J. Jance - Until Proven Guilty

The cook, a True Believer named Sarah Morris, had come to church at four to start preparing breakfast, which was due after a prayer session at five. Before early-morning services, she had been in the habit of taking a cup of coffee to Brodie in his study. It was when she took him his coffee that she had found first his body and then Suzanne’s.

We were about finished with Sarah when the front-door cop came hurrying into the room. “You’d better come quick. Powell said to call him on a telephone, not the radio, and to make it snappy.”

The only phone available at the church was in the study. If Powell didn’t want us to use the radio for privacy reasons, the study was no better. We got in Peters’ car and drove to the first available pay phone.

“What’s up?” I asked as soon as Powell came on the line.

“The night clerk from the Warwick, that’s what. He says Carstogi came back and tried to go to his room. He’s got him down in the restaurant eating breakfast and wonders what he should do.”

“Get a couple of uniformed officers over there to keep him there for as long as it takes us to drive from Ballard.”

“They’re on their way, but why do I have this sneaking suspicion that you’ve screwed up, Beaumont?”

“Experience,” I told him, and slammed the phone receiver down in his ear. I turned back to the car to see Maxwell Cole’s rust-colored Volvo idling behind Peters’ Datsun. “Shit.”

I climbed into the car. “Sorry,” Peters said. “He must have tailed us when we left the church. I didn’t see him.”

“It’s too late now. Drive like hell to the Warwick. Carstogi’s in the restaurant having breakfast.”

Peters’ jaw dropped in surprise. “No shit! Why would he go back there?”

“Beats me, but he did, and we’d better nab him before he gets away. Thank God the night clerk had brains enough to call and let us know.” I glanced at Peters, who was looking in the rearview mirror. “Max still on our butt?” I asked.

“Yes.”

“We’ll just have to lump it. We don’t have time to try to throw him off the trail. I don’t want Carstogi to slip through our fingers.”

“The gun has a way of equalizing things, doesn’t it? Yesterday Carstogi was no match for Brodie when they were dealing with fists.”

“You’ve already decided he’s our man?”

“Haven’t you?” Peters asked.

“No, I haven’t. I like to think I’m a better judge of character than that. Carstogi wanted to kill Brodie, but he would have taken Suzanne back in a minute. You heard him yesterday.”

“Well, who did it then?” Peters asked. It was a good question. We didn’t have an answer by the time we stopped in front of the Warwick. Two patrol cars with flashing lights were outside the hotel, one parked in front of the garage on Fourth and the other at the front door on Lenora. We stopped by the front door.

The clerk met us at the car, the story bubbling out before Peters turned off the engine. “He came up to the desk, said he needed a wake-up call at ten. I didn’t want him to go up to his room, so I told him we had a problem with the plumbing and that we’d buy his breakfast in the restaurant while we cleaned up the mess. I didn’t know what else to do. I called right away, because you said it was important.”

“Thanks,” I said. “That was good thinking.”

“Where is he now?” Peters asked.

The Volvo stopped across the street. I went back to an officer who was standing near the front door. “Don’t let that yahoo in here,” I said, pointing at Cole, who was just climbing out of the car.

The dining room at the Warwick is small and intimate. At that hour of the morning it was just filling up with tables of visiting businessmen and conventioneers. Andrew Carstogi had been placed at a small corner table. The hostess watched him nervously from her desk. Peters pulled his gun and put it in his jacket pocket. We approached the table warily.

Carstogi looked up and saw us coming toward him. He grinned and waved at us with an empty fork. “Hi, guys,” he said.

“Where have you been?” Peters asked.

Carstogi’s grin faded. “Out. Just got back. They told me there’s a problem with the room and they’re buying me breakfast while they fix it. Good deal.”

“Out to where?” Peters continued.

“What is this?” Carstogi asked. “I went to a movie, and I met a girl. There’s nothing the matter with that.”

“What’s her name?” I put in. “Where did you take her?”

“We went to her place. Jesus, how am I supposed to know where it is? What’s going on? Why all the questions?”

“How did you get back here?”

“I caught a cab.”

“Which one?”

Carstogi stood up. “Okay, I’m not saying another word until you tell me what’s going on.”

People around us were staring. We were creating a disturbance. “Sit,” Peters hissed. We sat.

“We have two brand-new murders,” Peters said. “Two homicides at Faith Tabernacle.”

The color drained from Andrew Carstogi’s face. “Not Suzanne,” he whispered.

I nodded. “Suzanne and Brodie both. Sometime during the night. Now tell us, how’d you get back here from wherever you were.”

Carstogi opened his mouth to say something and then shut it. Two gigantic tears rolled down his face. He brushed them away with his sleeve. “I caught a cab,” he said.

“What kind? Yellow? Graytop?”

“I don’t know. Just a cab. It picked me up at her house. I think it was the same cab as last night, but I’m not sure.” He looked back and forth from one of us to the other. “It’s not true, is it? Tell me it’s not true.”

“It’s true,” I said.

“Do you mind if we go through your room?” Peters asked.

Carstogi shook his head mutely. Peters signaled to an officer who had stationed himself next to the hostess’s desk. “Have the desk clerk let you into his room to check it out,” he instructed. “Let me know if you find anything.” The officer hurried away. Carstogi’s shoulders heaved with noisy sobs. Peters and I watched, saying nothing. Eventually, he regained control.

“Am I under arrest?” he asked.

“No, but as of now I’m afraid you’re the sole suspect.”

“But I never went near the church after we left there yesterday. I wouldn’t know how to get there.”

The officer returned to say that the room was clean. Carstogi looked from one of us to the other. “What’s going to happen?” he asked.

I pushed back my chair. “Let’s go up to your room and get a statement from you. Do you want an attorney present?”

“I don’t need one,” he said. “I didn’t do it.”

I believed him. I just wished that things were always that simple. We led him upstairs and took his statement. Carstogi answered all our questions willingly enough. According to him he had gone to a porno house and had been picked up by a prostitute after the movie.

I don’t think Carstogi really grasped that the only thing between him and a first-degree murder charge was a prostitute whose name was Gloria, most assuredly not the name her mommy gave her. He couldn’t remember her address, and the description he gave us would have fit half the females in the U.S. Average height, kind of light brown hair, lightish eyes, slim. Carstogi’s life was hanging by a slender thread.

We turned off the recorder and stood up to leave. “Are you arresting me?” he asked.

“No, not now, but don’t leave here. Stay in the room and don’t talk to anyone.”

“Okay,” he said. “I just can’t believe she’s dead.”

“Believe it,” Peters said.

We left the room. “We should book him, Beau,” Peters said to me in the hall. “Motive, opportunity. It all adds up. What if he splits?”