Hire a Hangman (12 page)

“You mean you’re looking for it?” Ross’s expression registered nothing more than objective interest.

“No,” Hastings answered. “We’ve got it. And we’ve got a bullet from it.”

“A bullet, eh?” The question suggested only mild interest.

“The bullet killed a very prominent doctor named Brice Hanchett, two nights ago.” Hastings’s voice, too, expressed nothing beyond the academic. He and Charlie Ross were playing an intricate game: two professionals, maneuvering for position.

“So what we’re looking for,” Hastings continued, “is the owner of the Llama.”

“Yeah.” Ross nodded judiciously. “Yeah, I can see that, all right.” Thoughtfully, he let his eyes wander to a Spanish-style window that overlooked Dolores Park, a prime view. Hastings had counted four apartments on the building’s roster of tenants. Plainly, Charlie had saved his money.

“It’s murder, Charlie,” Hastings said softly. “Homicide. A rich, famous doctor. I guess you’ve seen it on TV, read about it.”

“Oh, yeah …” Reflectively, Ross continued to gaze out on his premium view. “Yeah, sure, I read about it.”

“And in Homicide,” Hastings said, “in these murder investigations, everything is on the line. It’s make-or-break time. You understand what I’m saying?”

Ross nodded. “Oh, yeah. Sure. I understand.”

“What the lieutenant means,” Canelli said, “is that a guy can store up lots of brownie points downtown. A
lot
of brownie points. In your business, I guess those points never hurt, Charlie. I mean”—Canelli smiled—“I mean, what the hell, there’s no such thing as too many brownie points. Right?”

Ross nodded absently, but made no reply. Plainly he was calculating odds, weighing alternatives. Finally, speaking to Hastings, one prime player to another, he said, “Let me think about this. I, uh, I think maybe I can help you, but I’ve got to make a couple of calls.”

Nodding, Hastings laid a card on a lamp table and rose. “Call me tomorrow, by ten o’clock. One way or the other, call me by ten. Clear?”

“Clear.”

4:40
PM

Muttering darkly, Canelli braked the cruiser as he balefully turned his head to track an old, dented sedan as it careened through the intersection ahead, trailing earsplitting rock music, and ran a red light. The driver was a white male, unshaven, dark hair long and unkempt, wearing a Giants baseball cap with the visor reversed. The driver sat low behind the steering wheel, his eyes hardly higher than the dashboard.

“We should bust that bastard,” Canelli said. Then, looking hopefully at Hastings: “Should we bust him?”

Hastings glanced at his wristwatch, then shook his head. “I want to be downtown by five o’clock.”

“Shall I drop you?”

“Please. It’s, uh, personal business. Why don’t you take the car home, and stay on call? Lieutenant Friedman and I are going to talk to Teresa Bell at eight-thirty tonight.”

“Are you going to try for a warrant?”

“Not now. Not without physical evidence. But if she should confess, we might need you. I know you’re off the desk tonight, because of the extra hours on the Hanchett thing. Have you got plans for tonight?”

“Gracie’s bowling tonight. She’s in the semifinals, if you can believe that. And I was going to root for her. Where do the Bells live?”

“In the Sunset. Moraga.”

“Ah.” Canelli brightened. “The bowling alley’s out on Geary. I can just take my beeper, no sweat.”

“Fine.”

5:10
PM

“Sir?” The parking attendant was advancing purposefully. “Ticket?”

Prepared, Hastings palmed his shield. “I don’t have a car here. I’m waiting for someone.”

“What?” The attendant frowned.

“Never mind.” Hastings waved the attendant away, turned his back, and walked to the rear of the lot, where Victor Haywood’s Porsche was parked. A van was parked beside the Porsche. He turned, stared the attendant down, then stepped behind the van. Ah, yes, Victor Haywood appeared at the parking lot’s shack, waiting for the keys to his car. Moving to keep the bulk of the van between them, Hastings waited for Haywood to open the Porsche’s driver’s door before he showed himself. Startled from his stooping posture, Haywood suddenly straightened.

“What th—”

“Sorry,” Hastings said. “I didn’t mean to scare you.”

Instantly taking the offensive, Haywood snapped, “I’m not scared.” A trim, trendy man in his mid-forties, his face bronzed on the ski slopes and his body hardened by tennis and daily Nautilus workouts, Victor Haywood was a psychiatrist who, Ann always said, specialized in the emotional problems of recently divorced women whose ex-husbands were rich and whose lapdog lovers were poor.

