The Case of the Murdered MacKenzie: A Masao Masuto Mystery (Book Seven) (9 page)

It was four o'clock in the morning when Masuto walked into his cottage in Culver City. There had been a time when Kati, worried sick, would have been waiting up for him. Time had forced her to accept the fact that he could be away half the night yet return in one piece. Tonight, or this morning, depending upon one's point of view, Masuto was too tired even for his nightly bath, and in the morning he overslept, missing the time he usually set aside for his meditation. He kissed Kati and fled from the house, and drive as he might, it was still nine-twenty when he reached the police station in Beverly Hills. Since he was expected to clock in at eight-thirty, he was almost an hour late. Polly, at Reception, informed him that the boss was steaming.

He went into the office he shared with Sy Beckman, and Beckman informed him that Wainwright had called his office twice this morning and had appeared in person once—the latter not very difficult since he was directly down the hall.

“What could you have done between yesterday and today?” Beckman wondered. “That kind of burn takes a lot of doing. I see she's dead. What in hell does this case add up to, Masao?”

“Confusion?”

“Poor dame, first that crazy trial and now this.”

Captain Wainwright switched to voice contact. Having heard that Masuto was in the building, he stepped into the hall and shouted, “Masuto, get your ass in here!”

Masuto walked down the corridor, nodding to the sympathetic glances of various patrolmen, and went into Wainwright's office. Wainwright was standing there, room center, awaiting him, and for a long moment they stood face to face. Then Wainwright wheeled and took his seat behind his desk.

“Sit down,” he told Masuto.

Masuto sat.

“All right. Tell me about it. I try to be a reasonable person. I have been known to get angry at times but with good cause. So just explain it, and let me see it your way.”

“Explain?” Masuto smiled. “If I could comprehend and explain anything in this world, I would be an enlightened person, which I am not.”

“No, sir.” Wainwright's voice dropped. “Don't give me any of that Charlie Chan bullshit, Masao. I want to know what in hell you were doing up in Malibu Canyon last night with Geffner and that high-class grease monkey from the L.A.P.D.”

“I can tell you that. Mr. Geffner was disturbed. He appears to have been more or less disturbed since this crazy trial started. Last night, after court, Judge Simpkins told Mr. Geffner that he intended to throw the Mackenzie case out of court the following day. Then Geffner heard that Eve Mackenzie was dead. He suspected murder, and he asked me to drive out to Malibu Canyon with him.”

“You're a Beverly Hills cop.”

“I'm aware of that.”

“Then what in God's name were you doing out there in Malibu Canyon? Whatever happened there, it's out of our jurisdiction.”

“Eve Mackenzie was a resident of Beverly Hills.”

“And if she was shot in Paris, would you tell that to the Sûreté?”

“Malibu's closer.”

“Masao,” Wainwright said more gently, “you and me go back a long time and I've cussed you out plenty for bending the rules and maybe breaking them now and then. But I've apologized too, and I've never said that you weren't the smartest cop that ever worked for me. Well, eight o'clock this morning the city manager walks in and he says to me, ‘What would you say, Captain, if I told you to fire Masuto?' Just like that.”

“What did you say?”

“I asked him what he was doing—was he telling me to fire you, and if so, just why? Or was he just posing the question?”

Masuto waited, smiling slightly.

“No comment?”

“I could go to Hawaii,” Masuto said. “I think the children would be happy there, and they don't mind hiring Nisei cops, and if you put the kiss of death on me, I can always work as a security guard or something of the sort—”

“Will you cut out that goddamn crap and be serious for one cotton-picking minute. I told the city manager that if he instructed me to fire you, he could find someone else to run his police department.”

“Thank you,” Masuto said. “I appreciate that.”

“He said he felt the same way. The city manager.”

“Then what was it? An exercise in rhetoric?”

“You can bet your sweet life it was not. A guy from the C.I.A. woke him up at two o'clock in the morning—”

“Name of Slocum?”

“I think so, Slocum. Made it important enough to get our city manager out of bed and give him a lecture on what in hell you were doing up in Malibu Canyon in the middle of the night, and this same C.I.A. character informed Abramson that you were impertinent, destructive, and given to dropping dangerous innuendos, and very likely a man engaged in something dirtier than being a cop. Now what in hell gave him that notion, Masao?”

“I might have said that I suspected Eve Mackenzie's death was no accident.”

“You had to. You couldn't keep your nose out of it. They have a highway patrol and a sheriff's department, but that don't cut no ice with you. No, sir. You're damn lucky that Abramson doesn't frighten. He told this Slocum guy that the C.I.A. doesn't do the hiring and firing on this police force, and that until he was ready to bring some concrete charges against you, he, Abramson, would take no action. So much for the city manager. Now comes my part of it. Stay out of the Mackenzie case. The book is closed. His wife was charged with the murder, and she's dead. As far as we're concerned, it's over.”

“You have to be kidding.”

“Like hell I am!”

They sat silently facing each other for about thirty seconds. Then Masuto reached into his pocket, took out his wallet, and opened it to reveal his badge. He unpinned it carefully and placed it on Wainwright's desk. Then he took his gun and placed it on the badge. Then he stood up and said, “So sorry, Captain, so very sorry.” He left the office, closing the door gently behind him.

