Stalking Horse (The Lt. Hastings Mysteries) Page 6

  Standing rigidly, with her hands clasped at her waist, she looked at me for a moment of final appraisal before she returned to the loveseat.

  “There’s no point in fencing,” she said. “I’m told you’re the best the city has to offer, and I assume you are. I’m here to help you any way I can. I’ve made time to help you.” She gestured gracefully, giving me permission to continue with my questions.

  I smiled, trying to disarm her. She didn’t return the smile. So, at random, I asked, “How long have you known the senator?”

  She looked at me steadily for a moment, her dark eyes expressionless. Then, speaking in a slow, measured voice, she said, “I’ve known him since the early fifties, when he first began in TV.”

  “TV?”

  She nodded. “Senator Ryan was one of the pioneers in commercial television, down in Los Angeles. A lot of people don’t realize it, but his TV interests, over the years, have been just as important to him and just as lucrative as his aerospace interests.”

  “And that, I understand, is very lucrative.”

  Now she displayed a small, formal smile, followed by a small, formal nod. She could have been a highly styled mother superior, talking about Jesus Christ. “Yes,” she answered, still slightly smiling. “Yes, very lucrative.”

  “You were in television, then, when you went to work for him.”

  She hesitated, then said, “In a manner of speaking, I was in TV. I was an actress. But I was never very good. And, besides, acting is degrading, especially for a woman. The more I knew about it, the more I hated it. So when Mr. Ryan offered me a job, I took it.”

  “As his assistant?”

  “As his secretary.”

  “Were you married before you went to work for the senator? Or afterward?”

  Instantly, caution froze her face. “What’s that got to do with this?”

  “Nothing,” I answered. “Just background.” I ventured another smile. “Police work is like politics. Nothing is private.”

  Unsmiling, sitting stiffly, knees together, hands folded in her lap, she looked at me coldly. Then, formally, she said, “I was married when I was nineteen. It was a mistake. I was divorced a year later. When I was twenty-three, I went to work for Don—for Senator Ryan.”

  I nodded soberly over the statement, then said, “In that case, I imagine you’re about as close to the senator as anyone, except for his family.”

  She studied me intently. “Yes, Lieutenant, that’s probably right.” There was a grim, purposeful undertone to her reply, warning me not to go any further in pressing my luck.

  “Then you should be able to point me in the right direction,” I said. “Let’s assume that the writer of these letters has some close connection to the senator. Can you—”

  Beside her on the table, a phone buzzed.

  “Excuse me.” Turning slightly away, she spoke into the phone: “Yes?” She listened briefly, then said, “Who at the White House?” A pause. Then: “Well, find out, please. If it’s Stewart, I don’t want to talk to him until I have a chance to talk with the senator first. That should be in about an hour. His airplane is just about to land. If it’s Pottinger, find out what it’s about, and tell him I’ll call him in fifteen minutes.” She listened again, then nodded. “That’s right.” She hung up the phone and turned to me. “Sorry.”

  “I was asking you for help,” I said. “If I’m right, and the suspect has some close connection to the senator, then you should be able to give me some names.”

  “That depends on the connection,” she answered.

  “A family connection, maybe. Outside the immediate family.”

  Impatiently, she shook her head, at the same time glancing pointedly at her watch. “That’s impossible. There’re no aunts or uncles, no nieces or nephews. Nothing.”

  “What about business connections, then? Personal connections?” I was about to add “lovers,” but thought better of it. Instead I said, “He must have enemies. He’s obviously got at least one enemy. Who do you think it is?”

  “Lieutenant—” She waved a graceful, regretful hand. “I’m sorry. I’m afraid I can’t even make a guess.”

  “Mrs. Bayliss—” I hesitated, for emphasis. “I already know that the senator’s wife isn’t much help to him. And I know that Susan and her father don’t keep in touch. My impression is that James isn’t exactly close to his father.” I paused again, watching for a reaction. Her face remained impassive. “That leaves you and Jack Ferguson,” I said. “I’ve already talked to Mr. Ferguson. Frankly, he wasn’t much help. So—” I spread my hands. “So that leaves you.”

  “Well, Lieutenant,” she said, speaking in a slow, deliberate voice, “I’m sorry to disappoint you, but I can’t help you either. I’ve thought about it, but—”

  From the hallway door I heard the sound of a knock. She frowned, rose to her feet and walked quickly to the door. Once again I admired the way she moved, so economically, so gracefully assured. She opened the door to greet a tall man in his late twenties or early thirties. He was dressed in a white shirt, dark slacks and what looked like an old school tie, loosened at the collar. The man glanced at me, frowned, then spoke to Katherine Bayliss:

  “Is this Lieutenant Hastings?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well,” the stranger said, “we could have a problem. There’re reporters downstairs. Someone from the hotel probably called a friend and gave him a tip. That part’s manageable. But one of the reporters is a guy named Kanter. Dan Kanter, from the Sentinel. And he’s asking about an assassination plot.” The stranger shot me a hostile glance, as if to accuse me of the leak. Involuntarily, I rose to my feet, facing them. When they turned toward me, their eyes were cold. At the same time the phone rang again: a single long buzz, discreetly insistent.

  “I’ve got something to do,” Katherine Bayliss said, moving toward the phone. “Why don’t the two of you talk about it, and get back to me in about forty-five minutes?”

  “Where’ll you be?” the stranger asked. He spoke peevishly, in a tense, high-pitched voice. Once more he shot me a resentful look.

  “I’ll be here,” she answered, at the same time turning to me. “This is James Ryan, Lieutenant. James, this is Lieutenant Hastings.” And to me, deftly dismissing both of us, she said, “You can talk in James’s room.”

  Without acknowledging the introduction, James Ryan had stepped back into the hallway. Before I’d reached the door, Katherine Bayliss was already on the phone, talking to someone at the White House.

  Nine

  “I SUPPOSE YOU KNOW,” James said, “that we’re doing everything we can to keep this whole letter thing from my father. And I also suppose you know that if this thing gets in the papers, it all hits the fan.” Sitting with one long leg slung over the arm of his chair, he stared at me with sulky eyes. Like his sister, James was tall and slim. But, unlike Susan’s, his body was awkwardly made. His head was too small and his neck was too long. His dark hair was thinning fast, balding on top. His arms and legs moved at cross-purposes, uncoordinated. His features, too, resembled his sister’s: generous mouth, long nose, large eyes under flaring brows. But, like his body, James’s face hadn’t come together in any organized whole.

  In three generations, the Ryan blood had thinned to produce this petulant, ineffectual man. When he’d first entered his room, he’d gone immediately to the portable bar and poured a strong Scotch on the rocks. Without inviting me to be seated, without offering me a drink, he slouched to a chair, drank off half the drink and stared at me with accusing eyes.

  “Do you know this Dan Kanter?” he demanded.

  “Yes.”

  “Then you’d better talk to him,” he ordered. “Meanwhile, Jack Ferguson is going to call the Sentinel’s publisher. So maybe it’ll be all right. I certainly hope so.”

  “I’ll talk to Kanter, but I don’t know how much good it’ll do. And I’m not sure how much good it’ll do to call the publisher. I’ve seen pressure tried before with the
Sentinel. And it didn’t work.”

  “But we could be talking about a man’s life, for God’s sake. A very important man’s life.”

  I looked at him without speaking. Then I decided to say, “For several days now, I’ve been hearing about what would happen if this news got through to your father. But then I hear that crank letters are almost routine. So what’s so special about these letters that your father shouldn’t know about them? Why wouldn’t it have been simpler to just mention the letters to him casually? You’d have saved yourself a lot of trouble, I think.”

  He finished the drink, set the glass aside and stared at me ruefully for a moment before he said, “In this business, Lieutenant—in this shop, as they call it in the trade—there’s a chain of command. My father, of course, is the head man. He works out the grand design. But Jack Ferguson is the chief of staff. What Ferguson says goes. And Ferguson decided that we shouldn’t tell my father. So—” He shrugged. “So we won’t. It’s as simple as that.”

  “What you’re telling me is that Ferguson tells you what you can say to your own father.”

