Night work (25 page)

"What about Mehta's wife, Rani? Did you get the sense
that she suspected something between her husband and her
sister-in-law?"

"She's a puzzle. Far too much of a wife-and-mother for
me to get much out of her, and her English isn't good enough to
get much subtlety out of it. If there was something--
if
--she'd
be aware of it. How could she not be, all under the same roof? But I
will say that according to Roz's material on bride burning,
it's usually the mother-in-law--which in this case would be
Rani--who is most involved in dowry harassment."

"Really?"

"Ironic, isn't it? So much for the solidarity of the oppressed."

When they arrived at the Mehta house, they discovered that it would
have been redundant to park a uniformed at the curb: The place was
awash with media. They had to push their way through to the two
uniforms who were trying to keep the reporters out of the rosebushes.
Three women in rain parkas carrying hand-lettered signs reading
children are NOT FOR MARRYING walked back and forth in front of the
next-door neighbor's house, which was as close as they could get
to their target. Al mounted the front steps and, before pushing the
doorbell, asked the uniformed how it was going.

"Oh, fine sir. It was a little crazy about an hour ago when he
came out to talk to the reporters, but some of 'em left after
that. Wish it would rain harder."

"You mean Mehta? He made a statement?"

"Yes sir. Right here on the steps. I had some job keeping them from following him inside afterward."

"What did he say?"

"That he and his family were being 'hounded," that
was his word, by a bunch of women who had no understanding of Hindu
customs or sensitivities. That was more or less what he said."

Hawkin glanced at Kate grimly. "Did he name names?"

"Not directly. Although he had a quiet word with one or two of
the reporters, I didn't hear what he told them."

"I guess there's nothing we can do about it now. Anything you need out here?"

"We're going to be going off in a while, they'll send replacements."

"Okay. Well, thanks." He rang the bell and, after the
peephole darkened momentarily and the locks were slid noisily back,
they stepped into the besieged Mehta house and followed Peter Mehta
into his study.

Kate introduced Al Hawkin, and then as they had agreed, she sat down
and faded into the background. "Mr. Mehta," Al began.
"Could you please tell us what happened last night?"

"What do you mean, "what happened'? My brother was
killed, is what happened. Foully murdered and his body left in
a--a corrupt and disgusting place, and his murderer walks the
streets of San Francisco with impunity."

Kate suppressed a tug of amusement at Mehta's flowery
language. She was well aware that many of the city's ethnic
minorities tended more toward histrionics when confronted with tragedy
than did the Anglo-Saxons (she herself, after all, came from an Italian
family), although she was mildly surprised at the dramatic response of
Peter Mehta, who previously had seemed as American as they came.
Apparently his American skin was thin in places. He was on his feet
now, pacing the carpeted floor of his study, his hands playing
restlessly over his lapels, buttons, the backs of furniture, and each
other.

"Sir," Al was saying patiently, "we need to
question everyone who came in contact with your brother last
night."

Mehta came to a halt and turned to Hawkin, affronted. "You would question
me?"
His lilting accent was stronger now, such was his perturbation.

"We are questioning everyone, sir. Now--"

"My wife? You would question her?"

"Yes, when we're fin--"

"And the children, perhaps? Will you question my son Indrapal
who is not yet two years old concerning the foul murder of his uncle?
Why are you not out there searching for these female animals who are
killing the men of our city? Why do you come and torment the suffering
family? This is intolerable!"

"Sir," Hawkin said sharply. "Each death must be
treated individually. Even if your brother's murder is related to
someone else's, it is distinct. You're a sensible man, Mr.
Mehta. Surely you can see that we have to begin at the beginning, to
trace your brother's last movements, and to do that we have to
question the people who were closest to him. Do you have any objections
to that?"

