Naked Cruelty (24 page)

How to pass the time? That was the worst, the vainest question of all—until he really looked at his treasure trove of pencils and pens, his eraser and white-out.

I will use the walls to do mathematics! he thought, suddenly excited. I will go back over all my equations and check that they are right. Some of my peers insist I am wrong, and I have refuted them in the comfort of my study, using proper blackboards that must be erased. But here, in this place, I cannot do that. I'll write very small, and not erase one single step. By the time I am too weak to hold a pencil, I will have left my entire career behind on these walls. And when my pencils grow blunt, I will sharpen them with my Swiss Army knife. I may never need the implement that gets a stone out of a horse's hoof, but I will make great and fine use of the blade.

He stood in the center of the room and surveyed his prison keenly: where to begin? Yes, that far left-hand corner! One wall at a time. He was so excited that he knocked his left hand against a wall as he spun around; the bleeding increased. Sparing it no more than an angry glance, Kurt von Fahlendorf ignored it as he went to the designated spot and started below a very large infinity sign written in red ball-point. His chapters would be in red, a little like Helen and her colored journals.

“When I heard,” said Desdemona, tramping through the forest alongside Carmine, “that almost everybody was working alone, I decided that it wouldn't do Julian or Alex any harm to spend a few days with Prunella. It's impossible for me to hike these days, so don't you dare send me home.”

She had topped the ridge in front of him like a glorious figurehead on a mighty ship of the line, he had thought, winded; as he watched her come down the slope to join him; his knees went weak, it was all he could do to stay upright. What a woman! A goddess! And she's mine!

“Today is one day I don't need to be alone,” he said. “I guess you've heard about Morty Jones?”

“Yes. Netty Marciano called me. So did John Silvestri, who says you're blaming yourself too much.”

“How do people box themselves so tightly into a corner that the only way out is to eat a gun?” he asked.

“Suicide is the ultimately selfish act, my love, you know that. Think what a mess Morty's left behind. No will, even, so Netty says. He and Ava should have made wills on their wedding day as we did. Quitting this earth is complicated when there are children and property involved, and worse with a vengeful, greedy wife. Though Ava is going to have to look elsewhere for lovers than the Holloman PD, according to Netty. The ranks have closed against her. The poor little children are in a bit of a limbo—Ava's more interested in what money she can get.”

“And here was I thinking that when Danny retired, Netty's sources would dry up. I'm glad they haven't. Many's the time she's given us a lead.” Carmine sighed. “Like you, I grieve for the kids. I sometimes think people should have to have a license to produce them. Whatever, it shouldn't have happened to Morty, he didn't have the strength to deal with Ava. The thing is, how do I approach Corey?”

She paused, shading her eyes; the sun was past its zenith. “Is that a shack down here?”

“It is. It won't yield anything, Desdemona, but we leave no stone unturned.”

“You approach Corey as you ought,” she said as their pace increased. “He's earned some censure, no doubt of that.”

“I dread bad feelings. Stay back behind this tree until I make sure the coast is clear.”

“Of course you dread bad feelings!” she shouted at his back. “You're a good boss, and good bosses are soft as well as hard. I suffer because I have to watch you suffer, but I'll do what I can to help. Like a favorite dinner,” she said slyly.

“Terrible woman! Food is not uppermost in my mind.”

“It will be, by dinner time.”

They examined the shack, long decayed; it had no cellar or stouter compartment.

“We're working toward North Rock, aren't we?” Desdemona asked as they walked on.

“Yes, into the cleft where the deserted mansion is.”

“Do you think—?”

“We'll reach it tomorrow, but we won't find Kurt there. Would you use it if you were a kidnapper, knowing it will be gone over the way a chimpanzee picks for lice? A whole week has to elapse between demand and ransom payment—no, they've stashed Kurt in a place virtually impossible to find.”

“Oh, Carmine!” she cried. “People are so diabolical—and so
greedy
!
I can understand the Dodo better, killing for sexual urges he can't control. But greed? It's—it's despicable, and that's worse than monstrous!”

