The Case of the Kidnapped Angel: A Masao Masuto Mystery (Book Six) by Howard Fast Page B

kill her?”
    â€œI don’t think we’ll ever know that. My guess is that he knocked her out with something, perhaps ether, and then he injected her vein with air. I don’t know whether that can be proven in an autopsy. They may find traces of something in the syringe. He was desperate and in a hurry, and I guess he decided to make it look like suicide. It was a stupid, witless crime from the moment it started this morning.”
    â€œYeah, when it’s not stupid, we don’t even know that a crime took place. I guess you’re right about the gun, but we’ll let Ballistics decide. You said this morning, you think the whole kidnap caper was a rigged job?”
    â€œA kid’s job. I think the husband, Mike Barton, was in on it, and then his Angel double-crossed him and brought someone else into it. Or maybe the whole thing started with the killer. I couldn’t make any sense out of the kidnap thing until I spoke to a cousin of mine who’s an expert on legal ways to cheat Internal Revenue, and he said that there would have been a big tax break for Barton.”
    â€œExcept that from what I hear, neither Barton nor the Angel were smart enough to figure it out.”
    â€œExactly. There’s another small matter,” Masuto said. “The killer is right here in this house.”
    â€œYou’re sure?”
    â€œVery sure. No one came in when it was done, no one left.”
    â€œThat’s beautiful.” Wainwright rose and began to pace the room. “Pink and white, pink and white, she must have really seen herself as some goddamn kind of angel. They don’t want a cop for my job, they want a diplomat. Downstairs, we only got one of the most prominent lawyers in town, a top film producer, a hotshot business manager, and a congressman. Plus a chauffeur with a record long as my arm.”
    â€œNot to mention a number of women who are probably a lot smarter than the men.”
    â€œAnd a fed. That kid from the FBI pushed his way in and started bugging me about what was his role in all this. I told him how the hell did I know what his role was? He’s a goddamn idiot. He’s got a notion that the Mafia is mixed up in it because he heard we found a syringe in here.”
    â€œIs he still here?”
    â€œProwling around downstairs. I can’t throw him out. We’ve had too many run-ins with the feds.”
    â€œWe’ll both be very kind to him.”
    They had their opportunity almost immediately. As they went downstairs from the second floor of the Barton house, they saw Frank Keller waiting for them at the foot of the staircase, his pink-cheeked, snub-nosed face set in a grimace of determination. He was wearing a carefully pressed gray flannel suit, a white shirt, and a tie with brown and maroon stripes. Masuto, who wore an old brown tweed jacket over rumpled trousers and a tieless shirt, had once been asked by another FBI man whether he always dressed that way or only when in disguise.
    â€œI’ve been trying to work out my role here,” Keller said. “I don’t want to push in like a bull in a china shop.”
    â€œThat’s very considerate of you,” Masuto agreed.
    â€œOn the other hand, there’s been a kidnapping, even though both the victim and the ransom payer are dead. You know, it’s a national tragedy. I don’t think anything quite like this ever happened before. You think of Mike Barton and you think of Robert Redford, Al Pacino, John Wayne—although I don’t think it would have happened to John Wayne in just this manner.”
    â€œI guess not,” Masuto agreed.
    â€œOf course, the murders are a local matter, if murder is the correct term?”
    â€œWe think Angel Barton was murdered,” Wainwright told him. “We won’t know for certain until after the autopsy. We found a syringe and a puncture mark—which is all we know for sure.”
    â€œYou could do one