Naked Cruelty (36 page)

Whose is the next name on his list? He's left me no clue that I can see to identify her.

The Gentleman Walkers of Carew, he decided at one a.m., were no help to the investigation. Mark Sugarman led one group of Walkers; Mason Novak led the other group that walked on the alternate days. No name had sprung out as never walking on a Dodo night, which probably meant that the Dodo wasn't a Walker—or that the Dodo was listed as walking, but didn't.

There was a cross-link between the Glass Teddy Bear gift shop vandalisms and the Dodo case, in that Hank Murray, manager of the Busquash Mall, lived in Carew and, when he had the time, served as a Gentleman Walker. Then there were the Warburton twins, who also lived in Carew and seemed to lead lives of leisure. They were devious and shady, but any criminal activities in California had gone unreported, and in Connecticut they were simply dismissed as eccentrics, a type of person both prominent and tolerated in a university city like Holloman.

From there he went back to the victims and did the whole exercise again, this time using sources like Helen MacIntosh's journals, which he found informative, perceptive and amusing. She had put them in his custody a week ago, even including the one she was entering—in about nine weeks, she had filled no fewer than seven books!

Her colored inks amused him in one respect, but in another provoked sincere admiration: she was right when she said it was a help, and certainly the purple entries were something of a revelation. Her description of the glass teddy bear, his value, and Amanda's stubborn refusal to admit its worth were excellent; he was interested to learn that his cool, selfish, ambitious trainee had developed a fondness for Amanda that ripened into friendship; long after there was no necessity to put entries in her books about the Vandal case, a paragraph or two of purple ink would appear.

Then there was her work on the California connections of the Warburton twins, starting with Howard, their father.

“Howard Warburton was autopsied,” she wrote in black ink, “not because he had died falling down his stairs, but because the examining doctor at the scene thought his body in an impossible posture. At autopsy he was shown to have a spinal column fracture at C2–C3. There were no other injuries apart from minor bruising. The police pathologist agreed that Mr. Warburton's head should have been closest to the bottom step, not his feet, and called the death suspicious.

“Then the twins—eight years old—admitted that they had been present when the accident happened, and had pushed and pulled at their father trying to revive him. His head had been closest to the step, but by the time they finished with him, it was farthest away. That left only one difficulty, the fact that there had been no cerebral or cardiac catastrophe to cause the fall. Then Robert said he thought his father had tripped, and Gordon, a parrot according to the San Diego police, said he saw his father trip too. After interrogating the twins intensively, the San Diego D.A. declined to pursue the matter. The year was 1945, and the cream of every crop was in the armed services. Howard Warburton hadn't been, thanks to poor vision and flat feet. Two reasons why he might have tripped.”

In purple ink she had written: “They did it! In 1968 we're a bit more sophisticated about the capacity of children for doing murder, but in 1945 I guess people would have died of horror at the mere thought.

“I didn't think there was any reason why, provided I kept identities properly concealed, I shouldn't talk to Kurt about it, and he agrees with me. I made my killer one child, in case you're worried, Captain. I confess I only do it to get a rise out of him—he's so cool, calm and collected. Sorry, sir.”

Smiling, Carmine put the book down. She was incorrigible! However, she had been dating Kurt exclusively for eight or nine months, and no one knew better than he that all human beings need someone to confide in. According to her lights, Kurt was ideal—unconnected to her work, prone to take her side. What more could one ask? he thought, an image of Desdemona before his eyes.

Carmine ploughed on—black pen, blue pen, red pen, green pen, and that inevitable purple pen to put a very personal, highly biased slant on everything that swam through her little part of the huge police ocean.

Sometimes there were irreverent remarks about her father—purple pen, of course! and one perceptive comment about her mad-in-an-uncertifiable-way mother, who had seen three ghosts in the Chubb House sitting room fireplace. Which wasn't enough to make it into Helen's report book: what was? The fact that all three stopped playing some antique game of cards, complete to wigs and buckled shoes, and stared at Angela MacIntosh in utter terror. ‘A ghost! Can you see her?' asked one. Then all three disappeared. Written in red overwritten in purple: “Mom strikes again. No one's safe.”

And what do I do? he asked himself at three in the morning, finished at last. What she says is so interesting, though she has no idea of it. And the spontaneity of those little stories about her parents, Kurt, and Amanda Warburton—wonderful!

Desdemona was awake, watching New York television on the little set that stood atop the bureau in their bedroom; she tended to be insomniac if he hadn't come home by bedtime. Even knowing he was sure to be safe—if he wasn't, they'd race to tell her—couldn't compensate for the fear in a cold bed.

“Did you do what had to be done?” she asked, sitting up.

“Yes. I just needed to see all of it in perspective and from every viewpoint.” He threw his clothes over a chair, too tired to put them away.

“Do you know whodunit?”

“Yes, I'm fairly sure.” He crawled into bed and cuddled. “The trouble is, there's not a shred of evidence.”

“I love your hair,” she said, running her fingers through it. “Mine's so flimsy.”

“Wrong genes, my giant English mouse.” He kissed her neck. “I hope you're not in too much need, love. I'm past it.”

“So am I, actually. I'm just glad you've seen the trees as well as the forest. Are you sure there's no evidence?”

“Positive.”

“Will you confide your suspicions to anyone other than me?”

“Not this time. There are all kinds of complications, too many sensitive egos … ” He was mumbling a little.

“Yes, it's not a terribly happy division at the moment, I know.” She looked brisk. “You sit on it, love, no matter who tries to probe.” A giggle. “Or with what.”

He forced his eyelids open. “I'm just glad, Desdemona, you're not in danger from a killer.” The words came out a trifle slurred.

She grabbed his hair again, but painfully. “Carmine! Don't you dare tempt fate! Take that back, or cross your fingers, or—or—or something!”

“I crossed my fingers,” he murmured, and was asleep.

Good, she could leave the TV on; it would take her some time to grow drowsy. Twisting, she looked down at his face in the dim, flickering light. The lines had smoothed away, he was at peace. How awful to think I have to wake him again four hours from now. He'll be mad at me for letting him sleep an extra bit, but I don't care. The world won't end if he's not sitting at his wretched kitchen table by eight o'clock, and so I'll tell Delia. What would I do without her?

“I
've worked our strategy out, twinnie dear,” Gordie said, waving a thick artist's paint brush dripping crimson gore.

“Do tell!”

“To get the blood right, we have to witness a slaughter.”

Robert swung around from the typewriter; the exasperation on his face was exactly mirrored on his brother's, and he gave a whinnying laugh. “Gordie, your face is perfect! We're getting so good that we won't even need to be in the same room together.”

“Shall we continue our rhymes a little more?”

“Why not? Um—slaughter … Rhymes with daughter, caught her, bought her, fought her, sort her—”

“Yes, yes, that's plenty!”

“Party pooper! All jokes aside, Gordie, I do like your sketch. It's new, it's different—a novel concept for murder. Why don't we make more of it?”

“Will Amanda like it if we do?”

“Who cares, twinnie-winnie?” Robert asked, tittering. “She is our aunt, and small potatoes.”

“Don't forget that we need Captain Delmonico to dig our biggest potatoes, Robbie. Will he like the blood?”

Robert leaped to his feet and executed a stylish pirouette across the black-and-white crazed rug; Gordon joined him at his halfway mark, and they finished together with an
entrechat
.

“Oh, we haven't lost our balletic skills!” Gordie cried. “Here's a harder one—Aubergine.”

“Margarine. Ne'er was seen. Long string bean. Not that keen. Fast machine. Primp and preen.”

The elfin face looked sly. “Ah—Dodo?”

“HoJo. No—no. Old crow. So-so.”

“Darling, you are brilliant!” Gordie went back to his work station. “We will go through with this, Robbie, won't we?”

“Yes, Gordie, we will. I promise we will.”

“I can't, Hank,” said Amanda Warburton wretchedly. “I'm so sorry, but while I esteem you as a friend, I'll never think of you as anything else. I stopped loving a long time ago, and the scars are too many and too deep to eradicate.” Eyes full of tears, she gazed at Hank piteously. “Please understand! It's impossible, but that's no reflection on you. I'd like to keep you as my friend, but you may find that an insult.”

Hank's chief reaction to this rejection was a profound thankfulness that he hadn't gone down on one knee to propose; it had occurred to him to do so, but something had restrained him—a subconscious knowledge that she would refuse him, probably. So he leaned back in his chair, released her hands, sighed, and tried valiantly to smile.

“No, I'm not insulted, and yes, I'd be glad to continue as your friend. We'll forget that tonight ever happened. I'll never refer to it again unless you do, not by look either.” He took a breath and managed to make the smile more genuine. “You're fun to be with, Amanda. I'd hate to lose our dinners, games, times with Marcia and the animals. Is that all right?”

“Yes, Hank, of course it is! But for tonight, would you prefer that we called off dinner?”

“Good lord, why? Lobster Pot, Solo's, Sea Foam, Jerry's? Take your pick,” he said, sounding quite himself.

“Lobster Pot, please. Would you mind taking me to the Mall afterward? A new shipment from Orrefors came in just as I was leaving, and I'd like to get it unpacked. I left my car there and walked home, so it's just the ride.”

“It's more than the ride. I'll help you unpack.”

And so it was arranged.

Amazing how life goes on, Hank thought as they settled into their customary booth; he ordered broiled scrod, she went for soft-shelled crab, and they both had a vinaigrette dressing on their salads. Their talk was perhaps a little stiffer than usual, but Hank held his end up heroically, and by the time they left for the Mall she was relaxed on one drink more than she normally had. Yes, they would get through this.

He was kicking himself for trying to move their relationship up a notch, though his sensible side insisted that if the answer was no, there was no propitious moment. The idea of her was stronger in him than her reality, but had it not been, he would never have dreamed his dreams or fantasized about their love-making. And it was true, hope did spring eternal; by the time they reached the back door of the Glass Teddy Bear, he was able to believe that at some time in the future, she would change her mind. Women always did, especially bolstered by the fact that a suitor had declared himself, then stuck around as a friend. What did they call such men?
Cicisbeos
, that was it. Education, he reflected, keys jingling in the lock, was a wonderful asset.

He stood back for her to enter first.

“Oh, bother!” she exclaimed. “The light is out, and I can never find the switch panel for the others.”

“Here, I know.” Hank pushed her into the back room and flicked at the bank of switches Amanda could never find. “Gee, there must be a major fuse blown,” he said. “They're all out.”

The blow fell on the side of his skull and crushed it in the manner of an eggshell—still in one piece, yet shattered to smithereens. Hank Murray was scarcely conscious what had happened, the blood poured into his cranium so rapidly. He was dead even as he hit the floor.

Dazed by a much lighter blow, Amanda was on all fours and crawling toward the shop when the black clad intruder straddled her, put a gloved hand in her mass of hair, yanked her entire trunk upward, and cut her throat clean to the backbone. The blood jetted out at arterial pressure, fine drops showering boxes and the wall behind them like paint from an air brush. The attacker stepped away to let her bleed out, a matter of scant minutes. Then, the business ended, he went into the shop. There, on a dolly and wrapped in padded cloths, the glass teddy bear waited. He swung the apparatus around and wheeled it through the back room on the far side from the blood, out the back door; glancing at Hank's keys, he removed them and put them in a pants pocket. Despite the security, there was no one in sight; the attacker made sure his silenced pistol was where he could reach it in a hurry, then went to the service elevators. One opened the moment he pressed its button; he wheeled the dolly in and pressed the basement parking level. Again he was in luck; no sign of a guard.

Inside the door to the garage was a bank of alarms. Out came a paper; the attacker consulted it, punched one alarm. It was followed by a shriek and squeal of sirens three floors up, but before the guards in the garage could gather, he and his dolly were hidden in the janitor's closet. As soon as the pounding feet died away, he wheeled his treasure trove through the door and into the garage, where his van stood parked only feet away. An electric platform carried the dolly up to the level of the van floor, where it was strapped into place. That done, the attacker wormed his way forward into the driver's seat, started the engine, and was a mile away before anyone checked that entry to the garage. False alarm—wasn't that typical?

It was noon on Thursday, November 21, before anyone thought to query Hank Murray's absence and Amanda Warburton's unopened shop. When Hank's secretary couldn't locate him or his keys, she phoned Captain Carmine Delmonico, whom she knew from the days of the Vandal. Oh, pray there wasn't more trouble!

“Something's up, sir,” she said. “I have spare keys—could you check the Glass Teddy Bear for me? Miss Warburton and Mr. Murray are great friends, now neither of them can be found.”

His detectives were out; Carmine decided to visit the Mall on his own. Why the secretary was so worried he couldn't work out, except that some people have a nose for disaster, and he couldn't afford to ignore someone with a nose whose accuracy he didn't know. Alarm bells were ringing in him too, that was all.

On his way to the back corridor he passed the Glass Teddy Bear's window, and his heart sank. The glass teddy bear wasn't in it, nor were the dog and cat. At the back door he pulled on rubber gloves and examined the lock: no tampering. A turn of the key and he was inside, an almost dark expanse that reeked of blood. When no lights came on he backed out, keeping within his own footprints. Two security guards had turned up; he beckoned them over.

“Stay here and don't touch a fucking thing,” he said. “I need a phone. Where?”

“The shipping desk, Captain—in there.”

“Where are the fuses for this shop?”

“In that wall cupboard, Captain.”

When he opened the cupboard door with another key he found the Glass Teddy Bear's fuses in the off position; when Carmine did the up-down-up to switch them on, they stayed on. Someone had probably turned them off here.

At the shipping desk he found a phone. “Stella, tell Dr. O'Donnell I need an M.E. and a forensics tech at the Busquash Mall a.s.a.p. Where are my team?”

“Nick and Delia are here. Helen's with the Judge.”

“Good. Send me Nick and Delia, please. It's urgent.”

When he flicked the lights on this time, they revealed a shambles, though it was poor Amanda Warburton who had done the bleeding. Fourth time unlucky, he thought. Amanda had survived three attacks, but they were just the thief softening her up. Hank Murray had died because of his devotion to her. Fifteen big, sealed cardboard boxes said a new shipment had arrived; she and the faithful Hank had probably come in to unpack them. It looked like a huge amount of stock, but undoubtedly wasn't. Glass came surrounded by relative oceans of packing materials.

Her face was distorted by terror, mute evidence of her last moments, but he didn't think she had seen her attacker. He came at her from behind while she was crawling, Carmine deduced. Hank had died without a fight; never saw it coming, in all likelihood. There were no bloody footprints, no marks to say who the Vandal—was it the Vandal, or another, more violent predator?—might be. A different man, Carmine decided. His conviction that he knew the identity of the Vandal hadn't budged. He went outside to speak to the guard.

“Was there any kind of fuss last night?” he asked.

“The alarms went off in Hood's Antiques about half after ten,” said the guard. “False alarm, Captain. Some clown of a practical joker triggered it at the alarm bank inside the basement garage door.”

“Did that require a key?”

“Sure. They're in a wall cupboard, same as fuses.”

“And the fire chief is satisfied wall cupboards are safe?”

“With our kind of fuses and alarms, yes.”

Patrick came himself, with Paul Bachman in tow.

“Thanks for the personal touch, Patsy. Anything?”

“No, nothing. Both attacks were incredibly savage. The temporal and parietal regions on the right side of Mr. Murray's skull were pulverized, like gluing uniformly small fragments on to a sheet of plastic—it's only the scalp holding the bone together. Miss Warburton's throat was cut to expose the ventral surface of the vertebrae—only the spinal column kept her head on her shoulders, poor thing. I don't think I've ever seen a more brutal assault, yet it had to have been done in seconds. The fellow wouldn't have made contact with the blood. He stayed behind her. He used a knife on her throat, not a razor, because he needed a proper grip for traction to go that deep.”

“A hunting knife, you mean?”

“Yes, or a military version of same.”

“He didn't leave it behind?”

“If he did, we haven't found it so far. Want to see his blunt instrument?”

Patrick held up a curious item almost two feet long. Made of clear glass, it was a tube that flared at one end into an open, lily-like shape; its other end was a round, closed bulb.

“By rights the pipe should be a yard long, but this one is only half a yard. It's a British device for drinking beer, and it's called, would you believe it, a yard?” He pointed to the wall, where a similar but much longer item sat on a bracket. “The one on the wall is the real thing, very thin glass, but this one is purely an ornament, not intended for use. It's heavy.”

Carmine grimaced. “You mean anyone can drink that much?”

“For a beer drinker, not a problem. Miss Warburton stocked a good range. The shorty would make an efficient weapon if the bulb is used as the club. The glass is thick enough to have weight and durability. The skull didn't have a chance.”

“Inventive. Of all the heavy objects in a shop full of them, that half yard makes the best concussive weapon.”

“The whole set also makes an ideal decoration for a wall you don't want cluttered with yet more paintings. Designed to appeal to expatriate Limeys.”

“The killer didn't have to know its proper function to see its concussive potential,” Carmine said.

“I agree, I agree! Just tossing theories around. You don't think he's an Englishman, Carmine?” Patrick asked.

“Take my word for it, there are no Englishmen in this case.”

Delia came up, unable to hide her distress. “Carmine, this is frightful! That poor woman! She didn't even believe the glass teddy bear was worth stealing.”

“So why kill her for something he might have gotten by more peaceful means?” Nick asked. “Tied them up and taken it.”