“That got to be a major topic of conversation, you wanna know the truth. Sloan was very closemouthed. Not one of the gang. Didn’t like to drink with us, play pinochle. You play pinochle?”
“Who was the smart money on, Mike? Who was Sloan’s girlfriend?”
He crossed the room slowly and got a fresh cigar from the nightstand. He lit it, puffed on it until he had it going to his satisfaction. Then he turned around. “Ethel,” he replied, standing there in a cloud of blue smoke. “Ethel Barrymore.”
“But she was —”
“Old enough to be his mother, I know. What can I tell ya — nobody’s ever accused picture people of being normal.”
“Any chance it was Alma Glaze?”
“The author? I doubt it. She wasn’t exactly the cuddly type.” He slumped on the edge of the bed and puffed on his cigar. “Still, you never know. Sloan was married to a great beauty. When a guy cheats, he always goes for something different. Coulda been. All I know is there was somebody, and I guess him and Laurel had some deal where it was okay for her to play around but not for him, on account of she let him have it but good.”
“When?”
“That night. They had one hell of a fight in their hotel room the night he died.”
“How do you know, Mike?”
“I had the room next door. Heard ’em hollering.”
“What were they saying?”
“Couldn’t hear no words.”
“Then how do you know what they were fighting about?”
“What else do a husband and wife fight about besides money, and with their two paychecks money wasn’t no problem.”
“You’re sure it was Laurel?”
“It was Laurel.”
“And you were in your room when he was stricken?”
He nodded. “Getting dressed for the wrap party. Tux, studs, the works. I looked like a million bucks in those days. Rock hard, broads fallin’ all over me. So I hear ’em goin’ at it, a real doozy, and then … ”
“And then?” I prompted.
“Then it got real quiet. I guess that’s when the thing in his brain blew. Right away she comes running out in the hail screaming for Doc Toriello.”
“As I understood it, he first complained of a terrible headache. She sent a bellhop out for some aspirin. Then Sloan got worse and then she called for the doctor.”
He shrugged. “It coulda been that way. Sure. I don’t remember so good.”
“What really happened, Mike?”
He got up and went into the bathroom and filled a glass with water — an evasive maneuver. He returned with it and sat back down on the bed, mouth working furiously on his cigar. He said nothing.
I shook my head at him. “You’ve been holding the truth in a long time, Mike. You’ve kept your mouth shut, been a good soldier. And look what it’s gotten you. Look how they’ve treated you.”
He drank some of his water, smacking his lips as if it were good scotch. His eyes were on Lulu, who dozed at my feet. “I’d like to help you, kid. I would. But whatever a married couple does behind closed doors is their own goddamned business. And picture people — we don’t tell stories on each other.”
“Okay, Mike.” I sighed heavily. “Only, you’re really letting me down. … ”
“Aw, don’t pull that,” he whined.
“I’m sorry, Mike, but it’s true. You’re letting one of your kids down. One of those eager, fresh-faced kids who grew up in front of the television set believing every single word you told him about truth and justice and tooth decay.”
“That’s low. That’s awful fucking low.”
Lulu stirred and looked up at me funny. I think she was having trouble imagining me as eager and fresh faced.
“People are getting murdered, Mike, and you’re the only one who knows why. I can come back with the sheriff if you want, but if I do, everyone is going to find out you talked. Tell me now and no one will. You have my word.”
“Jeez.” He got up and started pacing the room, rubbing the lower half of his face with his hand. “The law. Jeez.”
“What’s it going to be, Mike?”
“You won’t tell anyone where ya heard this?” His voice trembled.
“Not a soul.”
“Okay, okay.” He slumped back down onto the bed. “I was … I was dressing, like I told ya. And that’s when I heard it.”
“Heard what?”
“The gunshot,” he said quietly.
“Gunshot?”
“Yeah.”
“She shot him?”
