Power Plays (The Lt. Hastings Mysteries) Page 6

  He still remained stubbornly silent. But, for the first time, I saw his gaze falter. He’d realized that his car—his property—had been tainted. Plainly, the idea displeased him. Walter Frazer was a fastidious man.

  “Did you notice anything suspicious?” I asked quietly.

  He shook his head. “No, nothing.” It was a preoccupied response. His eyes drifted thoughtfully away. I saw him swallow. “Are there—” He cleared his throat. “Are there stains, on the back seat? Bloodstains?”

  “I don’t think so, Mr. Frazer. I’m not positive. But I don’t think so.”

  “Well—” With a self-righteous hunch of his shoulders, he settled himself more firmly in his chair. “Well, I hope not.”

  It was a prissy, petty response, strangely at odds with his previous arrogance. For a moment I silently studied him, speculating on this unexpected change of character. Finally: “I gather that you put your car away at seven-thirty and discovered it was missing at ten-fifteen. Is that right?”

  He nodded. “That’s right.” He spoke crisply. His assertive self-confidence had suddenly returned.

  “How did you discover it was missing?”

  “Well, I—” He gestured. “I went to get it, and it wasn’t there. So I phoned you. The police, that is.”

  “You were going to go out, so you wanted the car. Is that what you mean?”

  He drew a deep, impatient breath. “Naturally I was going to go out.”

  “Ten-fifteen seems late to be going out,” I suggested.

  “I was going out for cigarettes.” Plainly exasperated, he spoke sharply, rudely. “It happens, you know.”

  “Was the garage door closed when you went to get the car?”

  “Yes. Certainly.”

  “Why do you say ‘certainly’?”

  “Because it closes automatically. I have an electronic opener.”

  I nodded. Then, pretending puzzlement, I frowned. “Did you notice any marks of forced entry, Mr. Frazer? Was the garage door damaged, for instance? Was it sprung?”

  “Not that I could see, no.”

  Still thoughtfully frowning, I said, “That would mean, then, that the thief must’ve had an electronic opener—identical to yours.”

  “Not necessarily,” he answered promptly. “The patrolmen thought he came in through the service door. And I leave the opener in the car, naturally.”

  “You say that you’d left your keys in the car’s ignition. Is that right?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Is there an inside door that leads from your garage to your apartment?”

  “No.”

  “Then how did you get into your apartment?”

  “How do you mean?” Suspicion sharpened his question.

  “You said you left your keys in the car,” I answered equably. “If your latch key was on the key ring, then you couldn’t’ve gotten into your apartment.” Staring at him, I let a beat pass before I said quietly, “Could you?”

  For a moment he returned my stare. His eyes were impassive. I saw his hands tighten on the arms of his chair. Finally: “That was yesterday. Wednesday.”

  Nodding, I waited.

  “My cleaning lady comes on Wednesday. She left the apartment door open, on the latch. Which is probably why I didn’t realize I’d left my keys in the car. I didn’t need them, to get into the house.”

  “Keys,” he’d said, not “key.”

  But there’d only been one key in the Buick’s ignition.

  “Do you carry many keys on your key ring, Mr. Frazer?”

  He shrugged. “The usual number, I suppose. Five or six.” He glanced once more at his watch. “Listen, Lieutenant,” he said, “I’ve really got to—”

  “When we found your car,” I said, “there was only one key in the ignition. We didn’t find any other keys.”

  “You—” He looked at me with a sudden fixity. “You didn’t?” As he said it, his right hand strayed toward his pocket—toward his keys, doubtlessly. I pointed to the pocket.

  “Do you have your keys with you, Mr. Frazer?”

  “They’re my—my spare keys.” He said it defensively, irritably. Then, repeating, “They’re my spare keys. Naturally.”

  “Can I see them?” I asked pleasantly.

  Momentarily he hesitated. Then he shifted sharply in his chair, withdrew a ring of keys from his trouser pocket and tossed the keys on the desk. I carefully examined the half-dozen keys.

  “For spare keys,” I said, “they look well worn.” Slowly, deliberately, I placed the ring of keys on the desk before him.

  Angrily, he snatched up the keys and rose quickly to his feet. Glowering down at me, he said, “Just what’re you trying to say, Lieutenant?”

  “I’m simply saying that—”

  “You act like you’re interrogating a—a murder suspect.”

  I got to my feet and we stood facing each other across my desk. “That’s my business, Mr. Frazer,” I said quietly. “Interrogating murder suspects.”

  “And my business,” he fumed, “is conducting a law practice.” For a long, furious moment, breathing hard, he glared at me, struggling to control himself. Finally: “I charge a hundred dollars an hour for my time, Lieutenant,” he said, speaking in a low, tight voice. “Which means that this interview, so far, has cost me about seventy-five dollars.” He thrust the keys in his pocket and turned to the door. “When you get my car ready for me, I expect you to call me. Or rather—” He jerked open the door. “Or rather, my secretary.”

  Seven

  AN HOUR LATER, JUST before noon, Canelli called from the field. “I just wanted to tell you, Lieutenant, that it looks like Ricco has split. Disappeared.”

  “Are you certain?”

  “It sure looks like it, Lieutenant. He was supposed to show up at Kelley’s at ten-thirty, to meet a couple of liquor salesmen. They were going to take him to a fancy breakfast, as I understand it. So then we went to his apartment. He lives with a woman named Gloria—who, if I have to say so, is really something else. I mean, me and Culligan decided we should do it by the book, just in case. So I took the fire escape, which by chance was off the bedroom, see. So there’s this Gloria in bed, naked. And when she heard Culligan knock, she—”

  “Canelli. Please. Forget the pornography, will you?”

  “Oh. Sorry, Lieutenant. Well, anyhow, it turned out that Ricco called her last night about eleven, from Kelley’s, and said something came up, and he might not make it home, but that she shouldn’t worry, or anything. So right away she figured it was another woman, I guess. See, it turns out that Ricco and this Gloria have been living together for only about a month. So, naturally, she’s jealous. Which is the reason we got her to talk so easy. Because she’s jealous, I mean.”

  “When’s Ricco due to go to work again at Kelley’s?”

  “Well, that’s the goddamn trouble, Lieutenant. See, this is his day off. Thursday. He isn’t supposed to come back on duty until five o’clock tomorrow night. Friday.”

  “Christ.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Thorson must’ve gotten to him. As soon as he left Vallejo and Columbus, Thorson must’ve phoned Ricco. And Ricco’s hiding. The time fits.”

  “I know,” Canelli answered heavily. “That’s what Culligan and I figured, too. What a bummer.”

  “I want the two of you to stay on Ricco,” I ordered. “Get two teams, on my authority, and have them stake out his apartment and the bar. Then you and Culligan go looking for him. He’s probably holed up in the Tenderloin, somewhere. Culligan was in Vice. He knows his way around down there. Spread a little money around, if you have to do it. I’ll cover you.” As I spoke, my phone rang. “I’ve got to go, Canelli. Keep in touch.”

  “Okay, Lieutenant. Will do.”

  I lifted the phone and found myself talking to someone named Nevins, an assistant in the coroner’s office. “What can I do for you, Nevins?” I asked.

  “I understand that you’re in charge of the Eliot Murdo
ck homicide investigation.”

  “That’s right.”

  “Well, sir, I thought I should tell you that his daughter, Barbara Murdock, is here.”

  “What’s she doing there?”

  “Someone down in Los Angeles told her to come here first, apparently, instead of to you.”

  I considered a moment, then asked, “Have you got someone who can bring her over here, to me?”

  “Well—” There was a reluctant pause. Under a new, cost-conscious municipal administration, each department poached on the other’s manpower. It was taken for granted. Both Nevins and I knew that I should send a policeman for Barbara Murdock. But we both knew that Nevins was outranked.

  “Yes, sir,” he answered finally. “I guess we can do that.”

  “Good. Thanks, Nevins,”

  “You’re welcome, Lieutenant,” he answered dryly.

