Naked Cruelty (21 page)

“Yes, and not a baby snatching outside a supermarket.” Corey following avidly, Carmine told him the story of Professor Kurt von Fahlendorf, including the direction his own theories were taking.

“Is it possible that von Fahlendorf himself is a part of it?” Corey asked.

“No, I don't think so. I'm picking his brother-in-law, but I don't expect to get much co-operation from the Munich cops.” He leaned forward across Corey's desk. “I'm giving you Helen MacIntosh because she knows Kurt better than anyone else here, and because she's the liaison between Kurt's family and all the cops on this side of the Atlantic.”

“He's already dead, Carmine.”

“I agree, but we have to pretend he's alive. And, Cor?”

“Yeah?”

“Keep decent notes. That's a direct order. This case has the potential to wind up in a civil court with the State or the County accused of some kind of malfeasance. And don't glare at me! You've brought cautions on your own head. If Morty Jones takes a drink, he's off the force. Understood?”

Corey managed to nod civilly, but the anger burned inside. “Sure, Carmine.” He thought of something. “I guess the FBI will be here to trip us up?”

“Is assassination the flavor of the year? Sure the FBI will be here. I expect you to co-operate with its agents, okay?”

“We'll give them whatever we get.”

“Good,” said Carmine, knowing it was a lie. “Helen will be here shortly to fill you in on the details.” He walked out, very relieved that Corey was finally shaping up.

A kidnapping! The ultimate crime, the hardest to solve, the most satisfying yet frustrating case to run, thought Corey. He frowned. What was this about, he, a lieutenant, having to wait to be briefed by a lowly trainee? Still, he knew Carmine. If the boss said she knew the most, then she did. Unwilling to sit waiting for her like a patient for his doctor, Corey got up and went to the office of his two team members.

Buzz was filling in the despised time sheets, a task Corey had handed to his precise second-stringer when he realized that the guy actually enjoyed filling in forms. When told what was in the offing, Buzz swelled in satisfaction.

“Where's Morty?” Corey asked.

Buzz Genovese shrugged. “Try Cells. Virgil Simms is in charge since Vasquez shifted everyone around, and Virgil's an old pal of Morty's. I'll call if you like.”

“No,” Corey said quickly. “I need some exercise, I'll go find him for myself. You can go to my office. We have to wait for the princess.”

The cells and the offices attached to brief incarceration were on the ground floor of the County Services annex, which had been due for demolition ten years ago but was still waiting—and still functioning. It contained all kinds of antique gear for long-abandoned police techniques, like two massive bathtubs wherein raving lunatics were once submerged until the men in white coats could come and remove them to the asylum. The record of every drunk held overnight was on a file card in a special room together with arrests on more serious charges of everything from arson to murder.

There were twelve terrifyingly white cells, each twenty by twenty feet, equipped with a toilet and inadequate bench-bunk-beds covered in stained mattress ticking down three of the walls. The whiteness, achieved by tiles, dated back to the turn of the nineteenth/twentieth century, and meant that the slightest hint of dirt showed up like neon signs in a black void. It was general practice to put the night's takings in as few cells as possible; less mess to clean up later.

No place, however, for a woman. Of the weaker sex the Cell Sergeant saw few; when one did arrive, she was put in a proper room, albeit one easy to clean and not good enough for a lady. It had a toilet with a seat on it behind a screen, a wash basin, and three proper single beds, though the mattress ticking didn't vary. She was issued with a towel and bed linen. No mirrors, of course. Usually these poor creatures were plunged into a despair so deep that a shard from a broken mirror would have spelled freedom in death. Few of Holloman's whores were arrested; the female intake varied from wives who had killed their husbands or lovers to child abusers.

A man pushing forty, Sergeant Virgil Simms was sitting in his office wading through the mountains of paper this new Captain of Uniforms was generating. When Corey came in he sighed, and inclined his head toward the women's cell.

“Sleeping it off?” Corey asked.

“I doubt that,” Simms said loyally; he and Morty had gone through the academy together, served on patrol as partners, kept up their friendship. “The new housekeeper's giving him hell, so are his kids. The only place he seems to be able to sleep is down here. Sorry, Cor.”

“Not your fault. Thanks for helping. Our boss isn't very sympathetic.”

Corey walked into the women's cell to find Morty sprawled on one bed in an attitude that suggested either booze or bone-tiredness; he didn't stink of Jack or Jim, so maybe Virgil was right, he couldn't sleep in the hell of his home.

“Morty!” Corey called, shaking his shoulder. “Morty, it's time to wake up. Have a shave and comb your hair—we've got a new case, and it's a doozy. I need you alert! The Captain's going to be watching us, and he's put a spy with us—Princess Helen. She'll be reporting everything to him. And go home later, find a clean shirt. You look like something the cat dragged in.”

He caught the elevator upstairs; he'd been gone twenty minutes. Buzz strolled in and sat; Morty, looking reasonable, entered on his heels. All three men were waiting when Helen, looking flustered, came in.

“You're late,” said Corey: put her in her place, tell her that she wasn't going to be the kingpin around here.

“My apologies,” she said, but offered no excuses. Then she proceeded to give them a description of the case that, Corey had to admit, could not be faulted. “I'm here with you because I know Kurt very well, and the kidnapper is using me as the go-between. Beyond that, I'm strictly a trainee,” she said, winding up her presentation.

“Thanks.” said Corey, “First, I want you to come with me to an interrogation room—yeah, yeah, I know the Powers That Be want them called interview rooms, but the old name suits me fine. Whatever you know about Kurt von Fahlendorf and his family is best put on tape and transcribed. We're going to have the FBI all over us, and I want something to slap on my desk in front of their head honcho. It'll save us a lot of time as well. Buzz and Morty, listen in and ask your own questions.”

