Snowball in Hell

Doyle was watching him with those light, alert eyes.
«What a scoop!» Tara said. «And here I thought it was a slow week for news.»
«When was the last time you saw Phil Arlen?» Matt asked Doyle.
Doyle shrugged. «It's been a while.»
«Nathan's only been home a couple of weeks,» Tara said. «He was a war correspondent in North Africa. He was wounded at Medenine.» She made it sound like Doyle had done something especially clever. Yep, she was interested in Doyle all right.
At the same time Matt could feel Doyle's discomfort, his desire to shut Tara up. He could have told him to save his strength.
«Had enough for one war?» he asked, not unsympathetically.
«So they tell me,» Doyle said.
«Lt. Spain was on Guadalcanal,» Tara put in ruthlessly. «He took two bullets in the leg.»
Matt said, «Now I can predict rain.» He held out his hand as a fat drop hit his nose, and Doyle laughed. He had an easy, rather husky laugh. Matt found himself smiling back, but he wasn't forgetting Doyle's shocked reaction to the body of Phil Arlen. Of course that could have been the jolt of a John Doe turning out to be someone he knew-but if he instantly recognized Phil Arlen waterlogged and streaked in mud and tar, he must have seen him fairly recently. And as far as Matt knew, the closest Arlen had come to the front lines was watching newsreels in the front row of Grauman's.
«Have you found any shells?» Doyle asked, watching the coroner. Tara did a double take.
«You've got sharp eyes,» Matt commented. And now Doyle had attracted Jonesy's attention too.
«He was shot?» Tara asked.
«He was shot all right,» Doc Mason said, getting to his feet. «Twenty-two caliber maybe, fairly close range. Must have hit the sternum and ricocheted around inside. There's no exit wound.» He chewed on his pipe stem. «Something funny here.»
Aware of two very quiet and very attentive reporters, Matt said, «Fill me in later.»
Doc nodded. «We better get him inside.»
The rain began to patter down as a couple of men lifted Arlen's body onto a stretcher and carried him across the grass to the waiting ambulance. The morning smelled of rain and asphalt and pipe tobacco.
A couple of yards away the other reporters had moved from grumbling to outright sedition.
«Okay, thanks for your help,» Matt said, nodding dismissal to Tara and Nathan Doyle.
«You're not making a statement?» Doyle asked.
«Lt. Spain never allows himself to be rushed,» Tara informed him, and Matt shook his head a little at her.
His eyes met Doyle's again, and a smile tugged at Doyle's mouth.
«Welcome to the neighborhood, Mr. Doyle,» Matt said.
«Thanks.»
Despite the smile, there was a shadowy look to Doyle's eyes; the kind of fatigue that didn't have anything to do with lack of sleep or months in a hospital. There was no question which beat Doyle would have preferred to be covering.
«Come on,» Tara said, and she linked her arm in Doyle's. «The royal audience is at an end.»
Sardonically, Matt watched her shepherding Doyle, the two of them hoofing straight for the main gate, skirting their clustered colleagues who threw friendly and not so friendly jeers and insults after them. Lights flashing, the coroner's ambulance rumbled past them, splashing through the pools of muddy water, as it turned the opposite way, heading for the rear entrance of the park.
«That Doyle's an interesting fella,» Jonesy remarked.
Matt said nothing, turning back to face the silvery black pool.
For a moment he and Jonesy stood there. Matt was thinking about the unpleasant task before him: informing
Benedict Arlen that his youngest child was dead. Kind of ironic when everyone knew Arlen had paid a small fortune to keep the kid out of the draft. And now he was dead-murdered. He might have had a better chance dodging bullets overseas.
As he watched, a giant bubble of methane gas formed on the watery surface of the pit, expanded, and dissipated in a silent gooey pop.
«Disrespectful, tossing the Arlen kid in that muck,» Jonesy said reflectively.
«Homicide's disrespectful,» Matt replied.
* * * *
Benedict Arlen lived in a white stucco Spanish colonial revival-style mansion in Mandeville Canyon. The house was surrounded by twenty acres of palm trees and hedges and flowering Mediterranean plants. Two bison, clearly pets, ambled contently past the large tiled fountains.
A butler who must have been dragged out of retirement– or possibly eternity-when the regular guy enlisted met them at the carved wooden doors and did his unsteady best to run interference.
Matt left Jonesy to deal with the major domo, and he proceeded along the tiled hallway lined with paintings of the old west by Charlie Russell, until he came to a room and heard voices behind a half-open door.
«You're wrong, Nathan,» a man was saying in a querulous voice. «I tell you, Philip is perfectly all right.»
Matt couldn't hear the answer, just the quiet murmur of words, but he had the disquieted feeling he knew that voice.
He pushed open the door onto a room with a Gothic ceiling and leaded windows with iron grilles. There were vibrant Indian rugs on the floor and lots of heavy, dark Spanish furniture. Oil paintings by Frederic Remington decorated the white walls, and bronze sculptures of bronco busters and buffalo hunters topped tables.
Benedict Arlen sat on a long velvet-covered sofa next to a giant fireplace in natural stone. A Captain-of-Industry portrait of him hung over the fireplace-he didn't do it justice. He was a frail-looking man in a plum-colored smoking jacket. He had a beaky nose and thin white hair.
Standing in front of the fireplace was Nathan Doyle.
He glanced up as Matt entered the room, and his expression was unreadable. He said coolly, «Lt. Spain, isn't it?»
«It was three hours ago. I'd be hurt if you'd forgotten already.»
Doyle said, «I haven't forgotten.»
«What are you doing here?» Matt figured he knew what Doyle was doing there. He'd known a few news hawks like that, willing to do anything, pushing past the women and children, trampling over flowerbeds and graves to be first with a story, but he hadn't thought Doyle was the type.
Studying him now-slim and self-contained as he warmed himself in front of Benedict Arlen's cavern-sized fireplace-he still didn't seem like the type.
And Matt thought again about Doyle's recoil when he recognized Phil Arlen's body.
Maybe he'd been shocked because he didn't expect to see Arlen's body there because … that wasn't where he'd left it.
When you're a cop you learn to think like that.
Jonesy slipped quietly into the room behind Matt. He took out his pad and pencil. Doyle opened his mouth to respond to Matt's question, but Benedict Arlen beat him to the punch.
«What is the meaning of this?» he demanded, like somebody in a play. He sat bolt upright, staring from Matt to Nathan as though he suspected they might be in this– whatever it was-together. Which was certainly an odd idea.
Matt identified himself with a show of his badge, and Arlen goggled as though he couldn't believe it.
Doyle said, «I thought Mr. Arlen should hear about Phil from someone besides the police. That it would be less of a shock.»
«I tell you Philip is perfectly all right,» the old man protested, but now he sounded frightened. «We've paid the ransom. There's no reason for them to harm him.»
It was obvious from Doyle's expression that this information was news to him. He stared at Arlen, and Matt said, «Sir, are you telling me that your son was kidnapped?»
The old man hesitated, chewing his lip. «We received a call Sunday evening informing us that Philip had been … taken. We were given twenty-four hours to deliver one hundred thousand dollars.»
The old man faltered as Jonesy whistled. «We were promised that Philip would be released twenty-four hours after that.» At Matt's expression he said defiantly, «We didn't