“I have-none,” I told her humbly. “Please don’t hit me. Is he coming back to give you an address?”
“He’s coming back this afternoon to see if we have anything for him and to give us an address. May I have your name?”
I gave her my name and address and phone number.
She frowned. “Didn’t you used to play for the Rams?”
“Some time ago. Do you remember me?”
“Dimly,” she said. “The one I remember is Merlin Olsen. There was a lineman!”
I went out even more humbled. I was in my car before I realized I was also dumb. Joel knew who I was; he had briefed Sarkissian on me. By now he might have learned about my trip to Skeleton Gulch. All I had done, probably, was to scare him into hiding.
What could I do but sit and wait? What could I do but hope? I had seen him only once, but I was sure I would recognize him.
It was now two o’clock. At three o’clock, a meter maid came by and put a chalk mark on my left rear tire. When she was out of sight, I wiped it off. At four-fifteen, she came by again, gave me a searching look, and put another chalk mark on my left rear tire.
I didn’t wipe it off. Joel Lacrosse came around the corner in front of me and walked down my way.
I stepped out of the car. He stopped walking and stared at me.
“I’m a friend of Corey Raleigh’s,” I said.
“Don’t lie. I know who you are.”
“Brock Callahan,” I admitted. “I’m the man who lives next door to Miss Medford. If you don’t believe I’m a friend of Corey’s, let’s go into the office here and phone him. He works until five.”
He studied me suspiciously.
“Or you can come home with me and wait until Corey gets there,” I went on. “He always stops at my house on his way home from work.”
“Why should I? What do you want from me?”
“Any information you might have that will help me to find the murderer of Sydney Morgenstern. You want to help me with that, don’t you?”
He didn’t answer.
“Trust me, Joel,” I said. “Corey does.”
He stood there, irresolute.
“It was Mr. Morgenstern,” I told him, “who bought that camera for you, not your father.”
“I guessed that,” he said. “Okay. But I don’t say anything until I see Corey.”
He was quiet on the trip home. There, I asked him, “Are you hungry?”
“I could use a sandwich,” he said.
Mrs. Casey did better than that for him. She gave him a big bowl of clam chowder, a small salad, and a hamburger on sourdough toast.
He was finishing the hamburger when Corey arrived. I went to get our beer, taking my time with it, giving them a chance to talk.
I brought three bottles back with me.
Corey said, “You know what Joel’s mother told him? She told him Fortney Grange was his grandfather!”
“She could be telling the truth,” I said. I handed Corey his bottle and looked at Joel. He nodded. I handed him a bottle.
I sat down and said, “I’m sure that Fortney Grange has fathered some children he has never acknowledged. Your father could be one of them.”
Joel shook his head stubbornly. “You didn’t know my grandmother. She was a real old-fashioned lady. She wouldn’t mess around.”
“Joel,” I said gently, “the only difference between the old-fashioned ladies and the new-fashioned women is that the old-fashioned ladies messed around in private.”
He shook his head again. “No! Not her.” He looked at the house next door and back at me. “Is that true—did my grandfather really tell you my mother tried to kill my father?”
“He did.”
“Why didn’t he tell me? He was always straight with me.
“Think of it this way. Your father had left. Your mother stayed with you. Would you have told your grandson his mother had done that?”
“Maybe not. Buy why didn’t my father stay and tell me?”
“I don’t know. I’ve been trying to find out. And maybe your grandmother didn’t mess around. But that lady next door has an international history of messing around.”
Both of them stared at me. “Miss Medford?” Corey asked “That’s crazy! She’s so—so—Hey, wait, do you mean she could be Joel’s grandmother?”
“It’s possible. They were all here in San Valdesto forty-seven years ago. Joel’s grandmother and grandfather were working on a picture for the Gramercy Studios here. Grange was the star. That was when he met Miss Medford.”
Corey looked at Joel. Joel was looking at the house next door.
I said, “One of the pictures was called Showdown at Tryden.”
