The Black Door

by Collin Wilcox

  During his late twenties Robert Grinnel began to take a passionate interest in politics. All around him, in those years, he seemed to see Communism poised to overthrow the government of the United States. Later, during the war, Grinnel’s sympathies were painfully ambivalent. He seems to have feared an alliance with Russia more than he feared a German victory. Perhaps luckily for his booming frozen food business, Grinnel never publicly expressed these sentiments, but he remained in close touch with men of his own political persuasion, and in the late forties and early fifties they found a spokesman in Senator McCarthy. As early as 1947, Grinnel joined with the small, anonymous group of southwestern businessmen in underwriting McCarthyism, and in the years that followed, Grinnel came into ever-increasing power within this group, although in those early years he preferred to operate behind the scenes, watching and learning, letting the crude bombast of McCarthyism draw the first fire. Then, in 1950, Grinnel founded the Forward For Freedom movement, headquartered in Los Angeles. Initially, the F.F.F. was a modest undertaking, apparently devoting its first years to study and organization.

  In 1958, rather suddenly, Grinnel began making eloquent, impassioned speeches on behalf of the F.F.F. Some said he’d spent years studying speech, dramatics, and English composition in preparation for his emergence as a major political figure; others said he’d had the ability all along, but was simply choosing his moment. In any case, within a matter of months, Robert Grinnel emerged from behind the scenes: a political Mephistopheles born full-grown. He was articulate, dedicated, and dangerous. Almost overnight the F.F.F. was generally conceded to be the best organized and best financed of the far-out right wing movements in the country, with the best chance of spreading its influence throughout the nation. It was also conceded that Grinnel himself was almost solely responsible for the phenomenal success of the F.F.F. He was immensely wealthy, intelligent, startlingly handsome, and politically perhaps a genius. He was also reputed to be a megalomaniac.

  Apparently the texture of Grinnel’s private life closely resembled that of his public life; I got the impression that he treated his wife and children as his followers, rather than members of his family. As a result, his wife had become a hopeless alcoholic at the age of thirty-five, often confined to sanatoriums for months at a time. His daughter, according to Betty Stephenson, had a love affair with Daddy bordering on nymphomania, and his son had become an ineffectual, hysterical martinet, trying unsuccessfully to attract Daddy’s attention.

  I finished the biographical material in the elevator going up to Grinnel’s suite, and stuffed the bulky sheaf into my pocket. During the ten minutes’ taxi ride, I’d formed a dislike for Robert Grinnel, and as I stepped out into the spacious hallway outside Grinnel’s suite, I felt a kind of dull outrage against the man. It was as if someone had cheated me out of something I couldn’t quite define, and then gone on to cheat others in exactly the same way I’d been cheated.

  The hallway was cluttered with twenty-odd newsmen, chatting and waiting. At the door of Grinnel’s suite stood two policemen, eying the press with amiable suspicion. To the police, a reporter is an occupational nuisance, like rain, and boredom, and zip guns.

  As I approached the group, Grinnel’s door opened. A broad, hard-eyed man dressed in a dark blue suit stood just inside, trying to shape his heavy, impassive face into a welcoming smile. Behind him stood a handsome, fortyish woman dressed in basic black and wearing pearls. In her graceful, capable hands she held a sheaf of papers, which she passed out as we entered. Glancing at mine, I recognized the mimeographed pages as a press release, under the Forward For Freedom letterhead. Some of my colleagues murmured surprise, wondering at the incongruity of a press release on such an occasion. Somehow, I wasn’t surprised.

  We were ushered into the suite’s spacious living room, where two rows of folding chairs had been arranged facing an improvised lectern, apparently a statuary column topped with a square of plywood and draped with white sheeting. On either side of the lectern were placed two straight-backed chairs; immediately behind was a closed door.

  I sat beside Kreuger, from the A.P.

  “Seems like a mortuary, somehow,” he murmured.

  I nodded, watching the hard-eyed man close the hallway door and stolidly turn the lock. The woman placed the few remaining press releases on a chair, and was now walking toward the lectern, slightly smiling at us as she came. She had the long legs and rhythmically swinging hips of the professional model; her poise and carriage suggested good schools and plenty of money. Remembering Grinnel’s lean good looks, I found myself wondering what role this woman played in his life, both personal and professional.

