Suicide King (The Jake Samson & Rosie Vicente Detective Series) (10 page)

Once again, he drifted off. He finished his drink and sat staring into the glass. Tears were rolling down his cheeks.

“I loved my brother, Mr. Samson. I was jealous of him, but I loved him. And it was hard to stay jealous of him, because he was always making life so damned hard on himself. I wish I could have helped him more. I should have hired someone to investigate his death, shouldn’t I?”

“It’s been done. I’ll take care of it.”

“Can I contribute? Pay you something extra? Cover some of the expenses?”

I finished my beer and ordered another one. I looked at his glass. He shook his head.

“I have a client, Mr. Richmond. I’ll ask her if she wants to accept a contribution from you.”

“Thank you.”

I stayed with the man for another hour and listened to him talk about Joe, the perfect man who insisted on going after the impossible. The perfect man who never could explain adequately to his adoring brother why he did the things he did. Walter Richmond loved his dead brother, all right, but he wasn’t sure why.

I was thoroughly depressed by ten o’clock, muttered something about jet lag, said good-bye, and headed back to my motel.

The elevator was empty when I got in and pushed the button for three so I was alone with my thoughts, which insisted on sticking to Joe’s brother. What a pathetic wretch the guy was. I was thinking that I would talk to Pam, when I got home, about letting him toss some money into the kitty for Rosie and me. There was no reason why someone in Joe’s family shouldn’t contribute something, and he was the one who seemed most interested in the idea. Well, maybe interested wasn’t exactly the right word.

I got off on my floor, still thinking about the manufacture of guilt, and as I got near my door, I heard the phone ringing inside and hurriedly jammed my key in the lock, pushed the door open, and, I suppose, reached for the wall switch. I say suppose because I don’t remember that part. Something came down hard on my head, I know that, and when I didn’t sink to my knees fast enough, it came down again, harder. I was sure I would die, if only from the pain.

I was lying down in a pool under an icy waterfall. My head was turned to the side that didn’t hurt. I was naked and cold and I couldn’t move. I opened my eyes. They filled with water. I opened my mouth wide to yell, but all that came out was a choking, drowned gurgle. I spat, coughing, took a deep breath and choked again. I turned my head farther to the side.

Something sawed at my throat and the water I was lying in flowed into my right nostril. Snorting, I blew it out again. I turned my head halfway back, the way it had been at first. More sawing at my neck but that was the best position. Only some water from overhead went into my left nostril, and none flowed in from the side.

I felt sick and weak and the pain in my head was frightening. My vision was washed by a haze of cold water I kept trying to blink away. Everything looked white. I closed my eyes, just to rest. I knew my mind was working faster than it seemed to be, that the reasoning process that seemed to be taking hours was taking seconds. But gradually, in those seconds, my understanding of where I was and why I was immobilized took shape. Naked, my face and chest battered by an icy waterfall, in an icy pool. Although I could turn my head to the side, I couldn’t raise it; I was strapped down by a cord around my neck. My hands were tied to something over my head, and they were numb. My feet were bound together. I opened my eyes one more time and tried to get a look around. My hands were tied to knobs that came out of the wall. Knobs, coming out of the wall, above a shiny metal spigot. A small white pool with smooth sides and water pouring down from the shower head forty feet, no four feet, over my face. I could feel the movement of water behind my head. Some of it, at least, was going down the drain my neck was strapped to, but the water level in the tub was not sinking. I lay very still and tried to feel what was happening. I thought the level was actually rising slightly. I jerked against the cord wrapped around my neck, choked, and banged my head on the tub. The bad part of my head. I got lost in the pain and in an anesthetic word game about my head swimming, and how it was too bad it couldn’t. I was breathing in gasps, turning my head just enough to avoid the shower’s direct hit and still not submerge. A deep breath, hold it, another deep breath, cough on the water inhaled, breathe shallowly to catch up, aim my face to the side and take another deep breath. Good. I tried to yell again, but it hurt my head and I got another mouthful of water. My throat and nasal passages were raw.

I turned my head to the side away from the wound and jerked at the cord again. Just the movement alone was enough this time to make my head ring, and now my neck hurt too.

