by David Bishop
“Yes. It was the way Mr. Blackton wanted it handled. There was never any problem.”
When I had called earlier to confirm our luncheon, I had asked Mary to check on the date of the last time Garson and Clarice had come to their office for a meeting before the date Garson had been killed. It had been nine days.
We visited a bit longer, but nothing more came out of it that seemed relevant.
If Clarice had murdered Garson and had gotten away with it, she could have used her visit to Blackton’s office to salt her husband’s file with the letter typed on Garson’s typewriter. If she did, however, that would have risked it being found during the nine-day period before Garson was murdered. And, in that event, Blackton would have told Garson, who would have known the letter was a phony, and whatever followed would not have gone well for Clarice.
I had a second lunch date which started in thirty minutes, with Clarice. I walked Mary back to Blackton’s office so I could take a look at the file cabinets behind her desk. We had been gone over an hour and the cabinets had been left unlocked.
* * *
The top Clarice wore to lunch might not have gotten her a spot in a Girls Gone Wild video, but it would have gotten her an audition. I drove us north and pulled into the Marie Calendar restaurant on Candlewood in the city of Lakewood, just across the border from Long Beach.
“Have you ever eaten in a Marie Calendar’s Pie Shop?”
Clarice hadn’t, but she seemed game, so we went in. It was Saturday, and if he held to the habit he used to have, Two Dicks ate lunch there on Saturdays. It was a chance, but the worst that could happen was I’d have a pleasant lunch with Clarice in her audition outfit. There he was in a corner booth. I led Clarice over, figuring she would enjoy meeting a man with his nickname. That is, if she hadn’t already met him, which was why I had brought her.
“Hello Captain Dickson. What a surprise to see you here. May we join you?”
He looked stunned. I was like the next-to-last person in the world he expected to see, and the very last he expected to join him. That was just what I wanted. His eyes were on Clarice, which was understandable. I positioned myself to the side from where I could see both their faces at the same time.
“Ah. Sure. Please do,” Two Dicks said. Clarice slid into the oblong booth. I entered the booth from the other side to retain a view that included both of them. So far, if Clarice knew him, she wasn’t tipping it off. As for Two Dicks, his attention remained on her. Still, I couldn’t be certain if he had actually hiked in the hills he was surveying, or merely wanted to at the moment.
“What do you recommend?” I asked him.
“It’s all good. Stick a pin in the menu, you can’t go wrong.” I ordered a meatloaf sandwich on grilled Parmesan sourdough, fries and a coke when the waitress came to our table. Clarice said, “Just coffee for me.”
“I’m glad you weren’t found guilty, Mrs. Talmadge,” Two Dicks said, “but it did leave us with an unsolved case.” He smiled.
We talked about nothing in particular until our food came. Two Dicks pushed the catsup over toward me. Then he moved the real sugar to one side, and slid the small bowl that held the artificial sweetener toward Clarice.
“A few of my neighbors said the police were making inquiries,” I said to Two Dicks. “Is there anything you would like to ask me?”
“That was just routine,” he said, with a dismissive wave. “You know how that goes, Matt. That phase of the investigation is over anyway. And frankly, we have no idea where to look now. Brad Fisher’s theory about your husband being killed by someone from his past looks likely. What do you think, Mrs. Talmadge?”
“I’ve thought that all along, ever since that weird call asking for Gar.”
“You’re probably right, but that takes the case outside my jurisdiction, so I’m not sure how much more we local cops can do. I hope you understand. It’s quite possible the Long Beach Police Department may never move this one into the solved column. I don’t like admitting that, but maybe the Feds or the French police will turn up something. But then, I don’t know if they even are looking into it. I’m sorry, Ma’am.”
“I understand, Captain Dickson. Of course, I want my husband’s killer found. But nothing is going to bring Tally back, so I’ve just got to move on with my life.”
“A very healthy attitude, Mrs. Talmadge, and may I say you are looking wonderful. Hopefully, our jail was not too unpleasant.”