He had taken three steps in the corridor when he was almost physically assaulted by Wainwright's bellow. “Masuto, you get your ass back in here!”

Masuto halted and waited. Doors opened. Heads poked out. Wainwright opened his door and shouted, “You got nothing better to do?” The doors closed. “Masuto, inside!”

Masuto returned to Wainwright's office, closing the door behind him as gently as he had before.

“Sit down!” Wainwright snapped. “What in hell is eating you, Masuto? Haven't I always treated you decently? Didn't I fight to get the first Oriental cop on this force? Haven't I stood behind you and backed you up every time they yelled for your scalp? And then when I get into a situation where I can't back you up, first thing you do is dump your badge and gun and walk out—which is another part of your phony routine,” he yelled, thrusting a finger at Masuto, “just like that ‘so sorry' crap that you picked up watching the late show—and you got to be the number-one horse's ass to walk out on a job like yours in maybe the best police spot in the country, not to mention our pension plan. So will you pick up your gun and badge, and let's try to talk like two civilized people.”

“You're absolutely right about the pension,” Masuto said, picking up the gun and badge. “Never thought of it.”

“Don't put me on. Just tell me plain and straight why you can't leave this thing alone.”

“No, sir. You tell me, Captain, why, when a murder takes place on your turf, you're ready to let the killers walk away scot-free.”

“That's not fair, Masao.”

“Why not? We both know Eve Mackenzie didn't kill her husband. As a matter of fact, no one killed her husband because the dead man was not her husband. She was pushed into a trial because certain forces wanted it that way, and if I had to guess, I'd guess C.I.A. and Fenwick. And then they murdered her because their whole stupid plan couldn't stand up and they thought she was going to blow the whistle on them, and last night they tried to kill Geffner, Hendricks, and me, and I think that if Hendricks wasn't with us, they might have pulled it off.”

“What? Just say that again!”

“They cut the brake lines on Geffner's car while we were looking at the car Eve Mackenzie drove, and it was on a spot just before that long slope in Malibu Canyon, and if you think I'm building up an incident to impress you, call Hendricks down at L.A.P.D. and he'll tell you all about it.”

“I don't have to call Hendricks,” Wainwright said quietly. “I believe you. Who did it?”

“I don't think there's much question about that. They had two big black limos parked there and a couple of thugs as drivers. That's a guess, but I think it's a damn good guess.”

Wainwright sat and stared at his desk. Masuto waited. A clock on Wainwright's desk ticked away the seconds. Finally, Wainwright looked up at Masuto and smiled forlornly. “Well, Masao, we've done some good work together.”

“We'll do more.”

“Maybe. Only there's a lot of muscle on the other side.”

“If they can get away with it here, in this country, kill anyone who stands in their way, manipulate the police, manipulate the courts—well, we let them, don't we? It's our fault. We're the ones who make murder easy—just by keeping our hands off.”

“That's right.”

“So—what then, Captain? What do we do?”

“A man was murdered in the Mackenzie house. He may have been Mackenzie. Most likely, he was not. When a homicide occurs here in Beverly Hills, it's your responsibility and your department. So I expect you to bring in the killer, and I don't give a damn if the President of the United States calls you down to Washington and stuffs you full of caviar and tells you to lay off. I am sick and tired of being told to keep my nose clean. If Abramson comes down and tells us that we're both fired—well, okay, we'll pack it up. But until then—”

“I'll stir up a lot of garbage. I have to know who killed Eve Mackenzie, if she actually was murdered, and who tried to kill us, and I might have to do some telephoning.”

“I don't have to instruct you.”

“No, you don't. Thank you, Captain.”

“For what?”

Masuto did not say that it took guts and principle to do what Wainwright was doing. Wainwright would not have taken kindly to such a statement.

Beckman was waiting for Masuto, and asked him whether he was still working for the Beverly Hills police force. Masuto repeated his conversation with Wainwright, and Beckman wanted to know what it added up to and where it made any sense.

“Mackenzie is killed, or someone who looks enough like him to be his twin brother, and then his wife, and then they go after you and Geffner and Hendricks like they're running a goddamn butcher shop—and why? We don't even have a smell of a motive.”

“Just a smell. They wanted Eve Mackenzie dead because she knew too much. But what did she know? She wasn't there when the man in the tub was killed. Did she know who he was? And how does Fenwick figure? Whatever Mackenzie's employment card had on it could have been masked out when they Xeroxed it. So why wouldn't they send you his fingerprints?”

“They knew it wasn't Mackenzie?”

“No question about it. So that wasn't Mackenzie. But why this strange charade? If they wanted to get rid of the twin, why not a shotgun blast in the face. A prowler, and Mackenzie kills him in self-defense. No questions asked, the way people feel today. Mackenzie would come out a sort of hero, and that Fenwick crowd would hardly be disturbed by blowing away a man's face. But instead they work out that ridiculous bathtub murder, as described in Eve's notebook.”

“And then they kill her,” Beckman said.

“If we can prove it.”

“Give it a try, Masao. I know it's outside our turf, but there has to be some way.”

Masuto took a deep breath. “All right, first step.” He picked up the telephone and called All Saints Hospital. They gave him the pathology room, and a moment later he heard the rasping voice of Dr. Baxter.