The Case of the Kidnapped Angel: A Masao Masuto Mystery (Book Six) (18 page)

“And just keep an eye on that suitcase. I want that thousand dollars back.”

“Not to mention the suitcase,” Beckman said, “which cost four hundred and twenty dollars at Gucci.”

“Goddamnit!” Wainwright snarled. “Who paid for it? Did you charge it to us?”

“Gucci lent it to us, as a gesture of goodwill toward the Beverly Hills cops.”

“Clowns,” Wainwright muttered as he stalked out.

They ate at Cantor's on Fairfax Avenue. Beckman wanted tempura, but Masuto had eaten tempura for lunch and he had no great love for Los Angeles Japanese restaurants. He told Beckman that he had a craving for chicken and matzo-ball soup so they went to Cantor's. Masuto would not talk about the case. He dodged Beckman's question and talked about the TV version of
Sh
ō
gun
, the matzo balls at Cantor's, and the problem of inflation on a cop's salary. Then, as they were leaving, he said to Beckman, “Do you know where to break the connection so that a car can't start?”

“Nothing to it.”

“All right. Tonight, after they arrive, if there's a key in the car, put it into your pocket, and if there's no key, break the connection. But I don't want the cars damaged, I just want none of them able to start.”

“No sweat.”

“And if anything happens, just let it play out. No rough stuff, no daring moves, no jumping anyone. Just watch me and play my game.”

“What are you looking for?”

“Just being careful.”

It was eight o'clock when they got to Mike Barton's house, and the only car in the parking space was Elaine Newman's Mustang. Dempsy, still on duty, came out to meet them.

“No one here yet?”

“Only Miss Newman. She's been here all afternoon. The cook and the maid—that's all.”

“Good. Now, listen, Dempsy, if something happens tonight, no guns or rough stuff. If someone has a gun, no shooting if you can help it. Play it very cool.”

“What do you expect, Sergeant?”

“I don't know. Maybe nothing.”

Beckman carried the suitcase into the house. “You know, Masao,” he said, “I never thought of money being heavy. This is heavy.”

Elaine Newman had opened the door for them, saying, “Thank God you're here, Sergeant. This place is spooky. What have you got in there?”

“About nine and a half reams of bond paper and some twenty-dollar bills. Do you have a closet in the library where you can stow it until we need it?”

“Absolutely.” She was alive this evening. She had broken out of the torpor of her grief. “Get him,” she said eagerly. “Get him, please. Not only for Kelly, but for Mike too.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“Angel killed Mike, didn't she? That's what you think?”

“How do you know I think that?”

“You sit in this library, and you can listen to half the house. It's these old-fashioned hot-air vents. I overheard you talking to the captain. You know she killed Mike, but if she was in it with someone else, then that makes him guilty too, doesn't it?”

“Perhaps. I don't decide matters of guilt or innocence.” He looked at her thoughtfully, reflecting that she was not beautiful, not even very pretty, but there was intelligence in the face and the wide-set, dark blue eyes were unusually striking. You saw the eyes before you saw anything else, and a head of rich thick brown hair framed them very well. She was an odd contrast to the woman Mike Barton had married and, very likely, Masuto decided, a complete reaction.

“Then get the evidence,” she said evenly.

“I'll do my best.” He turned to Beckman. “Cover the door, Sy, and steer each one into the living room. I don't want them wandering around the house. Be gentle but firm.”

“It's like a goddamn convocation of nobility.”

“Our nobility, for what it's worth. Lend a hand, please,” he said to Elaine.

“Most of them I can't stand to look at.”

Masuto smiled. “Rise above it. Serve coffee. Ask for drink orders. Be a sort of hostess.”

“Must I?”

“You're all we have. Where are the ladies?”

“In the kitchen.”

Going to the kitchen, Masuto tried to remember when he had spoken to the captain about Angel being the killer. Had it been here in the house? Too much had happened in the past thirty hours. Things ran together. In the kitchen was the warm, homey smell of baking. Lena Jones was filling a tray with cups, saucers, and cake plates. Mrs. Holtz was slicing a loaf cake.

“It smells wonderful,” Masuto said.

“Have a piece.”

“I just finished dinner.”

