by P. J. Conn
"You'll like Mary Margaret, and she's helping me with your sister's case."
"Oh, well, then, I guess if she knows about it, I could come along."
Joe had a difficult time thinking of this shy young man as Alice's kin. Apparently she's inherited the lion's share of looks and charm in the family.
He drove with Max to the hospital and left the car to greet Mary Margaret.
He kissed her cheek and whispered, "I've invited Cookie's brother to join us for dinner. He believes she was a waitress, don't tell him otherwise."
"Are you kidding?"
"No, I'm not. Please be as sweet as I know you can be. Cookie's name was Alice. Remember to call her that."
Swept along, Mary Margaret didn't argue, but when Max Reyes stepped out and insisted she ride in the front seat, she understood Joe's concern. "I'm so sorry for your loss. Brothers and sisters share a special bond, and I know you'll always miss Alice."
Tears filled Max's eyes, and he quickly brushed them away. "Thank you, but rather than sympathy, what I really need is help to solve Alice's murder."
"We're working on it," she assured him. "You're too tall to ride in the back. Please take the front seat." She slipped into the backseat before he could argue. "Have you two decided where we're going?"
Joe waited for Max to get into the car before he climbed in behind the wheel. "What do you feel like Max, barbecue or hamburgers?" Joe asked.
"We have plenty of barbecue restaurants back home, but if that's what you want, it's fine with me."
Mary Margaret leaned forward to give Joe's shoulder a squeeze. "Let's go to the Jumpin' Plate."
Max looked over his shoulder at her, and she smiled invitingly. "They have the best hamburgers, and their onion rings are beyond description. Do you like them?"
"I'm more of a French fry man myself," Joe interjected.
"Me too," Max offered.
* * *
The Jumpin' Plate had a homey décor reminiscent of a grandmother's kitchen. The walls were a pale blue, and the chairs had thick cushions covered in blue and white gingham. The paper placemats showed colorful farm scenes. It was a popular restaurant with families as well as couples on dates.
They were shown to a half-circle booth, and Mary Margaret slid over the blue vinyl seat into the middle. The waitress was a petite blonde named Sonia who rattled off the day's special: a hamburger patty smothered in chili and cheese.
"Give us a minute, please," Mary Margaret asked.
"Sure, take your time, honey. We want everyone to be deliriously happy with their dinner." She walked away in a bouncy strut.
Max watched her. "I don't believe I'll be 'deliriously happy' ever again. Isn't that a bit much to expect from a hamburger?"
Mary Margaret patted his arm. "It certainly is, but you need to eat. Aren't you hungry?"
He studied his menu hurriedly as though preparing for a pop quiz. "I can't remember eating today, so I guess I must be."
"I like the old-fashioned cheeseburger with onion rings," she said.
Joe nodded. "Always a good choice, but tonight I'm going with the bacon bleu cheese burger and fries."
Max closed his menu with a fast slap. "I'll have that too."
Sonia came back to take their orders and quickly returned with coffee for Mary Margaret and Joe and a chocolate milkshake for Max. "Your order will be up in just a minute."
"We're in no hurry," Joe assured her.
Mary Margaret spoke before the silence at the table grew awkward. "Tell us something about what you do at home, Max. Are you working or in school?"
"This is my last year of high school, but I have an excuse to miss classes for a week or two. I work on the weekends at a body shop. I'm good at pounding out dents if not much else."
She shot Joe a quick frantic glance. "I thought you were older. It must be your height that fooled me."
"I'm eighteen. I could have joined the Navy at seventeen, but it was too late to get into the war so I figured I might as well wait and join later. That was my plan until this awful thing happened to Alice. Now I'd hate to leave Mom alone. That just doesn't seem right."
Max appeared to be a real responsible soul with a well-developed sense of what was right and wrong, and Joe hoped he could get him on his way home before he learned the truth about his sister. At the same time, guilt ate at him for not revealing it.
"I'm sure your mother is proud of you, but it's better to find your own way rather than live to please her," Joe advised.
