The Black Door (17 page)

Mr. Long, also perfectly cast, smiled the same affable, all-American smile.

Now, clearing his throat, Swanson adjusted his expression to the occasion.

“As most of you know,” he said, “we have a suspect in custody in the murder of Roberta Grinnel and David Pastor. The suspect’s name is Alfred Reusch, spelled R-e-u-s-c-h.” He waited for us to write, then continued: “Mr. Reusch is a white, male, ah—” Swanson hesitated. “Call him Polish; at this point we’re still checking. Age twenty-nine. Mr. Reusch has been under surveillance by local agents of the F.B.I. for two days. He was detained shortly after midnight last night, and has been interrogated intermittently during last night and this morning. We have a signed confession, which we obtained at approximately one
P.M.
today.” Pausing, Swanson looked around the conference table. His manner was that of a successful executive presiding over an important committee meeting. Finally he said, “I think that about covers the pertinent details, gentlemen. Now we’ll take your questions.” He moved his hand toward the man seated at his right. “Mr. Long is with the Documents Division in Washington. He did a lot of groundwork leading to the apprehension of Mr. Reusch.”

I was the first to speak. “Can we interview the suspect?”

“That’ll be up to the local authorities. We aren’t asking for a Federal indictment, since the actual murder isn’t within our jurisdiction. The suspect will be turned over to local authorities after we’ve completed two more depositions.”

“How did the F.B.I. come into the case in the first place?” someone asked.

“The suspect was first connected to the Grinnel family by anonymous threatening letters sent through the mails. Aside from that, of course, our facilities are always at the disposal of local authorities in capital cases.”

“What was the motive for the murders?” Kanter asked.

Looking at Kanter, Swanson hesitated, then glanced down at his notes. He spoke with a deliberate, official gravity.

“The best way I can answer that, I think, is to give you some of Mr. Reusch’s background. He is Polish, as I’ve said. His family was Jewish. When Mr. Reusch was a boy of four or five, he and his parents were taken into custody by the Nazis, then occupying Warsaw. The father and mother were made servants in the household of a high-ranking S.S. officer back in Berlin, and the boy was taken along. The Nazi officer’s wife became very attached to the boy—abnormally attached, I gather, partly as a result of her own child’s death. In any case, when it came time for the Reusch family to go to Dachau, the Nazi officer’s wife wanted to keep the boy, Alfred. The Nazi said it was impossible, and the entire Reusch family was shipped off, to be liquidated. However, at the last moment, the boy was saved through the intervention of the officer. Approximately a year later, the officer was killed in action.

“His wife remained in Berlin with the boy. She was killed in the final bombardment of the city. The boy was buried under a fallen building; he was buried for three days, but somehow managed to dig his way out. However—” Swanson paused, to clear his throat. Obviously, he wasn’t enjoying his recitation. Yet the compulsion to recall each detail must have been stronger than his discomfort. Taking a deep breath, he continued.

“However, when he was finally rescued, the boy was unable to speak. For a year, he was unable to talk, because of shock. Finally, though, he got his speech back, and by the time he was ten, he was receiving aid from one of the Jewish relief agencies. After five years of European refugee camps, he was sent to America as a Jewish war orphan.

“During his middle teens, he began to show signs of severe depression and psychological unbalance. He went from one foster family to another, and finally he just disappeared; ran away, in other words. He’d been living in the eastern part of the United States, mostly New York, and he came out west when he was approximately sixteen years old. We gather that he worked as a field hand for several years. But then, gradually, he became more and more withdrawn and depressed. He wouldn’t talk to people; the term is catatonic, I believe. Finally he was committed to a state hospital for the insane, down in Los Angeles. He was cured, more or less, after a year or two, and he went back to working in the fields. It was then, apparently, that he happened to hear Mr. Grinnel speak at a Forward For Freedom rally. As nearly as we can determine, the rally was held down in Fresno approximately a year ago. Reusch became—” Swanson hesitated, searching for the word. “He became obsessed with the idea that he had to oppose Mr. Grinnel’s work, at whatever cost. So Reusch began writing crank letters. He never gave a return address, of course, and since he was essentially a transient, it was almost impossible to trace these letters. And, in addition, the F.F.F. over the years has become accustomed to crank letters. Initially, they used to report them to the postal authorities; now they ignore all but the actual, hard-core threats. Mr. Reusch, for instance, threatened Mr. Grinnel’s life on at least one occasion.”

