It was just like taking a walk.
Eight
At ten-thirty Monday morning I was driving up Poinsettia in Medina, nearing Webb’s home.
I had found out that mail was delivered in this area at about eleven a.m. In the next delivery the films Webb had taken in Hawaii should arrive — and I meant to get them. At the beginning they hadn’t seemed very important, but now it was likely they could bring a lot more order into what was rapidly becoming compounded confusion.
First, of course, I had to get the films.
There was a lot of water in the street near Webb’s place. A police car was parked at the base of the stone steps. About half a block this side of the house a man and woman stood at the edge of the road. I pulled to a stop and leaned out.
Whats going on up there?
The man spoke. Had a fire last night. He pointed. Where Mr. Alden lived.
What time was that?
Three, four this morning. Quite a bit of excitement for a while. Sirens, fire engines. They got it out before it burned the place down.
That was all he knew. I thanked him and drove ahead, parked behind the police car. It was empty. I walked up the steps, knocked. A plainclothes officer came to the door and I was happy to see it was Dugan.
He shook his head when he saw me. Shell, you’re sticking your neck out coming here. Farley thinks you set the fire.
He probably thinks I burned Rome. Whats the story?
He glanced around, then gave me the info. The fire had been incendiary, set by somebody. It had started in the studio and darkroom, consumed almost everything in there and part of the bedroom before firemen arrived and put the blaze out.
I said, What was destroyed?
About all the photographic equipment, files, some statues and stuff Alden picked up one place and another.
Including a lot of prints and negatives.
Yeah. He grinned. I read the magazine myself. Hate to think of all those pretty pictures going up in smoke.
You’re not alone.
I hated it more than he did, and for a different reason. I was thinking especially of twelve transparencies and prints from which featured gatefolds had been made.
I’d like to take a look. Okay?
Dugan was uneasy. Farleys out back somewhere. He sees you, hell have a hemorrhage.
That wouldnt drive me wild with grief. But itll only take a minute.
He hesitated.
So I said, I think I know why the place was torched.
He frowned. Yeah? Give, then. Why?
You wont believe me.
Try me out.
I shrugged. Four freckles.
He didn’t believe me.
But he jerked his head, saying, Make it snappy, and I went in. I crossed the smoke-darkened and water-stained living room, stopped in the studio. It was a wreck, as was the darkroom. There’d be nothing useful to me here now. I looked at the spot where Webb’s body had lain that night, started to turn away. Then I stopped.
A large chunk of charred wood lay on the blackened floor. It was what the fire had left of that magnificent carved-wood Pan. At first it merely depressed me, but then I felt a little tingle at the back of my neck. I was beginning to get it.
I thanked Dugan for letting me look, and he walked down with me to the police car. That was the moment Farley chose to put in an appearance.
Hey! from the top of the steps. Scott, what the hell are you doing here?
I said quietly to Dugan, Thanks for keeping me from slugging that lunkhead the other night. Keep him off me, or so help me Ill bust him one this time. I meant it, but even as I finished speaking I changed my mind. The mail truck was in sight two houses down the street. No, I wouldnt bust Farley one.
He came storming down the steps and stopped in front of me. Grinning, he said, Well, I told you to stay the hell away from here.
Oh, nuts, Farley. You cant keep me out of Medina. I just heard about the fire —
I don’t give a damn what you heard, Scott. His voice wasn’t raised, and he spoke slowly, but the words came out even more slimily than usual. If you cant keep out of my —
Dugan broke in quietly, He was just leaving, Bill. I met him at the door and, uh, told him he’d better leave.
He probably came back here and lit the place last night. If I could prove it . . . I knew we should have kept the place staked out.
He looked at me and said something else, but I didn’t get the words. Looking beyond him, I saw the mail truck pull up before Webb’s mailbox, a few yards to the rear of my Cad. The driver leaned through the trucks window, pulled the front of the mailbox down, then pushed the incoming mail inside it and closed the box again. I saw some letters or bills. And two square yellow boxes, easy to identify. In them would be two one-hundred-foot rolls of sixteen-millimeter Kodachrome film. Webb in Hawaii. Webb after his wedding.
