by Emma Lathen
“Now is the time to keep calm,” he told himself calmly and aloud he said, “Nobody really has any notion of what you’re doing. It was pure coincidence, that’s all. You’ll have to protect yourself against having anything come of it, but at the moment you are perfectly safe, if you keep calm,” he coached himself. Nevertheless he instinctively pushed the accelerator nearer the floorboard.
“Mack, I thought you said this car had power,” John said scornfully as the Plantagenet screamed across the access road.
“But Mr. Thatcher. There’s a stop sign--”
“Mack, there is no time for a lot of nonsense about stop signs. Is this the best way to town?”
Perspiration glistened on Mack’s forehead despite the AC. “Well, we might save a few miles if we cut off onto old Route 5.
“Do it!” John ordered.
In the back seat Arnie was bracing himself from the last wild careen around a corner when he had a sudden vision of an extended flock of lovely women bearing large trays of Havanas. “John, will you please tell me...”
The question was never completed. Mack had braked the Planty fiercely, coming to a shivering halt at a sign marked:
Do Not Enter
Road Under Construction
John began to swear softly, but fluently. Mack, visibly trembling, took a deep breath. It was a mistake . John roared, “Back it out; back on to the expressway.” The reverse speed of the Crown Jewel of Motoring lived up to its advertising and did so promptly.
At the same time Riley was saying, “You fool. You are going to have the blood of a woman on your fat stupid hands if you don’t do something now... What do you mean, ’What’? Put up road blocks; call the Detroit police... What do you mean you will look like a fool... Listen Georgeson, if you don’t get moving now, I’m coming over to take you apart ...” With this the MM receptionist who had been wavering, fainted.
The 1966 Viscount, “Elegance in Driving,” pulled into the left lane to pass a produce truck. Ridiculous to feel nervous with everything under control and only one detail left, the driver told himself. But there was a sultry oppressiveness in the air, that was it. The weather. Unpleasantly hot. Settled down, the driver pulled sedately into the right lane.
Suddenly the scream of a siren made the driver start compulsively. A squad car, howling hideously, streaked past, past. The driver took an unsteady breath. That just showed what an uneasy conscience could do he thought. The police--why they weren’t a menace to him. Must be an accident ahead.
Suddenly, with the cold calculating intelligence that had stood him in good stead before, the driver realized that if there was a serious accident there might be a delay. There might even be officers noticing, taking down license numbers... No use to risk observation. He pulled the Viscount off the expressway at the next exit. Grand Island Tollway was several miles longer, but safer. The driver was a man who valued safety.
“Thank goodness,” Riley murmured weakly, sagging against the reception desk. Georgeson, dim, distant, aggrieved, and distorted, had finally yielded to his appeals. The phone rang back and emitted an interrogative squawk. Riley answered, “What? License number. Oh, wait, I’ll get it. I’ll have to call you back,” as he went racing down the hall saying, “Let us be in time.”
The Plantagenet Sceptre was capable of doing 147 mpg and John was in a hurry. These facts, neatly as they meshed, were intrinsic to the situation; the Plantagenet’s speed and John’s desires were imbedded in one of the great verities of modern America, the traffic jam. The Willow Run Expressway was now a long parking lot. From horizon to horizon there was an unending line of cars, motionless, steaming, panting, and bumper to bumper. Mack returned from an exploratory expedition on the radio. “Accident ahead,” he reported unhappily. “2 VWs ran into each other. Then a lot of these cars backed up here are getting vapor locks. You know ...”
“Vapor lock,” John said bitterly.
“We are going to be quite a while,” Mack persisted, bravely putting the cards on the table.
“That’s where you are wrong,” John said opening the door.
Arnie, upon whom the morning’s events were beginning to act hypnotically, mopped a streaming brow, opened his window, and called out, “Planning to walk to Detroit?”
John, however, was not heading straight ahead. Instead, with a display of the superiority of shank’s mare to $30,000 worth of car, he was striding briskly off the restricted highway. Drivers, imprisoned behind their wheels, stared hostilely. Momentarily Arnie was tempted to let John go his eccentric way alone. Then, mindful of his responsibility to Waymark-Sims, burst out of the back seat to follow John. Mack, now a broken man, buried his head in his hands on the steering wheel.
