Hollywood Heat

by Arlette Lees

  “So, whoever shot him isn’t the one who torched the car.”

  “That would be my opinion.”

  “Does Mrs. Chase have family in the area?”

  “Her parents are missionaries. They’re up the Amazon teaching the savages not to eat one other.”

  “They could have done that right here in L.A.”

  * * * * * * *

  Tug went up the stairs to the Adler house while Hallinan brooded in the car. When he came back down, he said nothing had changed. No ransom calls had come in and a search party was scheduled for the morning. Hallinan handed his partner the stack of flyers.

  “I’ll get the media on it in the morning,” said Tug. “Let me drive you to the E.R. I’ll find a way to get your car back to the house.”

  “I’m fine to drive.”

  “It’s your funeral.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  OUTCAST

  Late New Year’s Day, Libra Gordy drove her motor home onto a bridle trail at the eastern end of Griffith Park. The rain had stopped, but the trees still dripped a liquid gold, backlit by a winter sunset. Libra was not beautiful by typical Hollywood standards, but she had a warm earthy appeal, a sturdy build with light freckled skin, a bushel-basket of curly red hair and friendly brown eyes.

  Her stepfather, Steven Bannister, had died on the last Monday in December. Her stepbrother, Reginald, inherited the Beverly Hills estate, and stepsister, Sybil, the Arrowhead lodge. Libra received the deed to a piece of property her late mother had brought into the marriage, and a monthly stipend just large enough to keep the wolf from the door. She was told the property bordered the Mojave Desert in a place called Willow Shade outside Dry Rock.

  Libra’s mother had died years before, and her biological father was blowing in the wind. All her mother remembered was that he had a dog named Harry and an old Ford…or was it a Chevy? She denied that it was a one-night stand. It was at least two nights and no one was standing. Her mom was trying to be funny, but it wasn’t enough for a kid who’d wanted some real answers.

  Libra had returned from Steven’s funeral as the locksmith was leaving the Beverly Hills estate. Her stepsiblings had left her the registration and keys to the motor home, with the proviso she vacate the property within twenty-four hours. The vehicle was packed with her possessions and a box of books from Steven’s library. None of this came as a surprise. She didn’t like them. They didn’t like her. They didn’t even like one another. To be free of the Bannister family was Steven’s parting gift.

  Libra had seen a lot of disappointment in her twenty-three years. When she became pregnant at sixteen, her boyfriend, handsome Denny Sunquist, was sent away to a military academy, where he died of appendicitis six months later. She was sent to The Catholic Home for Delinquent and Wayward Girls, just north of the Mexican border. Delinquent translated to ‘pregnant and unwed.’ Her only crime was falling in love and going too far.

  The day after her little girl was born, Libra was told the child had died during the night. It had to be a lie. The Home was a baby-brokerage where mothers were young and helpless, and newborns went to the highest bidder. Someone had her child. They would be rich, married, and Catholic. She looked for her in every face of every child she saw.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  THE HOSPITAL

  As Hallinan sat in the E.R., the double doors flew open and a gurney squeaked into the room.

  “We got a bleeder,” shouted one of the attendants. “We applied a tourniquet, but I think he exsanguinated at the scene.”

  A doctor rushed over. ”Looks like a bullet severed the femoral artery,” he said. He pressed a stethoscope to the man’s chest.

  “I wouldn’t go to any extreme measures on his behalf,” said Hallinan.

  “Who are you?” asked the doctor, taking a pen light from his pocket.

  “Lieutenant Rusty Hallinan, L.A.P.D.”

  The doctor lifted the patient’s eyelids one at a time and pierced the pupils with a stiletto of light. “Fixed and dilated,” he said. “You have something to do with this man’s condition?”

  “I thought I missed. Guess it’s my lucky day.”

  “You are one cold bastard, Hallinan.”

  “He left a fourteen-year-old girl raped, beaten, and bound to a bed at The Crown Royale, selling her to all comers for three bucks a pop. You tell me who the cold bastard is.”

  The doctor ignored him. “Where did you find him?” he said, turning to the attendants.