Abruptly, Mehta subsided. "No," he said, and retreated
to his chair behind the desk. "No, of course I don't.
I'm just... It is all most upsetting. I was fond of my
little brother. He was not an easy person, but I did my best to love
him and care for him. And now this.
Achcha,"
he said,
and then drew himself together. "You wish to know where we were
last night. I worked in this study until eleven o'clock. My wife
worked in the kitchen with the servant, Lali, and then Lali left and
Rani put the children to bed at nine o'clock. She was asleep by
the time I went up, and I was asleep myself twenty minutes later. I did
not see Laxman all evening, although his lights were on. They usually
are."

"Do you know why your brother was in the Castro district last night? Was he meeting a friend, perhaps?"

"My brother had no friends. He had his family, and until a week ago he had his wife."

"I understand that he and his wife were very close."

"He worshiped her," Mehta declared fiercely, although Kate thought that was not exactly the same thing.

"Do you think your brother killed his wife?" Al asked
bluntly. Too bluntly, because Mehta turned his swivel chair around to
look out the window at the slowing rain.

"I don't want to think that, no," he said after a while.

"But you think it possible?"

Mehta did not answer. Hawkin left it for the moment.

"When did you last see your brother?"

"In the afternoon, I went up to his rooms to see if I could
persuade him to come down and eat dinner with the family. He had not
done so since the girl died."

"You mean he stayed up in his rooms all the time?"

"During the day."

"But at night... ?"

Mehta gave a deep sigh. "I do not know, but I think he went
out at night. My wife thought she heard him come in early one morning,
and two days ago I found the front door unlatched when I went out for
the newspaper."

"Where would he go?"

"My God, who would know? He had no friends, he didn't drive. Where is there to walk to here?"

Kate could have listed half a dozen late-night hot spots less than
half an hour from the house by foot, including Dimitri's leather
bar, but neither she nor Al chose to enlighten the man. Instead, Hawkin
asked him, "Did your brother have his own phone line?"

"No, just an extension of the family line."

"Would you have heard an incoming phone call during the night?"

"Of course."

"In that case, I'll need to see a printout of the calls
made on your number since your sister-in-law died." It would save
another round of search warrant forms if Mehta were willing to provide
the records--but he was already nodding in agreement.

"I'll ask the phone company for one."

"What about phone calls this last week, Mr. Mehta? Any threatening calls, hang-ups, wrong numbers at strange hours?"

Mehta nodded vigorously. "Two. We had two after Pramilla
died." He was using her name now, Kate noted. "Women, both
of them. I hung up on them. And told my wife and children not to answer
the phone, to let the answering machine take it. There have been a lot
of hang-ups on the recorder."

The two detectives were silent for a minute, wondering if they ought
to have known, if they should have put a tracer on the line as soon as
they had a man fitting their profile of victim. Could they have
foreseen the threat to Laxman Mehta, and prevented his death? Or would
they have had to be psychic to guess?

"Your brother's income, Mr. Mehta," Al asked.
"Did he have his own bank account, charge cards, ATM card, that
sort of thing?"

"As I told your colleague, Laxman was mildly retarded. He
could handle simple cash transactions--he was actually pretty good
with numbers--but the
concept
of money was beyond him. I
handled all money matters for him, gave him a cash allowance to spend
at the market. He enjoyed shopping for clothes, and for knickknacks at
the tourist shops. Anything bigger, I went with him to purchase."

Something in the phrase "handled all money matters"
snagged at Kate's attention, and she thought she ought to clarify
this. "Do you mean that Laxman had money of his own? Or was he
dependent on you?"

"Of course he was dependent on me," Mehta said impatiently. "You met him, you saw the problem."

"Financially, I mean, Mr. Mehta. Did your brother have any money of his own?"

"In a manner of speaking, yes. Our father wished to be fair,
so he left a small portion of his estate in trust for Laxman."

"How does that work, to have money in trust?" she asked innocently, to see how he would respond.

Mehta picked up a gold pen from his desk and fiddled with it, put it
down and picked up a small bronze figurine. "The money is there,
in an account and stocks, and the income goes into another account that
is jointly in my name with that of Laxman. Theoretically, he could have
drawn from it, although he could not have touched the capital."

