Too Sweet to Die

by Ron Goulart

  Easy ran to that, opened the metal lid. “Might as well,” he said. He threw the master switch. None of the lights in the lodge could be turned on now.

  The door leading down to the stairway started to open.

  Easy spun, clicked off the lantern, and ran through the darkness straight at the stairs. Two strides short he dodged to the right.

  The door opened fully. “I’ll give you one minute, one minute, to come up and then I’m going to come down shooting,” warned Dr. Ingraham in the blackness.

  Perched on top of the furnace, Easy was about ten feet below the doorway. He could hear Ingraham breathing, but it was too dark to see the little doctor.

  After thirty seconds something quietly shuffled across the top step. Dr. Ingraham was going to risk climbing down into the cellar.

  From where he was on the furnace Easy could reach up through the open wood steps. He waited, hunkered uncomfortably, listening. When his ears told him Ingraham had descended to a point within his reach, Easy made a sudden grab. He clutched black air the first time, but the second time he got hold of the little doctor’s ankle. Easy pulled hard.

  “What, what,” muttered Ingraham. The doctor tripped, went rolling and tumbling down the thirty more feet of rough wood steps.

  Easy jumped, flashing on the lantern. He was in time to see Ingraham’s head smack against the stone floor. The doctor didn’t get up.

  Beside him, Easy felt at Ingraham’s wrist. He was alive, but out cold. Easy took the doctor’s rifle and the snub-nose .32 revolver he found in his jacket.

  Sticking the revolver in his other hip pocket, Easy said, “One more gun nut and I’ll run out of pockets.”

  He left the unconscious doctor where he’d fallen and climbed up toward the living room, with the lantern off again.

  No sound was coming from up there. Easy stopped in the dark doorway. Finally he turned the lantern back on and let its light circle the big pinewood room.

  There was no one there.

  CHAPTER 20

  EASY FOUND JILL JEFFERS in the library of the house. She was tied to a straight-back kitchen chair. Three walls of crisp unread books surrounded her. A slim pretty girl, the bones of her cheeks showed sooty in the lantern light. Her gold-blonde hair hung straight and there was a slight purplish discoloration beneath her right eye, She was wearing a dark pullover and tapered gray slacks.

  The girl turned her head toward him. “What do you want to do to me?” she asked.

  Easy rested the lantern on a magazine table so that it shined on both of them. He grinned. “I’m with the liberation forces,” he said, fishing out his pocket knife.

  Jill watched him, eyes slightly narrowed. “I think I detect a rudimentary sense of humor,” she said. “Meaning you can’t be working for Cullen or my late father.”

  “That’s right.” Easy inserted the blade under the clothes line which had been used to tie her hands behind her and to the chair.

  “Not that it matters much,” said the girl. “But who are you?”

  “John Easy.” He got the strands sawed through. “I’m a private investigator from Los Angeles.” He untangled the last of the ropes from round the slender girl. “Move your arms around in front of you.”

  She grimaced. “They’re asleep.”

  Easy helped her, then rubbed at her wrists. “Flex your fingers,” he suggested.

  “You’re very gentle for a private eye.”

  “I’ve already beaten up my quota for tonight.”

  Jill made fists of her hands. “I’m getting them back under control,” she said. “My backside is a little numb, too, but I guess I can handle that myself. Who hired you, Mr. Easy, and for what exactly?”

  “Marco Killespie,” he said. “To find you.”

  Jill blinked, then put one hand against the side of her face and laughed. “Good old Marco and his hilarious commercial,” she said. “Somewhere along the way I forgot all about him.” She put her hands on her lap, smiled a tight-mouthed smile at Easy. “This is all very appropriate. Marco has a selfish, financial motive for rescuing me. It fits.”

  “He’s also got a gorilla man standing around idle,” said Easy. “Want to stand up?”

  “I might as well, if you’re not going to allow me any more self-pity.”

  Easy took her hand, helping the pretty coltish girl to stand. “How’s it feel?”

  Jill took a few tentative steps. “Yes, not so bad.”

  “I’ll take you to a doctor as soon as I get everything cleared up here.”