“Blew half his head off. I pulled on my pants and went over there. Door was unlocked. He was on the floor. Blood all over the rug, the wall. Laurel was covered with it, screaming hysterically, the crazy fucking bitch. In and out of the bin after that, but they never prosecuted her. Whole thing got buttoned up nice and tight.”
“Who was in on it?”
“They all were. The sheriff, Doc Toriello, the local doc, the hotel, funeral parlor … Money changed hands all the way down the line. Lots of it. Melnitz, Goldwyn’s hatchet man, he took care of it. It was like it never happened. He came into my room later that night and told me just that — it never happened. I said okeydoke, you’re the boss.” He shook his head in amazement. “She was the star of a major motion picture. They could get away with murder in those days. She sure as hell did. And that’s the story, kid. Kind of glad to be telling somebody about it, you wanna know the truth.”
“What exactly was Laurel doing when you first went in there?”
“She was hysterical, like I told ya. I called the desk first thing. They got hold of Toriello.”
“Was she holding the gun?”
“Uh … no.”
“Did you actually see the gun?”
“No.”
“Did anyone tell you for a fact that she did it?”
“Nobody said nothin’.”
“Then how do you know it was actually Laurel who shot him?”
“Nobody else was there,” he replied. “Who the hell else could it have been?”
“A third party. Someone who arrived before the shooting, then hustled out before you got there.”
He shook his head. “No chance of that. I could hear their door from my room: They didn’t have no visitors.”
“You said you were dressing for the party.”
“Yeah?”
“Did you take a shower?”
“Sure I took a … ” His eyes widened. “You’re right, kid. I was in the shower two, three minutes washing my hair. Had a whole head of it then, thick and blond. Somebody coulda knocked and gone in then. I wouldn’t a heard. Only, why are you so convinced it wasn’t Laurel?”
“Because Laurel Barrett is long dead. No one here would bother to kill two people now, fifty years later, if she were Sloan’s murderer. Someone local shot Sloan. Had to be. And someone local is still trying to keep it buttoned up.” I got up out of the chair. “Thanks, Mike. You’ve been a big help. And it’s been a genuine thrill to meet you.”
“Sure thing, kid. Glad to have ya.”
I started for the door, stopped. “Would you do it for me, Mike? Just once?”
He grinned at me. “Do what?”
“You know what I want.”
He did indeed. Because something was already beginning to happen to him there on the bed. The blood was pumping harder in his veins. His chest was filling out, his shoulders broadening. He cleared his throat, and then he did it. He cried, “Neptune, awaaaaay!” His old cry. The one from long ago. He puffed on his cigar. “How was that?” he asked.
I tipped my cap. “It’ll do, Mike. It’ll do.” I left before he started shrinking again.
Cookie Jahr would know. She had been there in the sitting room when Fern freaked. She knew who was in Vangie’s room with Sterling Sloan. Whoever it was had shot him that night in his hotel room. That’s why those pages had been torn from Alma’s diary. Cookie knew. She was the one outsider who did.
Her room was down the hall from Mi
ke’s. Her door was open a few inches. I called out her name. There was no answer. I tugged at my ear, not liking this. People don’t generally go out and leave their motel-room doors open. Not unless they’ve gone for some ice. I was standing ten feet from the ice machine. Cookie wasn’t getting any ice.
Lulu was already heading straight for the car. She wanted no part of it. I called after her. I told her that after everything I’d done for her these past nights the least she could do was stay by my side when I needed her. Reluctantly, she returned to me. We went in.
Cookie was stretched out on the bed looking right at me. She had a cigarette going in the ashtray on the nightstand next to her. She was a frail, birdlike woman with bright yellow hair. She wore a floral-print blouse, white slacks, and a bright pink silk scarf. Whoever strangled her had used the scarf.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
POLK FOUR REACHED OVER and turned off his radio when it started squawking. We were sitting in his cruiser out in the parking lot of The Shenandoan, Lulu between us on the front seat sniffing gleefully at the tools of his trade on the dash. She likes sitting in police cars. Polk kept watching her. I don’t think he liked her sniffing at his things. He certainly hadn’t liked what I’d had to tell him — that his granddad had covered up a shooting. Cookie’s body had been taken away. Polk had told the swarm of entertainment press she’d died of natural causes.
