The Black Door (11 page)

“Well, really, I’d like to have the background stuff before I go to the conference. Suppose I stop by tomorrow morning, before I go to the Fairmont?”

“If you want to, that’s fine. I was trying to give you a little time off.” I thought I caught a faint note of approval in his voice. The city editor was a vintage type, lean, stringy and sixtyish—the type who never smiled on the job, or paid compliments, or believed in God or leisure time or press releases.

“I don’t mind coming down,” I answered, underplaying it. “Anything new from headquarters?”

“Nothing.”

“Okay. I’ll be in about nine o’clock, then, for that background stuff. Good night.”

“Right. Good night.”

I
NDULGING MYSELF IN THE
gathering momentum of the Grinnel case, I decided to take a cab next morning from the
Sentinel
to the Fairmont, giving myself time to study Grinnel’s biography on the way.

It was fascinating reading. Grinnel’s father, I learned, had been a modestly successful manufacturer and processor of livestock feed, with his plant in Los Angeles. Robert Grinnel took over the business at age twenty-three, when his father suffered a paralytic stroke during the depths of the Depression. In the years that followed, Robert held the business together by pure force of will. He put everything on the block: the family house, the jewels, the Packard, and a large farm. A bachelor at the time, he moved into a furnished room. To save one salary, he learned accounting at night school and worked on the company books in his spare time. And, finally, he moved his paralyzed father from a private nursing home to a county hospital, pleading virtual bankruptcy.

In 1935 he went into food processing, and by 1945 had made a fortune. His plant was the largest frozen food facility west of the Mississippi, and at war’s end, convinced of an ever-larger peacetime demand for his product, Grinnel borrowed heavily to double his production facilities. His only major west coast competitor was equally convinced that a postwar recession was inevitable, and therefore lacked the modernized facilities necessary to meet Grinnel’s competition in the boom that followed.

In 1942, Robert Grinnel married, when he was thirty-four, and in 1946 Roberta was born. The son, Robert, Jr., was born two years later. Grinnel’s marriage apparently lacked even the pretense of love, at least so the gossip went. The children, almost from babyhood, seem to have been little more than devices used by the mother in her futile efforts to strike back at an indifferent husband.

During his late twenties Robert Grinnel began to take a passionate interest in politics. All around him, in those years, he seemed to see Communism poised to overthrow the government of the United States. Later, during the war, Grinnel’s sympathies were painfully ambivalent. He seems to have feared an alliance with Russia more than he feared a German victory. Perhaps luckily for his booming frozen food business, Grinnel never publicly expressed these sentiments, but he remained in close touch with men of his own political persuasion, and in the late forties and early fifties they found a spokesman in Senator McCarthy. As early as 1947, Grinnel joined with the small, anonymous group of southwestern businessmen in underwriting McCarthyism, and in the years that followed, Grinnel came into ever-increasing power within this group, although in those early years he preferred to operate behind the scenes, watching and learning, letting the crude bombast of McCarthyism draw the first fire. Then, in 1950, Grinnel founded the Forward For Freedom movement, headquartered in Los Angeles. Initially, the F.F.F. was a modest undertaking, apparently devoting its first years to study and organization.

In 1958, rather suddenly, Grinnel began making eloquent, impassioned speeches on behalf of the F.F.F. Some said he’d spent years studying speech, dramatics, and English composition in preparation for his emergence as a major political figure; others said he’d had the ability all along, but was simply choosing his moment. In any case, within a matter of months, Robert Grinnel emerged from behind the scenes: a political Mephistopheles born full-grown. He was articulate, dedicated, and dangerous. Almost overnight the F.F.F. was generally conceded to be the best organized and best financed of the far-out right wing movements in the country, with the best chance of spreading its influence throughout the nation. It was also conceded that Grinnel himself was almost solely responsible for the phenomenal success of the F.F.F. He was immensely wealthy, intelligent, startlingly handsome, and politically perhaps a genius. He was also reputed to be a megalomaniac.

Apparently the texture of Grinnel’s private life closely resembled that of his public life; I got the impression that he treated his wife and children as his followers, rather than members of his family. As a result, his wife had become a hopeless alcoholic at the age of thirty-five, often confined to sanatoriums for months at a time. His daughter, according to Betty Stephenson, had a love affair with Daddy bordering on nymphomania, and his son had become an ineffectual, hysterical martinet, trying unsuccessfully to attract Daddy’s attention.

