Full Frontal Murder

Full Frontal Murder

A Marian Larch Mystery

Barbara Paul

MYSTERIOUSPRESS.COM

1

Marian Larch looked at the brightly wrapped box that had just been placed in her lap. “But you're the one going away,” she protested. “Shouldn't I be giving you a present?”

“Open it,” Kelly commanded.

The bow was lopsided; Kelly had wrapped it herself. Marian pulled off the ribbon and opened the box to find a fanny pack wrapped in silver tissue. Lovely brushed gray leather, reeking of money, so soft to the touch as to be sensuous. Three zippered pockets, not one of them deep enough to hold a gun.

“It's beautiful, Kelly,” Marian said, awed. “Where did you get it?”

“Siena.” Kelly Ingram had flown there to make a quickie TV movie before heading to California to make a real movie. They were sitting in TWA's VIP lounge at Kennedy, waiting for the Los Angeles flight to be announced. “Leather shops all over the place there,” Kelly said, meaning Siena. “I wanted to get one of those fanny packs for myself, but they cost too much,” she added straight-faced.

Marian laughed; Kelly probably had three. She was going to miss her friend. Kelly had left Hollywood seven years earlier as a former starlet going nowhere. A television series shot in New York had made her a name, and a successful Broadway play had made her an actor. Now she was headed back to La La Land in triumph to make the movie version of
The Apostrophe Thief
, the play that had given her stature.

“I'll probably have an entourage by the time I get back,” Kelly said glumly. “It's a capital offense in Hollywood to go anywhere alone.”

That was a joke Kelly was making. “What would you do with an entourage?” Marian asked, amused.

“Oh, I don't know. Pay 'em to stand around and look impressive, I guess. Isn't that what entourages are for?”

“You're asking me? I thought they were to provide moral support.”

“Oh, that.” Kelly dismissed the notion with a wave of her hand. Other passengers in the VIP lounge kept glancing at Kelly out of the corners of their eyes, trying not to appear impressed by the presence of this particular celebrity among them. Kelly was dressed for traveling in faded jeans, a white T-shirt, and what appeared to be a fisherman's vest. She looked like a million bucks.

“Ms Ingram?” An airline official had appeared by Kelly's armchair. “Would you like to board now?”

“Yes, thanks.” Kelly and Marian both stood up. “Time for me to go, Toots.”

“Don't stay any longer than you have to,” Marian said.

“Don't worry about
that.”
They followed the airlines official through a door leading to the boarding ramp. Kelly paused and said, “And I hope you catch your bad guy.”

Marian sighed. “Which one?”

Kelly winked. “Whichever one you're thinking about right now.” She turned and headed up the ramp.

Good exit
, Marian thought. She raised her hand in response to Kelly's wave just before her friend disappeared into the connecting tunnel.

Dammit. Marian missed her already.

Kelly knew her pretty well, Marian mused as she made the drive back into Manhattan. Never completely out of her mind was whatever crime-of-the-moment was taking up most of her working hours, spending the taxpayers' money, plaguing her sleep. But at the moment she was more concerned with the gap Kelly's absence would leave in her life.

Cops rarely had friends who were not also cops. Street cops especially had trouble talking to outsiders; only other cops understood what it was like. Marian Larch had put in her time as a street cop, living with the constant tension, never knowing whether the next door she pounded on would be opened by a frightened citizen or a crazy with a shotgun. Afraid that her fear might paralyze her at the very moment she needed to act fast to save her own life. Just wearing the uniform had made her a target in some of the neighborhoods she'd had to go into. How did you explain living that kind of life without sounding like a lunatic with a death wish?

After Marian had earned her gold shield, those moments of intense fear had not disappeared—but they had become spaced further apart. As a detective, she had breathing room she'd not had as a street cop. But then a new kind of intensity had appeared, an incessant pressure to
get it right
. Again, it was something only other police detectives understood.

That was one reason Kelly Ingram's friendship was so precious to Marian. Kelly and her extravagant, funny, somewhat nutty world of show business had given Marian's life a perspective it had never had before. It was an odd pairing, the grimly real world of crime and the world that made make-believe enchanting and necessary. Kelly had opened a door for Marian; she'd become friendly with both Kelly's co-star and the woman who'd written the play they were filming. Now all three of them would be in California for months, and Marian's contacts with other people would all be in the field of law enforcement.

Even Holland.

She parked in one of the diagonal spaces in front of the Midtown South Precinct stationhouse. “Morning, Lieutenant,” the desk sergeant greeted her when she walked in. She went through the good-morning ritual with everyone she passed on the way to her office, knowing the respect shown her was only mouth-honor from those men who still resented taking orders from a woman. Their problem.

Dowd looked up from his desk right outside her office door. “Captain wants to see you. Toot sweet, he says.”

