Power Plays (The Lt. Hastings Mysteries)

by Collin Wilcox

  I was curious to know who had killed him—and why.

  Canelli was in the interrogation room. Before joining the interrogation, I stepped into a darkened anteroom, where I could watch the suspect through a two-way mirror. The suspect was sitting at a small steel table, facing the mirror. Hands in his pockets, Canelli leaned against the far wall, morosely studying the suspect. A patrolman assigned to interrogation security stood beside the room’s small metal door. The patrolman carried neither a gun, nor cuffs, nor a nightstick. But his shoulders were big and beefy, and he wore thick leather gloves with small strips of steel sewn into each finger.

  The suspect looked about thirty years old. He was wearing dark slacks and a tan poplin windbreaker, just as Hunsicker had described him. His dark hair was thinning on top. He appeared to weigh about a hundred sixty pounds. His face was pale and thin; his nose was too long, his chin too sharp. His mouth was narrow and unformed: a childlike mouth, with the upper lip protruding over the lower lip. Beneath eyebrows that almost met, his brown eyes were dull and muddy. His hair was medium long. Where the glass had cut him, fresh bandages covered the left half of his forehead and the back of his left hand.

  Now Canelli began talking. Without appearing to listen, the suspect moved his eyes constantly around the small interrogation room, as if he were looking for a way out. I reached to the right of the mirror and switched on a small loudspeaker.

  “…don’t seem to realize the spot you’re in, Dick.” Canelli was speaking in an elaborately reasonable voice, pretending a big-brother’s concern for the suspect. “I mean, you claim you were bum rapped. And it seems to me that you mean it—that you’re telling me the truth. But Jesus, Dick, you got to put yourself in my position. I’m willing to help you, if I can. I’m willing to go out on a limb for you, with the lieutenant. But before I do that, you gotta help me. You been around long enough to know how it goes. And you—”

  “But I told you,” the suspect broke in. “I told you how it came down. I told you everything. There’s nothing more to tell you.” His voice was high and shrill: a thin, plaintive bleat. His long-fingered, big-knuckled hands rapidly clenched and unclenched on the metal table before him. As he spoke he looked straight into the mirror, as if he were beseeching me to help him. I saw fear in his eyes. But I saw caution, too—and calculation. He’d been arrested before. He knew the moves.

  “You told me how it went,” Canelli said, “but I gotta have names. Before I can help you, I gotta have names.”

  “But I don’t have no names. Christ, I already told you how it happened. I told you everything—every single thing. I got nothing more to tell you.”

  Sighing regretfully, Canelli dolefully shook his head. “If that’s true, Dick, then it’s your ass. I mean, right there we’ve got enough for murder one, no question. But then, Jesus, you try to kill us, in that goddamn loft. And you—”

  “But I didn’t. I just—Christ—I just shot at the light. I just wanted out. Christ, I—I was scared. I already told you. I—Jesus—suddenly I see a goddamn stiff, in the back seat. So I start running. What would you’ve done?”

  “I’m not talking about running, Dick,” Canelli said softly. “I’m talking about shooting. And you shot at us four times. I was there. I know. I was counting.” Again, Canelli sadly shook his head. In his wrinkled, shapeless suit, head hanging and shoulders slumped, Canelli was deep in the role of the suspect’s anxious, helpless friend. It was a part Canelli could play to perfection. With his broad, earnest face, his guileless eyes and his roly-poly body, Canelli didn’t look like a cop. He didn’t act like a cop, either. In all his life, he’d told me once, he’d never hit a man in anger. I’d never seen him lose his temper, never heard him raise his voice. He was the only cop I’d ever known who could get his feelings hurt. Yet, facing danger—even death—Canelli was calm. A squad-room comic had once remarked that Canelli ducked so late that he got decorated for it.

  “…bum rapped, like you said,” Dick was saying. “Christ, don’t you know the truth when you hear it?”

  Canelli shrugged. “The problem is, Dick, you gotta worry about the lieutenant. I believe what you’re saying. I already told you that. But the lieutenant, that’s something else. All he cares about are the facts. And the fact is that you were driving a car with a body in back. And you—”

  “But it was the other guy. The guy in back. He’s the one that did it. Christ, how’m I going to stab someone while I’m driving? How’m I going to do it?”

