The Case of the Murdered MacKenzie: A Masao Masuto Mystery (Book Seven) (6 page)

“That's quite a question.”

“Obviously, someone read the notebook and framed the lady. My candidate is Feona Scott.” He ordered a second double Scotch. “Who ever heard of a name like that?”

“British. Scottish.”

“She's attractive until you see the eyes. Gimlet eyes. Mackenzie says it's not her husband. Mackenzie. I mean Eve, Mrs. Mackenzie, she says it's not her husband.”

“Maybe not. Tell me, do you know who her agent is?”

“Eve Mackenzie? I don't even know whether she has one. She hasn't done any films lately.”

“Ah, so. What's your guess about Washington?”

“That's it. It makes no sense. Even if Mackenzie was involved in some super-secret stuff, why prosecute his wife without evidence? Unless they felt that in this way the real killer would be protected. But how? And who's the killer? Feona Scott? How about that?”

Masuto shook his head.

“I wish I were defending the lady,” Geffner said moodily. “I'd tear the state's case to shreds. I'd be another F. Lee Bailey. You know, in England that's the way it works. Lawyers switch from the prosecution to the defense and back again. Makes more sense than the way we do it. Well, what do you intend to do about all this, Masuto?”

“I work for the city. That doesn't leave me much choice. I argued with Wainwright, but I guess the same voice from Washington convinced him to close the book. He won't reopen the case. Unless—”

“Unless what?”

“Just a notion, but unlikely. One more thing. Did you talk to Eve Mackenzie?”

“The formal stuff. I asked her whether she wanted to plead. She smiled at me and said, ‘No, Mr. Geffner, we must have a trial.'”

“She wasn't disturbed?”

“Not a bit. Cool as a cucumber.”

Masuto paid the check. “I'll be off now. Thank you.”

“Thank you for nothing,” Geffner said.

What Masuto's wife, Kati, disliked most about those times when he would become totally engrossed with a case was his habit of withdrawal; and this evening, when he returned to his cottage in Culver City after talking with Geffner, it was immediately apparent. He answered questions with monosyllables and he listened without hearing. Kati had once mentioned to him on such an occasion that his Zen Roshi in downtown Los Angeles might not respond well to someone who listened without hearing. It was very un-Japanese on the part of Kati, but since she had become part of a Nisei consciousness-raising group, she did a number of things that were un-Japanese.

When they were in Japan, Kati had been less impressed than Masuto by the food, holding that her mother's cooking was better. She also thought that her own cooking was in most cases superior, but that was a thought she would never voice. However, tonight she had prepared a complex and unusual dinner, a little bit of tuna sushi to begin, then suimono, a delicious soup flavored with ginger and dashi, and then oyako domburi, a chicken dish that takes long and patient preparation. When her husband ate without commenting, Kati said, “If I were an Anglo lady, I would be very angry. I might even shout and scream at you. I might even leave you.”

“Kati, what on earth are you talking about?”

“About what your Roshi would say if you spoke to him without hearing what he said.”

“Kati, you're making no sense.”

“You've eaten the sushi and the suimono. Now you are eating oyako domburi.”

“Of course.”

“But no comment. Is it good, bad, indifferent? Better than what we ate in Tokyo? Worse? You never even noticed what you were eating.”

“Of course I did. Delicious.”

“You're just saying that.”

“I say it and I mean it. And I appreciate it.”

“What did you have for lunch?”

He took refuge in an outright lie. “Hamburgers,” he said.

She was mollified. “How can you eat such food! I'm a thoughtless wife. I should pack a lunch basket for you. But I become jealous and thoughtless when you have one of those dreadful murders, and at first I was so happy that we were in Japan when it happened, but now I can see that it waited for you.”

“Well, I work in Beverly Hills, Kati. You must know how I feel.”

“I think murder is awful, but when a woman kills someone, it's so much worse.”

“You mean Eve Mackenzie?”