“What do you mean you don’t know the license number of that car,” Riley said ferociously.
Lincoln Hauser, already much tried, attempted sweet reason. “We keep several cars out there for executive use, for visitors too. I can give you this list of the numbers of all of them.”
With a snarl, Riley snatched the paper from Hauser, then without asking permission, reached across him to use the phone, with Hauser saying, “Oh, now, see here.”
“Shut up,” Riley said between clenched teeth as he got Georgeson on the phone. “Here are the tag numbers ... Yes, I said numbers ...”
The 1966 Viscount had pulled onto a spur road that paralleled Canal Road by a distance of 2 fields and a string of hamburger stands and seedy motels. When he drove, the driver could keep an eye on traffic through an occasional gap in the depressing facade. As he had expected, there was no police activity on Canal Road. The Grand Island Tollway, while time consuming, was going to be worth the detour.
The driver smiled grimly. If anybody ever asked, he had been someplace far, far away during the next hour. He had to think about where it would be, but he had already successfully done this once before. And quite ingeniously, he added in selfcongratulations. There was no reason to suppose he couldn’t do it again. With a thrill of pure pleasure at the lively response from the motor, he accelerated slightly.
“We are at the Mobil Gas Station at the corner of Elm and Sebago,” John said into the phone. “Have you managed to get in touch with Miss Price? Oh, it is just as well, if she’s not home. And the police? Thank goodness. Yes, yes, I know it is a question of time... Just come along and don’t take the expressway. It is all snarled up... Yes...”
Hanging up, he took an impatient turn around the gas station office while Arnie, collar open, tie askew, and coat jacket over his shoulder, looked at him with mute inquiry.
“Riley will be here in a few minutes,” John finally said.
“Good.”
“If anything happens to that young woman it will be because we were incredibly obtuse.”
Arnie said to himself, but not out loud, “Obtuse, schmobtuse, what is going on?”
The 1966 Viscount driver tossed a quarter into the automatic toll machine and sped down the Grand Island Tollway, exactly 2 minutes before the reluctant police contacted the tollbooth keeper, who said disagreeably, “Lots of Viscounts on the road. How would I know?”
“Well, keep an eye out for it now, will you?” was the exasperated reply. “Killers.”
“Aha,” said the tollbooth keeper.
Meanwhile the 1966 Viscount, carefully remaining even with the flow of traffic, was in the clear. Its driver breathed a sigh of relief, a sigh that showed how much pressure he had been under. In the clear. Tomorrow, business as usual...
“Did the state police call the Detroit police?” John asked immediately as he got in Riley’s car which Fabian had ruthlessly commandeered. Arnie was dazed and just climbed into the backseat as John rode shotgun up front with Riley.
“Georgeson was getting in touch with them. But Susan doesn’t appear to be home. And it is a question of time. For all we know he may be there already.”
“Take it easy,” John counseled. “He may be stuck in traffic as we were.”
“If anything happens to Susan, I’ll tear G
eorgeson apart,” said Riley, his frailty transformed by rage and love into pure power, as he continued, “I only hope...now what is going on?”
The gate had come down in the toll booth preventing them from moving forward. The attendant, now barricaded in terrified isolation, refused to venture out of the booth to answer the demands of the killers in the car, although he noticed the one in the back seat looked apathetic enough. The cars started to pile up behind them.
“What’s the matter,” demanded Riley, charging out of the car towards the tollbooth keeper. The man cringed away saying, “License plate...police...” as he whined in terror.
“License plate? Oh. Look I know that we have got one of the plates,” Riley shouted, “but we are not a black Viscount with whitewalls, you idiot. We are a blue Majestic.”
At this moment a squad car raced up, came to a dramatic halt, and the doors burst open with 2 officers emerging with drawn guns. Riley shouted at them, “Do you hear me? We are a blue Majestic not a Black Viscount.”
Some minds do not readily process new data; there was a dangerous moment as the tollgate keeper ducked when Arnie wondered if he were going to witness an assault by the Sloan and DOJ upon armed Michigan policemen. Fortunately, one of the officers got it and said, “See Al, that’s right; it is not the black Viscount we want.”
