The Case of the Murdered MacKenzie: A Masao Masuto Mystery (Book Seven) Read Online Free PDF Page A

one of those old Victorian houses. That’s a syndrome we still carry over from World War II. An unwillingness to be noticed. But if we get a table at the window, we can look out over the ocean.”
    â€œI’m starved, so if the tempura’s good, I’m with you. I’m not made for the job, Masao. I’m a lousy witness.”
    â€œNot so. You’re a good, straightforward witness. That’s the best kind of a witness to have. It’s not you—it’s this damn strange situation of the Mackenzies.”
    Masuto was able to park directly in front of the restaurant, and the owner, flattered by Masuto’s patronage, gave them the best table at the front windows. This was not difficult, since only two other tables were occupied; nevertheless, they could look through the palms to where the sun glistened on the Pacific. They had two hours before they had to return to the court.
    â€œA very large plate of tempura for my friend,” Masuto said. “For myself, I’ll have sushi. Rice and tea. No sake so early in the day.”
    â€œI wanted to help her,” Beckman said, “but every word I spoke tied the rope tighter.”
    Masuto was watching the gulls, bemused by the birds’ incredible eyesight. To see made a seer. The gulls were seers.
    â€œWho else identified the body?” he asked Beckman.
    â€œYou know, I try to think the way you think. I’m not putting myself down, Masao, but we’ve been a lot of years together. They had taken the body over to the pathology room at All Saints, but I persuaded four of the men from Fenwick who had worked with Mackenzie to come to All Saints and look at the body.”
    â€œWhat did they say? Was it Mackenzie?”
    â€œNo question about it. I wasn’t easily satisfied, Masao. I’m not as thorough as you are, but I tried to be.”
    â€œStop apologizing.”
    â€œI compared photographs. The family doctor came to All Saints. He’s a Dr. Sheperdson from Westwood. He identified the body.”
    Their food came.
    â€œLet’s eat,” Masuto said. “Plenty of time to talk about it. Out there”—he gestured through the window at the ocean—”all is very peaceful. A very beautiful place. I have heard that it is like the south of France. I’ve never been to France, never anywhere in Europe, and yet all that distance to Japan.”
    â€œI never had a chance to ask you about the trip,” Beckman said, his mouth full of fried shrimp.
    â€œA very interesting trip. Very much so. And still she insisted that it was not her husband?”
    â€œThe Mackenzie woman?”
    Masuto nodded.
    â€œAt first. Then she clammed up on that. Then she came back to it after we arrested her.”
    â€œWhy?”
    â€œWhy?”
    â€œI mean, why did you arrest her? I read her story in the papers. She had a fight with her husband, whom she apparently detested. She stormed out of the house—her claim at midnight—and then drove to Santa Barbara, where she spent the night with her sister. Then back to the house in the morning.”
    â€œShe claims, to pack her stuff and leave him.”
    â€œSo it comes down to the notebook, doesn’t it? What’s in the notebook?”
    â€œThe whole story of the murder, very precise, very specific.”
    â€œNo!”
    â€œAbsolutely.”
    â€œAnd you kept it away from the press?”
    â€œThat wasn’t easy, Masao, but that’s the way Geffner wanted it.”
    â€œWhat was in the notebook?”
    â€œShe was writing a screenplay,” Beckman said somewhat sadly. “And it wasn’t just something she put up as an alibi. It was a screenplay, and the whole shtick was in there, the penny in the fuse box, the radio in the bathtub—”
    â€œCome on!” Masuto exclaimed, pushing away his plate of food. “That’s it?”
    â€œI know it’s