“What I wanted to tell you—what I wanted to say”—Hastings began, “is that Ann was pretty upset yesterday, when you called her. She said that you were bothered, apparently, by the fact that we’re living together. So I—”

Still on the offensive, elaborately condescending, the elitist patronizing a civil servant, Haywood twisted his thin lips derisively as he said, “Do you think this is the time or the place to discuss it, Lieutenant?”

As if he were considering the question, Hastings looked around the parking lot. He shrugged. “It’s as good a place as any.”

“For you, perhaps. Not for me.” Haywood turned to his car. “I’m afraid I’ve got to—”

“The thing is,” Hastings said, “I want to talk to you about this. I don’t care where, but I want to talk. Just the two of us.”

Still half turned away, with his hand on the Porsche’s door handle, Haywood remained motionless for a moment, holding the pose. His gleaming white cuffs with their golden cuff links, Hastings noticed, were an elegant contrast to his impeccably cut dark blue blazer.

Now, very deliberately, Haywood straightened, turning to face Hastings squarely.

“I don’t know what you think we have to discuss, Lieutenant.” Haywood spoke softly, in precise Ivy League cadence. “Because, for my part, I don’t think we’ve got anything to discuss. Nothing.”

“What about Ann?”

Projecting long-suffering forbearance compounded by barely suppressed anger, Haywood sighed. “What’s between me and Ann, Lieutenant—and what’s between me and my sons, particularly—is no concern of yours. None. Absolutely none.”

“And what’s between Ann and me, that’s no concern of yours, either.”

“Not so long as you do your screwing on your own time—on your own money—it’s no concern of mine. Unfortunately, though, that’s not the case. Unfortunately, you’ve chosen to—”

“I don’t touch a dime of your money, Haywood. Not a dime. And you know it.”

“If you and Ann want to be together, then get married.”

“When we’re ready to get married, we’ll get married.”

“Fine. But in the meantime, let my family alone.”

“They’re your sons. They’re not your family. Not anymore.”

Haywood snorted contemptuously. “I don’t think you want to get into an existential argument with me, Lieutenant. I don’t think you’re equipped.”

Hastings stood silently for a moment, thoughtfully eyeing the other man. Then, measuring the words, he said, “You’re probably right. On the other hand, though, I don’t think you’re equipped to insult someone you can’t bully. What do you think?”

“I think,” Haywood said, “that this is making me late for a squash game. Excuse me.” He opened the door and slid into the Porsche. Hastings stepped forward, blocking the door as Haywood was about to close it. Hastings put both hands on the door, shifted his feet for better leverage, and threw his full weight against the door, breaking its stop lever so that the door slammed flat against the Porsche’s left front fender.

“Excuse me,” Hastings said, then stepped clear, gently closed the door, turned, and left the parking lot.

7:45
PM

It was important, she knew, to remain utterly quiet, remain perfectly still. Because even the slightest movement, even the shifting of feet on the floor, even flesh moving inside clothing, the scraping, the rustling, it could do her harm, even more harm, she knew that now. So silence, just silence, was all that remained. Because only then, only in the silence, could she hear what must be heard, the echoes of the past mingling with the sounds of the present, voices returned from beyond, voices fading away.

At first she’d feared the final sound, the explosion that ended everything. At first she’d feared that the surreal eruption of orange fireblossoms in the dark would overlay the sound of the voice that began it all: a child, so softly crying. And then the last sound: the soft, eternal sigh that ended it all.

Until now, the final sound.

Until now, these minutes and the minutes to come, when he would come.

Would the world come alive when she saw him? Or would—?

The chimes.

Beginning and ending, the chimes.

Church bells, chiming both the beginning and the ending. Wedding bells.

And now the chimes that warned he was coming. The man with no name.

8:35
PM

As they walked together toward the short walkway that led to the Bell house, Hastings said, “I grew up near here. Our house was on Thirty-ninth.”

“I guess I knew that,” Friedman answered. “Somehow, though, I always associate you with Detroit.”

If they’d been across a dinner table from each other, or across a desk, with Friedman’s lazy-lidded eyes on him, the eyes that saw everything, revealing nothing, Hastings knew the observation would cost him. Whenever he talked about his years in Detroit, he was unable to keep the pain of memory from showing. But here in the darkness, both of them walking anonymously side by side, duty-bound, he could answer calmly, casually, “Actually, I was in Detroit for only a few years.”

