Power Plays (The Lt. Hastings Mysteries)

by Collin Wilcox

  “I don’t know anything about death, Lieutenant,” he said, speaking in a dull, exhausted voice. “I know about laundering money and making payoffs. But I don’t know anything about death or murder. And I didn’t know anything about Murdock—or about his murder. I’ve told you everything I know—everything I do. Mr. Wardell called me, to introduce Casanza. When Casanza came out, I knew that he was an enforcer—that he needed my car to do some kind of dirty job. I knew that someone would be threatened—hurt, maybe. But that’s all I knew. It’s all I wanted to know. I don’t ask questions.”

  “You knew that it was illegal, though.”

  “Yes,” he answered. “Or at least I suspected. But—” Hopelessly, he shook his head. “But what’s legal? What’s illegal? Sometimes, when I can’t sleep I stare at the ceiling and think that I’m a bagman. I arrange payoffs. But that in itself isn’t illegal. It’s the intent, I tell myself, that makes it illegal. And as long as I don’t know the intent, I’m not guilty of anything. There’s nothing wrong, per se, with giving money to people at airports. And there’s nothing wrong, per se, with loaning my car to Casanza.” He paused, rubbing his hands uncertainly along his bare thighs. “As long as I don’t ask questions,” he said, “I’m clean.”

  “That’s a trap that a lot of people fall into,” Canelli said.

  “I’m clean,” Frazer repeated, speaking in a dogged, defeated voice. “You’ll see.”

  “If your story’s right—if it’s provable—then you’re probably clean. Or, at least, clean enough. You’ll probably get off. But the problem is—” I gestured for him to precede me into the hallway. “The problem is that we have to catch a few of the bad guys before we can prove your story.” I watched his weak, ruined face convulse, then said, “I’ll leave Inspector Canelli here with you. He’ll take you downtown.”

  Twenty

  I DROVE TO A nearby restaurant and used a pay phone to call Friedman, at headquarters. His private line was busy. I called the operator, ordering her to buzz Friedman through the switchboard. Trying to keep the excitement out of my voice, careful not to use names on the switchboard line, I recounted the Frazer interrogation. When I’d finished, my reward was a long, low whistle.

  “If he’ll put his name to that,” Friedman said, “we’ve got a big fish in the net.”

  “And a chance at a lot bigger fish.”

  “The man with the P-51.” He sounded somber—chastened, almost. I could guess the reason. The prospect of arresting Baxter Wardell for murder was awesome. Friedman was imagining himself leaving the City Club with Wardell in custody.

  “Speaking of the P-51, what’d the FAA say?”

  “He hasn’t filed a flight plan. Either he was conning us, or he changed his plans. Or both.”

  “Did you get directions to the airstrip?”

  “I got them,” he answered. “But I don’t think you should use them.”

  “Why not?”

  “Several reasons. First, you’re not supposed to go after Big Fish without permission. Second—” I could imagine him with two fingers raised. “Second, if you tell him what you just told me, you’ve got to be prepared to take him into custody. Which you’re not. Which means that he can run.”

  “If he runs, it’s an admission of guilt.”

  “Running is running.”

  “I don’t agree with you. If I tell him what I told you—and if he runs—we’ve got a case.”

  “But no suspect in handcuffs.”

  “Come on, Pete. Use your head. Someone like that doesn’t disappear. He can’t. It would be like trying to hide the Enterprise.”

  “He can fly down to, say, Costa Rica. He can buy the country and live in it like a hotel. It’s been done, you know.”

  “Did you ever stop to think that if he did that, Dwyer might have his cake while he’s eating it?”

  “Let’s go back to my first point,” he said. “You’d not only be acting without permission, you’d be acting against orders. Specific orders.”

  I was ready for him: “My orders are to find Barbara Murdock, and talk to her. I think I know where she is. I’ve got an independent party to confirm it—Babcock. So I’m going to find her. I’m following orders.”

  “Don’t forget Annunzio. He’s still loose, you know.”

  “Where was he reported last? Be honest.”

  “At the San José airport,” he admitted. But, stubbornly, he came back to the attack: “I’ve got another objection.”