  He shrugged again, conveying a sense of both resignation and futility. “You have to understand that politicians of Donald Ryan’s stature are larger than life. That might sound a little strange coming from me. But it’s what happens. A lot of people have a lot invested in my father. Not just money, but other things. Like jobs, and plans, and dreams of glory. So he’s an institution, like it or not.”

  “I don’t think your sister feels that way.”

  “Wrong, Lieutenant,” he said wearily. “She does feel that way. The only difference is that she’s burning herself out, rebelling. Me, I’ve joined the team.” His lips twisted in a wry imitation of a smile. As he talked, his eyes had become slightly unfocused. At three in the afternoon, he was a little drunk.

  “I’d like to go back to my question,” I said. “Who decided that your father shouldn’t know about the letters? And why?”

  “I’ve already told you,” he said plaintively. “It was Ferguson. He talked to—” He broke off, frowning as he sat up a little straighter. “He talked to Lloyd. And then he decided that we had a problem.”

  “Lloyd Eason? Your father’s bodyguard?”

  “Yes.” He spoke absently now, staring off across the room. “Yes.”

  “I didn’t even know Lloyd Eason was in the chain of command.”

  “He’s not, really,” he said, still staring off at nothing. “Lloyd doesn’t make policy. But, on the other hand, there’s no one closer to my father than Lloyd. They go way back, my father and Lloyd. Way back.”

  “Where’s Eason now?”

  “He’s with my father. He’s always with my father.” He checked the time. “Right now, they’re probably on their way here from the airport.”

  “Did Eason actually see the letters, do you know?”

  “I’m not sure,” he answered slowly. “But I don’t think so. He was told about them in a general way. But he didn’t actually see them.”

  “Yet you said that Ferguson didn’t take the letters seriously until he’d talked to Eason.”

  He gestured irritably. “I’m just giving you my impressions, Lieutenant. It’s up to you to fit the pieces together. All I’m telling you is that, all along, Jack Ferguson and Katherine have been the only ones on the inside—the only ones to decide who knows what and when.” Then, as an afterthought, he said bitterly, “I was included late in the game. Yesterday, to be exact. Obviously Jack told me so that I wouldn’t hear it from someone else. You, for instance.”

  Across the room, a phone rang. He got to his feet and moved a little unsteadily to answer it. He listened a moment, nodded, mumbled something in reply, then beckoned to me. “It’s for you, Lieutenant. Jack Ferguson.”

  I took the receiver and heard Ferguson order, “Come to Suite 1160, Lieutenant. The man in the corridor will show you the way. Then give me James.” His voice was tight: the commander, coping with an emergency.

  “Right.” I handed over the phone and turned to the door.

  Wearing an inconspicuous suit and tie, Ferguson was waiting at the closed door of his suite. Gesturing for the FBI man to return to his post at the intersection of two corridors, Ferguson glanced up and down the hallway before he slipped a plain white envelope from his inside pocket. “This just came from the front desk,” he said, speaking in a low, urgent voice. “Read it.”

  The envelope had been neatly slit at the top. The address was simply SENATOR DONALD RYAN, typed in capital letters. The word URGENT, in red capitals, had been typed in the lower left-hand corner.

  Carefully touching only the corners, I unfolded a sheet of plain white paper. The size and quality were the same as the other letters, and it was folded the same way. Like the others, this message was very short, typed in the center of the page:

  If you see me face to face, the moment of your death will be at hand. Vengeance will be mine.

  But this letter was different from the others. It was signed with a typewritten “F.”

  Beneath the signature was typed:

  You know me now. But do you know how to save yourself?

  I reread the letter, then looked at Jack Ferguson. But before I could speak, he gripped my forearm hard, drawing me closer. Speaking urgently, eyes boring into mine, he said, “You’re going to have to handle this, Lieutenant. Do you understand?” His fingers tightened on my arm. “This is your baby. All yours. The senator and Mrs. Ryan will be arriving downstairs within minutes. No one knows about this but the two of us. Got it?” With his hand and his eyes, he held me for one fierce final moment before he turned on his heel and strode toward the elevators. He walked with the grim, headlong purpose of a general advancing to inspect his troops. I fell into step beside him, saying:

  “What’s ‘F’ mean? Who’s ‘F’?”