“Tryden?” Joel said. “That’s my father’s middle name.”
“I know.”
Silence. Then, from next door, came the strains of a golden oldie: “Smoke Gets in Your Eyes.”
Corey said, “I can’t believe it. Do you really think it could be?”
“I do.”
Joel said, “You mean my father’s real father deserted him, too. And his mother? What kind of mother would do that?”
“A scared young mother, a single woman from a famous family. And movie stars in those days couldn’t get away with what they do today. Grange would never have been able to appear in another picture. The public wouldn’t stand for it. He was young then. His career would have been finished before it had started.”
Joel’s voice was shaky. “Do you think my mother killed Mr. Morgenstern? Why would she?”
“I don’t know if she would or why she would. Maybe it was Alvin who killed him. He had Morgenstern’s wallet.”
“No,” Joel said. “He’s dumb and he’s rough, but no, not Alvin.”
“Did you find a place to stay?” I asked him. “Do you plan to stay in town?”
“I didn’t find a place, but I’m going to stay here. I like this town.”
“You could stay here until you got a job and found your own place,” I said. “You’d be welcome.”
Corey said, “He’s going to stay at my house. We’ve got room.”
“But I’m paying board, remember,” Joel said.
“We’ll work that out,” Corey said. “You may have to stay, to be a witness.” He looked at me.
“Okay,” I said wearily. “I’ll pop for it. I still have a few dollars left. I’ll have to clear it with your parents, of course.”
“What do you mean—of course! What do you think I am, a crook?”
I didn’t answer, my new high in tact for the month.
TWENTY-ONE
WHAT I HAD NOW was a confirmation of what I had suspected. Hollywood stud Fortney Grange was Carl Lacrosse’s father. Carol might or might not be his mother. The script girl on a handsome star’s picture could easily qualify for that role.
But the message Morgenstern had brought from Lacrosse had been meant for both Grange and Carol. Which made her the most logical choice for the role of mother.
I phoned Bernie after dinner and reported my findings of the day and my suspicions.
He asked, “Would Joel go into court and testify that his mother had told him Grange was his grandfather?”
“I don’t know. We could ask him. It would still be his word against hers. But if Carl Lacrosse was born in San Valdesto, his birth record must still be on file.”
“I doubt if she would have had the child here. It wouldn’t have stayed a secret long in this town, not when a Medford is involved. I’ll have it checked out. Damn it, we have everything but a case!”
“I know. Nobody saw Morgenstern killed, nobody who is talking. Did internal affairs learn anything about Kelly’s friend?”
“They don’t confide in me. I think I’ll work on Chitty. That wallet is the only solid evidence we have. Mrs. Lacrosse is still my number one suspect. If we make Chitty believe we have a case on him, he might turn on her.”
We had walked and talked and learned. It had given us everything but a case. I was
developing a gut feeling that we might never have a case.
The safeguards our Constitution demands to protect the innocent also protect the guilty. There was no other way it could have been framed if we hoped to maintain a free society.
It frustrates cops and infuriates citizens. But those who believe in swift and certain punishment for the guilty (and the occasional innocent alike) would be better served by moving to those countries where that attitude prevails. It would be dangerous folly to import it or to imitate it.
Noble thoughts—that I had to remind myself of too often. I had grown up in the code of vindictive retribution.
“You’re gloomy,” Jan said at dinner.
“A little. I hate to lose.”
“All jocks do, and most nonjocks. Are you going to lose?”
“We might. But even if we win, it won’t bring Morgenstern back or young Juan Garcia, will it?”
“Don’t think like that until you have to,” she warned me. “That’s the way quitters think.”
I had a loser’s dream that night, a replay of my Stanford senior-year game against Cal. There were only three seconds left in the game, and once again I saw the ball soaring fifty-one yards and between the uprights from the magic toe of Cal’s Tony Espana. Cal 22, Stanford 21. Tony had kicked five field goals against us that gloomy autumn afternoon.