  “What is it?”

  “There’s something strange about this Marin County junket of Barbara’s. It sounds wrong. It doesn’t add up.”

  “It adds up to me. She’s probably been trying to corner Big Fish. Maybe she’s succeeded. She found out where he’s gone, and she’s going to confront him.”

  “Nobody corners him unless he wants to be cornered. Which is precisely why it all sounds wrong.”

  “Where is the airstrip, anyhow?”

  “It’s almost due west of Novato.”

  “That’s not far. It’s an hour’s drive.”

  “I still don’t like it.”

  “Trust me.” Secretly, I smiled. Whenever he tried to entice me into the cat-and-mouse games he was constantly playing with Dwyer, or the FBI, or assorted politicians, Friedman airily advised me to trust him.

  I heard him sigh—heard papers rustle. Reluctantly, he gave me directions to the airstrip.

  “That’s out of your jurisdiction, you know,” he said. “Spit on the sidewalk in Marin County, and you’re screwed.”

  “Trust me,” I repeated. I couldn’t resist saying it.

  “Want me to go with you?”

  “No. Wait for Canelli and Big Fish’s friend. Get a signed statement. Right now, nothing’s more important than that.”

  “Big deal.”

  I switched on the dome light and spread the Marin County map on the seat beside me. Driving on freeways, I’d made the thirty-five miles from San Francisco to Novato in less than an hour. But the next five miles had taken almost a half hour. Following Friedman’s directions, I’d left the freeway and driven west through the sprawling tracts of flat-top suburban houses that surrounded Novato. I’d continued west on a two-lane county road that led into the foothills of the low mountain range that paralleled the coast at a distance of perhaps ten miles. As the road became narrower and steeper, winding its way precariously up the side of a small mountain, the surface of the road changed from concrete to cracked asphalt, and finally to rough, rutted gravel. According to Friedman, Wardell’s airstrip was located on a plateau that ran along the top of the mountain range. The entire distance from the freeway to the airstrip, again according to Friedman, was eight miles and six-tenths. I’d already come almost seven miles.

  I switched off the dome light. In the glare of my headlights I saw thick-growing trees and brush crowding both sides of the road. It seemed impossible that Baxter Wardell would live in this rugged, rustic terrain, or that he would subject himself to this bone-jolting ride. Had I made a wrong turn? Misinterpreted Friedman’s directions? For the third time in the last mile, I switched on the radio and tried to contact San Francisco Communications, almost forty miles away. As before, I could hear only static.

  Realizing that I had no choice but to go forward, at least until I found a place wide enough to turn around, I put the drive lever in “low” and resumed the slow, twisting climb. As the grade increased, the engine began to labor, running rough. I glanced at the temperature gauge and saw the needle almost touching the red. The rear wheels were spraying gravel, clawing for traction. Ahead, the road turned sharply to the right. Reluctant to lose speed on the steep grade, I swung into the turn as fast as I dared and slammed on the brakes when a swift, brown shape flashed in the headlight’s beams. It was a deer, dashing into the trees—gone. Swearing, I moved my foot from the brake to the accelerator, resuming the car-killing climb. Fighting the car into the next turn, I glanced in the mirror. I saw a dark shape on the road behind me. Was it me
tallic—a car? Or was it an animal? When I’d first turned west on the county road, I’d seen lights in my mirror. Thinking of Annunzio, I’d pulled to the side and let the car pass. A half mile farther along, the car had turned into a private road. Since then, I’d seen nothing behind me—until now. Easing off on the gas, I kept my eyes on the mirror. But the road switched again, and the dark trees blotted out whatever I’d seen.

  Could it be Annunzio, following without lights?

  Accelerating as fast as I dared into the next blind turn, I clamped on the brakes, turned off the engine and switched off the lights. I twisted in the seat, straining to see back through the darkness behind me.

  If someone was following me, he’d either dropped farther behind or else matched my quick maneuver. I rolled down my window, listening for the sound of an engine. Nothing.

