Victims

by Collin Wilcox

  He was plainly disappointed—and plainly not accustomed to having his expectations unsatisfied. But, doubtless having made his own calculations, his answering nod was grudgingly polite. “Yeah—okay. Tomorrow?”

  “I hope so. Soon, anyhow.” Pretending that I had to leave quickly, I thanked Marie Kramer, nodded to Michael Carmody and left the room. I went down the first flight of stairs to the living room level, down the second flight of stairs to the front door, and let myself out. Bruce Durkin, the bodyguard, was standing on a small landing halfway down the steep flight of flagstone steps that led to the street, and my car. Both the steps and the landing were protected by a sturdy iron hand railing. Looking down, I could see why. The rocky hillside fell sharply away from the steps.

  “You’re Bruce Durkin,” I said.

  He’d been looking off across the bright blue waters of San Francisco Bay, picturesquely dotted with hundreds of sails, most of them clustered south of the vicious riptides that sometimes ran between the Golden Gate and Susuin Bay to the northeast. When I spoke to him he turned to face me. With his muscular arms crossed over his muscular chest, and his muscular buttocks pressed on display against the guardrail, Durkin looked like he was posing for a second-rate body building magazine. “Yes,” he answered, “that’s right.”

  “How long have you been here, working for Mrs. Kramer?”

  “About four months.”

  Which confirmed what Guest had told me about when he had learned Gordon Kramer intended to take his son.

  “You’re a bodyguard.”

  “Right.”

  I nodded, letting a long, deliberate moment of silence pass as I looked him over. Unlike Alexander Guest and Marie Kramer, Bruce Durkin was a familiar type to me: not very smart, not very cooperative—and probably not very law-abiding. The sullen, half hostile answers, the closed face, the suspicious eyes—these were part of the policeman’s daily experience, his stock in trade. People like Durkin and people like me were natural antagonists. Yet, perversely, we depended on each other, Durkin and I. Without people like him, people like me wouldn’t be necessary, wouldn’t be needed.

  “You know what happened last night,” I said. “A man—an ex-policeman—was killed, guarding John.”

  “Yeah—I know.” He puffed out his lips and shook his head, as if I’d recounted some obscenity that he found contemptuous.

  “You were in the same business,” I said, “you and Charlie Quade. Did that ever occur to you? Both of you were hired to guard John.”

  “Was that his name? Charlie Quade?”

  “Yes.”

  “Yeah. Well—” His shoulders lifted in a muscle-rippling shrug. “From what I hear, this Charlie Quade was maybe asking for it.”

  “How do you mean, asking for it?”

  “I mean, he had a gun. You have a gun, people start shooting at you.”

  “You don’t have a gun, then.”

  Once more, he puffed his lips, this time flatulently, contemptuous of people stupid enough to carry guns. “Not me.”

  “As I understand Kramer’s story,” I said, “he followed John all day yesterday. Which meant that, at one point, he was here—” I gestured to the street, where Kramer had probably parked.

  “What kind of a car was he driving?” Durkin asked.

  I had to admit that I didn’t know; I hadn’t asked.

  “Do you know Kramer by sight?” I asked.

  He hesitated a moment, then shook his head. “No.”

  “You’ve never seen him, then.”

  “No.”

  “What did you do yesterday? Give me a rundown on your day.”

  “That’s easy. My days don’t change much, you know.”

  I waited while he smirked humorlessly at his own remark. “I took John to his school at eight o’clock in the morning,” he said. “He has to be there at 8:30. Then I did some errands. I drove out to the beach for an hour or so, and did some running. Then I came back here and washed the car and had some lunch. At 1:30, I picked John up at school. We got back here about two, I guess. He watched TV until about four, I guess it was, when Mr. Guest came for him.”

  “Was Mr. Guest alone when he arrived?”

  “No. He has a driver.”

  “What kind of a car does he have?”

  “It’s a Cadillac.”

  “A limousine?”

  “No. Just a Cadillac. Dark blue.”

  “What time did John and Mr. Guest leave here?”

