Murder Makes the Wheels Go Round Read online

  At this point Krebbel cut in severely, “That’s not a view we encourage. And I wish I could convince you...” He did his best to do so during the rest of their lunch, but unsuccessfully.

  Krebbel then abandoned MM’s earning potential as they were finishing their apple pie, which was better, John thought, than what had often been presented to him by a white coated waiter amidst all the paraphernalia of luxury.

  “I know you’re concerned about the effects of the murder. And I’ve admitted it is an unpredictable factor. But remember we are in the full blaze of publicity now. Tomorrow it will start dying down; then things will come back into proportion.”

  “Tomorrow?” John asked. “What’s happening tomorrow?”

  “Jensen’s funeral. Didn’t you know? The police have finally released the body.”

  “Oh,” John thought for a moment how this would impinge on his own plans. “I had been hoping to meet with your treasurer tomorrow and review your revolving loan agreement.”

  Krebbel shook his head. “I’m afraid not. He’ll be at the funeral. Most of us will be out for a good part of the day.”

  John resigned himself. He should have known. Good intentions and days replete with hard work seemed doomed at MM.

  “As a matter of fact I was going to suggest that you go out to Ann Arbor with Madsen,” Krebbel stated.

  John was wary, “Ann Arbor?”

  “Yes. They are holding a colloquium this year on the car industry. MM’s turn is tomorrow, but because of Jensen’s funeral French and I have to renege. Of course we could call the whole thing off. But they have got some great turnouts from GM, Ford, and Chrysler so I’ve asked Madsen and Wahl to go. But that’s still short. We are in something of a bind...”

  “You want another body, eh?” Thatcher commented. “Yes, I’ll be glad to go if it will help.”

  “Splendid. That will be a load off everybody’s mind,” Krebbel said as he made appreciative noises.

  Not until he was asking the motel’s switchboard to call him in the morning did this conversation recur to John. Krebbel had smoothly managed tomorrow’s interment so neither Madsen or Wahl would be present. That was understandable. After all, their feelings for the departed would be no secret to most of the mourners. But John was beginning to absorb the MM culture. Tact, in whatever form, was suspect. Krebbel was far more likely to be engaged in esoteric maneuvers to protect the company, such as weeding out MM’s most promising candidates for Death Row. In which he, Thatcher, was going into the wilds of Michigan, at least from the perspective of a man from Manhattan, with a select but not necessarily congenial group.

  Immediate departure for the Sloan was beginning to look more and more attractive. John returned his attention to the switchboard operator. Bowman wanted him on the phone; he had his daily package from Miss Corsa. This mail included whatever Miss Corsa believed he must deal with on the road. The one today seemed to be filled with clippings and reports. Puzzled, he riffled through figures on New York City real estate taxes, office space dedicated to government use, the vacancy rate in Manhattan, and the height of the Chrysler Building (1046 feet). The formality implicit in its printed heading quickly collapsed before the personality of its author.

  To: JP Thatcher

  From: CF Trinkam

  Subject: World Trade Center

  John-Withers wants you to look at this stuff. God knows why. It’s about the new World Trade Center. Couldn’t make out what’s on his mind. Probably some of his pals at the Downtown Lower Manhattan Association have been after him. The infighting between the Port Authority boys and the NY Real Estate Board is beginning to heat up. If you ask me they deserve each other. Charlie. Cheered up by this communication, John decided to look on the bright side of things. He would return Walter’s call, even though it was 1 AM which will serve him right he thought. As for tomorrow’s outing, however dangerous his associates, at least it did not involve the further inspection of mechanized vehicles.

  Chapter 11

  Abutters Only

  As thousands of curiosity seekers were filing into the St. Paul Cathedral Church on Woodward Avenue to hear the funeral services for Ray Jensen, the investigation of his death was leading representatives of 3 major forces in the American way of life down markedly different paths.

