1971 - Want to Stay Alive (4 page)

“Yeah . . .” He shrugged. “Well, that’s the way it goes. I guess I must learn to live with it. Anything cooking?”

“Not a thing. The blotter’s clean.”

Lepski settled himself more comfortably in his chair.

“What I want now is a nice juicy murder . . . a sex killing. While Fred is out of the way, this could be my big chance.” He lit a cigarette and stared off into space. “I know Fred’s no fool, but that goes for me too. Now I’ve got my promotion, Carroll’s already nagging me to try for Sergeant. Women are never satisfied.” He sighed, shaking his head. You’re lucky not to be married.”

“Don’t I know it,” Jacoby said with feeling. “Me for freedom!”

Lepski scowled at him.

“Don’t think I’m knocking marriage. There’s a lot to be said for it. A young guy like you should get married. You . . .”

The telephone bell interrupted him.

“See?” Lepski smirked. The moment I walk in, there’s action.” He scooped up the receiver. “Police headquarters. Detective 1st Grade Lepski talking.”

Jacoby hid a grin.

“Give me Sergeant Beigler,” a male voice barked.

“Sergeant Beigler is off duty,” Lepski said, frowning. Who was this jerk who thought Beigler a better contact than himself? “What is it?”

“This is Hartley Danvaz. Is Captain Terrell there?”

Lepski sat up straight.

Hartley Danvaz was not only the Ballistic expert for the District Attorney, but he was also the owner of a deluxe gunsmith store that supplied the rich with every conceivable hunting weapon: a man who drew a lot of water in the City as well as being a personal friend of Lepski’s Chief.

“No, Mr. Danvaz, the Chief’s not in yet,” Lepski said, now wishing he hadn’t taken the call. “Anything I can do?”

“Get someone competent down here fast! I’ve had a break in!” Danvaz snapped. “Tell Captain Terrell I’d like to see him when he comes in.”

“Sure, Mr. Danvaz. I’ll come myself, Mr. Danvaz,” Lepski said. “Be right with you, Mr. Danvaz,” and he hung up.

“And that was Mr. Danvaz,” Jacoby said, keeping his face straight.

“Yeah . . . trouble. Call the Chief. Danvaz has had a break in.” Getting to his feet, Lepski shoved his chair back so violently, it fell over with a crash.

“Tell him Danvaz is yelling for him and I’m handling it,” and he was gone.

Hartley Danvaz, tall, pushing fifty-five, thin with a stoop, had the assurance and arrogance of a man worth a million.

“Who the hell are you?” he demanded as Lepski was shown into his palatial office. “Where’s Beigler?”

Lepski was in no mood to be pushed around. Maybe this jerk was a top shot, but Lepski was now 1st Grade.

“I’m Lepski,” he said in his cop voice. “What’s this about a break in?”

Danvaz squinted at him.

“Ah, yes, I’ve heard about you. Is Terrell coming?”

“He’s been alerted. If it’s only a break in, I can handle it. The Chief’s busy.”

Danvaz suddenly smiled.

“Yes. . . of course.” He got to his feet. “Come with me.”

He led the way through the big store, down some stairs to the stock room.

“They broke in here.”

Lepski looked at the small window that had been covered by a steel grille.

The grille had been torn out and was hanging from its cement foundation.

“A steel cable, a hook and a car,” Lepski said. He looked through the window into a narrow alley, leading to a parking lot. “An easy job. What did they take?”

“Was that how it was done?” Danvaz regarded Lepski with more respect.

“They took one of my best target rifles: a hand built job, complete with a telescopic sight and a silencer, worth five hundred and sixty dollars.”

“Anything else missing?”

“A box of one hundred cartridges for the gun.”

“Where was the gun kept?”

“I’ll show you.”

Danvaz led the way back to the store.

“The gun was in this showcase,” he said, coming to rest beside a narrow glass box, resting on the counter. “It was easy to get at. You just lift the glass cover. I haven’t touched it. There could be finger prints.”

“Yeah. I’ll get the boys down here, Mr. Danvaz and we’ll cover the whole place for prints,” Lepski said, but looking at the highly polished glass case he knew this would be merely routine. The gun had been taken by someone wearing gloves.

A couple of hours later, Chief of Police Terrell, Beigler and Lepski sat around Terrell’s desk, sipping coffee.