  She was standing at the lectern now. In her dark, expressive eyes the slight smile was gone, replaced by a more suitable, more somber expression.

  “Good morning, gentlemen,” she said quietly. “I want to thank you for coming.” She paused as some of us murmured something inaudible and inconsequential, like schoolboys dutifully replying to their teacher’s daily greeting.

  “Mr. Grinnel asked me,” she said, her voice dropping to a disciple’s reverence at the mention of the Messiah, “to welcome you for him, and to make a few preliminary remarks. Mr. Grinnel realizes that the press has a right to know our feelings concerning the horrible, inexplicable events of the past day. But, although Mr. Grinnel wants very much to speak with you, he will confine his remarks to a more general tone, consistent with his bereavement and his, ah, position.”

  She paused, gathering her thoughts and delicately entwining her long, elegant fingers upon the lectern-top. For a moment she stared thoughtfully down at her hands.

  “It is my duty to tell you, specifically, how Mr. Grinnel regards this horrible crime. Most of you are familiar with the incredible, ah, situation in which Miss Grinnel was found yesterday morning. Mr. Grinnell, naturally, was told of this matter by your Captain Larsen. Mr. Grinnel’s reaction was clear, sure, and immediate.” Her dark eyes became momentarily fixed, glinting with the disciple’s fierce certainty. “Mr. Grinnel,” she said soberly, “wants me to assure you that whatever person committed this crime—acting for whatever hostile, anonymous group—that person was attempting to take not only a life, but a reputation as well, a completely unblemished reputation. Because—” her voice became more fervent, her eyes more expressively liquid—“because Roberta Grinnel was a good girl, in every sense of the word. And, therefore, whoever took her life sought also to take her good reputation, by diabolically falsifying the scene of the crime, certainly to divert suspicion from himself and his horrible purpose, in taking two innocent lives.”

  For a moment she paused, her head bowed.

  “Thank you,” she said, moving her mouth in a stiff, saddened smile. “Thank you very much. Mr. Grinnel will be with you in a moment.” She turned to her right and sat down on one of the two straight-backed chairs. Almost immediately, the door behind the lectern opened, revealing Bobby Grinnel, pale and shaken, staring at us with his haunted eyes. Behind him stood his father, half a head taller. For a moment they stood in the doorway, side by side. It was a brief, unforgettable tableau: grief and guilt and a strange, driven fervor etched so differently upon faces so similar. The father’s face was made stern and grimly avenging by his turmoil within; the son’s face seemed unbearably torn, changing moment to moment, reflecting the spasms of some terrible, secret pain.

  Now, slowly, the son stepped to the empty straight-backed chair, and the father to the lectern. They were dressed in dark blue suits, white shirts, and muted silk ties. The father’s hair was a silver gray, beautifully cut; the son’s hair was a thin, lank blond. The father’s eyes were a clear, startling gray; the son’s eyes were the same color, but without the same clarity or intensity. The father’s lean face was sculptured in long, strong, intriguingly hollow planes. In the son’s face the same sculptured planes intersected with a subtle difference, giving the impression of a desperate, helpless weakness, rather than a proud, uncompromising strength.

 
; As I watched Grinnel briefly bow his handsome head above the lectern, I thought how cruelly the son was mocked by his striking resemblance to his famous father.

  Then, suddenly, I was looking fully into Bobby Grinnel’s eyes, and in the next instant a macabre vision came between myself and that visible around me. The face was the boy’s, stark and white above his dark, Gothic wrappings. He stared down at the body of his sister, naked before him upon the blasted, ravaged earth. He was staring down into her face. Her dead eyes returned his gaze.

  I closed my eyes, feeling my fingernails digging painfully into my palms. I was aware that I was shaking my head, dumbly protesting the cruel, incredible vision. Then, dimly, I heard Grinnel’s rich, vibrant voice. “… to thank you all for coming.”

