The Diehard (14 page)

“So, we make an offer. If our hero wants to play ball, he can have a carefree million. If he wants to take the ball and go home, he's dead. But we don't want to kill him, understand—we want to help. Hell, a guy this enterprising might even find employment with my clients. A million dollars could buy a man's way into a casino setup, say in Brazil. And then, he'd have more than a million.”

At this point, Joe Service leaned forward, and with his face close to Mr. Gordon's said, “Is that five-by, Gordon?”

Mr. Gordon surprised Service. He screwed his face up in disgust and said, “Five-by-five. I've been shafted.”

“What?”

“Look, Service, or whatever your name is, you're not a bottle, are you?”

“A what?”

“A cop.”

“For Christ's sake,” Service said.

“All right, all right,” Mr. Gordon said. “I'm just telling you
that I didn't know anything about any twenty million. What I know about is much less. Much, much less.”

Joe Service looked at the pitted face, the big body, the blunt-fingered hands. Finally, he said, “I see.”

“So I can't help you,” Mr. Gordon said. “Sorry. I wish to hell I could. At the prices they charge here, I'm not going to be here for long.”

Service was silent. “I'll have to think about that,” he said at last. “You might be able to help, after all.” He got up. “I'll let you know. See you around, Lord Byron.”

Mr. Gordon watched him walk rapidly away. He picked up his double gin and tonic.

Twenty-one

On his way downtown to lunch with Shirley Carpenter, Mulheisen stopped by Headquarters. He gave McClain a complete briefing on events since the evening before.

“Despite the Clipper's denials,” Mulheisen said, “we have definitely tied him to Wienoshek. This other story about the auto accident is pure bullshit. But that's all right. In fact, it's fine. Better than a confession, as far as I'm concerned.”

“How so?” McClain asked.

“Confessions aren't worth a hell of a lot in court, these days,” Mulheisen said. “You know that. But here I've got a signed and attested statement that will show him to be a liar.”

“Not really,” McClain said. “You can't prove that he didn't have an accident, can you? Or that he didn't give somebody fifty dollars to forget about it. I think a jury would believe that part at least.”

“Yes, but I think we'll be able to prove that Wienoshek was the burglar at Jasper Lake, and that the real reason that Clippert recognized the burglar was because he had once defended him in a court-martial. Then that story about the accident will look like what it is—a clumsy lie. That will be hard for anyone, even Homer Ferman, to overcome. Especially if we can then turn around and
show that Wienoshek was involved in the second so-called burglary and the murder of Mrs. Clippert.”

McClain agreed. “Maybe we should pick up Clippert,” he said. “Do we have enough to hold him on?”

“I like him dangling, better,” Mulheisen said. “He knows now that we definitely suspect him, but he doesn't know how close to the truth we are. If we pick him up and arraign him, then discovery rules are in effect and he learns what we know. And what could the prosecutor bring? A conspiracy charge? The prosecutor won't like that. No, I like him free, and nervous, and ignorant. He could lead us to Wienoshek, even, or to the money.”

“You know,” McClain said, “that's another funny thing—”

“I know,” Mulheisen interrupted. “You're wondering why we haven't heard anything from the Feds lately. I'm wondering too. But I think that after last night's break-in that we will hear from them.”

“Well, is there anything you need?” McClain asked.

“If you're going to be seeing the prosecutor, ask him if we can't have a couple of warrants ready on Clippert and Wienoshek. We won't use them until we have to.”

Mulheisen got to Schweizer's before Shirley Carpenter. She was only a couple minutes late. She was not at all what Mulheisen had expected. He had expected a young sexpot.

Mulheisen figured this woman to be thirty-five. She had divorcee written all over her. It's an air of diffidence and confidence, undercut by an edge of anxiety.

She was not pretty. Five foot six and too thin. She did not have an attractive figure, except for long and handsome legs. She was a bit high-waisted. That was the point. Physically, she just missed in almost every category that convention has decreed as attractive. Her face was a bit too round for a thin girl, her nose a bit too large and blunt, her eyes just a mite small. Her hair was just too blond and too overdone at the hairdresser's. Her breasts were just too small and her hips not quite wide enough, nor slender enough to provide the willowy look of a fashion model.