“Were you notified at that time?” Campion asked.

Swanson shook his head. “No, we weren’t. The Los Angeles police were notified, which is customary.”

“How did you actually run Reusch down?” someone asked.

Obviously, Swanson had been anticipating this question. His manner became subtly more expansive, like a self-confident professor lecturing on a favorite subject.

“Immediately after the Grinnel murder, we received from the local authorities some three thousand crank letters sent to the Forward For Freedom movement over the past fifteen years. It was our job to decide which letters meant business, so to speak. Then, having made that initial breakdown, we tried to run down the letter writers geographically, starting with those known to reside in California.” Swanson turned to the other agent, smiling his executive’s smile. “Perhaps Mr. Long can take it from there. Unless—” he looked around the table—“unless there’re any questions on what I’ve said so far.”

“Has Mr. Grinnel been notified that you have a suspect in custody?” I asked.

“No. Since we won’t be charging Reusch, we’re limiting the scope of our interrogations, for reasons of efficiency and economy. I expect you’d better check with your local police on anything pertaining to Mr. Grinnel. Our phase of the investigation is almost terminated.”

There were two or three more questions, followed by Mr. Long’s tedious, technical, rather confusing account of how his department had finally been able to determine that Alfred Reusch had been residing in San Francisco at the time of Roberta Grinnel’s murder. The recitation was so dry and boring, in fact, that I almost missed its concluding sentence.

“… the final point,” Mr. Long was saying, “is perhaps conclusive circumstantially. We have determined that for a period of two weeks, beginning approximately three months ago, Mr. Reusch was employed at Bransten College, or, to be more accurate, he was employed by a landscape gardening firm that maintains Bransten’s grounds. Of course, as yet, we have been unable to establish any confirmed contact between Mr. Reusch and Miss Grinnel. But that is not to say that a contact did not exist, if only in Reusch’s mind, for instance.”

“Did Reusch actually write any letters while he was working on this gardening job?” Kanter asked.

“We can’t be really sure of that,” Mr. Long answered. “The suspect seems to be out of touch with reality some of the time, and he—”

“—he’s being evasive,” Swanson cut in smoothly. “The suspect readily admits writing letters threatening Mr. Grinnel’s life, and he readily admits the double murder. But things like time sequences seem very hazy in his mind.” Swanson smiled. “Actually, that’s not uncommon, even for the healthy mind. My wife accused me of the same thing, especially where our anniversary is concerned.”

After the polite laughter Kanter asked, “How was the murder actually committed, Mr. Swanson? Do you have the weapon?”

Swanson’s smile seemed to slip.

“The suspect,” he said, “is a little vague on some of the actual details of the crime. As Mr. Long says, there’s no question the suspect is mentally disturbed. However, it’s my opinion that Reusch knew what he was doing at the time of the crime, and that he remembers the crime in its essential details. It’s not uncommon, as you all know, to find a murderer who’s incapable of recalling the details of his crime. We assume, though, that Reusch used some kind of a blunt instrument—a pipe, for instance. He says that he disposed of the weapon. We haven’t had the time to interrogate him thoroughly on this point. Since we’re not prosecuting the case, details of that nature will be up to the local authorities.”

I asked the next question. “Mr. Long has said that no connection has been discovered between Reusch and Miss Grinnel. But I was wondering whether you might have discovered any connection between the suspect and Miss Grinnel’s brother, Robert?”

“Not that I know of,” Swanson replied promptly. With a questioning look he turned to Mr. Long, who shook his head. Then Swanson regarded me with a frowning speculation, as if I might have said something to worry him.

“When will the suspect actually be in the hands of the local authorities?” Campion asked.

Swanson glanced at his watch. “In about an hour, I’d say. A detail of local men is already downstairs.” He paused and looked around the room, smiling. Dismissal time. There was a general shuffling of papers and a scraping of chairs. The race for the phones was about to begin, followed by the trek to headquarters, where our vigil would begin. There was general agreement that it would be a late night.

