Hire a Hangman (21 page)

Vance’s handsome eyebrows drew together in a studied frown. “Teresa Bell?” He shook his head, sipped his coffee. “Sorry. It doesn’t register.”

“She lived out in the Sunset.” A pause. Then: “We think it’s possible that she killed Brice Hanchett. So we think her murder might be connected to the Hanchett homicide.”

“Wait a minute.” As if he were puzzled and signaling that he needed time to think through the riddle Hastings had just presented, Vance raised a graceful hand. “Wait—am I missing something here?”

“I don’t understand.”

“Why are you telling me all this?”

Now it was Hastings who pretended puzzlement. “I laid it out for you. Hanchett was having an affair with Carla Pfiefer. Which, according to the percentages, makes Jason Pfiefer an automatic suspect. Also according to the percentages, Barbara Hanchett is a suspect—the wronged, jealous wife. And since you’re involved with Barbara …” Meaningfully, Hastings let it go unfinished.

Vance nodded impatiently, “I understand all that. And if you’ll recall, I was playing racquetball the night Hanchett was killed.”

Hastings nodded. “Right.”

“So what’s all this got to—” Vance broke off, considered, began again: “What’s this about—” He broke off again. Then, vexed: “What’s her name again?”

“Teresa Bell.”

Vance nodded. “Right. What’s her murder got to do with me? I—Christ—I never even heard the name Bell before this minute.”

“We’re trying to cover all the bases, Mr. Vance—all the possibilities, the combinations. So we’re checking out everyone connected with Hanchett.”

“Checking out? What’s that mean?”

“It means,” Hastings said, “that I’d like to know where you were the night before last. Wednesday night. Between, say, seven o’clock and ten o’clock.”

“What happened then?”

Hastings waited for the waitress to serve Vance’s quiche before he said, “Teresa Bell was murdered about eight o’clock on Wednesday night.” His voice was patient, but his eyes were hardening.

Vance carefully cut off the triangular end of his quiche, raised it to his mouth, and began chewing methodically as he studied Hastings. When he finally spoke, Vance’s voice thinned as if he were aggrieved, pleading his case: “So are you saying—are you telling me—that I’m a suspect, that you think I killed this woman? Is that what you’re saying?”

“If I thought you’d killed her, Mr. Vance, I’d have to charge you, and give you your rights. You’ve seen the movies. You know how it goes.”

“Then why’re you asking all these questions, if I’m not a suspect?” The quiche forgotten, Vance laid his fork aside. His eyes were beginning to move restlessly, uneasily. His hands, too, were in uneasy motion, fingers indecisively clenching and unclenching. Apart from the eyes, Friedman had always said, the hands were the most revealing.

Hastings sighed, pitched his voice to an ironic note. “It’s called the process of elimination. We start with a motive. Then comes opportunity. Then we need evidence. Of those three, opportunity is the easiest to establish. Teresa Bell was murdered about eight o’clock on Wednesday night. That we know. So if you were playing racquetball, say, between seven and nine, then I can be on my way.” As if to establish the point, Hastings drained his coffee cup, pushed it away.

“The problem is, I wasn’t playing racquetball. Right now, right this minute, I can’t remember where I was Wednesday at eight o’clock.”

Hastings made no reply. As he studied the other man, he saw the telltale signs of tension surfacing: the thinning of the nostrils, the constriction of the throat, the uncertainty around the mouth, the narrowing of the eyes. Now Vance’s right hand moved toward his coffee cup—and then hesitated. Was he afraid Hastings would see his hand tremble as he raised the cup to his mouth?

With the game in the balance now, perhaps tilting in his favor, Hastings decided to lean back in his chair, fold his arms—and wait impassively. Watch, and wait.

“You talk about—” As if his throat had suddenly closed, Vance broke off, quickly licked his lips, and began again: “You talk about motive. Why the hell would I murder someone I don’t even know?”

As if he agreed, Hastings nodded. “That’s what we’re trying to figure out.” He spoke amiably, one-on-one, a standard interrogating maneuver calculated to lull the suspect into the belief that they were sharing a confidence.

A suspect? Vance?

Once an officer suspects a given subject of a crime, the law reads, then that officer must advise the subject—now a suspect—of his constitutional rights.

But not yet. Not quite yet.

