Authors: Whit Masterson
“Well, speaking only as a prosecutor,” Holt said, “it seems to me that evidence is the most important thing.”
McCoy pushed aside his plate and relit his pipe. “When you’ve been in this business for a while, Holt, you develop a certain feel for it which I’m willing to call intuition. It’s like Hank and his bum leg. I see the clouds but I can’t be sure it’s going to rain. Hank can always tell you, though, because his leg tells him. My intuition tells me that Tara Linneker and Delmont Shayon did this murder.”
Holt grinned. “Exhibit A — Captain McCoy’s intuition.”
“Don’t get me wrong. We’re not stopping with that. Now we’ve got to prove that we’re right. You got the pictures, Hank?” While Quinlan dug an envelope out of his coat pocket, McCoy said, “The dynamite that did the Linneker job was bought in Seacliff two months ago, the first week in December. Black Fox brand, which is fairly common. The man who bought it gave a phoney name and address — you have to sign for explosives, you know, just like poison — and that’s what gave us our lead. We’d been on to it sooner except that we had to start checking here in the city and work outwards. The rough description we got of the purchaser fits Shayon.” He took the envelope from Quinlan, removed several photographs and selected one. “This is Shayon.”
Holt examined the picture, a head-and-shoulders portrait of a young man in his middle twenties. It was a weakly handsome face, white-skinned under curly black hair. At first glance, Delmont Shayon didn’t look capable of such a brutal action as dynamiting an elderly man into oblivion, but the eyes that stared out of the photograph were moody and secretive. Holt didn’t believe that character could necessarily be read in such an easy manner, however, so he handed the picture back to McCoy. “Looks normal enough to me.”
McCoy shuffled it among the others. “We’re going up to Seacliff now and get a positive identification. These other pictures aren’t Shayon — just some John Does to make it fair.”
“What happens if you don’t get the identification?”
“Care to make a little bet on it?”
Holt shook his head. “Hardly. But I have to look at it as the guy who’s likely going to have to prosecute the case. I’m wondering if that picture of Shayon hasn’t been in the newspapers.”
“Maybe,” admitted McCoy, studying him. “Why?”
“Well, that might make an identification subject to doubt.”
Quinlan wadded up his paper napkin and cast it aside with a disgusted sound. “You figuring on prosecuting Shayon or defending him, Holt?”
Holt flushed, but McCoy said amiably, “Back up, Hank, and don’t let that chili ruin your disposition. We’re all on the same team. Holt’s got a good point. Even if we do get a positive in Seacliff — and I’m betting we will — that’s only the first step. But it will show we’re on the right road. Fair enough, gentlemen?”
Quinlan shrugged to indicate no offence and Holt was willing to forget it. He didn’t hold grudges. “Don’t blame me for thinking like a lawyer. I warned you I wasn’t any cop.”
“Maybe you’d like to take a run up to Seacliff with us now and see how this thing operates,” McCoy suggested, preparing to rise. “Glad to have you.”
This invitation was genuine but Holt declined it. He had decided that his logical first step was to acquaint himself with the background of the Linneker case. Otherwise, he would be out of his depth in dealing with future developments.
They said goodbyes on the curb and Holt watched the two officers drive away in a black squad car, headed north. He stood there a moment, thinking about what he had been told. He wished he could be as assured about his own cases as McCoy seemed to be, but this apparently came from years of experience. McCoy’s reputation justified such assurance. He knew his business.
As Holt crossed to police headquarters, the first raindrops were moistening the sidewalks. Quinlan had been right. “Score one for intuition,” Holt said aloud. He felt a little sorry for Delmont Shayon and for Tara Linneker, too, with men like that in pursuit. He was glad he hadn’t taken McCoy’s bet.
A
T
the end of an hour, Holt knew as much about the Linneker murder as there was to know. From the police files, he read the report of the investigating officers, the statements of witnesses, the conclusions of the physical evidence detail and the findings of the autopsy surgeon. The file was detailed and complete; all it lacked was a conclusion.
