He spread his hands. “Your boys are still inside, with the M.E. and the lab crew. I haven’t heard a thing. I—Oh, oh.” He moved his chin slightly toward the street. Following the gesture, I saw a Sentinel car pull to a stop. I opened the flat’s front door, saying, “Tell them I’ll have something for them in fifteen or twenty minutes. Have you got the back door covered?”
“Sure.”
“Okay. See you later. Next time you’re downtown I’ll buy you a cup of coffee.”
“I have to come down Friday. I’ll take you up on it.”
“Good.” I stepped into the entryway, closing the door behind me just as the first reporter began plaintively arguing with Pass. Because of the dark day, the entry hall was dim. I switched on the lights, then stood perfectly still as I looked around, orienting myself.
The layout was typical of attached Victorian flats built on San Francisco’s narrow twenty-five-foot lots. A long hallway stretched from the front door to the rearmost rooms, probably a spacious kitchen and a master bedroom. Off the single hallway the other rooms opened, one after the other.
Passing the living room, I casually looked inside. The room was incredibly disorganized—not ransacked, but simply jumbled together haphazardly. Taking the furniture item by item, the individual pieces were of superb quality, in excellent condition. Yet the room looked as if its last inhabitants had been destructive children playing house.
Stepping out into the hallway again, I saw Canelli waiting for me. Hands in his pockets, he was looking into the back room on the right. His suit was baggy and wrinkled. His shirt collar, mashed beneath massive jowls, was wilted and curled. His face, as usual, reflected a kind of preoccupied, faintly frowning perplexity. Canelli was twenty-eight, weighed two hundred forty pounds, and always needed a closer shave. He’d been engaged to a girl named Rosalie for six years. He was a good-natured, plodding, unimaginative cop whose greatest single virtue was a perpetual streak of incredible good luck in his job. Two weeks ago, standing in line waiting to deposit his paycheck at the Castro Branch of the Bank of America, Canelli had glanced over the shoulder of the man in front of him just as the man was passing a robbery note to the teller. Typically, in the brief struggle that followed, Canelli lost his paycheck, his bankbook and his wallet, none of which was recovered. Initialing the arrest report, Friedman had remarked that only Canelli could get robbed while he was arresting a robber.
Canelli’s voice was hushed as he said, “Morning, Lieutenant.”
“Good morning.” I stood beside him, studying the murder scene.
He’d been right; it was a messy one.
A huge fourposter bed dominated the room. The ruffled canopy hung in shreds from one elaborately carved bedpost. The nude body of a man sagged against another post, suspended by his tied wrists like a crucified thief. He was of medium build, with dark hair worn long enough to almost cover his ears. His knees were bent, hanging less than a foot from the floor. From the lower abdomen down, his body was almost entirely covered with caked blood. Both shoulders had been dislocated by the weight of the hanging body. He was facing me, but his neck was bent, his features obscured.
The woman lay spread-eagled on the bed, face down. Her dark blond hair was almost waist-length. The hair was matted with blood in two small circular areas, one midway between the spine and the left shoulder, another in the exact center of the back. She was nude. On her right hand she wore a ring; on her left wrist, a wristwatch. She was average height, and probably weighed about a hundred thirty pounds. Her thighs were heavy; her toenails were painted red. No bloodstains were visible on the bedclothing beneath the body.
The room was crowded with hushed, carefully stepping men: a photographer, a fingerprint man, two lab technicians and the medical examiner, Roger Sobel. Two ambulance attendants stood against the wall, one of them holding a stretcher. The smell of double death was nauseating.
I inventoried the signs of a struggle: a chair was overturned, a lamp was smashed, cosmetics littered the floor. A large box of talcum powder had been spilled, dusting the thick gold rug. Someone had walked through the powder. Had it been the murderer? The maid?
“Where’s Culligan?” I asked.
“Upstairs, talking to the neighbors.”
I nodded, then stepped gingerly into the bedroom, walking between the lab’s tape markers. I stood on a small bedside rug while I studied the man’s corpse. His hands were tied with yanked-out telephone cord, wrapped a dozen times around the wrists, then crudely knotted. A crosspiece on the bed supported the body. The crosspiece was almost six feet from the floor. He’d been forced to stand beside the tall bedpost, then hold his hands in position while the murderer bound his wrists. The murderer might have stood on the bed while binding his victim.