“Yes.”

“She didn't kill her husband, Kati.”

“How do you know that? Because she's so pretty?”

Masuto leaned back. “The dinner was wonderful, Kati, and I love you, and the children are in bed, and I'm so glad to be home in our own house. I'm thirsty too, so I'd love a pot of tea and some cake. I know I don't talk much about my cases, but I want to talk about this one and see if I can straighten some of it out in my own mind. Would you like that?”

Kati smiled and nodded, and Masuto felt that he had made up in some degree for his boorishness about the food. Kati was quite right about his not listening. In another person it might be forgivable; in him it was not. Kati poured the tea and sat facing him, and once again he reminded himself that his wife was a truly lovely woman.

“Will you ask me questions?”

“If you wish me to. You mean when I am confused. I heard on the TV this afternoon that she said the dead man was not her husband. Can you tell me what she meant by that?”

“Exactly. What is apparent, everyone sees. What is not apparent is not seen. If a tree is cut down, it's invisible, even though it was there before.”

“Now if you begin that kind of Zen talk that always confuses me—”

“No. I promise you, although in a way what is happening here is very Zen. It's the work of an illusionist, but not a very bright one, I think. You asked me about Eve Mackenzie's husband. No, she did not kill him. I'm quite sure she killed no one, but specifically not her husband.”

“But the dead man?”

“Not her husband.”

“She wasn't married? That's what the man on television said, that the only explanation for Mrs. Mackenzie's statement was that they had never been married.”

“Hardly. And if he weren't lazy and had checked some records, he would have discovered that Mr. and Mrs. Mackenzie were married.”

“But the dead man?”

“He was not her husband because he was not Robert Mackenzie. A number of other people identified him as Mackenzie, but that was because they had seen Mackenzie only with his clothes on. His wife had seen him naked, and when she looked at the body in the tub she saw something that was missing, and as I said before, what is missing is invisible.”

“Ah, so—yes!” Kati exclaimed. “An operation scar, a birthmark, of course. Then who is the dead man?”

“Who do you think he is, Kati?”

“Only one person can look so alike. It's Mr. Mackenzie's twin brother.”

“Good!” Masuto said with pleasure. “Again, Kati, the apparent and the unapparent. When Mrs. Mackenzie said that the man was not her husband they put it down to the unreliability of a woman's mind or witness. If one has contempt for women, then one puts no stock in a woman's statement.”

“Yes, yes,” Kati agreed. “We were discussing that at our consciousness-raising group. And I think, Masao, it's even worse among Nisei women—”

“Perhaps.”

“I didn't mean you, Masao,” Kati said apologetically.

“You must. I'm as bad an offender as any. But you do see the position of Mrs. Mackenzie. She declares the dead man is not her husband. A dozen men swear that she is mistaken. The dead man is her husband. But can a woman be mistaken on such a question? Hardly, and since all the male witnesses plus Mrs. Scott insist that the dead man is Robert Mackenzie, it is accepted and Mrs. Mackenzie is arrested.”

“Then she did not kill her husband. Did she kill his twin brother? Why did his clothes have to disappear? I don't understand that,” Kati said.

“He was found naked in the bathtub. Why? Why did he have to be sitting naked in the tub unless to provide a reason for his clothes to disappear. There are a hundred ways to kill a man. Why go to something so exotic as an electrocution in a bathtub?”

“But that was in her notebook.”

“Yes, which meant that the media and the police and everyone else would be looking at the notebook instead of wondering where the dead man's clothes had gotten to.”

Kati shook her head. “I don't understand, Masao.”

“No? Of course, it's murky. It's the kind of thing that fills one with a sense of foreboding and horror. But let me reconstruct it as a playwright might to put together a scene. Mackenzie has a twin brother. The twin brother appears and must be killed.”

“Why?”

