Right on the Money Page 11

  “He must have the location and employment history of everybody he was at school with, everybody he worked with, everybody he ever met,” Giorni concluded.

  Space had already been reserved for Ken Nicolls. When the inspector reached the S’s, he found the same soulless detail about Peggy Summers. There was her past employment, her present employment, her field of expertise. If Victor Hunnicut ever wanted to know about computer engineering firms in Atlanta, he had the number to dial.

  Personal entries were relatively few and, for the most part, restricted to services—a dentist, an auto mechanic, an oculist, a dry cleaner. The few women entered for social purposes were labeled with suitable restaurants and activities. If Hunnicut wanted to go to a concert, he called Marcia; if he wanted to go to a hockey game, he called Cynthia.

  “The guy must have seen somebody on a regular basis,” Giorni said despairingly. If he himself had lived in this place, he would have been out as much as possible.

  His sergeant was examining a checkbook.

  “Well, there are regular checks to the Zichy Salle des Armes and annual dues to something called the Foil and Saber Club.”

  Giorni flipped to the Z’s and reached for the phone.

  “Anything’s worth a try.”

  At eight o’clock that evening Inspector Giorni examined his surroundings with interest. He was on the sidelines of a large wood-floored room, watching several dozen masked figures jab swords at each other. The air vibrated with the sounds of thudding feet and scraping blades. This beehive of activity occupied the second floor of a shabby building that housed a dance studio below.

  The Hungarian couple in charge had not only admitted knowledge of Victor Hunnicut but had also advised an evening visit to meet other acquaintances. Giorni had been greeted by Mrs. Zichy, a slim, wiry figure who had pulled off her mask to talk to him. The Salle, she explained, was the proprietor of the premises, which were usually used for group classes and private lessons. But on Wednesday and Friday nights the facility was rented to the Foil and Saber Club so that its members could work out with each other and compete with other clubs.

  “Victor tried to get here twice a week,” she concluded. “He had a regular lesson scheduled with Laslo on Saturday afternoon, and he practiced with the club on Wednesday night.”

  When asked about intimates, Mrs. Zichy revealed that it was here that Peggy had entered Hunnicut’s life.

  “We were sorry to lose her. Peggy is very good on the foils. Victor was primarily an epee man.”

  This was a revealing formulation. Under the circumstances Mrs. Zichy might have been expected to express sorrow for the loss of Hunnicut, rather than Peggy. But Giorni began to understand when he spoke with Mr. Zichy and several of the club members.

  “He came to us as soon as he moved to Princeton,” Laslo said. “Before that he had been studying the epee in St. Louis. He was not bad. He had the right build, he had quick feet and a strong wrist, he practiced diligently. But he had no dash on the attack, no inspired transformation of a retreat into an advance. His problem, au fond, was that he required absolute safety at all times. So he never would have made a first-class fencer.”

  And this seemed to be the sum of what Laslo had to offer. He had been giving the man private lessons for over two years, and all he had noticed was second-class potential.

  “Did you ever talk to him about anything but fencing?”

  A sardonic smile flickered over the tight features.

  “Victor would have felt cheated if I had not directed every moment of my attention to a critique of his performance.”

  “What about when you weren’t on the floor?”

  Laslo shrugged. “Victor’s lesson was scheduled for three. I have other regulars at two and at four. Saturday afternoon, you understand, is a busy time for me.”

  He did, however, point out several people who had interacted with Hunnicut in the Foil and Saber Club.

  “Sure, I’ll tell you what I know,” gasped the first. “But let me get some juice. That was a real workout.”

  By the time they were settled on a bench, he had recovered his breath.

  “Say, wasn’t that something about Victor being murdered? I couldn’t believe it when I caught it on the news.”

  So far he was doing better than Mrs. Zichy but it was still not a grief-stricken reaction.

  “Vic and I worked together on the club’s calendar committee last year. That means scheduling when and where we’ll compete. Vic was an okay guy.”

  This lukewarm assessment was as far as anybody cared to go. Two of those present were part of the regular Wednesday crowd and they dispelled the notion that Victor Hunnicut was a loner.

