Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine Presents Fifty Years of Crime and Suspense (60 page)

With an explosive grunt, Leon threw all his weight against the door. The pile of books crumpled against the base of the rack. The rack teetered, tilted, hung at a twenty-degree angle for an impossible length of time; then it toppled. Books plummeted from its shelves. To the operator listening at police headquarters it must have sounded like an artillery barrage. Leon thrust his arm and shoulder through the widened opening. The big silver gun made the arm look ridiculously long. His entire body seemed to swell with the effort to squeeze past the edge of the door. He grunted again, and the noise turned into a howl of triumph as he stumbled into the bookshop.

But his eyes were not accustomed to the darkness, and he set his foot on a poorly balanced book that turned under his weight. He sprawled headlong across the pile.

The opening into the massage parlor was more than wide enough for Iiko. She darted through, and before Leon could get to his feet, she seized the door handle and yanked it shut behind her, flicking the lock button with her thumb.

In the next minute it didn't matter that the 911 operator could hear the black man pounding the steel door with his fists. The air was shrill with sirens, red and blue strobes throbbed through the windows of the Mikado. Gravel pelted the side of the building as the police cruisers skidded around the corner into the parking lot of the Mystic Arts.

Iiko did not pay much attention to the bullhorn-distorted demands for surrender next door, or even the rattle of gunfire when Leon, exhausted and confused by the turn of events since he and the sandy man had entered the Mikado, burst a lock and plunged out into the searchlights with the big silver gun in his hand. She was busy with the narrow metal dustpan she used to clean out the brazier in the sauna, sifting through the smoldering bits of charcoal in the bottom. The stones were covered with soot and difficult to distinguish from the coals, but when she washed them in the sink they shone with the same icy blueness that had caught her eye in the massage room.

The glowing coals had burned away the green cloth bag as she'd known they would. She wrapped the stones carefully in a flannel facecloth, put the bundle in the side pocket of the cloth coat she drew on over her smock, and started toward the front door. Then she remembered the fifty-two dollars the sandy man had taken from her and put in the pocket of his shiny black suit.

The sandy man was as she'd left him, naked and dead, only paler than before. She thrust the money into her other side pocket and went out.

Waiting at the corner for the bus, Iiko thought she would take the stones to the pawnshop man who bought the jewelry and gold money clips she managed from time to time to take from the clothing of her customers. The pawnshop man knew many people and had always dealt with her honestly. She hoped the stones would sell for enough to settle some of Uncle Trinh's doctors' bills.

I don't have
much to do with Protestant ministers, or clergy of any sort if I can help it. I'm Irish and Catholic, as you can tell by my name—Kevin Sweeney. My wife, Mary Margaret, is also Irish and Catholic, and unlike me she takes both seriously, so I can't always avoid contact with priests and nuns. Protestant ministers, though, are another matter altogether. They're outside my usual circle.

Jails
are
part of my usual circle, and it was at the county jail that Joop Wheeler and I first met the Reverend Jason Hobart. A lot of priests and ministers visit jails and prisons during the holiday season. But Hobart wasn't there bringing cheer and the gospel to the inmates. He wasn't visiting at all. Hobart had been arrested for setting fire to his daughter's garage.

The three of us were crowded into a small, stale, interview room—me, Hobart, and my partner, Joop. Hobart had been in jail over the weekend awaiting a bail hearing, and the time had worn at him. You could see he was normally a fastidious man, a man careful about his appearance, but a couple of nights in jail had played merry hell with his grooming. He was dirty and smelled of sweat and fear and worry.

It's never a pleasant place to be holding a conversation, the jail, and it's even worse during the Christmas season. The prisoners are more desperate, and the atmosphere is made more depressing by the unrelentingly cheerful Christmas music piped over the public address system. But Joop and I had to be there. We wanted to talk to Hobart before his bail hearing. Hobart had a good lawyer—Kirby Abbott—and he was certain to be released. A man newly released on bail has needs and interests that take priority over answering questions.

That's why Joop and I were there—to get answers to questions. Kirby Abbott, like I said, is a good lawyer, but even the best lawyer is limited by what his client tells him. Hobart, for some reason, wasn't being cooperative. He denied setting fire to his daughter's garage, but he'd refused to tell Kirby where he was at the time of the fire. That's why Kirby called us in. We're private investigators.

We do a lot of criminal defense work, Joop and I, but we rarely get a client like Jason Hobart. Before he took the cloth—if that's what Protestant ministers do—Hobart had been a successful local businessman; he owned several apartment buildings, two car dealerships, a local radio station, and probably a few other things. It made him an attractive client, for the lawyers and for us. We wouldn't any of us have to worry about collecting our fee.

When Joop and I sat down with Hobart, he repeated the story he'd told Kirby. He was innocent, he said, but he wouldn't say where he'd been when the fire started.

“It's a grand thing to be able to say you're innocent,” I said. “Not many can do that. But it's not enough for the police, you know, and it won't be enough for a jury if it goes to trial.”

Reverend Hobart nodded, but he didn't seem concerned. He just seemed tired and sad. “A jury would do the right thing. The Lord will look out for me.”

I looked at Joop and nodded toward Hobart. Joop's a Protestant—a Southern Baptist, of all things. Maybe he could talk some sense into the man.

“Juries are weird creatures,” Joop said. “I suspect a jury would want to know where you were when your daughter's garage was torched. I'm sure a jury would want to know why your daughter, Sarah—your daughter her own self—told the police
you
were the one who chucked a Molotov cocktail through her garage window.”