“Now that’s a disgusting place. The worst place I have ever been and certainly the worst place I have ever slept.”
“I am sorry. Please tell me you understand. It’s a feeble defense for the unpleasantness you endured, but we were just doing our job. Unfortunately, we don’t always get it right.”
Clarice smiled. I had left them to talk while I ate and studied their faces.
“Well, folks, I need to be getting back to work. Saturday is supposed to be a day off, but not really, civil servant and all that.” I slid out and Two Dicks exited the booth from my side. “Matt. May I call you Matt?” I nodded. “And may I add you did some nice work on this to help Brad Fisher. Our mothers are close, and so we talk. He said that I had lost a topnotch investigator. Maybe I’ve been too harsh in judging you.”
We shook hands and smiled. One of those mushy moments soaked in insincerity, and certainly nothing that altered my low opinion of the man. You know how that goes. We all need a few people we don’t like, and so when we find one who fills that need, we hang onto the sentiment. It’s one of the things that separate adults from children. Kids forgive so easily while adults are able to hold grudges.
I took Clarice home and went to my condo to call Timothy Malloy. Clarice was free in large part because of the excellent work of Timothy Malloy. I also asked if I could stop by and see him in the morning; there was something else I needed him to do.
Then I went down the hall to pet Asta and take another bike ride with Clarice.
Chapter 27
I awoke a little earlier than usual, got dressed and drove over to Timothy Malloy’s locksmith shop. I wanted Clarice followed. I wasn’t sure for how long or exactly what I would learn from doing so, but something was still amiss when it came to Clarice Talmadge.
The one thing I knew, or strongly believed, was that Clarice and Chief of Detectives Richard Dickson had known each other before I introduced them at the restaurant. They had both performed the, glad-to-meet-you bit, but Two Dicks had tipped it off by knowing she used artificial sweetener. He had not only moved the regular sugar to get to the fake stuff, he spun the little bowl around so that the pink packets, not the yellow packets, were facing toward her. He knew that’s what she used. That’s why I had brought them together without their knowledge. To look for some little tell, and the sweetener had been their tell. Suspects will ad lib the big stuff, stage it for your viewing pleasure. It’s the little stuff they aren’t paying all that much attention to that reveals the lies. Things they do without forethought.
Without a doubt, Clarice and Two Dicks had performed for me. Could Clarice have killed Garson with help from Two Dicks? Or, had he simply been another bed coup for Clarice? And, from his side of it, he didn’t want it out that the department’s chief of detectives had done the pelvic polka with a suspected murderess. Then again, maybe the thinking was that Dickson could help Clarice someway. Spoil a key piece of evidence, whatever. The only thing certain, there was something connecting them, and I had to fill in the center of that something.
Malloy couldn’t handle the tail job himself, but he stepped up to quarterback the team. One of the men who worked in his shop was an ex-con. Timothy said the man could be relied on. I figured Tim would know, and a tail job doesn’t require much more than staying with the target and taking plenty of pictures. Malloy said he would set it up and act as a go between, so his man would never know my identity. I would get the reports and pictures through Malloy.
* * *
Brad expected that once the dust settled around Garson�
�s estate, that Clarice, Susan, and Charles would each get a little more than five million dollars. I suggested he interface with Blackton to assure that Camille Trenet would get her subsistence money, with the three-way split being calculated after that had been allowed for.
I couldn’t let go of the case until it played out, but I was still a writer and I needed to somehow schedule enough time to get back to that work. I wanted my next mystery to be released as an e-book and in paperback in four months, and I still had about twenty pages to write. Then the rewrites and editing and the all-important readings from a few trusted friends who have a good ear for dialogue and a good mind for plot. Friends who would tell me the truth about what they liked and didn’t, and why.
After two days of dawn-to-dusk writing, I typed THE END. As a reward I called Susan to invite her out to dinner the next night. She was scheduled to work at the gentlemen’s club, but she said she could switch and take the lunch shift and be free for dinner.