Or, quite possibly, there’d been two murderers—a team.
He’d been shot twice in the abdomen. The wounds probably hadn’t been fatal. Judging from the amount of blood, he’d probably bled to death.
Still standing in one spot, not touching the body, I knelt on one knee, staring up into the victim’s face. He appeared to be in his early forties. His features were heavy and dark, but regular. His complexion was swarthy, his beard a heavy blue-black. His nose was a little too long for his face, his chin a little too small. His eyes were open, staring at my feet. His mouth gaped. On his right cheek was a fresh circular burn—a deep cigarette burn, deliberately inflicted. He’d been tortured.
I straightened, then turned to the woman’s body. Her face was totally obscured, buried in the bedclothing. From the texture of her flesh, she seemed to be in her middle or late twenties. She’d been shot twice in the back. Beneath the distended swell of one flattened breast I saw the beginning of a huge bloodstain. She’d died where she’d fallen.
I nodded to Sobel, and told him that Canelli and I would wait in the kitchen, out of the way.
As we sat facing each other across a carved Mexican pedestal table, I glanced around the kitchen, assessing the expensive appliances, the walnut cabinets, the copper pots hung on an ornamental brick wall. The kitchen represented more money than I’d invested in my entire apartment. The sink and sideboard, predictably, were heaped with dirty dishes.
“Well,” I said, “what’ve you got so far?”
“So far, not much,” Canelli answered, flopping his notebook open on the table. “The cleaning lady, named Janice Henry, said that the victims are Karen Manley and Roberto Valenti. Whereupon she passed out. I sent her out to County Hospital.”
“With a guard?”
“Well—” He cleared his throat.
“You’d better post a guard until we’ve talked to her. Just as soon as we’ve finished here.”
“Yessir.”
“Any sign of the weapon?”
“Not so far. But we haven’t really checked. I mean, it isn’t in the room.”
“What else?”
He spread his hands. “Not much, I guess. I mean, Culligan’s still upstairs talking to the neighbors. And I figured I should stay here to keep an eye on things. So—”
The back door opened. A moment later Culligan appeared in the doorway. He paused, grunted a greeting to me, then slumped abruptly into a chair. Culligan was Canelli’s exact opposite: cadaverously thin, hollow-chested, balding, laconic and sour-tempered. His long, sad face was sallow and deeply lined, his small eyes seemed to be focused inwardly, his drawn mouth was permanently twisted into an expression of grim, long-suffering forbearance. Culligan was a worrier, with the ulcer to prove it. He was thirty-four but he looked fifty. His wife was a rangy, wide-hipped, slatternly woman whose eyes and mouth matched her husband’s.
“This one,” he said heavily, “is going to be a picnic for the newspapers.”
“How’s that?”
“Because the female victim, Karen Manley, is the daughter of Walter J. Manley, of Manley, Robbins and Quant. The stockbrokers. His family goes back to the gold rush. They own banks, office buildings—the works.”
I snorted
ruefully. As usual, Culligan wasn’t exaggerating; if anything, he was understating the case. In San Francisco, the Manley name was synonymous with wealth, power and position. I glanced at my watch, wondering whether Kreiger could be reached.
“Who’s the man?” I asked Culligan.
“His name is Roberto Valenti. According to the neighbors, he’s a gigolo. No good.”
“They weren’t married, I take it.”
“Not according to their neighbors. They moved into the apartment about six months ago. Since then they’ve done nothing but raise hell—all kinds of hell, all the time.”
“How do you rate these neighbors as informants?”
Culligan thought about it, scowling as he gnawed at his lip. “I’d rate them about eighty percent,” he said finally. “Good.”
“What’d they say about last night?”
“According to them, it was just another ordinary night down here: people in and out at all hours, lots of noise, a couple of arguments. Nothing unusual.”
“How about shots?”
