Mr. X (47 page)

At 10:00
A.M.
on Sunday morning, there was a rap on my door while I was trying to persuade Laurie Hatch to drive Posy Fairbrother into town to retrieve the Mercedes. “I have a visitor,” I said.

“Get rid of her and come to my house. I’ll give you a tremendous brunch.”

The knock came again, in triplicate. “I think it’s a cop who doesn’t like me very much.”

“Put down the phone and let him in, so I can hear what happens. Then let him know you’re talking to me.”

Helen Janette’s voice came through the door. “Mr. Dunstan, if you don’t open up, I’ll do it myself.”

Clustered behind my landlady were Captain Mullan, Lieutenant Rowley, Officer Treuhaft, the human totem pole who had come with Rowley to Nettie’s house, and, so close to Rowley that they could have held hands, Stewart Hatch. Stewart was wearing white trousers and a blue double-breasted blazer over a polo shirt with an upturned collar. All he needed was a yachting cap.

“This is the last straw, Mr. Dunstan,” said Helen Janette, and barged away.

Captain Mullan said, “May we come in?”

“Be my guest. I’m on the phone.”

The four men pushed past me. Hatch started walking around and smirking at my surroundings, and the other three watched me sit on the bed and pick up the telephone.

“I have to hang up. Captain Mullan, Lieutenant Rowley, Officer Treuhaft, and a gentleman who appears to be Mr. Stewart Hatch just came in.”

“Stewart’s there?”

Hatch turned around when he heard his name. “Who are you talking to?”

“My attorney,” I said.

Hatch looked at Mullan. “I take that as an admission of guilt.”

“The great Roy Cohn,” I said. “A little dead, a little moldy, but still vicious as all get-out.”

Mullan smiled, and Hatch spun around and opened my closet. “Step back, Mr. Hatch,” Mullan said.

“Should I talk to him?” Laurie asked.

“Probably not a good idea,” I said, and put down the telephone.

“I want this man arrested for auto theft, Mullan,” Hatch said. “This time, keep him in a cell while we work on the other charges.”

“Sit down, please, Mr. Hatch,” Mullan said, giving a disgusted look at Rowley. “You’re an interested party, not a police officer.”

“Mr. Hatch is the victim here, Captain,” said Rowley.

Mullan stared at Hatch until he dropped into the chair near the window. “Mr. Dunstan,” Mullan said, “do we have your permission to search your room?”

“Please do,” I said. “But if this is about Mr. Hatch’s Mercedes, you’re wasting your time. It’s not here.”

Treuhaft unzipped my knapsack and turned it upside down
over the bed. Rowley pulled out dresser drawers and rummaged through my socks and underwear.

“Mr. Dunstan,” Mullan said, “did you remove a Mercedes 500SL from a garage at the residence at 4825 Blueberry Lane in Ellendale between the hours of midnight and two
A.M.
this morning and transport it to Harry Street, around the corner from this building?”

“Of course he did,” Hatch said.

“Of course I did,” I said. “At the request of Mrs. Hatch.”

“Ask him what he was doing there in the first place.”

Mullan looked back at me. I said, “Mrs. Hatch invited me to dinner. I don’t have a car, so she came in and picked me up. During and after dinner, we had several glasses of wine. At the end of the evening, she asked if I would mind driving myself back in a car her husband had left in her garage.”

I looked over at Hatch. “It’s a beautiful car, Mr. Hatch.” His eyes went flat. To Mullan, I said, “This morning, I suggested to Mrs. Hatch that she and Posy, the nanny, come in together, so that Posy could drive the Mercedes back to Ellendale.”

“Posy,” Hatch said. He made it sound like the name of a poisonous insect.

“This guy always gets his alibis from women, have you noticed?” Rowley came over to the bed. “Why did you conceal the car?”

“I didn’t conceal it. I parked around the corner so my landlady wouldn’t see me getting out of a Mercedes.”

Rowley picked up the scrapbook and dropped it back on the table. “You have the keys?”

I took them out of my pocket and offered them to Mullan, who looked at Stewart Hatch. “Do you want us to call your wife? Frankly, I don’t think there’s any point.”

“Okay,” Hatch said. “Let’s stop farting around and get to the point.” He stood up and came forward, extending his left hand. I held out the car keys. Hatch stepped closer than I had expected and grasped my wrist. He snatched the keys with his right hand, rammed them into a pocket, and bent down to inspect my fingertips.

“Let go of him,” Mullan said. “Now.”

Hatch dropped my wrist and wiped his hands on his white trousers.

“Mr. Dunstan has been fingerprinted,” Captain Mullan said.
“And if I see any more initiative out of you, Mr. Hatch, I’ll have Officer Treuhaft escort you out.”

I remembered what Officer Boyd Burns had told a reporter about “Ottumwa Red,” and Rowley saying to a young cop,
“Blanks? No ridges?”

