The Case of the Poisoned Eclairs

6

Alice Greene

A curved drive in a half-moon shape swept in from the sidewalk, past the front door of Laura Crombie’s house, and then back to the sidewalk. A low hedge of variegated plantings stretched parallel to the sidewalk, from one end of the driveway to the other. The house was well lit inside, but the driveway was in darkness.

Masuto parked his car in the street, behind Beckman’s car, and then walked slowly up the driveway where three other cars were parked. At one side, the driveway was intersected by a connection with the garage. The garage doors were closed. Masuto looked closely at the three parked cars. The first in line was a Mercedes two-seater 450 SL. “Twenty-seven thousand dollars,” Masuto said to himself. Beverly Hills was not a place where people hid their wealth under a bushel. Next, a Cadillac Seville, sixteen thousand dollars. The third in line was a Porsche Turbo Carrera, the price of which, Masuto guessed, ranged between forty and forty-five thousand dollars, just about twice what he and Kati had paid for their little house when they first purchased it. Well, he thought, his two children were safe at home in their beds and Kati was at a consciousness-raising session, while the four women inside the house were in deadly danger. He made no moral judgment, nor did he place value on a piece of shiny machinery priced at forty thousand dollars. Himself, he was paid to protect these people, and this he would do to the best of his ability.

Masuto rang the bell. Beckman opened the door for him. “Thank God you’re here, Masao. You’re five minutes late.”

“You’re counting?”

“You’re damn right I am. These dames are driving me nuts.” He spoke in a whisper.

“How’s that?”

“They been drinking. I tried to lean on them and make them hold back, but they just don’t listen.”

“Are they drunk?”

“Not so you can notice, but they put down the stuff like it was going out of style.”

“Where are they?”

“In what she calls the library.”

“Let’s go in.”

He followed Beckman into the room. The four women sat facing each other, two on easy chairs, two on the couch. Each had a glass in her hand.

“Welcome, Oriental sleuth,” Mrs. Crombie said. “Has the stalwart Beckman been telling you we are drunk? We are not-only nicely, warmly lit. Do you want a drink?”

“No, I don’t want a drink.”

“He’s very handsome but severe. So severe. So straight,” a pretty red-headed woman said. She was the youngest of the four, and Masuto guessed that this was Mitzie Fuller.

“Fuzz,” a slender blonde said, shrugging. Alice Greene, Masuto decided.

The fourth, Nancy Legett, just stared at him. Her eyes were full of fear. She was small and dark. She was in one of the big easy chairs, not just sitting in it but giving the impression of being trapped there, trapped and doomed and afraid.

Masuto reacted to her. Her fragile, empty world of wealth and possession had come tumbling down around her head. As for the others, they could put on masks. She had no masks. He scarcely heard Laura Crombie introducing the women. For one long moment, he was in a state reached sometimes in his meditation, when he knew things that he did not otherwise know.

“The whole thing,” said Alice Greene, “is a crock. A well-filled crock. I’m here because Laura pleaded with me to stay. Otherwise, I’d tell you to take your fantasy and stuff it. How dare you do this to us! This is Beverly Hills, not the South Bronx. As for this business of being in danger, another crock! That chocolate was not meant for me. It was delivered to the wrong house.”

“Alice, for Christ’s sake, shut up,” Laura Crombie said.

“Give me another drink.”

“No!”

“Then I’ll get it myself.”

“Like hell you will! This is my house!”

“Great. I’m glad you told me. Now I’m going to get the hell out of here!”

Both women were on their feet, and Laura said, “No-no, I’m sorry. Please. Please stay.”

“Not on your life.”

“Alice, I’m begging you.”

“Peddle it somewhere else.”

Laura turned to Masuto. “Stop her. Make her stay here.”

Facing him, Alice Greene said, “Just try it, buster. Just lay one hand on me.”

“I’m not going to lay a hand on you,” Masuto said gently. “You are in danger, great danger. Believe me.”

“I’ll handle it. I’ve handled it for thirty-six years, mister. I’m all grown up. You might not think so to look at me, but I’m all grown up. Now get out of my way.”