Nonetheless, she was very appealing. It was something to do with a candid manner and a good, quick smile.

Over her Dieter's Special (something that Mulheisen couldn't
fathom) she explained that her maiden name was Walton. “Well, not actually,” she amended. “It should be Gombrowicz, but my father is a used-car dealer and he claimed that he had so much trouble getting the name spelled right on title transfers that he had to have it changed.”

“But Walton?” Mulheisen said.

“He used to have a sales lot across the street from the Walton Hotel on Dequindre. He always liked the name. Anyway, my first husband's name was Carpenter, so I kept that, so as not to confuse our son.”

“Your first husband?” Mulheisen said.

She smiled. “I expect to marry again, Sergeant.”

“To Arthur Clippert?”

“Why not? It may sound like the old familiar secretary's folly to you—sometimes it seemed that way to me—but now that Arthur is . . . no longer married . . .”

Mulheisen had a sinking feeling. He was sympathetic toward the woman, but it still seemed to him like the old familiar secretary's folly. He couldn't see Clippert marrying this woman. Not when he could have his pick of the likes of Lou Spencer. Or did he have his pick? Lou had seen through Clippert readily enough.

Shirley Carpenter went on to talk of her twelve-year-old son, Scott. Yes, they had named him after the astronaut.

Lunch was over before Mulheisen could do little more than get a fair impression of the woman's character. “Would you like to go somewhere else, have a drink?” he suggested.

“I've got to get back to the office,” she said.

“No, you don't,” he said. “It is within my power to arrest you. Besides, Clippert knows where you are.”

“Perhaps my apartment would be more comfortable than the precinct house,” she said. “It isn't far.”

She had a twelfth-floor apartment in the Seaforth Tower. It was a modern, high-rise building that stood where once there had been thousands of hovels and tenements, the old “Happy Valley” of Hastings Avenue. The urban planners had relocated the slum to less valuable real estate around the city, and erected themselves some lucrative and luxurious housing with a view of the river and Canada, and called it Lafayette Plaisance.

Shirley Carpenter drew back the draperies, and through the full-length glass wall Mulheisen could see the snow falling on Detroit, on the river and on Canada.

“I know what you're thinking,” she said. “This, on a secretary's salary. But I'm paid quite well, my ex-husband is a foreman at the Rouge plant and pays his alimony and child support promptly—and Art takes care of the rest.”

“It's nothing to me,” Mulheisen said. “Do you mind if I smoke?”

“Not at all. Art always smokes his pipe. I like it. What would you like to drink? I think I'll have Scotch, myself.”

Mulheisen accepted a generous glass of bourbon and water. He lit a cigar and got down to the basic questions. About Jasper Lake: did she go there often? Answer: more than once. What about on the night of the burglary? Yes. Did she see the burglars? Yes. One was tall and one was short, that's all she could say for sure. They had passed by the car where she sat, but it was dark. She didn't think they saw her, nor did she think she could identify them.

Did Mr. Clippert say anything to her about what had happened? Yes, but only, it seemed, what Clippert had told Mulheisen.

Did Mr. Clippert coach her on what to say if she were asked? No. He trusted her to keep her own counsel; it was in her interests.

She told Mulheisen that she was convinced that Arthur Clippert was innocent in the Fidelity Funding affair. As for the murder, there was simply no question of his innocence.

“Surely you must have known something about the Fidelity Funding business,” Mulheisen said.

“I've been all through that with the Michigan State Insurance Commission, with the U.S. Attorney, with the FBI, with the Securities Exchange Commission, the grand jury . . . Art had nothing to do with it. I'm sure he knew nothing about it until it appeared in the newspapers.”

She sat across the living room from Mulheisen in a large furry yellow chair. She had taken her shoes off and had her feet tucked up under her. She wore a short skirt and Mulheisen once again admired her nice legs.

The phone rang.