Farley was still talking, his voice rising a little. . . . I could run you in.
I’d noticed something else, a little strange, I thought. A black Lincoln was parked across the street, less than a block distant and facing away from us. The guy behind the wheel had watched the progress of the mail truck, too, was still looking in this direction. I wasn’t able to make out his features. But I had a hunch if I could get close enough I’d know him.
Farley put his big hand on my arm. I shook it away. Keep your paws off me. And stop running off at the mouth or run me in. But remember, you had me in that can of yours once and had to let me go. Try that too often and youll wind up sergeant again.
His lips twitched. Sure. Youll have my badge. You might even ride me to Q. You’re good at that, punk.
I sure wanted to sock him. Listen, loudmouth — I started, but choked it off. Farley, Im not even talking about me. You keep making mistakes and its going to be as obvious to everybody else as it is to me.
Dugan was saying something to Farley again, but I didn’t hear the words. I was wondering how to get those films. The police would check all incoming mail, under the circumstances. Unless I got those movies now, somehow, I wouldnt get them at all. I walked to the Cad, sat behind the wheel. Then I took my notebook and pen from my pocket, scribbled a fast note, waited till Farley was looking in the opposite direction, and stepped from the Cad again. I walked rapidly to the mailbox, opened it, grabbed the film boxes and stuck them beneath my coat, under my arm.
Farley let out a yell and came running toward me. I had the note extended in my right hand, inside the mailbox, when he grabbed my wrist.
You bastard, he said, veins bulging in his forehead. Whatre you doing?
I didn’t tell him. I wanted him to figure it out for himself. Or, rather, to think he’d figured it out.
He snatched the note from my fingers and looked at it. His face got red. He looked as if he might have that hemorrhage. He crumpled the note in his hand, balled the hand into a large fist, even hauled it back an inch or two.
But then he controlled himself with an obvious effort. All right, Scott, get out of here, he said, almost quietly, but his voice sounding as if it were ripping his throat. You don’t know how lucky you are. Once more, you mess in this again, Ill fix you myself. One way or another. He ran his tongue over his lips, but the lips stayed dry. Beat it.
I walked to the Cad. He didn’t stop me. The films felt like a scorpion under my arm.
All I had written was: Dugan — if that bone-brained ass Farley is stupid enough to run me in again, call EXbrook 7-8669. Ask for Dr. Paul Anson. Hes a psychiatrist. Eight to five we can get Farley committed.
It wasn’t particularly clever. Dr. Anson isnt even a psychiatrist. But it had worked. Parley hadn’t asked me if I’d taken anything out of the mailbox.
I drove down the street, turned around in a driveway and drove back past Webb’s. Farley glared at me. I grinned at Farley. The black Lincoln was still
in the same spot. I slowed as I went by. Two men were in the front seat of the car, but not looking at me. Looking the other way.
I was going fast enough for the tires to skid, and I hit the brakes hard, leaned on the horn. In the middle of the tire-shrieking and horn-blasting I yelled, Look out!
Cooperatively, they looked out. Out at me, faces leaping practically apart. The one on this side yelled, Hey-HAA! which didn’t really mean a thing, except that he was more than a little startled. His lips damn near flew off his face.
Yep, again. Slobbers OBrien. The other flying-apart face was on the chap I’d seen with Wee Willie Wallace in Grey’s office last night. I drove on. They didn’t follow me. Probably they were sitting there waiting for their pants to dry out.
In downtown L.A. I drove along Broadway past Third Street, parked in a lot between Third and Fourth, and walked back to the Hamilton Building carrying the sixteen-millimeter movie projector and screen I’d rented. Up one flight in the Hamilton is the office: Sheldon Scott, Investigations. I picked up the newspaper from the bench outside my door, unlocked the office and went inside.
I’d been here yesterday, briefly, to feed the guppies in their ten-gallon tank on top of the bookcase, and now I sprinkled some more dried daphnia on the waters surface, watched the fish leap and frisk about. Several little baby guppies leaped and frisked with them. Guppies are viviparous, live bearers, breeding all the time. Not like those damned egg-laying neons.