  “Maybe fifteen minutes after Mr. Guest got here. Maybe twenty minutes. No more.”

  “What’d you do then, after they left?”

  “I took off. I locked up the house, and set the alarms. And then I took off. See, after John leaves with his grandfather, until he comes back Sunday afternoons, usually, I’m off duty. So I split. As soon as I can, I’m gone. Long gone.”

  Listening to the surly inflections of his voice, watching him, it seemed obvious that Bruce Durkin wasn’t happy in his work.

  “You don’t like bodyguarding,” I said.

  He shrugged, staring off toward the view with his dull, resentful eyes. “I guess bodyguarding’s all right. But bodyguarding a kid. That kid—” Angrily, he shook his head.

  “You don’t like John.”

  “That’s putting it mildly,” he answered heavily. He glowered at me, then added, “You could even say I hate that kid. He’s about the most miserable kid I’ve ever seen. Ever.”

  “Was Mrs. Kramer on the premises when Mr. Guest came for John?”

  He smirked. “No, she left about noon. Maybe a little before.”

  I debated exploring the smirk, but finally decided against it. There would be other chances to interrogate Durkin, after I had more information.

  “What’d you do last night?” I asked.

  “I went out and had dinner and went to a movie. I got home about midnight, maybe a little after. I watched a late movie, and drank a little wine. Then I went to sleep.”

  “Was Mrs. Kramer here last night when you got home?”

  He rippled his muscles again in another sullen shrug. “I don’t know. I didn’t hear her. But she could’ve been sleeping—or something.”

  This time, there was no question what the smirk meant. I decided to change the subject.

  “You say you’ve been guarding John for four months.”

  “Right.”

  “In that time, did anyone try to take him?”

  “No. No one.”

  “Do you know Lester Bennett?”

  “No.”

  “Have you ever heard of Lester Bennett?”

  “No.”

  “Have you ever been arrested?”

  “Arrested?” Brow elaborately furrowed, he looked at me as if I’d asked the question in a foreign language.

  “You don’t have to answer. But we’ve got computers, you know. It’ll only take a couple of minutes to find out.”

  “Well, I was in a couple of—you know—barroom fights. Drunk and disorderly. Things like that.”

  “Where was that?”

  “Down in L.A.”

  I nodded, and took my car keys from my pocket. “Okay, that about does it. If you think of anything else—” I handed him a card. “Give me a call.”

  “Right.”

  “And thanks for the information,” I decided to say. “I appreciate it.”

  “No problem.”

  SIX

  AFTER LEAVING THE HOUSE on telegraph hill, I called communications from a small Italian restaurant in North Beach. The dispatcher put me through to Friedman, who’d just been in the process of getting Marie Kramer’s unlisted phone number, to call me.

  “The gun’s turned up,” he said. “Or, at least, it figures to be the gun. It’s a .38 Smith and Wesson revolver. Which fits. It’s a .38 that killed Quade, according to the lab.”

  “Where was the gun found?”

  “That’s the odd part,” Friedman said. “They found it at the scene. Or, at least, close to the scene. As I
understand the layout, there’s a long driveway that goes along the north side of Guest’s house, leading to the garage at the rear, where entrance was effected. Right?”

  “Right.”

  “And the murderer—Kramer, we assume—killed Quade at the rear of the house, off the garage, then exited onto the driveway through a side door, also toward the rear of the house. From there, he had to go back the way he came, down the driveway to the front sidewalk. Right?”

  “Right.”

  “Well, he apparently ditched the gun in some shrubbery that’s planted in front of the house, close to the sidewalk.”

  “Right where it’d probably be found. Is that what you mean by ‘odd?’”

  “That’s what I mean.”

  “He was probably rattled. He wanted to get rid of the gun as soon as he could, before he started walking to his car. It’s the normal reaction.”

  “The normal reaction,” Friedman countered, “would be to find a garbage can or a sewer grate a half block or so from the crime scene.”

  “I don’t think they have garbage cans in Sea Cliff. Maybe they don’t even have sewers.”