“Most of the girls prefer working evenings; the tips are bigger. Come there about seven. I’ll be done and ready to go. Come fifteen minutes sooner if you’d like to catch my last performance.” I suspected in part she wanted to see how I’d handle myself.
* * *
I got to Susan’s club ten minutes before seven. Susan was on stage finishing her last performance, or exhibition, or number. I had no idea what time on the pole was called. When the applause died down, she slipped her arms into a thin robe of sorts and came over.
“I’m glad you don’t frequent these clubs, Matt.”
“Who says I don’t?”
“I can tell.”
We talked through dinner and then moved outside to a couple of chairs that looked out toward the Long Beach pier. We had an after-dinner drink, then another. I enjoyed her company and followed her lead. She never brought up Charles, Clarice, Garson or his murder.
On the way back to her place, she said, “I appreciated our not talking about the case.”
“I just figured you weren’t ready, and if you were you’d bring it up.”
“You try to hide it, but you’re a sensitive man, Matthew Kile. I admire that. I know you’ve been spending time with Clarice, and that you’re okay with that because you’re convinced she’s not guilty. Frankly, I agree with that assessment. But, still, when you are similarly convinced of my innocence, I’d like a chance to compete for your attentions. Is that too forward and plainspoken of me?”
“No ma’am; I’m flattered. But at the risk of ruining the impression you just said I made, I’d like to ask your opinion on a loose end in the case. Okay?”
“Go ahead.”
“If you didn’t know it, attorney Blackton told us that Clarice came to his office whenever Garson met with the attorney, but that she stayed in the waiting room. That fits because you told me Garson did not include Clarice in his business or investment discussions. So, why did Clarice go along to those meetings? I mean, she just sat in the lobby and waited. That can’t be fun.”
“On those days, Papa and Clarice would go to a little diner on Atlantic Boulevard for hamburgers, and to split a piece of peanut butter pie.”
“I know the place, Russell’s. It’s famous for its pies. When did they start going there?”
“Almost a year ago. Clarice found it one day and suggested she go with Papa to his next meeting with Blackton whose office is just a few blocks from the restaurant. It became a thing they did … Is there anything else, Mr. Kile?”
“I’m sorry if I ruined the mood. I really am. It just didn’t make sense to come back in an hour or tomorrow morning to ask you that.”
“I understand,” she said, “I’m just sick about all this. I want it over. I mean I want Papa’s killer found, certainly. I don’t know what is in the future for us, but I’d like to get on with finding out, but we can’t because this case is a wall between us, and I don’t like that.”
“I feel the same way. Goodnight.”
I watched Susan walk up to her second floor unit. When she got there, she turned and we swapped smiles.
On the way back to my place, Timothy Malloy called. His man had something and Malloy would have it for me by morning. His man had said it was a real zinger.
Chapter 28
I met Malloy for breakfast at a small local café well known for their breakfasts. The manager gave us a private corner booth.
“I do the lock work here,” Tim said. “They know me.” Then he slid a big envelope my way, manila with a metal clasp at the top. The glue swatch hadn’t been sealed but the wings of the clasp had been spread to hold the envelope closed. I pulled out the contents, a stack of maybe six or eight photographs. As I looked through them, Tim said, “It’s one of them you-lock-it-you-store-it places over near Signal Hill.”
The first photograph showed Clarice unlocking storage unit number seventeen. From the row of similar doors that I could see in the first picture, seventeen looked about the size of a bedroom closet in a tract house. The next picture showed Clarice relocking the padlock on the door, but coming out she had a modestly bulky package under her arm. Tim’s man knew his craft. The camera he used had put a date and time stamp on each picture. Clarice had been in the unit about twenty minutes. There were several more photographs, each taken with precise timing to clearly show her face or whatever else the picture was designed to reveal. The next picture showed her coming out of building four which housed unit seventeen. The last two showed Clarice in her car, stopped at the curb cut from the parking lot, glancing west through the driver’s window. The second showed the license plate on the rear of her car.