She nodded. “And I'll want to see Buchanan and Campos when I get back.” She locked her shoulder bag in the bottom drawer of her desk and headed toward Captain Murtaugh's office.

The captain was looking worried, but then he always looked worried. He'd put on a little weight over the winter that he hadn't gotten rid of yet, but he still appeared long and lanky even when sitting behind a desk. Marian knocked on the open door to get his attention.

“Ah, Marian—have a seat. Something I want you to do.”

“Sure.” She shut the door and sat down.

He took a swallow of coffee from the oversized mug he kept close at hand all day long. “The Galloway case. The attempted kidnapping.”

Marian did a quick mental run-through of her detectives' case assignments. “Yeah, O'Toole caught that one. Little boy snatched away from his mother on the street. Mother convinced the father was behind it even though she didn't know the guy who grabbed the kid. Beat cop saw it happening and intervened. Kid safe, perp long gone.”

“I want you take that one on yourself.”

She was surprised. “Okay, but O'Toole can handle it.”

“He could if it were an ordinary domestic squabble. But this one may have a little more involved. I just got a call from the kid's grandfather, Walter Galloway.” He paused. “Galloway Industries. The Galloway Foundation. Galloway Charitable Trust.”

Oh.
That
Galloway. “So there's more than just parental feeling involved.”

“Walter Galloway thinks so. He thinks it was an attempted kidnapping for ransom. Did O'Toole turn up the connection to Galloway Industries?”

Marian frowned. “I don't know, I'll have to check. But he would in time—this just happened yesterday.”

“That's the problem,” the captain said. “If someone is trying to snatch the boy, we don't have a whole lot of time. Old man Galloway has hired a bodyguard for the kid, but the mother is screaming harassment and won't let the bodyguard into the house. She says the hired muscle is just a cover-up, that the boy's father is the one they have to be afraid of. It's a mess.”

“And the poor little rich boy is caught square in the middle. How much money are we talking about here?”

“Enough to buy the Lower East Side out of pocket change. I want you to find out who's really behind that attempted kidnapping and forestall the next attempt, if you can. If the father checks out okay, talk Mrs. Galloway into accepting the bodyguard. But for now, put a police officer in that house.”

“Right. Seventy-two hours max?” The standard period of police protection.

“Let's see what you turn up first.”

Marian left in a hurry; if the grandfather was right and the child was still in danger, there was no time to waste. As she passed O'Toole's desk, she tapped the young detective on the shoulder and said, “Bring the Galloway case file into my office. Right now.” He grabbed a folder and followed her.

Sergeants Campos and Buchanan were waiting for her. Buchanan, the seasoned veteran, seated facing her desk; and Campos, the angry young Latino, lounging against a file cabinet. She held a finger up. “One phone call.” Marian called the Chief of Patrol's office and arranged for around-the-clock protection for the Galloway boy. She read the address out of the folder O'Toole handed her.

“What's up, Lieutenant?” Sergeant Campos asked. He'd assigned the Galloway case to O'Toole.

“A complication. O'Toole, did you know these Galloways are the Galloway Industries people?”

He cleared his throat. “I'm still running a background check.”

Campos made the connection. “Ransom.”

“It's a possibility,” Marian said. “O'Toole, I'm going to be running the case but you're still on it.”

O'Toole said, “Hey, Lieutenant, I woulda found it!”

She flapped a hand at him. “I know. But our time schedule has just been goosed up.”

Sergeant Buchanan shifted his weight. “Somebody wanna fill me in?”

Campos gave him a quick run-down. “Looked like a straight domestic snatch when it came in. Husband and wife separated, both want the kid.”

“Have we ruled out the husband?” Marian asked.

“Not yet,” O'Toole answered. “Mrs. Galloway didn't know the perp, but the husband coulda hired himself some talent.”

“Mug shots?”

He shook his head. “She couldn't ID anyone. I got an APB out.”

“Where's the husband staying … oh, you've got it here. Sutton Place?”

“His father's place.”

“Walter Galloway. O'Toole, I want to talk to all these Galloways. Set up appointments—the sooner the better.”

“Right.” He left to start phoning.

Marian turned to Buchanan. “Is Perlmutter working on anything you can't assign to someone else?”

He squinted his eyes, thinking. “Naw. You can have him.”

“Good.” Marian shifted mental gears and looked at the two sergeants. “You know why I called you in. The Sergeants Exam.” Buchanan grunted, Campos nodded.

The Midtown South Precinct had been working one sergeant short for over a year. As lieutenant, Marian was supposed to oversee three squads of seven or eight detectives each, each one headed by a sergeant. But Campos and Buchanan had been shouldering the load by themselves, with Marian picking up as much of the overflow as she could. To add to the difficulties, Buchanan was scheduled for retirement at the end of the year. They needed not one new sergeant but two.