by John Boyd
“Not a chance,” Carrick answered emphatically, but the expression in his eyes was drifting away from the emphasis. “Any man who could do that would have an undivided share of Nobel loot in his pocket.”
Slipping automatically into habitual thought patterns, Cabroni realized that here was motive for murder, if Ward wasn’t willing to share the dough with a co-worker.
Cabroni’s angle of attack shifted. Suddenly he became a respectful, almost humble, petitioner. “Your opinion, please, Doctor Carrick: would the repair of DNA affect arthritis?”
“Depending, of course, on the stage of the disease, the rehabilitation of gristle and surrounding muscle might have a generally beneficial…”
“Would it act as a sexual stimulant?”
As Carrick considered the question, Cabroni studied Carrick’s face for subtle signs of his thought processes, a narrowing of eyes, a quivering of the underlip.
Carrick’s face sharpened. His eyes grew speculative, then calculating, then predatory. His rotundity of body, formerly suggestive of joviality, changed; his shoulders became squarer, his stomach flattened and expanded upward into his chest cavities. Leaning forward, talking to himself more than to Cabroni, he looked powerful, formidable.
“If the cellular structure of the genitourinary tract were reconstituted, in toto, there would be rejuvenation, complete and pristine. The organs would be young and yearning again, possessed of a vitality that would dominate the hypothalamus, crush all psychic blocks to the libido. The discoverer of the process, had he any business acumen, could make millions, for he would possess the greatest aphrodisiac in the world. No, billions…”
“Thank you, Doctor Carrick, and good day.”
“Princes and potentates would lay their treasures at his feet. Frustrated wives of impotent husbands would lay pounds, Reichsmarks, yen, rupees, zloty, kronor and flowers… The greatest aphrodisiac in the world. Generals, premiers, presidents, nations, commonwealths, empires…”
Quietly Cabroni closed the door and hurried from the outer office. The day was wearing on, and he wanted to get to Ester and question her before her husband got home. Because the clues pointed so clumsily to Alexander Ward as the perpetrator, Cabroni did not believe Ruth Gordon had been murdered, but, professionally, Cabroni was willing to assume Ward had murdered her. Too little suspicion could be fatal; too much never hurt.
CHAPTER FOUR
Twenty minutes later, Cabroni composed his face in hostile lines and rang the Wards’ doorbell. Ward should be easy to intimidate. Most professors, even the new New Left professors who advocated violence, disliked violence when it was directed at them.
“Joe, you beast!”
Ester had opened the door and squealing with unfeigned delight she flung herself around his neck. Unprepared for her friendliness and spontaneity, his arms went around her, but she slipped from his embrace, took his hand, and led him through the house toward the bar, chatting, “I could forgive you for calling when you’re drunk and obnoxious, but I found it hard to forgive you for hanging up. Nobody does that to me.”
“Ester, I was drunk and maybe obnoxious, but I didn’t hang up. Twice on your husband, yes, but never on you.”
“Then someone else got an earful,” she commented, gliding behind the bar. “I’m sorry, all I can give you is a screwdriver because Alex will be home soon.”
“Is that your handiwork?” He waved toward the table in the dining room with its linen, candelabra, and gold-plated china.
“All mine. I fired the maid. Alex thinks I’ve grown domestic, but it’s really that I don’t want another woman in the house.” She lowered her voice and leaned toward him. “Joe, he’s so rampacious lately, a wholly new Alex with an extra added ingredient.”
“Something the mad scientist discovered in his lab?” Cabroni asked.
“Maybe, but I think I had a lot to do with it. When he starts taking that little half-step, coming toward me like an adagio dancer getting ready to jump, I shiver… Imagine, my own husband… Joe, do you love your wife?”
“Not too often,” Cabroni admitted. “Having three children took the prance out of her.”
“Ration her, Joe. Once every other Tuesday might do it. Strew a few photographs around of Greek statues, without fig leaves, and don’t lose patience. It took me five years with Alex, then, suddenly last Sunday, wham!”