Instead, in the same amiable voice, tactically, Hastings said, “We’ve got physical evidence that suggests the two murders were connected. But so far we—” As a second thought suddenly surfaced, a companion to the first, Hastings let it go unfinished. As if afraid that Vance might see too much in his eyes, Hastings frowned, shifted in his chair, looked away. How would Friedman react to this new idea—to these new ideas? Would Friedman listen, nod, then claim that—

“—at home, Wednesday night at eight o’clock,” Vance was saying. “I was home, on my exercise bike, watching TV.”

“Ah.” As if he were relieved, Hastings nodded. “TV. Yes. Thank you.”

1:30
PM

Friedman leaned back in Hastings’s visitor’s chair, laced his fingers over the mound of his stomach, allowed his heavily lidded brown eyes to half-close, and nodded judiciously. “I like it. Maybe it’s a little fancy. But I’ve got to admit it accounts for everything, ties up a lot of loose ends, gives us motives for both the murders. You realize, of course, that it’s essentially a refinement of the idea I got last night, when I called you.”

“I realize that.”

“And, of course, work yet remains.”

“I realize that, too.”

“So how do you want to handle it?”

“What’s Dolores say? Anything there?”

Dubiously, Hastings shook his head. “That’s a dark horse. Either she’s conning us, or—” His phone warbled, an outside line.

“Frank, this is Susan Parrish.”

“Hi, Susan.”

“About that expensive lunch …”

He smiled. “About that beard …”

“It’s what I said originally.” As he listened, Hastings could imagine Susan Parrish sitting at her half-cluttered desk, a wholesome, comfortable, conscientious person, the same person he’d known in high school, all those years ago, give or take thirty pounds and a few gray hairs.

“It was just about two months ago,” she was saying, “that he started to grow it.”

“Was he clean-shaven before that? Or did he have a mustache?”

A pause. Then: “That wasn’t part of the original deal.”

“I know.”

“He was clean-shaven.” Another pause. “I think.”

“Think?”

“I can check that easily enough. But I’m almost sure he was clean-shaven. Let’s say that’s the answer. Otherwise, I’ll call you back. Right away.”

“Fine. Thanks, Susan. I’ll get back to you about that lunch. Maybe the three of us can do it—you and me and Arnie.”

“Great. Gotta go.”

Hastings broke the connection and relayed the information to Friedman, who nodded complacently, as if he’d already known what Susan Parrish would say.

“Mustaches and beards and sexy Chicano gun fences …” Marveling, Friedman shook his head. “This case has it all.”

“Don’t forget the rich and famous society surgeon and the beautiful stepdaughter who’s a high-fashion model and the neurotic, disaffected son and assorted wives and lovers.”

“So if we go on this new theory of yours,” Friedman said, “it comes back to the guns. Specifically, the Colt forty-five.”

Without comment, Hastings nodded. Friedman, he knew, was about to develop a game plan.

“Which is to say,” Friedman said, “that, according to your theory, a man who maybe wore a false mustache decided he wanted Brice Hanchett dead. He found out how to get a couple of guns, which is a significant point, it seems to me. I mean, not everyone knows how to buy an illegal gun. Or, more accurately, not everyone has the stones, since the transaction is usually concluded in some dark alley, somewhere. But, anyhow, he gets the two guns from the glamorous Dolores. That was about—what—three months ago?”

Hastings nodded. “I think that’s right. Maybe four months.”

“Of course,” Friedman continued, “it’s significant, it seems to me, that he bought two guns, wouldn’t you say?”

Hastings decided not to respond.

“And it could be significant that they were collector’s guns.”

Hastings considered. “Significant how?”

“He probably paid a premium for guns like that. Meaning that either he had money to burn, or else he was a novice in the hot-gun market.”

“Or else he wanted to get in and get out. He wasn’t about to shop around.”

Friedman nodded. “An amateur.”

“An amateur. Like all our suspects.”

Friedman nodded thoughtfully. “How long ago did the Bell child die?”

“About six months ago, I think.”

“So we’re assuming that sometime between six months ago and, say, three weeks ago, give or take, our suspect made contact with Teresa Bell, and began indoctrinating her—infecting her—with the idea that she should kill Hanchett because he was responsible for the death of her son. Right?”

Hastings nodded. “Right.”

“That’s a long time to keep something like a blueprint for murder secret, it seems to me.”

Hastings made no response.

“In order to make the plan work,” Friedman went on, “the murderer had to know three things. First, he had to know about the Bell child’s death. Then he had to know the circumstances surrounding the child’s death. And, finally, he had to know that Hanchett and Carla Pfiefer were lovers.”