Dan Kanter and I were the last to phone. Kanter’s deadline had passed, and he proposed a late-afternoon snack. I gave my city editor the details of my story, and then, reminding him of my week’s leave of absence, I requested that someone be sent to headquarters in my place, covering for the next few hours. Surprisingly, I didn’t get an argument. The time was four-thirty. Almost six hours remained before deadline, and it seemed certain Larsen wouldn’t give a press interview until he’d had a chance to question the suspect thoroughly.

And so, ten minutes later, Kanter and I were regarding each other over Danish rolls and coffee.

“You know something?” Kanter said.

“What?”

“I think,” Kanter said slowly, “that there’s something very odd about this so-called suspect.”

“How do you mean?”

“I mean,” he answered, “that I think Swanson’s got some nut who’s given him a false confession, and I’m surprised he’s not more cautious about it. In almost every major murder case, there’s at least one false confession. Every detective third grade knows it’s a possibility, and he’s looking for it. Yet here’s Swanson, the area’s number one Federal cop, blithely peddling a suspect that seems questionable, at best.”

Dispiritedly, I stirred my coffee.

“That’s a beautiful thought, Dan. But you haven’t talked to the suspect. You’re shooting blind.”

“I’m shooting by instinct. You wait and see.”

“Swanson would never put himself in a position like that, and you know it.”

“We’ll see.” He took a large bite of his Danish. “Are you making any progress?”

I shrugged. “Not really. A few hunches. But that’s all.”

“Well, keep at it, that’s my advice.”

Ruefully I smiled. I was thinking of Grinnel and his parting speech to me:
That’s what we’ll give them—someone to hate. If I can teach them to hate with me, I can teach them to follow me.

And now he had his murderer—a demented Jew named Alfred Reusch. When had Reusch’s sanity left him? At the moment he’d seen his parents prodded like animals toward the gas chambers? During the three days he’d been buried alive? Or had he—?

“… are you thinking?” Kanter was saying.

I sighed. “I was thinking about Reusch.”

Kanter nodded, saying nothing. He had finished his coffee and roll, and now he sat staring down at the empty dishes.

“There’s something else that’s very strange about this confession,” he said.

“What’s that?”

He raised his eyes. “Did it ever occur to you that Reusch is practically a tailor-made suspect for Grinnel’s purposes?”

I stared at him.

“Are you trying to tell me that—?”

“I’m not trying to tell you anything,” he said. His voice was the reporter’s now, brusque and businesslike. “I’m just pointing out an obvious fact: Alfred Reusch is exactly what your friend Grinnel ordered.” He heaved himself to his feet.

“Take my advice, Steve. If you’re working on something promising, keep at it.”

“I think I will,” I answered, following him to the cash register. “But I’m afraid I’ll be working on my own time from now on.

Forty-five minutes later I was standing in the dingy hallway outside the office of the F.F.F. On the frosted glass door was inscribed “Forward For Freedom,” and in smaller letters in the lower right-hand corner: Geo. Ferguson, Dir., M. Pate, Exec. Sec. Hrs. 5-8 Daily.

Drawing a deep breath, I turned the knob and pushed open the door.

A stout, sandy-haired woman was seated at a small reception desk smiling pleasantly at me.

“Hello,” she said, her rimless glasses sparkling in the glare of bright overhead light. “May I help you?”

“Are you the executive secretary?”

“Yes. I’m Mrs. Pate.”

“Well, I—” I swallowed, and started again. “I was looking for Mr. Ferguson, then. Mr. George Ferguson.”

An exaggerated expression of compassion puckered at her face.

“George—Mr. Ferguson—is home with a cold.” She nodded and then shook her head, both gestures suggesting a dampish, matronly identification with the afflicted. “A bad cold,” she added.

“Then he won’t be in this evening?”

“I’m afraid not. Is there anything I can do for you?”

“Well, I—”

“Is it about our membership drive? Addressing literature?”

“No, it’s—” I took a deep breath and tried to collect myself. “No, it’s nothing to do with that. I wanted to see Mr. Ferguson concerning some business I’m doing with, ah, with Mr. Grinnel.”

“Mr.
Grinnel?”
She seemed hardly able to believe her ears. She blinked and drew her plump body into a more alert posture as she sat before me. “You mean you come from Mr. Grinnel? Or—” suspicion suddenly shadowed her rapt expression—“or did you mean you have
business
with Mr. Grinnel? Like something to sell, or something?”