Time to Murder and Create (Matthew Scudder #2)

Time to Murder and Create (Matthew Scudder #2) Page 21

"They come close enough, Matt. Sometimes they'll make a person look guilty when he's not, especially if the operator isn't very good at what he's doing. But if they say you're innocent, it's a pretty good bet you are. I think they ought to be admissible in court."

I had always felt that way myself. I sat there for a while trying to run it all through my mind until everything fell into place. It took its time. Meanwhile, Guzik went on talking about the interrogation of Beverly Ethridge, pointing up his remarks with observations on what he would like to do with her. I didn't pay him much attention.

I said, "The car wasn't him. I should have realized that."

"How's that?"

"The car," I said. "I told you a car took a shot at me one night. The same night I spotted Lundgren for the first time, and the place was the same as where he came at me with the knife, so I had to think it was the same man both times."

"You never saw the driver?"

"No. I figured it was Lundgren because he'd been dogging me earlier that night and I thought he'd been setting me up. But it couldn't have been that way. It wouldn't be his style. He liked that knife too much."

"Then who was it?"

"Spinner said somebody ran up onto a curb after him. The same bit."

"Who?"

"Plus the voice on the phone. Then there were no calls any more."

"I don't follow you, Matt."

I looked at him. "Trying to make the pieces fit. That's all. Somebody killed Spinner."

"The question is who."

I nodded. "That's the question," I said.

"One of the other people he gave you the dope on?"

"They all check out," I said. "Maybe he had more people after him than he ever told me about. Maybe he added somebody to the string after he gave me the envelope. The hell, maybe somebody rolled him for his cash, hit him too hard, panicked, and threw the body in the river."

"It happens."

"Sure it happens."

"You think we'll ever find out who did him?"

I shook my head. "Do you?"

"No," Guzik said. "No, I don't think we ever will."

Chapter 19

I had never been in the building before. There were two doormen on duty, and the elevator was manned. The doormen made sure that I was expected, and the elevator operator whisked me up eighteen floors and indicated which door was the one I was looking for. He didn't budge until I had rung the bell and been admitted.

The apartment was as impressive as the rest of the building. There was a stairway leading to a second floor. An olive-skinned maid led me into a large den with oak-paneled walls and a fireplace. About half the books on the shelves were bound in leather. It was a very comfortable room in a very spacious apartment. The apartment had cost almost two hundred thousand dollars, and the monthly maintenance charge came to something like fifteen hundred.

When you've got enough money, you can buy just about anything you want.

"He will be with you in a moment," the maid said. "He said for you to help yourself to a drink."

She pointed to a serving bar alongside the fireplace. There was ice in a silver bucket, and a couple of dozen bottles. I sat in a red leather chair and waited for him.

I didn't have to wait very long. He entered the room. He was wearing white flannel slacks and a plaid blazer. He had a pair of leather house slippers on his feet.

"Well, now," he said. He smiled to show how genuinely glad he was to see me. "You'll have something to drink, I hope."

"Not just now."

"It's a little early for me too, as a matter of fact. You sounded quite urgent on the phone, Mr. Scudder. I gather you've had second thoughts about working for me."

"No."

"I received the impression-"

"That was to get in here."

He frowned. "I'm not sure I understand."

"I'm really not sure whether you do or not, Mr. Huysendahl. I think you'd better close the door."

"I don't care for your tone."

"You're not going to care for any of this," I said. "You'll like it less with the door open. I think you should close it."

He was about to say something, perhaps another observation about my tone of voice and how little he cared for it, but instead he closed the door.

"Sit down, Mr. Huysendahl."

He was used to giving orders, not taking them, and I thought he was going to make an issue out of it. But he sat down, and his face wasn't quite enough of a mask to keep me from knowing that he knew what it was all about. I'd known anyway, because there was just no other way the pieces could fit together, but his face confirmed it for me.

"Are you going to tell me what this is all about?"

"Oh, I'm going to tell you. But I think you already know. Don't you?"

"Certainly not."

I looked over his shoulder at an oil painting of somebody's ancestor. Maybe one of his. I didn't notice any family resemblance, though.

I said, "You killed Spinner Jablon."

"You're out of your mind."

"No."

"You already found out who killed Jablon. You told me that the day before yesterday."

"I was wrong."

"I don't know what you're driving at, Scudder-"

"A man tried to kill me Wednesday night," I said. "You know about that. I assumed he was the same man who killed Spinner, and I managed to tie him to one of Spinner's other suckers, so I thought that cleared you. But it turns out that he couldn't have killed Spinner, because he was on the other side of the country at the time. His alibi for Spinner's death was as solid as they come. He was in jail at the time."