  “A woman found him in her backyard when her dog wouldn’t stop barking.”

  “Any I.D?”

  “Nothing on him.”

  “His name is Geraldo “Lobo” Calderone,” said Hallinan. “His life’s journey is recorded on a rap sheet about three feet long. His family’s written him off, so I guess that makes me next of kin.”

  “You micks have a sick sense of humor.” He nodded to the attendants. “He’s dead. Take him to the cooler.”

  * * * * * * *

  “Well, my man, you did it this time,” said Dr. Moisha Levinson, Rusty’s orthopedic surgeon. He palpated the crushed pulp that was once a functional knee. “Leave it to you to finish the job the Japs started.”

  “Would you stop poking at it?” Having returned from x-ray, Rusty sat on a cold exam table in a too-small hospital gown that, like all hospital gowns, did not close properly in the back unless you were the size of a broomstick.

  “We’ll have to move your surgery date up. It’s not just the shrapnel. You have a badly torn meniscus.”

  “Meniscus?”

  “Cartilage. Puppet strings. Keeps joints from falling apart.” Levinson opened his autoclave and with gloved fingers selected a syringe the size of a rolling pin.

  “What’s that for?”

  “I’m going to aspirate fluid from the joint to relieve the pressure. It’ll build up again, so I want you to call my office in the morning, and make an appointment for Wednesday. Then we’ll set a surgery date.”

  “Can’t be done, doc. I’m in the middle of a case.”

  Levinson gave Hallinan an incredulous look. “Everyone I see is in the middle of something, Rusty. When my Aunt Fanny died, she had three pages to go in Gone with the Wind. She never got to hear Gable say he didn’t give a damn. How unfair is that?”

  “I’m serious, Moisha.”

  “Just a little prick,” said Levinson, inserting the needle. The reservoir filled with bloody fluid. Hallinan felt dizzy. Levinson withdrew the needle.

  “Any better?”

  “Not much.”

  “I’ll send you home with pain pills. Just don’t take too many.”

  “What’s too many?”

  “If you wake up in the morgue, cut the dose in half.”

  “You’re a mensch.”

  Levinson laughed. “The instructions are on the bottle.” He removed his gloves with a rubbery snap, and tossed them in the refuse container. “How’s the diet coming, old boy?”

  “My scale’s on the blink.”

  “That bad, eh? The nurse will be in to wrap the knee and bring you a set of crutches. I want you in bed until I see you on Wednesday. Give my best to Dorothy.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  CONOVER AND EDWARDS

  After the nurse supplied crutches and pills, Hallinan rode the elevator to the third floor and badged the nurse behind the desk.

  “Detective Hallinan for Amanda Chase,” he said.

  “I thought you were a patient.”

  “Just a bad day at the office.”

  She allowed herself a smile. “Room 310. Two officers are with her now. Keep it brief. The patient needs rest.”

  He crutched his way down the hall. The pervasive smell of rubbing alcohol and antiseptic triggered memories of the sweltering, bug-infested field hospital in the Philippines. At the far end of the corridor Edwards and Conover stepped into the hall and headed his way.

  “She had something to do with this,” said Conover, as they walked shoulder to shou
lder, voices lowered conspiratorially. “For the first time in his life hubby takes the station wagon. It ends up torched. He ends up with a bullet in his head. She ends up with the Mercedes.”

  “It’s a BMW. I wouldn’t let Gladys near my Chevy, and it’s got one hundred thousand miles on it.”

  “It’s the insurance angle that’s going to break this case.”

  “Ever see the movie Double Indemnity?” said Edwards. “What was Fred MacMurray’s famous line? ‘I did it for money and I did it for a woman. I didn’t get the money and I didn’t get the woman.’ Ain’t that the f-ing breaks.”

  “Hello, boys,” said Hallinan, leaning casually against the wall with a cigarette between his fingers.

  “Jesus, what are you doing here?” said Conover.

  “Visiting a sick friend.”

  “You don’t look any too healthy yourself,” he said. “What the hell happened?”

