“And?”
I had often wondered whether the lieutenant’s proddings were aimed at eliciting points that he himself had already discovered or whether they were in fact merely proddings. But I pondered those sorts of thoughts at home. Now I rushed on with the facts. “Three years … Well, one thing is that Kleinfeld led me to believe that he knew Felcher because Bobby came to some of his classes. Obviously, that’s twisted backward. He knew Felcher a good year before that.”
“And?”
“And”—I leaned forward—“that’s probably why Bobby went to Self-Over. Maybe he was a conduit between Kleinfeld and Felcher.”
“Why would they need a conduit? Their arrangement is not illegal.”
I sat back. “True. A bit melodramatic. No reason they couldn’t just phone one another.” I stared at the pile of papers at the corner of his desk, so neatly stacked, no errant edge presuming over the line. “But still, Self-Over doesn’t seem like something that would appeal to Felcher. He’s not likely to pay hundreds of dollars for a philosophy that he could explain to his son in half an hour. And even the introductory classes—the ones Bobby went to—aren’t cheap. I can’t believe that was all just for Bobby’s benefit.”
“Why, then?”
“That I don’t know. If Felcher had Bobby going to Self-Over for a reason, what reason? The boy had been living in Visalia with his mother. Felcher brought him back here and sent him to Self-Over. Why?”
The lieutenant tapped his finger on the edge of the desk. “Try a different tack. What actually happened then? You understand?”
“Uh-huh. Well, a Penlop came along and recruited Bobby, and—Oh, okay. So Felcher and Kleinfeld set Bobby up to be recruited and live in the ashram so that … so that, well, so that he could keep an eye on their potential investment.”
Lt. Davis’s finger stopped. “Or so he could do something that would ensure their getting the land.”
“Or find out something.”
“And maybe he did.” Our words were coming faster.
“And Padma’s people learned about it and killed him.”
For a moment we both sat silent, bemused by the way our ideas had suddenly clicked into place.
It was the lieutenant who spoke next. “Okay, Smith, try that. Young Felcher finds out something damaging in the temple, and in order to keep him from reporting back to Felcher Senior, someone there kills him. Hmm. Yet and still, the question is, what could he have found out that would have been so incriminating?”
“I’m not sure, but if the ashram was a potential investment turned up by Kitty Dawes Kleinfeld-Felcher, that would mean it, unlike her religious institutions, was not exempt on property taxes. That seems an expensive oversight on Braga’s part.”
“In order to qualify for a religious exemption,” the lieutenant said, “a church must prove to the Investigators from the assessor’s office not only that it is nonprofit, but also that the church building is used solely for religious purposes.”
“Ah. So the tea business could disqualify them. It must be bringing in a bundle.”
“Hmm. Or the threat of financial investigation is the deterrent.”
I stood up. “Whichever it was, if we think the temple crew killed Bobby Felcher, that idea must also have occurred to Felcher and Kleinfeld. It certainly gives Felcher a class-A motive for doing in the guru.”
The lieutenant nodded. “Check it out, Smith.” I started for the door.
“And Smith, be here for staff meeting tomorrow—on time.”
I
DROVE QUICKLY TO
Comfort Reality, but for once the office was empty. Had Kitty warned Kleinfeld, and had Kleinfeld broken with tradition and warned Felcher? Or had Kitty even bothered?
I called into the station. The man on the beat checked Felcher’s home address. Nobody there, either. I sat in the car, watching the traffic, thinking. The rain had started. The streets shone, and to the eye of a cop, looked lethal. It hadn’t rained since March. Now, a mere six months later, it was as if drivers had forgotten everything connected with slippery roads. Either they were cutting in and out of lanes or inching along in first gear. Before the night was over, the department would be jumping. I was glad I was no longer on traffic detail.
I sat back, picturing Lt. Davis at his desk, staring at me, the ever-present finger smoothing his mustache. “If you can’t find Felcher, then what else do you need to know?” he would be asking me. What else? What else? What was it that Bobby Felcher had found out?
The obvious move was to drive across town and have a look at those tea cartons.
I started the car.
It took a quarter of an hour to get there. Though the rain slowed driving, it had the advantage of keeping people off the streets and, more important now, out of the temple courtyard. For once, as I headed to the back of the temple, there was not a Penlop in sight. The rain was already soaking into my wool uniform, and I hated to think how I’d smell, much less feel, in a few minutes. I reached to try the knob of the basement door.