She came around the bar and perched on the stool beside him. She wore a peasant blouse and her eyes glowed with intellectual fire which suggested to Cabroni that Ester might yield to a commonsense approach.
“Ester, a girl with your resources should spread it around. How would California and Arizona feel if all the water in Lake Meade was cornered by Las Vegas? You’re too much woman for one…”
A peculiar squeal sounded from the front porch, and Ester shot from the stool, clearing the split-level into the living room with a gazelle’s leap. Cabroni turned back to his drink on the bar, thinking a little sadly how love fled.
Arm in arm, husband and wife advanced across the living room and Cabroni, turning, could see that Ward was prancing tonight. He envied the couple their domestic bliss. No doubt about it, there was something captivating about Ward’s walk. He envied Ward for it, envied him for Ester, and as they tippy-toed down into the dining room, Cabroni’s envy died in self-revulsion as he caught himself almost envying Ester.
Ward was more open, attentive, alert than he had been when Cabroni saw him last. The hand he extended in greeting matched Cabroni’s in its grip. Murder sometimes did this to a man, Cabroni knew, by releasing his aggressions and frustrations.
“I’m glad to see you and Ester patch up your little misunderstanding, Joe.”
“I’m not here to patch up misunderstandings,” Cabroni said formally. “Doctor Ruth Gordon has been missing since Saturday night.”
“You were supposed to be up there, Saturday night, pruning roses.” Ester said.
“I talked to her last Wednesday,” Ward blurted.
“Were there any witnesses?” Cabroni asked.
“Not to a telephone conversation,” Ward answered, catching himself.
“Doctor Ward, she was last seen alive on Saturday night.” Cabroni stressed the “alive.”
“I know,” Ward said. “I left my gear in her bathtub.”
“What were you doing in her bathtub?” Ester asked.
“That’s what I’m here to interrogate him about,” Cabroni said.
“I was treating her for arthritis,” Ward said to Ester.
“She’s believed to be murdered,” Cabroni said.
“By whom?”
“For the record, there are no suspects, yet.”
“I mean, who believes she was murdered?”
“I do,” Ester almost screamed. “I believe you did it to her in the bathtub and she drowned.”
Moaning, Ester staggered back and fell into an overstuffed chair.
“The official theory holds she was electrocuted,” Cabroni said.
“Control yourself, Ester.” Ward turned to his stricken wife. “Joe’s from homicide and he takes murder seriously… Joe, that’s my gear in her bathtub, almost three hundred dollars’ worth. And if you haven’t found Ruth’s body, she isn’t dead.”
“A corpse is no longer needed to establish the corpus delicti,” Cabroni said.
“I told you you’d been practicing,” Ester sobbed. “I had faith in you, Alexander Ward.”
“Ester, please,” Ward squatted before her, “you’ve got every reason to trust me that I’ve got to trust you. Why should I practice on a seventy-year-old woman when the campus is full of co-eds?”
“Because it’s furtive, that’s why. Sex is no fun unless it’s furtive.”
He leaned forward and kissed her, and Cabroni noticed an immediate change in the tempo of her sobs as Ward turned and looked up at the detective.
“Joe, I’m worried about Ruth, but I can explain the electrodes. Let’s go up there.”
Cabroni considered th
e request. Ward was putting on an act that might convince a rookie. If he continued the act, volunteering to go up as a friend of the deceased, he might give self-incriminating evidence that could later be used against him without the warnings of his rights or the presence of counsel or any of that Supreme Court crap.
“Let’s go,” Cabroni said.
“Dinner will be ready at eight,” Ester said dully.
As the two men walked toward the detective’s car, Cabroni considered the turn of events. For the best results, interrogation procedures required two men, one hostile and one friendly, but caught without a partner he would have to play both roles at once. “So you were giving her a treatment for arthritis, Alex,” he said gently. “That was decent of you.”
“Actually she gave herself the treatment. I set up the electrodes.”
This one was clever, Cabroni thought as he held the door open for Ward. Already he was twisting his story to fit the evidence.
“Were there side effects?” Cabroni asked, starting the motor.