I finished the biographical material in the elevator going up to Grinnel’s suite, and stuffed the bulky sheaf into my pocket. During the ten minutes’ taxi ride, I’d formed a dislike for Robert Grinnel, and as I stepped out into the spacious hallway outside Grinnel’s suite, I felt a kind of dull outrage against the man. It was as if someone had cheated me out of something I couldn’t quite define, and then gone on to cheat others in exactly the same way I’d been cheated.

The hallway was cluttered with twenty-odd newsmen, chatting and waiting. At the door of Grinnel’s suite stood two policemen, eying the press with amiable suspicion. To the police, a reporter is an occupational nuisance, like rain, and boredom, and zip guns.

As I approached the group, Grinnel’s door opened. A broad, hard-eyed man dressed in a dark blue suit stood just inside, trying to shape his heavy, impassive face into a welcoming smile. Behind him stood a handsome, fortyish woman dressed in basic black and wearing pearls. In her graceful, capable hands she held a sheaf of papers, which she passed out as we entered. Glancing at mine, I recognized the mimeographed pages as a press release, under the Forward For Freedom letterhead. Some of my colleagues murmured surprise, wondering at the incongruity of a press release on such an occasion. Somehow, I wasn’t surprised.

We were ushered into the suite’s spacious living room, where two rows of folding chairs had been arranged facing an improvised lectern, apparently a statuary column topped with a square of plywood and draped with white sheeting. On either side of the lectern were placed two straight-backed chairs; immediately behind was a closed door.

I sat beside Kreuger, from the A.P.

“Seems like a mortuary, somehow,” he murmured.

I nodded, watching the hard-eyed man close the hallway door and stolidly turn the lock. The woman placed the few remaining press releases on a chair, and was now walking toward the lectern, slightly smiling at us as she came. She had the long legs and rhythmically swinging hips of the professional model; her poise and carriage suggested good schools and plenty of money. Remembering Grinnel’s lean good looks, I found myself wondering what role this woman played in his life, both personal and professional.

She was standing at the lectern now. In her dark, expressive eyes the slight smile was gone, replaced by a more suitable, more somber expression.

“Good morning, gentlemen,” she said quietly. “I want to thank you for coming.” She paused as some of us murmured something inaudible and inconsequential, like schoolboys dutifully replying to their teacher’s daily greeting.

“Mr. Grinnel asked me,” she said, her voice dropping to a disciple’s reverence at the mention of the Messiah, “to welcome you for him, and to make a few preliminary remarks. Mr. Grinnel realizes that the press has a right to know our feelings concerning the horrible, inexplicable events of the past day. But, although Mr. Grinnel wants very much to speak with you, he will confine his remarks to a more general tone, consistent with his bereavement and his, ah, position.”

She paused, gathering her thoughts and delicately entwining her long, elegant fingers upon the lectern-top. For a moment she stared thoughtfully down at her hands.

“It is my duty to tell you, specifically, how Mr. Grinnel regards this horrible crime. Most of you are familiar with the incredible, ah, situation in which Miss Grinnel was found yesterday morning. Mr. Grinnell, naturally, was told of this matter by your Captain Larsen. Mr. Grinnel’s reaction was clear, sure, and immediate.” Her dark eyes became momentarily fixed, glinting with the disciple’s fierce certainty. “Mr. Grinnel,” she said soberly, “wants me to assure you that whatever person committed this crime—acting for whatever hostile, anonymous group—that person was attempting to take not only a life, but a reputation as well, a completely unblemished reputation. Because—” her voice became more fervent, her eyes more expressively liquid—“because Roberta Grinnel was a good girl, in every sense of the word. And, therefore, whoever took her life sought also to take her good reputation, by diabolically falsifying the scene of the crime, certainly to divert suspicion from himself and his horrible purpose, in taking two innocent lives.”

For a moment she paused, her head bowed.

“Thank you,” she said, moving her mouth in a stiff, saddened smile. “Thank you very much. Mr. Grinnel will be with you in a moment.” She turned to her right and sat down on one of the two straight-backed chairs. Almost immediately, the door behind the lectern opened, revealing Bobby Grinnel, pale and shaken, staring at us with his haunted eyes. Behind him stood his father, half a head taller. For a moment they stood in the doorway, side by side. It was a brief, unforgettable tableau: grief and guilt and a strange, driven fervor etched so differently upon faces so similar. The father’s face was made stern and grimly avenging by his turmoil within; the son’s face seemed unbearably torn, changing moment to moment, reflecting the spasms of some terrible, secret pain.