  The elevator was being held for him. Inside, I saw half a dozen dignified-looking men and women, all impeccably dressed, all looking at Ferguson with a kind of pious expectation. James Ryan stood in the front rank, along with Katherine Bayliss. This was the senator’s welcoming committee, the lords and ladies of his court, waiting for Ferguson to lead them downstairs. Ferguson stepped into the elevator, turned to me, and spoke quietly:

  “Handle it, Lieutenant. It’s all yours.” He signaled, and the elevator doors slid shut.

  Ten

  I DIALED 9, WAITED for the tone, then dialed Police Communications. Recognizing the voice on the line, I said, “This is Lieutenant Hastings, Allingham.”

  “Yessir.”

  “Were you able to locate Lieutenant Friedman?”

  “Yessir. He’s on his way to the Fairmont. He should be there in just a few minutes. Did Inspector Canelli get there?”

  “Yes, he’s here.” I glanced across the room at Canelli, lounging at his ease on a green velvet sofa. Having finally been briefed on the Ryan case, Canelli was contented. “What about Culligan?” I asked Farley. “Did you find him?”

  “No, sir. I haven’t been able to—oh, oh. Wait.” The line clicked momentarily dead. Then I heard Culligan’s thin, dry voice.

  “Where are you?” I asked.

  “At home,” Culligan answered sourly.

  “How’d you like some overtime?”

  “Well—” I heard him sigh. “All right.”

  “I want you to get two other men and get down to the Hall. Go through all the jackets we pulled and see if there’s anyone whose name has the initial ‘F.’ First or last name, it doesn’t matter. Just ‘F.’ Got it?”

  “Yessir.” He sighed again, this time more deeply.

  “If you find anything, contact me at the Fairmont, Room 1016.”

  “1016. Right.”

  “Also, I want you to locate a woman named Susan Robinson on Carnelian Way. She’s in the book. When you get her, tell her to call here too.”

  “Right. Got it.”

  “Keep in touch with Communications. I’ve been working with Allingham.”

&
nbsp; “Allingham. Right.”

  “It’s quarter after four. I’d plan on working until ten P.M., at least. Okay?”

  “Yes,” Culligan answered heavily. “Okay.”

  As I hung up, I heard a knock at the door. A moment later Friedman strode into the room, whistling appreciatively as he sailed his hat onto the satin-covered bed.

  “This,” he said, “is class.” He stretched out on the bed, adjusting the pillows as he announced, “I’m ready. Let’s have it.”

  I tossed a photocopy of the letter and the envelope on the mound of his stomach and made an impatient circuit of the room while he studied them. Finally he looked up, saying, “‘F.’ It’s not much, but it’s something. How was it delivered?”

  “It came to the front desk about twelve-thirty. The desk clerk doesn’t know who brought it. He just looked down at the counter, and there it was. He gave it to the mail clerk, who wrote the room number on the envelope in pencil. It was put in Jack Ferguson’s box about one P.M.”

  “Not Ryan’s box?”

  I shook my head. “Everything for Ryan goes through Ferguson. Everything.”

  “All right. What happened next?”

  “The letter got to Ferguson’s secretary about one o’clock. She had orders to pass any mail addressed to Ryan directly through to Ferguson. As soon as Ferguson read the letter, he called me. That was about two-fifteen. I decided that, first, I should call Richter, which I did.” As I said it, I mentally braced myself for Friedman’s predictable response:

  “Richter.” Exasperated, he shook his head. “You never learn.”

  Ignoring the remark, I said, “I’ve got two men down in the lobby interviewing possible witnesses. Richter must have half a dozen. So far, no one’s been able to find anyone who saw the letter put on the counter.”

  “With all that ruckus,” he observed, “it’ll be a miracle if they’re able to keep the press from suspecting that something’s up.”

  I shrugged. “We have to take the chance. I told our men to watch themselves and stay out of sight as much as possible. Richter did the same. That’s all we can do.”