by Howard Fast
“I’m not sure I want to answer any of your damned questions,” Hennesy said.
“As you please, Congressman. I’ll start with Mrs. Goldberg.”
Beckman had moved behind them. He sat on the piano bench, his notebook out.
“Do you ride, Mrs. Goldberg? I mean horseback.”
Della Goldberg observed him with interest, smiling slightly. “As a matter of fact, I do. I mean, I try. It’s silly at my age, but most of the things one does out here are silly.”
“Where do you ride?”
“In Malibu. My husband and I keep horses at the Grandview Corral.”
“And you both ride?”
“We both try.”
“Thank you. And you, Mr. McCarthy, do you ride?”
McCarthy stared at him, his face set.
“Of course he does,” Mrs. Cooper said, “and I don’t blame him for refusing to answer a stupid question like that. And I ride, if you intend to ask me that dumb question. At the same Grandview Corral.”
“I ride occasionally,” Ranier volunteered. “I don’t know why you want to know and I couldn’t care less. At Crushanks, in the Valley.”
“And you, Mr. Hennesy?”
“I think I’ve had enough of your nonsense, Masuto. I didn’t like you when I met you this afternoon, and I like you less now. The abuse of police power is one of the things I like least in this democracy of ours. To have a very mournful occasion like this turned into a circus is more than I can endure. I think I’ll leave.” He stood up. “Will you join me?” he asked Mrs. Cooper.
“As a matter of fact, I was thinking the same thing.” She rose too.
“I’ll go with you,” McCarthy said, and to Ranier, “I’d advise you to do the same thing, Bill.”
“I’ll stay,” Ranier decided.
McCarthy, Hennesy, and Mrs. Cooper left the room. Masuto heard the door slam as they departed from the house, and Wainwright took the moment to whisper to Masuto that he was going home. “It’s your ballgame, Masao,” he said. “I’m going to get to the city manager tonight, before McCarthy shits all over us. And be careful,” he added, dropping his voice still further. “We got McCarthy and we got the congressman, and those are two mean bastards. So for God’s sake, keep it cool and don’t involve us in any lawsuits. And don’t make any arrests. These people aren’t going anywhere.”
The Goldbergs, Miss Newman, and Ranier sat quietly, waiting. When Wainwright had left, Joe Goldberg said, “What now, Sergeant? I’ll admit I am an appropriate candidate for murdering the Angel, if I had enough guts to murder anyone, which I haven’t, but poor Mikey I would kill only for his stupidity, and no one kills because someone they love is stupid.”
“Mikey wasn’t so stupid,” Della Goldberg protested. “He was trusting.”
“Which, carried to the extremes he carried it to, was simply another form of stupidity.”
“Will you two stop!” Miss Newman cried. “You just can’t stand the fact that Mike decided he didn’t need another mother and father. Calling him stupid because he loved people and trusted them!”
“I think you’d better go home, Miss Newman,” Masuto said gently. “You’ve had a long, terrible day.” And to Beckman, “Take her outside, Sy, and have a squad car drive her home.”
“I have my car here,” she muttered, the tears beginning.
“All right, if you wish. And please give Detective Beckman your address and phone number.”
“Anything more?” Goldberg asked after the girl and Beckman had gone.
“Yes. Do you know whether Hennesy rides?”
“He rides,” Ranier put in.
“What is this riding business?” Goldberg asked. “How does it fit in?”
“I’m not sure I know.”
Beckman came in then and told Masuto that Kelly had asked whether he could go to his room. “He sleeps over the garage.”
“Yes, he can go.” And then to Ranier, “How do you know Hennesy rides?”
“I was once a guest out at Albermarle, near San Fernando. They told me he keeps a horse there.”
“That would cost a bundle,” Goldberg remarked. “Hennesy doesn’t have a pot to pee in.”
“Hennesy’s on the take. When he needs money, he gets money. All right, I don’t smell of roses. It takes one to know one.”
“What kind of take?” Masuto asked.
“I can give you a list of what a congressman can do for you as long as your arm. He does it.”