“Yes,” she said. “He's here now. We're just talking. Of course . . . it's all right, I don't mind . . . yes . . . mmmhmmm . . . yes. Sure. Later.” She hung up. She didn't have to tell Mulheisen who it was. He didn't ask.

By this time they were both on their third drink and Mulheisen felt mellow. He gazed out the big windows as she talked quietly. The snow fell and fell. The room was darkened by the heavy overcast. There were no lights on in the room. Mulheisen liked it that way. It suited his mood. He sat silently, watching the traffic crawl along Jefferson Avenue. He drew on his cigar and sipped at the whiskey. After she hung up they sat in silence for a long time, watching the snow.

She got up and plugged in the lights of the Christmas tree in the corner. All the lights were blue and winked on and off on some thermal principle. She poured more whiskey in both their drinks and sat down again in the yellow chair.

After a while, Mulheisen said, “I've heard everything I want to hear from you, Shirley, for now at least. And I believe you. That is, I think you believe what you are saying. I can't tell you what I think about these things, but I'd like to know what you think. I want to ask you some personal questions. You don't have to answer.”

“I don't mind,” she said.

“What do you think of Arthur Clippert?”

“Arthur Clippert is a fine man,” she said, “a brilliant man. I believe in him. I trust him.”

“But . . . I don't get it,” Mulheisen said. “You said yourself, something about a secretary's dream. Even if he's not a criminal, if he has done nothing against the law . . . look at all this. He set you up here long before his wife died. I suppose he said all kinds of things to you, talked of getting a divorce . . .”

“Yes, we talked about that. Not as much as I would have liked. He meant it though, I'm sure. We didn't set a specific date. We knew it would happen, in its own time.”

“All right. That's it,” Mulheisen said. “You chose to believe him. That's okay, but finally, let's face it, you're no dumb kid . . . ah hell, maybe I'm out of line.” He took a drink.

She was calm. “Yes, you are out of line, but I don't mind.
What you think doesn't matter. It won't change things. It is a dream. It is folly. I know that. But I
am
thirty-five. I have a son who is almost a teen-ager. I know I'm not beautiful.”

“You have nice legs,” Mulheisen smiled.

“They are my best feature,” she said. She smiled. “But what I'm saying is that I have to go with this dream. It's not my last chance, but it's my last best chance. And when it comes down to it, I feel I can make it happen.”

“You have a lot of confidence,” Mulheisen said.

“I know I'm not beautiful and I didn't go to finishing school in Switzerland. I don't have Jane's looks, her money, her style, her leisure. But I'm a woman. A damn good woman, too. Of that I'm confident. Enough men have told me so.”

Mulheisen didn't quite understand. “Told you what?” he asked stupidly. It was the whiskey.

Shirley Carpenter stood up. She faced him with the window behind her, hands on hips. “I'm a hell of a lay,” she said, “I might be the best lay in this town.”

Mulheisen stood up. He set his glass on the coffee table. He looked at her across the darkened room. Her expression, the way she held herself, told him that she meant what she said. She had pride and he thought she was brave. He was moved.

“I don't mind showing you,” she said.

He knew she was serious and that it wasn't an idle proposition, nor a cynical one. She wasn't doing this for Arthur or for him. She meant to show him how good she was. He thought she might be very good indeed.

His tongue probed at a favorite molar. He looked away from her out the window, at the snow falling on Detroit and Canada. He put the cigar in his mouth and noticed that it was out.

“I have to go,” he said. “No offense.”

He picked up his overcoat and hat and walked out. She was still standing by the window, hands on hips. In the corner, the blue lights of the Christmas tree blinked on and off.

Twenty-two

Mulheisen came down the elevator nervous and dissatisfied. He had just turned down a proposition and he didn't know why. That was the trouble, he thought, I don't know why I do anything. He had been aroused. It wasn't as if he was getting a lot lately. And it wasn't because he was so ethical. Shirley Carpenter was just about his speed, too.

It was the room, he thought. Too many vibes, too many changes, as Ayeh would put it. He had started out doing a normal, if informal interrogation. Somehow, the light in the room, the whiskey, the woman herself, had changed all that. He had become almost drowsily comfortable. And then she had turned on the electricity with that straightforward offer. It was too much.