“Yes,” Ward said, and lapsed into a silence Cabroni read as suspicious, then added, “but on the whole the treatment was beneficial.”
“When we find her body,” Cabroni said, “we’ll check the skeleton for calcification.”
“If you don’t mind a layman’s suggestion,” Ward said, “I know where I could look for her body.”
“Where?” Cabroni was suddenly alert, but no expression showed in his voice.
“I would go down to the Embarcadero and look for a long line of longshoremen. At the front of the line, you’ll probably find Ruth Gordon’s body, and very active. Those side effects were quite potent.”
Cabroni smiled knowingly. “The greatest aphrodisiac in the world, eh, Alex?”
“Her words exactly,” Ward said, half astonished. A man who couldn’t pronounce “hermaphrodite” had rolled out “aphrodisiac” with practiced ease.
“By the way, Joe. If you don’t accept my opinion, don’t go digging around in Ruth’s garden looking for her body.”
Suddenly Cabroni’s voice was harsh, edged. “Why not, Doctor Ward?”
“Practically every bush in that garden bears a prizewinning rose, and she’ll be very angry if you dig among them. She’s spent all spring pruning those bushes.”
“Corpses cut no roses,” Cabroni said.
“Nor do they make good fertilizer when they’re arthritic,” Ward added. “There’s too much calcium.”
For a moment, Cabroni wished he were back at headquarters questioning some ghetto kid who could answer only yes or no. After he had alerted himself for a self-incriminating remark from Ward, he had gotten a short lecture on horticulture.
When they pulled up in front of the house, Cabroni said, ominously, “There’s a couple of items in her office I’d like to interrogate you about, first, Doctor Ward.”
Ward did not like the official sound to the word “interrogate,” but he said nothing as they entered the office and Cabroni handed him Ruth’s typewritten release.
To Whom it May Concern: It is my intention to conduct an experiment using myself as the control on this day in the presence of Doctor Alexander Ward, my friend and colleague. In the event that this experiment results in maiming or fatality, I wish to exonerate Doctor Ward of any and all responsibility for the results.
Doctor Ruth Diane Gordon
“I told Ruth this release had no legal value,” Ward said.
“It has,” Cabroni said flatly. “It might make the difference between first-degree murder and manslaughter, if an investigating officer went to the D.A. in behalf of a cooperating suspect.”
Cabroni walked over to the bookcase and fumbled for the family album, taking more time than necessary to let his offer sink in. “Police are like everybody else,” he mused, “do them a favor and they’ll do you a favor.”
He returned with the family album and laid it on the desk. He flipped the pages over. All photographs had been torn from the first section of the album. Only paste marks remained.
“There’s not a photograph in the album,” Cabroni said, “taken of Ruth Gordon when she was under thirty.” Suddenly his voice went flat. “Why?”
Ward said nothing as he slowly leafed through the pages. Cabroni studied his profile, waiting for the lips to part, the eyes to narrow.
Ward understood why the photographs were missing. Ruth had taken them to preclude recognition of herself when young, and by setting up this “mysterious disappearance” which pointed to his complicity, she was trying to force him to follow her. Hardened criminals broke under hours of police grilling, and she knew that he possessed a secret no police department, no authority, and no official of the Defense Department should ever share.
Why had she done it? Surely not from feminine spite after Ester’s misdirected remarks. Perhaps, by forcing him to follow her she hoped to cure him of his imagined breast obsession, but if she had done it for his therapy she was being damned unethical.
Cabroni saw a flicker of anger in Ward’s eyes and snapped, “Out with it, Doctor Ward. What’s your explanation?”
Ward deliberated a moment and finally said, “You’re the specialist in solving mysteries, Joe. You explain it.”
Ward continued to thumb through the album.
“Then, I’ll explain it, Alex.” Cabroni’s voice was again gentle. “Down at headquarters, we get educated in perversions. There’s a type of sex maniac who murders a female and takes along her panties or her hosiery. Later, just by sniffing, he gets a helluva charge out of what he’s done. But the highbrow maniacs, the ones with imagination, take photographs to get their kicks. Necrophilia, we call it.”
