Ransom Game (29 page)

“Who else is there? Yes: Johnny Rosa, a young man on the fringe of the racket, a man with daring and cunning up to a point, but not a mastermind. At this point he is hanging around a dive called the Kit Kat Klub, where he loses some money to people like my old man, and meets people like Rolf Knudsen, a dullish hippie with a taste for pot and beer, and Ian Todd, a lawyer with no clients but a willingness to try his hand at anything. They lead him to Bill Ashland. He doesn't have dreams as big as Bob Jarman's, but they're bigger than retiring from a time-clock job at sixty-five with a gold watch or a barometer for his trouble. They all live in or regularly visit the Norton Apartments where Johnny Rosa can find them when he wants them.

“At the same time, watching from afar we have Eddie Milano, who is just getting a foothold in the diversified side of the rackets. Down in Florida Muriel Falkirk is getting her education in double dealing in the numbers racket.

“Now, who is the string that ties this strangely assorted bundle together?” The more I talked, the less I shivered. “The only one who knew Johnny Rosa, Jarman, Gloria and old George Warren: his son, Russ. Russ, who didn't give a damn for gray flannel suits, but loved his sister so deeply it may have raised a few eyebrows. They'd shared an idyllic childhood at the family farm with games that excluded outsiders and focussed on the hideaway called Pop's hole. But kids grow up, and neither Gloria nor Russ were getting what they wanted out of life. We'll let a psychiatrist tell us what Russ wanted. It was clear to Russ what his sister wanted. She wanted Jarman. But Jarman wasn't to be had in the ordinary way. Daddy didn't like the cut of Jarman's ready-to-wear shirts or his off-the-rack suits. Maybe it went deeper than that. He didn't like a snake when he saw one.

“When I went to see Nelson Christie at the parole board early this week, he told me that none of the kidnappers were bright enough to have planned the elaborate plot to snatch Gloria. He said they weren't officer material, none of them could have made corporal in his book, although he granted them motive and practical abilities. But they needed a leader. If the leader wasn't Johnny Rosa, then who was it?

“Would Gloria arrange her own kidnapping so that Jarman could play Prince Charming on a white horse? It might work, but Gloria lacked the contacts that would make it practical. Jarman? He had everything to gain, but he would attract the full blast of a police investigation. Still, when it was all over, Jarman had benefitted handsomely: he was now a strong suitor for the girl and he had the old man falling all over him with thanks. The engagement was announced. Jarman went into the business. Marriage bells sounded. Nice for Gloria, nice for Jarman. But Jarman isn't the mastermind.” My throat was getting a bit dry, and I'd just got started.

“The perfect brain for this job was Russ Warren. Certainly he would have applauded the results. There was the winning over of George to acceptance of Jarman. There was a loud continuing news story, which was a source of embarrassment to news-shy George. There was the exchange of a large sum of money, a further annoyance to his father. Yes, if Russ Warren had been alive at the time of the kidnapping, I'd say that he would have been the brains behind it.

“I'd been thinking that, when I remembered something Ian Todd told me. He said something about how Ashland had blabbed when it was called off
the first time
. So, it had been planned in detail long before that Labour Day weekend. If it had been planned for the Canada Day weekend on the first of July, we have to put Russ Warren back in the cast of characters. He could have worked out the details with Johnny Rosa in the spring. He knew about Pop's hole, and the snatch took place in territory he knew like he knew the gears of a Lotus. He knew all about the cottage at Dittrick Lake. He had driven the route dozens of times. He took Johnny Rosa over it inch by inch. Ian Todd was able to help with a few details about contacting the family. With his knowledge of legal and police procedure, it made an excellent plan perfect. Gloria wasn't told, and none of the other conspirators knew about Russ Warren's role. Only Johnny Rosa. The plan would have been executed on schedule except for one thing. Russ Warren was killed in a car crash just a few days before the long weekend. Johnny called it off. He probably intended to abandon the scheme permanently at first, but after a while he could see that a plan that would work on the first of July weekend would work just as well on the Labour Day weekend. Just as many cars would be on the road from the cottage country and it would be just as hard for the police to catch the kidnappers during the crucial time when they had the money in their possession.