  The sovereign state of Michigan, in the person of Captain William Georgeson of the state police, was on the trail of information about the murdered man’s personal life. “I want you to talk to the sisterin-law, Mrs. Burns, as soon as she’s back,” he instructed one of his subordinates. “Gallagher is going to check up on the neighbors.”

  “What about Madsen?” asked Kelly.

  Georgeson smiled a big man’s patient smile. “I talked to him yesterday. And I’ll be talking to him again, don’t you worry.”

  F.X. Riley, on behalf of the might of the DOJ, was deep in consultation with Susan Price. “But why can’t we go out 3 nights running? What’s so special about 3?”

  “It is not that there’s anything special about 3,” she said stubbornly. “It is just that I don’t want to rush things. We have plenty of time.”

  “How do you know how much time we have? What if I get called back to DC?”

  Susan gasped.

  A watching brief for Wall Street, an important underwriting firm, and the Sloan was being held by John, who was inclined to put this kind of gloss on his inquisitiveness. With barefaced dissimulation John had agreed with the convalescent Bowman, via 2 expensive and inconvenient phone calls, that the Sloan should keep an eye on things at MM. He further assured Withers, his nominal boss and Sloan President, that only the press of important Detroit business was delaying his return to New York and the sliding stock market.

  Now he was paying the price for his self-indulgence. Sandwiched between Wahl, bored, and Madsen, preoccupied, he was in a crowded University of Michigan lecture room listening to a Professor John V. Ellery discuss “Marketing and Financial Aspects of the Automotive Industry.” John mused that academics can never call it the car market; it must always be fancified like French cooking. He was having these whimsical thoughts while awaiting the commentary of Wahl and Madsen, as well as other assembled academic dignitaries.

  And there was more fancified language in the small brochure handed him about “The Interdepartmental Colloquium” espousing “a fruitful interdisciplinary exploration of the social, economic, legal, and political problems raised by large scale industrial development.” John reminded himself to find out if Harvard was going in for this sort of thing.

  “Calling upon specialists from many disciplines” was presumably a reference to the gnomish little man who had been introduced to John as Dr. Brimmer, Psychology,” and to 4 professors from the law school who smiled modestly as Professor Ellery droned on.

  “The Ford Foundation put up the money,” Madsen had explained as they drove there. The car industry it appeared had agreed to cooperate with this worthy venture some time ago, and indeed scheduled an impressive series of pilgrimages to the groves of academe in an admirable, if doomed, attempt to induce the academic world to recognize social awareness, liberal mindedness, and the unprejudiced professional of American business people.

  “... representatives of financial institutions,” Ellery was saying offhandedly. John was stirred by the comment and looked around the room; he wondered just how much the man knew about financial institutions. Certainly he was not the sort the Sloan would have on its premises. As if to confirm this uncharitable thought, Ellery began drawing diagrams on a blackboard. In the row in front of him 3 Nigerians started taking notes. In addition to the psychologist, now smiling menacingly, and to the lawyers, there were a large number of young balding men in double breasted suits also taking notes. 2 sharp featured, dark haired women scowled at him; an old man in a green eyeshade dozed comfortably in a corner. Among the 40 or 50 people present John saw no one who looked the way he thought students would look. Considering Ellery’s remarks such as “with kinked demand curv
es and monotonic cost functions,” this was probably just as well John concluded.

  Next to him Madsen shifted impatiently and jotted a brief note. Kinked demand curves apparently meant something to him. But after the professor regretfully sat down and Madsen rose to take his place, John was less impressed by the vigor and coherence of Madsen’s delivery than by the sense of nervous energy deliberately held in check. It was like watching a man hold a brace of high bred trotters to the pace of a team of work horses.

  “So you feel that the elasticity of demand facing MM’s Viscounts is less than unity?” interrupted one of the young-old men.

