The Nicholas Linnear Novels (44 page)

“You ready to go back?”

Nicholas nodded. “One thing, Lew.” He hesitated.

“Shoot.”

“You may not want to tell me.”

“Then I won’t. Okay?”

Nicholas smiled. “Okay.” They began to walk up the beach toward Croaker’s car. “What is it between you and Tomkin?”

Croaker opened the door, slung his jacket onto the backseat. He got in behind the wheel. He had parked in the shade but the interior was still hot. Nicholas got in on the passenger’s side and Croaker started the engine.

“You’re right,” he said. “I might not want to tell you. And a few days ago, I wouldn’t have.” He made a broken U-turn, began to drive up Dune Road toward the bridge across the canal. “But everything’s different now and I guess I figure if I can’t trust you, there ain’t nobody
to
trust, and I can’t live my life like that.”

They rumbled across the bridge, heading past the houses and the small bobbing boats with their stowed outboard motors, toward the highway.

“You know about the Didion thing.”

Nicholas was surprised. “You mean the murder of that model? Sure, but only what was spread across the papers. I used to see her in practically any magazine I picked up.”

“Yeah,” Croaker said meditatively. “Beautiful lady. Just beautiful. Like they invented the word for her.”

“It sounds like—”

“Nah. Not what you think.” They swung onto the highway and Croaker picked up speed. The wind was still hot enough to keep them from cooling off. “But it struck me, you know, that this girl’s a person just like everyone else. All anyone thinks of is the image, you know? Her face, her body like that; the façade. No one would stop to think that she might be just as fucked up as all the rest of us, huh? That she belched after a good meal; that she might fart once in a while. Human things.”

He switched lanes, avoiding a blue and white bus, its diesel exhaust asphyxiating. He jammed his horn as they came abreast, then they were shooting away westward.

“Then she was dead and everybody was making a stink. She was a celebrity and responsible for a helluva lot of bread, not to mention the hold she had on a multiple million fantasies. But nobody, I guarantee you, said: There’s another life stupidly wasted. Well, buddy, that’s what I thought about when I stood there in the middle of her bedroom and looked at her cool body. I thought: She’s a human being and I want to know who did this to her.” He shrugged. “But, hell, I’d do the same for any two-bit whore who got knocked over. Done it mucho times. Doesn’t go down well with my captain. But, shit, I never cared a rat’s ass about that fucker. ‘A waste of the taxpayer’s money, Croaker,’ he’d say to me. ‘Find something more valuable to do with your time.’ Jesus!” He hit the steering wheel with his fist. “Can you beat that? Christ, that bastard’s always got one finger in his nose and the other up his ass!

“Anyway, this case turns out to be the ballbuster of all time. I mean, there isn’t one goddamned break. All I get is mystery and for that I can go to the movies.

“From what I get from her bedroom, there was someone else there that night. A woman. A woman who had, it appeared, been intimate with Angela Didion and who might conceivably have seen the murder being committed. Only problem is, she’s disappeared as if she’d never existed.

“So I’m left with nada and the papers are screaming for a solution, which puts the commissioner to screaming at Captain Finnigan, who—but why belabor the point, right? You get the picture.”

They turned off before the multiple exits leading to Manhattan and, in a slow curving glide, moved onto Queens Boulevard. The westbound traffic was only moderate and they made good time.

“Two or three uniforms went through the building doing preliminary checks—seeing who saw what. But it being the Actium House, they were told to step softly and whisper at all times. The result they come back with is nobody knows nothing.

“Okay. Fair enough. But a week later, with everyone screaming for blood—my blood—I decide to take a peek myself. To give you the
Reader’s Digest
version so you won’t fall asleep from boredom on me, it turns out that the uniform assigned to canvass Angela Didion’s floor missed one tenant. Turns out she was away when he came around and just came back. A little careful digging turns up the interesting fact that she left the morning after the murder—early—for Palm Springs. She stayed for seven days and then returned. She was an older woman. In her late fifties but looking a good ten years older. An alcoholic. I interviewed her at ten in the morning and her breath stank from gin. Her hands shook and she couldn’t stop herself from going to the bottle while I was there.”

He turned off Queens Boulevard at Yellowstone Boulevard, went south. They were in Forest Hills.