“Have a piece. It won't hurt you. I'll pour a cup of coffee.”

He sat at the table and munched the cake. “You're right. It's absolutely delicious. Lena,” he said to the black girl, “yesterday, when Mrs. Barton died, Dr. Haddam tells us that you brought a glass of ice and whisky upstairs and that Mrs. Barton drank it. Can you tell me exactly how that came about?”

She was frightened. She stared at Masuto without answering.

“She's just a child,” Mrs. Holtz put in. “You know what it's been like in this house yesterday and today? I'll tell you what happened. Kelly came into the kitchen. Lena and me were here. He says to Lena, ‘There's a glass of whisky on the bar. Bring it up to Mrs. Barton.' I tell him, ‘Why don't you bring it up yourself?' Then he curses. I don't want to speak bad of the dead, but he had a foul mouth. Then he stamps out of the back door.”

Masuto nodded.

“You like sugar in the coffee?”

“No, just black. Lena,” he said to the maid, “don't be afraid. Just tell me what you did then.”

She took a deep breath. “I go out then and get the glass.”

“What kind of glass?”

She went to the closet and took out a tall highball glass. “Same as this.”

“Can you remember how many ice cubes were in it?”

“Three, I guess.”

“You're a very observant young woman. And how high was the glass filled?”

She touched the glass about three quarters of an inch from the top.

“The doctor,” Masuto said, “guessed that it was Scotch whisky.”

“That's what she drank.”

“Scotch is not quite as dark as bourbon or rye. Would you guess that it was all whisky, no water.”

“Yes, sir, that's what I thought.”

“And what did you do then?”

“I brought it upstairs. Mr. McCarthy and the doctor was just outside the door, and I hear it slam as I come upstairs. Then she opens the door, sees me, and grabs the drink out of my hand. She was shaking. She just drains it down and then pushes the glass back at me and slams the door again.”

After that Masuto sat in silence for a few minutes, finishing the cake and the coffee. Then he said to Lena, “Do you think you can serve our guests tonight?”

“Yes, sir.”

“They'll be here soon. Miss Newman will help you. Most, I imagine, will want drinks. Some will have cake and coffee. Then, at about a quarter after nine, I'll get up and speak to them. When that happens, I'd like you to leave and stay here in the kitchen with Mrs. Holtz.”

The Goldbergs were the first to arrive. They came at ten minutes to nine, and looking at the fat little man with a fringe of white hair around his bald skull, and thinking of the field artillery officer who got a field commission, Masuto reflected on the callousness of time. Captain Wainwright arrived a few minutes later, and then after him, Congressman Hennesy, Mrs. Cooper, and then Bill Ranier. It was ten minutes after nine before Jack McCarthy got there, completing the group, and he said to Wainwright, “I'm here only because Joe Smith asked me to come. Otherwise, I'd have no part of this nonsense.”

Wainwright thanked him for coming. Elaine Newman took orders for drinks. Lena Jones poured coffee, her hands shaking just a bit. Della Goldberg and Bill Ranier had coffee. The others had drinks. Beckman stood unobtrusively at the entrance to the room. Elaine Newman took a seat apart from the others, who had seated themselves on three large couches that made a conversation area in front of the grand piano.

At half past nine Wainwright rose and spread his hands for silence. “I don't want you to think of this as an inquisition,” he said. “Nothing of the sort. We asked you to come here tonight to help us inject some clarity into our thinking about this case. It's a shocking case, and it does the city no good, and until it's cleared up, it will engender fear where there's no reason for fear. Our procedure tonight will be very simple. Detective Sergeant Masuto will outline some of the salient points of the case, and when he finishes, anyone who wishes to can comment. That's about it.”

Masuto stood up, and out of the corner of his eye he saw Lena Jones slip out of the room. There were no doors to the living room, but Beckman was planted solidly in the archway that led to the hall. The four men and the two women seated in the horseshoe of couches watched Masuto expectantly. Wainwright and Miss Newman were behind him.

Netty Cooper was finishing her second drink. “I think this is very thrilling,” she said. “Our brilliant Fu Manchu is going to expose a murderer.”

“Netty, don't be an ass,” Hennesy said.

“Since you're an asshole, what difference does it make?” she replied.