Keller, the FBI man, spoke up for the first time since he had entered the room and said, “That’s a serious accusation, Mr. Ranier.”
Ranier looked at Masuto hopelessly. “Is he kidding?”
“I think not. He’s a federal officer.”
“And you work in this town,” Ranier said to Keller, “and you never heard that Roy Hennesy is a crook?”
“Come on, Bill,” Goldberg said, “you don’t call a man a crook until you can quote chapter and verse. Anyway, I’ve had enough of this whole thing. My wife and I would like to leave, Sergeant.”
“If you wish, of course.”
As he rose, he asked, “Are we still suspects?”
“Did you or your wife kill the Bartons?”
“You know damn well we didn’t!”
Masuto shrugged. “At this point, I know so little.”
The Goldbergs departed, leaving Masuto with Ranier and Keller. Ranier rose, took a few paces, leaned over the piano with his back to the two men, and then turned to Masuto and said, “I want to talk to you.”
“Very well.”
“Alone.”
“All right.” And to Keller, he said, “You might as well tie it up for the night, Mr. Keller. We’ve lost everyone except Mr. Ranier, and he wants privacy.”
Keller was not to be dismissed so easily. “Those are very serious charges, Mr. Ranier, and directed against a congressman, they become even more serious. Unless you can back them up with hard evidence, they are certainly actionable.”
“Screw him!” Ranier said angrily. “If Hennesy wants to sue me, let him sue me. I don’t give a damn. If your goddamn Justice Department knew its ass from its elbow, you wouldn’t have people like Hennesy making a career out of the take!”
“I don’t think this ought to go any further tonight,” Masuto told them. “We’re all tired and upset. If you want to go into this with Mr. Ranier, I suggest you do it tomorrow.”
Keller seemed ready to stand his ground. Then he nodded. “All right, I’ll take it downtown, and then we’ll see. Good night, Sergeant.” He showed his displeasure by not even glancing at Ranier as he left.
“Stupid son of a bitch,” Ranier said.
“You wanted to talk, Mr. Ranier.”
Ranier dropped into a chair and put his face in his hands. Tired, Masuto sat facing him. Masuto waited. He rarely urged anyone to speak; it was better to wait.
When Ranier looked up, his face was drained. It was the thin, parched face of a man who had run all his life without ever catching up with himself. “You got me pegged for Angel’s murder,” he said finally. “You got me pegged for Mike’s murder.”
“What makes you think so?” Masuto asked.
“Don’t give me that soft Oriental shit, Masuto. I know who you are and how you work. I haven’t lived in this town for twenty years without knowing which side is up. I know about you and how you work, and goddamnit, I won’t go down for two killings.”
“If you didn’t do them …” Masuto shrugged.
“Look, I’m going to come clean with you. I don’t know whether what I did was legal or illegal, but it wasn’t murder. Whatever you may think, the truth is that I was trying to help Mike. I liked Mike.”
Beckman came in now. “What about it, Masao? Should I take off?”
Masuto nodded, and Beckman left. Ranier was staring at his hands. “I liked Mike,” he said softly, “but he was a damn idiot. Who else but an idiot would marry Angel? And I didn’t steal from him. I made good investments, but it was real
estate and the money was tied up. He owed half a million dollars in taxes, and he didn’t have it. The money should have been paid in September, and here it is November. And why? Because he’d sneak off to Vegas and drop a hundred grand in one night. So I cooked up the kidnapping. That’s right, it was my idea, a stupid idea, but I’m not the first one to go stupid. We had to borrow most of the money, but we could pay it back after we laundered it, and we’d make half a million and better out of the tax deduction. Mike and Angel agreed to go along with me, and now they’re dead.”
“Was any of the money yours?”
“About a hundred thousand dollars.”
“Suppose you tell me exactly how you laid it out.”