  Madsen did. John watched him turn to the board and sketch a rather messy graph. Why was he generating an aura of conflict? Simply depression John could have understood. But was there an element of hope underlying Madsen’s apprehension? After all Celia Jensen was now free. Ray, the barrier to their happiness, was gone. Not, presumably, in a way that anyone could approve, but definitely gone. Suddenly Madsen had every prospect of happiness. Unless it was even simpler. Unless Madsen was concealing an upsurge of exultation. Was he thinking in effect, “I’ve done it. They haven’t arrested me. I’ve gotten away with it!”

  John glanced to his left. Speculatively Wahl was watching Madsen in action. John wondered what he was thinking. Madsen was succeeded by Wahl, who described himself as “just an ordinary guy” who didn’t understand “what you professors are up to.” He then proceeded to give a detailed description of the sales dealership situation in Plantagenets. The Nigerians stopped taking notes regarding these as practical insights.

  After Wahl concluded, Ellery said, “Now we are going to throw the meeting open to comments from the floor.”

  The presentations produced to John’s way of thinking a surprising range of questions; no doubt what the Ford Foundation had in mind. Ellery and Madsen were subjected to rapid fire highly technical queries from the young men in business suits; Madsen acquitted himself brilliantly in a ceremonial little exchange centering on an article written by someone named Evsey Lamar. Ellery was politely differing about the findings reported there, when the psychologist hitched himself forward and, in a Viennese accent, asked a question that went to the heart of what he described as the “socio-economic nexus of the suprapolitical corporate enterprise.” Unfortunately nobody understood him. The lawyers mentioned the Sherman Act. Everyone laughed intelligently, including the MM representatives. There was even 1 question directed at Thatcher.

  “Now if I were investing,” said a round faced pipe smoker in superior accents, “I’d be pretty interested in capital coefficients in industries where the demand is inelastic. Do you bankers ever think about that sort of thing?”

  Considering the intentional provocation, John was mildness itself. “We’ve discovered that if you persist in interesting yourself in capital coefficients and inelastic demand curves, you are rarely in a position to invest.”

  The meeting finally drew to a close at 5:30 PM. After suitable courtesies among the principals, Wahl, Madsen, and Thatcher finally left the building. Sunlight was slanting off the trees and illuminating the top of Baird Carillon that dominated the square. Sally Wahl, a handsome blonde who looked the way John thought a student should look, waited outside. She greeted them prettily, admitted that she was majoring in botany but confided she was engaged so that was more important for now, and bore her father off to relieve him of his ready cash in decent privacy.

  Thatcher and Madsen started toward State Street, where Madsen’s Hotspur was parked. They had arranged to stop at Madsen’s house for a drink. “I took my doctorate here,” he said, pointing out buildings of interest to no one but an alumnus. John expressed polite admiration as they got in the car.

  “Yes,” said Madsen reminiscently. “I came up here when I got out of the Army. Took my undergrad work at Texas.” It was either the nostalgia of a homecoming, as John had seen hard bitten corporate lawyers weep at their Harvard 25th or a determination to avoid more engrossing subjects that led Madsen on, “I was doing some pretty good research when MM asked me to head up their economics section.”

  “There’s much to be said for industry,” replied John bracingly, remembering Ellery’s remarks. “The academic life has a marked soporific quality.”

  “Mm,” said Madsen evidently unconvinced. “Do you think of going back to the university now?” John asked out of the kindness of his heart. Madsen was clearly in the mood for confidences. MM, at a guess, did not afford him many such opportunities.

  Madsen, it developed, did think periodically of giving up his business connections and returning to pure research, either at the university or some foundation. He admitted he liked the MM pay, but the work was limited and he did not find the personal contacts congenial. Grosse Pointe Farms and the Bloomfield Hunt Club were not his milieu; he lived nearer to Ann Arbor than was fashionable. He liked the people at grad school and wondered...”

  John had heard this speech at least 100 times before, maintaining a silence that he had learned would be interpreted as sympathetic from those previous confidences.

  “I used to think I might want to teach. Now I wonder if I will get the chance.” John pondered this reply as they pulled into the tree shaded driveway of a rambling white house whose twin porches and front doors proclaimed the old-fashioned duplex.

