Howard Fast - The Case of the Poisoned Eclairs

“As I understand, there were two policemen on the scene.” That was the city manager.

“There could have been ten cops on the scene. How would they know that the car was wired? You don’t look for a wired car in Beverly Hills.”

“All right. That happened.” The mayor’s voice. “But the rumor’s out that three other murders are tied into this.”

A long silence.

“Well, for Christ’s sake, yes or no?”

“Yes,” Wainwright said shortly.

“What did you say? Yes?”

“Yes.”

“Jesus God, four lousy murders! We’re not that big. Don’t you understand? We’re just not that big.”

“If it’s any consolation,” Wainwright said, “three of them took place outside the Beverly Hills city limits. So technically, those three belong to the Los Angeles cops.”

“Well, who tied them in?”

“Masuto.”

“Why?” the mayor cried. “For Christ’s sake, why? What’s the motive?”

“Because that’s the way it is. If it’s that way, that’s the way it is,” Wainwright said.

“What do you mean, that’s the way it is. You just told us the way it is. Los Angeles has these killings,” the mayor said.

“We got them too.”

Masuto stopped listening and went into his office. It was a quarter after nine in the morning now. The Los Angeles Times had cleared space on the front page for the death of Alice Greene. It was mostly a picture of the burned car with only a few words of background squeezed in at the last moment. They specified that the two-seater Mercedes was priced at twenty-seven thousand dollars. It was almost obligatory to include a price in any Beverly Hills story. The deaths of the Chicano boy and the chemist rated only a few lines on inside pages. Violent death was hardly a novelty, unless of course it occurred in Beverly Hills inside a Mercedes.

Masuto dialed the number of the Crombie house. Mrs. Crombie answered.

“Our handsome Oriental jailer,” she said. “When do we get sprung?”

“Soon, I hope. May I talk to Detective Beckman?”

“He’s at breakfast.”

“See if he can tear himself away.”

“Hold on. He’s finishing his second order of scrambled eggs and waffles and honey. I’ll let him take it in the library where he’ll have some privacy.”

A minute or so later, Beckman’s voice came over the phone, thickened by the fact that he was still chewing. “Do you know, Masao,” he said, “those Arabs got something. Living with three women has its points.”

“I’m sure. Anything happen?”

“Not a thing.”

“How are the ladies?”

“A lot calmer. I can’t say the same for my wife. You got to talk to her, Masao. She’s sore as hell at me. All she had to hear is that I’m spending the night in a house with three Beverly Hills divorcees and she let go at me like God knows what I was up to. Like I’m doing this for fun.”

“Aren’t you?”

“Come on. You know better than that.”

“All right, Sy. Now listen to me. You’ve been in that house for quite a while. In and out of every room, right?”

“Right.”

“Now think. Mrs. Crombie had a daughter. Did you see the girl’s picture anywhere?”

After a long moment of silence, Beckman said, “I wasn’t looking for it, Masao. Maybe I saw it and paid it no mind.”

“Just think for a while, Sy.”

He thought about it. “I just can’t remember. Like I said, I wasn’t looking for it.”

“All right. I want you to look for it. No questions and don’t give any hint of what you’re looking for. Just let them know that your instructions are to keep checking out the house.”

“And if I find it, what do you want me to do, pinch it?”

“No, no, no. Absolutely not. If you find a picture of the girl, just leave it alone. Don’t touch it. Also, I want you to find out what the name of Mrs. Crombie’s first husband was. Do it in a casual way. Nancy Legett would know. If you’re alone with her, you might just ask as a matter of curiosity.”

“Got it. You’ll call back?”

“Within the hour.”

Masuto put down the telephone and stared at the newspaper on his desk. He turned over in his mind what Roshi Hakuin had said to him. The trouble with putting questions to a Zen master was that the answers were always too simple. Complex answers to questions are always easy to understand. Simple answers are impossible to understand. Many, many years ago, this same Roshi Hakuin had given Masuto the ten pictures of the cow, ten very simple pictures of a little boy and a cow. “Look at them and when you know what they mean, come to me and tell me.” It was five years before Masuto was able to answer correctly.

Now he did not have five years, or even five days. The madman he was dealing with would not be deterred by Detective Beckman and the locked doors of a house-given the supposition that he could keep the women in the house for even another day. An unwillingness to believe in impending danger is a very human quality. Otherwise, Masuto reflected, why would we all be so willing to live here in California on top of a whole network of earthquake faults?

Then he looked up and through the glass upper half of his office door, he saw the man. That would be Alan Greene, a tall, heavy-set, fleshy man of about fifty, gray hair set in a twenty-five-dollar hairdo, a fifty-dollar silk shirt, a thirty-dollar tie, and above it a wide, heavy chin, a tight mouth, and cold blue eyes. Masuto rose and opened the door for him.

“I’m Alan Greene,” he said, regarding Masuto curiously. They always regarded him curiously on the first meeting, and while they looked at him, the question in their minds was, What is a Jap doing on the police force here? But except occasionally, it remained unspoken.

“I’m Detective Sergeant Masuto.”

“Yeah. They told me outside you’re in charge of this case.”

“Why don’t you sit down, Mr. Greene?”

He seated himself reluctantly, as if he were giving up an advantage. “What the hell goes on here?” he demanded suddenly. “You know the whole damn thing has to be a mistake. Nobody had any reason to kill Alice-except me.”

“Except you?”

“Don’t look at me like that, Sergeant. What you’re thinking is pure bullshit.”

“How do you know what I’m thinking?”

“I just told you that I’m the only one who had any reason to kill my ex-wife.”

“Did you kill her?”

“If I had, you can be sure of one thing.”

“What’s that?”

“I would have strangled her with my bare hands.”

“I see.” Masuto nodded. “So you feel that it’s the manner of her death that exonerates you.”

“Jesus Christ, what in hell gives with you? You don’t seriously think that I murdered my wife?”

“You just said-”

“Yeah, yeah,” he interrupted. “And if you were married to that broad, you’d say the same thing. Would I kill her? If I had a dollar for every time I thought of breaking her neck, it would add up to enough to buy this crummy police station of yours. Do you know what I paid her? Five thousand dollars a month, not to mention what she collected under that beautiful law of ours called the Community Property Act. She could have paid me five grand a month and never missed it. She’s been shacked up with Monte Sweet, not just for the year we’ve been divorced but for five years before that, and you are looking at the number one sucker in the world who was the last one to know. Everyone else knew it, everyone. Not me. So you ask me, would I kill her? In spades. But mister, I am not connected with the Mafia. I never have been. Monte Sweet is. Monte Seteloni. That, my friend, is his real name.”

“Why the Mafia?” Masuto asked him.

“Because what happened last night was a Mafia killing. Who else wires cars?”