Leopold's Way (8 page)

“A girl, the daughter. Fifteen years old. Doesn't look good for her. Sane was driving her home from a school play. Apparently someone was waiting in the garage, killed the chauffeur and grabbed the girl.”

“Let's go inside and talk to them. Clements, you say?”

“Clement. He's the personnel director at Bacon Industries. It's good for forty thousand a year.”

Leopold grunted. “With a chauffeur, I'd have figured twice that amount. Come on.”

They entered through the kitchen, finding a quietly plush setting where the tablecloth was golden and the wall clock chimed the hour. Just then it was chiming one in the morning, and the sight of it made Leopold yawn. In the living-room Mrs. Clement was sobbing, more softly now, into her handkerchief. Her husband, a big man who might once have been a football player, paced the floor with face drawn taut. His expression lightened as Leopold entered, as if now he felt that the end of the nightmare was suddenly at hand. “Have you found her?” he asked hopefully.

“Not quite yet, I'm afraid, Mr. Clement. My name is Leopold. I'm with the local police, and right now my concern is the murdered man in your garage. The F.B.I, will be here soon about the other.”

Clement frowned and seemed to grow an inch or two in anger. “Sane is dead. You can't help him any more. Your job is to find my daughter before something happens to her.”

Leopold nodded. “I'm sorry if I seemed to speak harshly, Mr. Clement. But of course if we find the murderer, we'll have the kidnapper too, won't we? Do you have a picture of your daughter?”

Mrs. Clement, overweight, overdressed, overexposed in a tight evening dress, withdrew the handkerchief from her face long enough to offer a framed portrait. It showed a girl in her obviously early teens, smiling against a background of artsy studio lighting. To Leopold, the girl was handsome but certainly not a beauty. “Her name is Karen,” Clement offered. “She just turned fifteen.”

Leopold nodded. “Can you tell me everything that happened?”

Mr. Clement cleared his throat, as if he were about to outline a million-dollar business deal. And, thought Leopold, perhaps he was. “My wife and I were invited out to dinner this evening. At the Chamber.” In his circles, it wasn't necessary to say Chamber of Commerce. Everyone knew what was meant by Chamber and Club and Party. “Karen is appearing in this school play—we went last night,
Macbeth,
of all things—and we didn't feel she should come home by herself.”

“Couldn't some boy have brought her home?” Leopold asked.

“They're mostly seniors, two or three years older than Karen. With a good-looking girl like her, we can never be too careful. Anyway, we told Thomas to leave us at the Chamber and pick up Karen after the play.”

“What time did you last see Sane?”

“Oh, it must have been around nine-fifteen or nine-thirty when he dropped us off, wasn't it, Jean?” His wife nodded in agreement.

“You're late eaters.”

Clement shrugged. “This was quite a formal affair, with cocktails and speeches first. We came late.”

“And you took a cab home?”

“Correct. We arrived here just at midnight. The house was dark and the garage door was closed. We thought it was odd—the play's over just a bit after eleven. I opened the garage door to see if the car was there, and I found him.”

“That Cadillac is the car he was driving?”

“Yes. It's the only one we have at present.”

“Did Sane live here with you?”

“Oh, no. He drove his own car over here every morning and left it in the garage while he was working. Actually, we only employed him a few days a week—when something like this came up and we needed a driver.”

Leopold blinked. “And just why was that, Mr. Clement? Surely a taxi would have been as convenient and far less expensive.”

“Oh, Thomas was my driver at the office for the past several years. Then they decided the executives could drive their own cars and he was let go. I felt a little sorry for the fellow, so I hired him myself, on a part-time basis.”

“How old a man was he?”

“Thirty-five, maybe. He limped a bit from a war injury. Just bad enough to keep him from getting a decent job anywhere. Unfortunately, Thomas wasn't the smartest fellow in the world. He was married briefly, but his wife left him and moved to Florida with another man.”

“Was he friendly with your daughter?”

The big man shrugged his massive shoulders. “Just normally so. He did his job.”

Leopold turned to Fletcher. “Where's this note?”

