Naked Cruelty (31 page)

“I see. And Heinrich Müller?”

“Will get a big fat promotion. Oh, he was there! I'm also sure the men he saw looked like Turks, may well have been Turks. But I very much doubt that Josef died with Kurt's name on his lips—or that he died so slowly. I don't know how clever Müller is, but he's probably clever enough to suspect that he was given this special job in order to be there as a witness. If he earns a big fat promotion out of it, I predict that he won't care who set it up or for what reason. Dagmar had him pegged as promising.”

“So who do you think set it up, Deels?”

“A von Fahlendorf. Which one is the brain-teaser. Not our Kurt, of that we can be sure, I think. The family was anxious to get him out of Europe. But whether it's the Baron, the Baroness or Dagmar, I don't know. My choice is Dagmar.”

“Broken heart and all?”

“The broken heart makes her more likely, in my book. A woman scorned and all that stuff? According to Helen, Josef is—was—a gorgeous looking bloke, smooth as satin, charming as Cary Grant. She'd already forgiven him an attempted scam and must have been positive he wouldn't err again. But to think he'd kill her baby brother—! Ooo-aa! That's blood versus love,” said Delia with a shudder. “I'd choose blood over love every time.”

“So would I, I think. What will the German cops think?”

“That some Turks did it. That it was Turks planned the kidnapping too.”

“In which case, why kill Josef?”

Delia pursed her lips. “Some abstruse Ottoman mind-set? A peculiar eastern revenge? I think the German cops will be so grateful to have a solution offered to them that they won't ask too many uncomfortable questions.”

His glass was empty; Carmine declined a refill. “Thanks, but no. I have to get home for dinner.”

“There's a chance the Dodo will strike tonight.”

“I know. That means early to bed.”

TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 5
to
SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 30

1968

H
e hadn't struck a week early after all; when push came to shove, he just hadn't felt like it. What was the point in moving up to murder if simultaneously he made life easier for himself? The big, muscular cop Carmine Delmonico was a hazard he knew he was capable of beating, but the victory must be worthy of Catherine dos Santos, she of the prison bars and multiple locks.

She had told him the story as they huddled together on Mark Sugarman's couch, giggling.

“The realtor told me,” she confided, violet-blue eyes shining. “Such a joke! Simons built the apartments and reserved mine for himself. He hoarded money, you see. Can you imagine it? No one tried to rob him because no one knew he hoarded money, so when he died, the bars and bolts became his executioners. The firemen took
hours
to break in. And there he was, on his bed, surrounded by stacks of bank notes, swollen up—disgusting!”

“You don't mind living with that history?” he asked, smiling.

“Heavens, no. I'm safe, that's the main thing.”

One by one he had picked the necessary details out of her; when the party broke up he saw her to her car like the gentleman he was, lightly kissed her hand, and never bothered to see her again in case she remembered what they had talked about. Had she cried for him? Sat by her phone hoping that he'd call? If she had, a fruitless wait. In those days he had merely been making up his list, hadn't even started raping in the clumsy, amateurish way he'd tackled Shirley Constable. Well, a man had to learn by experience, didn't he? And the list had to be complete, so far back in the past that none of the women would remember.

When
Didus ineptus
parked his Chevy on Persimmon Street in its usual spot on election day, Tuesday, November 5, his mind was filled with his own brilliance. No coincidence that he had begun his career on a leap year and a presidential election year: luck favored the bold, and he'd sensed what a disastrous year 1968 would be.

He always parked there, yes; he had been doing so for long enough now for his fellow Persimmon Street parkers to recognize his car. The moment he got out, he couldn't help but see the cops. They were everywhere: cruising in squad cars, strolling the sidewalks in pairs, holsters open, cuffs easy to get at. As he turned in the direction of Cedar Street he had a sudden impulse to abandon his foray, then grew angry at his own cowardice. Plan A was clearly impossible, but Plan B was just as good. He limped down Persimmon Street dragging his right leg, and in the instant when no cops were visible he leaped off the sidewalk into Plan B's bushes, which flourished in fits and starts right along the back fences of the blocks facing Cedar Street. The sun was lowering, a month and more past the equinox now, and the shadows at ground level were heavy, darkly dappled.

