The Black Door (12 page)

“My daughter was not yet ready to join with me in the Forward For Freedom movement. Yet, tragically, she was martyred to this movement.” Once more he paused, raking us with those pale, burning eyes. Then, finally, his twisted, tortured mouth formed a final phrase. “She will not have died in vain.”

And, immediately, he turned away and left the room. His son and his secretary followed, the woman half turning to latch the door, her eyes glistening.

Almost with a single breath, the audience seemed to slowly exhale. Many of them had never seen a performance to equal Robert Grinnel’s; certainly I never had. Silently, shuffling a little uncertainly, we rose from our seats and moved toward the hallway door, opened by the anonymous man in the blue suit. As I passed him, I looked closely into his face. It was a square, stodgy face, perhaps incapable of real animation. Yet in the eyes I saw an expression I dimly remembered from childhood—the solemn, consecrated look in the church deacon’s eyes as he stood at the doors on Sunday morning.

In an awed, hushed group we moved toward the elevators. I turned to find Campion pacing at my side. He was very quietly, very earnestly cursing, staring down at the speech’s transcript as he walked. He was blinking in bafflement, his eyes hollow with a helpless rage.

“The miserable bastard,” Campion said in an unbelieving monotone. “I thought, after eighteen years in the goddam newspaper business, that I’d seen everything. But that goddam, ghoulish, misbegotten son of a whore tops everything I’ve ever seen, or ever thought I’d see on this earth. I’ve heard of exploiting your wife, or your mother, or even your kid, for political gain. But to use the murder of your child to—to—” He moved his mouth helplessly. “If Grinnel’d happened to’ve been in Germany around nineteen thirty, he’d’ve run Hitler right off the goddam platform. He’d’ve—he’d’ve—” Now Campion could only shake his head, muttering “Forward For Freedom,” as if it were an unspeakable obscenity.

I sighed and murmured something in agreement. Then the elevator came, and as the reporters crowded into the cubicle, their voices returned, and their jokes, and their cheerfully irreverent clichés.

I thought, watching Campion, that he was going to shout for them all to be quiet. Instead, he only looked around him with baffled, baleful eyes.

I looked away.

But still I seemed to see them: the dead sister and the living brother staring into each other’s eyes.

R
OBERTA GRINNEL WAS MURDERED
on the morning of Friday, February 12, and she was buried on Monday, the 15th, in Los Angeles. It was the state funeral of a princess royal. Robert Grinnel stayed constantly in center stage: hot-eyed, erect, and incredibly handsome. Bobby Grinnel was always at his father’s side, numbed into a semblance of frozen strength. The mother was brought from her sanatorium and propped up at the graveside. Somehow, during the previous night spent at the family home, she’d got a bottle of gin, and was barely able to stand during the burial services. Grinnel’s secretary and his bodyguard stayed constantly at his wife’s side, gripping her arms. It was rumored that, as the mother saw her daughter’s casket poised over the open grave, she roused herself and took a single step forward, almost stumbling into the grave. Upon being jerked back, she turned upon her husband, cursing him with a bleary, boozy violence. Then she collapsed and was carried from the graveside by the secretary and the bodyguard. Grinnel seemed to take no notice of the outburst, beyond a sad, compassionate movement of his head and an enraged whitening around his mouth.

By Wednesday, February 17, Grinnel had returned to the Fairmont’s governor’s suite with his secretary and bodyguard. He immediately requested an audience with Captain Larsen, at the hotel. Even though Larsen was busy investigating the mass extinction of a family of four by the head of the house, an unemployed short-order cook, the Captain and Lieutenant Ramsey nevertheless took the time to visit Grinnel. Details of the interview were never made public, but rumors persisted that Grinnel had demanded an accounting of the efforts being made to solve his daughter’s murder. When he was told, in so many words, that his daughter’s murder was only one of several unsolved homicides upon which the Detective Bureau was at work, Grinnel at first seemed unable to comprehend it. How, he demanded, could the murder of his daughter be compared to the death of, say, a streetwalker, or an anonymous secretary, or a citizen of skid row? Larsen replied that it depended on the point of view—Grinnel’s, or the family of, say, the streetwalker. At that, the interview ended, icily. Grinnel next called the chief of police, then the police commissioner, and finally the mayor. Apparently they were all polite to their distinguished caller, but unmoved by his demands. They had confidence in Captain Larsen and in the police department. Everything had been done that was even remotely possible. The solution to the murder might take time; similar cases had taken years to solve.