She pushed past him, and Laura pleaded, “Can’t you stop her?”

“I have no right to stop her.”

She ran after Alice Greene. Masuto and Beckman followed. Alice was fumbling with the locks on the door.

“How do you open this stupid thing?”

Laura Crombie stood back and whispered to Masuto, “She’s in no condition to drive. Can’t you arrest her for drunken driving?”

“Only if she commits a violation while driving,” Beckman said.

Alice Greene finally opened the door and walked to her car with long steps. She got into the Mercedes and with the light on from the open car door, the two men and the woman in the doorway could see her fumbling in her purse for the car keys.

“Sy,” Masuto said to Beckman, “get into your car and follow her. Anything-even a rolling stop at a stop sign-anything. The moment she steps out of line, pull her in for drunk driving.”

At that moment, just as Beckman took off for his car, Alice slammed her car door, switched on her lights, and turned the ignition key. The explosion rocked the house and the burst of flame lit up the driveway. Laura screamed. Masuto and Beckman rushed toward the car and then were physically repelled by the curtain of heat.

“Call the fire department!” Masuto shouted at Laura Crombie.

He and Beckman circled the car, looking for some opening, and then Beckman pulled Masuto back. “Your eyebrows are singed, Masao. It’s no use. She’s dead.”

“Why didn’t I stop her? Why?”

“Because you didn’t know.”

People were beginning to come out of their houses, to stand watching. A prowl car pulled up, then a second one. In the distance the siren of a fire engine sounded.

“Get inside with the women,” Masuto told Beckman. “Keep them in the house and keep the door closed. They’ll be hysterical by now, so quiet them down.”

People were crowding onto the driveway, and one of the uniformed policemen was ordering them back. The fire truck screamed its way into the street, and a moment later a fire hose opened up on the burning car.

“Twenty-seven grand for that heap,” Masuto heard someone in the crowd say. Evidently no price was put on the human life. The uniformed officer who had come in the second prowl car said, “For Christ’s sake, Sarge, what in hell goes on here?”

“Get on your radio and patch it through to downtown. I want the L.A. bomb squad up here, and tell them to bring their truck.”

“Okay.”

“Are you in charge here?” a fireman asked Masuto. “We’d like to move those two cars,” pointing to the Seville and the Porsche. “You got the keys?”

“Don’t touch them. They may be wired. Can you get the woman out?”

The fire was out now, the car a blackened, smoking heap.

“We’ll try. The ambulance will be here any minute. But she’s dead. No question about that. That heat would kill her in ten seconds if the blast didn’t.”

Another police car with two more officers pulled up. “I want those people back in their houses,” Masuto said to them. “There’s nothing they can do and there’s nothing for them to see.”

“Who’s in the car, Sarge?”

“A woman,” Masuto said shortly. “Does the captain know about this?”

“They called him from the station. He’ll be here any minute.”

“Well, get those people back into their homes. If they ask, tell them it was an accident and that’s all you know.”

“That is all we know,” one of the cops said.

The firemen had pried open the door of the smoking car, and Masuto walked over and forced himself to look at the charred figure that a few moments ago had been a vital, living woman. The metal of the Mercedes was still hot and the firemen were wetting it down with a soft stream of water. At that moment, the rescue ambulance arrived, and a moment later, Wainwright in his shirtsleeves.

“My God,” one of the rescue men said, “that poor woman.”

“Where shall we take her, Sarge?”

“Take her to the morgue at All Saints,” Masuto said. “We don’t need an autopsy. Tell them to hold the body until we inform the family.”

Wainwright stood there in silence, his face glum and unhappy. From somewhere inside the house, Beckman remembered to switch on the driveway lights. The sudden blaze of illumination made the scene even more grotesque.

“It’s over now,” the fire captain told Masuto. “Do you want us to call the tow truck?”

“No, just leave it there. I’ve called the L.A. bomb squad.”

The rescue people wrapped Alice Greene’s body in a rubber sheet, put it on a stretcher and into the ambulance. The firemen climbed into their truck and drove off. By now, most of the curious had been ushered back into their houses or on their way. The uniformed cops stood around uncertainly, and Beckman came out of the house.

