Lash ran his right hand lightly along the side of his head, and then gave the appendage a quick pump. Casey had other ideas.
“Koivu!" he said. "I thought Chaney ran your lot out of here.”
“So he did,” Koivu replied. “I stayed. I always back a winner.”
“How'd that go over with the rest of your clan?”
Koivu ignored that. “This establishment takes in a great deal of money. Of which I draw a suitable salary. Also, Sisu is home to visiting dignitaries and social luminaries. Keeping one's eyes and ears open can be most beneficial. There is opportunity here.”
“And what exactly do you do for Chaney?” Casey asked.
“I am not untrained in the law, sirs, although I do not hold a degree,” Koivu replied. “My official title is executive consultant to Beckett Chaney.”
“We're here to see Chaney, Mr. Koivu,” Lash explained.
“Please call me Ham,” Koivu urged. “Everyone does.”
“Beckett Chaney?” Lash urged.
Ham Koivu smiled. “He is finishing up with a visitor. Foreign interests.”
“I don't care who that gangster wants to do business with,” Casey pressed. “We want to see Chaney and time's wasting.”
“Ham,” Lash began, choosing a different approach, “we have a few questions. It will only take a minute.”
Koivu nodded his approval at Lash's more civilized approach. “Of course. Gentlemen, if you will follow me.”
The sun won its battle against the dark sky and shafts of golden light stabbed down through the glass roof as Koivu led Lash and Casey up the wide, towering staircase to the offices. Roman columns and clusters of ferns bordered the marble steps. At the top a row of arched, soaring windows allowed the blinding light to pour in, setting the space on fire.
Their destination lay at the end of the hallway – a solid mahogany door ten feet high and half as many wide. It swung open before they reached it and Lash got his first look at the tall, trim form of Beckett Chaney. A florid German exited with him only to be brought up short by the presence of Lash and the others.
Lash recognized the foreigner, Karl Eckert, as the leading authority on industrial condensers.
“Mr. Eckert,” Lash began. “I've read your papers on advances in refrigeration. As I deal frequently with medical samples, preservation is a paramount concern of mine. Brilliant vision, sir.”
Caught off guard, Eckert stammered, “Danke.”
Lash found it odd that such a man would be in league with Chaney but concluded that Eckert's expertise was needed where it came to regulating the temperature of the cold water pools the bathhouse boasted.
“Ham, what the devil?” Chaney blurted.
Koivu caught the scheming eyes of Chaney and silent communication took place before he said, “Police, Mr. Chaney.”
Chaney paused. A hairy paw of a hand stumbled across his double chin.
“Sir,” he addressed the German. “Ham will show you out.”
Lash caught the shift of Eckert's eyes as they flicked to Koivu – a look of secrecy. The dapper assistant made his farewells, then started jauntily down the corridor, his cane rhythmically tapping. The German followed behind.
“Nice of you to introduce us,” Casey sneered after Koivu and party had moved off.
“That man has a zeppelin to catch,” Chaney replied, his civilized manner dropped. “What does John Law want? I'm a busy man.”
“Talk to us here or downtown,” Casey offered. “Your choice.”
Instead of inviting the men into his office, Chaney shut the massive door firmly behind him.
“What is this about?”
“Max Robeson is dead, murdered,” Lash replied. “He had a ticket for your steam rooms. We're following up.” He handed Chaney the card.
“So he took steam. Lots of people do. It's not a crime.”
“His death is,” Casey cut in. “And he had the ticket in his hatband. Why would he hide it there if his being here was on the level?”
“We want to know if anyone remembers seeing him the last time he was here so we can backtrack his movements before he was killed," Lash added.
Chaney handed the card back. “That's a gold pass for our VIP rooms. You'll have to talk to the sauna manager.” Chaney's manner changed, an oily smile appeared on his fat face. “I'll walk you over there.”
They started up the corridor.
“I'm late for a meeting with my lawyers,” Chaney related. “Ask your questions. While you can. Who knows what those shysters will do once they learn I am being interrogated by the police for no reason.”
Lash and Casey took up positions on either side of the man.
“Do you know who ordered the Robeson hit?” Casey asked.
“I'm an honest businessman.”
“Cut the funnies. We all know precisely what you are and what Robeson fenced for you. And if I could prove it, I'd lock you up and throw away the key. What do you know about the hit?”
A predatory gleam came into Chaney's eyes. “I've been in meetings all morning. I was not aware that Robeson was dead until you mentioned it. I don't know who killed him.”
Casey scoffed at the dismissal, but Lash scrutinized the gangster closely.
Their course took them from the hallway, down an enclosed staircase to a viewing gallery skirting the cavernous pool area. Hundreds of bathers in gray swimsuits splashed about in the line of pools, which were 500 feet long and 250 feet wide and packed to capacity. The noise was cacophonous.
The gallery led to the concert hall balcony and the quiet of the dark, empty space was startling. Lash took up the questioning of Chaney.
“What do you hear from the Koivus these days?” he asked.
“The Koivus are finished in this town.”
“Not all of them,” Casey added. “You hired one.”
“Ham has a mind like a cobra – sharp and quick. I need people like that working for me. He stays on a short leash.”
