Hire a Hangman (18 page)

“Barbara could’ve known about Teresa Bell. She could’ve planned it.” Warming to his subject, Hastings spoke more rapidly now, more avidly. “Vance got the guns. Then one of them—Vance or Barbara—contacted Teresa Bell. They planned the whole thing, in detail. Vance gave Teresa the gun, told her how to use it, gave her the game plan. But when we started questioning Teresa, they spooked. They knew she’d talk. So one of them killed her, to keep her quiet.”

“It’s actually all the same theory,” Friedman said. “Just different characters. My theory, don’t forget.”

“How could I forget?”

“So what now?”

“First, I’m going to finish dinner. Then I’m going to interrogate Paula Gregg. Then I’ll find out how long Pfiefer’s been wearing a beard.”

“Good man.”

9:15
PM

“Miss Gregg? Paula Gregg?”

She was tall and vivid, a lean, restless-moving blonde with bold eyes. Legs braced, one fist propped on an outthrust hip, the other hand on the doorknob. She wore a man’s large, long-tailed white dress shirt—and probably nothing else.

Looking down at the gold shield, frowning, she said, “More police. I already talked to someone. An Italian. And I’ve got … company.” She said it defiantly, challenging him.

“Do you have a bedroom?”

The frown deepened as she raised her eyes to meet his. She was a brown-eyed blonde, an unusual type, if the blond hair was real.

“Yes, I’ve got a bedroom. Why?”

“Tell him to stay in the bedroom and close the door. I’m not interested in your sex life. But I’m investigating the Hanchett murder—and, now, another murder. And I want to talk with you. It won’t take long. But it’s got to be done. Now. Right now.”

“Don’t you need a warrant before I have to let you in?”

He nodded. “You’re right, I do. And I don’t have a warrant. So if you don’t let me in, that’s it. You close the door and I walk away. But I don’t think that’s a game you want to get into, Miss Gregg.”

“Oh? Why’s that?”

“Because it all goes on your tab, that’s why. You can cause me trouble tonight. But I can cause you a lot more trouble down the line. Believe me.”

For a long, furious moment she defied him with smoldering eyes. But finally: “Fuck it.” She whirled, strode down the short hallway and across a huge, dimly lit room to a half-open door. She said something to someone inside, said “Fuck it” again, slammed the door, and strode to a leather sling chair. As she threw herself into the chair, Hastings caught a glimpse of pale thighs and red panties beneath the white shirt.

The apartment occupied the top floor of a waterfront loft building that had originally been a loading shed built on one of the city’s turn-of-the-century deep-water wharfs. But as real-estate speculators had dumped fill into San Francisco Bay and then built high-rise buildings on the fill, the bay had grown smaller. The wharves that had once served square-riggers now offered high-cost housing to trend-conscious San Franciscans.

“Interesting place.” Hastings surveyed the outsize room. Its rough wood walls and lofty roof cross-bracing were whitewashed; its ancient planked floor was oiled. Half of one wall was glass, and looked directly out on San Francisco Bay, with the jewel-lit hills of Berkeley and Oakland in the background and the slow-moving red running lights of an inbound freighter animating the vista in the foreground. The whitewashed walls featured more than a dozen huge blowups of Paula Gregg, some of them nudes.

“Jungle Passion,”
Canelli had said, marveling as he remembered interrogating Paula Gregg.

Her leather sling chair was one of three companion chairs placed close beside the large, free-standing, black iron fireplace that dominated the room. Without ceremony, Hastings hooked the frame of one of the chairs with his toe, turning it to face the woman.

“Since you’re tight on time,” Hastings said, glancing pointedly toward the closed bedroom door, “I’ll come right to the point.”

“Good.”

“At eight o’clock last night—Wednesday night—where were you?”

She shrugged. It was a slow, languid gesture. The brown eyes were brooding now, more speculative than hostile. She was changing tactics: the female of the species, sizing up a new male.

“I was out. Somewhere.” She shrugged. “Anywhere.”

Watching her, listening to her, Hastings decided that she was probably on a recreational drug—cocaine, possibly. When he’d knocked on the door, she’d been up, manic. Now she was coming down. Slowly, sensuously coming down. Looking him over. Had she ever had a cop? Was she trying to remember?