"Alice was always her favorite, and Mom believed she'd be a big star so she didn't mind her coming out to Hollywood. Now she's blaming herself for not moving to California to look after her." He leaned back as Sonia served his plate. His eyes widened at the size of the bacon bleu cheese burger and the veritable mountain of fries. He grabbed for one. "These are good."
"Of course they are, honey," Sonia exclaimed. "This is the Jumpin' Plate, and everything that comes out of our kitchen is the best you'll ever eat."
Max took a bite of his burger rather than reply. He'd not realized how hungry he was until he had the delicious burger in his hands. "I'm sorry, I don't mean to eat too fast. My mom always tells me not to gobble my food, but this is awfully good."
"Go ahead and gobble," Mary Margaret urged. "It's encouraged here." She reached for an onion ring. "I keep saying I'm going to fry up some of these myself, but haven't gotten around to it yet."
The background conversation provided a cheerful hum and tunes from the "Your Hit Parade" radio show added a musical lilt. It was a wonderful dinner, but Joe kept worrying about their young guest. He had assumed Max was of age, but an eighteen-year-old kid wasn't prepared to think or act like an adult.
When Max finished his dinner down to the last French fry and sip of milkshake, Mary Margaret and Joe had barely begun eating. "Would you like to order another burger?" she asked. "Or maybe you'd like pie. They have a wonderful selection here."
Max's shiny plate looked as though it had been licked clean. "No, I'm stopping here." He sat back and smiled for the first time that evening. "Thank you. It was a really good dinner. Are there lots of these places?"
"No, this is the one and only Jumpin' Plate," Joe answered. "It's so popular, one day they might expand."
"I like to cook, but running a restaurant must take an awful lot of work and plenty of money."
Mary Margaret assured him it must. "I also love to cook, but I want to keep it fun. I'm happy being a nurse for the time being."
"Aren't you sad when people die?"
"Yes, but there's really no time to grieve when the other patients deserve our best care. We have to simply press on, be as cheerful as we can possibly be, and cry at home."
"Alice wanted to be an actress to make people happy. Do you suppose I could meet her agent, Mr. Ezell, Joe?"
Joe hadn't expected his request, and it threw him for a moment. "His name is Archibald Sutton, and I planned to see him this week. To get people to talk, I must often pretend to be something I'm not. He believes I'm an actor looking for movie roles. I told him I knew your sister, so you could come with me. To encourage him to talk, you might have to convince him you're also looking for acting work."
Max drew in a deep breath. "Lie to him, you mean?"
"Oh, not at all," Mary Margaret insisted. "It's undercover work, what detectives do all the time. Joe is working on your sister's case, and any ploy he has to use to discover the truth is acceptable."
The young man looked decidedly skeptical. "Couldn't I just be Alice's brother who's come from Kansas City?"
"Yes, if you'd feel more comfortable with that. I hope Mr. Sutton has remembered something more than what he told me about Alice the first time we spoke. Sometimes the smallest crumb of information can lead to the solution of a crime." He pulled a business card from his wallet and handed it to Max.
"Call me in the morning, and we'll make our plans then."
"Fine, but I don't mean to make trouble for you."
"Yo
u're no trouble at all," Joe responded. He savored the rest of his hamburger and hoped he could keep Max from discovering too much tomorrow.
Mary Margaret held her tongue until after they'd dropped Max in front of his sister's apartment building, and then she moved to the front seat and got straight to the point. "It isn't right not to tell him Alice stripped for a living. It has to be central to the crime, doesn't it?"
"It is, but he's just a big kid, Mary Margaret, not someone with your experience of the world."
"That really isn't the point. You should sit him down and explain the facts before he stumbles across them. What if there's another article in the LA Times about Cookie Crumble?"
"He wouldn't recognize the name. I know, this will probably blow up in my face, but I don't want to damage his sister's memory. It won't hurt him not to know how popular Cookie Crumble was, and he'd be embarrassed clear down to his toenails if he knew. He'd surely hide it from his mother and suffer for keeping the secret from her."
"Oh, all right, have it your way, but you better hope he's leaving town real soon."
"I'll hold that thought."
