by Albert Simon
Chapter 15
Saturday, April 22
Saturday morning began with a little light overcast over Palm Springs. Henry was listening to the television weather report; apparently they were seeing the remnants of a tropical storm over Baja California, the clouds drifted all the way up to the Coachella Valley. The weather forecasters said the skies would be clear by late morning or midday. Henry was relieved; he wanted everything to be perfect for his barbecue with Rosie this afternoon. He had time this morning to go talk with Janet Icklebee, do some shopping and get everything ready for this afternoon.
He was glad that the housekeeper, Juanita, was coming on her regular Saturday morning cleaning. That meant that his place would sparkle and shine in the afternoon. He hoped Rosie would be impressed, though he was a little uncomfortable that she knew as much about him and his house as she already did. He figured she looked it up somewhere; probably the Riverside County title records where the deed to the house was registered or the real estate Multiple Listing Service. He shrugged his shoulders as he thought about it, if he had still been on the police force, he probably would have run her license plates through the Department of Motor Vehicles and he would know a lot about Mrs. Rosie Murphy. More than she knew about him – all she really knew was how many rooms his house had or how much he had paid for it.
Charles was swimming laps in the pool with Pierre, who obviously had forgotten all about having his nap interrupted last night, keeping pace and barking encouragement. He waved at them and left the house to head for Janet Icklebee’s place over on Calle Rolph, only about four blocks from the house where Thornbird was murdered. He purposely drove there by way of the house on Granvia Valmonte. With the crime scene tape and door stickers gone, it looked just as peaceful as the other homes on the block. He noticed that someone had taken down the “for sale” sign as well; he supposed there was a bit of cleaning up to do inside before it went back on the market.
It didn’t take him very long to get to the Icklebee residence and he parked on the street in front of a well-kept little house and walked up to the door. Before he could knock the door opened and a woman who he estimated to be about ninety smiled and stuck out her hand.
“You must be Henry Wright, please come in.” Janet Icklebee had obviously seen some sun in her life; her brown face looked more like a leather purse than anything Henry had ever seen. Her tan face made her teeth look extremely white as she gave him a big smile and her bright blue eyes looked at him with intensity and it felt as though she was looking right through Henry.
Mrs. Icklebee was wearing a pale blue housecoat that wasn’t quit buttoned all the way up and her feet were in plastic slippers with white fur and little silver heels. Her gray hair was swept up in a sixties kind of style and she had glasses on a chain around her neck. Her eyes made him feel a little uncomfortable, but he returned her firm handshake with his own.
“It’s good to meet you Mrs. Icklebee; I appreciate you taking the time to talk with me.” Henry stepped inside the door.
“Please, call me Janet. No matter how old I get, when I hear someone say Mrs. Icklebee I start looking around for my mother-in-law, rest her soul.” She led the way to the living room, but as Henry closed the front door behind him, he stopped in his tracks in the entry. Covering the entire wall were black and white pictures of celebrities and movie stars, all of them in identical silver frames. It almost looked like something that you might see in a restaurant frequented by celebrities.
“That’s quite a collection you have there.” Henry said looking closely at some of the pictures.
“Yes, isn’t it?” Janet was already in the living room of the house, and turned around.
“You must have thirty or so faces that I recognize.” Henry noted that most of the photos were standard studio publicity shots and most of them had signatures and personal inscriptions to “Harrison”.
“Oh, yes, there are a lot of famous people on that wall, I’m surprised you don’t recognize all of them, but then maybe you are too young to remember some of these folks.” She walked back over to the hallway and looked at the photos with Henry.
“Come into the living room and have a seat. Can I get you something to drink?” She led the way into the living room that was packed with furniture that looked as though it was all bought at the same time in the mid-sixties. Henry had been in houses like this before; it looked as though Mrs. Icklebee had downsized her house, but not her furniture collection. There was no problem finding a place to sit, there were two sofas, four matching chairs and little tables taking up nearly every square foot of space in the living room. Even though everything was very dated, just as the outside of the house, it was very clean and neat.