  “I’m not in all that bad shape,” said the girl. “Considering everything.”

  “What did Ingraham give you?”

  “Only sedatives and tranquilizers so far. He hadn’t got around to the heavy stuff yet,” said Jill. “What day it this, by the way?”

  Easy stopped to think. “Probably Thursday.” He let go of her. “I expect various kinds of police will arrive soon,” he said. “I can take you away before they get here.”

  Jill walked tentatively to the wall switch and thumbed it up. “Oops, no lights.”

  “I pulled the switch downstairs. In case I had to stalk Ingraham up here. Dark is better for that.”

  The pretty blonde let herself lean against a strip of dark-wood paneling. “I guess I’m up to talking to a cop or two tonight. How many did you invite?”

  “I asked Mrs. Cuidera to do the calling. I’m not sure who she’ll alert.”

  “Dianne Cuidera,” said Jill. “How’d you meet her?”

  “She told me how to find the lodge,” answered Easy. “And loaned me a set of keys.”

  “Will the police shine lights in my face and tell me about my constitutional rights?”

  Easy shook his head. “I think you’ll qualify as the victim in all this business.”

  “I guess so. I’ve lost track.”

  “Ingraham and Montez are the ones who’ll have to do most of the talking,” said Easy. “Did the doctor locate the money?”

  “Oh, that’s right, the money,” said Jill, slapping her palm against her thigh. “Get your light and come along this way.”

  Easy caught up the lantern and followed the slender girl down a pine-paneled hall. “Ingraham did come up here for the money then, huh?”

  “Wait, a side trip,” said Jill, pointing at a doorway. She stepped into a large kitchen. “Yes, he’s something like two hundred thousand in debt. Somewhere during one of my stays at his establishment I must have mentioned seeing Dad sock money away up here.” She opened a low cabinet. “This isn’t the money in here. But it just occurred to me I haven’t eaten since noon yesterday. Let’s see … anchovies, stewed tomatoes, cling peaches, tuna, tea biscuits. Tuna sounds okay.” She bent and took out the flat round can. “I’ll find a …” The girl stumbled, dropped the can.

  Easy caught her by the elbow and wrist.

  “A little dizzy for some reason,” she said. “Sorry.”

  “Sit.” Easy brought her a chair. It was a mate to the one she’d been tied to. He left her sitting, got the tin of biscuits. He opened it with the key attached to the bottom. “Chew one of these and stay there for a few minutes.”

  Jill took a bite of the hard biscuit. “And you?”

  “I’ll get the electricity back on,” answered Easy. “I also want to secure Ingraham.”

  He took the light with him and went back into the wine cellar.

  Dr. Ingraham was on his side now, his back slightly arched and one hand spread flat beside his head. “Vicious, a vicious attack,” he was muttering.

  Easy bypassed him, threw the fuse-box switch.

  Off among the wine racks Tommy was thrashing around. “We’ll get you, Easy,” he said out of the darkness.

  Easy returned to Ingraham and tied the little doctor’s hands and feet with scraps of the clothesline he’d gathered in the library.

  “Inhumane, inhumane treatment,” said the doctor as Easy left him.

  Easy turned the kitchen lights on and stepped back into the r
oom.

  Jill was at the sink, eating tuna out of the can with a bent-handled soup spoon. “I’m feeling better,” she said. She watched him as she ate. “You look a little battered about yourself.”

  “I lead an active life,” he said. “Do you have any idea how much money your father had hidden here?”

  “Not exactly. More than a suitcase full,” Jill said. “Because Dr. Ingraham got one good-size suitcase filled and was starting on the second when Cullen came storming up.”

  “Montez didn’t know you were here?”

  “I don’t think so. But then Dr. Ingraham started shooting at them with the hunting rifle he’d brought along and they got the idea.”

  “How’d Ingraham get at the money? Was it in a safe?”

  Jill smiled and licked the spoon. Swallowing, she said, “It’s under the bed in my father’s room. Very appropriate, all Dad’s interests centered. I never knew the combination of the safe. Dr. Ingraham blew the lid off the damn thing.”