  “I believe you,” Canelli said soothingly. “I really do. But what I don’t believe is that the guy in back—both guys—were strangers to you. I mean, you say that you were walking down Mason Street when some guy steps up to you and says he wants you to drive for him. He gives you fifty bucks, no questions asked. Then he tells you to drive to the Beresford Hotel, you say, and wait for him at the curb. He says he wants to pick up a friend, you claim. And he does pick up a friend. And then—”

  “And then they get in the back seat.” Now the suspect was perspiring heavily, wiping at his glistening forehead with an unsteady hand. He began blinking rapidly, as if blinded by a bright light. Looking into his eyes, I thought I could see the drug addict’s pinpointed pupils. “Both of them, they got in the back together. And the guy—the one that hired me—he tells me to drive out Bush Street, and then go left on Kearny, and then left again on Columbus. He tells me to drive slow. He tells me to turn the radio up, loud. And turn up the mirror, too, he says. And I did. So then, Christ, this broad hit us. And the next thing I know, the guy’s telling me to split—to run. The other guy’s dead, he says. So I look and, Jesus, the guy is dead. So I ran. I was scared, and I ran. And—” Wiping his streaming face with a trembling hand, he looked at Canelli with hollow eyes. “Listen, can I have a glass of water, or something?”

  Canelli nodded sympathetically. “Sure, Dick. Sure you can. But first give it to me again—the description of the guy who gave you the fifty.”

  The suspect sighed: a ragged, noisy exhalation. He was almost used up, pushed to the edge. Suddenly he’d lost hope, lost his nerve. Without raising his voice—without taking his hands out of his pockets—Canelli had beaten him. “Jesus, I already told you.”

  “Tell me again,” Canelli said gently. “Tell me one last time.”

  “He was—” The suspect tried to clear his throat, then coughed, then gulped down the phlegm. “He was in his thirties, I guess. I think he was blond, or sandy-haired. He was wearing a hat, so it was hard to tell. He was about my height—five ten—and maybe about my weight. He had on a topcoat and a hat—one of those cloth hats. He was a good dresser. Not fancy, but good. And he was a good talker, too.”

  “What’d you mean, a good talker?”

  “I mean that he talked like—you know—he’d been to college, or something. Like that.”

  “How’d the other guy sound? The victim. Did he sound like he’d been to college, too?”

  “I—I don’t know. Honest. The other one, he told me to turn on the radio, like I said.”

  “And you didn’t hear anything from the back seat, you claim. Nothing at all.”

  “Nothing. I swear to God.”

  Canelli nodded, thoughtfully studying the suspect. As the silence continued, I decided to push the button that illuminated a small red bulb over the door of the interrogation room. Canelli glanced at the light, glanced involuntarily at the two-way mirror and then pushed himself heavily away from the wall.” One glass of water,” he said. “Coming up.”

  I stepped out into the hallway and walked with Canelli to the end of the hallway. “You’ve got him going,” I said. “Congratulations.”

  Canelli’s broad, swarthy moon face broke into a smile. Canelli was always grateful for praise. “Thanks, Lieutenant. Thanks very much.”

  “What’s his name? Has he got a record?”

  Canelli took a notebook from his pocket. Licking his thumb, he frowned as he riffled the pages. Finally: “His name is Richard Blake. Age, thirt
y-two. Address, 387 Mason Street, in the Tenderloin. He’s had convictions for pimping, drug dealing, grand-theft auto, breaking and entering and aggravated assault. He’s on parole from Folsom for the assault charge, with four years to go.”

  “Who’d he assault?”

  “A hooker. One of his girls, I guess.”

  “How do you figure his story?”

  As he considered the question, Canelli yawned—excused himself, and yawned again. “To me,” he said finally, “it sounds mostly like a straight story. Except that I don’t buy the part about him not knowing the guy. I think he knows him. I figure maybe he’s more scared of the guy than he is of a murder charge. For now, anyhow.”

  “Do you believe his account of what happened in the car?”

