The Case of the Murdered MacKenzie: A Masao Masuto Mystery (Book Seven) (23 page)

“Then why didn't they come to the Beverly Hills police headquarters and talk to me there?”

“After our discussion, they changed their minds.”

“Yes, of course. Do you know where Robert Mackenzie is?”

“No, I don't. But I presume he's still in Canada.”

“No, he isn't—or at least he was not in Canada yesterday. Yesterday he killed Feona Scott.”

“Oh? I saw no such accusation in this morning's paper. Or is this another secret of the Beverly Hills police?”

“Isn't it time we stopped playing games, Mr. Soames. This is not an entertainment we're discussing. It's murder, and Robert Mackenzie is guilty of that murder. You know it and I know it, and we both know why he shot Feona Scott. Let him give up and be tried—”

“No!”

“Scott killed his twin brother. You have the best lawyers in California. You can certainly get a mitigated sentence.”

“Sergeant Masuto,” Soames said, “I am trying to be very patient with you. You are a fine and honest policeman, and I respect anyone who does a good job of work. I am not trying to hoodwink you or to tamper with the law. But you function on a certain level, and there are other levels in this great nation of ours. The Mackenzie case is closed, and for all purposes, legal and otherwise, Robert Mackenzie has ceased to exist. This is not from me, but from people far more powerful and important in the scheme of things.”

“Are there levels,” Masuto wondered, “where murder is not murder?”

“Sergeant, we live in a different world than what existed when we were children. Murder has become a way of international relationship. Consider Iran, the P.L.O., Libya, Bulgaria—murder is simply a word, and in defense of national policy and national security, it is condoned.”

Masuto felt a shiver run up his spine. What does one say? What is good and what is bad? “I am a policeman who works in Beverly Hills,” Masuto said quietly. “When a murder is committed in a house in Beverly Hills, I must find the perpetrator.”

“That's simply rigid and unthinking.”

“Perhaps.”

“You will not find Mr. Mackenzie. Give it up.”

“It used to be simpler to be a cop,” Beckman said once they were outside.

“You can say that again. Where now?”

“Oxnard?”

“Why not? A boat is a good place to hide. He could sail out to one of those uninhabited islands off the Santa Barbara channel and really go to earth.”

“You think so?”

“No, but we're partway there, so why not? You see, Sy, the good folk who have been trying to kill me are now after Mackenzie. It has to play that way. He killed Scott, and now he must disappear. Whatever the game is, he's played it for a long time. At first he was a stranger, a blank face, but bit by bit he comes into focus. He must have loved Eve Mackenzie; that's the romantic part of him; but it was a passion that survived her alcoholism, and if you ever dealt with an alcoholic, you know what that means.”

“I can see what you're getting at,” Beckman said. “He was her husband. Your wife dies—”

“Yes, he must have come back on that basis. Consider that he's been waiting for an opportunity to revenge himself on Feona. He takes it, but where does he go to ground—hotels? No, too dangerous. No friend could be trusted.”

“Jo Hardin.”

“I think so. The question is, did Geffner know?”

“Come on, Masao—that's his life, his career.”

“I hope he didn't know.”

They drove on to Oxnard, Masuto still trying to think his way out of the maze of the past four days. But the short drive to the Oxnard marina left no time for mental escape, and the white boats, lying so still in the golden sunlight, vitiated any concept of the forces of evil. The marina manager, after he had looked at their credentials, shook his head and said, “Funny, that boat's been here for months, and no one gave a damn about it. You're the third one to come asking about it today.”

“Two other people asking about the Mackenzie boat?”

“That's right.”

“Cops. Officers of any kind?”

“Nope.”

“Which boat is it?” Beckman asked.

“Slip thirty-two.”

“Which way?”

“I'll take you over there,” he said with a snicker. They followed him out onto a long wooden deck to a slip that was numbered 32.

“I don't see the boat,” Beckman said.