“There's been nothing from the Koivus?” Lash pressed.
The concert hall gallery led out to an upper level dominated by a lush greenhouse.
“All quiet.”
“That leaves you,” Casey concluded. “Who else has the clout to order a high level hit like Robeson?”
“Any one of a dozen guys although I don't know why they would. Robeson worked freelance.”
“And you're expanding,” Casey said. “Could be you want to move your own man into Robeson's racket. How does that grab you?”
Chaney snorted. “I don't need a lawyer to tell me not to answer that one.”
“You'll need a mouthpiece to spring you when I run you in for being a public nuisance.”
“False arrest,” Chaney countered. “In that case I believe you'll need the lawyer before we're through.”
“Nothing false about it. My gut pegs you for the Robeson kill. All I have to do is draw the net closed.”
Chaney turned on Casey, sudden fury distorting his features. “You mealy mouthed flatfoot. I'll – ”
The keen ears of Lynn Lash detected a strange, muted humming noise while the adversaries argued, oblivious. It was unlike anything Lash had ever heard – bassy like a turbine but with a shrill tone that rose in pitch, racing to a terrible crescendo.
Instinct took over. He could not identify the threat, he was only certain it was there. Lash lunged for the two men in an effort to hurl them to the floor. His gangly frame upset Casey who sprawled.
Chaney was not so lucky. He roughly shrugged off the hand of Lash.
“What the – ”
There was the barely audible sound of glass being punched out as the whine cut off. At the same instant Chaney's body stiffened. His tie blew up across his chin as though caught in a draft. Blood spurted from his chest and back. He crumpled.
Casey rose to one knee, hauling out a peculiar long-snouted automatic from its armpit holster in one fluid motion. His other hand disappeared into a jacket pocket. It came out clutching a 50-shot ma
gazine resembling a curled ram's horn of blue steel, which he slapped home in the weapon.
“Chaney's dead,” Lash spat. “Shot through the heart.”
Casey's gaze darted, his finger tightened on the weapon. “Where?”
But Lash was already in action. A small glass capsule in his fist. He hurled this to shatter on the floor. Thick white smoke enveloped them.
“Greenhouse,” he hissed.
Using the smoke for cover, Lash hurtled blindly toward the shrouded plant room. A swift kick shattered the door. Lash dove behind a row of ceramic planters as he lanced into the room. No shot stabbed toward him.
“Around back, Sam!” Lash bellowed. “He's moving!”
“Gotcha!” Casey replied, sidling around the structure.
Suddenly the fire alarm jangled piercingly.
Lash slapped the tropical foliage aside as he sprinted the length of the greenhouse. Through the humidity-fogged glass he spied a staircase. The assassin must have gone that way.
He took the stairs three at a time, rounded a corner and collided with Sam Casey who steadied the tall investigator.
“Forget it,” he said.
Before them was a mass of bathers crowding before emergency exits. Bedlam reigned. In the chaos they did not see the strange, cloaked hunchbacked figure slip out amidst the throng after having tripped the alarm.
“We couldn't find Santa Claus in this mob,” Casey concluded.
“You better wade in there before someone gets trampled,” Lash shouted over the clanging of the alarm bells. “This noise will bring help. Meanwhile I'm going to have a look at that greenhouse.”
Back upstairs, Lynn Lash stepped gingerly inside the humid room. The heat was stifling.
From a vest pocket he withdrew an odd pair of collapsible goggles with an elasticized strap. He placed the strap over his head and set the lenses in place. Turning his head this way and that, he scanned the room.
He did not find the evidence he sought. He lowered the goggles so they dangled at his throat.
His search revealed nothing of significance. Lash recalled the sound of glass being punched out an instant before Chaney was shot. Crouching by the front wall of the structure, Lash found the round hole behind some short palms. Peering through the hole he saw the sprawled corpse of Chaney.
Chaney's men had found their dead boss. Three of them, guns drawn, took up positions around the corpse as if they could protect Chaney from further injury.
The alarm klaxon shut off. The noise was replaced by the sound of shrill police sirens. Casey's re-enforcements had arrived.
Heavy feet tramped up the stairs. It was Casey with a half dozen officers. Chaney's men, seeing that the law had them outnumbered, hid their weapons. The policemen split into two groups. One fanned out to search the upper floors of the establishment while the other began rounding up Chaney’s men for questioning. Casey joined Lash in the greenhouse.
“Anything?”
“Very little.” Lash pointed at the hole in the glass.
Casey placed his hand on the metal doorknob, then snatched it back. “Got a static shock,” he explained. He bent to examine the damaged pane, then concluded, “He shot from here. Escaped out the back. We're sunk.”
Lash was only half listening. His brain churned the few facts they had, seeking answers. “Not entirely. I heard the glass break.” Then his capacious intellect focused on the crime scene exclusively as a new fact sprang to his attention. “It was not broken or cut prior to the shooting.”
“What of it?”
“It means the killer did not prepare the glass beforehand. Glass can deflect a bullet's trajectory. Why take the chance? Why not open the greenhouse door and fire through the doorway?”
“I'll bite. Why?”