  Canelli nodded—and yawned again. “Yes, sir, I guess I do. Excuse me.”

  “I believe him, too,” I answered thoughtfully. “I think he’s telling the truth. For one thing, the victim was registered at the Beresford. He had a room key in his pocket.”

  “That’s good,” Canelli said. “It’s an intersecting point, as they say.”

  “What about the car?”

  Once more licking his thumb, Canelli consulted the notebook. “It’s registered to Walter Frazer, at 2710 Jackson Street. The car was reported stolen at twenty minutes after ten.”

  “Just a few minutes after the murder.”

  “Right.”

  “Has anyone talked to Walter Frazer?”

  “No, sir. No one from Homicide, I mean. See, there was a stabbing out at Hunter’s Point last night, and Marsten took it. And him and me, we were the only ones on duty last night. So I thought I’d wait to check with you before I got anyone out of bed.” He looked at me anxiously—hoping for approval.

  “It can wait until tomorrow. Who did talk to Walter Frazer?”

  “The sector car took his report about eleven-thirty. Of course, they handled it like a routine stolen vehicle squeal.”

  I gestured to the door of the interrogation room. “What about him? Are you going to keep at him?”

  “Well—” Canelli rubbed his dark-stubbled cheeks. “I was figuring that maybe I’d let him stew until morning. If I’m right—if he’s not talking because he’s scared—maybe he needs time to think it over. Besides, he’s a junkie. I saw the needle marks. It’s not much of a habit, by the marks. But, anyhow, it’s a habit. So time’s on our side.”

  “The route that he described—from the Beresford Hotel to Bush to Kearny to Columbus. Is he firm on that?”

  “Yes, sir, he seems to be. I probably asked him five or six times. And I always got the same answer. Why?”

  “I’m going to detail a couple of black-and-white cars to look for that compress,” I answered. “It wasn’t in the car, so I figure it was probably thrown out. It’s a long shot, but it’s worth an hour or two.”

  Canelli nodded agreement. “If we found it,” he said, “it’d establish where the murder was probably committed.”

  I nodded agreement, thanked him for what he’d done, and walked down the hallway to the elevators. The time was two A.M. My eyes burned with fatigue, my legs felt rubbery, the muscles of my neck and shoulders ached. Rubbing my neck with one hand, I pushed the “down” button with the other. I found myself thinking about Eliot Murdock. He’d carried a hundred eighty dollars cash in his wallet, plus all the right credit cards, including American Express and the Diners Club. The quality of his clothing and the precision of his barbering and the pampered softness of his manicured hands all suggested someone with money to spend, places to go, people to see.

  And someone had wanted him dead. Someone had planned his murder with skill and painstaking attention to detail.

  Who? I wondered, stepping wearily into an empty elevator. And why?

  Four

  PROMPTLY AT NINE THE following morning I called Los Angeles Homicide and gave them the details of the case. I asked them to notify Murdock’s next of kin and to arrange for positive identification. I also asked about the victim’s address, 3636 Occidental Boulevard. Was it an affluent neighborhood? A quick poll taken in the Los Angeles squad room graded the neighborhood a “B.”

  By nine-thirty, documents on the case covered most of my desk: still-damp 8 x 10 glossies and a dozen-odd preliminary reports, most of them badly typed by sleepy policemen. All of the reports were Xerox copies. The originals were on their way through channels to R & I for filing.

  By nine-forty-five, a secretary knocked on my door, entered, smiled at me and handed over a large manila folder neatly inscribed: Murdoch, Eliot ref AF-6143-478. I thanked her, we exchanged smiles and I appreciatively watched the movement of her buttocks as she left my office. Dropping the folder into my “in” basket, I began studying the scattered pictures and reports, hoping to discover something new. I was disappointed. Even the medical examiner’s report confirmed my first theory. The victim had been struck on the right temple with a “blackjacklike” weapon. The blow had resulted in a hairline fracture of the skull, and some inner cranial bleeding. But the fatal wound had been inflicted by an “ice-picklike” instrument that had “entered the chest cavity just beneath the sternum, continued at an upward angle and punctured the left ventricle of the heart.” There had been only one puncture wound.