Jan was at work and Mrs. Casey was having a spot of tea and a spell of gossip with the housekeeper across the street when the missing character in our local drama rang our bell next morning.
He was as tall as Grange, but bulkier. He had Grange’s high cheekbones and the piercing dark blue, almost black eyes, the look of the hawk. He was wearing faded jeans, a gray turtleneck sweater, and a light-blue corduroy jacket.
“Mr. Callahan?” he asked me.
I nodded.
“I’m Carl Lacrosse,” he told me. “I’ve just come from Phoenix. My father told me that you are investigating Sydney Morgenstern’s murder.”
“I’m helping with it. Come in.”
He sat on a couch in the living room. I sat in a nearby chair. He said, “I read about Mr. Morgenstern’s death when I was in Tacoma. I phoned the funeral home here, but the man told me there would be no funeral.”
“There wasn’t. He was cremated here and his ashes sent back to Brooklyn, where he grew up. Was he a close friend?”
“He was. He was almost family. That house next door, is that where Grange is living?”
I nodded. “Shall I call him over?”
“I don’t want any part of that son of a bitch,” he said.
“Even if he is your father?”
His face showed no surprise. “She told you, didn’t she? My wife told you.”
I shook my head.
“I didn’t even know it until I was twenty,” he said. “I never told her. How in hell did she find out?”
I shrugged. “Maybe Morgenstern told her. Maybe he wanted to make sure Joel got a college education.”
“Maybe. She killed Morgenstern, didn’t she? My wife killed him.”
“Probably. She or Alvin Chitty. I’d rate it a toss-up. Alvin had Morgenstern’s wallet. She could have given it to him. She had no need for a wallet.”
“It wasn’t Alvin. I’d bet on that.”
“Your son told me the same thing yesterday.”
His voice was low, almost a whisper. “I don’t have a son, Mr. Callahan. Joel isn’t my son.”
I stared at him. “How can you be sure?”
“Because I am sterile. I found that out when Joel was eleven years old. And the tests I underwent in Phoenix confirmed that I had always been sterile. The day I found that out, I came home drunk and had it out with my wife. She went storming out to do some drinking with her creepy relatives. I was asleep when she came home. That was the night she tried to kill me.”
“And when did you find out that Carol Medford was your mother?”
“When I talked with Mr. Morgenstern in Los Angeles. My wife must have found that out recently, too. Because she sure as hell couldn’t blackmail Grange. He’s broke, isn’t he?”
“I guess. And that was the time you told Mr. Morgenstern that Joel wasn’t your son?”
He nodded. “And he probably told my wife he knew that when he was here in town. And there went her chance to show the line of succession to Miss Medford, to wheedle some money out of her. It wasn’t just college money for Joel. She’s a greedy woman. She must have figured that revealing Miss Medford’s early indiscretion would be worth some blackmail money. They aren’t exactly living in the twentieth century down there in Skeleton Gulch.”
“Neither is Carol Medford,” I said. “I don’t suppose you’d want to run next door and say hello?”
“Try not to be funny, Mr. Callahan.”
“Sorry. It seemed to be the time for a little comic relief.”
“Maybe I’m a humorless man,” he said quietly. “Let me tell you, when you spend as much time as I did in a town full of Chittys, you can turn into a real cranky loner.”
I asked, “And what about those eleven years when you thought of Joel as your son?”
“I have no excuse for that and no explanation,” he admitted. “I was not exactly in my right mind when I left Skeleton Gulch. All I could think of at the time was all those rotten years I had spent there with my wife and her tribe.”
“I’m sure,” I said, “that Sydney Morgenstern informed your mother that he knew Joel was not your son. Do you think she’s capable of murder?”
He stared at me. “You’re asking me that? I know she is.”
“And would you be willing,” I asked, “to go down with me to the police station and tell them what you have just told me?”
“I would.”