  I rose from my chair, circled my desk and gestured Barbara Murdock to a chair. She nodded when I introduced myself, and silently took a seat. I returned to my chair and sat for a moment without speaking, covertly studying her. She was about thirty years old, about a hundred fifteen pounds, about five feet two inches tall. Her hair was dark brown, cut short. Her face was oval, with a small nose, a firm mouth and a determined chin. Beneath dark brows, her brown eyes were calm and direct. The eyes were almond-shaped, almost Eurasian. The jaw was wide, the forehead broad beneath casually combed hair. Her neck was short and muscular. Altogether, it was an assertive, intelligent face—a face too strong to play the role of helpless female, and too independent to care.

  “I’m sorry about your father, Miss Murdock. I understand he was well known—a TV personality.”

  For a moment she looked at me in thoughtful silence. Then, slowly and wearily, she smiled. “He would have liked to hear you say it. Not many people remember his TV shows. Especially on the West Coast.” Her voice was low and even—an intellectual’s voice, quiet and concise. As she spoke she crossed one leg over the other. She wore twill slacks and desert boots. Her thighs, I noticed, were firm beneath the twill. A brown suede leather jacket was belted at the waist, suggesting an exciting torso. At her throat, an orange silk scarf accented her brown eyes and olive complexion.

  “Have you—” I hesitated. “Did you identify your father?”

  “No. I—” She bit her lip. “I was told that someone had to—to be with me.” With an effort, she kept her eyes raised, steadily meeting mine.

  “Did anyone come with you? From Los Angeles, I mean?”

  “No. There—” She hesitated. Then, still steadily meeting my gaze, she said, “There wasn’t anyone to come.” She spoke slowly, gravely—with a kind of desperate, lonely pride. Tears suddenly glistened in her eyes. But, instead of bowing her head, she managed to raise her chin.

  “After we’ve—talked, I’ll go to the coroner’s with you,” I offered. “They have rules over there. About people making identifications, I mean. They want someone with you.”

  “Thank you.” She spoke softly, politely. And, finally, she lowered her gaze. She blinked, sniffled and futilely wiped at her eyes with long, graceful fingers. I opened a desk drawer, withdrew a box of Kleenex and silently pushed the box across the desk. For the first time she smiled at me. It was a tremulous smile—the smile of someone who badly needed a friend. For the first time I noticed a sprinkling of freckles across the upper part of her face. She blew her nose, wiped at her eyes and started to tuck the Kleenex tissue into the saddle-stitched leather handbag she wore slung over her shoulder.

  “Before we go,” I said, “I’d like to ask you some questions, if you don’t mind.” She blew her nose again, this time with an air of finality. “I don’t mind,” she answered.

  Realizing that questioning a newly bereaved relative was always a race against memories and despair and tears, I took a moment to organize my thoughts before I said, “First, I’ll tell you everything we know about your father’s last—” I hesitated. “About his last few days.”

  Silently, she nodded. Now her eyes were clear. She shifted in her chair to face me fully, attentively.

  “We think,” I said, “that he went from Los Angeles to Washington Friday, and we assume that he stayed in Washington until Tuesday, when he came here to San Francisco. Is that right?” As I spoke, I pulled a note pad toward me.

  “Yes.”

  “Did you know beforehand that he was going on this trip?”

  “Yes.”

  “What was the purpose of the trip? Do you know?”

  She hesitated, frowning as she considered the question. Finally: “It was a business trip.” She spoke deliberately, guardedly. Her eyes had gone opaque. She was concealing something.

  Because I didn’t want to make it a contest so early in the interrogation, I shifted my ground: “When he left Los Angeles on Friday did you know his itinerary—cities, dates, hotels?”

  “Yes. A travel agency worked out the itinerary for him. He gave me a copy.”

  Nodding, I pretended to make a notation while I considered her answers. Asked about her father’s itinerary she responded readily, willingly. But when questioned about his business—about his reason for the trip—she grew cautious.

  I let another moment of calculated silence pass before I looked up from the note pad and asked quietly, “Does the name ‘Thorson’ mean anything to you, Miss Murdock?”

  “Thorson?” She frowned. “No. Nothing. Why?”

  “Because,” I answered, “we have reason to believe that he might have been involved in your father’s death.”

  As I spoke I saw her eyes widen, as if she’d experienced sudden pain. Now she stared at me with a furious intensity. Gripping the arms of her chair, her hands were knuckle-white.