  “He has some very interesting side lines.”

  “I think he picks up bits of odd information from his patients.” Setting the tuna can on the sink edge, Jill walked into the hall. She went through another doorway and turned the lights on.

  A low wide bed with a plaid spread had been shoved against the wall and two Navajo rugs hastily rolled aside. There was a faint smutty smell in the room. Beside the twisted black door of the sunken safe lay an open tan suitcase, a layer of cash spread across one compartment. A similar suitcase, closed and upright, stood on the other side of the safe hole. Around the suitcases fanned a scatter of fallen twenty and fifty-dollar bills.

  Easy knelt, frowning down into the deep wide safe. It was still two thirds full of cash. There were loose bills, rolls held with thick rubber bands, homemade packets wrapped in bracelets of brown bag paper and even one Mason jar full of wadded tens. “Huh,” said Easy, reaching in and touching the money.

  “You’re welcome to take a handful,” the slender girl still at the doorway told Easy. “All you’ve been through.”

  “No, thanks.” Easy got up and away from the money hole. “How about yourself?”

  Jill studied him for a few seconds, then shook her blonde head. “No, not me.” She smiled. “I guess I can stick it in escrow or something, until somebody can figure out who it belongs to.”

  “By now,” said Easy, “it probably belongs to you.”

  “I can use it to do good works. I don’t want to look at it any more.” She turned her back and walked away.

  Easy followed her to the living room.

  She was standing in the ruined room, her hands locked in front of her, watching the black logs in the stone fireplace. “How’d you find me?”

  “By talking to people.”

  Jill shivered for an instant. “I don’t envy you that. Talking to some of the people I’ve been through lately.” She was half-turned, frowning. “After the cops arrive and I can leave, what then?”

  “Do you know a doctor around here?”

  “Not anymore.”

  “I can ask Mrs. Cuidera.”

  “No,” said the girl. “I don’t want to see Bud and Dianne tonight and have them fuss and call me ‘poor little Jilly.’ No, there’s an inn about twenty miles south of here. Can you take me there?”

  “I can,” Easy replied. “If you don’t mind going in one of your family cars.”

  “My family?”

  “Montez’s boy Neil shot my Volkswagen out from under me,” explained Easy. “I borrowed his Dodge.”

  “He shot at you?”

  Easy nodded. “They were after the money, too. Neil wanted to keep me from coming to the lodge.”

  “Where’s your car now?”

  “Last time I saw it,” said Easy, “it was sinking into a ditch beside the San Montroni cutoff. I’ll have to make a report about it pretty soon.”

  “Your insurance man must lead a colorful life,” said Jill. She faced him, sliding slender hands into the slash pockets of her slacks. “I don’t want to let Marco and his hilarious commercial down, but I think I’ll have to stop in Carmel and talk to lawyers and … and morticians and people. They’ll be locking Cullen up, won’t they?”

  “They usually do, with accessories to murder.”

  Jill nodded her head slowly. “Yes, well have to talk about that, too. About my mother. Jesus, it’s a mess, isn’t it?”

  “It’s starting to straighten out,” said Easy.

  The slender girl walked to a broken window and looked out. The rain was easing, flickering down gently. “Where did you say your office was?”

  “On Sunset Strip,” said Easy.

  “After,” Jill said, “after all this … can I call you and buy you a drink?”

  “Sure.” Easy heard a car stop out on the private road. When he joined the girl at the jagged window he saw two sheriff’s deputies with heavy flashlights carefully approaching the lodge.

  CHAPTER 21

  EASY DROVE HIS NEW car into the little lot behind his office and parked it next to a crimson Renault. The Tuesday morning was clear and blue. Swinging out of his car, Easy paused and frowned in the direction of the alley which led into the parking lot.

  A green Japanese motor scooter came shooting out of the alley, chuffing and sputtering. Hagopian was riding it, his fists intensely gripping the handlebars. When he was a few feet from Easy the dark writer let go and leaped clear of the moving scooter.

  The vehicle went weaving on across the gray asphalt, nicking at bumpers until it slammed into the hurricane fence at the lot end. It hopped, coughed off and fell over on its side.