The detective passed over a piece of ruled notepaper protected by a plastic bag. “They found it in the mailbox.”

Leopold read over the crudely printed words. They were all in capitals, written with a soft lead pencil:

THE GIRL IS SAFE IF YOU PAY $10,000 IN SMALL BILLS IN BROWN PAPER BAG. LEAVE BEHIND STATUE OF HUDSON TOMORROW NIGHT AT SIX. DON'T TELL COPS OR GIRL DIES.

“You're in the habit of looking in your mailbox at midnight?” Leopold asked.

“My wife saw it sticking out of the box while she was waiting for me to open the front door. While I was checking the garage.”

“Funny thing,” Fletcher said. “How'd he expect to keep it from the police when he left a body in your garage?”

Leopold had his own ideas, but just then he wasn't commenting. Instead, he asked, “Do you intend to pay this amount, Mr. Clement?”

“Certainly! I'd pay twice that to have her back again.”

“Fine. I'll talk to you tomorrow, sir. In the meantime, a Mr. Dain Moore of the F.B.I. should be here any moment. Tell him just what you've told me.”

When Leopold went back outside he saw them loading Thomas Sane's remains into the morgue wagon. Dain Moore and another agent were just pulling up in their car. “Evening, Captain,” Moore said. “What have we got here?”

“They snatched the daughter, killed the family chauffeur when he tried to protect her. It's a messy one.”

“Note?”

“In the mailbox. They want ten thousand tomorrow.”

Dain Moore looked up at the big house, now alive with light. “Their only child? That makes it rough. A place like this shouldn't be for violence. Just for happiness.”

Leopold lit a cigarette. “Things don't work out that way any more. If they ever did. Any place can be a place for tragedy, or happiness. For Thomas Sane that garage was a place for bleeding and dying.”

The F.B.I. man nodded sadly. “I'll go in and talk to them.” Then he added, “See what you can do to keep the snatch angle out of the papers. Kidnapping for ransom is so rare these days that the reporters have a field day with it.”

Leopold found Fletcher back in the garage. “Two things before I go. Check on Sane's ex-wife in Florida. Make sure she's still there. And get a description of Sane's car broadcast all over the area.”

“His car?”

Leopold nodded. “He parked it in the garage and it's not there now. The kidnappers might have taken it.”

“Right, Captain. You going home?”

“Not yet. I'm going downtown first. Gotta see a newspaper editor and then a corpse. This isn't a night for sleeping, Fletcher. It just isn't…

In the morning, Leopold was up with only three hours' sleep, heading for the school Karen Clement would not be attending that day. That day or maybe any day again. A kidnapper who has killed once already has very little to lose by killing again. Nothing to lose. He felt a great sorrow for the parents.

The school building, low, gleaming and modernistically glassy, was alive with mid-May activity. Leopold moved through the crowded between-classes corridors with the air of an alien from a distant planet. The girls, tightskirted and pouting, looked him over quickly before dismissing him as Too Old. The boys for the most part didn't look at all. Perhaps they took him for a substitute teacher, or a politician touring the place on behalf of City Hall. Someone had once told him he looked like a politician.

He found finally a senior named Harry Waygon, who'd been pointed out as Karen's best friend. “Did you ever date her, Harry?” Leopold asked in the quiet of the gym, watching the youth's muscles ripple as he exercised on a padded horse.

“No.” He sprang over the horse, landing in front of Leopold. “Her folks said she was too young for dating. They watched her like a hawk. Didn't even want her to have the lead in the school play until she raised a big fuss about it. What happened to her, anyway? I heard on the radio about that guy getting killed in her garage.”

Leopold cleared his throat. There wasn't really much harm in telling. The newspapers had only agreed to lay off the story till evening, anyway. “She's been kidnapped.”

“Kidnapped!” The sweat was streaming off his naked chest.

“That's right. But keep it quiet till evening, will you? Now about this play—wasn't it a bit demanding for a girl of only fifteen?”

“Not for Karen. She was tremendous in it.”

“Was she friendly with any of the other fellows?”

“Not really. None of the girls, either. She was pretty much of a loner.”