“Murder of any kind is diabolical.” Carmine gave his wife a shrewd glance. “The shadows are too long, lovely lady. Let's go home to our kids.”

“W
e're searching on a proper grid, Frau von Fahlendorf … That makes it more likely that we'll find your brother's prison, but we're working in ignorance … I don't think you need fear that our police efficiency isn't up to the task … Yes, ma'am, that is correct, but we cannot tell our journalists what to say. We have freedom of the press, and the trashier ones tend to make things up if the story isn't dramatic enough … I agree, this is one story doesn't need embroidering, but … Thank you, Frau von Fahlendorf … Good afternoon.”

“Phew!” Helen exclaimed, putting the phone down. “They really do think they're the only ones can do anything, don't they? She's an autocrat, the Frau. She either suspects or knows that the kidnappers are German, so she's on the defensive. Was I okay, sir?”

“You did well,” said Carmine. “What intrigues me is that the family von Fahlendorf hasn't sent someone to Holloman, though they've had the weekend to do it. It's where Kurt is, no matter where the kidnappers are. That raises some possibilities: one is that Dagmar knows Kurt is already dead, and another, that Dagmar knows they're going to get Kurt back alive. I ask myself, is someone in Germany, acting for the kidnappers, in direct contact with Dagmar, who would rather trust villains from her own part of the world than good guys from a country she doesn't know? A country, moreover, that stole her beloved Kurtchen. She's forgotten it was his choice to emigrate.”

“To me, the most important point,” said Delia, “is why the family hasn't sent someone here? What if we find Kurt alive? The poor chap won't be greeted by one family face, and that positively stinks. Even my potty papa would come for me.”

“That tells me they know he's dead,” said Nick.

“They're going to refuse to pay the ransom?” Helen asked.

“It kind of looks that way,” Carmine answered.

“In which case, why does Dagmar keep trying to get the bank and account number out of us?” Delia asked.

“So they can say we gave it to them,” Carmine said.

“They could say that anyway,” Nick said.

“That's true,” from Delia. “The other answer is that there's no one to send here. Dagmar must suspect her husband is behind it, the Baron is senile, and the mother is retiring and giving her money to the grandchildren. She might be senile too.”

“That flies,” said Nick.

“He tried to steal her industrial secrets once. I imagine Dagmar must suspect Josef of the kidnapping,” Carmine said.

“She genuinely may not suspect him.” Helen squeezed her hands together. “Oh, I wish I knew the family! I wish I was there!”

“I couldn't agree more, Helen,” said Delia. “Not knowing the suspects, how can we solve the case?”

“What about the FBI?” Nick asked. “They have better foreign contacts than the police department of a small city.”

“Not a brass monkey, according to Hunter Wyatt,” Carmine said. “Like us, he's convinced it's a German job.”

Corey and Abe came in.

Corey was looking haggard. Everyone in Detectives knew why; he had to face an enquiry over Morty Jones's death, and he had also to face Carmine. Both were postponed until the search for Kurt von Fahlendorf was over, but that moment was drawing closer with every tick of the clock.

“Anything?” he asked.

“Nothing.”

Abe Goldberg didn't look hopeful, and that was a bad sign. As he had an uncanny instinct for hidden doors and vents going nowhere, he was Carmine's secret compartments expert; for that reason Carmine had allocated him a strip of territory to the south and west of Holloman Harbor, an industrial wasteland beyond the airport where functioning factories and workshops were mixed with buildings and sweat shops long abandoned. Though it had streets, it was a wilderness of sorts, bounded by the Holloman jail and I-95.

“Not a sausage, as you'd say, Delia,” Abe said. “I've been searching for four days without a twitch or a tremble, and that's bad. I don't think he's there, but I haven't finished, so I'll keep on going, Carmine.”

“You do that, Abe. If he is there, you'll find him.”