“Some of it you know. Angel made the fake entry out at Malibu, and then she drove her car to my place. She had the key, and she was there until twelve o’clock. Then she made the call to Mike, and after that she was supposed to drive downtown to Fourth Street, where Mike would pick her up. They’d leave the car there, and the story would be that after Mike had made the drop on San Yisidro, or claimed that he made the drop, he was instructed by the phony kidnappers to pick her up in Benedict Canyon, and then he was to bring her back here.”
“Why drive to San Yisidro at all? Why didn’t he go straight downtown and pick up his wife?”
“In case he was followed. He had two suitcases with him in the car. He was to park around a curve on San Yisidro, and wait to see whether he was followed.”
“And what was intended to be done with the money?”
“He would leave it in the trunk of his car until we turned it over to be laundered.”
“And who was going to launder it?”
Ranier hesitated now. Masuto waited. Then Ranier shrugged and said, “Hennesy.”
“Ah, so!” It slipped out. He disliked the expression. “Then Hennesy was in on the kidnapping?”
“No. I mean, not to my knowledge. Mike hated him. The Angel could have told him, but I don’t know. We were going to wait a few days until things quieted down, and then we’d make our deal with Hennesy.”
“And how do you know Hennesy wouldn’t blow the whole thing?”
“Hennesy? Come on, Sergeant. Mr. Hennesy has a reputation to uphold.”
“What did Angel do when her husband didn’t appear?”
“She waited for an hour, and then she took a cab. She dropped it a few blocks away and walked here to the house.”
“You met her when she returned?”
“That’s right. I opened the door for her, and as soon as I saw her without Mike, I knew that we’d screwed up. My first thought was that Mike had taken off with the money, but that made no sense. I told Angel to go up to her room and go into shock or something, and I’d call Dr. Haddam, and she wasn’t to talk to anyone until we found out what had happened to Mike and the money.”
“Where were McCarthy and Miss Newman when you spoke to Mrs. Barton?”
“He was in the living room. She was in the library. They came out while I was talking to Angel, and she threw a hysterical fit and rushed up to her room.”
“You spoke to Mrs. Barton in the hallway at the door?”
“Yes.”
“I presume they did not overhear you?”
“No. We were whispering.”
“And why are you telling me all this, Mr. Ranier?”
“I told you before. I’m not going to take a murder tap. I know I’m the prime suspect. Sooner or later you’d find the key to my apartment in Angel’s purse or somewhere. I said my secretary was in my office and saw me when I went back there. I lied. She wasn’t there, so I have no alibi for the time I was away. And then that bitch Newman accused me of murdering Mike. You put it all together, and you got enough to bring it to the D.A. That’s why I’m leveling with you.”
Masuto regarded him thoughtfully for a few moments, and then he said, “I don’t think you killed Mike Barton, Mr. Ranier, and I don’t think you killed his wife.”
“Well, thank God for that.”
“I might still bring it to the D.A.”
“Why? You just said you didn’t think I killed either of them! You going to frame me?”
“Not for murder. There are other matters.”
“What other matters? I’ve been stupid, but I committed no crime. There was no kidnapping as such. You can’t indict me for a dumb trick.”
“How about the million dollars?”
“I’ll pay it back if I have to ruin myself. I’ll be ruined anyway when this gets out.”
“And conspiracy to defraud the government?”
“Come on, Masuto, you know you could never prove such a conspiracy. If you testified, I’d deny it. I made no confession.”
“Well, that would depend on what the FBI decides. It’s a federal matter. On the other hand, they might be willing to make a deal with you.”
“What kind of a deal?”
“If you were willing to testify against Congressman Hennesy.”
“My life wouldn’t be worth a cent if I did. You know that.”
“Well, it’s up to you.”
“Why don’t you get Hennesy on this? He’s always been crazy about Angel. She could have tipped him off, and then with Mike dead, they split a million between them.”
“So you think Hennesy killed Barton?”
“Why not? It’s a good guess.”
“I think you should go home, Mr. Ranier. It’s almost eleven o’clock.”