I set up the projector and screen, darkened the office and started the film, settled back in my swivel chair. The first reel was tourist stuff, waving palms, vivid blue sea and white beaches, a fern forest. Expertly done, but not especially interesting to me at this point.
But the last fifty feet of the second reel was interesting. It was the luau and after-the-wedding shots. I ran it three times. The only person I knew or recognized was Webb himself. There was one shot of him, probably taken by his bride, wobbling and clear off center as — for some weird reason — films and snapshots taken by women almost invariably are.
But Webb was waving one arm, laughing, talking and gesticulating energetically, some kind of drink in a pineapple held in his other hand. It made me feel, for a moment, a cool rush of sadness when I saw how very happy he’d looked. But I shook the feeling off and concentrated on the rest of it.
It was easy to pick out, from the action in the films, the man who’d performed the marriage. Webb had said it was a civil ceremony, so the man wouldnt be a minister, though he held a black Bible; probably he was a justice of the peace or judge. He was tall, even thinner than Webb, black-haired and black-browed, even dressed in a black suit, but nodding and smiling. Half a dozen guests, no more than that. The cooked pig and other food on big leaves. And Webb’s brand new young wife.
There were two brief shots of her. In one her hands were over her face, back to the camera. The other was, again, a shot of her retreating back. She wore a brightly-splashed blue and yellow dress. Not much help.
But at least I knew where to get the help now.
All I had to do was locate one or more of those guests, or the man who’d performed the marriage, in Hawaii. From them I could find out for sure who the girl was, at least what she looked like; they could identify her. I still didn’t know where the marriage had taken place, but I felt sure there’d be records somewhere in the Islands. And, of course, that’s where it had all started. Everything kept pointing back to Hawaii.
The films told me one more thing about the girl Webb had married. Her hair was black.
I took out my list again. Spring, blondes; Summer, redheads; Autumn, brunettes; Winter, black hair. Winter: December, January, February. Raven McKenna, Loana Kaleoha, and Dorothy Dottie Lasswell.
I hadn’t seen or talked to Loana or Dottie yet. The phone number and address I had for Dottie were San Francisco numbers, and I had called without success. Now I tried once again and got her. And got the same story I’d received from other Wow girls: she had read about Webb’s death, but it couldn’t possibly have anything to do with her; she didn’t know anything about his marriage. Dottie had been working for the last month, she said, at Bimbos 365 Club, the theatre-restaurant on Columbus Avenue in San Francisco.
I hung up and tried to get Loana again, in Honolulu, but without any luck. She and Pagan Page were now, of the twelve girls, the only ones I hadn’t talked to. If they, when I did manage to question them, denied knowledge of Webb’s marriage or murder . . . what then? It would mean that one of the twelve had lied to me. Probably one of the black-haired gals — three out of twelve, I was thinking. But then I remembered Sue Mayfair. Blackie. Blackie?
She was September, Autumn, a brunette. I picked up the phone, dialed her apartment. When she answered I said, Shell here, Blackie.
Oh, hello. Come on over. Im practicing.
You’re — ah. I want to ask you a question.
Ask it here.
Thisll only take a minute. It . . . would take longer there. Look, in Wow! you’re pictured as a brunette. How come?
I was a brunette then. Any more questions?
I frowned. Women are so . . . so simple sometimes, I thought. Yes, I said, but how come your hairs black now?
I dyed it.
See? Simple. I said, Why?
I need a reason?
I said, Goodbye, Blackie, giving up.
Hey, wait a minute. Arent you coming over?
I cant at the moment.
When will I see you?
Soon, I hope. But Ill be out of town for a few days.
Where?
Hawaii. Not for long, though.
Oh, Hawaii! Wish I were going.
Come to think of it, so do I. But Ill give you a call when I get back.
Don’t miss the Anniversary Party.
Don’t you worry! Ill be there. I thought about it and added, Somehow.
And I don’t want you looking at any other women at the party.
