by Emma Lathen
His ears cocked for any betraying noise, his eyes straining to penetrate the night, Fleming pressed on, examining a multitude of exits. In one sense his task was easy. All the tracks led uphill from the near side of the road, while to his right the ground fell away steeply. In another sense, it was hopeless. He was simply looking at a series of black holes. After several miles Gene was ready to admit failure and turn around.
“I just hope there’s a sign for the speedway somewhere,” he muttered as he pondered the problem of finding his way.
But he forgot all about directions when he caught sight of a smashed guardrail. Sitting in the middle of a tight turn, it told its own story. Someone, driving too quickly, had lost control.
Coasting to a halt, Fleming took the precaution of angling the beam of his headlight downward. But even with this assistance, he could barely discern, through a tangle of scraggly bushes and stunted trees, the blurred shape some fifteen or twenty yards below. He slid down the scree into the shadowy murk, grasping at branches to brake his progress. The light was barely sufficient to reveal that there was no rider on the smashed motorcycle.
“Anybody here?”
When no answer came, Gene was inspired by a sudden doubt. This accident could have happened hours ago. Precariously balancing himself with one hand on the saddle of the machine, he ran his other over its outline. Yes, there were the crash bars, the heavy fiber screen, the unmistakable bulk of an older Harley.
“Anybody here?” he called again before recognizing the futility of his action.
If the rider had not been seriously injured, he was making his getaway from the scene. Otherwise he was probably unconscious, somewhere in the dark.
A very sober Gene Fleming scrambled up the hillside, remounted, and sped back several miles before finding a public phone. Tensely he dialed the emergency number, reported his discovery, and promised to wait for the police. With a sigh of relief at the prospect of reinforcements, he began to cradle the receiver.
When it slipped in his grasp, he looked down and saw that his left hand was covered with fresh blood.
Shortly after ten o’clock John Thatcher and his companion returned to the Albany. They had barely cleared the threshold before the desk clerk produced an artificial smile and greeted them across the width of the lobby.
“Good evening, Mr. Thatcher and Inspector Hayakawa!” he said in clarion tones.
A police constable instantly materialized and shepherded them to a rear office, where a plainclothesman pelted them with questions.
Where had they been? Where was everybody else? Could they vouch for each other from eight o’clock to nine o’clock?
Delaying their own curiosity, they produced an account of their evening.
“The staff of the restaurant will be able to confirm our presence,” Thatcher concluded. “What is this all about?”
The detective had lost interest in them the moment they ceased to be suspects and was already instructing a subordinate to monitor the switchboard. Over his shoulder, he said shortly:
“Mr. Bennet Alderman was run down by a motorcyclist at Midland Research almost two hours ago. It was deliberate murder.”
Thatcher and Hayakawa exchanged startled glances.
“We were too slow,” Thatcher said regretfully.
The inspector, however, was considering broader issues. Subjecting the scene to a cool professional scrutiny, he said: “In one respect, at least, our killer is a clever man.”
Thatcher was not certain he knew what had prompted this remark. “He’s had a long run for his money. Is that what you mean?”
“No, I was referring to the fact that each attack has occurred in a different jurisdiction. Superintendent McLeod was so ig
norant about the Tokyo background he was also forced to consult me. And now the Birmingham police are in the same position about what happened in London.”
But steps had been taken to remedy this situation. Within fifteen minutes, the superintendent was standing in the doorway, his raincoat spangled with moisture from the drizzle now falling. After consulting with his local colleague, he came over to Thatcher and Hayakawa.
“You realize what this means? Matsuda must have been shot by mistake,” he said without preliminaries.
“We had come to the same conclusion,” Hayakawa agreed.
McLeod was still digesting the news that had hauled him to Birmingham.
“Smashing people with motorcycles, for God’s sake! If you ask me, our man has gone berserk.”
“Possibly, but he retains enough sense to choose his timing,” Thatcher demurred. “Everybody in our group seems to be missing.”
“Matsuda is the only one in the hotel. He went to his room immediately after dinner, and according to your watchdogs,” McLeod said, turning to Hayakawa, “they haven’t so much as blinked since then.”
Hayakawa nodded. “Under the circumstances, I would accept their assurance.”
Both policemen knew that there was nothing like a slipup the first time to keep a surveillance team on its toes.
“As for the others, the desk says that Kruger and Hodiak went out separately. And Arai canceled the reservations for his entire party yesterday morning. He may not even be in Birmingham yet. Then there’s Mr. Iwamoto, always circling around the fringe of things. The Shima people have a big crew at the speedway. The first time we called, they said he was somewhere around the track. Now they admit he took a motorcycle out a couple of hours ago.”
The last item, delivered in tones of ominous suspicion, convinced Thatcher that this was not the time to volunteer information about the Sloan’s own motorcycle enthusiast. With luck it would turn out that Fleming had spent the critical
period with some old acquaintances. Fortunately the superintendent had passed on to his own arrangements.
“I’ll make my headquarters here, where I can catch the others as they come in,” he told the plainclothesman. “So fetch me that witness you’ve got at the station.”