“Who were you with last night?”

She shrugged again. Her back was arched, her neck curved. Her whole body came together, tight as a drawn bow, registering haughty disdain. If she’d ever had a cop, it had been a disappointment. “I was with different people. It was a party.”

“You’ll have to do better than that, Paula. A lot better.”

“Oh? Why?”

“I’ve already told you. There’re two murders. Brice Hanchett was shot and killed Monday night, on Green Street. Teresa Bell was shot and killed last night at her home in the Sunset. These murders were connected.”

“And you think I killed them.” It was a flat, hostile statement. Her eyes, too, had gone flat and hostile.

Yes, “Jungle Passion.” A steamy thirty-second TV commercial: the wild, predatory female with hair like a lion’s mane, a body that promised everything, and eyes that smoked, devouring the camera.

“I think you had a motive. And in my business, motive is what it’s all about.”

“What motive are you talking about?”

He’d been expecting the question; he was prepared. Even before she’d come on so strong, the aggressor, he’d decided on his reply. “I’m told that when you were young, living with Hanchett and your mother, Hanchett molested you.” Holding her gaze, he spoke quietly, evenly.

The reaction began down deep: a tightening of her mouth, a shifting of her long, lean legs, an inward contraction of the torso, as if she were shrinking away from him. Finally the dusky brown eyes faltered, flinched, revealing a crevice of hidden pain.

“Who told you that?” Her voice was low and harsh; her eyes turned hot and hostile, masking the pain.

“It doesn’t matter. What I—”

“It
does
matter, goddamn you.” She sprang out of the chair, strode to the plate-glass window, turned to face him. The anger had returned, touching her magnificent body with sexual magic.

The body was her fortune—and the anger was her shield.

Twenty years old, Canelli had said. Marveling.

“It was my mother. Wasn’t it? She told you.”

“No,” he answered, “it wasn’t your mother. That much I’ll tell you. That much, but no more.”

“Fiona?” It was a hard, bitter demand. “That drunk?”

Watching her, he made no response. The long, hostile moment held.

“Shit.”
She shook her tawny mane sharply, then strode to the chair. This time the flash of her legs revealed more. He recognized the display for its true meaning: a statement of contempt, not enticement. Bred-in-the-bone contempt. Paula’s way.

If she was on drugs, then she’d come back from the downer. Paula’s high.

“You know John Hanchett?” Hastings asked. “Right?”

“Is
he
the one?”

“Listen, Paula—forget it. I’m not going to tell you who told me. Period. Have you got that?”

No reply. No quarter. Just the eyes, boring in.

“Do
you know John Hanchett?”

As if she were making an effort to control herself, she drew a long, harsh breath. Then: “Everyone’s entitled to a mistake. John was a mistake, put it that way.”

“Are you lovers, you and John?”

“We’re back to my sex life, are we?”

“We’re back to murder.” He decided to gamble, therefore to lie: “We’ve got information that John Hanchett might’ve brought the two guns that killed both Brice Hanchett and Teresa Bell. So if I were you, Paula, I’d stop and think. I’d think very carefully. Because if we connect John to the murder weapons, and if you’re connected to John, then that connects both of you to murder.” He watched her for a moment before he said, “Have you got that?”

She made no reply. But her eyes were losing focus. His words were sinking in. Slowly sinking in. Signifying a shift of emphasis that would allow the question of her connection with John to simmer.

Signifying that he should soften his manner as he said, “Last night”—he took out his notebook—“you say you were on the town. Which means that—”

“I
was
on the town. And I wasn’t keeping track of—”

“Which means,” he continued, “that you were with people. So if you’ll just give me a few names, so I can—”

“So you can
what?”
She demanded.

“So I can verify that—”

“Forget it.”

He looked up from the notebook. “I’m investigating a homicide, Paula. A capital crime. And you’re giving me a hard time. That’s called obstruction of justice. And that’s a felony. Now—” He let a beat pass. “Now I’m going to ask the question again. And if you duck it again, then I’m going to haul your beautifully shaped ass downtown. I’ll book you. Then I’ll turn you over to a matron. She’ll take you to a holding cell, where you’ll spend the night. Maybe you can find a lawyer who’ll get you released tomorrow morning, when a judge is available. I expect you probably can. But I can guarantee, Paula—I can absolutely guarantee you—that your ass is never going to feel quite the same to you again, after a night in a holding cell with maybe a dozen hookers and druggies.” He let her think about it. Then: “A lot of those hookers, you know, swing either way. They swing with men for the money—and women for the kicks.”