“You're looking the wrong way. Down there.” He pointed into the water, and there beneath them, sitting in twenty feet of water, was a beautiful sloop.

“Last night,” the marina manager said, “someone opened the cocks. Down she went.”

“Anyone in there?”

“No, we sent a diver down. No one in it.” He stepped aside to give them a clear view, and then he said, “There's the guy looked at it before.”

He stood at the end of the pier, a tall, broad-shouldered, well-dressed man, blondish hair, steel-rimmed glasses. Both Masuto and Beckman plunged into action, racing down the pier, Beckman, for all his size and weight, a trifle faster than Masuto. When the man at the end of the pier saw them coming, he sprinted across the marina and across the road, dodging the cars like an open-field runner, and then up a slight bluff onto a field of dry, parched grass. Beckman gained on him as he was trying to scramble up the bluff, Beckman taking it by sheer momentum, and then, as he started across the field, Beckman tackled him above the knees, bringing him down with a mighty thud. As Masuto joined them, Beckman had gotten up and the man he tackled had rolled over and was trying to sit up.

“You big, dumb ape,” the man on the ground said. “You've gone and broken my glasses and maybe busted a couple of ribs too.”

“Who the hell are you calling an ape, mister? Just get the hell up out of there and identify yourself.”

“Easy, Sy,” Masuto whispered. “I think he's some kind of cop.”

“You're damn right I am,” the tackled man said, handing his identification to Masuto.

“God save us, he's a G-man, name of Peter Thatcher. Well, Peter,” he said, handing the wallet back, “why did you run? Having done no wrong, which I trust was the case, why did you run?”

“Because, Masuto, having been told to avoid a smartass Jap cop under all circumstances, I tried to obey orders.”

“That's very praiseworthy, but out here in California, and in other places too, I expect, the language you used is considered insulting and degrading. I would appreciate an apology and some confession of ignorance.”

“Otherwise,” Beckman said, “well, who is to say how hard you fell when I tackled you. A few more broken ribs can be explained.”

“Come on, come on,” Thatcher said. “I've been knocked over and maybe broke a rib and lost my glasses, so a little anger can be excused. Sure, I'm sorry. We're on the same side.”

“Maybe.”

“You guys just looking for Mackenzie, or do you know where he is?”

“Why did they tell you to steer clear of me?”

“I don't know.”

“Does your bunch ever talk to the C.I.A.?” Beckman wondered.

“Can you drive?” Masuto asked him.

“I guess you don't know where Mackenzie is,” Thatcher said. “If you did, you wouldn't be down here looking at his boat.”

“Send an optician's voucher to our office, and they'll refund whatever the new glasses cost. Can you drive?”

“I always keep a spare pair in my car. Part of the burden of wearing glasses. But a word of advice, Masuto. They told me about an Oriental cop and that I should keep an eye peeled for him. Someone else might have opened up on you.”

“That's part of the burden of being a Jap—as you put it,” Masuto said. “But tonight I'm going to shed my burden. I'll be at home, in what I call my meditation room, meditating. It's a way of getting rid of some of what the world does to you.”

“Oh, yes. You're a Zen Buddhist, as I recall.” He offered his hand. “No hard feelings anyway.”

They shook hands, and Thatcher strode off. Beckman stared at Masuto thoughtfully.

“Well?”

“That's what you'll be doing tonight, sitting there in your little meditation room, meditating?”

“Yes.”

“I thought we were working together tonight. Did I have to talk my wife out of believing that I would be shacked up with some lady of small virtue and large boobs tonight—or was that just an exercise in persuasion?”

“You'll watch me.”

“Yes, of course,” Beckman mumbled. “That's as reasonable as everything else in this case. Sure. I'll enjoy watching you. Anyway, I think Thatcher took it all pretty well. I hit him like a ton of bricks.”

When they were in the car, driving south on the Pacific Coast Highway, Masuto said to Beckman, “Stop at Alice's Restaurant. I want to use the phone there.”