“So, the brain that planned the whole scam had died weeks before it went forward without him. To his credit, it worked just the way he planned it, and nobody got hurt. The invisible flaw was the fact that after the first cancellation, Ashland had done a little bragging. He couldn't know that Johnny was going to dust off Russ Warren's blueprint in a few weeks. So Ashland was the spoiler. They were rounded up, questioned and tried. Johnny Rosa, as the apparent mastermind, drew the longest sentence. When he got out, on a parole which finally came, even for someone as little repentant as Johnny Rosa, there were lots of people waiting for him.

“We know about most of them. We know that Eddie Milano and Muriel Falkirk had a foolproof plan to get their hands on the missing ransom money. We know that Ashland and Todd and Knudsen in their varying ways were waiting to be given their cut. After all, they'd earned it. Johnny knew too that he was still being watched closely not only by the parole board but by the Horsemen. He knew that was the price of parole. He thought he knew how to handle everybody. He established a routine: solid foundry worker by day and loving lover by night. He thought he would be able to hypnotize all the Johnny Rosa-watchers by the humdrumness of his reformed life. He dropped no hint that out there hidden in Pop's hole were two suitcases full of unmarked ten- and twenty-dollar bills. Johnny played a cool hand, and when it suited him to make his move, he had worked it so that he would at the same time shake off Muriel's partner in crime, Eddie Milano. Johnny and Muriel had become more than just partners. Muriel was someone he finally cared about.

“You know how they worked the disappearing act, how I was brought into the case in order to help establish that Johnny Rosa was dead. In reality, he went to live in a cabin at the back of the Knudsen place. When he was sure that all the fish were biting on the phoney bait, he made his move. He went back to Pop's hole. But, instead of finding the money under the cobwebs of six years, all he found was a lot of Pop's empty bottles.

“That nearly stopped him. It shook him more than anything ever had or would again. He was frustrated, confused, and, most of all, angry. Angry at Muriel, because it had to be Muriel who'd leaked the news. Todd, Ashland, and Knudsen were in the clear because they didn't know anything, and the money couldn't have been found by accident. It had to be Muriel. She'd added another cross to the double-cross they'd planned to pull on Eddie Milano. She had to be working with Milano again. He called Muriel and gave her the news, then went around to the apartment. With that beard, he didn't have to worry about being spotted easily. When he let himself in quietly, Muriel was on the phone talking to Eddie, asking to see him. It confirmed all his fears, She'd made a sap of him, cheated him of the ransom money he'd spent six years paying for. Muriel and Eddie'd dished him completely. So he killed her. She should have got away as soon as she'd heard the loot was gone. She could have been out of there in less than a minute.

“When Johnny finally left Muriel's place, a bottle of Crown Royal was sitting, like a calling card, where it couldn't be missed. I know that Eddie had heard from Muriel. According to him, she was all over him like a tent after weeks of putting him off. That's why he paid that visit, saw Muriel in the tub, beyond double and triple crosses. Now she only needed one. Milano took the bottle and backed away from there.

“Then Johnny had a whole night to think it over. He wasn't the sort to lick his wounds on the run. He went through it all step by step, until ‘It had to be Muriel' gave way to ‘Who else could it have been?' If she and Eddie had snatched the money, why had Muriel waited for his call? Why was she caught on the phone? If she'd known from Eddie that the money'd been picked up, she would have beat it fast.

“But who else could have known? Pop's hole had been Russ Warren's idea and he was dead. But Russ could have blabbed before he killed himself in that sportscar. It was an odd idea, but it led over the body of Muriel Falkirk to new and more promising territory. It might even lead him straight to the money. Whom could Russ have told? His father? Not bloody likely. His sister? Possibly. Jarman? Well, now: Jarman was the big benefactor, wasn't he? Maybe Russ Warren couldn't keep it from him at the end. Maybe he told him all about it just before he took that final mad drive in his Lotus. We'll never know now. But see how it works out. Jarman and Gloria look like the only people Russ could have spoken to. So Johnny calls them both to see what happens, giving them a time for the meeting and warning them to come alone. Since Gloria was innocent, she reported her call to me.