It was easy to see why McCoy had fastened upon Tara Linneker and her fiancé as the logical suspects. Motive, opportunity, lack of an alibi, familiarity with the scene … all of them fit. Rudy Linneker had no known enemies and the first week of the investigation had turned up no one else who could be classified, even remotely, as a suspect. No wonder the two manhunters were so sure. It was less intuition than elimination. Only a confession — or circumstantial proof that would stand in place of a confession — was needed to wind things up.
The rain was still light when Holt quitted the police headquarters for his automobile. So, instead of returning to his office in the Civic Centre, he headed north along the harbour, thinking he might as well get all the legwork out of the way at once.
Landfall Point was a long arm of land thrown protectively in front of the city and the harbour as if to ward off the attack of the Pacific Ocean. On the seaward side there had been little attempt to improve on nature. But the side that faced the city was an area of expensive homes. They were built, most of them, high above the water, to take advantage of the view and to escape as much as possible the low-lying evening fogs. The ruggedness of the Point, laced with canyons, made each home a virtual castle, isolated and remote from its neighbours.
As a boy, Mitch Holt had roamed Landfall Point’s canyons and dived for abalone off its sandstone cliffs, so he was familiar with its geography. He found the Linneker mansion without any difficulty. The house was built on three levels, mostly of wood as befitting the residence of a lumberman, and surrounded by a small jungle of subtropical trees and shrubs. An almost perceptible aura of expensive tastes and good living clung to it. Death, particularly violent death, seemed far removed.
Holt did not approach the front door. Instead, he detoured around the house, following a flagstone path that led downward through a vast patio and past a tennis court. He saw and heard no one and was ready to believe the place deserted. But when he emerged abruptly on the edge of the bluff his way was barred by a uniformed cop in a yellow slicker who sat on the top step of the staircase that descended to the beach. He got up alertly but relaxed when Holt produced his credentials.
“Sure, go ahead and look,” he told Holt. “I don’t know what I’m doing here, anyway. The joint’s not going to walk away and there’s not enough left to steal.”
Holt was forced to agree. It required an exercise of the imagination to picture the cove below as it must have looked prior to the tragedy, a rich man’s private playground. Of the cabana, only a blackened outline remained, indicating where the walls had stood before the dynamite blast and the ensuing fire had levelled them. There was a saucer-shaped depression in the sand, dug by the dynamite explosion. The sand itself was normally white, some trick of the currents keeping it free of oil and other debris of the harbour, but for some distance around the ruins it was spotted with black smudges where the feet of the investigating officers had carried the ashes. Holt noticed also that there was an odd glitter to the sand below, even in the grey drizzle, as if someone had sprinkled it with sequins.
“Glass,” said the cop when Holt commented on the phenomenon. “There was this big glass sliding door, see, and lots of windows. They got blown to bits, just like the old man.”
“This the only way to get down there?” asked Holt, indicating the stairs.
“From here, yes. But nothing to stop anybody from coming along the beach, except the fence and that’s easy climbed. And I guess you could always swim in, too, if you were so inclined.” The cop was interested in more immediate matters. “Say, if you’re going to be here a while I’m going to duck up to the house for a drink of water.”
Holt nodded and commenced to descend the wooden stairs to the beach below. His nostrils picked up the acrid smell of charred wood, stronger even than the salt breeze. The cabana had burned to the ground before the fire department could prevent it, although, ironically, all the water in the world lapped the shore just a few yards away. Holt wandered around the wreckage soberly, thinking that it resembled nothing so much as the residue of some mammoth beach party on the morning after. But there was another smell present, an unwholesome stench of death, that did not jibe with this fancy.
He discovered nothing significant of which he was not already aware, although he was impressed anew with the destruction that the dynamite had wrought. The blast, confined by the U-shaped cove, had even shattered the bulbs of the floodlights nestled in the cliff walls. He tried to imagine the scene as the police and firefighters had first seen it, the blazing cabana providing the only light, the flames flickering dully from the brown sandstone, like an artist’s representation of hell.
With this macabre thought in mind, Holt began to experience the strange sensation of being watched. He glanced upward; the cop had not yet returned to his post. Yet the sensation persisted and Holt swivelled his head slowly around until his eyes found what his instinct had warned him of. He was not alone on the beach.