Today was Tuesday, October 22, and the search had been in full swing since dawn of last Friday. Desdemona was taking his place today, allowing Carmine time to check up on the Dodo. The first phase of this consisted in a short walk to the Medical Examiner's; Patrick was in his office. When his first cousin came in Patrick's face lit up and he pointed at the coffee pot. “Just brewed,” he said, putting his pen down.

“The autopsy on Melantha Green,” said Carmine, sitting with a mug of fresh coffee. “The last of the bloodwork hadn't come through when Kurt von Fahlendorf was kidnapped, and we've been on that non-stop ever since. What goes?”

“Nothing helpful,” Patrick said, pouring himself coffee. “She had amphetamine in her bloodstream, I suspect self-administered to keep awake and on top of a crushing workload. There was no other substance present. His anesthetic was crude—a clip on the jaw that probably stunned her but didn't knock her out. She was known to have a black belt in judo, hence the clip, which wasn't hard enough to cause any meningeal bleeding. Her death was due to asphyxiation.” Patrick sipped. “The young man was killed by someone who can shoot. The throat shot was perfect, the second bullet overkill. He used a .22 pistol.”

“No one heard the shots, yet the other apartment was tenanted and its inhabitants were actually awake—the wife was sick to the stomach,” Carmine said. “He used a silencer.”

“Must have done, but not a home-made device. I doubt the Dodo was interested in the young man. Two shots, then he went back to cleaning up after Melantha.”

“Did he wash Melantha with soap and water?”

“No, he simply wiped her down with xylene. That you know.”

“Good coffee, cuz, but bad news,” said Carmine, smiling. “Anything else on any other case?”

“No, but something else on the Dodo. I think you should go talk to Nick and Delia.”

“I just left them!”

“Sorry about that.”

“Shit!” Carmine put his half drunk coffee down. “Maybe I can catch them before they go searching their grid.”

But it was Corey he encountered in the parking lot. His lieutenant flinched, but had the sense to stop.

“You're in big trouble, Cor.”

“I don't see why.”

“A man on your team is dead.”

“That's not my fault.”

“In one way, it is. Several other people noticed that Morty was depressed, and I even spoke to you about it. You sneered.”

“Now isn't the time to have this, Carmine. I'm going to my search area right this second.”

“You're only piling up demerits, Cor.”

“Fuck the demerits!”

Carmine watched him go, then got into his Fairlane and drove off toward the shoreline of Busquash Bay, where his list said Nick and Delia were searching on the far side of the peninsula from the Inlet and getting close to the neighboring district of Millstone, home to Delia.

He found them walking along the rocks at the base of the low Busquash cliffs, and paused to take in the sight before they knew he was in the offing. Nick had changed into shorts, a tee shirt and tennis shoes, but Delia possessed no leisure apparel in her lavish wardrobe. She was paddling along bare-legged, her miniskirt hitched up a few inches, something like a multihued crab with two pallid rear legs; her dress was marbled in bright green, orange, cyclamen and ultramarine blue.

“Hi!” he yelled. “It's lunch time, see you in the Lobster Pot—Nick, you're okay dressed like that!”

“What on earth do you hope to find literally foot-deep in water?” he asked when they were settled in a booth.

“Old gun emplacements,” said Delia.

“They went years ago, Deels.”

“You'd be surprised. How many have we found, Nick?”

“Four so far, east of the Carew-East Holloman boundary. Ben Cohen and his team found nine in East Holloman, on the point, mostly. The guns are all gone, the emplacements are cunning,” Nick said. “I guess no one sees them, so no one bothers about them.”

“The things you learn!” Carmine said.

Nick and Delia were ravenous, and made short work of their lobster rolls; Carmine let them eat in peace. Over coffee he broached the reason for seeking them out.

“Patsy says you know something about the Dodo.”

“No, about the kidnap,” Nick said, lighting a cigarette and inhaling luxuriously. “Tell the man, Delia.”

“We think we found the spot where the kidnappers jumped Kurt—not really important, as it offers no clues of help, but interesting. We can show you if you like.”