  “Remember Lobo Calderone?”

  “What, you let him get the best of you again?” snickered Edwards.

  “Only as far as the morgue. That’s where he ran out of blood.”

  Conover and Edwards had a good laugh until the nurse put a finger to her lips. It was hard to look at Edwards without staring at the oozing black mole on his chin.

  “You guys on missing persons’ detail?” said Hallinan.

  “Not since you and Boatwright got the juicy one on Fairbanks, but an H-187 fell in our laps.”

  “A homicide?”

  “Gunshot victim in Boyle Heights. He resided in Hollywood, so we’re working side by side with Hollenbeck.

  “Any promising leads?”

  “A gang of pachucos driving a stolen pickup were caught with the victim’s plate,” said Conover. “They may have done the dirty work, but we figure the wife’s behind it.”

  “How you figure that?”

  “Give us a day or two. We’re still digging.”

  “Come on,” said Edwards. “I need a brewsky. Say hi to the Tugster. And congrats on icing Calderone.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  AMANDA

  Hallinan tapped lightly on the door and swung into Amanda’s hospital room. Her bed was next to the window, her face turned toward the dark pane and the lights of the city beyond. Her hair spilled across the pillow and one slender arm rested on the white bedspread.

  “Amanda,” he said, quietly.

  She turned with a wince of discomfort. He could see she’d been crying, but she managed a smile.

  “Detective Hallinan,” she said.

  “It’s Rusty now, remember? How are you feeling?”

  “I’ll be fine. My condition isn’t considered a medical emergency.”

  He arranged her pillow so she could sit up. She smelled like rain-washed flowers, and the soft gold highlights in her hair made you want to touch it. He leaned his crutches against the wall and sat in the chair at the head of the bed.

  She looked at his bandaged knee. “What happened?”

  “An old injury’s all.”

  “It must be painful.”

  “No, I’m fine. I borrowed your keys and checked out the BMW. There’s no reason it can’t be driven.”

  “That’s all the more bewildering.”

  Hallinan leaned forward. “Do you have any idea who might have wanted your husband dead?”

  “He had no enemies, but that doesn’t explain why he was in Boyle Heights. We don’t know anyone there. I hope you’re involved in the investigation.”

  “I’m assigned to Missing Persons, but that doesn’t mean I can’t keep my ear to the ground.”

  “I’d appreciate that. They’re releasing me tomorrow. I’m dying to go home and sleep in my own bed.”

  “Will you let me drive you home?”

  “I’m shameless, but if you didn’t offer, I was going to ask. I’ll be ready to go around ten.

  “You know Rusty, I feel like I’m living a chapter from somebody else’s life. I want my own life back, the one with a husband and a baby on the way.”

  * * * * * * *

  Hallinan parked the Buick at the curb and sat looking at his house. With no light in the windows and no Beezer yapping excitedly and waiting to savage his shoe laces, it took on an abandoned air. Hallinan was the kind of man who needed someone to take care of. It’s the way his dad was, the way he was raised; he had just never felt it so acutely until now. He’d wanted to take care of Dorothy, but she did a very good job of taking care of herself.

  As Hallinan inserted the key in the front door, he felt a crunch beneath his feet. He pulled the pen light from his pocket and cast the beam downward. He stood in a puddle of raw eggs. The gluey mess stuck to the threshold, yolks hardening on the screen door. He was puzzled for a moment, then a smile crept across his face.

  Dorothy. The switched locks.

  “Gotcha!” he laughed.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  A NIGHT IN THE RAIN

  Daisy should have listened to Mom and let Teddy come back in the morning, but Sigrid put out cat food and that changed everything. A painfully thin coyote cleaned out the dish. When she rattled the French door, the animal dropped to its haunches, overturned the water bowl and vanished into the night.

  She was about to crawl back in bed when Teddy appeared on the patio. When she called him, he scampered up the path behind the house. “You little monster!” she scolded. “Now you’re in for it.” A coyote had killed the next door neighbor’s cat and she didn’t want anything to happen to Teddy even if he did deserve it.