  I opened my eyes, glancing covertly around me, feeling an unreasoning guilt. With an effort, I concentrated on Grinnel.

  “… also want you to know that I have always respected the members of the press and have tried to work closely and fairly with them. In public life, with its stresses and its inevitable misunderstandings, it is essential that we all work fairly and fully together for the greatest possible benefit to all. This I have always tried to do, as I’m sure you have, too.”

  He paused. Gripping the lectern, he lowered his eyes and again bowed his head. It was a theatrical gesture, calculated and practiced. Yet it was effective. When his head came up, his eyes were more fervent. His lean, elegant facial muscles bunched with the first suggestion of a practiced passion.

  “I do not know who killed my daughter,” he said, measuring his words. “I may never know. In every city throughout this great country, countless murders go unsolved every year. Why? The answer is horribly simple: there is in America a working agreement between the underworld and the law. Noblesse oblige. ‘You stay within your agreed limits, and we’ll stay within ours.’” Again he paused, and again lowered his head. As I watched him, I thought of a hellfire and brimstone preacher at his pulpit, gathering himself for a final shrill assault on sin and godlessness.

  But Grinnel’s passion was too profound for shrillness, and his zealot’s instinct too sure. His head came up. The eyes burned with perhaps a hint of madness.

  “I may never know,” he repeated, “the identity of my daughter’s murderer. I may never be able to search the face and soul of the man who murdered her. But I—” the voice trembled slightly, by accident or design, the hands gripping the lectern tightened—“but I can describe the murderer for you, gentlemen. I can tell you what was in his mind, what kind of man he is. I can tell you that he is a man filled with hate, a man who, by striking down my daughter, has tried to strike at me, and to weaken the work I have chosen for my life.

  “Yes, I can describe this man to you. He is ridden by fear. He knows the day is coming when the forces of decency and strength and righteousness will sweep aside the corruption from our great American dream. He knows that, when this day arrives, vicious, bestial mentalities like his own will be dealt with in their own terms, as we deal with beasts, not as we deal with God-fearing men. And, therefore, this murderer has tried to strike at me through my daughter, as others have tried, unsuccessfully, to strike at me through unfair business practices, through character assassination, and through cowardly innuendoes and lies. But—” Another well-calculated pause. The rich voice dropped to a lower timber. “They have never succeeded, gentlemen. And they never will. Because I now serve them notice—” His hand came up in a zealot’s gesture of spiritual invocation. The gray, megalomaniac’s eyes blazed at us. “They have wounded me. I admit it freely. Yet I tell you that from that wound of the spirit I draw a deeper strength of conviction and dedication. And so, in murdering my daughter, they have only redoubled my zeal. And, therefore, I say to them—through you—that they will only hasten their own destruction as they seek my own.” Now his hot, dry eyes burned even more intensely. His voice was a hoarse, dramatic whisper.

  “My daughter was not yet ready to join with me in the Forward For Freedom movement. Yet, tragically, she was martyred to this movement.” Once more he paused, raking us with those pale, burning eyes. Then, finally, his twisted, tortured mouth formed a final phrase. “She will not have died in vain.”

  And, immediately, he turned away and left the room. His son and his secretary followed, the woman half turning to latch the door, her eyes glistening.

  Almost with a single breath, the audience seemed to slowly exhale. Many of them had never seen a performance to equal Robert Grinnel’s; certainly I never had. Silently, shuffling a little uncertainly, we rose from our seats and moved toward the hallway door, opened by the anonymous man in the blue suit. As I passed him, I looked closely into his face. It was a square, stodgy face, perhaps incapable of real animation. Yet in the eyes I saw an expression I dimly remembered from childhood—the solemn, consecrated look in the church deacon’s eyes as he stood at the doors on Sunday morning.

  In an awed, hushed group we moved toward the elevators. I turned to find Campion pacing at my side. He was very quietly, very earnestly cursing, staring down at the speech’s transcript as he walked. He was blinking in bafflement, his eyes hollow with a helpless rage.