The knowledge of who had broken into the Cobden Building and beaten an elderly guard made me feel sick to my stomach. Stewart Hatch pointed at me. “This man is in league with my wife, that’s obvious. Who drove him into town? Who has he been seen with, for God’s sake?”

“You must be desperate,” I said.

“How much are they giving you?” he asked me. “Or are you in it for something besides money?”

“Shut up, the two of you,” Mullan said, and turned to me. “Do you have any interest in Mr. Hatch’s legal affairs?”

“None at all.”

“Your relationships with Assistant D.A. Ashton and Mrs. Hatch are purely social and grew out of accidental encounters?”

“That’s right,” I said.

“From our viewpoint, you understand, that’s a little hard to accept. If you bear no animosity against Mr. Hatch, why did you go out of your way to insult his friend and associate Mr. Milton, on Friday night?”

“Mr. Milton insulted me first. Ask the doorman.”

“And you had nothing to do with the break-in at the Cobden Building early this morning?”

“I’ll tell you what interests me about that,” I said. “I wonder why Mr. Hatch told Lieutenant Rowley to order me out of town and rough me up if it looked like I wasn’t going to obey.”

Hatch’s voice was low and measured. “I don’t give Rowley orders, because Rowley doesn’t
take
orders from me.”

“The lieutenant is a hard man when it comes to orders.” Mullan sounded more than ever like an Irish bartender. “Did you have words with Mr. Dunstan, Lieutenant?”

Rowley’s dead eyes met mine. “I made sure he knew he was supposed to stick around.”

“Do we need to listen to more of this crap?” Hatch said.

Mullan had been eyeing Rowley in a speculative manner, and Rowley had been pretending not to notice. “Mr. Dunstan, are you willing to accompany us to St. Ann’s? Mr. Sawyer, the security guard who was injured during the break-in, is being held in
the ICU. If you refuse, you will be taken to the station, go through the procedures all over again, and then be escorted to the hospital. If you come with us now, Mr. Sawyer will either identify you or put you in the clear.”

“I’ll come,” I said, hoping that the guard had not had anything like a good look at Robert. “But you should know that Mr. Sawyer and I had a short conversation while he was letting himself into the building on Friday evening.”

Rowley and Hatch erupted. They erupted all over again after I explained how I had happened to talk to Earl Sawyer. I had been casing the Cobden Building, I was laying the groundwork for the case that any identification now was mistaken.

“Let’s see what our victim has to say.” Mullan opened the door.

“
I’m
the victim here,” Hatch said. He marched out like a general at the head of his troops.

65

Treuhaft opened a rear door of the patrol car, and Mullan gestured me in. Stewart Hatch moved up beside him. “You want to get your Mercedes out of this neighborhood, Mr. Hatch,” Mullan told him. Hatch grunted and spun away. Mullan followed me into the backseat. Rowley got in beside Treuhaft, shifted sideways on the front passenger seat, and grinned at me. “What were you supposed to find? Did your friend the lady D.A. give you a list of files?”

“It wasn’t me, Lieutenant,” I said.

“You’re a computer geek, aren’t you?”

“I know how to write programs. Whatever it would take to convict Stewart Hatch is a mystery to me, and he can’t be dumb enough to leave it on a hard disk.”

“I was hoping for peace and quiet,” Mullan said. “Let’s all get together and make a great big effort.”

Rowley pushed the button for the elevator, and a few couples gathered in the familiar corridor. I felt as though I had gone back
in time—everything, even the visitors in their shorts and T-shirts, looked exactly the same. The people with us recognized Stewart Hatch. Like a movie star, he was used to being recognized. Following Hatch’s aristocratic example, we sailed through the swinging doors. Nurse Zwick goggled at Hatch and blinked when she saw me, but instead of sending us out to wash our hands, she darted around the desk and led us toward the far side of the unit.

Yellow tape sealed off the compartment where the despised Clyde Prentiss had languished. Beneath the curtain, loops of dried blood covered the floor. I asked what had happened.

“It was terrible,” said Nurse Zwick. “Mr. Dunstan, I’m so sorry about your mother.”

June Cook strode toward us. “You want Mr. Sawyer, I gather? I’d like to ask why.”

“We want him to look at Mr. Dunstan,” Mullan said.

The head nurse gave him a doubtful nod. “Mr. Sawyer’s condition is stable, but he is still seeing double as a result of concussion. I’d strongly advise waiting another twenty-four hours.”

“My doctor says he’s healthy enough to make an identification,” Hatch said. “I imagine you know who I am. And I’m sure you’re acquainted with Dr. Dearborn’s reputation.”

June Cook was as valiant as I remembered her. “I imagine everyone on this floor recognizes you, Mr. Hatch. And I have the greatest respect for Dr. Dearborn, but his evaluation was made on the basis of a telephone conversation.”

“Which led him to conclude that Sawyer is fit enough to make an identification.”