  Conclusion: The murderer had either been very skillful or very lucky. Or both.

  At five minutes to ten, I heard a familiar knock on my door. It was Pete Friedman, my senior co-lieutenant in Homicide. Friedman had served as lieutenant under Captain Kreiger while I’d advanced from detective second-grade to detective first-grade to detective sergeant. When Kreiger retired, a year ago, I’d been promoted to lieutenant—but Friedman hadn’t made captain. Characteristically, he accepted his situation with a kind of wry, witty cynicism. Friedman was a first-rate detective—but a third-rate departmental politician.

  Now, easing his bulging two hundred thirty pounds into my visitors’ chair with a grateful sigh, Friedman pointed to the photographs. “Compared to the ones they got at Hunter’s Point last night,” he said, “those are pretty tame stuff.”

  “How do you know? You haven’t seen these yet.”

  “I’ve seen the Hunter’s Point pictures, though.”

  “And?”

  “And apparently it was a lovers’ triangle. The loser got castrated. First his throat was slit. Then he was castrated.”

  “Jesus. Really?”

  Friedman nodded. “Really. The lady in question, when she saw the damage, picked up the knife and went looking for the winner, who, it happened, was her husband.” He shook his head. “She wanted to show him how it felt, she said.”

  “Did she find him?”

  “No.” As he spoke he began unwrapping a cigar. It was part of Friedman’s daily ritual. Every morning, usually about ten o’clock, he came down the hallway, knocked on my door and settled himself into my visitors’ chair. It was Friedman’s contention that my visitors’ chair was the only chair in the Department that really fitted him. Therefore, during the last year he’d devised various schemes for getting the chair into his office. Most of the schemes involved bets on football, all of which he’d lost. Altogether, the unsuccessful campaign had cost him more than fifty dollars.

  After settling himself, Friedman began the lengthy process of lighting the day’s first cigar. First he stripped off the cellophane wrapper, wadded it into a tight little ball and tossed it toward my wastepaper basket. Invariably, he missed the basket. Next he began the search for a match, grunting as he shifted his bulk from one big ham to the other, rummaging through his pockets. During the entire ritual he talked. Usually he talked about current homicide cases, airily theorizing on the particular case that most intrigued him. Some of his theories were fanciful, some were bizarre. In the end, though, most of them proved right. Over the years Friedman had developed an uncanny ability to guess the direction a homicide investigation would take.

  Now, as I watched him, he’d finally located a match. The next part of the
ceremony was inexorable. With the cigar finally lit, he sailed the match in a long, smoking arc toward my wastebasket. If the wrapper seldom found its mark, the match seldom missed.

  “What about this—” He gestured again to the pages littering my desk. “What’s the name? Murdock?”

  “Right.” I collected the pictures and handed them over—at the same time pointedly pushing an ashtray across the desk. It was, I knew, a pointless gesture. Most of Friedman’s cigar ash landed first on his vest, then on my floor.

  After riffling quickly through the pictures, Friedman returned to the picture we would use for identification. The picture had been carefully posed at the morgue and showed the victim with his hair combed, collar straightened, mouth closed and eyes open.

  “You know,” he said thoughtfully, “he looks familiar.”

  “Familiar? How?”

  “I don’t know—” Staring at the picture, Friedman drew on his cigar, then blew out the smoke in a slow, reflective curl. Physically, Friedman’s face resembled Canelli’s: broad and swarthy, with dark eyes and a full mouth. But their personalities were almost direct opposites—and so were the subtleties of their features. Canelli’s soft brown eyes and large, mobile mouth registered everything he thought or felt, moment to moment. Friedman had sorcerer’s eyes: lazy-lidded and shrewd—revealing nothing, seeing everything. When Friedman smiled, it was always at a very private joke. “What’s his first name?” he asked, still studying the picture.

  “Eliot.”

  “Eliot Murdock—” Suddenly he nodded decisively. The movement dislodged an inch-long cigar ash that dropped to his vest, than tumbled slow-motion to the floor. “Yeah. Eliot Murdock. He used to have a column. A syndicated column. He was even on TV for a while. That’s how I remember the face. He was a commentator.”