“Smooth,” Raglan said. “Just tell me the mistakes. In fiction, the crook always makes mistakes. Happens in real life, too, sometimes.”
“Not so much mistakes, Joe. Circumstances. Like, how is he to know that Van Drimmelen’s watch is always fifteen minutes fast? Or that the man’s wife is going to brag about how the girl never touched a thing without asking first. And how she didn’t ask to play the hi-fi. Or that anyone would suspect the Van Drimmelens wouldn’t be likely to own a Shelly Berman album? Or that the girl spells homicide with two o’s and one I, instead of the other way around — and that her English teacher would remember such a thing? It’s a common enough error, but when it shows up on a ransom note too, you know?”
I smiled. “I owe you a lot, Joe. You told me once that a good detective gets to know the people he’s pitted against. The better he knows them, the easier it is to figure what they might do next. Same thing goes for a good writer. He knows his characters so well that the minute they step out of line it’s like a red flag. Once you decide what a character wants, you figure out the most intelligent way for him to go about getting it, consistent with his limitations, of course. Conversely, if you know his limitations and can see what he’s doing, it’s fairly easy to determine what he wants, and what he’ll do to attain it.”
“That’s pretty heavy theory, Shaffer.”
“Let me put it in terms of our story, then,” I offered. “This reporter knows Daddy pretty well, and he gets a funny feeling when Daddy acts out of character. And when he gets a real incentive to use his imagination, things start falling into place. He starts figuring how he would do it if he were planning a swindle. And he starts checking back.”
“Suspicions,” Raglan said. “That’s all you’ve got, Shaffer.”
“Suspicions confirmed,” I corrected. “This is a technological age, Joe. Remember I told you timing was absolutely vital to this plot? Even picking the right night for Debbie to be kidnapped. Why did it have to be a Tuesday? What advantage was there having everyone think she vanished at ten-thirty when she really lit out at ten? I didn’t have the answer to that one until a week ago, when I discovered she’d made a phone call to a certain airline.”
“What does that prove?”
“Have patience, Daddy, I’m getting to it. Flights to Mexico City are not a nightly occurrence from here, Joe. They happen twice a week, Tuesday nights at ten-fifty, Friday afternoons at three forty-five. And there’s only one airline offering that service. So I asked myself, why not Friday? Wrong time of day for the vanishing act. And the wrong day, seeing that Daddy had to go on the Larry Brenner show while the story was still hot.”
Raglan nodded. “How’d you discover the call to the airport?”
“Another one of those circumstances over which you had no control. The Van Drimmelens had been having babysitter trouble; it even showed up in their phone bill. So they subscribed to a message monitoring service, which makes a record of any calls placed from their phone to numbers outside the local toll-free area. Not only were you ignorant of this, Joe, but nobody would have any reason to look for something like that.”
“I see.”
“It took me a while to locate the car,” I admitted. “But I knew you couldn’t leave it there. Today it was gone, and I figured you’d be gone soon, too. It took me about three minutes to find out that you’d been granted a leave of absence, ostensibly to follow up a lead in New York. Correct me if I’m wrong, Joe. In New York you will disappear, no muss, no fuss. It may be weeks before anyone starts wondering what happened to you. They’ll check with the airline. Yes, a Joseph P. Raglan was delivered to the New York airport. That’s one more reason you need Mr. Rocco, isn’t it?”
The kid looked as if he was ready to make a run for it, but Raglan held him back with a gesture. “Tell me more, Shaffer,” he said quietly.
“There’s an expert forger kicking around,” I said, “who hotly denies having any beef against you, or even having seen you since he was paroled. But the records show that he was picked up for questioning the day after Debbie disappeared. An experience like that certainly wouldn’t have slipped the man’s mind, would it?”
Raglan looked thoughtful.
“And then,” I continued, “Eddie here asks permission to move to a job in New York. Turns out Daddy is the one who has assured the job, which the reporter and the parole officer both agree is quite out of character. There is also a way to get from here to New York where you fly to New Orleans first. Now if Eddie were to be holding a ticket with Daddy’s name on it, and Daddy were to have Eddie’s ticket — plus a forged passport — it would be simple for the ersatz Mr. Rocco to change planes in New Orleans and fly to South America.
“And that touch with the money was clever as all get out, Joe. Technically, I don’t even know if you stole it, because people gave it to you as an outright gift.” I grinned. “When you come right down to it, you didn’t ask ’em for it. It was Brenner who did that. I’ll admit I like the idea of Brenner being forced to give it all back to the donors.”
“Me, too,” Raglan admitted. “Especially as a large percentage of the gifts were anonymous.”
“Exactly. But tell me, Joe — how will you get the money out of the country? It’s not too big a package, but sizeable enough to present difficulties.”
It was Raglan’s turn to grin. “Not if it’s broken up into small packages. But I’ll never admit it.”
I shrugged. “And I was looking for something complicated,” I said, smiling ruefully. “Why should I blow the whistle, Joe? I keep thinking of poor little Debbie, waiting for you down in Venezuela, an innocent, inexperienced, naive little fifteen-year-old. What in the world would she do without you?”
“What do you want, part of the take?”
“Please!” I protested. “You earned that, Joe. You and Debbie.”
“You figure things out pretty good,” Raglan said thoughtfully.
Then he added abruptly. “You’ve got your story. What are you going to do about it?”
“Not a damn thing, Joe. Florence has the furniture, you’ve got your freedom and your daughter and enough money to get by on, hundreds of people have the good glow from knowing they’ve helped. I’m not hurting any — I’ll be back on the Bulletin payroll in a week or so, just as soon as it’s definitely established that you’re missing. And if I write this up as fiction I ought to make back part of the salary I’ve missed.”
Joe Raglan stared at me uncomprehendingly. Then he held out his hand.
“Thanks,” he said. “Aren’t you afraid if I get caught between here and the border you’ll be held as an accessory?”
“Not a chance,” I said. “I haven’t got one witness who actually saw anything happen, so how could I prove any of it? Of course that forged passport in your pocket might be a little embarrassing, but Jim Duncan would be back in stir if he testified against you. So would Eddie here. It’d be your word against mine, and I’m the first to admit that it’s all conjecture.”
“But it would look good on the front page of the Bulletin, wouldn’t it?” he asked. “I still don’t get your motive.”
“Try revenge,” I said. “I was reminded recently that Mr. Owens doesn’t read anything but the financial section. You’d better hurry, Mr. Rocco,” I added. “Or you’ll miss your plane.”
I picked up my briefcase and walked out then. Murphy was waiting in the lobby, as we had arranged.
“Hi, Chief,” I said, patting the briefcase. “I’ve got it all on tape.”