The next day, Thursday, Grinnel engaged a firm of private detectives, and notified the local press. The
Sentinel
carried the story in two short paragraphs on page nine, buried as deeply as possible in the page’s gutter. The
Courier
carried a similar story in a similar location. The
Bulletin
passed. The reasons were obvious. The Grinnel murder was a week old, with no new developments since the first day’s investigation. We’d nursed the story as long as we could, but now it was dead, replaced by other violence, mayhem, and murder.

The second reason was even more to the point. We needed the good will of the police department more than we needed Grinnel’s.

Exactly a week later, on Thursday, February 25, I arrived at the
Sentinel
to discover a message from Robert Grinnel. I was summoned to his Fairmont suite at 10
A.M.

“What do you suppose it’s all about?” the city editor asked, frowning down at the message.

I shrugged. “He probably wants to announce that he’s about to score a putsch on City Hall. That’s what the last one was about, anyhow—a purge of the San Francisco police department.”

“Well, you’d better go over there. Didn’t he hire a firm of private detectives to investigate his daughter’s murder?”

I nodded.

“Then maybe they’ve got something,” he said. “Who knows? Besides, there’s nothing doing on your beat anyhow.”

“Right.” I took my hat from his desk and rose to my feet. But he held up a hand.

“Just a minute, Steve. There’s, ah, something I want to talk to you about.”

I sat down, observing the strange, oblique expression in his eyes. For one terrible moment I thought I was going to get fired, it was that kind of expression. But the city editor was cast in a classic editorial mold. He only fired a man in hot blood. Now, however, he seemed to be avoiding my eyes as he framed his opening sentence.

“I was, ah, talking to the managing editor yesterday. And he asked me, ah—” He frowned and began tapping irritably on his desk with the side of a fretful thumb.

I replaced my hat on the corner of his desk and sat up straighter, now more curious than concerned. And, finally, the message came out in a confused, almost sheepish rush of words:

“He—the managing editor—he and the brass upstairs—they, ah, they want to start another, ah, promotion on you.”

“On me?” I asked the question only as a matter of technique. I knew the answer.

“Yeah. Or, rather, on your, ah, clairvoyance, or whatever you call it. They think it’s about time you got something going.”

I decided not to reply, but only nod. For one thing, I didn’t know what to say.

Neither did the city editor. After giving the desk a last impatient thump, he finally looked at me directly.

“Anyhow,” he said, “I told him I’d talk it over with you. See what we could work out. But on second thought, I think I’ll have you deal with him yourself. I—this stuff is a little out of my line—this promotion stuff.” He seemed on the point of abruptly dismissing me. Then, frowning, he studied me critically.

“What
is
the lowdown on this business, anyhow?”

“How do you mean?”

The reply displeased him. He was back on familiar ground, dealing with one of the countless vagaries of a recalcitrant reporter.

“I mean,” he said sardonically, “just what’s the pitch, anyhow? You know, the angle. The gimmick.”

I felt irritation’s quick beginning prickle. “The only gimmick,” I replied, “is in the publicity department, and the only thing it’s accomplished, so far, is to make me look silly to every cop on the police force, which, incidentally, makes my job a lot tougher. So—”

“What about this business in San Jose, though? You apparently delivered the goods down there.” He looked at me with a sudden, careful appraisal. “Didn’t you? Or do they have a publicity department down there, too?”

I shrugged. “A little girl was murdered. I found her and the murderer. The publicity came afterwards. And, in a sense, it was accidental. I didn’t tell my paper until the A.P. got it; then I had no choice.”

The city editor nodded. Then a look of unaccustomed, transparent guile crept into his usually candid eyes. He frowned, picked up a pencil, and began examining the point minutely. It was a mannerism that seemed to afflict him whenever he was about to craftily trap one of his reporters into admitting a transgression. But, since the city editor was among the most direct of men, and therefore the least crafty, he always telegraphed his punch. So I watched him almost with amusement as he spoke.