His blood was pumping hard; the thrill of the chase had invaded him, and he knew how and where he was going better than these uniformed idiots could imagine. In a gap, he lay full length and walked it on his elbows, his combat camouflage ideal, until the next profusion of low-slung leaves permitted him to rise to a squat, peer toward Cedar Street or the back of a building. Catherine's apartment block lay nearly 300 yards from Persimmon Street, but the worst of it was that the Hochners were beyond her, closer to Cranberry Street. His shelter was thickest where he could not use it, with Plan A discarded.

Mountain laurels grew along the back fence of Catherine's block—good, sturdy evergreen bushes that no one tended. And there, right opposite him, was Catherine's door at last! He put on his ski mask just in case, eased his back with its load of knapsack, and pulled the three keys from his pocket. The Hochners, he saw, had finished their iced tea and were going inside, and the cops weren't smart enough to extend their patrolling off the street sidewalks. He would have to trust to his luck that while he ran from the bushes to the awninged back door, no one upstairs was gazing into the backyard.

The sun plunged down into the foliage of an old oak growing behind the Hochners, and with its going the light decreased; the Dodo checked using his peripheral vision, saw nothing, and ran for Catherine's door. The keys went in and turned in the same order as hers; he felt the last lock relax and did what she did, leaned his shoulder heavily against the door and pushed it open.

AAA-OOO-GAA!

WOW-WOW-WOW-WOW-WOW!

AAA-OOO-GAA!

The world erupted into noise. Deafened, stunned, the Dodo stood for perhaps three seconds leaning against the door, then leaped for the bushes alongside the Hochners and went to earth, trembling, eyes blinded by sweat, those abominable alarms still shrieking and wailing in his ears. What was it? What hadn't he done? The wretched woman had tricked him! He,
Didus ineptus
, had fallen for a trick!

Plan C. He had to get away from here before the area swarmed with cops like flies on carrion. The knapsack was shrugged off, the ski mask, the jacket and the pants. From the exterior of the knapsack he pulled a series of aluminum tubes, screwed them together, and worked to make sure that his ordinary slacks were well down over his socks, not tucked in anywhere. Then, as the noises continued, he wormed his way around the back of the Hochners, who had emerged and were standing at Catherine's door. Like a snake he slithered across the exposed ground bordering their back deck before burying himself in their bushes again. Then, down their far boundary to Cedar Street, where he crouched and watched the cops thunder by until, in a temporary lull, he appeared on the sidewalk supported by his crutch, limping along. The next bunch of cops rounded the corner from Cranberry Street, split up to pass him on both sides, and left him to make his way to Persimmon Street and his car.

He was stopped twice, asked if he had seen anyone; he looked bewildered, said no, and was allowed on his way. The crutch was genuine, he was dressed in yellow checkered slacks and a red jacket, and he seemed a little simple. He never came under any suspicion, even from a stray squad car minutes later.

The bitch! The fucking bitch! How had she tricked him?

***

Carmine gazed about in amazement. No one, looking at the fortress from its outside, could ever have believed how beautiful Catherine dos Santos's apartment was. None of the bars showed; instead, there were ceiling-to-floor falls of frail silk curtains that shaded from palest green gradually through to the dark green of a pine forest, then began to fade to pale again, all around the room, a gradual color waxing and waning. The carpet was dark green, the ceiling palest green. Chairs, tables, occasional furniture were carved mahogany upholstered in vivid peacocks.

“I rarely spend time in the living room,” said Catherine. She had shut off the alarms; no one else could. “He must have watched me enter, but of course he couldn't see me deactivate my alarms—I press a section of the door jamb and paint it again when it wears.” She led them farther into her artificially lit retreat. “Between the bars and the four bedrooms, I was lucky to find this place. In here I paint,” she said, showing them a studio with a half finished oil of dried flowers on the easel.

“In here I sew and embroider,” showing them a second room.

Shades of Desdemona! thought Carmine, staring at a priest's chasuble on a dummy. Is that what all spinsters do?

“And in here I illuminate manuscripts,” Catherine said. “I confess it's my greatest pleasure. You'd be surprised, Captain, at how many institutions and people want something illuminated.”

“So you sell your work?”

“Oh, yes. It's my hedge against an indigent old age.”

“Do you ever go to parties, Miss dos Santos?” Helen asked as they returned to the living room.

“Only Mark Sugarman's. The last one was four months ago.”

“Did you meet anyone memorable at a Sugarman party?”

She concentrated, then nodded. “Yes, I did. A very nice man! We had a long, pleasant conversation, but he didn't hit on me. I don't think he gave me a last name, but his first name was Brett. I said that sounded as if he'd been named after a movie star, but he laughed and denied it. It was a family name.”