“Lovely, lovely,” Della Goldberg said.

“Oh, shut up and fry your own fish. Or make her the killer. Do make her the killer.”

Masuto waited.

“I think we all ought to shut up and get this over with,” McCarthy said.

“Can we begin?” Masuto asked. Silence. “Very well. Yesterday, Mr. Ranier informed me that the kidnapping of Angel Barton was not a kidnapping but rather a scam to defraud the government of income taxes.”

“That was confidential!” Ranier cried. “You have no right—”

“I have every right,” Masuto said coldly. “You did not put it to me as confidential. You laid it out in an attempt to save your own hide.”

Ranier's face tightened, but he said nothing.

“The plan, in brief, according to Mr. Ranier, included himself and Mr. and Mrs. Barton. According to Mr. Ranier, Mike Barton was in default to the government for half a million dollars in back taxes, to which extent he would benefit from the swindle.”

“Not true!” Goldberg snapped. “We had the same accountant. Mike was in default only fifty thousand dollars, and he had bonds to back that up.”

“I told Masuto what Mike told me,” Ranier protested lamely.

“Then, gentlemen and ladies, if Mr. Barton was not in default, we must look for another reason for his participation in so stupid and unworkable a scheme. Perhaps I can enlighten you—I mean those of you who are not already aware of what I am going to say. The woman, Angel Barton, had undergone a process of what is called sexual reassignment, a process which through hormonal treatment and surgery turns a man into a woman. This was the secret with which she blackmailed and controlled Mike Barton for two years.”

Masuto watched the faces. McCarthy's face was full of disbelief. Goldberg was untouched. He knew. Della Goldberg burst into tears. Netty Cooper shook her head in disbelief, and Hennesy sat with his mouth open. Ranier's face was unchanged, set tight. Masuto turned to look at Elaine Newman. She was staring at the floor.

“So the kidnapping now stands in a somewhat different light,” Masuto said. “Mike Barton was blackmailed into it, as he was blackmailed into remaining with Angel Barton, as he was controlled and manipulated—”

“I pleaded with him,” Della Goldberg burst out. “I begged him to let the world know and be damned. Joe offered him an unbreakable five-picture contract if he would divorce that devil, but he wouldn't. He said it would be the end of his life, the end of his career.”

“The plan,” Masuto said, “as Mr. Ranier laid it out to Mike Barton, was for Angel Barton to meet him at San Yisidro, take the money, drive to downtown Los Angeles, park her car, and take a taxi back here. Instead, she altered the plan—with or without Mr. Ranier's approval, we have yet to discover—and when she met her husband, she sat down next to him in his car, diverted him somehow, took her gun from her purse, and shot him.”

“Without my knowledge or approval, if there's a shred of truth in what you're saying, which I doubt!” Ranier shouted, and then turning to McCarthy, “Jack, can he do this? Stand there and slander me?”

“If he's slandering you,” McCarthy said coldly, “it's actionable. You're not required to say anything or even to remain here.”

“I damn well intend to remain here while he's spouting this garbage!”

Without appearing to respond to the interruption, Masuto continued. “Then, her husband dead, Angel put the suitcase in her car, drove downtown, and then took a cab back here. When she arrived here, she told Mr. Ranier what had happened, and he asked her what she had done with the gun. To his horror, she had forgotten to dispose of it. She gave it to him and he probably hid it for the moment behind some books in the library.”

“I won't even dignify this fantasy with a denial,” Ranier said.

McCarthy rose, one finger hooked on his belt. “You, sir,” he said to Masuto, “have concocted a story which points directly to a man who is a client of mine. You have offered not one shred of evidence. Indeed, if you had any such evidence, you would not have provoked this charade, and since you cannot arrest Mr. Ranier, you have chosen to slander him. Let me be precise. You accuse him of conniving with Angel Barton to steal a million dollars, a hundred thousand of which was his own money—”

“Or his clients' money,” Goldberg snapped. “The man's a business manager.”

“I'll thank you not to interrupt me, Joe. But to get back to Sergeant Masuto's actionable accusations. You charge that the money was placed in Angel's car. You say she drove downtown, left the car, and returned here by cab. But when she returned, she had no money, no suitcase—”