“This Grinnel murder—did you, ah, ever try to figure out who did it? Using your own, ah, methods, I mean.”

The situation was somehow so ludicrous that I answered with complete honesty.

“The day of the girl’s funeral—last Monday, I think it was—I gave it a try. And the next night, too. On my own time,” I added, with what I hoped was sufficient sarcasm. Apparently it wasn’t; he was still examining the pencil point.

“And?” he said.

I spread my hands, and in the same gesture retrieved my hat from the corner of his desk.

“And nothing. No jingle, no tingle. Nobody at home.” I decided not to mention the fleeting vision of the Grinnel children, one dead and one alive, staring into each other’s eyes. Neither did I mention that I felt the mystery’s solution would begin with Bobby Grinnel, whom I’d been unable to see.

The city editor cleared his throat, eying me with both suspicion and a reluctant interest.

“How did you, ah, go about it? Trying to find the murderer, I mean?” He shifted uncomfortably, as if the effort of asking one of his reporters a civil question was costing him dearly.

Feeling that I had our awesome city editor at a disadvantage for the first time within living memory, I answered airily.

“First, I talked to John Randall, the boy Roberta Grinnel apparently made out with from time to time. I discovered he was just what I figured he’d be—a good-looking, average, overprivileged member of the upper class, without much on his mind but girls, skiing, and cashmere sweaters. Then I spent some time retracing the girl’s route on the night of the murder.”

“And?”

“Nothing.” I began fiddling with my hat.

“Is that how you do it—just hang around the scene of the crime and wait for something to register?”

“That’s what happened in San Jose. But, as I tried to tell the—” I felt my mouth twist derisively—“the publicity department, the whole thing down there could’ve been an accident: something that might never happen again. They wouldn’t listen, though. It would’ve been bad for circulation.”

For a long moment we stared at each other, exchanging a mute confession of mutual contempt for the
Sentinel’s
management. Then the city editor said brusquely, “I’ll talk to them again, upstairs. It’s twenty to ten. You’d better get going. Let me know.”

He swung around to a huge spindle of galley proofs, tightly gripping the pencil and frowning fiercely.

I left, whistling.

A
S I WALKED DOWN
the richly carpeted hallway toward Robert Grinnel’s hotel suite, I was thinking of the two nights I’d spent in my desultory efforts to find the murderer of Roberta Grinnel. It was the kind of undertaking that seems silly and frivolous in the light of day, yet with the return of darkness came the returning fantasies: fame and fortune, of which I’d already had a small but fatal sampling. I was thinking that I might be someone easily corrupted by fame. During the cold, dark nights of retracing Roberta Grinnel’s path, I’d indulged myself in the most extravagant fantasies. I saw myself as a TV personality, as a consulting clairvoyant in the Holmsian tradition, as a syndicated crime columnist, as a famous, sought-after personality dealing with famous people during the day and exciting girls at night.

However, after my two dark, cold, profitless nights, I realized that I must somehow talk with Bobby Grinnel. Although certainly Bobby hadn’t killed her, yet, certainly, he could tell me something I needed to know. Initially, I’d hoped to interview him at Bransten, ostensibly for a follow-up story on his sister’s murder. Then I discovered that he’d dropped his studies for the rest of the semester.

I pressed the buzzer to the Governor’s suite. Almost immediately the door was opened by Grinnel’s bodyguard, the thick, stolid man in the blue suit.

“Yes?” His deep, guttural voice was polite enough.

“I’m Stephen Drake. I have an appointment with Mr. Grinnel.”

“Oh, yeah.” He nodded and stepped back. “Come in, please.”

“Thank you.”

I walked into the suite’s living room. Across the room the beautifully groomed secretary rose to her feet and approached me, smiling. She still wore pearls and basic black. I remembered her expressively inflected voice.

“Mr. Drake?”

“Yes.”

She motioned toward a damask lounge chair. “Won’t you take a seat, Mr. Drake? Mr. Grinnel will be with you in just a moment.”

“Thank you.” I sank down into the deep chair, crossing my legs. I watched her as she moved across the room. There was in the rhythm of her movements the mature woman’s quiet, assured awareness of her own sensuality, accepted and controlled. In profile, moving toward an opposite door, her figure was superb. Then, with a smile, she opened the door and was gone.