Off they went, Helen's head spinning; Corey's detecting techniques were certainly different from Carmine's!

Nor was Corey easy on her, either because she was one of their own, or because her father was the President of Chubb University and she had a trust fund five times bigger than the von Fahlendorf ransom. He grilled her mercilessly for two hours as to her relationship with Kurt—thank God she wasn't sleeping with him! Who his other friends were, how much she knew about the people he worked with, why the son of an industrial chemist had gone into particle physics, what his habits were, his favorite colors, his favorite music, why he'd bought a pre-Revolutionary house—it went on and on. She answered calmly and lucidly, and was sufficiently intelligent to keep the threads separated in her mind—no contradictions or uncertainties in Helen MacIntosh's testimony! To her surprise, she was asked to read the typed version and sign it as an affidavit. Smiling slightly, she obliged. Corey was loading both barrels for the advent of the FBI by giving them twenty tangents to fly off on.

“Shrewd, but it won't answer,” she said. “By the way, Corey, has anyone told you recently what a prick you are?”

Looking taken aback, Corey took her affidavit and left; she was not surprised to find that he chose to go to lunch with Morty and Buzz. The word was getting around too. Soon the papers, radio and TV would be sniffing, and the kidnapping would go public.

Delia was eating alone; Helen slid in opposite her and ordered a burger and fries.

“I just told Corey Marshall he was a prick.”

“Accurate,” said Delia, enjoying Yankee pot roast.

“He grilled me for two hours, then brought in these people to rubber-stamp my statement as an affidavit.”

“You could have said no.”

“Wasn't worth it.”

“Carmine had to break into Kurt's house,” mumbled Delia through a mouthful of mashed potato. “The Porsche was locked in the garage, and his keys and wallet were on his hall table. That means he got home.” Her eyes followed Carmine as he entered Malvolio's, sought out Corey. “Corey's being told now.”

Helen put her pager on the table. “In case Munich calls.”

“I hope they don't call you in the middle of the night.”

“Doesn't matter,” Helen said cheerfully as she bit into her burger. “I go back to sleep in seconds.”

Carmine slid into the booth next to Helen. “Is it usual for Kurt to leave his keys and wallet on the hall table?” he asked, his body language telling those who watched that it was Delia he questioned, not Helen.

Who got the message and picked up a French fry. “Yes, sir, it's usual. Just as he always locks up the Porsche.”

“You'd better come with me as soon as you're finished eating, Helen. I want you to check Kurt's house, including the guest quarters, with particular regard to foreign presences.”

“How do I explain my delinquency to Lieutenant Marshall?”

“I already have.”

“Then as soon as Delia is finished, I'm ready, sir.”

“No one has stayed here, Captain,” Helen said to Carmine after touring Kurt's premises thoroughly. “Nothing is out of place. It also looks as if Kurt's wearing the outfit he wore when we went to Buffo's last night.”

“How long have the von Fahlendorfs been planning to set up this trust fund?” Carmine asked as he locked the front door.

“It's a mystery to me. Kurt's never mentioned it.”

“Would you have expected him to under normal circumstances?”

She paused halfway down the path. “Yes, I think I would.. Kurt's not secretive. I don't mean that he runs off at the mouth, but a trust fund is an important thing. Yes, he'd discuss it.”

“Which means one of two things: that he wasn't told, or that the idea is a very recent one. Does Dagmar tend to cut Kurt out because he's elected to live in a foreign country and pursue a foreign career?” Carmine asked.

“I think Dagmar loves Kurt very much,” Helen said slowly, “but I also think that a part of her condemns him for leaving the Fatherland. When Kurt talks of her, there's always an underlying tone of sadness. Once he told me that the family felt that if he was brilliant enough to be a Nobel contender in physics, he could have done the same in chemistry.”

“And could he?”

“No!” she said scornfully. “Kurt's narrow, and his gifts are mathematical. Chemistry is
terra
incognita
to him.”

“They should have had a Prunella Balducci when Kurt was less than two years old,” said Carmine.

“Eh?”

“No matter.”

“How intensive is the search for Kurt going to be, Captain?”

“That depends on the FBI. They take the lead in kidnappings.”

“Are they on their way?”

“They'll be at County Services by the time we get back.”

Robert and Gordon Warburton came galloping down the path from their house just as Carmine and Helen were about to climb into the Fairlane.

“Captain, Captain!” said Robbie breathlessly, “is it true?”

“Is what true?”

“That Kurt's been kidnapped.”

“Yes, it is. Did you see him last night?”

“Not see,” said Gordie. “Heard.”

“What did you hear, Gordon?” Carmine asked.

“The Porsche coming home about one in the morning—Wednesday to Thursday, that is. Late for Kurt!”

“Why did you hear it and not Robert?”

“I'm on Kurt's side of the house. Robbie hears Mason Novak come and go—his garage is in his backyard.”

“Are you sure you didn't look, Gordon?” Carmine pressed.

“Wellll … When he grated his gears, I confess I did get up to have a look, Captain. I mean, Kurt
never
grates his gears!”

“An observation I confirm, Gordon,” said Helen.

“What did you see?” Carmine asked.

“Not Kurt, for sure! Two people, a woman and a man. They got out of the Porsche and played with the remote as if they'd never seen one before. When the door went up, they got back into the car and drove in. I went back to bed,” said Gordie.

“Did you get a look at them?” Helen asked eagerly.

“Since there's a lamp post there, yes. The woman was about forty, the man younger. She wore what looked like dark red, but she had a hat with a veil on her head, so her features were a mystery. I think her hair was dark. Certainly she had a good figure. The man deferred to her. He had thick, wavy dark hair and a handsome face, but don't ask me to identify him in a line-up because I couldn't do it.” He giggled. “Handsome is as handsome does, Captain.”