* * *
Joe picked up his photographs from the camera shop and called Archibald Sutton as soon as he'd sat down at his desk. "I want to come in this morning and bring Alice Reyes's brother with me. He's a sweet kid and doesn't know anything about Cookie Crumble. Can you help me keep that a secret?"
"Sure, I got it. Mum's the word."
Max called Joe around ten o'clock, and Joe picked him up for the drive to Archibald Sutton's office. He'd thought he'd cleared the way with the agent, but he'd forgotten about his vivacious secretary.
Charlotte rose to greet them. "You're Cookie's brother? You look nothing like her, but you're the type needed for war films, isn't he, Mr. Ezell? There's always a kid everyone looks after."
"I'm Max Reyes, Alice's brother, but who's Cookie?"
"Cookie Crumble, that was Alice's stage name," Charlotte explained. "You didn't know she used it?"
"We're in a hurry," Joe interjected. "Would you please see if Mr. Sutton could speak to us now?"
"Sure thing." She knocked on her boss's door and ushered them in.
Archibald took a long look at Max. "You're Alice's brother? Glad to meet you. You'd also be perfect for the cast of the war film I'm sending Joe on. You have that gangly kid look, and it's in high demand. Do you have acting experience, son?"
Max appeared more startled than flattered. "I've been in school plays, but I came with Joe to see if you remembered anything more about my sister. Cookie Crumble doesn't sound like a serious name for an actress. Didn't she plan to go by Alice?"
"Yes, of course she did." He sent Joe a questioning glance.
Joe shook his head and handed the agent his photos. "Max is hoping his sister's murder can be solved while he's in town."
Archibald gestured for them to sit and hurriedly went through Joe's photographs. "These are terrific. I like the scowl, that's good. No one would be smiling through a battle scene. As for Alice, our relationship was strictly professional. I didn't know her as well as the girls at Sherry's must."
Sherry's wasn't somewhere Joe wanted mentioned, and he slid down in his chair. "I'm sure the police must have questioned them. Haven't they been here?"
"Oh yes, they've been here. A Detective Lynch, the guy knows how to dress, but that's the only nice thing I'll say about him. He thought I might have arranged more than movie roles for Alice. My agency is on the up and up. He should have known my reputation before he came here."
"What did he accuse you of?" Max asked, his features crimped into a puzzled frown.
The agent leaned back in his chair. "How should I put this? There are places that provide pretty girls for parties. They might call themselves starlets, but they haven't done anything more challenging than a lingerie ad for Frederick's of Hollywood. I was working on getting Alice a role in a fine movie people would be eager to see. However, no one is getting any work sitting here in my office. Did you bring the contract, Joe?"
"I did, but my attorney advised against signing on for three years."
"Oh great, like lawyers know anything about show business. What did he recommend?"
Joe spoke his first thought. "Six months. Then if you're getting me lots of work, I'll sign on for a year."
Archibald drew in a deep breath. "Oh, all right, but I'm only doing this because I know I can get you plenty of work. Don't tell anyone else that we made this deal. Understood?" He took the contract and wrote in the new six-month limit for Joe to sign. He handed Joe his copy of the contract, his photos and a notepaper with a typed address.
"Take these with you and see the casting director, Charlie Goode. You go along Max, because he's likely to hire you too."
Archibald shook their hands, and Joe got them out of the office as fast as he could. "I'm sorry we didn't learn anything useful."
"Yeah, it's a shame. Aren't we going on the audition?" Max asked.
Joe had promised Mary Margaret he'd go, and it would distract Max from pursuing the Cookie Crumble alias. "If you'd like to go, we will. They'll probably treat us as though we're as insensitive as department store mannequins, but actors grow thick skins. Can you handle the rejection if they tell us we're not what they want for the parts?"
"But Mr. Stafford said they'd like us."
The kid looked as though he'd be crushed if they weren't hired. "Of course he did, but that's his job, and it doesn't mean it will be true."
"He just wants us to like him?"
"Exactly," Joe agreed. "He wants the actors who sign with him to believe with his representation they'll get a big break soon."
"Didn't he mean it with Alice?"