In the rain I almost missed the sound of voices coming from Braga’s office window.
Releasing the knob, I moved closer, the water dripping down the side of my hat as I listened.
“You think you can get more for this land, Braga, you try.” I recognized Vern Felcher’s voice. From the clicking that underlined his phrases, I could picture him playing nervously with one of his ballpoint pens. The footsteps I took to be Braga’s habitual pacing. For nerves, they were a real pair.
“Nobody else will buy this land,” Felcher went on. “Get that through your head.”
“We’ll see.” Braga’s simulated calm contrasted with Felcher’s clipped delivery.
“Nobody else will
want
it. Listen, how long did the old girl you inherited it from own it—thirty years? Maybe even longer, right? You know what termites can do in thirty years? You know how much dry rot you got here? You see those cracks? I can tell you what that says about your foundation. Listen, what you got here is a temporary dwelling. Look at the angle of this floor. You put a marble on it, it would crash through the wall. You’re talking about jacking up the structure and sliding in a new foundation. You’re talking twenty thousand bucks, just for the temple. Then the altar boys’ house, that’s an even bigger job. Nobody’s going to buy a wreck like this place.”
There was silence broken only by the slap of Braga’s feet and the clicks from the ballpoint pen. The rain splatted on my shoulders.
“I know about your variance for the land.” Braga, using his professional voice, still sounded uneasy. “Don’t try to cheat me, Felcher.”
“It’s not worth a hundred and fifty now.” I could almost see Felcher’s leer of victory. “When you had a going concern here, maybe, but now—Listen, Braga, you better get out while you can still make a profit. Another month and all you’ll have here will be a wayward boys’ home.”
“Now that’s where you’re mistaken. You’re looking at the ashram only on a materialistic plane.”
Felcher snorted.
“No, no. In another month I will have a new guru straight from the monastery in Bhutan. He will meet his followers under the memorial statue of Padmasvana.”
“Where you going to get the dough for that? I know your habits, Braga. In another month the state’ll sell this place for taxes.”
“The faithful will be anxious to contribute to the memorial. They’ll empty their pockets in one last show of love.”
Felcher snorted louder. “You got ten days. In ten days you can have a hundred and twenty thou in your pocket, or you can be standing here empty-handed, waiting for the termites to finish off this place. You got ten days, Braga.”
The pen stopped clicking. Footsteps moved away from me, toward the office door. Neither man spoke.
The footsteps stopped. “Braga.” Felcher’s voice sounded assured. “Maybe you don’t want to sell this place. Maybe you want to let those guys from L.A. come up here and beat their hundred thou out of you, huh? Yeah, I know about that. And those boys don’t like to hear ‘no.’ ”
“Forget it, Felcher. I’ve got time.”
“Time, hah! What—a month, two months, with ‘interest’ piling up? There’s no other way for you to get the dough, and the longer you wait, the worse off you are.”
I expected Braga to protest, but he didn’t. I would like to have heard his rebuttal. For Braga, those physical threats added the stick to Felcher’s hundred-and-twenty-thousand-dollar carrot and explained why he would kill Padma now.
I hurried around to the front of the temple in time to catch Felcher. “I need to know the details of both your offers for this property.”
Felcher stared. “The offers? Offers are private matters.” Oddly, he ignored my eavesdropping.
“Nothing’s private in a murder investigation.”
Felcher’s fingers pressed together hard, as if he missed his ballpoint pen. “I never wrote out an offer.”
“Come on, Mr. Felcher. You offered Braga some amount. How much?”
He moved in toward me till the curve of his paunch nearly brushed me. “Lady”—his voice was softer—“I got my affairs to protect. I can’t have this getting around.”
I nodded.
“Look, it’s like this. I gotta have this parcel in ten days or my variance runs out. I hadda work like hell to get that, and there’s no chance of them coming up with an extension on it. But Braga don’t need to know that. The point is that what the parcel would have brought a couple of days ago—”
“I heard your reasoning when you explained it to Braga,” I said sharply. “Look, Mr. Felcher, what you and Braga have here is a conspiracy to defraud the rest of Padmasvana’s organization. Now, I’m—”
“What? I’m not conspiring. I’m just buying land—and the title’s in Braga’s name. I got a lawyer. Believe me, when this goes through it’ll be legal. All my part will be strictly on the up-and-up. I don’t give a shit what Braga does then.”