“I don't know that. Kati, I know none of this, and I try to spin something out of invisible cloth. So I invent a twin brother who must be killed. Since he was killed, I presume that he must be killed. Since he was found naked, I presume that his clothes must be disposed of. He was knocked unconscious by a blow to the head. Now he lies unconscious. Two choices: dispose of the body, dispose of the clothes. Which choice? It's not easy to make a body vanish—easier to make the clothes vanish.”

Kati shuddered. “How can you live with this, Masao? Day and night.”

“It's my karma.”

Kati shook her head.

“No more?”

“Yes,” Kati said. “Please go on. Does it help? I mean for me to listen and ask questions.”

“A great deal.”

“Yes—the choice is to make the clothes vanish. But why? Why must the body be naked? Ah, so!” he exclaimed. “I am as witless as the others.”

“Why?”

“One or two of three people are present at the murder. Perhaps others, but certainly one or more of three. Because there are three people who presumably knew the contents of Eve Mackenzie's notebook.”

“Yes, yes,” Kati agreed excitedly. “Her husband, Mrs. Scott, and Mrs. Mackenzie. That's why they arrested Mrs. Mackenzie. But why couldn't they arrest the other two?”

“Kati, Kati, the presumption was that Mr. Mackenzie was dead. And Mrs. Scott had no motive, and she told of a terrible fight between the Mackenzies. I'm sure that if the trial lasts long enough to put Mrs. Scott on the stand, she will testify that Mrs. Mackenzie threatened to kill her husband.”

“But you don't think she killed him?”

“Oh, no. Mrs. Mackenzie is a small, slender woman. She can't weigh more than a hundred and ten or fifteen pounds. According to Sy Beckman, the man in the tub weighed at least two hundred pounds. Mrs. Mackenzie could never place his body in the tub.”

“But Mrs. Scott?”

“Stronger, a very well-built woman. No, I don't think so, and that leaves Mackenzie as the murderer of his twin brother. Or does it? Any number of different people could have been there. We have no motive. It's not a random killing, not a burglary, not some lunatic lying up in the hills and shooting at cars on the freeway. No, indeed. This is murder with malice aforethought. But why? And why did Eve Mackenzie suddenly stop insisting that the man in the tub was not her husband?”

“Until the trial,” Kati said.

“But why the trial? Why did she subject herself to the trial? You see, Kati, the state's case was built on the fact that Mackenzie was taking a bath when his wife struck him with a blunt instrument and then executed him. But if it turned out not to be Mackenzie, then he would not be calmly bathing in Mackenzie's bathtub and there would be absolutely no case against Mrs. Mackenzie. And why the refusal to give Beckman Mackenzie's fingerprints? Senseless, stupid—and horrible.”

“Murder is always horrible.”

“Yes—” It flickered in his mind. It was a picture unreal, like a television screen out of focus, waving, the sought-for images mixed with images unsought. He had called himself witless, and properly as he thought about it now. Eve Mackenzie had been dealt into whatever game was being played here. A deal had been made with her agreement. That's why she stood trial with such aplomb, and that's why her bail had been ‘no more than a hundred thousand dollars, paid for by the Fenwick company, even as Fenwick had supplied her legal defense. The Fenwick Works, Mackenzie, his twin brother, Eve Mackenzie, a trial that was ridiculous and would be thrown out of court and then the book closed. But why the trial?

“They wanted the trial—” Masuto began.

“Who, Masao?”

“Just listen to me, Kati, and let me say it aloud and try to have it make sense. Eve Mackenzie hates her husband. She wants a divorce. He will not give her a divorce. There could be any number of reasons for that. They have a fight, not unusual, and she drives to Santa Barbara to spend the night with her sister. That night, Mackenzie's twin shows up. Possibly, Mackenzie is not alone. He or they kill the twin. Maybe Scott is in on it, maybe not. What to do with the body? Notebook—frame Eve Mackenzie. But something is missing from the twin, a birthmark or operation scar. That gives Eve the upper hand. She will play ball for a price.”