A few years. Yes. Add them up, take the total, admit to the terrible toll: Two good seasons with the Lions. His name in the paper, first for football, then, far bigger spreads, the stories of his marriage to Carolyn Ralston, socialite. Followed by the third season of football, in which Claudia was born—and his knee was ruined. Followed by a job working for his father-in-law, the PR job he could never define, but which included a corner office and a secretary who’d graduated from Swarthmore—a job involving too many drinks with too many clients: visiting VIPs, most of them football fans, all of them horny.

Followed by Darrell’s birth.

Followed by more drinking—a lot more drinking, on the job and off.

Job?

Followed by the divorce.

Followed by the final trip to the airport, his last ride with his father-in-law’s driver. At the airport, the driver hadn’t even bothered to help him with his bags.

Inside the Bell house, lights were burning brightly. The house was built on a narrow lot, over the garage. Moving quietly, the two men ascended the short flight of Spanish-tile steps to the front door. Out of long habit they opened their jackets, each man loosening his revolver in its holster.

Hastings pressed the doorbell button, stepped back. Since he’d already spoken to the suspect, he would take the lead.

But, inside, there was no sound of movement, no sign of life. Another press of the button—and another. Nothing. Hastings stepped forward, held his breath, pressed his ear to the door. Still nothing. He tested the door, which was solidly locked. In the door’s peephole prism, no movement was refracted. Hastings stepped back, returned his shield case to his pocket, stood staring at the door.

“At times like this,” Friedman observed, “I can’t help taking the cost accountant’s view. I mean, here we are, two lieutenants, making pretty good money. What’s it cost the taxpayers, portal-to-portal, for us to be here, shooting this blank?”

“Except that we don’t get overtime. Only the troops. Or have you forgotten?”

“Except that we get to take time off. Unofficial time off, in the field. Or didn’t you know?”

“Maybe we should find a phone and call. Her husband works nights. Maybe she doesn’t answer the doorbell when he’s gone.”

“From the number of lights she’s got on,” Friedman said, “and from the feeling I get, I think she’s in there.” He stepped forward, made a ham-handed fist, and banged on the door, calling out, “Mrs. Bell!” He knocked again, harder. “It’s the police, Mrs. Bell. Open the door, please.” He stepped to the door, ear against the panel, listening. Finally he stepped back. “Maybe we should’ve covered the back. After all, she’s a suspect, at least in your opinion.”

“Is that a dig?” Hastings asked sourly.

“No.”

“Anyway, these houses are all attached. So there’s no way we can cover the back unless we climb fences. That means dogs.”

“Let’s call her, what the hell. Maybe she—”

“The police, did you say?”

It was a man’s voice, behind them. Startled, both men turned. A man stood at the bottom of the stairs. Light falling on him from the Bells’ brightly lit front window revealed a paunchy, balding man wearing a “Go ’49ers” sweatshirt.

“Can we help you?” Friedman asked.

“I live next door.” The stranger pointed. “I heard you say you’re from the police.”

“That’s right.” Palming his shield case, Friedman led the way down the narrow stairs. “We’re looking for Teresa Bell. Have you seen her tonight?”

With the three of them standing beside the driveway, the man was studying Friedman’s badge with great interest. Finally he said, “God, that’s pretty impressive. Gold, eh?”

“Gold-plated,” Friedman answered dryly. “It’s your tax dollars, remember.”

“Hmmm …”

“May I have your name, sir?”

“Sure. It’s Penziner. Bernard Penziner. I live next door.” He pointed again. “And I was working in the garage, on my car. There’s an alternator problem, I think. It’s cranking out the volts, but not enough amps. And I heard you pounding, and hollering ‘police.’ So, naturally”—as if to apologize for his curiosity, Penziner spread his pudgy palms—“naturally, I thought I’d take a look, see what it was.”

“And have you seen Mrs. Bell?” Friedman persisted patiently.

“Tonight, you mean? Now?”

“Right.”

“Well, no, I haven’t. But she never goes out at night. Almost never, anyhow. At least not since—” He frowned, broke off, began again: “So it wouldn’t mean much that I haven’t seen her. What’s it all about?”