The television producer was understandably sulky when he arrived. After recovering from the initial shock, he had reverted to type. Here was a major news story, Birmingham’s biggest crime in years, and he had been stuck in a wretched police station.
“I’ve already told them everything I know,” he protested.
“Now you can tell me,” McLeod growled.
“Well, we’d worked for a couple of hours, setting things up for tomorrow’s taping, and—”
This attempt to rattle off his account was stopped in its tracks.
“Wait! Let’s go back. Had this session been arranged beforehand?”
“I’d told Mr. Khan we needed to do preliminary work.”
McLeod shook his head impatiently.
“Not you! When was it decided that Alderman would join you? After all, he was still in London this morning.”
“Oh, I see what you mean. Mr. Kruger sent him over as soon as he found out about the coverage. At least that’s what Bennet said. There was a press release to write too.”
“Very well. They tell me that Alderman had to walk the length of the yard to reach his car. Why?”
The producer became defensive. “Look, they told us to go to the administration building, so we parked there. I noticed that we took all the spaces, but I didn’t expect anybody else to be coming.”
“A very natural thing to do.” Now that McLeod had his witness rolling, he became benign. “So you worked for several hours. Were there any phone calls for Alderman? Did he tell anyone when he was planning to leave?”
But the television crew had taken over more than executive parking.
“We were on the phone all the time, calling back and forth to the studio. I don’t remember Bennet using it at all. You could ask the girl.”
The superintendent knew that the secretary had been heavily sedated.
“I suppose that Alderman didn’t say anything about his plans?” he asked. “Whether he was meeting someone, or anything like that?”
&
nbsp; “Not a word.” By now the producer was actually thinking. “And I doubt if he would have made a firm date. He couldn’t tell how long the work would take. We could have hit a snag and been there much later.”
McLeod nodded encouragingly. “A good point. But Alderman didn’t stay till the end, did he? You were still there.”
“Well, I was just waiting for the girl to finish typing the script. My people had all gone.”
The picture that was emerging had possibilities for McLeod.
“Why didn’t Alderman wait with you?” he prodded.
“Actually I told him not to bother. But I don’t think he had any intention of staying.”
“Are you saying he was in a hurry to get somewhere?”
The producer frowned. “It’s difficult to tell. You see, he’d been busy establishing himself as the man in charge, the one who had the final say about everything. I assumed he was just emphasizing our relative positions.”
“That makes sense.” McLeod was remembering his own experience with Bennet Alderman. “All right, so now we come to the moment when he left.”
“He walked out, and we went on working. But right away we heard that motorcycle. It kept getting louder and louder. I remember the girl stopped typing and we both looked out the window, even though you couldn’t see that part of the yard. I know I wasn’t thinking about Bennet. I was just waiting for something to happen, and then there was this god-awful noise. It wasn’t what I’d been expecting, it wasn’t a crash into a building. It was”—the producer gulped, hesitated, then forged on—”it was more like a hideous squash. Anyway we rushed out the door and from there we could see the body.”
By now his voice had risen and he had begun to stammer.
“That bloody alley was a perfect death trap. Poor Bennet never had a chance.”
McLeod moved to steady his witness. “Forget about how Alderman looked. Describe what else you saw.”
The producer gritted his teeth and continued. “The light was in our eyes, you understand. I couldn’t see clearly then.”
“Then?”
“It didn’t take much time to realize Bennet was beyond help. So I went along to the end of the alley, and from there I could see this motorcycle on a road outside the gates.”
“Did you notice what kind of cycle?”
“It was like all the others around town.” The producer shrugged. It took a Rolls-Royce to rouse his interest. “I was trying to look at the rider. But he had on one of those helmets.”
McLeod had assumed as much. Only a madman would have dispensed with that effective camouflage.
“So you couldn’t tell anything about his head and face. How about his size?”
“He was hunched into a big blob. I tell you there weren’t any details you could pick up at that distance. Nothing except . . .”
The producer’s scornful rejection had turned into surprise.
“I forgot all about noticing his clothes,” he said, his voice tinged with discovery. “He was wearing a green windbreaker and khaki trousers.”
“What?”
John Thatcher sat bolt upright as every head swiveled in his direction. There could no longer be any delay in making his disclosure to the authorities. But even as he was framing the distasteful sentences, he was forestalled.
First there was the heavy tread of approaching footsteps. Then the door swung open. Finally a trio of newcomers entered in military formation. Two rigid uniformed constables were escorting a white-faced Gene Fleming.
Chapter 31
“. . . The police who answered my call already knew what happened at Midland Research. They were the ones who told me Alderman was the victim,” Fleming concluded his story some time later. “So as soon as I showed them where the crash was, they hustled me back here.”
Like a good organizer, McLeod first turned his attention to the ongoing work. “What’s being done at the scene of the crash?” he demanded.
The escort replied that a detail was examining the site, with instructions to report directly to the hotel.
Nodding, the superintendent turned an expressionless face to Fleming. “You’re probably lucky you didn’t catch up with him. What did you think would happen?”
Fleming considered this question for the first time. “Why, I would have identified him.”
