The Case of the Murdered MacKenzie: A Masao Masuto Mystery (Book Seven) by Howard Fast

spoke to me like that before.”
    â€œI never faced anything like this before. But you know I love you, Kati. You and the children are precious to me.”
    â€œWhere is your car?”
    â€œWe’ll go to Uncle Toda’s place. Then I can tell you what happened.”
    Gradually, as they drove north, the children’s glumness disappeared. It was far from punishment to spend a week with their Uncle Toda, who had ten acres of orange groves, a holding pond where they could swim, a wife who adored them and spoiled them, and an endless fund of stories about the old days; and by the time they got there, Uraga and Ana had almost forgotten their mother’s unhappiness at this unexpected vacation.
    Taking his wife and his uncle aside, away from the charming white cottage and into the edge of the grove, Masuto summed up the events of the past twenty-four hours.
    â€œI think you must know about the danger,” he said. “If the danger is too great, I can take Kati and the children somewhere else. I was impetuous in exposing you to the danger. I had no right to do that.”
    â€œYou had every right, and I am too old to worry about danger,” Toda told him.
    â€œWe are safe, and they will kill you,” Kati said bleakly.
    â€œThey will not kill us. Rest assured.”
    â€œHow can I?”
    He took her in his arms and held her very tight. “You are my dear wife. I was almost insane before with the thought that they might get to you first. Now you are safe, and I promise you that I will put an end to this thing.”
    But driving back to Los Angeles, Masuto wondered whether the odds were not greater on their putting an end to him. For the most part, he accepted the world as it was, with all its horrors and obscenities. That was a policeman’s world. Either one accepted that or one did not become a policeman, yet there were times when he could not help longing for a limit to reality. Such longings were not very Zen-like, but neither, he felt, was he a very good Zen Buddhist. He could remember as a small child spending lazy summer weeks at his Uncle Toda’s grove. The San Fernando Valley was like a Garden of Eden then—pecan groves, orange groves, peach orchards, the wind full of perfume, the sky blue and clear. Today Uncle Toda’s place was one of the last large groves in the Valley. Half a million tract houses covered the Valley like an ugly carpet; the sky was yellow with smog; and “Valley girl” had become a national symbol for insularity and ignorance.
    It was after three before Masuto reached Judge Simpkins’s chambers in Santa Monica, and fortunately Geffner was with the judge.
    â€œTying up the loose ends,” Geffner explained. “I heard about what happened in Beverly Hills this morning. They don’t give up, do they? They weren’t warning us. They’re dead serious.”
    â€œI took a dim view of Geffner’s accusations concerning what happened to both of you last night,” the judge said. “In light of this morning’s events—well—well, for the love of God, Sergeant, who do you think is behind all this?”
    â€œI don’t know.”
    â€œFenwick? They’re a company. Yes, they do Pentagon work, but so do a thousand other companies.”
    â€œI was thinking about that,” Masuto said. “There were two black limousines and two large, hard-looking men employed as drivers. We leaped to the conclusion that they had cut our brake lines—deciding that they looked like men who would do a thing like that. It was late and we were tired and frightened and had just almost died. That’s what our judgment was worth. When Beckman gets back from Santa Barbara, and if we’re lucky, the sister will permit an autopsy. Maybe we’ll know something then.”
    â€œWe’re going to clear Eve Mackenzie,” Geffner said. “There was no case against her, and speaking for myself, my face