fired first.”

  “If you’d like,” I said, “We’ll talk to the D.A. about it, see what he says.”

  “Just tell us how it went,” Friedman urged. “Give it to us from the top. Tell the truth, and you’ll be doing yourself a big favor.”

  “You’ll be doing the D.A. a favor, too,” I said. “And he doesn’t forget favors. Believe me. You can make him look good. Very good. And he won’t forget it.”

  As we went through the standard routine, I watched Kramer’s expression change. It was the usual range of interrogation room emotions: amazement, real or fake, followed by indignation, real or faked, followed by transparent apprehension, intended to convey his fear that, despite his innocence, we were railroading him onto death row.

  But Kramer was cooler than most. He waited for us to finish our routine. Then, speaking in a low, distinct voice, he said, “I didn’t shoot anyone—last night, or ever. I don’t have a gun. You—you’re framing me. You’ve talked to Guest. He’s done this—framed me.”

  “I talked to Guest,” I said, nodding. “That’s true. And, yes, you’re right. He accused you of murdering Charles Quade.”

  Kramer licked his lips. “Charles Quade is the bodyguard. Is, is that right?”

  “He was the bodyguard,” I said softly. “He’s dead now. Remember?”

  “But, Christ, I—”

  “Why don’t you tell us what happened last night?” Friedman asked genially, trying to settle his two hundred forty pounds more comfortably on his hard metal chair. “We haven’t let him talk,” he said to me, waving a pudgy hand. “We’ve been doing all the talking.”

  “What about it, Kramer?” I asked. “Will you tell us what happened yesterday? You don’t have to say anything, though. You don’t have to say a word, without your lawyer being present.” I paused, emphasizing the crucial legality of the statement. Then I said, “But if you’re innocent, you’ve got nothing to lose.”

  “And everything to gain,” Friedman put in.

  Kramer snorted: a rueful, contemptuous sound. “Do you expect me to believe that?”

  Friedman shrugged, disarmingly spreading his hands wide across the table. “You help us, we’ll help you. It’s as simple as that. You look to me like someone who’s been around. You should know how it works. You help us, we appreciate it. Everyone profits.”

  “And who helps Alexander Guest? Everyone else? Everyone else in the whole goddam world?”

  “Guest has accused you of murdering Charles Quade at approximately five minutes after one this morning, September twenty-first.” As I said it, I unconsciously lifted my chin, mindful of the microphone built into the room’s single light fixture, directly above us. Because we’d decided not to caution the suspect that he was being recorded, the tape couldn’t be used as evidence. But, to the D.A.’s office, the recording of the interrogation would be an important tool.

  “Acting on Alexander Guest’s written statement,” I said, “which was witnessed by two policemen, we picked you up. We found you exactly where Alexander Guest said you’d be—at the airport, with two tickets in your pocket. That’s a pretty powerful point in his favor.”

  “So, to defend yourself against Guest’s accusations,” Friedman said, “you’ve got to tell us what happened. You’ve got to give us your version. Otherwise, as nearly as I can see, you’re screwed. Badly, permanently screwed.”

  Kramer’s eyes had fallen. The twitching at the corners of his mouth was spasmodic now, constant. His voice was dogged, dull. “I’ve got nothing to hide. Nothing at all.”

  “Then tell us what happened,” I said. “Tell us everything. From the top.”

  Kramer raised his eyes, looked at me for a long, haunted moment. Then, slowly, he shook his head. “I’m so tired,” he muttered. “I didn’t sleep all night.”

  Friedman and I exchanged a covert glance. Instinctively, we felt that this confidence—this admission of confusion—was critically important. Tentatively, the suspect was trusting us with a small confession. He was testing us, making his decision. He was deciding whether to cooperate, whether he thought we’d do as we promised, and help him, if he told us his story. This was the moment that could make the interrogation—make it, or break it.

  The silence lengthened. Then, once again, Kramer began shaking his head. At the same time, his face changed. It was as if some crucial circuit that controlled his facial muscles had suddenly malfunctioned. In seconds, his calm executive’s assurance disappeared, replaced by pain, and uncertainty, and fear, each emotion on painful display, beyond his conscious control. Gordon Kramer was ready to talk.

  “At first,” he said, staring down at the table in front of him, “I was going to have it done. I was going to hire Lester Bennett.” With an eff
ort, he raised his eyes to mine, inquiringly. I nodded. Yes, I knew Lester Bennett. He was a local private investigator with an elegant penthouse, an expensive live-in boyfriend, a pair of his-and-his Porsches—and absolutely no ethics.

  “But Bennett decided not to do it,” Kramer said, speaking faster now, more precisely. Having committed himself to telling his story, he wanted to get through it as quickly as possible. “And I didn’t know of anyone else. So I decided to do it myself. I wasn’t going to trust just anyone—a hack, who’d botch the job. I flew here from New York on Wednesday. I rented a car, and began watching Marie and John. I already knew that, almost always, Guest takes John for the weekend, while Marie goes cruising.”

  “Cruising?”

  “For men,” he said bitterly. “Any man. She hits the bars—the singles’ bars. She drinks, and she screws. All weekend.”

  Neither Friedman nor I responded; we didn’t look at each other. I was aware, though, that Friedman was writing something in his notebook.

  “When I found out there was a man living with Marie, and obviously guarding John, I knew I’d have to take him from Quest’s house, on Friday or Saturday. So I waited in front of Marie’s place, on Friday. I stayed down the block until I saw Guest come to pick up John. I followed them for several hours, until finally they went to Guest’s house. I parked again, around the corner. I waited until about one o’clock, until I was sure Guest would be asleep.”

  “You didn’t know that Guest had hired someone to guard John on weekends, when he was staying with Guest?” Friedman asked.

  Kramer shook his head. “No.”

  “You might’ve expected it, though. Especially if Guest suspected that you were after John.”

  “Why would he suspect?”

  “Why wouldn’t he?” Friedman countered. “You’d been through a bitter divorce. You were furious, and he knew it. Not only that, but you already knew John was guarded at your wife’s home. That alone would’ve warned you to expect a guard at Guest’s house.”

  Kramer rubbed an unsteady hand across his forehead, once more shaking his head. His shoulders were sagging; he was slumping in his chair. Catching Friedman’s eye, I shook my head. This wasn’t the time to press Kramer on details. As long as he was talking, we should let him talk, uninterrupted. Friedman nodded mute agreement as Kramer said wearily: