Marcia Muller - Locked In

He signaled to John and they moved forward. Through the open front doors, where the familiar smells of hay and manure greeted him. Past the stalls, where the horses-five or six, he couldn’t tell in the dim light-pawed and snorted at the intrusion. There was a faint glow in the doorway to the tack room. He motioned for John to stop, then eased close to the doorjamb.

A man knelt inside, flashlight trained on the floor, feeling around at the boards.

Hy restrained himself. Waited to see if the bastard pried up the right one.

The man lifted the board, shone the light down. Gasped and dropped the wood.

Hy raised the.45 in both hands. “Stand up, Gold, and stay still.”

Ben Gold panicked instead. Dropped the flashlight into the space where the duffel bag had been and rushed forward. Hy almost shot him. His momentary hesitation gave Gold time to dodge past him.

But the kid didn’t get far. Behind him Hy heard a grunt and a thud. Then another thud, louder than the first.

John exclaimed, “Ha!”

Hy retrieved the still-glowing flashlight and shone it around. John was standing with one foot on the small of Gold’s back. Gold wriggled feebly against the weight, then lay still.

Hy said, “Don’t crush him, for God’s sake.”

“Why not?”

“As I said, I’ve got plans for him.”

With the flash off, the tack room was a black hole. Gold lay handcuffed on the floor at Hy’s feet. Hy let the silence build for nearly five minutes; it must’ve been an eternity for Gold. Then he turned on the light and shone it straight into the shackled man’s eyes.

“For Christ’s sake!” High-pitched, tremulous whine.

“If you believe in a god, better start praying.”

The face twitched, pale in the blinding light.

“I’m going to ask you questions. You will respond truthfully. I already know the answers.” He had learned these interrogation tactics in his early years with RKI, in order to extract information from people involved in hostage-holding situations.

He turned the flash out and waited.

John stirred restlessly behind him. Hy waited some more, until Gold began to moan, then switched on both the recorder and the flashlight. Gold flinched away from the glare, squeezed his eyes shut.

“Your name is Ben Gold?”

“… Yes.”

“You are the former lover of Larry Peeples?”

“What does this have to do-”

“Answer me.”

“Yes.”

“Did Larry Peeples tell you about Haven Dietz’s plan to embezzle a hundred thousand dollars from her employer?”

No response.

“ Did he?” Hy brought the light closer to Gold’s face.

“… Yes. He thought she’d never get away with it.”

“How did you know she succeeded?”

“The night before she’d told Larry it was all set. Said she would bring her briefcase to his place, show him what real money looked like.”

“The next night, did you attack her in the park and take the money from her briefcase?”

“No.”

Hy brought the light to within an inch of Gold’s closed eyelids. Gold rolled his head from side to side, moaning.

“ Did you?”

“Okay, okay, yes.”

“You hurt her badly. Was that necessary to subdue her?”

“She fought pretty hard.”

“Did she?”

“Yes!”

“Tell me the truth, Gold.”

“All right, I hated the bitch. She didn’t like me, and I was afraid she’d convince Larry to dump me. I know people like her-they can’t leave anybody alone. Her way or no way.”

Hy shifted the light to one side. “So you brought the money here and concealed it under the floorboards.”

“… Yes. I was afraid it might be marked, or something.”

“And when you decided it was safe to spend it, and that you and Larry could go away together…?”

Silence.

“Gold?”

“All right. We fought. He was so smug, saying a hundred thousand wasn’t much at all, saying that he was coming back here to run the vineyard.”

“And you killed him?”

“No. He ran off-”

“The truth, Gold.”

“… I hit him. I hit him too hard and… he died.”

“Where’s his body?”

“I don’t know. I left it in the alley behind the club we’d been drinking in.”

Bullshit. The body of the son of a prominent vintner, who’d been reported missing, didn’t go unidentified for months. Alicia Summers’s body had, but the circumstances were entirely different.

Hy let it go for now.

“After you killed Larry, why did you leave the money here?”

“… I couldn’t start coming around right away; it might’ve made his folks suspicious.”

“And why did you come for it tonight?”

“That detective, Julia Rafael, called me, wanting to talk again. I think she’s on to something. I decided to grab the money and take off.”

“Did Haven Dietz realize you were her attacker and demand something from you?”

“Something that she heard Julia Rafael say on the phone to Mrs. Peeples put it all together for her. She wanted the money. I was supposed to bring it to her apartment at six Sunday evening.”

“But instead you killed her.”

No response.

Hy moved the light again, and Gold squirmed.

“Did you?”

“Yes, yes, yes! Turn that light off! Please, turn it off!”

Hy didn’t heed Gold’s request. Instead, he asked, “Did you go to the offices of McCone Investigations on the night of Monday, July seventh, to look for the Dietz and Peeples files?”

No response.

He brought the light close in again. “Answer me.”

Nothing.

Hy waited in silence until he heard a whimper.

“Are you ready to answer me now?”

“Yes! Yes, I went to the pier in the afternoon and hid there until everybody left and the guard was drinking. I was afraid of what might be in those files.”

“But you couldn’t access them, could you?”

“No.”

“Did you shoot a woman who came into the office that you were searching?”

“I didn’t know who she was, but I’d been to that pier before, and I was afraid she might recognize me. I panicked. I was trying to save myself.”

“At my wife’s expense.”

Hy held the light on Gold’s face a few seconds more, then switched it out. Said to John, “Turn on the overheads, would you? Let’s get him out of here.”

They came through the door of my room-Hy and John, supporting a man between them. I knew from his photographs he was Ben Gold. A pair of concerned orderlies followed.

Hy turned to the orderlies, said, “Sorry, this is private business.” Motioned for them to leave and shut the door.

Gold wore a buttoned-up coat. I could tell that under it he was handcuffed. The look on Gold’s face was one of terror. Hy shoved him forward.

“There,” Hy said, pushing him close to my bed. “See? That’s what you’ve done to my wife!”

Gold closed his eyes. Hy shook him, forced his gaze onto mine. “I want you to see, dammit! This is what you did to her. I can also show you crime scene photos of Haven Dietz. You disfigured her for a hundred thousand dollars, then you killed her so you could keep the money.”

Gold’s mouth worked.

“Where’s Larry’s body?”

Rasping breaths, but no answer.

Hy said to Gold, “I’m asking you one more time. Where?”

“I… don’t… know.”

Hy hit him. Hit him hard enough to send him flying across the room and crashing into the wall. Gold slumped on the floor, gasping.

The orderlies were through the door now. John went to speak with them while Hy took out his phone and speed-dialed. I listened as he talked to Adah.

“She’ll contact the SFPD,” he said after ending the call. “They like her a hell of a lot better than me.”