  He snorted unappreciatively. Friedman seldom enjoyed someone’s else’s quip.

  “What’s the lab say about the gun?” I asked.

  “Nothing, yet. It’ll take them several hours. They just got it. Incidentally, have you seen the afternoon paper?”

  “No.”

  “Well, they’re really ballyhooing this one. It figures, of course. Every time Guest farts, it’s news. We’ve had network TV reporters in the lobby downstairs, and they’ve got Guest on tape, I understand. So this thing could be on the six o’clock network news, for God’s sake. And you know what that means.”

  I knew what it meant: a call from Chief Dwyer. Several calls from Dwyer, who would be worrying about his image.

  “What’d you find out from the kid’s mother?” Friedman asked.

  In detail, in sequence, I summarized the entire interrogation, including my conversations with John Kramer and Bruce Durkin. When I’d finished, Friedman asked, “How old is this kid?”

  “Six years old.”

  “Is he smart?”

  “I think so. Spoiled, but smart.”

  “His testimony could tell us a lot. A hell of a lot, maybe.”

  “Except that we might not be able to get it without his mother’s permission. Or else a court order.”

  “Maybe yes, maybe no. Let’s see what the D.A. says.”

  “There could also be a problem with admissibility of the kid’s evidence in court.”

  “How so?” Friedman asked.

  “It’s a question of whether the child is competent—whether he comprehends the true nature of the crime, and knows what’s expected of him. I testified two or three years ago in the Sheppard case. Remember? A man murdered his wife. Their children, two of them, were the only witnesses.”

  “I remember the case. What happened in court?”

  “The defense attorney contended that the children weren’t competent as witnesses. The judge cleared the courtroom and sent the jury out. Then the judge and the two lawyers questioned the kids. And it turned out that the kids simply couldn’t comprehend what was expected from them. They couldn’t comprehend the nature of the crime, or the penalties. They couldn’t stand up to cross examination, either. They were like reeds in the wind. They changed their stories according to what they thought the judge or the lawyers wanted to hear.”

  “How old were these kids?” Friedman asked.

  “Three and five, I think.”

  “That’s a factor. The age of the children. The younger they are, obviously, the less reliable they are. But this kid is six. Not three. Six.”

  “I know.”

  “And the fact remains,” Friedman insisted, “that John Kramer was, after all, a witness at the scene of a murder. He was an eyewitness, probably the only eyewitness. And he’s six years old. He’s in the first grade. He’s learning to read, if I’m not mistaken. And if he really was with his father every second, before and after the shooting, and if he corroborates Kramer’s story—” Speculatively, his voice trailed off. For a moment, neither of us spoke. Then Friedman said, “It’s a fascinating situation, when you think about it. This kid, this six-year-old kid, has his father’s fate in his hands.”

  “Except that we might not be able to get to John without his mother’s permission, not without hassling, anyhow. And that means we’ve got to get Guest’s permission for the interrogation, I can promise you that. Marie Kramer does whatever her daddy tells her. She’s too—too befuddled to do anything else.”

  “And both of them hate Kramer,” Friedman mused. “So why should they let the kid be interrogated, especially if they have reason to think his testimony would help Kramer?”

  Thinking about the possibilities, I didn’t reply. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a woman standing close beside the phone booth, frowning. I turned away from her.

  “And even if we should get their permission,” Friedman went on, “and we interviewed the kid, the D. A. might not be able to use the testimony in court. Assuming, that is, that he’d want to use the testimony, after he heard it.” As he spoke, I could plainly hear the titillation in his voice. This was exactly the kind of complicated riddle that most intrigued Friedman.

  “Do you have anything else?” I asked finally.

  “Yes,” he answered, almost absently. “I’ve got a preliminary lab report from the crime scene. They’ve accounted for all four shots—Guest’s four shots, that is. They found two .45 slugs in the woodwork and walls. They were from Quade’s gun. Which, incidentally, was registered to Quade. And they found two .38 slugs, one inside Quade, lodged in his neck, and the other in the wall. That one was expended, after going through Charlie’s shoulder. From the angle and the position of the bullets, it seems like Charlie was standing just a few feet from the door of his bedroom, and the murderer was standing in the hallway toward the back of the house, about fifteen feet from Charlie.”