But more than that, she had aroused him and, in doing so, had reminded him that there was another woman around. Lou Spencer.

He suddenly realized that for a couple of days now, he had wanted to see Lou, to talk to her. What he wanted to tell her was what everyone wants to tell those who are important to them: Who I am. The trouble was, Mulheisen didn't know.

He dialed her number from the pay phone in the lobby. “Busy?” he said.

“Yes. I've been out in the mobs, shopping, and now I'm wrapping presents.”

“Damn. I forgot. Today's the twenty-third, almost the last day. And I didn't get anything for Mother.”

“Dear old Mom,” she said. “Breaking her heart again, eh? Is that what you called to tell me?”

“No,” he said, “I just called to tell you that I just got a terrific proposition and I turned it down.”

“Proud of yourself, are you?” she said. “And what do you want me to do about it?”

“I thought you might come to dinner tonight.”

“Where?”

“At my house,” Mulheisen said.

“To meet your mother, you mean?”

“No. Mother's gone to Miami.”

There was silence on the other end and Mulheisen cursed his rashness. He was a fool, he decided—at least he knew that much about himself.

“I'm not sure I know you that well,” Lou said, finally.

“As a matter of fact, I meant to tell you that, also. I mean, that I don't know myself that well, either. That's one of my problems.”

“And you thought I might tell you who you are?” she said.

“Mmmm . . . yeah, well . . . what do you think?”

“You're Sergeant Fang,” she said.

“How did you find that out?”

“I called the precinct to see why I hadn't heard from you,” she admitted. “The desk sergeant referred to you as Fang.”

Mulheisen suddenly felt elated. It was the holiday season after all. “ ‘Tis the season to be jolly,” he said. “I can cook a steak. I have wine and booze. I won't bite.”

There was another long silence and Mulheisen's spirits drooped. Then, “All right. Pick me up at eight.”

With a light heart, Mulheisen called the precinct and chewed Sergeant Dill's ass for referring to him as Fang.

“I thought it was your girl friend,” Dill said. “She sounded like she knew you real well.”

“I don't have a girl friend,” Mulheisen said.

“You don't? Sorry. Sorry on both counts,” Dill said. “Anyway, you're supposed to get your ass over to the U.S. Attorney's office, pronto.”

Mulheisen went nowhere “pronto.” He drove slowly, mulling over what he would tell Lou. He would tell her that he was contrary, that he sometimes appalled himself with his compliant nature, that he often thought he was full of crap and then the next day knew he was dead right about everything. It was a burden to be so indeterminate, so changeable, inconstant even.

Now, a man like Clippert, he would always know who he was. He would have no doubts. He might be dead wrong, but he would never know it about himself. So, he thought, it ends up that Clippert knows less about himself than I do. Only, in terms of conscious behavior, Clippert seemed to know himself better. He was in for a big shock, Mulheisen thought.

Downtown was so crowded that Mulheisen couldn't park anywhere. All the parking ramps had “Full” signs at their entrances. Mulheisen cruised round and round the Federal Building for at least fifteen minutes. The streets were slushy and traffic jerked and slid. A number of the giants from the traffic division were lording it about, so Mulheisen finally pulled into an alley and parked behind a horse from the mounted division that was tethered to a drainpipe and had an oat bag on its nose. An officer in riding boots and fur-collared jacked spotted him and came toward him. Mulheisen flashed his badge and the officer waved him on.

U.S. Attorney James Dunn was a man of thirty or so, sitting in his office and wearing an austere blue suit with faint pinstripes. “We've been waiting over an hour, Sergeant,” he said.

Mulheisen shrugged. “I didn't know anything about it until a half-hour ago. I thought McClain would be here.”

“Lieutenant McClain informed us that you would be able to answer all of our questions,” Dunn said. He gestured to a middle-aged man who sat in the corner. “This is the Assistant U.S. Attorney, Brandon Piquette.”