“No clues, no fingerprints . . . a very professional job,” Beigler said after reading Lepski’s report. “Looks like the guy knew what he was after. There were plenty of other guns he could have taken more expensive than the one he took.”

Terrell, a heavily built man with iron grey hair, stroked his square jaw.

“The bulk of Danvaz’s stock covers sporting guns: this is a target rifle. Why pick that?”

Lepski moved impatiently.

“A gun with gimmicks: the telescopic sight and the silencer. Maybe some young punk saw it in the window and got itchy fingers. Danvaz said the gun was on display a month ago in the window.”

Terrell nodded.

“Could be, but it’s a killer’s gun.”

“I still think it’s some kid.”

“If it is, he uses professional methods,” Beigler said.

“So what? Every goddam kid who watches TV knows to use gloves, knows how to hook a grille off a window,” Lepski snorted.

“Alert the press. I don’t think it will do any good, but alert them. Get them a photo of the gun . . . Danvaz will certainly have one,” Terrell said.

As Lepski went to his desk and began using his telephone, Beigler said, “Tom could be right . . . could be some kid who couldn’t resist stealing a gun like that.”

Terrell thought about this. He remembered when he was a teenager going every Saturday afternoon to the Danvaz store — at that time Hartley Danvaz’s father had been the boss — and staring at a target rifle he yearned to own. He had yearned for it for three weeks, then suddenly the rifle had meant nothing to him. Maybe it could be some kid who had had this kind of yearning and hadn’t waited.

“I hope he’s right, but I don’t like it. It’s a killer’s weapon.”

***

Dean K. McCuen was the President of the Florida Canning & Glass Corporation, a million dollar concern that supplied packaging to Florida’s fruit growers. McCuen, six feet tall, iron-grey hair with a whisky complexion, was a man who drove himself and his employees and achieved results. He had been married three times: each wife had left him, unable to tolerate his temper, his way of living and his demands.

McCuen lived by the clock. He rose at 07.00: spent half an hour in his gymnasium in the basement of his opulent house that stood in two acres of flowered gardens, showered at 07.31, breakfasted at 08.00, dictated until 09.00, then left at 09.30 in his Rolls-Royce for his office. This was an exact routine and never varied.

During the three years Martha Delvine had served him as his secretary she had never known him to be a second late and this bright summer morning as he came down the vast staircase to the breakfast room, she knew it was one second to 08.00 without looking at her watch.

Martha Delvine, aged thirty-six, tall, dark and without charm, was waiting at the breakfast table, the morning mail in her hand.

“Good morning, Mr. McCuen,” she said and put the mail on the table.

McCuen nodded. He was a man who didn’t believe in superfluous words.

He sat down and spread his napkin as Toko, his Japanese Man Friday, poured coffee and served scrambled eggs and lamb kidneys.

“Anything in the mail?” McCuen asked after he had munched a kidney.

“Nothing important,” Martha said. “The usual invitations.” She paused, hesitated, then went on, “There’s one odd thing . . .”

McCuen speared another kidney, then frowned.

“Odd? Thing? What do you mean?”

She put a half sheet of cheap notepaper before him.

“This was amongst the mail.”

McCuen took out his bifocals, put them on and peered at the sheet of paper. Written in block letters was the message:

R. I. P.

09.03

THE EXECUTIONER

“What the hell is this?” McCuen demanded in a grating voice.

Toko, standing behind McCuen’s chair, grimaced. From the tone of the voice he realised the morning was to begin badly.

“I don’t know,” Martha said. “I thought you should see it.”

“Why?” McCuen glared at her. “Can’t you see it’s from some lunatic? Don’t you know better than to bother me with this kind of thing? This is a deliberate attempt to spoil my breakfast!” He flicked the piece of paper off the table onto the floor.

“I’m sorry, Mr. McCuen.”

McCuen whirled around in his chair to glare at Toko.

“This toast is cold! What’s the matter with you all this morning? Get some more!”

At 09.03, his dictation finished, his temper still smouldering, McCuen stalked out into the sunshine where his Rolls was waiting.

Brant, his middle aged, long suffering chauffeur, cap under his arm, was waiting by the car door. Martha Delvine came to the top of the imposing flight of steps to see McCuen off.

“I’ll be back at six. Halliday will be coming. He said about six-thirty, but you know what he is. He can never be punctual . . .”