“Do you have coffee? I take it black.” Henry said, finally choosing to sit down on a blue velvet sofa with little white cotton doilies for headrest covers.
“Sure, I made a fresh pot a little while ago.” Mrs. Icklebee walked into the kitchen and came back with two mugs filled with coffee. She carried the cups that were filled to the brim as though it was nothing and she did it every day. He guessed that she was over ninety, but she didn’t move like it. “Where did you get all those pictures?” He asked setting the coffee mug on a little green crochet doily on the coffee table that had a number of doilies all different colors.
“How long have you been here in Palm Springs young man?” Mrs. Icklebee sat down in a Queen Anne chair that had obviously seen better days, but seemed to fit her like an old glove.
“I’ve been here just about three years or so.” Henry wasn’t used to being the interviewee and her eyes still made him uncomfortable.
“Then you wouldn’t remember the Willow Springs restaurant, would you?” Mrs. Icklebee set her coffee down on a blue crocheted doily.
“I’ve heard of it, it was a fancy place on South Palm Canyon Drive wasn’t it?” Henry could not get used to thinking of her as Janet. She was easily one of the oldest people he had ever interviewed in a murder case. But she didn’t act as if she was that old and he knew she wasn’t frail; he had been surprised at her strength when he shook her hand. “That’s right; it was a beautiful building, designed by one of Palm Springs’ well known modernist architects.”
She had this look in her eyes as though she could remember the building in its heyday. “Sadly even the building is gone now, everyone wants Jack-in-the-Box style architecture and no one cares about a nice building and a great atmosphere to enjoy a meal anymore. Eating has been turned into a biological function, not an enjoyable event.”
“Did you buy these pictures from the restaurant when it closed down?” Henry picked his coffee up; he was a lot more comfortable when he was the one asking the questions.
“Oh no, we didn’t buy them, they were given to us by our customers. Harrison, that was my husband, that’s him right there.” She pointed at a large picture on the end table that showed a tall handsome man in a tuxedo and a much younger but still very tan Janet Icklebee in a formal gown. “Anyway, Harrison and I owned the Willow Springs for many years, and Harrison was the manager; all those people whose picture you see in the hallway were in our restaurant for dinner.”
“So you’ve been collecting these for a long time then.” Henry asked.
“Well, we stopped getting them when the restaurant closed down, so what we have there is all that we have left. We gave some away over the years.” She waved her hand in the direction of the entry. “They actually looked a lot better in the old house; we had a lot more space there. When we moved here, the entry was the only place we could hang them. But I like the way it looks there, it reminds me of Willow Springs.”
“Did you ever buy any or get any photographs after the restaurant closed?” Henry was sure there was a connection with these photographs and Thornbird.
“Buy these pictures? My dear, these are cheap black and white publicity shots that the stars gave away by the dozens. I wouldn’t buy one of these, what are valuable about the pictures is the person and the memory of the time th
at our customers gave them to us, other than that, they have no value. I’d never buy one.” Mrs. Icklebee had an indignant tone in her voice. “You ask as many questions about these pictures as that realtor Mr. Thornbird that you’re here to talk with me about.”
“Oh, did Mr. Thornbird ask you about the photos as well?” Henry was curious, maybe this was the connection he was hoping to find.
“Why he was so curious, he spent about an hour looking at all of them and asking Harrison which stars had lived here in Palm Springs, and who had owned homes, and which of them dined with us and all of this stuff. Why when Harrison finally gave him a picture of Sammy Davis Jr. you’d of thought he had given him ten thousand dollars!” She shook her head at the memory.
Well, Harrison Icklebee probably gave Thornbird about fifty thousand dollars with that one photograph Henry thought. That would be about how much Thornbird would increase the price of a house. He’d have to go back home to check his list to see which property Thornbird had sold as Sammy Davis Jr.’s house.
“Tell me more about how the dealings you had with Mr. Thornbird.”