“If you were still alive. My God, this killer’s not fussy about the methods he uses; he simply lashes out with anything. He could have shot you, hit you with a rock, or run you down.”
Before Fleming could defend his actions, Inspector Hayakawa seized the moment. “About that shooting,” he said. “Mr. Thatcher and I were comparing notes and came to the same conclusion. If Alderman was the intended victim all along, that would provide an explanation of Mr. Matsuda’s remarkable attitude.”
The superintendent was obviously so dubious that Thatcher came to his companion’s aid.
“That would mean they were both telling the truth about the note. Remember, the entire hotel was buzzing about Alderman’s behavior at the trade show. Everybody knew that he had threatened to choke the truth out of Matsuda and, therefore, would be very receptive to an invitation from that quarter. At the same time Mr. Matsuda would have been shocked and very curious if he realized someone else was using his name.”
With growing interest, McLeod said: “And it would explain the swimming pool. If Matsuda wasn’t supposed to take part in the meeting, a location like that wouldn’t make any difference.”
Thatcher continued his persuasion.
“Having set that trap, the murderer naturally expected only one person to appear,” he said. “When the door opened, he fired instantly.”
Hayakawa was sensible enough to allow time for the digestion of this material before adding: “I was so convinced by this theory that I intended to consult you about protection for Alderman. Of course it was already too late.” He paused, before going on deliberately. “I thought bodyguards might have made Alderman more inclined to cooperate with a request from Mr. Thatcher.”
McLeod bent shaggy eyebrows accusingly toward Thatcher. “And what would that have been?”
But Hayakawa, now zeroing in on target, rushed on. “Mr. Thatcher hoped to persuade Alderman to show us the material he received from Lackawanna. Now,” he continued cunningly, “it is simply a matter of inspecting his belongings.”
McLeod hesitated only long enough to deal with a messenger who had just arrived.
“Yes?”
“That Harley-Davidson was reported stolen from the university at nine-thirty.”
“What are the time limits?”
“The owner left it at seven o’clock.”
“Very well.” McLeod nodded dismissal. “Now let’s see what’s in Alderman’s room.”
There was no need for an elaborate search. The three-page letter was lying on top of Alderman’s other papers. It came from a firm of private investigators and, at the beginning, held no surprises. Apparently Alderman had already requested inquiries into Pamela Webb’s personal life. Tony Cella listed the steps being taken in Lackawanna and offered, if so instructed, to extend his activities further. But a rigorous probe of Carl Kruger’s life, Cella continued, was going to require far more time and money. He concluded that if nasty surprises were to be avoided, there was no alternative to a massive, thoroughgoing effort.
Hayakawa was shocked. “Alderman was ready to threaten his superior.”
“I see that,” McLeod growled. “It’s the last sentence I don’t understand.”
Thatcher, however, did.
“Alderman didn’t need any justification for investigating most employees at Lackawanna. But when it came to Kruger himself, there had to be some decent coloration. This firm thought Alderman was interested in Kruger’s viability as a political candidate. It’s really quite clever. Alderman could appear to be working in Kruger’s interests while demanding that no stone remain unturned. But it was all a smoke screen, because he started this right after his fight with Kruger
.”
“It’s really not surprising the man is dead,” McLeod commented. “Didn’t he realize what he was stirring up?”
Both Hayakawa and McLeod expected Thatcher to know about American hard-nosers.
“Alderman was in the habit of thinking he was more unscrupulous than everybody else. He forgot there was a murderer loose!”
“It’s happened to blackmailers before,” McLeod agreed, as a sergeant from the traffic detail arrived.
“First of all, what about his story?” the superintendent asked, jerking his chin toward Fleming. “Is it corroborated?”
“Yes, sir. He was riding one of those lightweight models. Trying to run somebody down with it would be suicidal.”
Gene Fleming was outraged. Half choking, he sputtered: “You suspected me?”
“Everything has to be investigated,” McLeod said stolidly before turning back to the sergeant. “I see it’s raining heavily now.”
This was an understatement. The drippings from the sergeant’s gleaming black cape were already forming wide pools of water.
“It’s been coming down hard for the last hour, sir. But we have established that the rider of the Harley isn’t in the immediate vicinity. The nearby roads are being patrolled, and we’ve put tarps over the cycle itself. I don’t know how much good that will do.”
“How much damage was there?”
“The machine isn’t operational.”
“Never mind about that. What about the rider?”
The sergeant collected his thoughts. “That’s impossible to say, sir. The rain was already washing away some of the blood by the time we got there. But the main problem is that there are two lots. It’s obvious that the mess in the front section comes from the collision at Midland Research. But the rest—on the saddle and the midsection—could come from MR or the road crash. The driver was certainly injured, but we can’t tell how seriously.”
McLeod’s frown had become more forbidding with every word. “If he’s badly hurt, he could be lying out there in the dark and we won’t find him until daylight. I don’t like that, but I like the alternative even less. He must have planned to abandon that Harley somewhere, which means that he had other transport available. He could be already behind the wheel of a car. What good does it do to have patrols looking for a man limping out of the bushes?”