At the restaurant, Masuto put through a call to Los Angeles headquarters of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Switched to Personnel, he said, “This is Detective Sergeant Masao Masuto of the Beverly Hills police force. I'm not there now, but here's my badge number, and I'll wait while you call them and verify. But make it quick. I'm in a phone booth, calling long distance.” The lady at the other end said she'd take his number and call back. Beckman came in to see what was happening. Then the pay phone rang, and the lady from the Justice Department asked what she could do for Sergeant Masuto.

“I want to know whether there is a Peter Thatcher here in Los Angeles or in any other part of the service.”

The computer was quicker than such mundane tasks as personal phone calls. The lady at the other end of the wire assured Masuto that no one named Peter Thatcher worked for the Justice Department, in the Bureau or anywhere else.

Wearing his saffron-colored terry-cloth robe and Japanese thong sandals, Masuto entered the living room, where Beckman sat eating peanuts and poring over an album of the pictures the Masutos had taken in Japan. Somewhat abashed, Masuto explained that the color of the robe had nothing to do with the quality of his meditation. “It's true the saffron color is favored by some orders of Buddhist priests, but it means nothing. It's a little conceit of mine. Some people who meditate burn incense. I don't—it makes me feel that I'm choking.”

“You're sure about this—this meditation thing?”

“Well, yes, Sy—as sure as I can be about anything in this curious business. They've been here. They were careful, but not careful enough. They moved certain things and replaced them a bit off. Oh, they were here. They know all about me, but of meditation in any real sense, I'm sure they know nothing at all. Such people simply cannot comprehend what meditation is, and they will regard it as some sort of religious devotion that I must perform.”

“I'm not sure that I know any more than they do.”

“That's only because there's so very little to know. Meditation is a very simple matter, but this is not an age where simple matters are understood. Now, let's examine the battlefield.” He turned down all the lamps except one. “I haven't thrown the bolt on the front door, so they will be able to slip-card it. They will come through that little vestibule and into the living room. There, through the living room to the sun porch. I call it my meditation room. Please.” He motioned to Beckman to follow him, and then opened the glass doors to the sun porch. “We'll leave these wide open so that from the front door they will be able to see me sitting here and meditating.”

For all the years he had known Masuto and worked with him, Beckman had never seen this small room before. It was about eight feet deep and ten feet wide, a porch with windows, built onto the back of the Culver City bungalow. Masuto had put grass blinds over the windows, grass-colored paper on the walls, and yellow vinyl on the floor. The room was completely bare, unfurnished except for a black mat and a black pillow.

Beckman shook his head. “Mostly I go along with you, Masao. But this—well, I just don't know why.”

“Let me try to explain the way I see it—no,
feel
it is better, because I have only a sense of what may happen. Remember, nothing may happen: We may wait all night—and then nothing. But if they come—”

“Who?”

“You keep asking me, Sy. I don't know. Tonight we may find out, and I have to find out. I can't live like this. I find fear deplorable, and I have been constantly afraid. I don't enjoy being afraid.”

“All right. You dropped the word with Thatcher—”

“Maybe. We look at it differently. From our point of view, they are watching the house. This is terribly important to them. Think of what ends they have gone to, removing the body, hiring Albert Dexel, and Thatcher—and who knows how many others. Apparently, money is no object.”

“Damn it, who are they and what do they want?”

“This we find out tonight. Now, come with me.” He led Beckman into Ana's bedroom, all pink and white. “You leave here by the front door, Sy, circle about ten blocks, and come in on the street behind us. The couple in that house—” he pointed through the window “—both work the night shift down at the airport. Go to the end of their driveway, and there's my hedge. Work your way through it and you're right there in the backyard. Your eyes will be used to the dark. I'll kill the light in this room, but you'll see me here. The window will be open, and you'll crawl through. We'll just hope that no one sees you, but they must be convinced that I am alone in the house.”