Chief Harris sat in with us in the conference in Bernie’s office. So did a young assistant DA. Lacrosse repeated everything he had told me. And before he left the room he promised he would stay in town as long as we needed him and would keep us informed of his whereabouts if we needed him later.
The Chief looked at Bernie and Bernie looked at the young attorney.
“It’s a stronger case now,” the young man admitted. “We have a motive now. I don’t know—”
“It gives me some leverage to use on Alvin,” Bernie pointed out. “It gives us a motive for the jury. Mrs. Lacrosse couldn’t have blackmailed Grange if Grange knew Joel was not his grandson. She had to kill Morgenstern to get the payoff. Let me work on Alvin.”
The young assistant nodded. “If he’ll testify against her, it should be a piece of cake.”
He left, and Bernie looked at me. “A piece of cake?” He shook his head. “Wait until he gets up against those major leaguers who will represent Carol Medford. And then throw in Joe Farini. He’ll represent Chitty and probably will include Mrs. Lacrosse.”
“Farini? That shyster. Did Alvin use him?”
“He did.”
“He may be a shyster,” Chief Harris said, “but he’s plenty sharp. Well, if Chitty will cooperate—” He stood up. “Let me know how it goes with him, Bernie.”
Bernie nodded. The Chief left.
“Do you have a feeling,” Bernie asked, “that we are a Little League team about to take on the New York Yankees?”
“More or less. Most of what we have is circumstantial. Do you think I ought to tell Joel his father is in town?”
“Did his so-called father ask about him?”
“No.”
“There’s your answer. I just realized something. Farini can’t represent both Alvin and Mrs. Lacrosse. That would be a conflict of interest if Alvin decides to testify against her. I’d better get to him before we pick up Mrs. Lacrosse.”
“Right. Let us think positively. Let us have faith.”
“Faith is wonderful,” he said, “but it’s doubt that gets you an education.”
“Who said that?” I asked him.
“I did. Just now. You’re right, though. I’m just sour. I had a man check the birth records at
the courthouse. Nothing there. But we don’t need it anymore do we?”
“I guess not. We’ve probably got all we’re going to get. Unless Chitty comes through.”
Unless Chitty came through and Carl Lacrosse stayed in town and Farini didn’t get the jury to crying about this poor overweight woman from little Skeleton Gulch who was only trying to get enough money from this big movie star and his millionaire girlfriend so she could send her only child to college.
Sarkissian still had his racket. Dwight Kelly was still at large. Mrs. Lacrosse had her money and Alvin had his new truck. All Bernie had was the doubtful hope that Chitty would come through. All I had was my ulcer acting up again.
I went home and changed into my running clothes and went out for a run at Eucalyptus Road. I took a hot shower and had lunch with Mrs. Casey, along with a cup of Irish coffee, and went out to the backyard to sulk.
About twenty minutes later, Carol came out from her house and over to the hedge. “Could I talk with you, Brock?”
“Why not? We’re neighbors.”
“And friends?” she asked.
“Let’s find out.” I said. “Come and sit down.”
She looked at me doubtfully before taking a seat on the end of a nearby redwood bench. “You had a fight with Fort Friday afternoon, didn’t you?” she asked.
“We had words.”
“I knew it! He came home so owly! And now he’s started to drink again. What did you two fight about?”
“Carol, please don’t play the village virgin with me. You’re not qualified. What stymied me was this adolescent belief I still had that Fortney Grange would not run from anything or anybody.”
“Run—? Visiting friends in Solvang is running?”
“Only you would know. After you left your friends’ home, you moved to that motel. And told Charles to tell everybody you were vacationing in Carmel. I call that running.”
There was a long silence before she said, “None of it was Fort’s idea. I was the one who begged him to come with me.”
“And you were the one who lied.”
“I had reason enough,” she said hoarsely.
“What reason?”
“I suppose it’s hard to explain to a man,” she said quietly, “but I had my reputation to consider.”
Dead Seed Page 15