Riley, ignoring their guns, hurried back into his car. “Get that gate up,” he ordered the gatekeeper. “25 cents,” said that worthy quivering gatekeeper recovering his courage and trying to execute his duty.
Riley started the motor and shot forward. The squad car passed the blue Majestic and outdistanced Riley quickly. Arnie tried to achieve a decent frame of mind in which to leave this world. A cigar would have helped.
The 1966 Viscount was pulling onto Grand Island Bridge, which leads into downtown Detroit. The thoughts of the driver, not a man who liked violence but perhaps why he was so good at it, were on the regrettably distasteful yet necessary chores that lay before him.
Suddenly the twinkle of red showed in his rearview mirror. Behind him a squad car was shortening the gap between them with surprising speed. The Viscount was at the crown of the bridge, with an unimpeded view of the road ahead. Nothing. Nobody speeding, no accident, no cars in the breakdown lane...
Suddenly the driver knew whom the police were pursuing. A pang of pure fright, the first he had ever experienced, shot through him. It suddenly blurred the road with a red mist; it convulsively tightened his sweating hands...
It sent the 1966 Viscount into a turn that propelled it powerfully through the restraining wires, into an arch rising from the bridge...then, with the speed of death, crashing into gas fed flames on the railroad tracks below.
Fabian Riley, shaken like every driver who had seen that terrible plunge, brought his Majestic to a halt. For a moment John, Arnie, and he just sat there. Then with the air of man doing his duty, Riley got out and walked ahead to where the police were standing on the bank leading down to the tracks, helplessly watching the blazing wreck.
“Not a hope,” one said. “The fire truck’s on the way. Put the poor guy didn’t have a chance.” John and Arnie, who had pushed their way through the gathering crowd to join Riley, had heard this epitaph.
“Poor man,” said a voice behind them. “What a terrible way to go.”
“Worse than the gas chamber?” John mused aloud. “I wonder.” He looked at Arnie. “Oh yes, Krebbel was the murderer all right.”
”
Chapter 22
Pedestrians Only
“Krebbel. I still can’t believe it,” protested Madsen 2 days later. But he was sitting on the sofa next to Celia and they were unashamedly holding hands.
John puffed cautiously. In a rare moment of indulgence he had allowed Arnie to give him a commemorative Havana. “Is it that hard to believe?” he asked thoughtfully. “After all, he was really the most logical suspect all along.”
“I thought he was so nice,” said Susan ruefully.
Arnie emerged from the depths of his armchair, where he had been contentedly examining the ceiling. “Not nice. Just smart.”
“Almost smart enough to get away with it,” John agreed. “If hadn’t have been for Mr. Riley here.” He indicated the young federal investigator with a wave of his hand. Riley sneezed gratefully.
John beamed at him paternally. During the past 48 hours, in the course of which Arnie, John, Fabian, and Susan had maintained an unrelenting attack on state police headquarters, Riley had displayed inexhaustible patience educating a reluctant Georgeson in the intricacies of antitrust investigation. Susan had recounted her memorable St. Patrick’s Day again and again. But it was not until John began to speak of the movements of a certain red Drake that Georgeson abandoned his resistance.
“Because Riley was the one who insisted over and over again that Jensen was murdered by the tipster. And Riley has been living in the MM front office for a year. He knows much more than any of the rest of us possibly could have about the atmosphere generated there by Jensen’s return. What he said deserved respect. But it also led to certain inescapable conclusions. The murderer had done 2 things. He was the original tipster and he had killed Jensen. And if the State Police were right, a third thing too. He had driven the Super Plantagenet from the division to the pool. Add those 3 and you have Krebbel.”
“I still don’t see it,” said Madsen. “To be honest, I always thought Wahl was the tipster.”
“We all thought that at one time or another. Probably we made the mistake of thinking Jensen in his present job not his future one. We discounted the fact he was the acknowledged heir to Eberhart. But look instead at what the tipping actually accomplished. Eberhart was forced to resign; his 2 obvious successors, Jensen and Holzinger, went to jail. And the Board refused to consider anyone associated with production or marketing as a presidential candidate. Viola. They were almost forced to go with their controller, Krebbel. In other words, he got the big job. If you assume Ray, Orin, or Buck was the tipster, that individual had made an incredible botch of it.”