Mulheisen nodded at Piquette. He knew him slightly. Piquette was reputed to be the brains and guts of the federal attorney's office. He came from one of the very oldest Detroit families, dating back to the days when the town was called ville d'Etroit, and was
merely a tiny civilian community attached to Fort Ponchartrain. Over a period of twenty years, Piquette had educated and molded a series of federal attorneys who were nominally his superiors. Many of them had gone on to be judges or to take higher positions in the Justice Department.

Mulheisen supposed that Dunn was probably the usual sort of bright and ambitious young man that Piquette had been dealing with for years. He decided to take his cue from Piquette and see what developed here.

What developed was that Dunn scolded Mulheisen for the failure of the city police to cooperate with the federal agencies. Mulheisen accepted this without complaint. Dunn went on to demand the complete files of the police investigation of Arthur Clippert's affairs.

“I'll be happy to tell you anything I know,” Mulheisen said, “and if you want the files themselves, I'm sure that a formal request through the Commissioner will be favorably acted upon. Or you could go to Lieutenant McClain's office and view what he has.”

Dunn looked angry. Piquette intervened. “That probably won't be necessary, Sergeant. We are mainly interested in Clippert's alleged involvement with the Fidelity Funding case, and we thought that your own investigation might have turned up some information that may be relevant. For instance, we see that there have been two break-ins at the Clippert residence, apparently with burglary in mind. Now, it occurs to us that these break-ins may be related to Mr. Clippert's involvement with Fidelity Funding. What do you think?”

“I've been thinking along those lines too,” Mulheisen said, “and in fact, I questioned Clippert this morning with that in mind. But nothing came of it. And we have no other evidence, as far as I know, that points specifically in that direction. All we have is suspicion. I do have some ideas on the subject, if Mr. Dunn would care to hear them?”

Dunn scowled. He tapped a pencil on a yellow legal pad. “All right, Sergeant,” he said, “let's hear your, uh, ideas. As Mr. Piquette suggests, we are interested in anything that will further the interests of justice.”

Mulheisen smiled his long-toothed smile. “For the last few
days there has been someone else interested in our murder investigation. I assume that it is not a federal agent, since this man has represented himself variously as a Detroit policeman and as a friend of the number one murder suspect, in order to obtain information.”

Mulheisen went on to tell them about John Byron Wienoshek and the “small, dark, Eyetalian” character. Dunn and Piquette assured him that the latter was none of their men.

“What do you conclude from this?” Piquette asked.

“It suggests to me that the Mob is interested in Clippert,” Mulheisen said, “perhaps because rumor has it that Clippert is holding twenty million dollars. That, if true, is a mighty tempting target for the organization. The fact that one of their people is investigating John Wienoshek further suggests to me that the Mob believes that Wienoshek may have stolen the big pot from Clippert. It seems unlikely to me, personally, since Wienoshek doesn't have any kind of reputation for making a score like this. But then, Wienoshek is a peculiar guy. He may have stumbled onto the money by accident, even, during the course of the burglary in which the woman was murdered. Or he may be working with Arthur Clippert himself.”

“I don't follow,” Dunn said.

“Well, we know that Wienoshek, or a partner of his named Elroy Carver, killed Mrs. Clippert. Most likely, it was Carver. We know that he, at least, was at the scene of the murder. And we know that Carver is now dead, apparently killed by Wienoshek.”

“Why?” Piquette asked.

“It's impossible to say,” Mulheisen said. “Perhaps because Carver had badly botched the killing of Jane Clippert. Perhaps because Carver had something that Wienoshek wanted, like twenty million. More likely, it was simply to get rid of a liability: Carver doesn't seem to have been very competent. He might have seemed a danger to a man like Wienoshek, or Clippert.”

“Are you suggesting that Clippert had his wife killed?” Dunn said. “That's ridiculous.” He threw his pencil down.

“Why would Clippert want to kill his wife?” Piquette asked.

“I don't know. In cases like these, no matter how much we may want to know, we rarely find out why. Our simplest motive
here is that Clippert stood to collect as much as two million dollars in insurance, if his wife's death could be made to look like an accident. She was taking a bath at the time she was attacked. A simple blow to the head could have made it difficult for the insurance company to prove homicide.”