"I'm sure he did." Joe checked the casting director's address and tried not to laugh out loud as they checked in at his office. He couldn't see himself as a serious actor, but a case was a case, and he threw himself into solving it.
Chapter 6
Charlie Goode was a balding, overweight man, and the suspenders holding up his baggy trousers were extended to the very last inch. A smoldering cigar hung from his lips and kept his office in a perpetual smoky haze.
Joe took an immediate dislike to the man. Unfortunately, Charlie took one look at them and beamed widely showing off a mouthful of yellow teeth. "Archibald told me you two were exactly what I wanted. Did I believe him? No, of course not, but you two fit half the roles I have open today. I assume you can read?"
"Fluently," Joe promised.
Max shrugged. "Sure, learned how in the first grade."
Charlie shuffled through the scripts on his desk to find the pages he wanted. "Take a chair. Here, you play the sergeant's part, and you're the private, kid. You've been cut-off from the rest of your platoon, and things look grim."
"How grim?" Max asked.
"Just read. You won't die here in my office," Charlie chuckled to himself.
Joe scanned the pages they'd been given, and when Max looked up, he began. "Keep your head down, Rogers. We don't want the lieutenant believing I can't keep my men alive. Besides, your body would be too damn heavy to carry."
"You could drag me by the boots, sergeant, that's what I'd do with you." Max laughed and looked up. "Do soldiers dare talk like that to a sergeant?"
"Just read the part, kid," Charlie encouraged.
"I'd hate to bounce you along," Joe read. "It might spoil your looks."
"Can't spoil looks as good as mine." Max couldn't help but laugh now.
It worked to Joe's advantage. "I warned you too late. You must have already sustained a head wound." He was actually getting into the part, and Max sounded convincing as well. When they'd finished the pages they'd been given, they waited for Charlie to respond.
Charlie picked up his pencil and made some quick notations. "You've got the parts as far as I'm concerned, but the director will want to see you this afternoon at MGM."
"That's a big studio," Max exclaimed.
"Where are you fr
om, kid? West side of the sticks?" Charlie asked.
"That's uncalled for," Joe warned. "If he's right for the part, it shouldn't matter where he's from."
"Well, excuse me," Charlie shot back at him. "It was a rhetorical question, not meant as an insult." He wrote the director's name and told them to call him from the gate. "I'll let him know you're coming."
Joe stood, but Max stayed seated. "How does the scene end?"
Charlie rolled his eyes. "This is a war movie and soldiers get killed. The sergeant is protecting the private, see, but he's the one who is shot, and the private picks up his body and carries him away in his arms. There shouldn't be a dry eye in the theater."
"That's good to know," Joe responded. "Let's go."
"Now I wish I hadn't asked," Max admitted once outside Charlie's office.
"You would have read the script before the scene was filmed, so it wouldn't have come as a surprise," Joe pointed out.
"Maybe not, but that's just sad, you know?"
"Of course, it's sad. That's the whole point of the scene, to tug on people's hearts. For some reason, people love to cry in movies. Don't ask me why."
"Well, at least I didn't get killed, you did."
"Only on paper." Joe took Max to lunch at a deli with low prices and huge sandwiches. He hoped to keep Max eating until he forgot all about his sister having used a most peculiar stage name. He failed.
"Why didn't you tell me Alice called herself Cookie Crumble?" Max asked. He'd eaten half his pastrami sandwich on rye and paused to take a long drink of his soda. "That's an awfully silly name, isn't it?"
"Do you really want to be in a movie?" Joe asked.
"Sure, but what's that got to do with it?"
"Let's finish lunch, go talk to the director at MGM and then talk about Cookie."
"Like she was a separate person from Alice?"
"Yes, you could look at it that way. Now eat. I want to buzz through MGM and get back to my office."
Max finished his sandwich, but he kept eyeing Joe as though he could see something he'd previously missed. "I may be from the west side of the sticks, but I'm not stupid."
"Certainly not. If you're finished, let's go." He turned up the radio in his Chevy sedan to discourage conversation and headed down Washington Boulevard to the MGM studios in Culver City. It was a huge facility that turned out a film every week. They were waved through the gate and given directions to the director's office.