“Where were you last night, after the play?”

“I stopped for a beer with a couple of the guys.”

“A beer?”

“Sure. I'm eighteen. They haven't changed the law
yet
in New York State.”

Leopold smiled. “I know, if you're old enough to fight you're old enough to drink.”

“Right.”

“Did you ever notice anyone—an older man—eyeing Karen? Recently?”

“Not really. She wasn't that much of an eyeball-grabber.”

“You don't have to refer to her in the past tense, you know. She's not dead yet.”

“Sure. I wasn't thinking.”

“Well, start thinking, boy. Think about some of the times you maybe sneaked dates with her.”

“No, honest, I…” He flushed a bit. “There
was
something, just last week. It was after one of the play rehearsals that finished early. I was driving her home and we stopped at the Blazer's for a case of beer. My dad asked me to pick it up for him.”

“The Blazer's?”

“It's a big ice house over on Grant Avenue. Sells nothing but cold beer and pop. Great for picnics. Everybody knows where the Blazer's is.”

“Yeah. Go on, what about it?”

“Well, Karen came in with me, and the Blazer himself was there. He gave her the eye, kidded with her a little.”

“What's his name?”

“Who knows? Everybody just calls him the Blazer. Probably on account of his red hair.”

“Grant Avenue, eh?”

“That's right. Near the corner of Brook.”

“There was nobody else lately who noticed her?”

“No, like I say, she wasn't…isn't one you notice. Swell kid, though. I hope she's O.K.”

“I hope so too.”

Leopold left the high school after a brief chat with two of Karen Clement's teachers. They pictured her as a quiet girl with a flair for acting. That was all there was. He drove the few blocks over to Grant Avenue and found the set-back ice house proclaiming the name of Blazer's. It was built on stilts, so that cars could pull up before its loading platform and pick up the cases of iced beer with a minimum of effort. Two young boys lounged in front of the place, apparently waiting to serve car-bound customers.

“Help you, mister?”

“Is the Blazer around?”

“He's back in the cold room. Come on.” One of the boys pulled open the great ice house door and led him into its interior. The place was stocked high on every side with cases of beer. Leopold looked at it and a chill went through him. He followed the boy deeper into the place until they came to a little red-haired man who was busily counting cases and checking them against a clipboard sheet.

“You're Blazer?”

The red hair seemed to ripple like a tide. “Right, mister. Schlitz? Ballentine? Black Label?”

“Answers.”

“Huh? What brand?”

“Answers. I'm Captain Leopold, Homicide.”

“Police, you mean?”

“Boy Scouts.” Leopold flipped open his wallet. “Can we talk in your office? Where it's warmer?”

“Sure. Sure. This way.”

The office was filled to capacity by a battered old desk and two ancient straight chairs. It was only slightly warmer than the ice room. “Isn't it a little early for the beer business?” Leopold asked.

“I open the first of May. Every year. First of May till first of November. I go to Florida in the winter. Got a place down there too, but it's not as nice as this one.”

“I'll bet.” Leopold took out a cigarette.

“What did you want to know?”

“Last week, a girl named Karen Clement was in here. With a boy.”

“I get lots of customers.”

Leopold showed him the picture. “This girl. Maybe a little older than here.”

“Oh. Yeah, I sorta remember her. Cute little trick.”

“That all you know about her?”

“What should I know?”

The Blazer's blank innocence was getting him down. He slapped the desk with his open palm. “Damn it, you make a practice of selling beer to fifteen-year-old girls?”

The blankness vanished, replaced by a sudden fear. “Hell, mister, the kid was eighteen. Harry. He's in here a lot. He's eighteen. I don't sell to no minors.”

“The girl's missing. We're trying to find her.”

“I don't know a thing. Honest! Did you ask Harry? He was pretty sweet on her.”

“They go out much?”

“They'd stop here some nights for a six-pack. On the way to the park.” The Blazer leered. It didn't go well with the red hair.

“She have any other boyfriends?”

“Not that I know of. Nice girl, but quiet.”

“If you think of anything that might help, give us a call.”