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

and in the Bahamas.”
    â€œAnd the treasury allows it?”
    â€œMasao, when a child is kidnapped, people bankrupt themselves to pay the ransom, and most kidnappings are not faked. Internal Revenue is pretty damned heartless, but this is America, and you know how people’s hearts go out to a kidnap victim.”
    â€œAnd it’s more or less foolproof, isn’t it?”
    â€œExcept for stupidity, which you tell me this is laced with. However, considering that he would have paid ten percent to the launderers, Mike Barton would be holding nine hundred thousand dollars in cash. That’s a lot of cash. What would he have done with it?”
    â€œThat’s the question, isn’t it? When I know that, I’ll have all the other answers.”
    â€œHow’s that?”
    â€œJust a guess that whoever killed Mike Barton did it for the money. I find the money, I find a killer—or killers.”

The House on the Hill
    North of Sunset Boulevard, in Beverly Hills, the land rolls up to the Santa Monica Mountains. The gentle slopes and hillocks are cut by several canyons, and the real estate in this area constitutes one of the most expensive residential neighborhoods in the entire country. The Barton home was on a hilltop just high enough to look out over the Beverly Hills Hotel, a Spanish colonial house on an acre of ground.
    It was dark when Masuto pulled into the driveway, and four cars were already standing in the parking area. Beckman was waiting outside the front door, talking to a uniformed Beverly Hills cop, and he greeted Masuto with relief. “You got a houseful of angry citizens,” he told Masuto, “especially McCarthy and Ranier, who insist that we got no right whatsoever to keep them here.”
    â€œWe haven’t. Why do they stay?”
    â€œThey tell it that the only reason they’re here is to protect the rights of the Angel and to keep her from being bullied by the cops.”
    â€œWhy do they think we’d bully her?” Masuto wondered.
    â€œBecause when they asked Wainwright whether they were suspects, he said that he had to take the position that everyone who knew about the kidnapping was to some degree suspect. He said it more diplomatically, but McCarthy blew his top anyway. Barton’s secretary—her name’s Elaine Newman—went to pieces when she heard about the murder.”
    â€œOh? And how did Mrs. Barton take it?”
    â€œI don’t know. She’s been in her room since she got back. The doctor’s been here to see her.”
    â€œWhat doctor?”
    â€œTheir family doctor, name of Haddam. He’s gone now.”
    â€œAnd what about the FBI?”
    â€œThat kid, Frank Keller, was here. He nosed around and asked a few questions. Didn’t seem to know what the hell he was doing.”
    â€œAnd the captain?”
    â€œThe captain went home to have dinner. McCarthy told him that any harassment of Angel Barton would result in an action, and that he’d sue the hell out of the city, and you know how the captain reacts when one of the wealthy citizens threatens to sue the city. He says that you can handle it, because since you know all about who murdered Barton, you can go easy on everyone else. What about it, Masao? Do you know?”
    â€œSort of.”
    â€œWhat the devil does ‘sort of’ mean?”
    â€œI know and I don’t know.”
    â€œSure. That clears it all up.”
    Beckman led the way into the house. “What about the press?” Masuto asked him.
    â€œThey were here, also the TV guys. Wainwright and McCarthy spoke to them. I told Frank, the officer at the door, not to let anyone in, except first he talks to you.”
    Masuto was studying the house thoughtfully. Earlier in the day he had seen it only from the outside. Inside, it displayed the slightly insane baronial overbuilding of a film star’s house of the nineteen thirties—tile floor, huge center