“You need more competent educators down at headquarters, Joe. The obsession you describe is called fetishism. Necrophilia is an abnormal love of the dead. The most interesting case of necrophilia I’ve encountered occurred in Florida, about forty years ago. A man spent eight years sleeping beside his dead wife at night. She was superbly embalmed, of course, because Florida’s hot and humid… Say, here I am! She kept the original print from the Ethan Allen yearbook, The Minuteman. This cadet’s uniform’s an authentic reproduction of that worn by the Continental Army… Have I put on the pounds!”
“Let’s go to the bathroom,” Cabroni snapped.
Over the bathtub, Cabroni explained the modus operandi of the murderer.
“It was simple for him to lean over the old lady as she sat in the tub and flip on the maximum current switch and shoot the juice to her. As the gentle, cultivated type, he wouldn’t use even the minimal violence necessary to push her head under the water.”
“If he did that, Joe, her next of kin would have an excellent suit against the Electrical Underwriters’ Association. That’s a step-down transformer which converts alternating current to direct current, and the maximum voltage is five volts.”
Cabroni recovered fast. “He used a jumpwire to bypass the transformer.”
If he had done that, Ward decided, with Ruth sitting there watching him, she would have seen what he was doing and protested so vehemently the murderer would have had to use more than minimal violence to force her head under.
“Why would he have done that?” Ward mused aloud, still thinking of the jumpwire.
“To get an undivided share of the Nobel loot,” Cabroni said.
Cabroni had been talking to Carrick, Ward decided.
“Money’s not the object in a Nobel award,” Ward said.
Cabroni had Carrick’s opinion to the contrary, and he could read the genuine concern on Ward’s face.
“Another aspect of this case which supports my theory that the murderer was an alleged gentleman is in the laboratory. Let’s go.”
In the laboratory, Cabroni pointed out the pens and the fresh droppings.
“She kept hamsters in those pens,” Ward agreed, “and she let them out to keep them from starving.”
“Or her murderer was too tender-hearted to let them stay and suffer,” Cabroni said. “Let�
��s go. You don’t want to keep Ester waiting, all alone, at night.”
Together the two men walked into the gathering twilight to the car.
“I’ve got a line on her murderer,” Cabroni said. “Someone who enjoyed her confidence, a bathtub buddy. Probably a fellow scientist. They were onto something together, and he didn’t want her to share credit for the discovery. So he eliminated her. Personally, I’m betting he’s a professor at Stanford.”
“That would be a very good theory, Joe, if she were dead.”
“She’s dead. As an old friend and fellow professor, Alex, you just refuse to face the fact of her going this way.”
Only one professor on the campus fitted Cabroni’s description—Ward himself. Ruth had planned it this way, but her plans had gone astray; Cabroni would get him before he could get to her. Diana Aphrodite had taken his available supply of rejuvenating solution. Besides, he did not know what absorbent she had mixed with the liquid.
They drove to the first boulevard stop on Pinyon Verde when Cabroni turned to face Ward. “What were you doing in Doctor Ruth Gordon’s bedroom between 10 p.m. and midnight, Saturday, May 29th, and why did you leave her house without turning on your car lights or starting the motor?”
Caught off balance by the question, Ward stammered, “Well, my battery was weak and the car wouldn’t start.”
“What about the bedroom?”
“I was checking Ruth for side effects.”
“What kind of side effects were you checking?”
“Well, for one thing, the arthritis treatment unfroze her pelvis.”
“Alex, you aren’t telling me you laid the old broad?”
There was no point in lying to protect the reputation of a woman who was branding him a murderer, Ward decided.
“ ‘To lay’ is hardly the verb form one would use, Joe. It was more of a horizontal dance, but she kept breaking my rhythm by humming pop music and changing the tunes.”
“It’s honest of you to admit this, Alex,” he said.
“Since I know you’re a family man, Joe, who gives fittings on the side, I figure my secret’s safe with you.”