“No one saw anything?” I asked.
“Not a chance,” he replied grimly. “Not with so many people coming and going. Plus the door at the end of the hall by her room opens directly onto the parking lot. She’d only been dead a few minutes when you got to her, too. So darned close. Now we may never know what happened.”
“We’ll know. We’ll just have to work a little harder. You find out anything?”
“I might have.” He glanced at me. “Except it goes no further than this car.”
“Agreed.”
“Your friend Pam was right. Frederick Glaze does have a rather serious … ”
“Pain in the assets?”
He nodded. “In fact, the U.S. attorney’s office has been quietly preparing to indict him.”
“For?”
“Defrauding the Internal Revenue Service. Operating an illegal tax-shelter scheme involving some fifty-eight million dollars in bogus securities trades over the past three years. The way I had it explained to me, he claimed to be trading in government securities, only there were no actual transactions. Just fictitious pieces of paper. And hundreds of thousands of dollars in illegal tax benefits for his grateful, and unwitting, investors. It seems he’s now scrambling to make good on what he owes the IRS and keep his name out of the papers and his butt out of jail. That accounts for where all of his money is going. Of course, the investors will have to pay back what they owe, too.”
“Did he drag Shenandoah’s holdings into this?”
“Some of them.”
“Did Mavis find out?”
“She found out.” The sheriff cleared his throat. “As a matter of fact, she was actively cooperating with the investigation.”
“She was willing to testify against her own brother?”
“She was indeed.”
“Hmm. Interesting, Sheriff. Who’s Frederick’s lawyer?”
Polk straightened the cuffs of his khaki shirt, not that they needed straightening. “His brother, Edward.”
“Is Edward involved in the swindle, too?”
“No, he’s clean. A conservative investor, Edward is. Just puts it in the bank. While we’re on him … ” Polk pulled a small notebook out of his shirt pocket and opened it. “He married one Danielle Giraud on August twenty-eighth, 1952 in Washington, D.C. She was attached to the French consulate. Marriage was annulled one month later. She married in ’55, had two kids. Died in ’84. Husband is still alive. A law professor, lives in Alexandria.”
“Have a phone number for him?”
“Why?”
“I happen to be a very thorough ghost,” I replied, writing it down. “Ask anyone I’ve ever worked for — if you can find one living.”
Polk leafed through his notebook. “I also rechecked the medical examiner’s report on Franklin Neene. It still turns up suicide. There was no sign of a struggle — he wasn’t conked on the head or anything. No trace of drugs in his bloodstream — other than alcohol, but not so much that he might have been unconscious at the time of his death. The amount was consistent with what he’d consumed the night before. There’s nothing to suggest it was anything other than what it appeared to be — suicide brought on by severe depression. Consequently … ”
“Agreed. We focus elsewhere.”
Polk bristled. “Who’s we?”
“You’re right, Sheriff. It’s your investigation.”
“Thank you,” he said crisply.
We sat there in silence a moment.
“Have you spoken to Polk Two?” I asked him.
He stared straight ahead out the windshield. “I’m waiting until I have more facts.”
I tugged at my ear. “Want me to do it?”
“I’ll do it,” he snapped in reply. “It’s my job and he’s my granddad. Just give me some time.”
“Okay, fine. But you’d better hurry up, Sheriff. We’re starting to run out of live bodies.”
“Darn it, Hoagy, this isn’t easy for me!” he raged. “I’m out here all alone on a shaky limb investigating people I’ve known and loved my entire life! One thing I don’t need right now is your cheap sarcasm!”
“You’re right again. Sorry, I don’t mean to be hard on you. Seeing dead people just does strange things to me. Always has. I appreciate the effort you’re making. I really do. And if Mercy survives this in one piece, I’m sure she’ll thank you, too.” I glanced over at him. He was staring grimly out at the parking lot. “Was that any better?” I asked gently.