  “You know who killed him?” she whispered.

  I shook my head. “No, we don’t. All we have is a suspicion. Not even that, really. All we’ve got is a name. It could be false. It probably is false.”

  “But at least you—” Painfully, she swallowed. The cords of her neck were drawn tight. “You have some idea. Something to work on.”

  “From all we’ve been able to determine, his death was planned. Carefully planned.” I paused to let her think about it. She continued to stare at me with the same fixed, rigid intensity. Her mouth was tightly drawn, her nostrils pinched. Her breathing had quickened.

  “Planned?” She seemed unable to comprehend it. Finally: “You mean it—it wasn’t robbery? Or a—a mugging?”

  “No, Miss Murdock. Your father was carrying about a hundred eighty dollars in cash. It wasn’t taken.”

  “But—” She began to shake her head, as if the desperate, dogged movement could change what I’d said. “But I thought it was an—an accident. A—a random thing.”

  “It wasn’t a random thing, Miss Murdock. Whatever else it was, it wasn’t random.”

  “And this—this Thorson. He was the one who planned it?”

  “That’s what we think.”

  “But why?” Her voice was low, but the question boiled with repressed sibilance. Her eyes blazed. “Why?”

  “We don’t know why—we don’t have a motive. That’s the reason I’m asking you these questions. Because maybe you can help me find a motive. If we know why he died, we’re a lot closer to discovering who killed him.”

  I watched the blaze in her eyes fade. The corded muscles of her neck smoothed; her hands relaxed their death-grip on the chair. “It must’ve been the story,” she said. “That must’ve been it. I never—it never occurred to me. But—” She broke off, and began slowly, hopelessly shaking her head.

  I knew I had only to wait for her to tell me what I needed to know. I sat quietly, watching her struggle with the knowledge that her father’s murder wasn’t an accident—that her father could have caused his own death.

  “It was going to be his comeback,” she said softly. She paused, drawing a deep, unsteady breath. As if her body had suddenly lost its strength, her hands dropped from the chair to her lap. Halti
ngly, her fingers sought each other, finally clasping loosely together. Her eyes fell, studying the helpless hands. “That’s what he called it—his comeback.” She drew another shaky breath, then continued in a dull, defeated monotone: “Fifteen or twenty years ago, when I was still a little girl, Dad was very—very successful. He was never a major columnist—not like Reston, or Walter Lippmann. But he had a following. He was good at what he did. Very good. But then—” As if she were lifting something very heavy, she slowly raised her shoulders. “Then maybe he started to believe his own publicity. He was very good at that, too—at getting publicity for himself. Anyhow, for whatever reason, Dad and Mom started to fight. Later, after they couldn’t hurt each other any more, they started to have love affairs. In Washington it was very easy to have affairs, especially for a man like Dad. So then, inevitably, came the divorce. That was eleven years ago. Dad was forty-six, and Mom was forty-two. I was still in college, when they both drove up and told me. And then—” She broke off. Still bowed over her hands, she began to shake her head.

  “And then, a few months later, Mom killed herself in an auto accident. So after that, Dad started to drink. He—he’d always drunk a lot. Every night before dinner—when he was home—he’d drink four or five martinis. Sometimes more. And it never bothered him—never got the best of him. But after Mom’s accident it started to bother him. It got the best of him. One drink, and he was drunk. Overnight, it seemed, his whole life came apart. He didn’t keep appointments, and he let someone else write his columns. On TV, he couldn’t even follow the Teleprompter. So—” She lifted one hand in a wan gesture of resignation and defeat, then let the hand fall back in her lap. “So, inside of two years, he was out. Nobody renewed his contracts. And he didn’t seem to care. All he cared about was drinking, it seemed. I—I tried everything. I was out of college by then, and for a while we lived together. But I couldn’t stand to see him ruining himself, and I told him so. I told him that I was going to take the money I’d inherited from Mom, and I was going to get as far away from him as I could. And that’s what I did. I went to Los Angeles, where I had friends, and I’ve been there ever since. I told him when I left Washington that he was welcome to come to Los Angeles. He was welcome to stay with me. But not if he drank. Never if he drank.”