“You’re bluffing.”

“Try me.”

For a long, decisive moment their eyes locked. She muttered a single heartfelt obscenity, then capitulated. The four names she gave him were all men.

After verifying the spellings, Hastings thanked her, returned his notebook to his pocket, and rose.

“I don’t want you to leave town, Paula. Not unless you check with me.” He stepped close, dropped his card in her lap, then walked to the door and let himself out. As he walked the half-block to his car, he committed firmly to memory the single essential question the interrogation had developed: Why hadn’t Paula Gregg asked about the connection between Teresa Bell and Brice Hanchett?

Was the obvious answer the right one? Had she already known the connection?

11:30
PM

Carefully closing the bedroom door, Hastings put his holstered revolver and shield case and handcuffs in the top dresser drawer, put his billfold, keys, paper, and small change on “his” end of the big double dresser. He draped his robe over “his” chair, verified that the window was open about six inches at the top, the way Ann liked it, and closed the lower sash—the way he liked it. Then, noiselessly, he moved to his side of the bed, drew back the covers, and slipped into bed. Careful not to wake her, he settled himself, sighed, pushed at his pillow, sighed again. Now he turned on his left side, to face her. She was turned toward him. Her dark blond hair, shoulder-length, fell softly on the pillow, a halo of gold. Some of the hair fell across her face. Delicately he lifted the fine-spun strand, moved it away from her face.

Should he awaken her?

Would she like to talk?

When he’d left, she and Billy had still been at the dinner table, still arguing about the running shoes that “all the guys, every single one,” were wearing. When Hastings had clipped on his gun and pocketed his shield case and checked his pager and announced that he had to go out for an hour or two, and kissed Ann on top of the head as she sat at the table, her look had been skeptical. Did he really have to leave? Couldn’t he stay, and lend her moral support?

Last night it had been the ex-husband, Victor Haywood, and his constant threats of harassment. Compounded, last night, by Victor Haywood’s beloved Porsche, with its broken door.

Last night, Ann’s ex-husband.

Tonight it had been Billy, twelve years old, feeling his way. Tomorrow it could be Dan, sixteen. Billy was the extrovert, the activist, the squeaky wheel that got the grease. Dan was the quiet one. Billy inflicted pain on others; Dan, brooding, punished himself.

Yet they were good, sound, generous kids who loved their mother. Neither of them lied, neither of them cheated. And neither played Hastings off against Ann. Billy and Dan fought fair. In appreciation, he’d done what surrogate fathers were supposed to do: He’d taken them to ball games and put up a basketball hoop in the driveway. He’d also taken them to the police range and, despite Ann’s misgivings, taught them to shoot.

Yawning, Hastings turned, lay on his back, let his eyes close.

Fighting fair …

Was that the essence of family life? If you fought fair, you might survive. Was that what marriage meant?

Had they ever fought, he and Carolyn? Screamed at each other? Laid hands on each other? No. In more than five years of marriage, they’d almost never shouted. They’d once cared enough to produce two children. But they’d never cared enough to fight. Carolyn was too cool to fight, too calculating, too busy playing the socialite about to have her picture taken. And he’d been too—too—

Was there a word for it?

What was the word for him?

He was in his forties, and he still hadn’t discovered the word. There were images—snapshots in the album of his memories—but no single, definitive word. There was an image of his boyhood home: a cookie-cutter stucco row house, like the Bells’ house. There was his father, the small-time real-estate broker, a big, talkative, vain man who always wore ties and drove big cars he couldn’t afford. There was his mother, a thin, discouraged woman with wounded eyes who’d had to go to work at Sears, selling better dresses, after his father had left.

There were other images: The first day of tryouts for freshman football in high school. Later, there were the newspaper clippings when he’d made all-city, then all-state, in his senior year. But by that time his father was dead. So, with only his mother to read them, the clippings had lost much of their meaning.

Then there was the letter from Stanford, his scholarship acceptance: four full years, as long as he remained eligible for football.