8
Mrs. Holtz
They had all departed, the living and the dead, leaving Masuto alone in the house with the servants. He was tired and he was depressed. In its outer countenance, Beverly Hills was the most beautiful of cities-lovely palm-lined streets, immaculate lawns, splendid examples of every tropical plant that money could provide; and behind the facades of the million-dollar houses, a bitter commentary on the happiness that money buys. He thought about it for a while, and then he thought, as so often before, about giving it all up-and then wondered, as so often before, what else he could do. He had a profession, and he was very good at it, but it was too much like the pathology of Dr. Baxter; he cut and dissected and put the bits and pieces under his own peculiar microscope, and then he had to live with what he discovered.
He called his wife. She never asked when he would come home. The tone of his voice told her things. “You are unhappy and depressed,” she said to him. “Has it been bad?”
His thought was that he struggled to retain some faith in the human race, and when that slipped away, it was very bad indeed. But he said, “Not too bad, Kati.”
“I’ll wait for you. You haven’t eaten.”
“How do you know that?”
“I know you.”
He put down the telephone. A sliver of light gleamed from under the kitchen door, and Masuto went through the pantry and into the kitchen. Lena Jones sat at the kitchen table with Mrs. Holtz. Their teacups were empty. They just sat there.
“I wait until you leave,” Mrs. Holtz said to Masuto, “then I lock up. Go to bed,” she said to the black girl.
“I’m afraid.”
“Nothing will harm you, so go to bed.”
“I won’t be able to sleep. I’m too scared.”
“It’s all right,” Masuto told her gently. “No one will harm you now. Tell me, Lena, where were you when Mrs. Barton returned this afternoon?”
“Upstairs, cleaning Mr. Barton’s room.”
“Did you happen to look out of the window? The room is at the front of the house, isn’t it?”
“I did look, yes.”
“Why? Was there some special reason?”
“The window was open. I heard Mr. Kelly call out.”
“From where? I mean, where was Kelly?”
“I guess in his room over the garage.”
“And you heard his voice. What did he say?”
“I think, hey, Angel.”
“Angel? Not Mrs. Barton?”
“Once I heard him call her Angel,” Mrs.
Holtz said. “Like he was making fun of her.”
“And from the window, you saw Mrs. Barton?”
Lena nodded. “Coming up the driveway. Walking slow, like she didn’t hear Mr. Kelly at all.”
“She didn’t respond to his shout?”
“No.”
“How did she look?”
“Terrible. She was dragging herself.”
“Did you see a taxi pulling out of the driveway?”
Lena shook her head and began to sob.
“You go to bed,” Mrs. Holtz said. “Right now, you go to bed.”
Still sobbing, Lena Jones stood up and walked out of the kitchen.
“Sit down,” Mrs. Holtz said to Masuto. “I make you a nice cup of tea. Or maybe coffee?”
“Tea will be fine.”
She put a kettle of water on the stove and started the light under it. “A few minutes,” she said. “Tell me, you like your tea strong like the British drink it or weak like the Americans drink it?”
“Weak.”
“I’m sorry I don’t have Japanese tea. It’s green, yes?”
“Sometimes.”
“And you’re Japanese? I mean I know you was born here, the way you talk, and on the police.”
“Yes, I’m Japanese. When we’re born in America of Japanese parents, we’re called nisei.”
“I’m asking too many questions? I’m nosy?”
“Please feel free to ask me anything.”
“Myself, I’m Polish. I was in a concentration camp.” She pulled up her sleeve to show the tattoo mark. “I was a young girl. I don’t like to talk about how I survived.” As she spoke, she cut several slices of sponge cake and set the plate in front of Masuto. “Mike’s favorite cake. Poor boy.”
“It looks delicious,” Masuto acknowledged. “But I’d rather not.”
“Japanese don’t eat cake?”
“Of course they do. But my wife is waiting up for me with dinner, and if I don’t finish every bit of it, she’ll be hurt.”
“You’re married! So if your wife is waiting, why don’t you go home already?”
“Because I wanted to talk to you again, Mrs. Holtz.”
“You give me credit for more brains than I have. Tell me something, I know you’re not Jewish, so what are you, a Christian?”