Still, Wainwright had not said a word.

“How are they?” Masuto asked Beckman.

“They got it under control. They were pretty hysterical at first, and I don’t blame them. But we talked.”

“No more booze?”

“I was hard about that,” Beckman said.

“Go back and stay with them,” Masuto told him. “Until I come in. Tell them I must talk to them tonight.”

“How long?”

Masuto shrugged, and Beckman went back into the house.

“All right,” Wainwright finally said, “tell me about it.”

“I was talking to the women and she wouldn’t have any of it.”

“Who? I don’t even know who.”

“Alice Greene.”

“The one who got the poisoned candy? The dog?”

“That’s right. She had a few drinks and she said she was going home. I couldn’t stop her.”

“Did you try?” Wainwright asked.

“Short of using force. I didn’t want her on the street and I didn’t want her in her house. I told Beckman to follow her, and the moment she did anything that could be called a violation to pull her in for drunk driving. If I had dreamed that the car was wired-”

“We don’t dream those things. What then?”

“She turned the key in the ignition, and the car blew.”

“No chance to get her out?”

“In two seconds, the car was a ball of flame.”

“Yes.” Wainwright nodded at the Seville and the Porsche.

“Nancy Legett and Mitzie Fuller.”

“They could be wired too.”

“I thought of that. The men from the bomb squad can look at them. I don’t know what’s in her garage. That could be wired too. This murderous bastard we’re dealing with doesn’t do anything by halves. He’s thorough.”

“I want him, Masao,” Wainwright said, “and I want him quick. We’re a small town, and we can’t have this. If the media start putting two and two together, they’re going to tie this whole package in to Beverly Hills. We got four murders now. You say the other three women are inside?”

“That’s right.”

“I don’t want anything to happen to them, Masao. If anything does, I am going to be one angry son of a bitch. I got enough to explain. They’re going to come down on me like a ton of bricks over what happened here tonight.”

“I’ll do my best.”

“You talk those women into spending the night here. I’m going to leave two men here, one in front and one in back, and when the bomb squad people come, I want them to go through the basement of the house as well as the cars and the garage. God only knows what that lunatic is up to.”

A few minutes after Wainwright left, the bomb squad arrived, their big armored truck grinding into the driveway. Kelp, the head of the squad, looked at the remains of the Mercedes and shook his head. “You hate to see it with a car like that.” He had worked with Masuto before. “Anyone in it?” he asked.

“A lady.”

“God help her.”

“Those two cars might also be wired,” Masuto said, pointing to the Seville and the Porsche.

“They’re classy cars. Do you have the keys?”

“I’ll get them for you.”

“Do you want us to be careful of prints? Are you going to dust the cars?” Kelp asked.

Masuto shook his head. “Not with this one. He doesn’t leave prints. What do you think it is?” nodding at the burned Mercedes.

“Just a guess. Dynamite and a detonator. She turned the ignition key and it blew, is that it?”

“That’s it.”

His men were already working on the burned car. “Dynamite,” one of them called out.

“Does a job like that take skill?” Masuto asked.

“Nothing to it if you know something about cars. The explosive end of it is very primitive. Tie a few sticks of dynamite together and attach a detonator. Funny thing about dynamite. Blow a stick here on the driveway and it wouldn’t even put a hole in it. Go off like a big firecracker. But confine it properly and it’s a demon. The connection with the ignition is a little more complicated, but nothing I couldn’t teach you in fifteen minutes.”

“So it doesn’t require an expert?”

“Not at all. But don’t misunderstand me. There are experts in this business. Did she lock her car?”

“Not the doors.”

“That makes it easier, because the hood release is usually inside. We’ll go over the cars, Masao, but you’d better get me the keys.”

“I’ll do that. I also want you to look at the car in the garage and then check the basement.”

“What in hell have you got going here?”

“I wish I knew.”

“Well, it ain’t the Beverly Hills I read about. We’ll check out the place, Masao.”

Then Masuto went into the house for the keys.