“But why would a man who has twenty million kill his wife for a measly two million?” Piquette asked.

“Measly?” Mulheisen said. “Anyhow, does Clippert have twenty million? And if he has it, how much of it is his? All of it? A part? How much? I understand that there are as many as twenty other people involved in the Fidelity Funding scandal.”

“But embezzling is one thing,” Dunn protested. “What makes you think that Clippert would turn to murder, as well?”

“Because I've talked to him,” Mulheisen said. “I'm not a psychiatrist, but I'll say that this man does not know what murder means. Not yet, anyway. All he knows is what he wants, or what is to his advantage. I'm not saying he's crazy, now, but that he's cold-blooded. Maybe it's as simple as that his wife was in his way, she was blocking him from something he wanted.

“Do you remember him as a football player? He was terrific. All he needed was a block and he was gone. He ran away from tacklers. But when there was no block, he ran right over them. They called him the Flying Clipper, but they also called him the Gingerbread Man, because he was so sure of himself. He had no respect for his opponents; he was contemptuous of them.”

“This is getting us nowhere,” Dunn said exasperatedly. “Just a lot of speculative psychoanalyzing.”

“I'm afraid Mr. Dunn is right,” Piquette said. “Don't you have something more solid, Sergeant? Is there any reason to believe, for instance, that Mrs. Clippert was involved, or had knowledge of the Fidelity Funding business, and therefore had to be eliminated? Perhaps she had come across some evidence, for instance.”

“You mean like tapes?” Mulheisen said, smiling. “Now you're being speculative, Mr. Piquette. No, I'm sorry, but we have no such evidence. In fact, Jane Clippert is the deepest mystery of them all. I can't figure out much about her at all. Evidently she had become rather reclusive in the last few years, despite the fact that she used
to be something of a heller. I've been talking to old friends of hers, well, one of them, anyway, and this friend can't shed much light on Jane Clippert, either.”

Mulheisen shook his head. “It's a sad thing about a case like this. The real victim gets forgotten. Nobody seems much interested in Jane Clippert. Everybody is keyed on the money.”

“I have it,” Dunn said brightly. “She found the money! She wanted to turn it in, but Clippert didn't. He probably couldn't talk her out of it. There was no way out for him. Prison, or get her out of the way.”

Mulheisen looked at Piquette. Piquette's eyebrows barely quivered. Mulheisen looked thoughtful. “That's an interesting theory, Mr. Dunn,” he said, “but it's unlikely that we'd ever be able to prove it. Jane Clippert is dead. That's what is significant, finally.”

Dunn was sobered. He hunched his shoulders resignedly, then let them slump. He turned his chair to look out the window at the falling snow. The Ambassador Bridge, which ought to have been visible from this floor of the building, was a bare trace of an arc.

“Mulheisen,” he said, without turning around, “you're right. Theories don't matter. In the long run, motives don't matter. All that counts is what happened. Jane Clippert is dead. The money is missing from the till at Fidelity Funding. What are we going to do about it?”

“You asked for information and assistance,” Mulheisen said, talking to Dunn's back. “How about a little reciprocity?”

Dunn turned around. “What?”

“I think there's a connection between Wienoshek and Clippert. I think Wienoshek and Carver were paid to kill. Somehow, I don't believe that Clippert could lose twenty million to Wienoshek. But Wienoshek, wherever he is, must know by now that Clippert is onto some big money, whether from the insurance or from the Fidelity Funding ripoff. These two men, Clippert and Wienoshek, are tied together for life. Each is dangerous and/or valuable to the other. I can't believe that they won't get in touch with each other.”

“So?” It was Piquette, speaking from his chair in the corner.

“So, I can't get a phone tap. But I know that the FBI can, and
does.” Mulheisen waved his hand to indicate that he didn't want to hear Dunn's disclaimers. “Okay, say you don't have a tap on Clippert's phone. But if you did . . . I mean, supposing that the FBI did have a tap, and supposing that they happened to overhear a conversation between Wienoshek and Clippert . . . I'd like to hear about it.”