Those were the last words Dean K. McCuen was to utter. Martha took the horrible memory of the next second with her to her grave. She was standing close to McCuen, looking up at him and she saw his high forehead turn into a spongy mess of blood and brains. A small lump of his brains splashed her face and began to ooze down her cheek. His blood sprayed her white skirt.

He fell heavily, his briefcase spilling open as it hit the marble steps.

Paralysed with horror, she watched McCuen’s thick set body rolling down the steps, feeling the awful, slimy thing on her face, then she began to scream.

***

Dr. Lowis, Police Medical Officer, came down the stairs to the hall, where Terrell, Beigler and Lepski waited. Lowis was a short, fat man with a balding head, freckled complexion and a talent Terrell relied on.

The call had come through as Lepski had finished alerting the press about the stolen gun. The call had been made by Steve Roberts, a prowl car officer who reported hearing screams from McCuen’s residence and had investigated. His report sent Terrell, Beigler and Lepski rushing down the stairs to a Squad car, leaving Jacoby to alert the Homicide division. The report had left Terrell in no doubt that this was a murder: something that hadn’t happened in Paradise City for a long time, and the murder of one of the City’s more influential citizens.

They had arrived at the same time as the ambulance and Dr. Lowis had arrived five minutes later.

By now McCuen’s body was on its way to the morgue.

“How is she?” Terrell asked.

“Under sedation,” Lowis told him, coming to rest at the foot of the stairs.

“You don’t talk to her for at least twenty-four hours. She’s half out of her head.”

Having heard the details and seen McCuen’s body, Terrell could understand that.

“Any ideas, Doc?”

“A high powered rifle. I’m going back now to dig out the slug. It’s my bet it was a sophisticated target rifle with a telescopic sight.”

Terrell and Beigler exchanged glances.

“How about the angle of fire?”

“From above.”

Terrell went with Lowis out onto the terrace. They surveyed the view ahead of them.

“From somewhere there,” Lowis said, waving his small fat hand. “I’ll get off. This is your pigeon,” and he left.

Beigler joined Terrell.

They both looked at the view. Big Chestnut trees lined the edge of McCuen’s estate, beyond the trees was a highway, then space, then in the distance, a block of apartments with a flat roof.

“Some shot,” Beigler said, “if it came from there.”

“There’s nowhere else where it could have come from . . . look around,” Terrell said. “You heard what Lowis said: a sophisticated target rifle with a telescopic sight . . . could be Danvaz’s gun.”

“Yeah. As soon as Lowis has dug out the slug, we’ll know.”

“Tom?” Terrell turned to where Lepski was waiting, “take what men you want and cover that block of apartments. Check the roof and any empty apartment. If there are no empty apartments, check every apartment I don’t have to tell you what to do.”

“Okay, Chief.”

Lepski collected four of the Homicide squad and they went off in a car towards the distant apartment block.

“Let’s go talk to the chauffeur and the Jap,” Terrell said.

“Look who’s arrived,” Beigler said and groaned.

A tall, grey-haired man had driven up and was getting out of his car.

Someone had once told him he looked like James Stewart, the movie actor, and from then on, he had aped the actor’s mannerisms. He was Pete Hamilton, crime reporter of the Paradise City Sun and the City’s local TV station.

“You handle him, Joe,” Terrell said out of the corner of his mouth. “Don’t tell him about the rifle. Play it dumb,” and he retreated into the house.

Herbert Brant, McCuen’s chauffeur, had nothing to tell. He was still shivering with shock and Terrell quickly realised he would be wasting his time asking questions, but Toko, the Japanese servant, who hadn’t seen the killing, was in complete control of himself. He handed Terrell the note that McCuen had so contemptuously flicked off the breakfast table. He built up for Terrell a picture of McCuen’s habits and character. The information he gave Terrell was practicable and helpful.

Beigler was having a less happy time with Hamilton.

“Okay . . . I know it’s just happened,” Hamilton said impatiently, “but you must have an angle. McCuen is important people. He’s been assassinated . . . like Kennedy! Can’t you see this is the biggest news story this lousy City has had in years?”

“I can see it is news,” Beigler said, feeding a strip of gum into his mouth, “but where do you get the Kennedy angle from? McCuen isn’t a U.S. President.”

“Do I get information or don’t I?” Hamilton demanded.

“If I had anything to give you, Pete, you’d get it,” Beigler said blandly.

“Right now, there’s nothing.”