Now, slowly, the son stepped to the empty straight-backed chair, and the father to the lectern. They were dressed in dark blue suits, white shirts, and muted silk ties. The father’s hair was a silver gray, beautifully cut; the son’s hair was a thin, lank blond. The father’s eyes were a clear, startling gray; the son’s eyes were the same color, but without the same clarity or intensity. The father’s lean face was sculptured in long, strong, intriguingly hollow planes. In the son’s face the same sculptured planes intersected with a subtle difference, giving the impression of a desperate, helpless weakness, rather than a proud, uncompromising strength.

As I watched Grinnel briefly bow his handsome head above the lectern, I thought how cruelly the son was mocked by his striking resemblance to his famous father.

Then, suddenly, I was looking fully into Bobby Grinnel’s eyes, and in the next instant a macabre vision came between myself and that visible around me. The face was the boy’s, stark and white above his dark, Gothic wrappings. He stared down at the body of his sister, naked before him upon the blasted, ravaged earth. He was staring down into her face. Her dead eyes returned his gaze.

I closed my eyes, feeling my fingernails digging painfully into my palms. I was aware that I was shaking my head, dumbly protesting the cruel, incredible vision. Then, dimly, I heard Grinnel’s rich, vibrant voice. “… to thank you all for coming.”

I opened my eyes, glancing covertly around me, feeling an unreasoning guilt. With an effort, I concentrated on Grinnel.

“… also want you to know that I have always respected the members of the press and have tried to work closely and fairly with them. In public life, with its stresses and its inevitable misunderstandings, it is essential that we all work fairly and fully together for the greatest possible benefit to all. This I have always tried to do, as I’m sure you have, too.”

He paused. Gripping the lectern, he lowered his eyes and again bowed his head. It was a theatrical gesture, calculated and practiced. Yet it was effective. When his head came up, his eyes were more fervent. His lean, elegant facial muscles bunched with the first suggestion of a practiced passion.

“I do not know who killed my daughter,” he said, measuring his words. “I may never know. In every city throughout this great country, countless murders go unsolved every year. Why? The answer is horribly simple: there is in America a working agreement between the underworld and the law.
Noblesse oblige.
‘You stay within your agreed limits, and we’ll stay within ours.’” Again he paused, and again lowered his head. As I watched him, I thought of a hellfire and brimstone preacher at his pulpit, gathering himself for a final shrill assault on sin and godlessness.

But Grinnel’s passion was too profound for shrillness, and his zealot’s instinct too sure. His head came up. The eyes burned with perhaps a hint of madness.

“I may never know,” he repeated, “the identity of my daughter’s murderer. I may never be able to search the face and soul of the man who murdered her. But I—” the voice trembled slightly, by accident or design, the hands gripping the lectern tightened—“but I can describe the murderer for you, gentlemen. I can tell you what was in his mind, what kind of man he is. I can tell you that he is a man filled with hate, a man who, by striking down my daughter, has tried to strike at me, and to weaken the work I have chosen for my life.

“Yes, I can describe this man to you. He is ridden by fear. He knows the day is coming when the forces of decency and strength and righteousness will sweep aside the corruption from our great American dream. He knows that, when this day arrives, vicious, bestial mentalities like his own will be dealt with in their own terms, as we deal with beasts, not as we deal with God-fearing men. And, therefore, this murderer has tried to strike at me through my daughter, as others have tried, unsuccessfully, to strike at me through unfair business practices, through character assassination, and through cowardly innuendoes and lies. But—” Another well-calculated pause. The rich voice dropped to a lower timber. “They have never succeeded, gentlemen. And they never will. Because I now serve them notice—” His hand came up in a zealot’s gesture of spiritual invocation. The gray, megalomaniac’s eyes blazed at us. “They have wounded me. I admit it freely. Yet I tell you that from that wound of the spirit I draw a deeper strength of conviction and dedication. And so, in murdering my daughter, they have only redoubled my zeal. And, therefore, I say to them—through you—that they will only hasten their own destruction as they seek my own.” Now his hot, dry eyes burned even more intensely. His voice was a hoarse, dramatic whisper.