  “Oh, he’d join us afterward for a beer or a hamburger, but he was pretty quiet,” the first recalled. “He did liven up a little when he was with Peggy.”

  “Mostly he talked about the events of the day,” the second added. “Like, if there’d been some big political news or if the Nets had played. Hell, even though I knew he was an engineer, I didn’t know he worked for ASI until I read it in the papers.”

  In other words, Hunnicut had carefully kept his worlds apart. At the Salle he did not speak about ASI. And, now that Giorni came to think of it, there had been no sign of his fencing at the condo. It was a sure bet that many of these enthusiasts had crossed foils over their mantel or a mask on a wall. But Victor compartmentalized his life as well as his underwear.

  Without high hopes Giorni followed Mrs. Zichy to the locker room. The key chain that had given him access to the condo made short work of the padlock. Hanging inside were the accoutrements of fencing. On the shelf a small dobb kit contained toilet supplies. The only extraneous object was a bright red bandanna, creased and stained, tossed on top.

  “What’s that for?” Giorni asked.

  “He kept it in his sleeve so he’d have something to wipe the sweat with.”

  It was a relief to discover one area over which Victor Hunnicut did not have complete control.

  “This is the only place we’ll find out anything about him,” Giorni said the next morning, pulling into the ASI parking lot.

  “If they have any sense, they’ll claim that they loved him, that he was a grand guy to work with and he never caused any trouble,” one of the sergeants predicted.

  Gardner Ives went even further.

  “I didn’t know him at all. In fact I wouldn’t have recognized him before the trade show.”

  Phil Pepitone, who had already been questioned about his angry search for Victor Hunnicut, could not disavow all acquaintance. He did his best.

  “You get a couple of jerks like him in every big company. They like dreaming up wild melodramatic ideas and feeding them into the rumor mill. That’s what Hunnicut had been doing and I was about to straighten him out. That’s all there was to it.”

  “Exactly how were you going to straighten him out?” Giorni asked politely.

  Unspoken was the suggestion that it might have been with a kitchen skewer.

  Pepitone flushed darkly. “I was going to ream him out. For Chrissake, Gardner had to do the same thing. We certainly weren’t going to have Conrad Ecker upset by some two-bit assistant manager.”

  In other words, Hunnicut was far too lowly to be a serious problem to his betters.

  Sam Bradley was the one who struck out for new ground. “Hunnicut made a big mistake, shooting off his mouth in front of Bob Laverdiere. The people at Ecker didn’t realize how unimportant he was. After all, we could just fire him. They didn’t have that option.”

  Bradley was not pretending to be above the battle; he was trying to divert the big guns.

  Even Wiley Quinn watched his words.

  “Look, you have to understand. This was the only job at the manager level likely to open up for a long time. Victor was hoping that, if the Ecker deal fell through, something better for him might come along.”

  “And you’d lose out. That must have made you sore.”

  “I wasn�
��t worried about a thing once he tipped his hand to Laverdiere. Victor was only a menace when people didn’t know what he was up to. As soon as the brass found out he was antagonizing people, he wasn’t a threat anymore.”

  Giorni leapt into the opening. “But the brass found out more than that, didn’t they? What exactly was Hunnicut saying about Pepitone and Bradley?”

  Quinn was a loyalist all the way. Victor had targeted the Eckers. In passing, he may have hinted at Pepitone’s questionable judgment or Bradley’s poor record. That was all.

  “I’ll bet,” said Giorni to himself.

  An hour later, however, he finally located someone who had nothing to fear. Fred Uhlrich, Hunnicut’s immediate superior, had returned from California. His alibi was impregnable.

  “So what can I tell you? I’ve been three thousand miles away ever since this Ecker business started,” he began, laying his cards on the table. “It’s barely forty-eight hours since I got back and I’ve been tied here ever since. Didn’t even make it to New York for the show.”

  There, he seemed to be saying. Cross me off your little list.

  “You can still be a big help.”