“Right.”

“How long’ve they been lovers, do you suppose?”

“I don’t know. I can check, though, probably.”

Friedman waved a negligent hand. “That part doesn’t matter. The rest of the time frame—when the guns were bought, and when Pfiefer grew his beard—they’re important. But how long Hanchett and Carla Pfiefer were screwing each other, that’s immaterial. The point is, our murderer knew Hanchett would be leaving Carla’s place on Green Street, Monday night.”

“The way I figure it,” Hastings offered, “our boy gave Teresa Bell the whole plan—showed her where Carla lived, told her how to shoot the Llama, told her what route to take leaving the scene, told her to ditch the Llama—all those things. Everything. He programmed her. Then, when everything was set, all he had to do was activate the plan—give her a call and tell her that Hanchett was at Carla’s place and would probably be leaving at ten or eleven, something like that. And that’s what happened Monday night.”

“And then,” Friedman said, picking up the narrative, “on Wednesday night our boy knocks on Teresa Bell’s door. She opens the door, invites him in—and gets shot with the forty-five our boy got from Dolores.”

Hastings nodded.

“Do you happen to have a theory as to why our boy killed Teresa Bell?”

“He wanted to shut her up. What else could it be?”

“Except that if he was willing to murder her—to expose himself to the risk of being caught—why didn’t he just kill Hanchett himself, in the first place?”

“Obviously because he was hoping we wouldn’t figure that Teresa killed Hanchett. It was a calculated risk. But then, when he realized Teresa was a suspect and was being questioned, and would probably talk, he knew he had to kill her to cover his trail.”

“And he used the forty-five to do the job.”

“Right.”

“Are we assuming that this guy had enough foresight to buy a second gun, just in case he had to silence Teresa Bell?” Friedman asked.

Hastings gestured impatiently. “Come on, Pete—next you’ll be asking me what he likes for dessert.”

Having anticipated the complaint, Friedman shifted his ground: “So who doesn’t have an alibi for Wednesday night, and knew Hanchett and Carla were lovers and also knew Teresa Bell was bonkers?”

“Pfiefer,” Hastings answered promptly. “He’s the most obvious. Then there’s Clayton Vance.”

“Who has a mustache,” Friedman observed. “But no visible motive.”

“Except that Barbara Hanchett has two first-class motives: jealousy and money. And she and Vance are lovers. With Hanchett dead, Barbara and Vance could live happily ever after.”

“That’s assuming Barbara wasn’t cut out of Hanchett’s will.”

“Even if she
is
cut out,” Hastings said, “a wife can always fight it. And win, usually. So can natural children. That’s the kind of case any lawyer in town will take on contingency.”

“Hmmm …” Tapping a forefinger on his stomach as he lolled belly-up in his chair, Friedman considered, his heavily lidded eyes veiled, his face impassive. Finally: “Circumstantially, it’s got to be Jason Pfiefer. From what you say, he sounds like an arrogant bastard, just the type who couldn’t handle being cuckolded. Plus he could still be crazy about his wife, which could send him right over the edge. And obviously he knew about Teresa Bell, and would’ve known how to get in touch with her, known how to prey on her obsession, and …” Friedman’s voice trailed off into silence; his eyes lost their focus. His voice was soft and reflective as he said, “God, that poor woman. She loses her son, loses her sanity, loses her life. And, Jesus, her husband—he’s the one who’s got to go on living.”

“Except,” Hastings said, “that her grudge against Hanchett was groundless. There was only one liver available, and there were several candidates. It was a pure medical decision. Hanchett didn’t deserve to die for that. He was just doing his job—and doing it well, apparently. For other reasons, sure, he might’ve deserved what he got. But not for the death of the Bell child. Teresa Bell was just bonkers, that’s all. Thousands of mothers lose their children. But they don’t commit murder because of it.”

“All that probably doesn’t help Fred Bell sleep.”

“Well,” Hastings answered wryly, “he’s only got himself to blame. He never should’ve married the girl.”

Friedman snorted, blinked, roused himself to say, “We’ve talked about Pfiefer, and we’ve talked about Vance and Barbara Hanchett. But what about John Hanchett, the screwed-up son? And what about his neurotic, alcoholic mother? Both of them hated Hanchett. And John stands to inherit. Couldn’t his mother have put John up to it?”