“I’m trying, Hoagy,” he said miserably. “I’m trying real hard to like you. For Mercy’s sake. She thinks so highly of you. But it’s no use. I just plain don’t.”
“It’s okay, don’t take it so hard.” I patted him on the shoulder. “I’m used to it, pardner.”
“And don’t call me pardner!”
Polk Two had told me the Hotel Woodrow Wilson was once a fine place. It wasn’t anymore. Now it was where Staunton stashed whatever it didn’t want to look at. Its old geezers scraping by on social security. Its single mothers on welfare. Its discharged mental patients. Now it was one step up from the street, and a snort one at that. The lobby had all the ambiance and charm of the Port Authority Bus Terminal. It certainly smelled just like it. Two musty old guys were dozing on a torn, green vinyl sofa. A gaunt, toothless black woman was screaming at her three dirty kids at the elevator. Signs were taped up all over the wall behind the reception desk. No credit. No overnight guests. No pets. No loitering.
The clerk was a thirtyish weasel with slicked-back black hair, sallow skin, and sneaky eyes. He looked down at Lulu, then up at me. “Can’t you read?” he sneered. “No animals.”
“They let you in here, didn’t they?” I said pleasantly.
He curled his lip at me. “What are you — some kind of bad dude?”
“I like to think I am,” I replied. “But no one else seems to.”
“Well, what do you want?” he demanded coldly.
“Some information.”
“This ain’t the tourist information bureau.”
“Tell me, does it wear you down being such an asshole or does it come easily to you?”
The weasel reached under the desk and came up with a nightstick. I reached in my pocket and came up with a twenty-dollar bill. I won.
“What do you want to know about?” he asked, the bill disappearing in his palm.
“The old days. Fifty years ago.”
He yawned. “What about ’em?”
“Who worked here.”
“How should I know?”
“Are there any employment records that go back that far?”
&nb
sp; “All gone. Place has been under different ownership for years.”
“I see. Any chance someone’s still around who might remember those days?”
“Could be,” he said vaguely. He was angling for another bill.
“I already gave you twenty,” I pointed out. “And I can be back here in five minutes with Sheriff LaFoon.”
“Okay, okay,” he said quickly. “No sense being that way. I’m trying to think … ”
“Yeah, I can see that. It’s kind of like watching a Lego toy.”
“Try old Gus,” he growled. “He’s always talking about how ritzy this shithole was back before the war. He worked here, I think.”
“And where would I find Gus?”
“That’s him over there,” he said, indicating the two old guys nodding on the sofa.
One had a walker parked in front of him, the other a runny nose that was dripping freely onto his legs. “Which one?” I asked.
“The one without the walker.”
“I was afraid you were going to say that.”
I pulled a battered old armchair up in front of Gus and sat down. He stirred slightly but didn’t waken. He was a burly old man in denim overalls, a faded flannel shirt torn at the elbows, and work boots. He needed a shave. Old men don’t look hip when they’re unshaven. They look like bums.
“How’s it going, Gus?” I asked him.
He shifted on the sofa and grunted. Slowly, he opened one rheumy eye, swiped at his nose with the back of his hand. The other eye opened. I offered him my linen handkerchief. He took it and wiped his nose and his eyes with it, then carefully wadded it up and offered it back to me.
“You keep it,” I insisted. “All yours.”
His eyes focused on me for the first time. After a moment he said, “I know you. Sure I do.”
“Sure you do,” I agreed. “I used to play Smitty on the Donna Reed Show.”
“No, you didn’t.”
“Okay, you got me. I didn’t.”
“You’re Bob Dilfer’s boy,” he said, pointing a bent finger at me.
“I am not.”
“Are too. Went down to Lauderdale to work construction.”
“I did not.”
“Got married.”
“Well, that’s another story, and an ugly one.”
The Woman Who Fell From Grace Page 18