“That may be, Mr. Felcher. But I suspect if word of this should get out, say, to the papers or the city council or any number of other places, it could throw a monkey wrench into your plans.”
“Is that a threat?”
“Tell me about your offers.”
“Okay, okay. Before, it was a hundred and fifty thou. Now it’s a hundred and twenty. Okay? Go arrest speeders.”
“Not so fast. You think he’ll take it?”
“You didn’t hear him say no, did you?”
“He didn’t say yes, either.”
“He’ll take it. He just wants to push for more, but more he ain’t getting. He’ll drag it out till the last minute; then he’ll take it.”
“And…”
“Look, lady, it’s pouring, in case you hadn’t noticed. I’m no duck.”
“Okay, my car’s here.” I opened the door, and reluctantly, he got in. When I’d opened my own side, I said, “What did Bobby find out about the temple?”
“What?”
“I know about you, Kleinfeld and the assessor’s office. And I know you planted Bobby here.”
For the first time, Felcher seemed to deflate. He sunk back into the corner of the seat. “And they killed him, the bastards.”
“How can you be sure?”
“They said he overdosed.”
“Mr. Felcher.” I softened my voice. “The autopsy showed he overdosed. His record wasn’t exactly clean.”
Felcher sat up. “Clean, hell. So the kid took pills—plenty of pills, I’ll admit that. But that’s all he took. And then all of a sudden he overdoses on heroin.”
“I know it’s hard to live with a child’s death. But when a kid’s used to one type of drug, experimenting with another isn’t unusual.”
Felcher stared blindly out the window. The rain smacked against the windshield. Headlights made long slippery patterns on the street. “Look, lady, there was no way that kid would have shot up that heroin. No way. He was terrified of needles.”
“Maybe he’d outgrown that.”
“In six months, not likely. Look, I was gonna take the kid overseas. A trip to Hong Kong. The kid wanted to go. He coulda impressed his friends, he woulda gotten a free ride. He really wanted to go. But he didn’t. You know why? Because he needed shots to go, that’s why. He turned down a free trip rather than get those shots.”
“So then you’ve suspected all along that Bobby was murdered.” It backed up the lieutenant’s and my speculations.
“Yeah, yeah. You’re thinking this gives me an even better motive. Maybe. But I’ll tell you, I never needed more motive. Believe me, I coulda killed the lot of them.”
“Mr. Felcher,” I said, “what was it that Bobby found out about the temple?”
Felcher shook his head. “I wish I knew. I can’t tell you, lady, how much I wish I knew. But if he discovered whatever they’re hiding, they got to him before he could tell me.”
Braga was at his desk when I looked in the door a few minutes later, his stiff hair hanging on slumped shoulders. Another time, I would have felt almost sorry for the man.
I stepped inside. “I heard what you said to Felcher. I’ve just talked to him, so you’d better be straight with me—and quick.”
Braga turned in his chair, then started to get up. His white shirt was wrinkled, and circles of sweat underlined each armpit. “So you heard? What more can I say? I owe a hundred thou to men who aren’t going to wait. You want me to tell you about the gambling? The threats?”
“No. I want to know what Bobby Felcher found out about the temple or that tea business when he was here.”
“Listen, Officer—”
“No, you listen. What did he find out? I don’t want to have to ask again.”
Involuntarily, Braga moved back. “Bobby was spying, was he? Of course, he would be.”
“Come on, Braga. You’re not that dumb.”
Braga pushed himself up from his chair, looking straight across the desk at me. “I will not be intimidated. We have nothing to hide here. If Bobby was searching for evil here, he was doing so fruitlessly.”
“Okay, then let me see the tea boxes.”
“The what?”
I strode out to the basement room. The brightly wrapped tea boxes were stacked against every available foot of wall on both side walls and the back, in piles four feet high. Braga followed me; his steps, which had once had a firmness of authority on stage, were now labored. Why was he dawdling? What difference would a few seconds make?
The back door opened and two large Penlops entered. Now Braga stood straighter.