  “Not if you want to know exactly what dirt Vic was spreading,” Uhlrich shot back. “I don’t know, and I intend to keep it that way.”

  Giorni nodded pacifically. “Oh, we’ll find out, never fear. But the thing that’s really weird is the trouble Hunnicut was causing. What made him think he could get away with it?”

  Reflecting, Uhlrich rasped a finger down a jaw already showing signs of dark shadow. “Basically he was an ambitious kid too impressed by his own credentials. Naturally we’ve got the usual batch of bright M.B.A.’s over at headquarters, but out here in the divisions, Victor was the first. He figured that meant he’d make division manager right away.”

  “I’m surprised he didn’t go after the obvious job.”

  “You mean mine?” Uhlrich grinned. “He could never have filled my shoes.”

  Deliberately provocative, Giorni continued to probe.

  “They say he was damn good at his job.”

  “He was, but only because I had him do the things he was good at. Being a division manager calls for a lot of talents and most people don’t have the whole packet. For instance, Vic wouldn’t have been half as good at running a production line as Wiley Quinn because he really didn’t know the first thing about people.”

  Giorni was not entirely convinced.

  “Wait a minute,” he objected. “He sure knew how to get people talking, didn’t he?”

  Uhlrich shook his head impatiently. “Hell, anybody can get things going. Trouble was, Vic never knew in what direction they’d take off. You know, he was scared to death of direct confrontations—that’s why he tried being so damn cute. When he started pulling tricks here, I called him on it and he backed down damn fast.”

  Giorni recalled an earlier expert appraisal.

  “No dash on the attack, eh?” he murmured.

  Uhlrich blinked. “I suppose you could put it that way,” he said dubiously. “The point is, that if there’s been talk about Phil or Sam Bradley, that wasn’t what Vic intended. The poor dope thought that if he got everybody suspecting something fishy about the Ecker deal, it would be dropped like a hot potato.”

  “That’s dumb all right. What’s more, it’s dangerous.”

  Uhlrich abandoned the pipe he was tamping.

  “How so?”

  “Your boy was in the same position as someone who calls a bunch of people and says, ‘Give me ten thousand dollars or I talk.’ Of course the slob may get his money, but then he can also get a skewer in the chest.”

  Uhlrich disliked where they were heading.

  “Before you get any funny ideas, just remember that Victor did most of his talking about Ecker.”

  “I realize that. All I’m saying is that, when you scatter shots the way he did, there’s always the chance you’ll hit a real target. That may be what your boy did.”

  “Christ, what a mess. You know Vic wasn’t all bad. He might even have straightened out. All he needed was to do some growing up.” Uhlrich sighed heavily. “When you get down to it, he was just a kid. It’s a real shame.”

  Giorni was content. He not only had a handle on his victim, he had finally heard someone, admittedly not a Hunnicut fan, indicate some sorrow at the death of a young man.

  The second sergeant accompanying the police contingent was a woman in plainclothes. She flourished her credentials and held formal interviews with members of the clerical staff. But she also lunched in the cafeteria, visited every ladies’ room in headquarters, listened sympathetically to personal problems, and even helped a beginner with her computer.

  By two-thirty, Sergeant Gwendolyn Belliers was sharing her catch with Giorni.

  “The scuttlebut is that Pepitone gets an under-the-counter payment from Ecker, and that Bradley is developing new products to sell on his own,” she announced triumphantly.

  “Well, if Hunnicut hit the bull’s-eye with either of those, it’s no wonder he’s in the morgue,” said Giorni, completing his earlier line of thought.

  “And that’s just the ASI end,” she grinned. “There are some honeys on the Ecker end, too. According to Hunnicut, their production manager was falsifying records to cover his tail, their test-lab man was hiding Conrad Ecker’s senility, and the Laverdiere wife was skimming the profits.”

  Giorni groaned. “Jesus Christ!”

  Sergeant Belliers was proud of her day’s work. “Actually he wasn’t that successful at the beginning. He wouldn’t have gotten anywhere if it hadn’t been for the godsend of the Ecker fire. When he said that they’d torched the place, people began to pay attention.”