“But even more interesting was that she swore she saw a man visit Angela Didion—the same man—over the past six months. It might have been going on longer. Six months is when she became aware of him. Apparently there was a fight there one night and from then on she kept a sharp lookout through her door peephole. Nothing better to do with her time.”

He pulled up in front of a medium-sized one-story building with a white brick façade. It had dark green, rather ginger-bready trim. A swinging sign on the lawn in front, black and white, read:
PARKSIDE FUNERAL HOME
. A large shade elm stood on the other side of the lawn. The wooden doors stood open. As they sat there, several people walked inside. Nicholas recognized one of the
dōjō’s
instructors.

“She gave me a detailed description of the man, Nick. There’s no doubt he’s Raphael Tomkin.”

“So Tomkin was having an affair with Angela Didion. It’s not that surprising, two high-powered people living in the same apartment building. Could she place him there the night of the murder?”

Croaker looked toward the elm. It rustled slightly in a warm desultory breeze. “She’s afraid of flying,” he said finally. “She took a chloral hydrate with a large slug of gin and passed out at 6
P.M.
She didn’t get up until about five the next morning.”

“When she left for Key West.”

“Yeah, right.” Croaker turned to him. “But I know what I know. I’ve checked and rechecked the movements of all her known intimates. It was Tomkin, all right.”

“You’ve got no proof, Lew,” Nicholas said. “You’ve got nothing.”

“Less than nothing, buddy,” Croaker said morosely. He got out of the car and Nicholas followed him up the flagstone path to the funeral home.

Another of the
dōjō’s
instructors stopped Nicholas on the steps, said several words to him. Nicholas nodded.

“Listen,” Croaker said, pulling Nicholas close to him and lowering his voice, “the Didion case is officially closed. Finis. Kaput. I got the word the other day from jellybelly Finnigan. This came right from the top; no one would be stupid enough to grease
his
mick palm.”

“Are you saying the police were bought off?”

“What I’m telling you is that if I had any lingering doubts as to Tomkin’s complicity in this, they went bye-bye with that order to shut down. Very few people can command that kind of strict hush. He’s one of ’em.” His voice was a harsh whisper now, sibilant, lethal. “But now I got a lead. One of my contacts came through with a make on the other woman in Angela Didion’s apartment the night of the murder. I’m waiting for her name and address. When they come through, I’m gonna nail that sonovabitch’s hide to the goddamned wall.”

The service was brief but expressive, half in English, half in Japanese. But it was, basically, an American ceremony, which they had both wanted. Nicholas had been asked to eulogize both Terry and Eileen and he did so. He spoke in Japanese. There was music. A couple, friends of Eileen’s. They were professionals and it showed. They played traditional Japanese music on
koto
and
shakuhachi.
And there were the traditional flowers.

Croaker waited until they had walked away from the grave site. Behind them, the workmen were beginning to fill in the graves. There seemed to be no sound as the brown earth filled the spaces.

“Nick,” he said, “what do the names Hideyoshi, Yodogimi and Mitsunari mean to you?”

Nicholas stopped and turned away from the sun. He did not want to put on his sunglasses. “They’re famous names out of Japanese history. Why?”

Croaker seemed to ignore the question. “Could they be people who are alive today?”

Nicholas shrugged. “It’s possible, I suppose. Sure. They’re family names. But those three are linked together by history. The chances—”

“I see what you mean.”

Past them, along the black macadam road, a car door slammed and a motor coughed into life, the sound seeming to float on the hot air. Plane and maple trees rustled their leaves by the side of the path they were on. The heat was mounting.

“You’d better tell me what this is all about.”

Croaker reached inside his coat pocket. He handed over a thin folded slip of what looked like scratch paper. As Nicholas opened it, he said, “I found this when I was going through Terry’s effects the M.E. gave me. It was in his pocket. It might have been made the night he was killed.”

“So?”

“So there was a man—a
Japanese
—at the
dōjō
the afternoon Terry and Ei were murdered. Two of the instructors—karate and aikido
senseis
—”

“
Sensei
.”

“All right, whatever. They said this man was the best they had ever seen. Afterward, he had a kendo match with Terry. Vincent told me Terry had been troubled by it when they had dinner together. That was the night of the double murder.”

Nicholas looked at him, ignoring the paper in his hand. It was thin and limp, seeming stained with sweat. “What’s the punch line?”

“This Japanese gave his name as Hideyoshi.”