  The murderer, he’d said. Not Kramer.

  As if he’d tuned in on my thoughts, Friedman said, “I get the feeling that there’re a few surprises ahead, in this one.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “Well,” he answered, “first, there’s the discrepancy between how many shots were fired. And then there’s Kramer.”

  “What about Kramer?”

  “He doesn’t strike me as a murderer.”

  “Come on, Pete. Murderers come in all shapes and sizes. You know that.”

  “Do you think I’m wrong?”

  “I think that Kramer thought Quade was going to kill him, and he acted in self-defense. Or, more like it, he thought that Guest was trying to kill him.”

  Another short silence followed. Finally Friedman said, “That kid. We’ve got to talk to that kid.”

  I didn’t answer. He knew I’d do my best.

  “Well,” Friedman said, “what’s your next move?”

  “My next move,” I said, “is to talk to Lester Bennett. Then I’m going home. I plan to be in bed by 8:30.”

  “I’ll pull your plug at Communications.”

  “Good. I’d appreciate it.”

  “But I think we should touch base tomorrow, with all this publicity heat. Even though it’s Sunday. Why don’t you call me in the morning, at home?”

  “It’s a deal.” Wearily, I put the receiver on the hook, and smiled apologetically at the impatient woman as I opened the door of the phone booth. Frowning ferociously, she snatched at the door, pulling it away from my hand.

  SEVEN

  FRIEDMAN HAD ONCE OBSERVED that San Francisco was the only city in the country where a private investigator like Lester Bennett could operate. It was a point well taken. For years, Bennett worked as an interior decorator, not very successfully. To make ends meet, he began taking part time assignments from Foley and Brand, who specialized in the seamy side of private investigation: divorces and custody cases
. Soon afterward, Bennett closed his decorating studio and opened his own agency, working the same unsavory side of the street. His specialty was child stealing, and he was an instant success. In less than five years, he’d opened branch offices in New York, Los Angeles, and Dallas.

  Bennett was in his early forties, slim as a ballet dancer, and just as precious. He had the face of a malicious satyr, accented by a beard trimmed to a satanic point. He lived in a large, elegant apartment on the top floor of the Golden Gateway, one of the city’s newest concrete and glass architectural marvels.

  As I pressed the button beside Bennett’s Spanish-carved door, I heard the sound of music and laughter coming from inside the apartment. A moment later the door opened. A young man dressed in black velvet slacks and a bright yellow silk shirt stood in the doorway. The shirt was unbuttoned almost to his waist, revealing several gold chains glittering on a hairy, bleached-blond chest.

  “Yes?” He looked me quickly up and down, obviously not impressed with what he saw.

  As I identified myself, I saw Bennett coming toward the door.

  “Hello, Lieutenant. Care for a drink? It’s Saturday, you know. Cocktail time.”

  As the young man in the velvet slacks flounced away, Bennett grasped my forearm, drawing me inside. He was smiling, obviously pleased that I’d come. I thought I knew why. I would be his unwitting floorshow, a source of snide, snickering amusement.

  “I want to talk to you,” I said. “Privately.”

  His satyr’s smile widened. “Certainly. Just let me get a refill, will you? Are you sure—” Invitingly, he lifted his empty champagne glass.

  “No, thanks.”

  A girl dressed neck to ankle in skintight silver lame filled his glass, then Bennett took me into a small room furnished as an office.

  “Let me guess,” he said, sitting behind the desk and gesturing me to a chair with a graceful wave of his arm. “It’s Charlie Quade. Right?”

  “It’s Charlie Quade and Gordon Kramer.”

  “The murderer and his victim.” He sipped his champagne, looking at me over the rim of the glass. He was dressed in designer jeans and a khaki bush jacket that looked as if he’d actually worn it on safari. A silk scarf was knotted at his throat.