“Well, Mr. Armstrong—the husband upstairs—said that he thought he heard shots at about two. He was asleep, but something woke him up. The shots, probably. However, he thought it was the TV, or something. Or the 1812 Overture, whatever that is. Anyhow, he says he just rolled over and went back to sleep.”
I nodded thoughtfully, for a long moment watching my own forefinger rhythmically tapping the wooden table. I was thinking that for the moment I’d have to forget about the Draper murder—and about Mrs. Haywood, the small, tense woman with the wide gray eyes and no first name.
I looked up to discover both men expectantly staring at me.
I turned first to Canelli. “You’d better get on the radio. Tell Communications to notify the captain. Then take care of that guard for the cleaning lady. Then get two more inspectors assigned to the case, on my authority. Tell them to report to me here, immediately. Then you start canvassing the neighbors for background information on the victims.”
As Canelli left, I turned to Culligan. “Check with the lab team; see if you can use the phone here. Find either Mr. or Mrs. Manley. Make an appointment for me; tell them I’ll be calling on them immediately. Don’t tell them about the murder—just that there’s been an accident. The usual.” I paused, then added, “If there’s a choice, I’ll see the father, Mr. Manley. After you do that, get a couple of uniformed men and organize a search for the weapon.” I paused, then added, “I’m putting you in charge.”
Nodding, he tiredly unfolded himself, rising to his feet. Watching him shuffle out into the hallway, I wondered whether Culligan could have TB. Was he sick, or just unhappy? Or did the two ultimately go together?
I took out my notebook and headed a fresh page: Manley—Valenti. Then I began writing.
6
MY FIRST GLIMPSE OF Walter J. Manley evoked a vague sense of disembodied recall. As he rose to greet me, I recognized the wide, thick shoulders, the slightly bowed neck, the athlete’s unmistakable air of muscular ease.
He’d played football in college—well-bred, overprivileged, very serious football. His beautifully barbered iron-gray good looks were typically the college athlete’s after twenty-odd years of board-room triumphs.
I was prepared, then, for the whole weary scenario: first the firm, hard grip, then the slow glimmer of recognition as my name vaguely registered. And, finally, the up-and-down look of appraisal: the successful executive who’d never made the varsity, standing relaxed behind his desk and surveying the middle-aged ex-hero palming a worn leather billfold with silver shield attached.
His first question, though, concerned his daughter: “What’s the trouble, Lieutenant?” He motioned me to a deep leather visitor’s chair, then resumed his seat at the huge rosewood-and-chrome desk. His voice clearly revealed that he was a man used to taking charge in any interview.
Behind the rosewood desk, a glass-and-steel wall overlooked the city’s most magnificent vista: the abstract shapes of skyscraper-slabs, the low, curving grace of the Bay Bridge, the dark green bulk of Treasure Island, the slate-blue of the ship-dotted bay—all of it washed with a winter’s blend of white fog-shreds and a brooding, monochromatic gray sky.
For a brief moment the view held me. Then, regretfully, I returned my gaze to the trim, handsome man in his vigorous middle fifties, looking at me now with intelligent, appraising eyes. He was on guard—politely, cautiously on guard. Getting down to business.
I told him that his daughter was dead.
Years of police work had taught me the value of observing first reactions. So I watched Manley’s face intently as he blinked, exhaled and lowered his eyes. Then, slowly sinking back in his elegant chair, he seemed to absorb the shock in grimly controlled slow motion. His arms were extended, his palms flat on the rosewood desk, wide apart. He was staring at a spot precisely between his two widespread hands. The urbane, complacent contours of his face began to twitch. His face was pale beneath an expensive winter tan. He closed his eyes, set his jaw and slowly began shaking his head, eyes still closed.
Dispassionately assessing his reactions, I decided that Manley’s responses were genuine, convincing.
He drew a long, shaky breath, then opened his eyes, still staring down at the desk. Finally, in a low, thick voice, he said, “I’ve been expecting it. For years I’ve been expecting it. Unconsciously, at least. What was it—drugs?”
Having decided that he probably possessed no guilty knowledge, and that he could take a second shock, I told him the details of Karen Manley’s death. As I talked, watching his face, I saw the first pale, twitching tautness of despair change to flushed, eye-glittering outrage. As I finished talking, he began to swear—grimly, doggedly, obscenely.