"And you were the, what do they call it, executor?" Al
stepped in to resume the questions. Kate had no doubt that her partner
knew perfectly well what the word was.

"I was. Am, since I am also the executor for Laxman's estate."

"And now that he is dead, who inherits?"

"Inspector, I really don't know why--"

"Just answer the question please, Mr. Mehta."

"My brother was killed by... by terrorists, and you sit
here questioning me about my financial affairs?" Mehta spluttered
indignantly.

"We can find out easily enough, Mr. Mehta."

"My children," he told them furiously. "My four
children will inherit their uncle's estate. Mani's nephews
and nieces."

"Although it will, I assume, be in trust for them until they
reach the age of twenty-one? Isn't that how such things usually
work?"

"It is." The terse response showed that Mehta well
understood the implications a suspicious detective might place on the
transfer of money, but there was no hesitation in his answers.
"At the time my eldest reaches twenty-one it will be legally
presumed that my wife and I are having no more children, and
Mani's estate will then be divided equally between however many
there are."

"Until then, you are in charge of your brother's estate?"

"Yes."

"And how much money is actually involved?"

Mehta's eyes came up to meet Hawkin's. "In the
vicinity of a million dollars. Depending on the state of the stock
market, you understand."

Hawkin nodded sympathetically, as if the recent downswing in stock
values had inconvenienced him as well. "Mr. Mehta, are you sure
there was no such provision in your father's will, that Laxman
should inherit the money at the age of twenty-one?"

A muscle in the line of Mehta's jaw jumped, once, and he picked up the pen again as
if
thinking deeply.

"He did inherit, didn't he?" Al prompted.

"No! For heaven's sake, Inspector, Laxman was already
twenty-two when our father died. There was no question of his
inheriting. Unless," Mehta continued in a slow and reluctant
voice, "circumstances changed."

"Those circumstances being...?"

"Our father was trying to be fair, especially to any children
Laxman may have had. The doctors told him that any children Laxman
might have would be normal, that his mental condition would not be
passed on.

"So Laxman would have inherited if Pramilla had children?"

"Not Laxman. Our father knew he couldn't manage more than a few dollars on his own."

"Mr. Mehta," Al said, his voice showing impatience for
the first time, "if you are refusing to tell us what financial
arrangements your father made concerning your brother, then say so.
Don't assume I won't find out the details on my own. With a
homicide like this one, I can easily get a warrant, and your lawyer
will be required to tell me. Everything."

That final threat got to Mehta. He exhaled, and put down the pen.
"My brother had inherited the money the day he married. I was
still a signator on the account, and I had planned on using some of it
as a down payment on die house down the street for him and his wife. I
did not tell Laxman at the time, because it would have confused
him."

"And Pramilla?" Kate asked coldly.

"What about her?"

"Did she know that her husband was in himself a wealthy man,
not just a person living off his brother? Or did you not want to
confuse her, either?"

"You make all this sound so sinister," Mehta complained.
"The girl was a peasant. She could barely read, couldn't
speak a word of English when she came here. I wanted to give her a
chance to grow up, to learn about her position and her responsibility.
Tell me what you would have done, Inspector. Would you have told a
fifteen-year-old, virtually illiterate village girl that by writing her
name on a piece of paper, she could have anything she wanted? Any
clothing in the shops, any flashy car, a house she couldn't begin
to care for? Would you?"

Al and Kate just looked at Mehta, and Al asked if they might speak with his wife.

Today Rani Mehta was squeezed into a hot pink sari with a blue and
pink underblouse, and she stood quivering with barely suppressed
outrage at the invasion of her home. Her husband stood at her shoulder
while she was being interviewed, asserting that her English was not
good enough to have her interviewed on her own. Even without the
language problem she was not a helpful witness. She resented their
presence in her house almost as much as she had resented the presence
of her childish brother-in-law and his increasingly difficult (and
undeniably pretty) young wife, and her answers through her
husband's translation were brusque and unhelpful. Eventually they
let her go and told Mehta that they were ready to see Laxman's
apartment.