  Turning again to face front, I drew my revolver, put it on the seat beside me and turned the ignition key—all the while watching the black, blank mirror. The overheated engine whirred, tried to catch—and failed. Had I flooded it? I turned the key again, waited while the engine ground over and over. As I neutralized the key, I caught the unmistakable odor of raw gasoline. The engine was flooded. Cursing—still watching the mirror—I floorboarded the accelerator, left my foot clamped down and turned the key. It was a last, desperate effort. If the engine didn’t catch, I’d be forced to sit in the darkness until the carburetor dried out. The engine whirred, labored and began to grind down. The battery was failing. But then, small miracle, I heard a quickening, a hiccupped explosion—and finally a damp, faltering roar as the engine caught. When the engine’s note deepened, I cautiously lifted my foot, then put the transmission in low. I wouldn’t stop again until I’d reached the crest of the mountain.

  Until the final tenth of a mile I was certain I’d taken a wrong turn—that I would be forced to return to the freeway and try again. But suddenly the road leveled and began to widen. I felt the tires running smoothly on asphalt, not bumping over gravel. Another hundred yards brought me to a huge gate suspended between two massive, brick pillars. A “W” was worked into the wrought iron of the gate. A small Japanese car was parked a short distance away, just at the edge of my headlight’s swath.

  Letting the engine run, I switched off the headlights and once more twisted in the seat, scanning the road behind. I let a full minute elapse—sixty long, slow counts. The darkened tree-shapes were undisturbed, revealing nothing. The only light I could see came from far down in the valley below: a single pinprick in the night. I glanced at my watch. The time was ten minutes after seven. I wondered whether the moon would rise tonight. If I were a county sheriff, I’d know the answer.

  Finally I turned in the seat to stare at the gate. Without doubt it was electrically controlled. As my eyes became accustomed to the darkness I could make out the blacktop roadway extending beyond the gate and disappearing over a low rise. Friedman had said that in addition to the airstrip, there was a house, a caretaker’s cottage, a hangar for the P-51 and a two-car garage—all hidden, apparently, beyond the rise, invisible in the darkness that suddenly seemed to surround me like the inside of some vast black dome.

  Suddenly the noise of the car’s engine sounded too loud—too risky, somehow. Pulling into a parking space beside the car, a Datsun, I raced my engine to clear the carburetor, then turned the switch off and pocketed the keys. With the engine off, the silence was complete: oppressive, palpable, dangerous. Then, through the open window I began to hear the noises of the night: crickets, and frogs, and other sounds less specific. I reached below the dash and switched on the police radio. This time, through the static, I could hear faint, garbled voices: bored-sounding dispatchers, and laconic officers, answering. My position on top of the mountain had helped—but not enough. I knew that I couldn’t contact Communications.

  I holstered my revolver, took a flashlight from the glove compartment, locked my car and walked to the Datsun. The driver’s door was locked, but the passenger’s door was open. Playing around the car’s interior, the beam of my flashlight revealed nothing. Except for a single map stamped Budget-Rent-A-Car, the glove compartment was empty. Backing out of the car, I was about to close the door when I saw a bit of folded paper protruding from between the right front seat and the control console. The paper unfolded into a sheet of Beresford Hotel stationery, with directions to the Wardell retreat written in a bold, strong script.

  Barbara Murdock had gotten there first.

  I dropped the directions on the front seat, closed the Datsun’s door and stood beside the car, listening. Except for the close by chirping of insects and the distant wail of a coyote, the night around me was silent—ominously silent. From the eastern sky, far away, I heard the rolling whisper of a jetliner. It was a faint sound—but loud enough, perhaps, to mask the idling of an engine on the road behind me. So, for another long minute I stood motionless, listening intently for some alien sound. All I could hear were the insects and the animals.

  I turned to the gate and tentatively pushed at it, unsuccessfully. A button was set in the center of the square locking device that secured the two halves of the gate. I pressed the button, heard a click, and felt the gate move. The electronic lock had been set to open.