Helen stifled her sigh; there was no Brett on Sugarman's party lists.

“Did he have an opportunity to rifle your bag?”

“Only when I went to the toilet. I wasn't gone long.”

“Have you seen Brett since?”

“No, never. That's not surprising, Captain. I have no need of people, either at work or at home. Everything I do is art of some kind. I like solitude, I guess.”

“Don't you feel—well, imprisoned?” Helen asked.

Catherine dos Santos laughed, a high, clear sound of true amusement. “Good lord, no! Detective, in here I feel
safe
! No one can get at me. That's always the terror of women who love living alone, that they'll be targeted by a predator. I love my bars, which is why I went to a lot of trouble over my weak point—the door. Noise is the best deterrent—really loud, siren noises. They always deter. I installed the sirens myself, bought them in an electronics hobby store.” She smiled jubilantly. “I'm especially fond of the one that sounds like a submarine. With the Hochners for neighbors, I'm safe, believe me.”

“Oh, I believe you,” Helen said. “What I find hard to credit is that you really like your life.”

“You were at Mark's party—how do you live?” Catherine asked.

“I have a security penthouse,” said Helen, smiling.

“Lucky you.”

***

“My chief criticism of you, Miss MacIntosh,” said Carmine in biting tones after they left, “is that you have no idea how the other half lives, even after some exposure. That leads you to speak before you think. The moment Miss dos Santos said she did some of her art as a hedge against an indigent old age, you should have put a censor on your tongue. Why are you so quick to inform the world that you have millions, when what you ought to remember is that extremely few people are in your boat? I haven't heard you contemplating giving any of your millions away to those less fortunate.”

“I apologize, Captain. I knew it was the wrong thing to say the minute I said it, but I didn't know how to get out of such an awful predicament—I apologize, Captain, I do!”

“Why are you apologizing to me, Miss MacIntosh? You only offended me at second-hand. By rights you ought to go back and apologize to Miss dos Santos. This kind of apology is rather self-serving, don't you agree?”

“Too much time's gone by for me to go back,” Helen said quickly. “If you like, I'll write her a note.”

“Yes, do that,” said Carmine, still simmering.

He spoke no more until they were in his office, where Nick and Delia joined them.

“How did he manage to get away?” Helen asked, still desperate to retrieve lost ground with the Captain.

“By being prepared for all eventualities, I suspect,” said Carmine. “And helped by the Hochners, who should have stayed put and watched for him, not rushed to Catherine's door and impeded the cops.”

“They're famous with the uniforms,” Delia said.

“Ask Fernando Vasquez. He's inherited Danny Marciano's file on them. Eternal complaints, then they missed the Dodo.”

Nick pulled the knapsack that lay on Carmine's table closer to him. “Cool,” he said. “While the back of Catherine's apartment block seethed with cops, he hunkered down in a bush on Hochner property and changed his appearance. He left the Dodo's gear in the bush and emerged somewhere as a different person, I'm picking wearing gaudy clothes. But what was in these, Carmine?” Nick pointed to ruches in the knapsack's exterior.

“Struts that maybe kept the knapsack rigid?” Delia offered.

“Why?” Nick asked.

“Whatever they were, he took them out,” Carmine said slowly.

“Unless they're an intrinsic part that hampered him?” Helen asked. “Something that stopped him hiding the thing?”

“No, the cavities are still distended by whatever was inside. Round pipes or rods …” He counted the ruched bulges. “Six. Added together, about six feet. But what would he do with something six feet long? Subtract one, and it comes down to between four and five feet, depending on the length of the components. Not all the cavities are the same length.”

A conversation with two uniforms crashed into Nick's mind. “It's a crutch,” he said.

The rest gaped at him.

“Ike Masotti and his partner found a crippled guy on Cedar Street hobbling toward Persimmon. Not far from Catherine's apartment. Crutch under his arm, dragging his right foot. He was wearing pants in that Scotch check that's almost all yellow, and a red windcheater. Ike got no joy out of him, wrote him down as mildly retarded.”

“The Dodo!” Helen cried.

“He's good, Carmine,” Nick said. “Fooled two smart cops nearly right outside where it happened. You know Ike Masotti—not easy to fool. It was early, mind, the sirens were still yowling because Catherine wasn't home. A little later, the cops would have been less confused.”

For answer, Carmine picked up his phone and asked Fernando Vasquez if he knew how many cops had encountered a luridly dressed cripple.