At both ends of the cove, a split rail fence had been constructed, leading from the cliffs to the water’s edge. It was intended as a boundary marker only since, as the cop had stated, it was too low to prevent intruders. And at the northern boundary, where the fence joined the sandstone, sat a woman, her back against the final post. She had been staring at him but when she saw that she had been discovered she turned her face quickly away.
Curious, Holt tramped across the sand toward her but she did not look at him again nor did she reply to his hail. She sat on the sand but she was not dressed for swimming; instead, she wore street clothes, all black. This, plus the fact she was young, not over thirty, made Holt fairly certain of her identity. He stopped a few feet away and repeated, “Hi, there.”
The woman didn’t give any indication she was aware of his approach. Holt said pleasantly, “Hello; I’m Mitchell Holt from the district attorney’s office. I didn’t see you sitting here at first. You must be Miss Linneker.”
She looked at him then but without any welcome in her gaze. “Yes. What do you want?”
“Nothing, really. I’ve been assigned to work on — well, to help get to the bottom of things and I thought I’d better look around.”
“All right,” Tara Linneker said indifferently. “I suppose it’s your job.” She was a big girl, even sitting down, large-boned and heavy. Her face was set in sullen lines with nothing particularly pretty or distinctive about the features. Tara Linneker didn’t fit the romantic conception of the young heiress. Even her clothes, a black wool suit, seemed dowdy and ill-fitting.
“I’m just trying to get the feel of things. I didn’t intend to intrude.”
“It doesn’t matter. I was just sitting and thinking.” She added, “I don’t intend to tell you anything, though.”
“Oh?” Holt kept his voice pleasant. “That’s a rather odd thing to say.”
“Well, I know what you people think. You think that Del and I were the ones who did this to Father. You want to trap me.”
“Miss Linneker, I didn’t even know you were here. But since you are here, I would like to get acquainted.”
“You can talk to my lawyer if you want to talk to someone. Mr. Wahl in the First National Bank building.”
Holt sat down cross-legged on the sand. He said, “Well, I don’t know that I have anything to talk about with your lawyer. You’re not charged with anything that I know of. All I’m concerned with is seeing that whoever murdered your father pays for it. I imagine you feel the same way.”
He paused and Tara, after a moment, said, “Yes, I suppose so.”
“Now, you certainly don’t have to talk with me or anyone else about it, but I don’t see any reason why you shouldn’t as long as we’re honest with each other.”
“I suppose so.” After her first flash of hostility, Tara hadn’t raised her voice much above a murmur. She seemed sunk in apathy, apparently her form of grief. But Holt couldn’t help viewing Tara through the glass of McCoy’s suspicions, and so he wondered. Sometimes the realization of guilt had the same numbing effect as sorrow. And the way Tara sat there, dry-eyed and brooding on the little beach where her father had died, had something almost ghoulish about it. He asked, “How long have you been sitting here, anyway?”
“I don’t know. I lost track. It doesn’t make any difference, anyway.”
“People might be worried about you.”
“Who, pray tell?” Tara gave a short and mirthless laugh. “The police, you mean?”
“I was thinking of your young man. Shayon.”
“He doesn’t care. Del hasn’t even called me.” She looked quickly at the remains of the cabana and then away. “I don’t blame him. I understand. I got him into this.”
“Into what?” Holt probed gently.
“Into this awful mess. All the trouble, the wrangling with Father. Those horrible things he said to him. And now this.” She gestured around vaguely and then looked at Holt. “Why do you think that Del and I killed my father, Mr. Holt?”
“I didn’t say I did.”
“No, you didn’t say it. But you think we did, don’t you? Don’t you?”
“Let’s say that two million dollars is a pretty good motive.”
“Two million dollars,” Tara repeated with soft scorn. “Yes. I suppose that people who have never had the money would think that would be a motive, all right. I despise people.”
“I hope that’s not true,” Holt said. “Because, ultimately, you may have to depend on people for your life, Miss Linneker.”
“I told you I didn’t want to talk to you. Go away and leave me alone.”
“I’d like you to answer one question before I go. You mentioned Shayon wrangling with your father. Would that have been about two months ago — about the first of December? Is that when the trouble began?”