“Well, about a year and a half ago Harrison decided that our old house was too big and it was getting to be too much with the stairs and all and he wanted to move. I told him I didn’t think it was necessary, but he insisted. I think he knew that he was not going to be with us much longer and he didn’t want me in the big house by myself.” She wiped her eye, though Henry didn’t see any tears at all.
“So is that when you met Rex Thornbird?” Henry picked up his coffee and took another drink.
“We called Thornbird and he came right over and looked at our house. That’s when he asked all about the photographs, and said he thought he could probably find a buyer for our place. He asked us what we were looking for and we told him a much smaller house, no stairs and down here in the flat part of Palm Springs.” She took a sip of her own coffee as well.
“Is that when he showed you this house?” Henry asked. “No, he showed us a lot of other houses first and none of them impressed us. Our old house up on the hill was very nice and spacious with wonderful views and we were kind of disappointed at what we were looking at down here in this area. You’d have liked our old place, much grander than this.” She looked up towards the San Jacinto Mountain.
“You know in the early fifties one of the local architects was having some hard times, not everyone liked these modern buildings he was designing. Anyway, we traded meals at the restaurant for the house plans and then had it built. He ended up doing ok with his business afterwards, and our house ended up really nice.” Mrs. Icklebee got up and headed towards the kitchen. “If you’re ready for more coffee, I’ll bring out the pot.”
“Ok, I’d love some more, you make very good coffee.” Henry smiled.
“Listen, you don’t spend as many years in the restaurant business as I did without learning how to make decent pot of coffee.” Mrs. Icklebee came back carrying a large silver carafe and she filled Henry’s cup back up to the brim. “What finally convinced us to buy this house was that Rock Hudson lived here in this very house right after he finished filming Giant. He was such a nice man, it’s really a shame that he passed away so young. His picture is there in the entry, he wrote the nicest dedication to Harrison on it.”
“Did Mr. Thornbird tell you that Rock Hudson lived here in this house?” Henry took a small sip of the hot coffee. “Yes, that’s right. Mr. Hudson came to the restaurant a bunch of times when he was here, that’s how we knew that he lived here in Palm Springs, we just didn’t know where until Mr. Thornbird told us.” Mrs. Icklebee got that same look in her eyes as though she was reliving the days that she was seating Rock Hudson at his favorite table.
“And you never went to Rock Hudson’s house during all of the time he was coming to the restaurant?” Henry didn’t think Hudson had owned this house, but he wanted to know if Mrs. Icklebee knew.
“No, no of course we didn’t. He was our customer; we never went to any of our customer’s homes. Funny that you should ask if we had ever gone to his house, Mr. Thornbird asked us the same thing, we gave him the same answer I just gave you.” Mrs. Icklebee smiled at the recollection.
“Did you call Mr. Thornbird recently to have him help you find a house for your sister?” Henry asked. Mrs. Icklebee’s eyes welled up with tears and started sobbing at that question and she got up to get a box of tissues from the bathroom. “I’m sorry.”
She walked back in with the tissues and said in between sobs.
“My sister just passed away a week and a half ago, I came back from the funeral yesterday, I thought I was all right, but it suddenly hit me that I won’t talk to her ever again.”
“I’m terribly sorry for your loss.” Henry started getting up to comfort the woman who was suddenly showing her age. “No, please, I apologize; I don’t know why this suddenly affects me like this, I was doing so well.” Mrs. Icklebee blew her nose on one of the tissues and pulled another out of the box to dry her eyes. Her body shook with crying and she had a hard time talking.
“My sister’s husband passed away earlier this year right after Harrison died. After a few months of living alone she decided to sell her house in Carpinteria, up near Santa Barbara over on the coast, and come and live here near me in Palm Springs.”
“So you called Rex Thornbird so that he could show her some houses here?” Henry tried to be as delicate as possible, but he felt as though he was getting somewhere.
“I called his office, but Mr. Thornbird wasn’t in. I talked to the office manager, I don’t remember her name but she was very nice, she said she would get the message to Mr. Thornbird.” She dabbed another tear from her eye and blew her nose again.