One hand waving for the check, Carmine looked eager. Nick and Delia piled into their unmarked and Carmine ranged his Fairlane behind them, forcing himself to a sedate pace as the two cars headed for Persimmon Street in Carew. There Nick and Delia pulled into the kerb, Carmine following suit. Once he joined them Delia pointed to the intersection with Spruce Street. Curzon Close was clearly visible two hundred yards away.

“It was here, on this corner,” Nick said. “See the skid marks? I checked, the tires are Michelin and the right size for the Porsche. Von Fahlendorf's a good driver, he came out of the skid slowly, and left us some pattern. See here? Glass from a Porsche parking light, forensics told us. And see this? It's blood, the same type as Kurt's.”

“Look at these bushes,” said Delia, leading Carmine over to the corner house, where tall smoke bushes grew along the edge of the sidewalk. “They pounced when he got out of his car, and he must have reeled before he lost consciousness. Someone landed heavily in the bushes. We took photos of everything.”

“Why haven't you mentioned this?” Carmine asked.

“Since we're looking for him, we couldn't see a good reason why,” said Delia. “We dealt with the forensics in case it was ever needed in the future—you had enough on your plate, boss, when this blew up.”

“How could the kidnappers stage their abduction between ten and ten-thirty on a busy street in Carew?”

“Persimmon and this side of Spruce are concealed and dampened by trees,” Nick said. “All they needed were a couple of minutes.”

“But the collision?”

“Was staged, we think. Someone stepped out in front of Kurt, he braked in a well driven skid, and when he got out of the car, they jumped him. The blood is his, whether from a head blow or the finger amputation, who knows?”

“Well done,” said Carmine. “Kurt was loaded into their car, one of the two drove the Porsche, and they accomplished whatever they had to do in two and a half hours. By one, both of them were putting the Porsche in Kurt's garage. All they needed to do then was walk around the corner to their own vehicle. A pity Gordie Warburton went back to bed.”

“It looks like two kidnappers to me,” said Nick.

“And to me,” said Carmine. “The gall! Whoever they are, they have superb confidence in themselves.”

Mention of Gordon Warburton prompted Carmine to go and see Amanda Warburton, who was in her shop and looking well.

“I continue to enjoy a trouble-free existence,” she said.

“Did you get a museum expert to look at the glass teddy bear, Miss Warburton?”

“No,” she said, and laughed. “Even if he is as valuable as you say, Captain, he's as much a fixture in my window as Frankie and Winston. People don't believe that he's priceless.”

“Business is good?”

“Very good.”

“And the twins? How are you getting on with them?”

“What a shock when they turned up! I don't have any idea why they moved to Holloman and then didn't tell me, except that it's not money, I gather.” She smiled. “To answer your question, I'm on good terms with them. Perhaps they're not ideal nephews, but now they've confessed that they're down the road in Carew, they are behaving delightfully. I've decided to leave them in my will as my heirs, which solved a dilemma.”

He concealed his alarm. “You didn't tell them, I hope?”

“No, Captain, I won't do that. Let it come as a surprise—oh, thirty years from now.”

“Take care of yourself.”

“I do, honestly.” Her eyelids dropped, she looked a little inscrutable. “Hank Murray is a great help to me.”

He left carrying an image of her pretty, smiling face, and decided to see Hank Murray before he left the Busquash Mall.

Hank was dressed casually in jeans and an open-necked shirt; Carmine caught a glimpse of a sparsely hairy chest, and decided that if he himself were to wear a chest toupee, it would sport better hair than Hank Murray's! Hank's chest hair, he concluded, was the real thing.

“You look as if you're going on a picnic,” he said.

Hank grinned. “No, Captain. I've been out searching for Professor von Fahlendorf. Captain Vasquez roped in quite a few local men to comb the vacant lots and houses of Carew. Mark Sugarman, Mason Novak and I all volunteered. Kurt was a friend.”