I began to pull at the cords binding my dead hands. I held my breath; peering through the cataract, I could see three knobs. My hands were tied to the right— my right— and the center. I made myself stop and think. My right would be the hot water. There was none of that in what was coming down on me. The one in the middle was sure to be the one that controlled the shower. If I turned that one off, the spigot would gush right over my face. I jerked at my right hand, the stronger, trying to pull it loose. Asleep, it was hard to control. I jerked again, with no results, and concentrated on moving my hands and arms in their limited spaces, trying to get the circulation back. I turned my head and took a watery breath and gave a feeble yell. Then I jerked my hand against its rope again, burning my wrist. Again. It felt like I’d drawn blood that time, and when I pulled once more I could feel the rope sawing raw flesh. I tried the left hand, damaging that wrist, finally, too. I pulled cautiously once more against the rope around my neck, took another deep breath, spat out water. I would stay calm. I would study the situation. I looked up through the falling water, squinting.

If I tilted my chin up just a bit, I could see the knobs, the ropes, my hands almost clearly, for a second at a time. What I thought I was seeing didn’t make a lot of sense, but I decided to go along with the joke. Stretching, I raised my still-numb left arm higher, bringing my hand up and over. It flopped down to my chest. The cord had been simply looped over the knob. I shook my hand hard, then reached up and, fumbling, turned off the cold water. The shower shut off immediately. The spigot dribbled for a few seconds, then stopped. I wiped my face, breathing deeply, sucking in all that good dry air. I stretched my right arm, and that hand came away from the knob as easily as the left one had. I rubbed my hands together, rubbed my arms, shook them, woke them up, tingling. Then I brought my hands around the back of my neck, and found the end of the cord that was holding my head down. I reached with two fingers inside the drain. A cross of metal, the rope tied to it. I felt more carefully, and pulled on the end of rope. It was tied in a bow. It came loose in my hand. The water was already receding, but very slowly. I sat up, aiming my damaged head away from the spigot, and untied my feet. I hooked an elbow over the edge of the tub and pulled myself up, getting to my knees. I did some more breathing, then I crawled out of the tub. I was shaky but I could stand. There were two big bath towels hanging on the rack. I dried myself with one, rubbing as hard as I could to try to get warm, dabbing gently at my head. Then I dropped the wet towel on the floor and wrapped myself, shivering, in the dry one. I looked back at the tub. Nearly all the water had run out of my torture chamber. It was a bathtub again.

I stumbled over to the sink to check out the damage in the mirror. I didn’t look at my battered head right away, though, because there was a message for me written in what looked like black crayon. It was, “I could have killed you.”

I studied the writing for a minute. Plain block letters, carefully anonymous. Then I cleaned the mirror and studied my head. A big bump and a smaller bump. The big bump would have been scabbed over if it had gotten a chance. As it was, it was a very clean wound. I wondered when the headache would go away, and considered the wisdom of checking with a doctor before I got back on a plane to go home. Both my wrists were burned, and the right one was slightly bloody. My lungs burned, too, and my throat, and my nose. I seemed otherwise to be okay.

Whoever had undressed me— had that been for fun, I wondered, or humiliation?— had tossed my clothes onto the bed. Everything but the cut-off half of one neatly sliced sock. After I dressed and did a quick scan of the room and bathroom, finding no signs of the effects of anyone but myself, I called the desk.

“Couple of things,” I said. “I fell and hit my head and I was wondering if there was a hospital nearby where I could get it checked.” Then I had to sit and wait while the clerk got the night manager, who then babbled questions at me. Yes, I had fallen in their room. In the tub, as a matter of fact. No, I was not blaming the hotel. No, I did not need an ambulance. No, I did not need an escort, just a cab and an address to aim for. Yes, I was fine. Stop fretting, no problem. There was something else. My bathtub drain seemed to be stopped up. Could they send someone to take a look at it? I understood that they didn’t have plumbers on call late at night. Yes, I also understood that they would make an exception in this case and take care of it immediately. And one more thing: were there any messages for me? I’d heard the phone ringing around ten or ten-thirty, when I was just getting in. He checked. Yes, a Mrs. Richmond had called. A Mrs. Marietta Richmond. She had said to call back at any hour.