Nicholas looked away for a moment, out over the cemetery. The white marble headstones were brilliant in the burning sun and even the dark gray or striated stones seemed as light as feathers, threatening at any moment to shake free of their moorings and float away into the sky as serenely as clouds. It was the middle of the week; there was little movement along the neat narrow paths, the close-cropped lawns. Bright blobs of color, flowers placed precisely at the doorways to heaven, gave the panorama a rather false festiveness as if they stood in the middle of a newly abandoned state fair. At the periphery of his vision, a yellow bulldozer moved fallow earth. Beyond, the highway arched in a steel and stressed-concrete rainbow, its traffic so muted its hiss seemed like the sigh of endless surf.

“In 1598,” Nicholas said, “Hideyoshi, the Kwambaku, he who controlled all the warring
daimyo
of Japan, died. It is commonly believed that he, being a farsighted man, bequeathed his power to Ieyasu Tokugawa, the strongest member of the governing council. This is not so. Hideyoshi’s mistress was Yodogimi and she had given him a son. He loved them both and wished, above all else, to have his heir one day rule Japan. Just before his death he asked to see a close friend, Mitsunari the policeman. He told him in strict secrecy to guard Yodogimi and his son. In effect, he set Mitsunari against Ieyasu. ‘Mitsunari, my friend,’ he said. ‘Ieyasu exults in my death though you will see him act otherwise. Do not be deceived. Ieyasu is as clever as he is dangerous. He will, within a short time of my death, seek to become Shōgun. Mitsunari, my friend, you must oppose this with all your might for, to do this, Ieyasu must destroy Yodogimi and the true heir.’

“Then, just moments afterward, Hideyoshi received Ieyasu. ‘You are the strongest of the council,’ he told him. ‘Thus you must take over the reins of power after I am gone.’ ‘Do not speak of such sad matters, Kwambaku,’ Ieyasu said, but Hideyoshi waved him to silence. ‘Listen to what I have to say. There is little time. When I am gone, there will be anarchy among the council members. Undoubtedly they will split into factions and the country will be plunged back into civil war. This must be avoided at all costs. You must seize power, Ieyasu. Those other three
daimyo
are as nothing to you. Sweep them aside; rule to forestall a civil war which would rip Japan asunder.’ And Ieyasu Tokugawa bowed his head in acquiescence.

“Thus did Hideyoshi set in motion at the very moment of his death a complex plan for the eventual succession of his heir; thus he hoped to manipulate the destiny of Japan even from beyond the grave. He knew that the moment of his death was most inopportune. His son was still far too young to be able to defend himself or to hold for long the loyalty of all but a tiny fraction of those who were loyal to him. He knew of Ieyasu’s ambition to become Shōgun and this he would not permit. That honor must go to his own heir.”

Off to their left, a small funeral procession made its lentitudinous way from the black macadam road from which heat waves rose, along one of the narrow paths toward an open grave. The gleaming casket was already in place, surrounded by garlands of flowers. The mourners were forming up and a slight commotion began as one of the family members collapsed. Distance and the heaviness of the air dampened the sound so that it appeared as if they were viewing a mime show.

“Was Hideyoshi successful?” Croaker asked after a time.

“No,” Nicholas said, “he wasn’t.” He was still watching the crowd of people. The person—a woman, it appeared—had recovered and the service commenced. “For one thing, Ieyasu Tokugawa was far too clever and powerful. For another, Mitsunari gathered a coalition of
daimyo
around him who were just not up to the task of defeating Ieyasu. In 1615 Ieyasu led his forces against those who sought to protect Yodogimi and the heir. They had retreated into the nearly invulnerable castle at Osaka. On June fourth of that year, Ieyasu’s forces breached the castle’s defenses but by that time both Yodogimi and the young heir were already dead; she had killed her son and then committed
seppuku
.”

“Is there a villain in this story?”

There came a flash in the sky and a drone, heavy with vibration, as a 747 headed in to Kennedy.

“I suppose it depends on your point of view,” Nicholas said. “But I can tell you that Ieyasu was one of the greatest leaders in the history of Japan. Whether Hideyoshi understood those qualities in Ieyasu is open to debate. In any case, they were two different kinds of men, and it is impossible, I think, to make an overwhelming case for one against the other. They were both crucial to the development of their country.”