  “The miserable bastard,” Campion said in an unbelieving monotone. “I thought, after eighteen years in the goddam newspaper business, that I’d seen everything. But that goddam, ghoulish, misbegotten son of a whore tops everything I’ve ever seen, or ever thought I’d see on this earth. I’ve heard of exploiting your wife, or your mother, or even your kid, for political gain. But to use the murder of your child to—to—” He moved his mouth helplessly. “If Grinnel’d happened to’ve been in Germany around nineteen thirty, he’d’ve run Hitler right off the goddam platform. He’d’ve—he’d’ve—” Now Campion could only shake his head, muttering “Forward For Freedom,” as if it were an unspeakable obscenity.

  I sighed and murmured something in agreement. Then the elevator came, and as the reporters crowded into the cubicle, their voices returned, and their jokes, and their cheerfully irreverent clichés.

  I thought, watching Campion, that he was going to shout for them all to be quiet. Instead, he only looked around him with baffled, baleful eyes.

  I looked away.

  But still I seemed to see them: the dead sister and the living brother staring into each other’s eyes.

  8

  ROBERTA GRINNEL WAS MURDERED on the morning of Friday, February 12, and she was buried on Monday, the 15th, in Los Angeles. It was the state funeral of a princess royal. Robert Grinnel stayed constantly in center stage: hot-eyed, erect, and incredibly handsome. Bobby Grinnel was always at his father’s side, numbed into a semblance of frozen strength. The mother was brought from her sanatorium and propped up at the graveside. Somehow, during the previous night spent at the family home, she’d got a bottle of gin, and was barely able to stand during the burial services. Grinnel’s secretary and his bodyguard stayed constantly at his wife’s side, gripping her arms. It was rumored that, as the mother saw her daughter’s casket poised over the open grave, she roused herself and took a single step forward, almost stumbling into the grave. Upon being jerked back, she turned upon her husband, cursing him with a bleary, boozy violence. Then she collapsed and was carried from the graveside by the secretary and the bodyguard. Grinnel seemed to take no notice of the outburst, beyond a sad, compassionate movement of his head and an enraged whitening around his mouth.

  By Wednesday, February 17, Grinnel had returned to the Fairmont’s governor’s suite with his secretary and bodyguard. He immediately requested an audience with Captain Larsen, at the hotel. Even though Larsen was busy investigating the mass extinction of a family of four by the head of the house, an unemployed short-order cook, the Captain and Lieutenant Ramsey nevertheless took the time to visit Grinnel. Details of the interview were never made public, but rumors persisted that Grinnel had demanded an accounting of the efforts being made to solve his daughter’s murder. When he was told, in so many words, that his daughter’s
murder was only one of several unsolved homicides upon which the Detective Bureau was at work, Grinnel at first seemed unable to comprehend it. How, he demanded, could the murder of his daughter be compared to the death of, say, a streetwalker, or an anonymous secretary, or a citizen of skid row? Larsen replied that it depended on the point of view—Grinnel’s, or the family of, say, the streetwalker. At that, the interview ended, icily. Grinnel next called the chief of police, then the police commissioner, and finally the mayor. Apparently they were all polite to their distinguished caller, but unmoved by his demands. They had confidence in Captain Larsen and in the police department. Everything had been done that was even remotely possible. The solution to the murder might take time; similar cases had taken years to solve.

  The next day, Thursday, Grinnel engaged a firm of private detectives, and notified the local press. The Sentinel carried the story in two short paragraphs on page nine, buried as deeply as possible in the page’s gutter. The Courier carried a similar story in a similar location. The Bulletin passed. The reasons were obvious. The Grinnel murder was a week old, with no new developments since the first day’s investigation. We’d nursed the story as long as we could, but now it was dead, replaced by other violence, mayhem, and murder.

  The second reason was even more to the point. We needed the good will of the police department more than we needed Grinnel’s.

  Exactly a week later, on Thursday, February 25, I arrived at the Sentinel to discover a message from Robert Grinnel. I was summoned to his Fairmont suite at 10 A.M.

  “What do you suppose it’s all about?” the city editor asked, frowning down at the message.

  I shrugged. “He probably wants to announce that he’s about to score a putsch on City Hall. That’s what the last one was about, anyhow—a purge of the San Francisco police department.”