“Did your man see anything that suggested what she had stored, or what she had brought out of Unit seventeen?”
“Not his job,” Malloy said. Then he dropped a key on top of the envelope, much like one might toss a chip into a poker pot. I looked at him without saying anything. My face must have said what I was thinking, “What’s this?”
“He took close-ups of the padlock; I went by early this morning. This key will open the lock.”
“Is your man expecting to be paid?”
“Hey. What makes the world goes round? Of course, but he works for me and did it during his shift.”
I took two hundreds from my wallet and tossed them over to Tim. “Here’s a tip, pass it on. He did a fine job. Thank you, Tim. Can I pay you?”
“Don’t insult me, Matt.”
“Then we’re square. You don’t owe me anything more. Next time, if there is a next time, I pay.”
“Like hell. What little I’ve done doesn’t cover you saving me three to five years of my life. Not to mention my being able to keep the cash I got out of the safe, along with the plans for the jewelry store heist. If it wasn’t for you, I’d have been in jail and never been able to go legit and buy my shop.”
“Likewise, if it weren’t for you, the jewelry job would have never been solved, and those two murderers would still be on the street. All that sounds pretty even to me.”
Tim got out of the booth. While he did, I grabbed the check. He smiled. “Okay, Matt. Thanks for breakfast.”
On the way back to my place which, as you know, is down the hall from Clarice’s condo, I thought about the various ways to play it. I could burgle her place while she was out. Tim had given me one of two keys he had made prior to entering the Talmadge condo while I had been in France. In the alternative, I could confront her. By the time I pulled into the underground parking garage, I hadn’t made up my mind about anything except, for now, there would be no more bike riding with Clarice.
* * *
An hour after getting home, I still hadn’t decided how to play it with Clarice. I needed to know what she had taken out of storage unit seventeen. I drove to the storage facility, parked, walked into building four, unlocked unit seventeen, turned on the inside light and closed the door.
Unit seventeen was empty except for two cardboard boxes, regular storage boxes like what would be used to store office files. There w
as one word written on the outside of each box: video on one box and audio on the other. I opened the one labeled video. Inside were about a dozen tapes. Like the boxes, the tapes each had a label with one word: a man’s name. I thumbed through them and found one with my name. Two video tapes said Blackton. The label on the next read Dickson, in fact there were four labeled Dickson. Five other tapes had the names of men who lived in our building. I had no video player with me, but I felt certain these videos were not from birthday parties.
The box labeled audio held several dozen audio tapes but they had no names, only dates or ranges of dates.
I took both boxes with me and drove home. As I drove, I wondered if Clarice might have killed Garson and used a compromising tape with Garson’s attorney, Blackton, to get him to salt his file with a letter Clarice, not Garson, had typed. She had access to Garson’s typewriter. And, I was assuming the two videos gave her big-time leverage over Sidney Blackton, a married man. That would explain Blackton’s nervousness when Brad and I met with him and got the letter. Blackton admitted his staff had screwed up, but that didn’t explain his heightened case of nerves. I had sort of blown it off at the time as Blackton being a little embarrassed and a lot wimpy. But attorneys deal with tense and difficult situations regularly, so his behavior had seemed over the top.
Could Clarice have been that diabolical? She filmed herself seducing her husband’s attorney and then killed her husband, setting up the murder scene so it pointed at her enough to get her arrested and charged. Then used films of her trysts with the attorney to set up a scenario under which she would be released. And, let us not forget, she also had films of her seductions of Two Dicks in case she might later need the department’s chief of detectives to do whatever to further weaken the case against her.
It all fit. It was all brilliant. And it was definitely diabolical. And if true, I had jumped into her plan to help out by using Malloy to prove someone else could have gotten inside the Talmadge condo.
