[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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 asif thinking deeply.
"He did inherit, didn't he?" Al prompted.
Page 162
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
"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
Page 163
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
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.
The ornate rooms, in the absence of the people who had created them, looked
merely tawdry. The boy-and-buffalo figurine stood on the mantelpiece over an
electric fireplace, in poignant juxtaposition with an ornately framed
photograph of Pramilla and Laxman in their wedding finery, both of them
looking very young and rigid with terror. Kate contemplated the arrangement
for a long time, and found herself wondering what on earth the village girl
had made of this glowing electric imitation fire, the thick off-white carpet,
the man to whom she had given over her future.
They found nothing in the apartment. Aside from a sunken patch of wallboard
behind a hanging, which Mehta told them was where Laxman had driven his fist
in a tantrum, there was no sign that any act of violence had taken place in
the rooms, no bloodstains, no sign of dragging on the carpets, not even any
disarray. They could find no indication of why Laxman had left the house that
night, no telephone numbers scribbled on pads by the phone or balled-up
messages in the wastebaskets. The redial button on the only telephone in the
rooms connected with an answering machine and a woman's voice announcing, "Hi,
this is Amanda's machine," which Kate recognized as that of Amanda Bonner. As
Bonner had suspected, she had been Pramilla Mehta's last call. Kate broke the
connection before the tone could sound.
They finished the search, thanked Peter Mehta, and went back out into the
rain. Outside the house, the press had thinned out somewhat, and the three
placard-wielding women had moved their demonstration over in front of the
Mehta house. The two detectives nodded to the uniformed police on guard, told
the reporters that they had no comment, and strode briskly down the block to
where they had left the car.
"That's a fair amount of money involved," Kate noted as she pulled away from
the curb.
Page 164
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
"Even with those troublesome market swings. You think it was only a million?"
"Not for a minute." Any interrogator recognized instantly the look of open
candor that accompanied an outright lie.
Kate made a mental note to dig out the truth of the Mehta finances. It was
never good to assume that, with the family of a victim, the first interview
was anything more than reconnaissance. They would return after Laxman's
autopsy results and preliminary lab work were in.
"We also need to know if Laxman might have got ahold of some money on his
own. Sold a statue, pawned a wristwatch, something of that sort. He understood
money enough to know that you can buy or sell things, and if he watched a lot
of TV it's the kind of thing he might've seen and copied. Even if he was thick
as two bricks."
"We also need those phone records."
"Ask Peter and his wife separately if Laxman had any mail. Postman might
remember, too." Al was thinking out loud. "Even the kids in the house. But the
big question here is, if this is the work of the serial, how'd the killer find
out that Laxman hit his wife sometimes, that he may have been responsible for
her death?"
Kate took a deep breath. "Roz Hall knew. Amanda Bonner told her, and if Roz
knew, anyone in the City could have known."
"That doesn't narrow things down much."
"God," she said, "if you'd planned it, you couldn't have come up with three
more different victims."
"James Larsen, Matthew Banderas, and Laxman Mehta. Affirmative action
murders," Al said with heavy irony. "The United Nations of victims."
"Taking political correctness to an extreme," she agreed.
Page 165
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

  • zanotowane.pl
  • doc.pisz.pl
  • pdf.pisz.pl
  • mew.pev.pl

    		•