  “It’s me, Mrs. Creamer,” Madsen called from the hallway, telling John, “Cleaning woman is here today.”

  As he ushered John inside they heard a vacuum cleaner stopping, followed by slippered feet shuffling along the floor and a turbaned head appeared in the doorway. “I thought I heard you, Mr. Madsen. You many as well know the worst.” Her face fell into bloodhound lines of sadness. “They are in there, in the living room.”

  “Who?” he demanded, although John thought he already knew the answer.

  Mrs. Creamer became, if anything, more lugubrious. “The police,” she whispered hoarsely. “And those McKennas have been filling the police with a pack of lies.” Visibly startled, Madsen swung toward the living room just as Captain Georgeson appeared.

  “Ah, Mr. Madsen. I’ve been waiting for you. And it is Mr. Thatcher isn’t it? Come in, come in” as he invited Madsen into his own living room. Georgeson was a big man made bigger by his uniform. He filled the doorway as he smiled a bland insincere smile as he gestured his invitation.

  “Pushed their way in, they did,” Mrs. Creamer complained, her old eyes squinting with dislike as she turned and shuffled back down the hall.

  “Just a few little things...”

  “What the hell.” The naked fury of Madsen’s voice was an explosion of pent up emotion. “What right do you have...”

  John interjected warningly, “Madsen,” to give him a moment to recover but the younger man’s control had snapped.

  “I said what are you doing here? Do you have a warrant? If you don’t, get out.” He strode past John and Georgeson who was no longer smiling and moved into the living room, where the uniformed Georgeson followed him. “Did you hear me?” Madsen hurled his briefcase onto the sofa and advanced towards the officer.

  “Now look here,” the Police Captain blustered.

  “Georgeson,” Thatcher intervened with calm authority. “Before the situation gets out of hand, you’d better clarify your position. On what basis are you here?” This dry unimpassioned voice had its effect.

  “What basis do I need? It’s Madsen’s duty to help and he knows it.”

  Madsen started to interrupt but Thatcher silenced him. “Keep quiet Madsen,” he said decisively. “Well Georgeson? If you are asking for cooperation that’s one thing. If you have a warrant it is another.”

  “All right, all right. So I’m asking for cooperation. I just want to ask you a few questions, Mr. Madsen,” as he underscored that the title was sarcastic.

  “All you’ve been doing is asking me questions.” Both Georgeson and he were bulky men with the kind of big open faces that reflect anger quickly. Looking at them as they scow
led at each other, John was momentarily tempted to turn on his heels; physical violence, which was close, might clear the air. However, he had rashly promised the absent Arnie to act as a tower of strength for Celia Jensen. There was no doubt that this currently involved keeping Madsen from making a bigger fool of himself than he already had.

  “You offered me a drink Madsen. I’ll take you up on it,” he said crisply. Then ignoring Georgeson who was looming near the door, and his patrolman whose hands were lightly resting on his holster, John proceeded into the living room and sat down. “Scotch if you have it. With a touch of water,” he added.

  For a moment Madsen remained poised. Then with a short angry laugh he disappeared through an archway into his dining room. There was a great racket of slamming drawers and clanking glasses.

  “Just some questions,” Georgeson repeated, sitting down. Almost immediately he ceased being an ominous physical presence and became just an overweight public official. John was too wily a fox to breathe a sigh of relief as the emotional temperature dropped several degrees.

  “Help yourself if you want Georgeson. Then ask your questions and get out.” Madsen’s voice was still raw but the hand tendering John his drink was steady enough.

  “Thanks,” Georgeson said briefly. He fell silent. Somewhere in the back of the house Mrs. Creamer was continuing her chores with defiant noise. “You had a fight with Jensen last week.” Georgeson was stating a fact, not asking a question. “A big fight. You threatened him. The 2 of you started in here, then you spilled out into your driveway, trading punches.”