“It’s those goddamn degenerates,” he said, finally coherent. “It’s Valenti, and all the rest of them. They’ve—” He swallowed, setting his teeth, painfully bunching the muscles along his jaw. “They’ve ruined me. Ruined us. I should’ve—” He stopped suddenly.
“You should’ve what, Mr. Manley?” I asked quietly.
He slowly raised his eyes to glare at me, as if he just now fully realized the significance of my presence. He pushed himself up straighter in the chair, squared his shoulders, cleared his throat. Then, looking directly into my eyes, he said deliberately, “I should’ve killed him myself. That’s what I was going to say, Lieutenant. Except that it wouldn’t’ve done any good. Valenti was just a—a symptom, not a cause. He was just—” Suddenly he gulped, blinked, and shook his head. The spasm of outrage had passed; he’d sunk back into a wounded, hollow-eyed despair. “I’ll have to tell my wife,” he mumbled. He looked at me, woodenly polite, as he asked, “Do you know where she is, Lieutenant?”
“She’s home, Mr. Manley.”
He nodded. He lifted the phone and told someone, undoubtedly his secretary, to tell his wife that he’d be home in a half-hour. Then he ordered his car. Watching him give the orders, I glimpsed a pale shadow of the public Mr. Walter J. Manley: decisive, urbane, forceful—a prototypical member of the privileged class.
But as he placed the phone in its cradle a last time, his eyes again lost focus, as if the absence of actual physical contact with the telephone had deprived him of some necessary source of energy.
“Mr. Manley,” I said, “I know you’re anxious to see your wife. Understandably. But now I’d like you to take a few minutes and tell me anything that you think might help us find your daughter’s murderer—anything at all. As you know, time is critical in police work. Right now—right this minute—your daughter’s murderer is doing everything in his power to avoid detection. Maybe he’s already on his way out of town. Or if he’s still in San Francisco, he’s going back over the crime, trying to remember every detail—looking for a mistake he might’ve made. If he remembers something he did wrong, he might be able to cover his tracks. Unless we get there first.”
He was watching me intently, his gaze sharply, feverishly refocused. “Why do you say ‘he�
��?” he asked. “Do you—know anything? Suspect anything?”
“No, Mr. Manley, we don’t. It’s just a figure of speech.”
He nodded slowly. Then the brief, tense moment passed, leaving him strangely listless. Finally, with a kind of exhausted curiosity—as if compelled to escape momentarily the knowledge of his daughter’s death—he asked, “Are you the same Frank Hastings who played football for Stanford, by any chance, and then went on to the Lions?”
“Yes, I am.” I glanced pointedly at my watch.
“I thought so,” he murmured. “I went to Stanford. Before you did.” He looked at me for a final moment of exhausted appraisal, then dropped his eyes, sighing deeply. For a moment he seemed confused—drained. Then, shaking his head, he said, “She was only twenty-six, you know. She had her”—he gulped—“her whole life ahead of her.”
I allowed a moment to pass, then asked him again for his statement. With visible effort he gathered himself together, then said, “Where do you want me to start, Lieutenant?”
“Start wherever you like, Mr. Manley. Maybe with your daughter’s, ah, living habits—her known associates. Especially those who might’ve wanted to harm her.”
“Or him.” He pronounced the pronoun like an obscenity. “It’s him, probably, that they were after. Not”—he swallowed—“not Karen.”
“You might be right,” I answered slowly. “Still, at this point, we need all the information we can get. Everything.”
“Yes, of course.” He nodded. Then, after a moment’s painful thought, he said, “Karen met Valenti down in Los Angeles. It was about a year ago, I think. Maybe a little less.”
“Was your daughter living in Los Angeles at the time?”
“Yes and no,” he answered. “She lived there for some months, off and on. She wasn’t settled there, though. But then, she wasn’t settled anywhere. Not really.”
“Give me a brief history of her life, Mr. Manley. A chronology. From, say, her late teens.”
He began to blink, wonderingly. “Her late teens. That was less than ten years ago.”
Dead Aim (The Lt. Hastings Mysteries) Page 4