Joop's accent seemed to catch Hobart's attention for a moment. He's from South Carolina, Joop, and he has one of those slow, soft, cultured Southern accents. It seems almost exotic up here on the Massachusetts coast.

Hobart slowly shook his head, and there was real pain in his eyes. “Sarah,” he said. “I don't know. I just can't believe she'd … Did she say she
saw
me setting fire to her garage? That she actually
saw
me?”

I shook my head. “No. What she told the police is that you'd been threatening to burn down the garage for some time.”

“Not the garage,” Hobart said. “Not the garage, but what was inside it.”

“The statue?” Joop asked.

“It's not just a statue,” Hobart said. His eyes teared up. “It's an image of a pagan god. You have to understand, the idea of my daughter, my only child … my Sarah, worshiping graven images. Especially now at this time of year. I just couldn't allow …” He wiped his eyes and shook his head.

“Graven images?” Joop said. “I though it was an elephant.” He flipped quickly through the notes Kirby Abbott had copied for us. “Uh, yeah, right here. Wooden statue of an elephant. Doesn't say a thing about any graven images.”

Hobart shook his head. “It had the
head
of an elephant, but the body of a man. A man with four arms. It was a pagan god.”

“Really?” Joop asked. “Here it just says elephant.”

“Well, I'm afraid it's wrong.”

“Elephant or elephant god, it doesn't matter,” I said. “What matters is that the police believe you threw a Molotov cocktail through your daughter's garage window, that you deliberately tried to destroy her statue and garage.”

“Tried?” Hobart said. “I thought … I was under the impression it had been destroyed.”

“Nope,” Joop said. “Just some minor damage is all. Singed around the edges.”

Hobart looked up. “Are you talking about the statue? Or the garage?”

“Neither was badly damaged,” I said. “At least that's what we were told. We haven't gone there to look yet.”

Hobart shook his head. “I thought it … I thought the police said the statue had been destroyed.”

“That's the problem with a Molotov cocktail, you know,” Joop said. “You got almost no control over the results. If you go chucking Molotov cocktails through garage windows, you can't complain when the job doesn't get done.”

“I've said I didn't do it,” Hobart said. “I've told that to the police. I've told it to my lawyer, and I've told it to you. I—didn't—do—it.”

“Well, there you go,” Joop said. He turned to me. “He didn't do it. This is probably all just a simple mistake. Probably if we tell the police, they'll let him go.”

It's impossible to keep Joop from joking around, and I've given over trying, but someday the boy is going to get us fired. “It would help us if you'd tell us where you were at the time of the fire,” I said to Hobart.

“I can tell you I wasn't at my daughter's house,” he said wearily.

I nodded. “Yes, but why can't you tell us where you
were?
We know you weren't at your house. Your neighbors saw you drive away around seven P.M. We know the fire was extinguished around eight thirty, and we know you didn't return home until around eleven fifteen. What we don't know is where you were between seven and eleven fifteen.”

“That was really bad timing, by the way,” Joop said. “Coming home just when you did. Just as the police are knocking at your door to ask you questions. If you'd stayed away another fifteen, twenty minutes you probably wouldn't have had to spend the weekend in jail.”

“Do you think you could find your way clear to tell us where you were?” I asked. “We're trying to help you, remember.”

“I've already told Mr. Abbott,” Hobart said. “I was doing the Lord's work.”

I nodded. “Yes, I'm sure you were—but
where?
”

Hobart shook his head. “I can't tell you without breaking a confidence,” he said. “All I can say—and all you need to know—is that I was doing the Lord's work.”

“Doing the Lord's work may get your earthly butt tossed in prison,” Joop said.

“The Lord will take care of me,” Hobart said.

“Well, then the Lord will have to take care of you in jail,” Joop said.

Hobart glared at Joop.

“Mr. Hobart, Joop isn't always a tactful as he could be,” I said. “But he's basically right. Unless we can show you weren't at your daughter's house that night, there's a good chance you'll be spending a lot more time behind bars.”

Hobart sadly shook his head. “I'm sorry,” he said. “I can't help you. I can't break a confidence.” He looked up at me. “I assume you'll talk to my daughter?”

I nodded. “Probably. If she'll talk to us.”

“When you see her, will you give her a message for me?” Hobart said. “Will you tell her I'm worried about her? About her soul? And will you tell her I love her?”

I shook my head. “I'll tell her you're worried about her and that you love her,” I said. “But souls aren't our business. Dealing with the flesh is tough enough.”

It was a relief to get out of the jail, away from the gloom and the wretched Christmas music. I like
real
Christmas music—the old carols and motets I heard in church when I was a boy. I don't want to be hearing about snowmen and reindeer and mommy kissing Santa Claus.

Joop was cheerful as we drove away from the jail. “I think we ought to go take a peek at this statue thing,” he said. “I think it's imperative is what it is.” Joop takes an unhealthy pleasure in his work. I sometimes think the only reason he became a P.I. is so he'd have a legitimate reason for nosing around in other people's affairs.

“Okay,” I said. “We need to interview the daughter. There's no reason we can't look at the garage and the statue at the same time.”

“This is so cool,” he said. “Four arms
and
an elephant head. Four arms would have been enough. But an elephant head, that's gravy. We didn't have anything like that at the First Ezekiel Baptist Church down home. We didn't have any statues at all. Hell, we didn't even have any
pictures
. Just plain white walls. Now my Aunt Cooter, she had a picture of …”