The Case of the Murdered MacKenzie: A Masao Masuto Mystery (Book Seven) by Howard Fast

found naked in the bathtub. Why? Why did he have to be sitting naked in the tub unless to provide a reason for his clothes to disappear. There are a hundred ways to kill a man. Why go to something so exotic as an electrocution in a bathtub?”
    â€œBut that was in her notebook.”
    â€œYes, which meant that the media and the police and everyone else would be looking at the notebook instead of wondering where the dead man’s clothes had gotten to.”
    Kati shook her head. “I don’t understand, Masao.”
    â€œNo? Of course, it’s murky. It’s the kind of thing that fills one with a sense of foreboding and horror. But let me reconstruct it as a playwright might to put together a scene. Mackenzie has a twin brother. The twin brother appears and must be killed.”
    â€œWhy?”
    â€œI don’t know that. Kati, I know none of this, and I try to spin something out of invisible cloth. So I invent a twin brother who must be killed. Since he was killed, I presume that he must be killed. Since he was found naked, I presume that his clothes must be disposed of. He was knocked unconscious by a blow to the head. Now he lies unconscious. Two choices: dispose of the body, dispose of the clothes. Which choice? It’s not easy to make a body vanish—easier to make the clothes vanish.”
    Kati shuddered. “How can you live with this, Masao? Day and night.”
    â€œIt’s my karma.”
    Kati shook her head.
    â€œNo more?”
    â€œYes,” Kati said. “Please go on. Does it help? I mean for me to listen and ask questions.”
    â€œA great deal.”
    â€œYes—the choice is to make the clothes vanish. But why? Why must the body be naked? Ah, so!” he exclaimed. “I am as witless as the others.”
    â€œWhy?”
    â€œOne or two of three people are present at the murder. Perhaps others, but certainly one or more of three. Because there are three people who presumably knew the contents of Eve Mackenzie’s notebook.”
    â€œYes, yes,” Kati agreed excitedly. “Her husband, Mrs. Scott, and Mrs. Mackenzie. That’s why they arrested Mrs. Mackenzie. But why couldn’t they arrest the other two?”
    â€œKati, Kati, the presumption was that Mr. Mackenzie was dead. And Mrs. Scott had no motive, and she told of a terrible fight between the Mackenzies. I’m sure that if the trial lasts long enough to put Mrs. Scott on the stand, she will testify that Mrs. Mackenzie threatened to kill her husband.”
    â€œBut you don’t think she killed him?”
    â€œOh, no. Mrs. Mackenzie is a small, slender woman. She can’t weigh more than a hundred and ten or fifteen pounds. According to Sy Beckman, the man in the tub weighed at least two hundred pounds. Mrs. Mackenzie could never place his body in the tub.”
    â€œBut Mrs. Scott?”
    â€œStronger, a very well-built woman. No, I don’t think so, and that leaves Mackenzie as the murderer of his twin brother. Or does it? Any number of different people could have been there. We have no motive. It’s not a random killing, not a burglary, not some lunatic lying up in the hills and shooting at cars on the freeway. No, indeed. This is murder with malice aforethought. But why? And why did Eve Mackenzie suddenly stop insisting that the man in the tub was not her husband?”
    â€œUntil the trial,” Kati said.
    â€œBut why the trial? Why did she subject herself to the trial? You see, Kati, the state’s case was built on the fact that Mackenzie was taking a bath when his wife struck him with a blunt instrument and then executed him. But if it turned out not to be Mackenzie, then he would not be calmly bathing in Mackenzie’s bathtub and there would be absolutely no case against Mrs. Mackenzie. And why the refusal to give Beckman Mackenzie’s fingerprints? Senseless, stupid—and horrible.”
    â€œMurder is always