“I wish I knew,” Lash replied. “This glass is the key. Notice anything strange about it?”
“It's got a bullet hole through it.”
“What happens when you shoot at a pane of glass?”
“It... shatters.”
“This glass is not shattered. The hole is neatly punched through but the surrounding surface is not even cracked. And why use the greenhouse at all?”
“I don't know about the glass but that last part is easy. The stairs behind made for an easy getaway.”
“True. But something doesn't add up. The greenhouse is too confined, too exposed. Sure, no one is using it given the heat outside but it is open and someone could have walked in at any time. And the fogged windows from the humidity reduce visibility. Add these to the risk of bullet deflection and this is hardly an ideal location to pull off a murder. We passed a dozen better spots on the way here. No, the killer chose the greenhouse for a reason.”
Casey mopped a thick sheen of sweat from his brow.
“Can we think about it out in the hall? I'm sweating bullets in here.”
*****
The body of Beckett Chaney yielded few facts. Like Robeson, the wounds were small, clean as if cut by a scalpel.
Lynn Lash stood to gaze past the corpse.
“Chaney was facing the greenhouse when he was hit,” he explained to no one in particular.
He frowned.
The wall behind Chaney was a mosaic of glass panels similar to those used in the greenhouse. Lash's long stride carried him there. The stink of the river reached him. A second later he found what he was looking for and his suspicions were confirmed.
Casey joined him.
“Still think Chaney killed Robeson?” Lash asked, slyly.
“Enough of that, genius,” Casey replied. “Anything helpful to add?”
Before shaking Koivu's hand, Lash had run his palm across his hair, coating the skin with a layer of fine fluorescent powder, which he had passed on to Chaney's man when their hands touched. Lash explained this to Casey.
“The fluorescence last only one hour,” he said, summing up. “There wasn't a trace of it in the greenhouse.”
“So Ham Koivu is in the clear at least.”
“Looks that way. Of course he might have been wearing gloves. A revenge killing by the Koivu mob is still our best bet but we've got to keep an open mind until we have more facts.”
Casey shook his head. “That's all we need. Some nut fancies himself a murder master – we're going to need as much luck as brains to solve this one.”
“All we've got is bad luck at the moment, Sam. Whatever killed Chaney went through him, through this glass and out into the river.”
“Like I said, we're sunk unless we catch a break.”
“But Sam, look.” Lash jabbed a pencil like finger at the glassless frame. “The glass here shattered. The greenhouse glass didn't.”
“What does it mean?”
“Maybe nothing. I have to run some tests. It may take a day or two. How about you work the Koivu angle while you can? Courier over the police report and I'll read it while I perform my experiments. Make sure Chaney's office gets sifted, too. You never know.”
Casey nodded. “Look, let's do what we gotta do and fast! We'll all get the gate if this goes flooey.”
Lash smiled but there was no humor in it. “If your Murder Master sticks to underworld targets, who is going to squawk?”
*****
The police had the crime scene well in hand so Lash slunk away, retracing the route they had taken with Chaney. Eckert was on his mind.
He took out the goggles he'd used in the greenhouse and slipped them over his head.
Lash had hoped that revealing the identity of the German would spur either Chaney or Koivu into action. With the infrared goggles he would see what Koivu felt compelled to touch after their brief encounter. Suspecting everyone, he used the goggles in the greenhouse in the hopes of finding traces of the dust, but the room had been clean.
Lash opted to leave Chaney's office to Casey so he prowled the corridor, ears straining to catch the approach of any of Chaney's men still loose. There! A red hand print on an office door, Koivu's office. A quick look over his shoulder r
evealed that no one was around. He bent and put his lock picks to work.
The lock yielded and the door swung open. Lash slipped inside and eased the door closed behind him. The faint glow of red hand prints told the tale.
Koivu had used the telephone. There were no notes or scrawled messages and the address book had not been touched, which meant the man had dialed from memory.
No matter. Lash stepped around the long oak desk and scrutinized the dial. Red marks left by Koivu's finger showed Lash the number that had been utilized. He committed the numbers to memory.
Pausing, Lash scanned the room to make sure he hadn't missed any red marks Koivu may have left behind. He found none. Curious, he tried the filing cabinet but it was locked. The same went for the desk drawers.
Concluding that Koivu's phone call had been urgent if the man had, presumably, kept Eckert waiting after extricating himself from the police, Lash was satisfied with this line of investigation for the moment and quitted the room.
He showed his special police ID to get past the cordon of officers around the bathhouse. Knowing Casey would be busy with the crime scene, Lash climbed behind the wheel of the man's unmarked cruiser. A thin, jagged device resembling a skeleton key appeared from his watch pocket. He wiggled it into the ignition and the engine roared to life.
His brain chewed at the numbers. Having noticed the slight, gradual fading of the red marks on the dial of Koivu's phone, he deduced the order in which the numbers had been dialed, and compiled a short list of possible combinations. A quick call on the car radio got a police clerk to track down addresses for the phone numbers he compiled. Based on what he'd learned so far, Lash deemed the second address the most likely destination:
Brand Tool and Die.
*****
The New Adventures of Lynn Lash Page 2