  “I’m losing my faith in the Japanese,” said Hagopian as Easy helped him off the ground. “Those things never stop.”

  “Maybe you’ve got the kamikaze model,” said Easy. “Whose bike is it?”

  “Bim’s.” Hagopian brushed sooty dust off his trouser knees. “I don’t think you know her. I met Bim last week while you were up north.”

  “Bim,” said Easy. He trotted down to the fallen motor scooter, clicked off the ignition and uprighted the machine. “Is she the one who holds séances?”

  Rings jingled under Hagopian’s eyes. “John, this is a whacky town, right? I’ve given up trying to find a girl who isn’t some degree whacky. I could do worse than a girl who thinks she has to have a séance once in a while. And you should see Bim. She’s in cheesecake.”

  “Girlie magazines?”

  “No, cheesecake like you eat. She hands out samples of frozen blueberry cheesecake in supermarkets. I met her in a market over in the valley,” explained Hagopian. “Actually, I nudged into her with my pushcart and took some skin off her knee. A lovely girl, with breasts like … like casabas.”

  “You’ve already had a girl with casabas for breasts.” Easy started for the rear door of his office.

  “When you get older,” said the thirty-nine-year-old Hagopian, “you start repeating yourself.” He stopped still. “Hey, I came by to see your new car. Where is it?”

  “Right over there.”

  Hagopian squinted, lines rippling across his high dark forehead. “Where? The red Renault?”

  “No, the black Volkswagen.”

  More rings circled Hagopian’s dark eyes. “John, that’s an old dusty VW exactly like the one you owned before.”

  “No,” corrected Easy, “it’s two years newer.”

  Shaking his head, Hagopian said, “All my hopes are dashed.” Easy went up and opened the door leading to his private office. “How’s your Jaguar?”

  “It has a bad aura,” said Hagopian, coming in and dropping on the couch. “Or so Bim tells me. From being parked in front of the mortuary in Oxnard and then used to haul a deceased monkey to its last resting place. Apparently even fumigation doesn’t get out a bad aura.”

  “So where’s the car?”

  “Bim is driving it someplace.”

  Easy sat behind his metal desk, reached a big hand into his IN box. He grinned.

&
nbsp; Hagopian said, “I hear Jill Jeffers is back.”

  “Returned yesterday,” said Easy. “Because of all the extenuating circumstances Marco Killespie persuaded his client to allow him more time to finish his root-beer commercial. I think he’s going to start shooting again, with Jill, tomorrow.”

  “Does he still have a gorilla?”

  “Norhadian the gorilla man decided not to take that other job, since they wouldn’t give him a piece of the series.”

  Hagopian touched his finger to his right eye. “You can’t beat Armenians for shrewdness,” he said. “How is Jill, is she all right?”

  “I guess so,” said Easy.

  “Hasn’t she communicated with you?”

  “Not since I got home last Friday,” said Easy. “Killespie is the one who told me she was back and going to work for him. He sent me a bonus, too.” Easy pointed at the cardboard carton sitting beneath the air conditioner.

  “Oh, good, a case of root beer.” Hagopian locked his hands behind his curly head. “So where does everything else stand? The LA Times hasn’t been too lavish with details.”

  “People in Carmel, especially the Nordlin attorneys, have used some influence,” said Easy. “To keep things quiet.”

  “There was quite a bunch of crimes centered around Jill,” said Hagopian. “Murder, kidnaping, rape.”

  Easy shook his head. “There may not be any murder.”

  “I thought you said that’s what precipitated this whole business,” said Hagopian. “Jill remembering finally about the murder of her mother.”

  Easy rocked back in his swivel chair. “Sure,” he said. “Senator Nordlin strangled his wife and then he and Cullen Montez faked up a Carmel suicide. A coroner and a few cops looked the other way.”

  “That’s not a crime?”

  “Five years ago it was,” replied Easy. “Now there’s not much left of Mrs. Nordlin, though maybe enough to establish what really happened to her. But Nordlin is dead. So even if you proved he murdered his wife, you’d have nobody to hang it on.”