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

Barton?”
    â€œTwo years. Since right after he married Angel.”
    â€œWhat did your work consist of?”
    â€œHis correspondence. Also, he always wanted to write a book. All the stars do. They have this guilt thing about being where they are, and mostly they can’t justify to themselves why they are where they are, and they feel that writing a book about themselves will be a way out. Poor Mike. He tried, but it was all too complicated.”
    â€œHe dictated to you?”
    â€œYes. But we didn’t get very far on the book. Twenty or thirty pages.”
    â€œI would like to read it, if you would allow me.”
    â€œSure. Sure, why not?”
    â€œWhy do you hate Mrs. Barton?”
    â€œThe Angel? Because she’s a phony. Because she’s a mean, heartless bitch and because she gave Mike nothing but misery.”
    â€œWhy didn’t he divorce her?”
    She thought about this for a while, and then she shook her head. “I don’t know.”
    â€œPerhaps he loved her, the kind of love that demands nothing in return.”
    â€œBullshit!” she said angrily. “My heart isn’t broken because I lost a job. Mike has been my lover since almost the first day I was here. Are you going to tell me he loved that cold bitch?”
    â€œI’m telling you nothing, only asking.”
    â€œI don’t know why I’m talking to you at all.”
    â€œBecause we both want to find out who killed Mike Barton, and I must ask questions which will disturb you. I ask you again, why didn’t he divorce her?”
    â€œHe would never tell me. She had something on him.”
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œI just don’t know.”
    â€œGuess. You must have turned this over in your mind a thousand times.”
    â€œTen thousand times.”
    â€œYou say he didn’t love her, yet he was willing to pay a million dollars ransom.”
    â€œCome on, Sergeant.”
    â€œWhat does that mean?”
    â€œThat whole kidnapping was a fraud. That little louse Ranier designed the whole thing.”
    â€œWhy?”
    â€œI don’t know why. But I do know this, that if it were a real kidnapping, Mike wouldn’t have given twenty cents to get her back. Oh, he might have had to make a public display of some kind, but keep the cops out, keep the FBI out? No way. I can see how Mike might have paid the kidnappers a million dollars to keep her—but to get her back? You’ve got to be kidding.”
    At this point Beckman came into the kitchen and said, “Masao, we got company. Della Goldberg is here with her husband, Joe, and Netty Cooper, and Roy Hennesy, the congressman from out in Malibu. They all claim to be dear friends of the deceased, so I put them in the living room.”
    â€œDear friends,” Elaine said bitterly.
    â€œThere are also a lot of media characters and Gloria Adams from the Times, and I guess I owe her.”
    â€œKeep them out—no reporters. You don’t owe her that much. Let them go over to the station house and get it from our P.R.”
    â€œWhat P.R.? We don’t have any P.R.”
    â€œMac Bendix—he always knows what’s going on, and he’ll pump the captain and keep them up-to-date. But no reporters in the house. Also, if you can, keep the maid and chauffeur apart from the guests.”
    â€œMrs. Holtz wants to make coffee. She says if you have guests, you got to feed them. The black kid is serving drinks. I don’t know how I can chase her out.”
    â€œAll right, let it go. What about McCarthy and Ranier?”
    â€œThey’re still here, hanging in.”
    â€œI got a feeling they’re all going to hang in. Do me a favor, Sy. Call Kati and tell her I’m here open end. I don’t know when we’ll get home.”
    Elaine Newman was staring at Masuto with interest. It was the first moment that some of the pain had left her face. As Beckman left, she said softly,