I . . . well, now. Under the circumstances, I can hardly . . . that’s not very —
Oh, silly. She laughed merrily. I was kidding. Of course youll look. That’s the whole idea.
Blackie, I have some serious thinking to do . . .
Well, do it. Bye. She hung up.
Ah, nuts, I thought. You cant win with these babes. Then I smiled. But it sure is fun losing.
From my desk I got a pen and some sheets of paper. When I’d told Blackie I had some serious thinking to do, I had been serious. That figures. But I intended now to line up everything I knew or had guessed, including what I’d come up with this day, jot down all the salient points of the case and see what they looked like on paper.
Often when you get a problem down in writing its easier to put the separate pieces together and get a logical answer. Besides, once its written, you don’t have to hold all the pieces in your conscious mind — and on many occasions your subconscious, or unconscious, will dredge up the truth and ease it into your waking thoughts. Its a technique I’ve often tried; it works. And I like to think that’s why some people call me the Unconscious Detective.
Before beginning I called L.A. International Airport and asked for space on the first flight to Hawaii I could get. A jet was leaving at eight in the morning, and I reserved a seat. Then I started writing.
I began with the information Webb had told me — marriage in Hawaii, to one of the Wow girls, flight home, kidnap and ransom call — added the time of my arrival at his home, and his murder, Friday night. I made a separate note about the big wood carving of Pan he’d brought back with him, used in the photo he’d taken immediately before his murder, the Pan now destroyed by fire. A paragraph covered the photo itself, the freckles, the loss of it in the Parisienne alley when Ed Grey’s hoods had jumped me. I hit all the other high points, then to it all added my list of the twelve names.
I had by now, after personal invest
igation and for the most convincing reasons, eliminated Septembers Blackie, Octobers Jeannette, and Augusts Charlie. For other reasons I had eliminated Eve and Candy, Janie and Alma. Heavy lines were drawn through all seven of those names. Of the five remaining I had talked to all except Pagan and Loana, and the three I’d talked to had either cleared themselves, or lied. I noted that info after the appropriate names, and after Pagan Page I wrote Missing from Algiers since the 14th. The last notation I made was The girl in the film taken after Webb’s wedding has black hair. Possibly dyed. Nuts.
I had several ideas, pretty fair conclusions, I thought, and I wrote some of them down. But mainly all I was trying to do now was line up the facts. That I did, and as thoroughly as I could. I studied the whole thing for a while, the picture getting clearer. Then I folded the pages and stuck them into a desk drawer.
Before leaving I glanced through the newspaper. On the second page was a story about the discovery of a mans body in an alley near the Club Parisienne. Apparently he’d been found too late for the story to get into the paper yesterday morning. With the peculiar logic of newspapers, the two-column cut heading the report was a picture of Jeannette Duré. The excuse was that she had been doing her act a few feet away at about the time the man must have met his death. The implication was that he might have come out of the club for air and died happy. I read on. The dead man was an ex-convict, Daniel Axminster. Police were investigating. There was no mention of Ed Grey. But neither was there mention of Shell Scott, so I came out ahead.
I flipped the pages, but nothing else interested me — until I reached, oddly enough, the movie section. Halfway down a column titled Hollywood Highlights, a familiar name caught my eye: Orlando Desmond.
The paragraph stated: Your reporter has another exclusive for you today! Needless to say, Hollywood Highlights was written by a woman. The paragraph continued: Orlando Desmond, singing sweetheart of millions, and Raven McKenna, rising Magna starlet and former model, were secretly married in Las Vegas six months ago. Love blossomed between them when both were appearing at Las Vegas Hotel Algiers, and immediately after their Algiers engagement they were married in the Little Church on the Strip. Following the ceremony, the lovebirds flew to Mexico City for their honeymoon. When surprised by your reporter early this morning — Ill bet they were surprised, I thought — thin and lovely Raven — I had it on good authority that our reporter weighed two hundred and twelve pounds — said, Im glad its out. Now we can stop pretending.
Dance with the Dead (The Shell Scott Mysteries) Page 10