  Holding the flashlight unlit in my hand, I walked along the blacktop driveway that led to the top of the rise, a hundred feet beyond the gate. The night was clear; the sky was filled with stars. Even without a moon I could make out the rough outlines of the surrounding terrain. The driveway was about twenty-five feet wide, bordered on each side by low-growing hedges. Behind me, the gate joined a six-foot cyclone fence that probably surrounded the property. For the first time I saw a pair of floodlights that topped each of the two brick pillars. The spotlights and the gate’s lock were doubtless tied into an overall electronic security surveillance system.

  But why were the floodlights unlit? Why was the lock set to open when the button was pushed?

  And why was there no sign of Barbara Murdock—no sign of life?

  As I came closer to the rise, I moved instinctively to my right, away from the center of the driveway and into the shadow of a huge pine tree. Standing beside the tree, I was looking down on Wardell’s mountaintop domain: a long, pale ribbon of concrete runway flanked on the near side by the buildings Friedman had described: a hangar; a long, rambling house built along the crest of the plateau and two smaller buildings. The driveway curved toward the house, where it divided in two, one branch leading to the tarmac, the other to a carport attached to the house.

  The place was deserted. The hangar was closed, the house and the two buildings were dark. Slowly, responding to some deep, primitive urge to move silently and cautiously, I began walking down the curving slope of the driveway. Here, there was no cover—no sheltering trees, not even a hedge. The driveway had been scraped out of the rock and shale native to the barren, wind-scoured mountaintop.

  I’d almost reached the carport when I saw a faint gleam of light from inside the house. I was standing inside the empty carport now, concealed in deep shadow. I stepped to a small window and looked inside the house. The light came from a hallway, and probably originated in a room that opened off the hall—a bedroom, or a bathroom. Without doubt, the light had been left to discourage prowlers. On top of a mountain range, it seemed a futile measure, strangely citified.

  From the window I moved to a door that connected the carport to the house. The door was locked. I walked from the carport to the edge of the concrete ribbon of the runway: a long, ghostly white path in the starlight.

  What did they mean, these strangely deserted buildings, and the abandoned Datsun?

  If Barbara Murdock had been here, where had she gone?

  Had Baxter Wardell been here and left, flying in his P-51 to Los Angeles?

  There was one way to find out.

  Walking quickly now, irrationally in a hurry and no longer wary of discovery, I walked down the runway to the hangar. A small access door was set in the hangar’s h
uge folding aluminum doors. The access door was locked. I rattled the flimsy door and felt it yield. Switching on the flashlight, I examined the lock. It was minimal, easily slipped. I took a plastic credit card from my pocket, probed, pushed and finally felt the door swing open. Following the flashlight’s unsteady beam, I stepped into the pungent, oily-smelling hangar to face the shape of a low-winged airplane, the P-51.

  If Wardell had flown to Los Angeles, it hadn’t been in his fighter plane.

  Faint light from a row of skylights fell across a workbench set against the hangar’s far wall. Outside, I’d seen three wires strung to the hangar: two for electricity, probably one for a phone. As I moved toward the workbench, I heard a sound from the direction of the airplane. It was a soft scraping—unmistakably a shoe moving furtively on concrete.

  I switched off the flashlight, drew my gun and dropped to a crouch. “All right. Come out of there. Come toward me, slow and easy. This is a gun. And it’s pointed right at you.”

  I heard a gasp, then a muffled sob.

  A woman.

  “Barbara? Is that you?”

  No response. No sound. Could she have a gun?

  “It’s Hastings. Lieutenant Hastings.”

  “Oh, my God.” It was a low, desperate moan. “Jesus God. Lieutenant.”

  “Come here.”

  A dim figure separated itself from the shape of the airplane. She ducked beneath the engine cowling and came slowly, hesitantly toward me. As she moved across the oblong of uncertain light that fell through the doorway, I saw that she wore slacks and a heavy sweater. Switching on my flashlight, I asked, “Where’s the light switch?”

  “I don’t know.” I could hear a tremor of fear in her voice. She was standing close beside me—as a child might stand, mutely seeking comfort from a grownup.

  “What’re you doing here, anyhow?” As I spoke, I angrily holstered my revolver. “You’re—Christ—you’re causing a lot of people a lot of trouble.”

  “I was supposed to meet Wardell. Baxter Wardell.”