  “Did you get anything on movements at the trade show?” Giorni asked.

  “Not really. You already know that Bradley fingered Victor Hunnicut as the source of the rumors. Then he overheard the row at the Ecker booth and was mad enough to light a fire under Pepitone. By the time he succeeded, everybody was shooting off on his own.”

  “For guys who were supposed to be running displays, they were all over the place,” Giorni said disapprovingly. “Wasn’t anybody minding the store?”

  Fair-mindedly she reported that most of the commercial action had been through by then. “The only person who was in his booth during the critical time was Gardner Ives. He was glad-handing some people from Sears. Everybody else admits being on his own. But there is one thing.”

  “Yeah?”

  Gwendolyn’s eyes were snapping with interest. “That was a real uproar the Ecker people had. Laverdiere was repeating Hunnicut’s threats, they were yelling at each other, they were swearing to do something. The three of them were real upfront about all of this after the murder. But in all the talk, there’s not one word about the Laverdiere wife. She might just as well not have been in New York. And that makes me wonder what the hell she was up to.”

  Unbidden, the image of Tina Laverdiere rose before Giorni. He could see the bold, handsome features, the air of decision, the obvious dominance over her husband.

  “One thing’s for sure,” he said. “That lady wasn’t watching someone mix up a batch of biscuit dough.”

  Chapter 14

  A PANEL OF EXPERTS

  But the Ecker fire had not been a gift from God to Victor Hunnicut.

  “It was set,” the fire marshal announced. “No doubt about it. The sprinkler system didn’t work because it was deactivated. After that, the job was simple. The financial discs were tumbled out of their cabinet and the kindling was paper soaked in an accelerant. Then somebody stood back and tossed a match. Considering the way plastic burns, it was overkill. I could have done it without gutting the whole building.”

  The Winstead Insurance Group trained its adjusters to proceed in an orderly fashion. “Then we can scrub the idea of a professional torch. What was the layout there? Would an outsider know on sight where the financial records were?”

  “The way T
ina Laverdiere had the place organized, a six-year-old could have figured it out.”

  “So we’re right back where we were. Anybody could have done it.”

  But this was more of a question than a statement.

  “Not exactly. We’ve got a little more information now.”

  With the preliminaries over, the adjuster crumpled the wrapping from his Danish pastry and shot it into the wastebasket. “Yeah, I’ve been reading the papers, too. I didn’t realize that Ecker was on the brink of a merger until that murder. We could have a whole new ball game now.”

  “I don’t know if you could say they were on the brink, because nothing had been settled. There were people at Ecker who weren’t crazy about the idea, and there was at least one guy at the other place trying to derail things. He’s the one who got himself killed.”

  “Just because he was against the merger?” the adjuster protested.

  “That’s the problem. Apparently he was an all-purpose troublemaker. It could have been because he nosed out some scam at ASI. From what I hear about this Hunnicut, it’s surprising he made it to thirty-two.”

  The adjuster grunted in dissatisfaction. “Wonderful. So we’ve got a fire that anyone could have set and a victim everybody wanted to waste. It looks like a great big blank to me.”

  But the marshal shook his head gently, showing the beginning of a smile.

  “No, some interesting items are popping up. That’s really why I called you. Hunnicut was part of an ASI inspection team that came up here two weeks ago. But he didn’t go back with his boss. Some banker who was along says that he stayed on to have a drink with Hunnicut. When he left, Hunnicut was still sitting in the lounge of the Holiday Inn. Well, that got the New York police thinking. They asked our boys to check around in case Hunnicut ran into somebody from Ecker and had an argument or something. After all, the Laverdieres or Frayne could easily have dropped by. But what came out was a lot more unexpected than that.”

  “Go on.”

  “At first they got zilch because they were concentrating on the Holiday Inn. Then they came up with the bright idea that he might have had dinner someplace else, so they circulated the restaurants. And what do you know? At the Thai place over on the east end of town they remembered him clearly. He was the last customer there when they closed up—at eleven o’clock.”