“Now if Jarman did have guilty knowledge, but was innocent of any wrongdoing, he could have told me that he'd had a similar call. But he said nothing. So he kept the noon appointment and confronted Johnny Rosa. Rosa was expecting a businessman, who might be willing to pay for his silence. By now, he'd probably given up any idea of getting all of the money. But the possibilities of blackmail were attractive. He even brought along a gun with him, just to provide the scene with all necessary props. He didn't expect that Jarman hadn't come to talk. Jarman let his .32 calibre piece talk for him. With Rosa dead, Jarman was safe. He had known since he first visited Pop's hole that Rosa would eventually find the money missing.” I took another gulp of coffee. It was getting cold in my hands. Helen took it from me and refilled it from a stainless steel thermos that looked like it had gone A.W.O.L. from a boardroom. I shifted around, still feeling damp and cold, and sat up a little. She shoved a pillow under my back.

“When I realized that Johnny had been killed around the time of that noon appointment with Gloria, I quizzed her about where she was at the time. That's when Jarman came running to his wife's side confirming that she was in her studio painting. Sounds like the chivalrous thing to do, except when you consider that in giving his wife an alibi he also gave himself one. Gloria would never have suspected his motives in vouching for her like that. That was her blind side.” I seemed to be holding my audience, so I took a breath and kept on talking.

“Jarman hadn't waited for Johnny to get out of prison. He had pocketed the money as soon as the coast was clear, leaving behind the suitcases, which he knew would be recognized. According to Tom Avery, George Warren's executive assistant, Jarman began to buy up shares in devious ways soon after the kidnapping. He must have invested part of the money at high interest, bought gold low and watched it soar, or some such thing. It can be checked. Avery did a fast check for George Warren the night before he drowned and found that there were a number of small companies controlled by Jarman using variations of his name. While Johnny Rosa and his pals were sewing mailbags, Jarman was making his fortune. By the time George Warren died, even before his estate made Gloria a very powerful woman, Jarman held enough shares of Archon to debate any of George s decisions without even calling for his wife's shares. Together, they could have moved George to a broom closet.

“What triggered George's fast check on Jarman was one of George's idle wanders through the farm he lived on as a boy. According to several sources, he went up there a few times a year just to look over the place, usually concentrating on the stable where his father used to keep his thoroughbreds. Gloria maintains that only she, Russ and old Pop knew about the hiding place. She was wrong. George knew that his father drank, and he knew where he did it. He'd been talking to the chauffeur about his father's problems with alcohol, so it isn't odd that his rambles around the old place finally took in the barn. Behind the false wall he found the suitcases. He recognized them at once, rushed out in a rage and called Avery to check up on Jarman. George was nobody's fool. He felt sure that it had to be Jarman, as soon as it was clear that the kidnapping was an inside job. He confronted Jarman with the suitcase he'd carried from the barn. He threatened exposure. Jarman, who was only a thief up to this time, decided that George had to be eliminated, the way you take a dead company off the exchange.” I was running out of breath, and I'd spread my few facts as thinly as I dared. There was only a little way to go.

“Jarman knew about George's early morning swims. He knew that his breath was short and heart weak. He wasn't taking much of a chance with both doors locked and that nylon net in his hands. It's a very efficient way to get rid of trouble. It took real imagination to see that the net could be used to hold the old man under water until he was dead. That was first kill for Jarman. But he knew that there might be more. By today he was a seasoned killer.”

“At least he didn't kill Muriel,” Savas said, pulling at his chin in an unnecessary way. It was getting dark in the library. One of the cops by the curtains turned on the overhead lights. “There are still a few loose ends to be accounted for, Benny. If you're feeling up to it, after you get your pants on, we can take a proper statement downtown.” I agreed and tried to get up from the couch. Helen was holding my elbow. Savas supervised without actually getting close. When we were half-way to the door, the phone rang. Savas took it, grunted and hung up. “That was the hospital,” he said. “Jarman's dead. Mrs. Jarman's in shock and is being kept under a close watch at the hospital for the night. I guess that's all the damage we can do here.”