“But I really do think you should let me get an ambulance, Mr. Samson.”

“How about I write a note for your lawyers saying I declined an ambulance and insisted on a cab?” He sighed and said he did have a release form, if I wouldn’t mind. I said I wouldn’t.

He said he’d get me a cab.

Before I went, I put in a call to the elder Mrs. Richmond. She answered.

“Jake! I’d given you up. I hope you were having fun, wherever you were.”

“Yeah. A real blast. How can I help you?”

“That’s not the point. I’ve decided to help you. You tell me whatever you think has been left undone when you go back to the Coast, and I’ll do it. Or get someone to do it. I think you need an inside person, someone inside the family, don’t you?”

“No, I don’t.” I was having visions of a hanged son and a drowned mother. “This could be dangerous, Marietta. We’re dealing with a killer. Is that why you called me earlier? To offer your help?”

“Yes, and I’m going to ignore the fact that you don’t want it.”

“I’m not going to argue with you right now. I’m on my way out. How about we talk in the morning?” She agreed to that. I grabbed my room key and headed out the door. I wasn’t in so much of a hurry to see a doctor, though, that I didn’t take the time to check that door out in passing. Sure enough, little scratch marks around the key hole. Someone had picked the lock. And I’d been so busy thinking about poor old Walter and rushing to answer my phone that I hadn’t noticed. I wouldn’t be that careless again.

I stopped at the desk to sign the man’s paper. A cab was waiting, he said, and he lost interest in me entirely.

The doctor wasn’t too interested, either, and said the headache would probably go away sometime the next day. I called another cab and went back to the hotel. When I got to my room door I noticed it was not quite latched.

“Who’s in there,” I said in my meanest voice, shoving the door wide open, hard, so it banged against the wall.

A guy in overalls with the hotel’s name embroidered on the pocket stepped out of the bathroom.

“Plumber, Mr. Samson.” I guessed that was probably true. “I’ve already found the problem.” He walked back into the bathroom and I followed him. He pointed at the edge of the tub, where, draped and dripping, hung my missing half-sock. “Now how do you suppose that got stuffed down the tub drain?” he wanted to know.

I told him I had no idea.

BY the time my plane left Wednesday afternoon I’d put in another full day’s work, headache and all.

I got up at seven-thirty, had breakfast in the hotel coffee shop, and called Marietta Richmond, since I’d promised I would talk to her again before I left. I was told by whoever answered the phone that she was not available, by which I assumed he meant she was still lolling around in her bed. Was it Victorian? Directoire? Possibly Greco-Roman?

Then I dialed the office number of the cousin who was the CEO of Richmond Mills. I had to go through two watchdogs before I got to the inner office. I would have had a nicer morning if they hadn’t put me through.

“Francis Richmond here,” a deep, authoritative voice said. “What can I do for you, Mr. Samson?”

I explained once again that I was investigating Joe Richmond’s death and was looking for any information I could get from the people who knew him best. I asked if I could stop by the office and talk to him for half an hour or so.

“No, I don’t think so. I’m very busy today, and I don’t think there’s anything I could tell you. I’ve hardly spoken to the man in three years. I’m sorry if he killed himself. I’m sorry if someone killed him. But I couldn’t begin to even guess what might have happened.”

“Three years? I guess he wasn’t still running your L.A. office, then?”

Curtly: “He lost interest.”

“I don’t believe you were at the funeral, were you?” I asked. “I don’t remember anyone pointing you out to me.”

“No, Mr. Samson, I was not.”

“Sounds like there was a problem between you and your cousin.”

“There was. He was out to hamstring industry, and he was doing it with money that came from our mill. I didn’t like his politics and I thought he’d turned into a self-righteous prig. Anything else? I’ve got a meeting in two minutes.”

“Yes. Where were you July 11?”

The man laughed. “At a conference in Chicago. I’ll transfer you back to my administrative assistant. She can give you the particulars. Goodbye, Mr. Samson.”

So that was cousin number one.

I had just gotten off the phone when I got a call from Marietta. She laughed when I gave her a quick rundown of cousin Francis’s thoughts.