“Rosie? Yes, she is very nice. Please continue.” Henry smiled.
“Well apparently, one of them called my sister and told her that there was a house that she would like. It’s only a couple of blocks from here and was also owned by a celebrity – I don’t remember who. So she was going to drive down to meet him at the house before coming here to see me.” She started sobbing quietly again.
“Are you all right? Can I get you some water?” Henry was concerned about how she was dealing with all of this, losing her husband and then her sister within a very short span of time.
“The morning that she was going to meet him at the place, she got in a terrible accident on I-10 coming through Riverside. They said she had a stroke and was dead before she hit the overpass. It totaled her car you know. They said she didn’t suffer at all, she was in no pain.” At this, she broke down sobbing again and Henry got up to get a glass of water from the kitchen.
“I’m so, so, sorry.” Henry tried to get her to take a small sip from the glass of water.
“I sat here and waited for her, I got worried since I didn’t hear from her – she had a cell phone you know.”
She took a small sip of water and was able to hold the glass in her hand.
”Finally the California Highway Patrol called me in the late afternoon and told me what happened. I felt terrible.” Mrs. Icklebee said between sips.
“You shouldn’t blame yourself you know, there’s nothing you could have done.” Henry said soothingly.
“No, I feel terrible because I never even called Mr. Thornbird’s office to cancel the appointment.” She sobbed.
“Well, that’s the least thing you should worry about.” Henry realized that Mrs. Icklebee was out of town at her sister’s funeral and did not even know that Thornbird was dead. He decided that he wasn’t going to be the one to tell her. Not now. He was worried that she was going to be all right. “Is there someone that can come over right now and stay with you?” He asked.
“No, there isn’t anyone really. Maybe I’ll go over to the neighbor’s house for a little while, they’re about your age, and they’ve sort of adopted me as their mother.” She smiled through her tears. “I’ll be ninety-five next week you know.”
“That’s wonderful, you certainly don�
��t look it.” Henry complimented her.
He put his arm around her and gently guided her out the front door and down the sidewalk to the house next door. He knocked and the door was answered by a nice looking man that was indeed close to his age, probably a little younger, Henry thought. The man opened his arms and Mrs. Icklebee stepped into them to get a big hug. The man shushed her and led her inside. He started closing the door, but Henry wanted to ask Mrs. Icklebee one more question.
“Janet, could you tell me, where was your old house?” He tried to ask as gently as possible.
“Up on West Chino Canyon Road, why do you ask?” Mrs. Icklebee answered.
“Just curious, thank you – I’ll check in on you next week.” Henry held his hand up to the man who nodded at Henry as he closed the door.
So Thornbird had really taken advantage of Harrison and Janet Icklebee. He sold them a house that Rock Hudson had probably never even driven by, much less seen, and he bought their old place up on West Chino Canyon, most likely for a song. If Janet Icklebee knew that she had been doubly cheated by Thornbird he had no doubt that she had the strength to kill him - that was one tough old lady. When he saw the wall of photographs he thought that he had the murderer – find the picture, find the murderer – he remembered telling Wayne at the pistol range. Now he realized he wasn’t talking to a murderer, but to a nice old lady that was living with memories of another, happier time.
Though he looked closely at all the pictures in the entry, there was no Rudy Vallee in the collection. He wasn’t sure what he would have done if he had seen it there. At the very least he would have borrowed the picture to see if it matched the dust mark on the mantle at the house on Granvia Valmonte. But he didn’t know if he could have had Janet Icklebee arrested for murder.
He’d hit another dead end today, obviously he had some more investigating to do, but it could wait until Monday. This afternoon he was going to enjoy his barbecue with Rosie and tomorrow, well, he had no plans for tomorrow yet, depending on how this afternoon went, maybe he and Rosie could spend Sunday together. Looking into the Sons of Dionysus could wait until Monday. A secret society of pedophile porn traffickers sounded very cliché and also like something out of a mystery novel, but Henry couldn’t take it lightly.