I looked at him. He was patient now, hearing me out with the same intent stare he had fixed on me Thursday afternoon when I told him he was in the clear.

I said, "I should have known he wasn't the only one involved, that more than one of Spinner's victims had decided to fight back. The man who tried to kill me was a loner. He liked to use a knife. But I'd been attacked earlier by one or more men in a car, a stolen car. And a few minutes after that attack I had a phone call from an older man with a New York accent. I'd had a call from that man before. It didn't make sense that the knife artist would have had anybody else in on it. So somebody else was behind the dodge with the car, and somebody else was responsible for knocking Spinner on the head and dumping him in the river."

"That doesn't mean I had anything to do with it."

"I think it does. As soon as the man with the knife is taken out of the picture, it's obvious that everything was pointing to you all along. He was an amateur, but in other respects the operation was all quite professional. A car stolen from another neighborhood with a very good man at the wheel. Some men who were good enough to find Spinner when he didn't want to be found. You had the money to hire that kind of talent. And you had the connections."

"That's nonsense."

"No," I said. "I've been thinking about it. One thing that threw me was your reaction when I first came to your office. You didn't know Spinner was dead until I showed you the item in the paper. I almost ruled you out, because I couldn't believe you could fake a reaction that well. But of course it wasn't a fake. You really didn't know he was dead, did you?"

"Of course not." He drew his shoulders back. "And I think that's fairly good evidence that I had nothing to do with his death."

I shook my head. "It just means you didn't know about it yet. And you were stunned by the realization both that Spinner was dead and that the whole game didn't end with his death. I not only had the evidence on you, I also knew you were tied to Spinner and a possible suspect in his death. Naturally that shook you up a little."

"You can't prove anything. You can say that I hired someone to kill Spinner. I didn't, and I can swear to you that I didn't, but it's hardly something I can prove either. But the point is that it's not incumbent upon me to prove it, is it?"

"No."

"And you can accuse me of whatever you want, but you don't have a shred of proof either, do you?"

"No, I don't."

"Then perhaps you'll tell me why you decided to come here this afternoon, Mr. Scudder."

"I don't have proof. That's true. But I have something else, Mr. Huysendahl."

"Oh?"

"I have those photographs."

He gaped. "You distinctly told me-"

"That I had burned them."

"Yes."

"I'd intended to. It was simpler to tell you it had already been done. I've been busy since then, and didn't get around to it. And then this morning I found out that the man with the knife was not the man who killed Spinner, and I sifted through some of the things that I already knew, and I saw that it had to be you. So it was just as well that I didn't burn those pictures, wasn't it?"

He got slowly to his feet. "I think I'll have that drink after all," he said.

"Go right ahead."

"Will you join me?"

"No."

He put ice cubes in a tall glass, poured Scotch, added soda from a siphon. He took his time building the drink, then walked over to the fireplace and rested with his elbow on the burnished oak mantel. He took a few small sips of his drink before he turned to look at me again.

"Then we're back to the beginning," he said. "And you've decided to blackmail me."

"No."

"Why else is it so fortunate for you that you didn't burn the pictures?"

"Because it's the only hold I've got on you."

"And what are you going to do with it?"

"Nothing."

"Then-"

"It's what you're going to do, Mr. Huysendahl."

"And what am I going to do?"

"You're not going to run for governor."

He stared at me. I didn't really want to look at his eyes, but I forced myself. He was no longer trying to keep his face a mask, and I was able to watch as he tried on one thought after another and found that none of them led anywhere.

"You've thought this out, Scudder."

"Yes."

"At length, I would suppose."

"Yes."

"And there's nothing you want, is there? Money, power, the things most people want. It wouldn't do any good for me to send another check to Boys Town."

"No."

He nodded. He worried the tip of his chin with a finger. He said, "I don't know who killed Jablon."

"I assumed as much."

"I didn't order him killed."

"The order originated with you. One way or the other, you're the man at the top."

"Probably."

I looked at him.

"I'd prefer to believe otherwise," he said. "When you told me the other day that you'd found the man who killed Jablon, I was enormously relieved. Not because I felt the killing could possibly be attributed to me, that any sort of trail would lead back to me. But because I honestly did not know whether I was in any way responsible for his death."

"You didn't order it directly."

"No, of course not. I didn't want the man killed."

"But somebody in your organization-"