Riley shook his head. He was still feeling slightly aggrieved that the informer had been unmasked by someone else. “I dismissed him from the beginning. Of course, I saw how much he had gained, but it seemed impossible he could have ever acquired the data. He was so remote from the entire conspiracy.”
The tender glance that Riley directed toward Susan was just barely reproachful. “But Fabian, how could I know? I never connected it with St. Patrick’s Day.”
Celia then asked, “I have never understood what St. Patrick’s Day had to do with all this,” as she roused herself from a daze of happiness to offer more coffee to her guests.
“It is all in the timing,” John explained. “On March 15th the price fixers had their famous meeting. It lasted 2 days. On the morning of March 17th Jensen was back in his office giving his notes as usual to Miss Price for her to take home and transcribe. But that evening, things did not go as usual. Miss Price took her belongings, including a small envelope with the notes and 20 cupcakes decorated with shamrocks, out to her car and then had to dash back into the building for something else. When she reemerged she discovered that she had mistaken the other Drake for hers. And the owner had driven off with her belongings. The next morning Krebbel returned the envelope and gave her an enormous decorated cake. But that afternoon a photostat of those notes was on its way to the DOJ.”
Madsen was incredulous. “But didn’t Ray ever find out?”
“No,” Susan shook her head. “You don’t understand. The trial wasn’t until October. Of course we had suspicions before that. Mr. Jensen started to get worried last summer. But he had been to lots of meetings in the meantime, and he just asked me if anyone could have gotten at the notes of any meeting. Naturally I said No. I never associated the meetings with St. Patrick’s Day.”
“It is surprising Krebbel gave you that cake,” mused Arnie. “You’d think he would be afraid to stamp the occasion on your mind.”
&n
bsp; John disagreed. “On the contrary, I think Krebbel was very clever about that. After all Miss Price was certain to tell the story. By presenting her with the outlandishly inscribed cake he riveted her attention on the exchange of pastry,” as John smiled reassuredly at Susan. “No one is going to spoil a good story about cupcakes by introducing an irrelevant envelope. That’s just human nature.”
Susan, suffering from a rare attack of chagrin, looked relieved at this explanation. It was mortifying, to say the least, to have her arguments with Riley come to this conclusion. She glanced at him doubtfully. What she saw reassured her.
“Ray,” Celia said, who could now speak of her late husband in a way satisfactory to all her guests, “was set to move heaven and earth finding out what happened.”
“Precisely. That of course is why he was killed. Ideally Krebbel would have liked to cut all links between Ray and MM before his jail term was up. But his appointment was very recent and he couldn’t consolidate his position fast enough to do so. So there he was with Jensen threatening to unveil the tipster unless he was re-employed. Krebbel couldn’t afford to have Jensen around the front office in any capacity. And he couldn’t afford to have Jensen dedicating himself to a ruthless investigation. Because by then Jensen knew enough to concentrate on the March 15th meeting. So Krebbel decided to kill him.”
“They had that long conference the week Ray was killed,” Madsen reminded them. “I wonder what went on.”
“We will never know of course. But look what happened. They had their talk on Monday. On Tuesday the gun was stolen. I think Krebbel told Jensen he would be taken back as Buck was. That was only to keep him quiet. Then Krebbel took the gun and waited for a favorable opportunity. It came on Wednesday. You remember we had looked at the Super Plantagenet and been unable to find Jensen, who was somewhere in the building. Then Krebbel left us before the plant tour because he had other errands to do in the building, according to him. We were all under the impression that the car was being trucked to New York on the following morning. It seems inescapable that Krebbel met Jensen somewhere near that car. The garage, you recall, was deserted. Somehow he induced Ray to enter the car, probably to look at something or have a private talk. There he shot him, made sure there were no fingerprints, rearranged the body on the floor so it was hidden from view, and walked off confidently expecting that no one would enter the car, except hastily loading it on a truck, until it reached New York. By that time, a good deal of confusion would have entered the picture.”