  Daisy ran across the patio and scrambled up the path. She should have put on her robe, but she’d be back inside in a second or two. When she got to the top of the hill Teddy was nowhere to be seen. She took a few small detours into the chaparral but soon her teeth were chattering. Something bigger than a cat rustled the bushes beside the path and she started back toward the house.

  She climbed to the top of the rise and looked down at the pink house. No light came from the windows. No voices. No laughter. Strange, how things didn’t look quite the same as they had before. In fact, there was no house. There was nothing but an empty hillside.

  She couldn’t be that far from home. She’d simply got turned around. Daisy called for Mom. She called for Sigrid. She felt in the pocket of her nightgown and her good-luck money was gone. For the first time in her life no one came running when she started to cry.

  While the moon was high, she began picking her way through the underbrush, hoping to find the path to the house. She’d been walking aimlessly for hours when the storm rolled in. She was dripping wet when she finally found a cavity beneath a rock ledge. Inside were empty beer cans, Chinese food cartons, and a discarded tablecloth. She wrapped the tablecloth around her and spent the night shivering and listening to the rain.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  DOROTHY

  Hallinan was asleep when the key clicked in the front door and a cold draft whispered through the bedroom curtains. It wasn’t until the bed jiggled and a cold, wet nose pressed against his eyelid that he woke laughing. He was looking into the face of a little dog with big bright eyes and enormous bat ears.

  “Beezer!” he said, as the rambunctious chihuahua raced around the bed, jumping from pillow to pillow. He dove beneath the covers and began nibbling Hallinan’s toes with his sharp teeth. Unable to endure the toe-torture, he tossed back the covers and eased his legs over the edge of the bed. Beezer jumped up, licking and nipping his chin. Hallinan swept him into his arms and gave his sturdy little body an affectionate squeeze.

  “I missed you too, buddy,” he said, planting a kiss on Beezer’s knobby head. A clatter came from the kitchen accompanied by the slamming of cupboard doors.

  “Oh, oh! Sounds like Cruella has arrived.”

  He pulled himself to his feet and hopped to the bathroom, Beezer’s toenails clicking on the hardwood as he pranced in circles. Hallinan brushed his teeth and ran a wet comb through his hair. In ten minutes he was dressed and downstairs, leav
ing his crutches behind. He leaned against the kitchen door frame, his weight on his good leg.

  “Dorothy, what a surprise.” She looked up from her crouched position, pulling pots and pans out of the bottom cupboard. “I must have missed the call announcing your arrival.”

  “Don’t be sarcastic,” she said, slamming the lid on a pot and dropping it into an already loaded cardboard box. “Switching the locks was a clever move.”

  “I thought so. You must have come to clean the eggs off my porch.”

  “I’m sorry about that. I was having a bad day. My housekeeper is coming to clean up the mess.” Beezer pawed at his dish, dancing and whining. Hallinan reached for the bag of dog food.

  “He’s eaten. If there’s one thing I can’t stand it’s a fat dog,” said Dorothy.

  Hallinan bent over and filled the bowl. “It’s my house and my dog. Why are you here?” he said, as Beezer dove into his kibbles, scattering half of them across the floor.

  “Monty’s kitchen is sadly ill-equipped. I’m taking the copper pans and leaving you the stainless steel.” She loaded the last of the cookware and wobbled slightly on her high heels as she pulled herself up. He instinctively touched her elbow to steady her ascent. “I hope you’ve given some thought to those papers, Rusty. You can make this easy or hard, but it’s going to happen either way.”

  “You caught me off guard, Dorothy…your leaving me, I mean.”

  “Then you’re less observant than I thought you were.” She paused and softened her voice. “Please, just sign the papers.” For a split second her brittle façade cracked and he saw genuine sadness beneath it.

  “Okay, I’ll have a talk with Father Pat at St. Francis,” he said. “You know how I feel about divorce.”

  “That celibate old goat!” she said, brushing away an angry tear. “You already know what he’s going to say.”

  “You’re not the only one with a reputation to protect. The guys at the station look up to me.”